A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart Page 13

  ‘Who buys it all?’ Sarah asked, stunned by such an array of wealth.

  ‘Families,’ Harry explained. ‘Or lovers, I suppose.’

  He grinned at her, then explained.

  ‘It is mainly families. If their daughter takes gold into a marriage, it is hers forever, so if the marriage breaks down, or her husband dies, she will still have money to live on. These days it is not so important because a husband has to support his wife even if they part, and his family would support his widow. But going back, when people lived in tribes, to avoid too much intermarriage a woman would often be married to a man from far away. The gold meant she would always be able to make her way back home if the marriage didn’t work out.’

  ‘I think that’s lovely in theory,’ Sarah told him, hefting a heavy chain in one hand. ‘But would her husband let her go?’

  ‘Usually, yes,’ Harry replied, ‘although there have been, and always will be, bad husbands and probably bad wives.’

  Sarah nodded. It was only too true and confirmed what Hera had said about the necessity for women’s shelters.

  ‘So, may I buy you something?’

  The question startled her and she looked at the man she was with—then shook her head.

  ‘Not on a first date—or even a second date if we count meeting Rajah as the first.’

  Harry smiled at her, and her insides melted.

  This was not a good idea.

  She should have left, flown home that morning. Her and Harry’s lives were already complicated enough, and being here, especially in the souk, was a reminder of just how different their worlds were.

  But the tour continued, through fresh fruit and vegetable markets, then the smell of fresh baked bread drew them down another alleyway.

  ‘We will stop for coffee and a cake here, if you would like,’ Harry suggested, leading the way into the dim interior of one of many small shops and cafés.

  The man at the door bowed his head briefly in Harry’s direction, and Sarah realised it had been going on throughout their ramble along the alleyways, people nodding deferentially to the man she was with.

  She’d taken the first nods as those of passing acquaintances, but unless he knew everyone in Ambelia the nods must be acknowledgement of his royal position.

  Had he nodded back?

  Sarah couldn’t remember, but thinking of it now as the nodding café owner showed them to a table, she realised just how different this world was.

  Not only the wealth displayed at the palace, the wardrobes full of clothes for guests who might never wear them, but the acceptance of and acknowledgement by the people that this man was someone special.

  And there she’d been, wandering along behind him, because to her he was just Harry.

  Well, not just Harry!

  ‘If you’ve fallen asleep on your feet it’s definitely time for coffee, but, I warn you, our coffee is thick and dark and sweet and comes in tiny cups with water to drink with it.’

  He took her elbow and guided her to a seat.

  Sarah watched him as he sat down opposite her and spoke quietly to the man who was serving them.

  But all her attention was on Harry, although in his robes he had to be Rahman, and Rahman was a prince. Not only that but he was, for all his dislike of the idea, heir to the throne.

  Expected to produce more heirs, to keep the family dynasty going...

  The tiny coffee cups arrived with a platter of small buns and cakes and a jug in the shape of the one Sarah had admired in the market, condensation from the cold water inside beading on the intricately engraved design.

  She traced the line again with her fingers, picking up a little moisture, thinking about Harry and Rahman and families and history and tradition...

  And although she hadn’t given it much thought, the robes definitely defined him as regal, as did his bearing and the sense of authority that hung like the robes around him.

  He was slipping away from her—from being Harry—or maybe distancing himself from her, hence the platonic ‘dates’ they were enjoying.

  And she was enjoying this exploration of a country so different from her own, so she decided the only sensible thing was to keep enjoying it and work out the rest later.

  After the coffee and cakes, they went back to the palace, Harry having promised his mother not to keep Sarah out in the midday heat. He touched her cheek as he left her at the door to her room.

  ‘I have some things to discuss with my father, but you have a rest, and at four I will collect you to take you to see my sunset!’

  His fingers lingered on her skin, caressing it gently, and she longed to put her hand on his, to hold it where it was.

  Because right then he was definitely Harry, although the man she’d known was already slipping away from her, leaving Rahman in his place.

  * * *

  ‘Later’ came much sooner than Sarah had expected. She had slept, her body clock adjusting itself, no doubt, and was woken by Lea bringing tea and offering delicacies in case Sarah was hungry.

  But sleep had left her head muzzy, too muzzy to think about anything that might lie ahead—too muzzy to think, really.

  She showered and allowed Lea to choose her outfit—blue loose trousers with a gauzy blue and green top, embroidered around the neck with green thread and sequins.

  ‘Surely that’s too fancy for a drive to the desert?’ Sarah protested, but Lea insisted it was perfect.

  When Sarah was dressed, Lea handed her a scarf, draping it around Sarah’s face.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not. The tunics and trousers are common sense, but unless it is a special day and I need to keep my hair completely covered, I think I’ll take the hat.’

  ‘But it’s orange,’ Lea protested. ‘And the scarf is big enough to wrap around your shoulders if it becomes cool.’

  Sarah took both, but the hat, when she put it on, did look terrible with the outfit, so she slathered on extra sunscreen and hoped the setting sun would be gentle on her skin.

  Harry was waiting by the door in the big entry hall, and he was Harry again, dressed in pale cream chinos and a dark grey shirt. Her heart did that silly flip it insisted on doing when she first caught sight of him, and she realised that, instead of sleeping, she should have been doing some serious thinking.

  Too late now, her body told her, reacting with delight to his touch on her elbow.

  * * *

  She was ravishing, Harry decided, as Sarah, escorted by Lea, seemed to glide towards him.

  From her long, slim feet to the tip of her vibrant red hair, she was just gorgeous! The colour of the tunic brought out the green of her eyes, and made her skin seem even paler in contrast.

  He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to whisper some of what was in his heart, but good manners and protocol dictated he simply take her hand and raise it to his lips.

  Colour crept into her face, and a flash of something lit her eyes. Excitement? Happiness?

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘Thank Lea for it—she tells me what to wear.’

  She turned to Lea, but the girl had already disappeared on soundless feet.

  ‘It is not the clothes that make you beautiful but the woman inside them,’ he said, hoping he was making sense because for some reason he felt like a schoolboy—a youngster on his real first date. ‘Come,’ he said, steadying her while she put on her shoes. ‘Today you’re going to see my sand.’

  That was better. He was back in control.

  ‘And feel it run like silk through my fingers?’ she asked, and he smiled, remembering the conversation on the beach.

  His body tightened as he remembered the aftermath of that conversation and the aftermath of most conve
rsations on the beach. He wanted her so badly, but having spoken to his father about his brother succeeding to the throne instead of him, and receiving his father’s blessings for a marriage to this woman, he now had to be extra-careful how he was with her, for he didn’t want the faintest hint of gossip to sully her name.

  Bearing in mind, of course, that she might not want him.

  That thought disturbed him so much he shut the door of the car more forcibly than he should have, winning raised eyebrows from the beautiful woman who was causing him so much gut-wrenching stress.

  He reached out and touched her thigh, his hand low where no prying eyes would see the gesture.

  ‘I want you so badly it’s driving me insane,’ he muttered, then he removed his hand, placed it on the steering wheel and drove sedately out of the palace grounds, raising his hand in salute to the gatemen who stood as the vehicle approached.

  ‘Are they guards?’ Sarah asked, and, glad to have his mind diverted, he explained.

  ‘We do have some security but it’s largely electronic today. Specialists sit in a room surrounded by monitors to keep an eye on things, but the gatemen have been here always, the jobs passing down through generations. I think originally they acted as watchmen in the nomad camps. They are family, too, you know, and these days their sons and daughters go to university, yet there always seem to be some gatemen around.’

  ‘And do they live here?’

  Was she asking out of interest, or to keep the conversation going?

  To take her mind off things she might like to do to him?

  He doubted it, although the more time he spent with Sarah the less he felt he knew her, yet a certainty that she was his remained.

  He was explaining that all the servants had apartments within the walls when he realised he’d lost her attention.

  ‘Ahh!’

  The long, soft sigh came as he turned off the motorway and almost immediately the land on either side of the road gave way from palm trees to red desert sand.

  ‘It is beautiful,’ she whispered, gazing around at distant dunes and the smaller baby dunes shifting towards the road.

  ‘Do they shift all the time?’ she asked.

  ‘All the time,’ he agreed, ‘but unlike the sea the tide of sand is always coming in. Those little dunes will blow across the road unless they’re blown back by machines. We don’t like to interfere with nature if we don’t have to, but in time the sand would cover every road if left to its own devices.’

  He turned into the desert now, along a track that was barely there, driving through a dry wadi then up along the wall of a tall dune. From the top, he knew, they’d have a perfect view of the sunset, and to watch the sunset there with Sarah had suddenly become extremely important.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE RED-GOLD DUNES rose and fell as far as Sarah could see, although on the western horizon there were mountains, purple in the distance.

  Harry stopped the big four-wheel drive at the top of one of the tallest dunes, and sighed with what sounded like total satisfaction that he was back in his land of sand.

  ‘Sit there for a moment,’ he said, turning to her and touching her lightly on the hand.

  And while Sarah battled her reactions to a simple hand touch, Harry got out of the vehicle and opened the rear, obviously unloading things.

  Whatever he was doing was around his side of the car, but as a flock of birds flew towards the sunset, leaving black shadows on the sand, she looked around more carefully, because this seemingly empty place obviously had life within it.

  Here and there little tufts of what looked like the saltbush that grew in outback Queensland could be seen, some so nearly covered with sand that only a few leaves showed.

  And leading away from those leaves, the footprints of a small animal.

  Harry blocked her view. He was at the door, opening it, putting out his hand to steady her as she climbed out.

  And he kept her hand in his as he led her to where he’d unrolled a carpet and thrown large cushions down on it. A small fire had been lit just off the edge, while on it sat a silver tray with two matching glasses and two tall jugs. Little dishes of nuts and dates surrounded the jugs and a single red rose lay beside them.

  Sarah’s heart flipped at the rose then she reminded herself that in this country red roses probably didn’t mean I love you. In fact, they probably had no significance at all...

  ‘You’ve made us a picnic,’ she said, delighted by the scene, whatever the red rose meant.

  He led her to the carpet, and she sank down on it, tucking her legs sideways, as she’d learned to do.

  He sat between her and the tray, shifting it so they could both reach the offerings.

  ‘I’ve water or my mother’s special juice,’ he said. ‘Or there’s coffee in the car if you’d prefer that.’

  ‘Definitely the juice,’ Sarah told him, watching hands that had fondled her body lift the jug and pour juice for her.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, lifting her glass to his, mainly to break the tension that, for some reason, was coiling inside her.

  You’re here to see the sunset, she reminded herself.

  Nothing more.

  She sipped her drink, Harry lounging now beside her, the sun dropping swiftly and the colours of the sand reflecting back the sky of brilliant orange, red, and yellow.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured, as the full extent of this special sight struck her. ‘So beautiful!’

  ‘But wait,’ Harry said, touching her lightly on her thigh and starting all the physical reactions again. ‘Wait until it sinks and the softer colours come.’

  And come they did, the pinks and mauves, and blues and purples, making the desert seem more like the sea than a vast stretch of sand.

  ‘It’s like the colours of the water over the reef.’

  Harry smiled.

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought the first time I flew into Wildfire, only the other way around, of course. That the colours of the water over the reef was like my desert sands at sunset.’

  He eased himself to a sitting position and took her hand.

  ‘Do you like my sunset, Sarah?”

  He sounded so serious, as if this was very important to him, that Sarah could only nod.

  He moved closer, put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I know it’s a strange question for a third date,’ he said, his voice so deep and husky it reverberated in her bones. ‘But will you marry me?’

  The shock struck Sarah like a lightning bolt, solidifying all her body as if she’d turned to stone beside him.

  She stared towards the fire, now more visible in the gathering dusk.

  Harry had asked her to marry him.

  Marry Harry?

  As her body began to return to flesh and blood and nerves and even tingling excitement, she knew she had to tread very carefully.

  To think before she spoke...

  But who could think through such a startling question?

  So don’t answer—well, not right away.

  ‘Did you bring me out here to ask me this?’

  She’d shifted slightly away from him and turned to look at him, catching a small, wry smile playing around his lips—lips she’d kissed with such passion that simply seeing them made her feel hot all over.

  ‘I brought you out here to see the sunset,’ he said, and she believed him, although his hands were shaking as he lifted the jug to pour more juice. ‘The question just seemed to come out, as if it was the natural thing to do.’

  Sarah took a deep breath. Somewhere inside her a voice was prompting a ‘yes’ reply, but she’d had enough trouble working out who she was—and making a new life for herself after the accident—without marrying a man who was as torn and broken, although in
a different way, as she had been.

  She took his hand and traced the back of it, the veins and bones and tendons, with her fingers, before lifting her head to look directly at him.

  ‘I don’t think I can, Harry,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not that I don’t love you—I’ve been fairly certain about that for some time, but our worlds would clash, we wouldn’t fit. Your life, when you’re not off doing the encephalitis stuff, should be here, with your family, keeping the traditions going, caring for your people, while me, I have to finish out my contract in Australia, then I think I’ll return to England.’

  She couldn’t tell him why—afraid it would be too painful for him, hurt the man she loved too much.

  ‘To try to get back into paediatric surgery,’ he said quietly, a statement, not a question, as if he could read her dreams.

  He put his free hand over hers, trapping it between his, and to Sarah it felt like goodbye.

  ‘Yes, I’ve dithered long enough,’ she said. ‘The two operations... They recharged that desire that your talk at GOSH first aroused in me. I want to put the past behind me and move on.’ She paused, but knew she had to continue. ‘And I need to get home—now. I’ve loved every minute of being in this amazing country, but I need to get home and see my family, talk to people, and then get back to Oz to finish that job before I can start again. I can’t say I’m all that confident, but at least I’ll know I gave it a go.’

  She was prattling but the tension between herself and Harry was so tight she felt it could explode at any moment, with a force that would hurt them both.

  ‘Can you ask someone to arrange a flight?’

  * * *

  Harry sat on a carpet on his favourite sand dune, watching the final flickers of colour from the dying sun, and felt his world collapse around him.

  Not that he’d been expecting Sarah to say yes... Well, how could he have been when he hadn’t realised he’d intended to ask her?

  It had been a daft idea. Their worlds were far too far apart, and although he’d told his father earlier that he didn’t want the throne, his life was still a mad rush around the world, checking up on things that were happening in both the scientific and the practical measures he’d set up.