His Desert Rose
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Tell him… tell him if he wants to keep his country, it’s time to come home before Abdullah takes it from him. I can’t put it plainer than that.’
He climbed from the limousine and strode towards the huge carved doors of the coastal watch-tower he had made his home, his feet ringing on the stone slabs of the courtyard.
‘And Miss Fenton?’ Partridge asked, his pace slower as he leaned heavily on his walking stick.
Hassan paused at the entrance to his private apartments. ‘You can safely leave Miss Fenton to me,’ he said sharply.
Partridge paled, swinging round in front of him and forcing him to a halt. ‘Sir, you won’t forget she’s been ill—’
‘I won’t forget that she’s a journalist.’ Hassan’s face darkened as he saw the anxiety in the man’s face. Well, well. Lucky Rose Fenton. Needed by a fabulously rich and totally powerful older man for her ability to make him look good, desired by a young and foolish one with nothing in his head but romantic nonsense. All in one day. How many women could start a holiday with that kind of advantage?
It occurred to him that Rose Fenton, blessed with both brains and beauty, probably started every holiday with that kind of advantage.
‘What are you planning to do, sir?’
‘Do?’ He wasn’t used to having his intentions questioned.
Partridge might be nervous, but he wasn’t cowed. ‘With Miss Fenton.’
Hassan gave a short laugh. ‘What do you think I’m going to do with her, man?’ The image of the book she had been holding swept into his mind. ‘Abduct her and carry her off into the desert like some old-time bandit?’
Partridge immediately flushed. ‘N-no.’
‘You don’t sound very certain,’ he pressed. ‘It’s what my grandfather would have done.’
‘Your grandfather lived in a different age, sir,’ Partridge said. ‘I’ll go and pack.’
Hassan watched him go. The young man had guts, and he admired him for the way he coped with disability and pain, but he wouldn’t put up with dissent from anyone. He’d do whatever he had to.
Thirty minutes later he handed Partridge the letter he had written to his young half-brother and walked with him to the Jeep that would take him down to the jetty. The courtyard was full of horsemen with hawks at their wrists, long-legged silky-coated Salukis at their heels. Partridge’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re going hunting? Now?’
‘I need to heat the London damp out of my bones and get some good, clean desert air in my lungs.’ And it occurred to him that if Abdullah was planning a quiet coup, it might be wise to take himself to his desert camp where his presence would be less noticeable. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’
‘This is it.’
‘It’s beautiful, Tim.’ The villa was out of the town, set on the hillside overlooking the wild and rugged coast near the royal stables. Tim’s title might give him control of the country’s veterinary services, but his main concern was the Regent’s stud. Below them was a palm grove and around the house there were oleanders in flower, bright birds… ‘I expected desert… sand dunes…’
‘Hollywood has a lot to answer for.’ The door opened at their approach and Tim’s servant bowed as Rose crossed the threshold. ‘Rose, this is Khalil. He cooks, cleans and looks after the place so I can concentrate on work.’ The young man returned her smile shyly.
‘Good grief, Tim,’ Rose said, once she’d admired everything, from the exquisite rugs laid over polished hardwood floors to the small swimming pool in the discreetly walled garden beyond the French windows. ‘It’s a bit different from that scruffy little house you had in Newmarket.’
‘If you think this is luxury, just wait until you see the stables. The horses have a much larger swimming pool than me and I have a fully equipped hospital, anything I ask for—’
‘Okay, okay!’ She grinned at his enthusiasm. ‘You can give me the grand tour later, but right now I could do with a shower.’ She lifted her hair from her neck. ‘And I need to change into some lighter clothes.’
‘What? Oh, sorry. Look, why don’t you make yourself at home, have a rest, something to eat? Your room is through here.’ He shepherded her through to a large suite. ‘There’s plenty of time to see everything.’
She stopped in the doorway, but it wasn’t the splendour of her room that surprised her. It was the fact that every available surface was obscured by baskets full of roses. ‘Where on earth did all these come from?’
‘Wherever roses are grown at this time of year.’ Tim shrugged, obviously embarrassed by the excess. ‘I should have thought you were used to it by now. I don’t suppose anyone ever sends you lilies, or daisies or chrysanthemums. Do they?’
‘Rarely,’ she admitted, looking for a card, but finding none. ‘But they usually come in dozens. These appear to have been ordered by the gross.’
‘Yes, well, Prince Abdullah sent them over this morning so that you’d feel at home.’
‘He thinks I live in a florist’s shop?’
Tim pulled a face. ‘They do everything on a grander scale here.’ He glanced anxiously at his watch. ‘Rose, can you look after yourself for an hour or so? I’ve a mare about to foal…’
She laughed. ‘Go. I’ll be fine.’
‘If you’re sure? If you need me—’
‘I’ll whinny.’
His face relaxed into a smile. ‘Actually, I think you’ll find the telephone system is perfectly adequate.’
Alone, she turned back to the roses. Creamy white, perfect florist’s blooms. She resisted the urge to count them; instead she thoughtfully riffled the satiny petals of a half-open bud with the edge of her thumb. The flowers were beautiful, but scentless, a sterile cliché without any real meaning.
And her thoughts wandered back to Prince Hassan al Rashid. The playboy prince was something of a cliché too. But those grey eyes suggested something very different behind the façade.
Prince Abdullah might woo her co-operation with his private jet and his roses, but it was Hassan who had her undivided attention.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHAT do you mean, you can’t find him?’ Hassan could barely contain his anger. ‘He has bodyguards who watch him night and day—’
‘He’s given them the slip.’ Partridge’s voice echoed faintly on the satellite link. ‘Apparently there’s a girl involved—’
Of course there would be a girl. Damn the boy. And damn those blockheads who were supposed to look after him…
Except that he’d been twenty-four himself, once, centuries ago, and remembered only too well how it felt to live every waking moment under watchful eyes. Remembered just how easy it was to lose them when there was a girl…
‘Find him, Partridge. Find him and bring him home. Tell him…’ What? That he was sorry? That he understood? What good would that do? ‘Tell him there isn’t much time.’
‘I’ll do whatever is necessary, Excellency.’
Hassan stood at the entrance to his tent, Partridge’s words ringing in his head. Whatever is necessary… His dying grandfather had used those words to him on the day he’d named his younger grandson, Faisal, his heir, and his nephew, Abdullah, as Regent. Whatever is necessary for my country. It had been an apology of sorts, but, hurting and angry at being dispossessed, he had refused to understand and had behaved like the young fool that he’d been.
Older, wiser, he understood that for a man to rule he must first accept that the wishes of the heart must always be sacrificed to necessity.
In a few short weeks Faisal would be twenty-five, and if his young half-brother was to take on the burden of kingship he too would have to learn that lesson. And quickly.
In the meantime something would have to be done to disrupt Abdullah’s attempt at coup by media. His cousin might not encourage the press to come calling at his door, but he understood its power, and he would not let the chance slip to have someone like Rose Fenton in his pocket.
She’d already been given the official grand tour of the more fragrant parts of city, and it would be so easy to be fooled into believing everything was wonderful if you weren’t looking too hard. And Abdullah had it in his power to distract her in all manner of ways.
She might not succumb to the gifts, the gold and pearls that would be showered upon her. It was unlikely—he had little faith in the myth of the crusading, incorruptible journalist—but Abdullah had never been a one-plan dictator. If money wouldn’t do it, he had her brother as a hostage to her co-operation.
Well, two could play at that game, and, although he was sure she wouldn’t take the same view of the situation, Hassan reasoned that he would actually be doing Miss Fenton a favour if he took her out of circulation for a while.
And dealing with her frantic family, the British Foreign Office, the unkind comments of the British media, would give his cousin something more pressing to worry him than usurping Faisal’s throne. It might even prompt him to bail out. While Abdullah enjoyed the tribute that went with his role as stand-in Head of State, he wasn’t nearly so keen on the responsibilities that accompanied the role.
Partridge would doubtless be outraged, but, since his aide was clearly aware of the urgent necessity of doing whatever it took, he could be relied upon to keep his own counsel. In public, if not in private.
‘Horse racing?’ Rose helped herself to a slice of toast. It was six years since she’d been to a racetrack. It might not have been a deliberate decision, but she had always found some pressing reason to decline the many invitations to Ascot and Cheltenham that came her way. ‘At night?’
‘Under floodlights. It’s cooler then. Especially in summer,’ Tim added, then grinned. ‘There’ll be camel racing, too. Would you want to miss that?’
‘Would I?’ She pretended to think. ‘Yes.’
For a moment she thought he was going to say something. Give her the ‘it’s been nearly six years’ speech. He clearly thought better of it, because he shrugged and said, ‘Well, it’s up to you.’ If he was disappointed by her decision he didn’t let it show, and she could hardly believe that he was surprised. ‘I have to be there for obvious reasons, but I can come back and pick you up afterwards.’
She glanced up from the careful application of butter to her toast. ‘Pick me up?’
Tim indicated the square white envelope propped up against the marmalade. ‘We’ve been invited out to dinner after the races.’
‘Again?’ Didn’t anyone ever stay in for a pizza and a video in Ras al Hajar? ‘Who by?’
‘Simon Partridge.’
‘Have I met him?’ she asked, picking up the envelope and extracting a single sheet of paper. The handwriting was bold and strong. The note oddly formal. ‘Simon Partridge requests the pleasure…’
‘No, he’s Prince Hassan’s aide.’
About to plead tiredness, a headache, anything to get out of another formal evening, the night in with a video suddenly lost its appeal. She hadn’t seen the playboy prince since he got off the plane. She’d looked for him, listened out for his name, but he appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth.
‘You’ll like him,’ Tim said. She was sure her brother meant Simon Partridge rather than Hassan, but she didn’t ask; she had the feeling that it would be wiser not to draw attention to her interest. ‘He was desperately keen to meet you, but he’s been out of town.’
‘Really?’ And then she laughed. ‘Tell me, Tim, where do you go when you go “out of town” in Ras al Hajar?’
‘Nowhere. That’s the point. You leave civilisation behind.’
‘I’ve done that.’ She’d been in some very uncivilised places in the last few years. Too many. ‘It’s overrated.’
‘The desert is different. Which is why, if you’re someone like Hassan, the first thing you do when you get home is take your hounds and your hawks out into the desert and go hunting. And if you’re his aide, you go with him.’
‘I see.’ What she saw was that if Simon Partridge was back in town, then so was Prince Hassan. ‘Tell me about him. Simon Partridge. It’s unusual for someone like Hassan to have a British aide, surely?’
‘His grandfather had one and lived to tell the tale.’
‘Did he?’
Tim frowned. ‘Hassan’s father. He was a Scot. Didn’t I say?’
‘No, you didn’t.’ Well, he hadn’t. ‘It explains a lot.’
Tim shrugged. ‘Maybe he feels he can rely on Partridge one hundred per cent to be his man, with no divided tribal loyalties, no family feuds to get in the way.’
‘A back to get in the way should someone feel like stabbing him in it?’ she pondered. ‘What does Simon Partridge get out of it?’
‘Just a job. He’s not Hassan’s bodyguard. Partridge was in the army, but his Jeep got into a bit of an argument with a landmine and he was invalided out. His Colonel and Hassan were at school together…’
‘Eton,’ she murmured, without thinking.
‘Where else?’ Tim had assumed it was a question. ‘Partridge, too.’ He looked pleased at her apparent interest in his absent friend and Rose sighed, suspecting a little furtive matchmaking. ‘So?’ Tim retrieved the invitation. ‘What shall I tell him?’
That was easy. The racing might be a non-starter, but Rose wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to meet Hassan’s aide. She handed him back the note. ‘Tell him… Miss Fenton accepts…’
‘Great.’ The phone rang and Tim answered it, listened, then said, ‘I’ll be right there.’ He was halfway to the door before he remembered Rose. ‘Simon’s number is on the note. Will you call him?’
‘No problem.’ She picked up the receiver, dialled the number. As it rang, she looked again at the bold cursive and decided Tim was right for once. She was sure she would like the owner of such a decisive hand.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Partridge? Simon Partridge?’
There was the briefest pause. ‘I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Miss Rose Fenton.’
‘Er, yes.’ She laughed. ‘How did you know?’
‘If I told you I was psychic?’ the voice offered.
‘I wouldn’t believe you.’
‘And you would be right not to. Your voice is unmistakable, Miss Fenton.’
While Simon Partridge sounded rather older than she had expected from Tim’s description of him, his voice was low, deeply authoritative, velvet on steel. Not that she was about to drool into the phone.
‘That’s because I talk too much,’ she replied crisply. ‘Tim’s had to rush off to the stables, but he asked me to ring you and say that we’re delighted to accept your invitation to dinner this evening.’
‘I have no doubt that the delight will be all mine.’
His formality was so very… foreign. She wondered how long he had been in Ras al Hajar. She’d assumed it was a fairly recent thing, but maybe not. ‘You know he has to go to the races first, of course—’
‘Everyone goes to the races, Miss Fenton. There is nothing else to do in Ras al Hajar. You will be there?’
‘Well…’
‘You must come.’
Must she? ‘Yes,’ she said, rapidly changing her mind. She rather thought she must. After all, she reasoned, if everyone went to the races, Hassan would be there. ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it.’ And suddenly she was. Very much.
‘Until this evening, Miss Fenton.’
‘Until then, Mr Partridge,’ she replied. And she put down the receiver feeling just a touch breathless.
Hassan switched off the cellphone that had been purchased in the souk that morning and registered in an entirely fictitious name and tossed it on the divan. Beyond the opening of the huge black tent he could see the lush palm grove watered by the small streams that ran from the craggy mountainous border country. In spring it was paradise on earth. He had the feeling that Rose Fenton might not view it in quite the same way.
‘Come home quickly, Faisal,’ he murmured. At the sound of his voice the hound at his feet rose and pushed a long silky head against his hand.
Rose was thoroughly dissatisfied with her small wardrobe. She’d felt like an absolute dowd at the embassy cocktail party. She’d assumed that it would be smart but casual. Tim had been absolutely no help and in the end she’d decided on her crush-proof go-anywhere little black dress. In the event, of course, all the other women had taken the opportunity to wear their latest designer creations, leaving the black dress looking as if it had already been around the world and back again. Well, it had.
She hadn’t anticipated so much socialising, and besides, she had nothing that could possibly cover an evening outdoors at the races followed by a private dinner.
She would normally have asked her hostess what would be suitable. But there was no hostess, and something about Simon Partridge had precluded that kind of informal chattiness. It was the same something that urged her to make a real effort, pull out all the stops, and she decided to wear the shalwar kameez that she’d been given on a trip to Pakistan and packed in the hope of an interview with the Regent. Something she’d been doing her best to avoid ever since she’d arrived, although even she had begun to run out of convincing excuses.
The trousers were cut from heavy slub silk in a dull mossy shade, the tunic a shade or two lighter and the hand-embroidered silk chiffon scarf paler still. She should have worn it to the embassy.
‘Wow!’ Tim’s reaction was unexpected. He didn’t usually notice what anyone wore. ‘You look stunning.’
‘That’s worrying. I suddenly get the feeling that everyone else will be wearing jeans.’
‘Does it matter? You’re going to absolutely knock Simon’s eyes out.’
‘I’m not sure that’s the effect I’m striving for, Tim.’ Remembering the effect of his voice on her ability to breathe, she thought she might just be kidding herself. ‘At least not until I know him better.’
‘In that outfit he’ll definitely want to get to know you better.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better go. Got everything?’
‘Hanky, safety pin, ten pence for the telephone,’ she said solemnly. Her cellphone, tape recorder, notebook and pen went without saying. And she didn’t say anything because she had the feeling they would make her brother uneasy.
Tim laughed. ‘I’d forgotten the way Mum used to say that.’ He put his arm beneath her elbow and helped her up into the Range Rover.
‘How far is it?’
‘Oh, just a couple of miles beyond the stables. Once you get through these low hills there’s a good flat piece of ground that’s perfect for racing.’ He pulled a face as they bumped over the rough track. ‘Sorry about this. The Emir’s had a dual-carriageway road laid from town, but this way’s much quicker for us.’
‘Hey, this is “Front-line” Fenton you’re talking to. A few bumps aren’t going to… Oh, look out!’
A pale riderless horse leapt from a low bluff and landed in front of them, turning to rear up in front of the car, mane flying, hooves pawing at the air. Tim swung to avoid it, throwing the car into a sideways skid that seemed to go on for ever on the loose gravel.
‘It’s one of Abdullah’s horses,’ he said, as he brought the Range Rover under control. ‘Someone’s going to be in trouble—’ The moment they stopped, he flung open the door and leapt down. ‘Sorry, but I’ll have to try and catch it.’
‘Can I do anything?’ She turned as he opened the tailgate and took out a rope halter.
‘No. Yes. Use the car phone to call the stables. Ask them to send a horsebox.’
‘Where?’
‘Just say between the villa and the stables; they’ll find us.’
The interior light had not come on and she reached up, clicked the switch, but nothing happened. She shrugged, lifted the phone, but there was no dial tone. Great. She picked up her bag and dug out the new mobile phone that Gordon had included in the carrier with the book and the cuttings. It was small, very powerful and did just about everything except play the national anthem, but she wasn’t confident enough with it to press buttons in the dark, so slid down from her seat to check it out in the headlights. Her feet had just touched the ground when the headlights went out.
She could hear her brother, some distance off, gentling the nervous horse, hear the scrabbling of hooves against the rough ground as the lovely creature danced away from him. Then that sound, too, abruptly stopped as the horse found sand.
It was so quiet, so dark in the shadow of the bluff. There was no moon, but the stars were brilliant, undimmed by light pollution, and the sand reflected the faintest silvery shimmer against which everything else was jet-black.
A shadow detached itself from the darkness.
‘Tim?’
But it wasn’t her brother. Even before she turned she knew it wasn’t him. Tim had smelt faintly of aftershave, was wearing a light-coloured jacket. This man had no scent that she could discern and he was dressed from head to foot in a robe of a blackness so dense that it absorbed light rather than reflecting it. Even his face was concealed in a black keffiyeh worn so that nothing but his eyes were visible.
His eyes were all she needed to see.
It was Hassan. Despite the charge of fear that fixed her to the spot, despite the adrenalin-driven panicky race of her heart, she knew him. But this was not the urbane Prince boarding a private jet in expensive Italian tailoring; this was not Hassan in playboy prince mode.
This was the man promised by granite-grey eyes, deep, dangerous and totally in command, and something warned her that he wasn’t about to ask if she needed help.
Before she could do more than half turn to run, before she could even think about shouting a warning to her brother, he’d clamped his hand over her mouth. Then, with his free arm flung around her, he lifted her clear of the ground as he pulled her hard against his body. Hard enough for the curved weight of the dagger at his waist to dig into her ribs.
Definitely not from the local branch of auto rescue.
She might have done a self-defence course but so apparently had he, because he knew all the moves. Her elbows were immobilised, and with her feet off the ground she had no platform from which to launch a counter-move. Not that it would do her any good. She might make the high ground, but what then? There was nowhere to run to and, although she couldn’t see anyone else, she doubted that he was alone.
She struggled anyway.
He simply tightened his grip and waited, and after a moment she stopped. There was no point in wearing herself out unnecessarily.
When she was quite still except for the unnaturally swift rise and fall of her breast as she tried to regain her breath, he finally spoke. ‘I would be grateful if you did not shout, Miss Fenton,’ he said, very quietly. ‘I have no wish to hurt your brother.’ And his voice was like his hand, like his eyes, hard, uncompromising, not playing games.
He knew who she was, then. This wasn’t some random snatch. No. Of course it wasn’t. It might have been some days since they’d exchanged that momentary glance on the plane that had brought her to Ras al Hajar, but she’d heard the voice much more recently. Heard it insisting that she must go to the races. And she had blithely assured him that she would be there. That had been the reason for the invitation; he’d wanted to be sure she would be there so he could plan exactly where and when to abduct her.
Not Simon Partridge, then. But Hassan. She realised that she wasn’t as surprised as she might have been. The voice was a much better fit.
But what did he want? Just because she’d read a few pages of The Sheik in an idle moment, that didn’t mean she subscribed to the fantasy. She didn’t think for a minute that he was about to carry her off into the desert for the purposes of ravishment. She was a journalist, and not given much to flights of fancy. And why would he bother when, with the click of his fingers, he could bring just about any woman he desired to his side?
‘Well?’ He was offering her a choice? Not much of one. She nodded, once, promising her silence.
‘Thank you.’ The formal courtesy was unmistakable. As if she had had any choice but surrender! But, as if to prove that he was a gentleman, Hassan immediately removed his hand from her mouth, set her feet to the ground, eased his grip on her. Maybe he was so used to obedience that it didn’t occur to him that she wouldn’t keep quiet, keep still. Or maybe it didn’t matter all that much. There was only Tim, after all, and with a sudden sense of dread she recalled the sudden silence.