His Desert Rose

Far more practical than a horse, she didn’t doubt, any more than she doubted that she would go wherever he was taking her. Her only alternative was to run for it, try and dodge him in the rocky outcrops of the rising ground behind her. As if he anticipated she might try it, Hassan tightened his hold and urged her towards the waiting vehicle.

Despite the prickle of fear that was goosing her flesh, all her journalist instincts were on red alert. But, although her curiosity was intense, she didn’t want him to think she was going willingly. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said, and dug in her heels.

‘Kidding?’ He repeated the word as if he didn’t understand it. Then he raised his head, looked beyond her. The moon was rising, and as she turned she saw the dark silhouette of her brother in the distance. He had managed to get the head rope on the stallion and was leading him quietly back towards the Range Rover, completely oblivious to her plight, to the danger he was walking into.

Hassan had seriously underestimated his skill, his empathy with even the most difficult of horses, and, realising it, he swore beneath his breath. ‘I don’t have time to argue.’

She wasn’t about to let Tim walk into trouble, but even as she drew a ragged breath to shout a warning she was enveloped in blackness. Real blackness, the kind that made starlight look like day, and she was wrapped, parcelled, bundled, lifted off her feet and slung over his shoulder.

Far too late she stopped being the cool correspondent, absorbing every last detail for her report, and began to struggle in dreadful earnest. Too late she realised she should have yelled when she’d had the chance. Not for help, since that would surely be pointless, but to make sure that Tim called her news editor to tell him what had happened.

She kicked furiously in an effort to free her head, not wasting her breath in shouting, because her voice wouldn’t make it beyond the confines of the heavy cloth. But although her feet were free to inflict whatever damage she could manage they appeared to make no impression upon her captor. If only she could free her hands! But they were pinned uselessly to her sides… Well, not quite uselessly. One them was still gripping the little mobile phone. She almost smiled. The mobile. Well, that was all right, then. She’d call the news desk herself…

Then she was dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the truck, and even through the thick muffling cloth she could hear the sound of an engine, smell hot diesel oil. Diesel oil? Where were the horses? Where was the glamour?

Right now, according to the book she’d read on the plane, she should be racing across the desert crushed against her captor’s hard body and struggling desperately for her honour…

She almost laughed. Times had certainly changed. Her honour was the last thing on her mind. She’d been kidnapped and all she could think about was calling in the story.

Well, not quite all. There had been a moment as she’d been crushed against Hassan’s chest, with his hand clamped across her mouth and his gaze locked with hers, when swooning would have been very easy. And it didn’t need a particularly vivid imagination to picture his body hard against hers, holding her tightly as she continued to fight him even as the Land Rover sped away.

Only three days ago she’d been joking about being swept off by a desert prince. Bad mistake. It wasn’t a bit funny. She was being jolted hard against the Land Rover floor and, as if he realised it, her captor rolled so that he was beneath her, taking the worst of it. Although whether lying on top of a man hell-bent on abduction could be described as an improvement… But with his arm still clamped about her, she didn’t have any choice.

Maybe it would be wiser to stop struggling, though, put the fantasy firmly from her mind, ignore the intimacy of their tangled legs and try and work out what on earth Hassan thought he was doing. Ask herself why he had taken such a crazy risk.

It would be easier to think without the suffocating weight of the cloak depriving her of her senses, without his arms wrapped tightly about her.

She supposed she should be afraid. Poor Tim would be frantic. Then there was her mother. So much for the constant nagging to be prepared. For the first time in her life she had a real use for the safety pin, could have jabbed it into His Highness’s thigh hard enough to make him seriously regret grabbing her, maybe even hard enough to make him let go so that she could throw off the covering.

Unfortunately her handbag, containing the pin, was sitting on the floor of Tim’s Range Rover. Along with the clean hanky and the ten pence piece for the emergency telephone call.

This situation certainly fell into the emergency telephone call category, although how many public telephones was she likely to find in the desert? Her mother hadn’t thought of that one.

Still, when she found out that her daughter was missing, Pam Fenton would spend far more than ten pence on the telephone giving the Foreign Office hell.

If she found out her daughter was missing. Rose had the feeling that her disappearance would be kept out of the news if Abdullah could manage it. And he probably could. Tim wouldn’t be too hard to convince that her safety depended upon it. And the embassy would do whatever they thought was most likely to achieve her safe return. Just as well she had the mobile, then; Gordon would never forgive her for failing to turn in this scoop.

Oh, Lord! Whatever had happened to her fright-or-flight mechanism? She wasn’t afraid; she wasn’t planning escape. The primary emotion flowing through her system was indignation at the unromantic manner of her abduction.

She should just be grateful that Hassan hadn’t hurt her, that he hadn’t tied her up, or gagged her. Well, he hadn’t needed to. She hadn’t yelled when she could have, should have. Even now she was lying still and doing nothing at all to make life difficult for the man. That was because curiosity was running indignation a close second.

What did Hassan want?

Not just a cosy chat. If he’d wanted that he could have knocked on the villa door any time and she’d have been happy to offer him a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive. It was the way they did it in Chelsea. Maybe they did things differently in Ras al Hajar.

Or maybe he had an entirely different agenda.

Think, Rose! Think! What possible reason could Hassan al Rashid have for kidnapping her? What reason did anyone have?

Ransom? Ridiculous.

Sex? There was a momentary wobble somewhere low in her abdomen at the thought, then she dismissed the idea as errant nonsense.

Could this be the playboy prince’s idea of a joke? After all, his cousin the Regent would be seriously ticked off by the kind of publicity this little escapade would generate, and rumour suggested there was no love lost between the two men. She could just imagine the headlines, the news bulletins…

Suddenly everything clicked into place. That had to be it. Headlines. This was no joke. Hassan wanted Ras al Hajar in the news. More than that, he wanted to embarrass Abdullah…

Quite suddenly, she lost her temper. Drat the story! Here she was, wrapped up like a parcel of washing, her bones rattling like stones in a cup, and all because Hassan thought it would be amusing to irritate his cousin with bad headlines and she happened to be a handy source of aggravation.

She felt aggrieved. Seriously aggrieved. She was a woman. Not film star material, maybe, but she had all the right bits in all the right places. Her hair… All right, she might have personal reservations about her hair, but there was no doubt that it was an unmissable shade of red. Her eyes might be plain old brown, but they did the job and came complete with the regulation set of lashes. Her nose… Oh, what the heck. She stopped the inventory and, digging her knees into whatever part of his anatomy happened to be in the way, she heaved herself up and back.

Surprise, or maybe pain, together with the serendipitous lurching of the Land Rover as it raced over the rough terrain, combined to loosen Hassan’s grip. She just had time to fling off the cloak before he recovered, caught her and pinned her against the floor. And, as she dragged great gulps of fresh air into her lungs, she was once again staring up into those dangerous grey eyes.

Her situation was not lost upon her. She was vulnerable and utterly at the mercy of a man she did not know, whose motives were less than clear. One of them had better say something. And quickly.

‘When you ask a girl to dinner, Your Highness, you really, really mean it, don’t you?’

CHAPTER THREE

‘DINNER?’ Hassan repeated.

Rose blew away an errant curl that was threatening to make her sneeze. ‘That was you, this morning? “Simon Partridge requests the pleasure…” Tell me, does Mr Partridge know that you’ve taken his name in vain?’

‘Ah.’

Ah? That was it? ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Is dinner off? I warn you, I don’t do well on bread and water. I’m going to need feeding—’

‘Dinner has been arranged, Miss Fenton, but I’m afraid you’ll have to accept Mr Partridge’s regrets. He’s at present out of the country and, in answer to your first question, no, he has no idea that I have used his name. He is, in fact, entirely blameless in this affair.’

The significance of that was not lost on her. Investigations would quickly establish that this was a carefully planned snatch, that someone had used a known friendship to ensure her presence at the races. But when the authorities checked out the telephone number on that invitation, she just knew that it would lead absolutely nowhere.

‘Well,’ she said, after a moment, ‘I hope he gives you a piece of his mind when he does find out.’

‘I think you can rely on that.’

Actually, Rose had been planning to give him a piece of her own mind, but Hassan’s voice did not encourage liberties and she thought that it might be wiser to leave it to Simon Partridge. Wherever he was. She hoped he wouldn’t be away long. The sneeze threatened again and, inspired, she changed tack. ‘You didn’t have to bundle me up like that, you know.’ She gave a little cough. ‘I’ve not been well.’

‘So I’ve been told.’ He didn’t sound totally convinced by her act, and she realised that playing for sympathy would get her nowhere. ‘You seem to be managing to have a good time, though. Personally, I wouldn’t have thought that a busy round of cocktail parties, receptions, public relations tours of the city were at all good for you—’

‘Oh, I see! You’re doing me a kindness. You’ve abducted me so that I shouldn’t over-exert myself.’

‘That is a point of view.’ Hassan’s eyes creased in a smile. It was not a reassuring smile, however. ‘I’m afraid my cousin has no thought but his own pleasure—’

‘And mine. He told me so himself.’ She had not been entirely convinced by that, either. Prince Abdullah seemed terribly keen that she should get a very positive image of the country. The curtained windows of the limousine that had taken her around the city at high speed had, she felt sure, hidden a multitude of sins.

She’d been planning to put on one of the all-enveloping black abbayahs worn by the local women and, heavily veiled to disguise her red hair, have a closer look around on her own. Not that she had proposed to involve Tim in her little outing. She strongly suspected he would disapprove.

‘And as for standing about in the night air at the race course,’ Hassan continued. ‘Most unwise. It’s almost certain to lead to a relapse.’

Except that until she’d spoken to him she hadn’t planned on going anywhere near the race course. She didn’t bother to mention it, though. She didn’t want him to know he’d had anything to do with her changing her mind. ‘Your concern is most touching.’

‘Your appreciation is noted. You are in Ras al Hajar for rest and relaxation and it will be my pleasure to see that you get it.’

His pleasure? She didn’t care for the sound of that. ‘Prince Hassan al Rashid, the perfect host,’ she responded sarcastically, easing her shoulder from the hard floor of the Land Rover in as pointed a manner as she could manage, considering that she was practically being sat on.

The gesture was wasted. All she got for her trouble was the slightest bow of his head as he acknowledged his name. ‘I do my best.’ He ignored her snort of disbelief. ‘You came to my country for pleasure, a holiday. A little romance, perhaps, if the book you were reading on the plane is anything to judge by?’

Oh, good grief! If he was into fulfilling holiday fantasies, she was in big trouble. She swallowed. ‘At least The Sheik had style.’

‘Style?’

‘A Land Rover is no substitute for a stallion.’ She realised she was letting her mouth run away with her. Nerves, no doubt. She might refuse to admit to fear but she was entitled to be a little nervous. ‘Black as night, with the temper of the devil,’ she prompted. ‘That’s the more usual mode of transport for desert abductees. I have to tell you that I feel short-changed.’

‘Do you?’ He sounded surprised by that. Who could blame him? ‘Regrettably our destination is too far for us to ride there doubled up on a horse.’ His eyes smiled, and this time there was no doubt about it; there was not a thing to be reassured about. ‘Especially when you’ve been unwell.’ Oh, very funny. ‘I will make a note for the future, however.’

‘Oh, please. Don’t trouble yourself.’ She attempted to sit up, but he did not move.

‘The ground is rough, I wouldn’t want you thrown about. You’ll be safer lying down.’

With the length of his body covering hers? Did she have any choice? But he was probably right. It would be safer…

What? She couldn’t believe she was even thinking that! This man might fulfil all the criteria of the fantasy but that was all it was, a fantasy. He’d kidnapped her and she was far from safe.

She swallowed. Tried to gather her wits. The network briefed staff on this kind of situation before sending them to dangerous parts of the world. She knew that she was supposed to keep the man talking. Make him see her as a person.

The way he was looking at her, the fact that his legs straddled her, that his hips were pressed firmly against her abdomen suggested that he could do little other than see her as a person. A female person.

All the more reason to talk. ‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for my company. If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you come and join me on the plane? Or call at my brother’s house—’

Maybe he was getting the same thoughts, because without warning he moved, shifting to her side so that he was lying alongside her, eyeing her warily. ‘You knew who I was, didn’t you? Back there?’

Instantly. She had no intention of flattering him, though. ‘I shouldn’t think too many of the local bandits went to an English public school. And very few of them have grey eyes.’ Even in the darkness, his eyes had been unmistakable. ‘And of course there was your voice. I heard that just a few hours ago. If you’d wanted to remain anonymous, you should have sent one of your henchmen to capture me.’

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