The Ice Maiden's Sheikh (11 page)

He caught her wrist in a hold that hurt. “Do you listen to nothing and no one? Go and—”

But it had been a mistake to touch her. He dragged
her closer and his other hand, of its own volition, buried itself in her tousled hair. Jalia melted against him with a yearning cry that scorched his blood, and his mouth clamped hers.

Hunger and need flooded her, but even as her arm reached up around his neck he dragged it down again, and stepped back. For one long moment they stared at each other, chests heaving, sharply aware of the bed behind her in the golden, inviting lampglow.

The indifference of the past few days had been stripped from him like the mask it was, and her heart was bursting at what she saw in his eyes.

But only for a moment, and then he was back in control.

“Wake her parents. I will be in contact as soon as we have learned anything.”

I
t always seemed strange to Jalia afterwards that it should be in that anxious hour when the family clung together, pacing and praying, waiting for the news, that she should have understood so much at last. About herself and life. About family and blood and tradition and duty.

About love.

Noor might be alive, she might be dead, or terribly wounded, and whichever it was, she, Jalia, could do nothing to change her cousin's fate.

Life was short and so precious, and was she going to live hers without love? Was she going to run from the challenge life was offering her—the challenge to do some real good in the world? The challenge to love and be loved from the most passionate depths of her soul, and another's?

She had two countries—the land of her birth, and the land of her ancestors, her blood. Each called to her, but only one really needed her. Needed everything that she was and would be. Needed her heart, her mind, her love, her education, her commitment, the life she would live, the children she would have.

In return it offered her its rich history, its beauty, a deep sense of blood connection and belonging, and the heart of a strong, noble lover, a one-of-a-kind man—if she could win him back.

Even if she could not, her future would be in this land, where everything she was and could be would be needed for as long as she cared to give it. Where her contribution would be unique, where her people needed her. Whether he loved her or not…her home was here.

She had seen the truth in Latif's eyes—he did love her. His indifference had been a disguise. But that didn't mean she could make him change his mind.

 

Their prayers were answered as the sun climbed brilliantly into the blue sky, when Latif phoned with the news that Noor and Bari were alive and well.

They had come down in the storm near one of the smallest of the Gulf Islands and had been marooned there the whole time.

Crooning and wailing with joy, Princess Zaynab spoke to her daughter first, and then it was the turn of each of them, father, cousins, aunts, uncles. Jalia was nearly dissolved in the flooding tears that poured out of her eyes as she took her turn and spoke to her cousin and childhood friend.

“Alhamdolillah rabilalamin!”
Noor's father began
when they hung up, and the family softly, gratefully, slipped into the recital.
“Al rahman, al raheem.”
Praise be to God, the Lord of the World, the Compassionate, the Merciful…

Miracles do happen, however unfashionable it may be in some quarters to think so.

 

“Please stop punishing yourself,” Noor advised gently. “For a start, when I bolted it had nothing to do with anything you said. And anyway, as it turned out, it could be the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

Noor had stepped off the helicopter a stranger—thin, bony, her hair a sun-bleached mess, her skin burned and rough…and with an expression in her eyes Jalia had never seen there before.

Jalia burst into overwrought tears. These days she couldn't seem to get any kind of handle on her emotions. “I'm sorry, but it was so awful!” she wept. “Not knowing anything about why you'd gone, where you were. Everyone was secretly blaming me, but not as much as I blamed myself. It was so wrong of me—”

“Wrong?” Noor protested. “You couldn't have been more right! Bari doesn't love me. He never did.”

“Oh, Noor,” Jalia objected sadly.

Noor lifted her hand from the bathwater, and absently studied her ravaged nails. She had eaten an enormous meal and then slept the clock around. After that the first thing she'd opted for was a bath. The cousins had drained and refilled the tub twice as Noor soaked out the accumulated grime of the island.

“Funny, isn't it, all that newspaper gossip about a forced marriage?” Noor said. “It
was
a forced marriage, but the other way around. I wonder why the media don't get hot and bothered when
men
are the ones being dragged down the aisle as a sacrifice on the altar of family duty?”

“I think Bari is in love with you. He told me…”

“I don't care what he told you.”

“He says he should have realized before how he felt, and he fell truly in love with you on the island.”

“Really!” Noor said brightly. “Well, he had a funny way of showing it!”

“Noor, can't you just talk to him?”

“And actually, I don't care when he fell in love with me, if he did. He woke up too late. If he did.”

“I guess that's how Latif feels about me,” Jalia said. “That I woke up too late.”

“Oh, Jay!” Noor exclaimed remorsefully, reaching a damp hand out to her. “Oh, what a mess it's all turned out to be, this princess business!”

“Yes, in some ways.”

Jalia picked up the little rag doll Noor had brought back with her from the island and absently wiggled its arms. It smelled of smoke and mildew, and a child's distress.

“But not a complete mess.” Jalia paused. “Some things are much clearer than they were. I can see my way now, which I never could before. I've lost a big blind spot about Bagestan. I know how much I love this country now. I know I do belong here in spite of everything. I'm going to dig in and help…people like the women of the Sey-Shahin tribe, for example. They're really at a disadvantage trying to deal with
the West. They need help. That's really important to me now. And I guess I've got Latif to thank for that, whatever happens.”

She held out the doll, and touched a finger to the pearl necklace around its neck.

“In some refugee camp somewhere in the world, the child who owned this doll is…suffering who knows what torments. I want to do something about that. And I guess that'll have to be enough for me for now.”

She was perilously near tears again.

Noor's eyes were bright.

“Latif loves you, you know. He still loves you. I was watching last night at dinner, and if you could have seen his face, Jalia!”

“Maybe. I don't think he cares whether he loves me or not. I think he's made up his mind that I'm not worth it. That's the problem I'm facing—that he can love me but still not want anything to do with me.”

“You have absolutely got to get out of this engagement thing with Michael!” Noor said urgently, standing up and beginning to rinse under the shower. “We've got to find a way. Maybe you should just bite the bullet, Jay.”

“Now's not the right time. Not with my parents back in England—they'd get mobbed if the
Herald
ran that story without warning now.”

Noor reached for the fluffy towelling robe and wrapped herself in it with a bone-deep appreciation of its soft luxury that was completely different from the take-it-for-granted attitude Jalia remembered.

“Well, from a purely selfish point of view it's sure easier not having to deal with stories about my sup
posed forced marriage in addition to everything that's going on now, Jalia, but don't you think our rescue gives you the perfect opportunity to bury the news?”

“I don't think I could stand the media attention right now. Those little smears about Michael and me and the mysterious sheikh I'm after are awful enough without that added. Thank God no one's managed to get Latif's name! That would just kill me! If I ever find out who—” She broke off, because Noor stared at her, her hand to her mouth.

“Jalia, haven't you seen it?”

“Oh,
no!
What now?”

“On the table in the other room. The
Blatt.
”

Jalia leaped up and ran to the table, scrabbling through the newspapers lying there. Each one had photos of the rescued couple getting out of the helicopter, and happy headlines.

“It's that gossip-column thing opposite the op ed page,” Noor told her as she came back into the bathroom. “There.”

A water-shrivelled fingertip pointed to a small news item of the kind Jalia had come to dread.

“Who did this?” Jalia wailed. “Who told them?” She closed her eyes to squeeze back the hot, bursting tears. “If they start asking me about Latif I'll go mad. Do you think it was Latif who told them? Is it his revenge, making a fool of me, proving something?”

“No, oh no!” Noor protested, shocked. “Oh, honey, I had no idea it would hit you so hard! I'm sorry I told you like that!”

Jalia sobbed, and Noor comforted her and began to weep, too, so that in the end they comforted each other. They both felt better for it.

“You've really changed, too, you know that?” Noor said, as they sat out on the balcony watching the fountain, drinking delicious juice. “You never used to talk about your feelings at all.”

“Oh, I absorbed the English virtue of self-control, and like all converts, I took it to extremes,” Jalia said with a watery smile.

“And maybe I was never really interested,” Noor admitted softly. “Too self-centred, as Bari said.”

“Did he say that? That's pretty hard. I guess you can get pretty close to the bone in a situation like that, face-to-face with the struggle to survive.”

“When one of you is intent on breaking the other into little pieces, you get very close to the bone, yes,” Noor said, with quiet bitterness.

“He didn't break you, though. Maybe he…”

“What?” Noor demanded.

“Well, cut you—like a diamond or something. So that your real self would be revealed.”

“Thanks,” Noor replied, with a snort of laughter that threatened to turn into a sob. “It was a bloody uncomfortable operation, let me tell you. And come to think of it, I could say the same of you. Latif cut you, but not like a diamond, like a person. Now I can see you bleed.”

“It was a bloody uncomfortable operation, let me tell you,” Jalia repeated.

The two cousins laughed together, ignoring the tears burning the cheeks of them both.

C
reeping along a magical moonlit hallway that belonged to another age, Jalia wondered if she was merely following the trail blazed by her ancestresses in centuries gone by.

Because whoever had designed this wing of the palace had certainly not been unaware of the needs of midnight ramblers—the number of human-sized niches available for ducking into was testament to that. Not that she'd ever noticed that fact until she slipped into one to avoid a passing servant.

The only problem was that most of the niches were home to antique lamps or brass trays or ancient flintlock rifles, their silver mountings decorated with ruby and emerald.

In the past, had it meant death to a woman if she tripped over one and brought the guards?

Her ancestors. Maybe this was simply in her blood—the urge that had suddenly overwhelmed her in the dead of another sleepless night to find her lover's door….

Except that he was not her lover anymore. From the day Michael had arrived, her nights had been filled with loneliness and heartache instead of Latif Abd al Razzaq.

How desperate love could make a person! Jalia thought back to those distant days when she had accused her cousin of falling for Bari based on sexual attraction alone, as if that were nothing much.

Well, she had learned.

She counted the doors again. Oh, let the count be the same on the inside as it was from the balcony side! One broom cupboard would throw her calculations adrift, and how unbelievably embarrassing if she ended up in some other Cup Companion's bed….

Her faint shadow on the moonlit floor wavered and darkened, and she frowned for a moment before she understood. Then with a stifled cry she whirled, to find one of the palace servants in an open doorway behind her.

“Good evening, my Lady,” he whispered, showing no surprise. His voice sounded oddly familiar, though she could not recall ever having seen his face before.

“Good evening,” Jalia said, and stood gazing blankly at him, unable to come up with any comment that would cover her presence in this corridor at this hour of the night.

Smiling, the man moved past her to a carved wooden door. “Allow me, my Lady,” he murmured, opening it softly, and stood waiting for her to enter.

My Lady! Suddenly the strange title registered, and she realized why his voice was familiar—it was the accent she had heard in Sey-Shahin Valley. This man must be one of Latif's personal servants. And what was more, he wouldn't be calling her My Lady unless he had heard about that wedding night in the mountains….

Fire burned in her cheeks, but in the mountain custom he was not looking into her face. Jalia stood for a moment of dreadful, gnawing immobility.

Then she thought of her ancestresses and the niches so artfully created for them and their lovers by the palace architect. Clearly some would have risked death to be with someone they loved. Was she, who had so much less to lose, going to give up because she'd received encouragement?

“Thank you,” she whispered, and stepped into the room. He closed the door softly behind her.

She was in a small anteroom lighted only by the moonlight filtering through from another door ahead. She could feel the faint breeze that said the door to the balcony was also open.

A moment later she was standing beside the bed, listening to Latif's deep breathing.

The black moonshadow of a tree in the courtyard danced in the pale blue-white light that played over the balcony, the tiled floor, the silk carpet, the beautifully carved fireplace…Latif's bed.

That was spread on the floor, in the Eastern way, a thick mattress strewn with pillows and cushions and covered with a coverlet like a miniature painting, blue and purple all shot with glittering gold.

The object of her desire lay on his side, one mus
cled arm outflung as if to wrap someone in against his chest, his hand grasping the pillow. His cheekbone was sharply shadowed, as were his eyes. His mouth was carved as beautifully as a marble statue, his jaw resolute even in sleep.

Jalia's heart was beating in panicked little picket-fence ripples.

Slowly, where she stood, she slipped the thin dressing gown off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Underneath she wore the silk pyjamas she had been wearing on their “wedding” night in the valley. In the moonlight the pale jade was the colour of smoke.

Barefoot on the sensuously soft carpet, she crept forward to the edge of the bed. Her shadow came between the moon and his face for only an instant before she dropped to her knees, but as if it had been a touch, he stirred.

“Jalia?” he murmured, in a voice of agonized longing, and her heart kicked so hard the blow would have felled her if she had not already been down.

“Yes,” she whispered on a sob. “Yes.”

“What the devil are you doing here?”

She gasped with the shock of the changed tone. Latif sat up, wide awake and furious. The coverlet sliding down his naked chest, he shot one hand out to the lamp on the floor beside the bed.

For a moment they blinked at each other in its glow, his arm still extended to the lamp, frozen in an uncomprehending tableau. Absently she noticed papers and books strewn on the floor beside him, as if he had been working in bed before he slept.

His eyes went from black to green, and anger
blazed from them so hot all the words of argument died on her lips. Jalia shrank from his anger.

“Latif…”

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Desperately she sought for courage. “Why shouldn't I be here? I—”

“Get out!”

“It was all right for
you
to make love to me and try and break my resistance!” she pointed out hotly. “You have no right to react like an outraged virgin if I try to do the same!”

He flung the coverlet aside. He was naked, a fact which seemed to make no impression on him, but the golden light and shadow playing with his lean and hungry physique made the breath catch in Jalia's throat.

He grabbed her upper arm in a tight clasp and stood upright, drawing her inexorably with him. “Out!” he said again.

She lifted a hand to drag the heavy fall of hair off her face. “Latif! Can't we—”

Her jade eyes glistened, her full mouth trembled, with passionate tears. “Latif!” she cried. “I miss you so much! Can't you just—”

His hand tightened on her arm as he stooped again, to pick up her robe.

“Can't I what?” he growled savagely. “Forget that you belong to another man? Am I such a fool?”

Her perfume rose from the garment's silken folds, clouding his senses, and he cursed, like a man who does not know he is drunk till he stands up.

“Latif!” she begged again, and watched, her lips
parting, as his flesh responded urgently to the scent and the memory of the pleasure it promised.

“Damn you!” he said and, tossing the robe away, he stepped towards her, drew her against him, wrapped her in a ruthless embrace. His mouth found hers with savage impatience, and then she was falling, dragged down to heaven by his arms.

The hunger in his kiss made her senses swim, and his hands pressed her with the possessive strength that melted her. The heat of his thighs enveloped hers, his body hard and unforgiving as it crushed her.

He lifted his mouth from hers and kissed her neck, her throat, her shoulder, and Jalia moaned with hungry abandon, her fingers twining and luxuriating in the thick curls of his hair as he drew his head up and kissed her mouth again.

With a suddenness that made the breath rasp in her throat, his legs slipped between hers and jerked them wide, his hard body pressing against the million nerve ends that clustered there.

There was a wildness in him, a fury almost, that she had half sensed before, but that he had always kept under tight control; now it was unleashed.

“Love,” he murmured, as if the word were torn from his deepest being. “My Beloved.”

Her heart soared and sang, and she gave herself up to his fierce embrace with joy like a tidal wave.

He dragged, almost tore off the silk that covered her, till she was naked under his burning gaze. He ran his hand down her body, like a sculptor reminding himself of the lines of a statue he himself has carved, breast, waist, thigh, lost to everything except that she was here, in his bed. Then he drove into her, into that
hot home that was his and his alone, over and over, while she moaned and cried out and pushed against him, seeking what he only could give her.

His hands and his body pushed her, pulled her, clasped her, in a ruthless pleasure-seeking that kept her in that intoxicating borderland between pleasure and pain, till she was lost to everything except the world of the senses.

He used all he had learned about her, and with every pleasure-drugged moment he taught her more. She hovered on the edge of blasting sensation for long, agonizing, thrilling seconds, crying and singing with its approach, and at last, with wild determination, he drove her over into ecstasy, and joined her there, so that they clung together as they soared, calling and crying, helplessly giving in to sensation, like two lovers who leap from a cliff.

Drenched with sweat then, he slipped down beside her, and Jalia turned with a grateful sigh to seek his embrace.

He sat up and gazed down at her in silence. She stared at him, seeing nothing but a dark shadow limned against the halo of light that surrounded him. His expression she could not discern.

But his tone of voice said it all.

“This changes nothing, Jalia.”

It was like touching cold stone where you had expected living flesh.

“What?” she faltered.

“I play by your rules now. We make love, but it does not touch my heart. If you return to my bed another night, be sure to take no notice of anything I may say in the insanity of pleasure. It is meaningless.”