The sheikh's chosen wife (15 page)

Raschid was watching
them, smiling, relaxed while he waited a few steps down the gangway for them to
give him room to board the boat. He saw nothing painful in Leona's greeting,
nor the way she broke away to gently touch a finger to the baby girl's petal
soft cheek.

'I didn't know,' she was
saying softly to Evie. 'Last time I saw you, you weren't even pregnant!'

'A lot can happen in a
year,' Raschid put in dryly, bringing Leona's attention his way.

The tableau shifted. Evie
moved to one side to allow her husband to step onto the deck so he could put
his son to the ground, leaving his arms free to greet Leona properly. 'And aren't
you just as proud as a peacock?' She laughed, defying the Arab male-female
don't-touch convention by going straight into Raschid's arms.

What was wrong with
Hassan? Leona wondered, realising that he hadn't moved a single muscle to come
and greet their latest guests She caught his eve over one of Raschid's broad
shoulder , sent him a frowning look that told him to pull himself together By
the time he was greeting Evie Leona was squatting down to say hello to the
little boy who now clutched his mother's skirt for safety Dark like his father
golden-eyed like his father The fates had been kind to these two people by
allowing them to produce a son in Raschid's image and a daughter who already
looked as if she was going to be a mirror of her mother.

'Hello, Hashim.' She
smiled gently. They had met before but she was sure the small boy would not
remember. 'Does that thumb taste very nice?'

He nodded gravely and
stuck the thumb just that quarter inch further between sweetly pouting lips.

'My name is Leona,' she told
him. 'Do you think we can be friends?'

'Red.' he said around the
thumb. looking at her hair. ‘Sunshine.'

'Thank you.' She laughed.
'I see you are going to be a dreadful flirt, like your papa.'

Mentioning his papa sent
the toddler over to Raschid, where he begged to be picked up again. Raschid
swung him up without pausing in his conversation with Hassan, as if it was the
most natural thing in the world for him to have his son on his arm.

Tears hit again. Leona
blinked them away. Hassan gave a tense shift of one shoulder and in the next
moment his arm was resting across her shoulders. He was smiling at Evie, at her
baby, at Raschid. But when Leona noticed that he was not allowing himself to so
much as glance at Raschid's son it finally hit her what was the matter with
him. Hassan could not bear to look at what Raschid had, that which he most
coveted.

Her heart dropped to her
stomach to make her feel sick again. The two men had been good friends
since—for ever. Their countries lay side by side. And they shared so many
similarities in their lives that Leona would have wagered everything that
nothing could drive a wedge between their friendship.

But a desire for what one
had that the other did not, in the shape of a boy-child, could do it, she
realised, and had to move away from Hassan because she just couldn't bear to be
near him and feel that need pulsing in him.

'May I?' she requested of
Evie, holding out her arms for the baby.

Evie didn't hesitate in
handing the baby over. Soft and light and so very fragile. It was like cradling
an angel. 'How old is she?' she asked.

'Three months,' Evie
supplied. 'As quiet as a mouse, as sweet as honey—and called Yamila Lucinda
after her two grandmothers, but we call her Lucy because it's cute.'

At the sound of her
mother's voice, Lucy opened her eyes to reveal two perfect amethysts the same
as Evie's, and Leona found herself swallowing tears again.

You're so lucky, she
wanted to say, but remarks like that were a potential minefield for someone in
her situation. So she contented herself with lifting the baby up so she could
feel her soft cheek against her own and hoped that no one noticed the small
prick of tears she had to blink away.

A minute later and other
guests began appearing on the shade deck to find out who else had joined them.
Sheikh Raschid earned himself looks of wary surprise from some. From all he was
awarded the respect accorded to a man who held absolute rule in his own Gulf
state of Behran. His children brought down other barriers; the fact that Evie
had achieved what Leona had not, in the shape of her small son earned her warm
smiles instead of stiffly polite ones that conveyed disapproval. Still, most of
the tension from the evening before melted away in the face of the newcomers,
and Leona was deeply grateful to them for succeeding in neutralising the
situation.

When it was decided that
they would move up to the sun deck, with its adjoining salon, to take
refreshment and talk in comfort, Leona quickly shifted herself into hostess
mode and led the way upstairs with her small bundle in her arms and her husband
walking at her shoulder.

He didn't speak, and she
could sense the same mood about him he had donned when he'd come face to face
with Raschid and his son. It hurt. Though she strove not to show it. But his
manner made such a mockery out of everything else he had said and done.

They arrived on the upper
deck as the yacht slipped smoothly from its moorings and began making its way
towards the mouth of the Suez Canal. Medina Al-Mahmud suddenly appeared in front
of Leona and politely begged to hold the baby. She was a small, slight woman
with nervous eyes and a defensive manner, but as Leona placed the little girl
in her arms Medina sent her a sympathetic look which almost broke her composure
in two.

She did not want people's
pity. Oh, how she had come to hate it during her last year in Rahman when the
rumours about her had begun flying. With a desperate need of something else to
do other than stand here feeling utterly useless, she walked into the salon to
pick up the internal phone and order refreshments.

It was really very bad
timing for Hassan to follow her. 'I must offer you my deepest apologies,' he
announced so stiffly it was almost an insult. 'When I arranged this surprise
for you I did not expect the Al-Kadahs to bring their children with them.'

She was appalled to
realise that even Hassan believed her an object of such pity. 'Oh, stop being
so ultra-sensitive,' she snapped. 'Do you really believe that I could resent
them their beautiful children because I cannot have them for myself?'

'Don't say that!' he
snapped back. 'It is not true, though you drive me insane by insisting it is
so!'

'And you stop burying
your head in the sand, Hassan,' she returned. 'Because we both know that you
know it is you who lies to yourself!'

With that she stalked
off, leaving him to simmer in his own frustration while she went to check that
the accommodation could stretch to two more guests than they had expected.
Faysal already had the matter in hand, she discovered, finding several people
hurriedly making ready a pair of adjoining suites, while others unpacked enough
equipment, brought by the Al-Kadahs, to keep an army of young children
content.

On her way back upstairs
she met Rafiq and Samir. Rafiq studied her narrowly, his shrewd gaze not
missing the continuing paleness in her face. He was probably questioning
whether one sniff at suspect milk could upset her stomach for so long when in
actual fact it had never been the milk, she had come to realise, but sheer
anxiety and stress.

Samir, on the other hand,
noticed nothing but a target for his wit. By the time the three of them had
joined the others, Samir had her laughing over a heavily embroidered description
of himself being put through the agonies of hell in the gym by a man so fit it
was a sin.

After that she played the
circulating hostess to the hilt and even endured a whole ten minutes sitting
with Zanna listening to her extol the virtues of her daughter, Nadira. Then
Evie rescued her by quietly asking if she would show her to their room, because
the baby needed changing.

With Hashim deciding to
come with them, they went down to the now beautifully prepared twin cabins and
a dark-eyed little nurse Evie had brought with them appeared, to take the
children into the other room. The moment the two women were alone Evie swung
round on Leona and said, 'Right, let's hear it. Why did Hassan virtually beg
and bribe us to come along on this trip?'

At which point; Leona
simply broke down and wept out the whole sorry story. By the time she had
hiccuped to a finish they were curled up on the bed and Evie was gently
stroking her hair.

'I think you are here to
make me feel better.' She finally answered Evie's original question. 'Because
anyone with eyes can see that the Al-Mahmuds and the Al-Yasins wish me on
another planet entirely. Hassan doesn't know that I've always known that Nadira
AI-Yasin is the people's preferred wife for him.'

'I've been there. I know
the feeling,' Evie murmured un-derstandingly. 'I suppose she's beautiful,
biddable and loves children.'

Leona nodded on a muffled
sob. 'I've met her once or twice. She's quite sweet,' she reluctantly
confessed.

'Just right for Hassan, I
suppose.'

'Yes,'

'And, of course, you are
not.'

Leona shook her head.

'So why are you here,
then?' Evie challenged.

'You tell me,' she
suggested, finding strength in anger and pulling herself into a sitting
position on the bed. 'Because I don't know! Hassan says I am here for this
reason, then he changes it to another. He is stubborn and devious and an
absolute expert at plucking at my heart strings! His father is ill and I adore
that old man so he uses him to keep me dancing to his secret tune!'

'Raschid's father died in
his arms while I held Raschid in my arms,' Evie told her sadly. 'Wretched
though it was, I would not have been anywhere else. He needed me. Hassan needs
you too.'

'Oh, don't defend him,'
Leona protested, 'It makes me feel mean, yet I know I would have gone to his
father like a shot with just that request. I didn't need all of this other
stuff to make me do it.'

'But maybe Hassan needed
this other stuff to let him make you do it.'

'I'm going to sit you at
the dinner table between Mrs Yasin and Mrs Mahmud tonight if you don't stop
trying to be reasonable,' Leona said warningly.

'Okay, you've made your
point,' Evie conceded. 'You need a loyal champion, not a wise one.' Then, with
a complete change of manner, 'So get yourself into the bathroom and tidy
yourself up before we go and fight the old dragons together.'

Leona began to smile.
'Now you're talking,' she enthused, and, stretching out a long leg, she rose
from the bed a different person than the one who'd slumped down on it minutes
ago. 'I'm glad you're here, Evie,' she murmured huskily.

It was a remark she could
have repeated a hundred times over during the following days when everyone did
try to appear content to simply enjoy the cruise with no underlying disputes to
spoil it.

But in truth many
undercurrents were at work. In the complicated way of Arab politics, there was
no natural right to succession in Rahman. First among equals was the Arab way
of describing a collective of tribe leaders amongst which one is considered the
most authoritative. The next leader did not necessarily have to be the son of
the one preceding him, but choice became an open issue on which all heads of
the family

In truth everyone knew
that Hassan was the only sensible man for the job simply because he had been
handling the modern thrusts of power so successfully for the last five years as
his father's health had begun to fail. No one wanted to tip the balance. As it
stood, the other families had lived well and prospered under Al-Qadim rule.
Rahman was a respected country in Arabia. Landlocked though it was, the oil
beneath its desert was rich and in plenty, and within its borders were some of
the most important oases that other, more favourably placed countries, did not
enjoy.

But just as the sands
shifted, so did opinions. AI-Mahmud and Al-Yasin might have lived well and
prospered under thirty years of Al-Qadim rule, but they had disapproved of
Hassan's choice of wife from the beginning. Though they could not fault the
dedication Hassan's wife had applied to her role, nor ignore the respect she
had earned from the Rahman people, she was frail of body. She had produced no
sons in five years of marriage, and then had made Hassan appear weak to his
peers when she'd walked away from him of her own volition. Divorce should have
followed swiftly. Hassan had refused to discuss it as an option. Therefore, a
second wife should have been chosen. Hassan's refusal to pander to what he
called the ways of the old guard had incensed many. Not least Sheikh Abdul
Al-Yasin who had not stopped smarting from the insult he'd received when Hassan
had not chosen his daughter, Nadira, who had been primed from birth to take the
role.

With Hassan's father's
health failing fast, Sheikh Abdul had seen an opportunity to redress this insult.
All it required was for Hassan to agree to take on a second wife in order to
maintain the delicate balance between families. It was that simple. Everyone
except Hassan agreed that his marriage to Nadira Al-Yasin would form an
alliance that would solve everyone's problems. Hassan could keep his first
wife. No one was asking him to discard this beautiful but barren woman. But his
first son would come from the womb of Nadira Al-Yasin, which was all that
really mattered.