The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus (9 page)

Her chaperone!

‘I am twenty-eight years old,’ she told him through gritted teeth. ‘I do not need a chaperone.’

‘You are a single woman living beneath the roof of a single man. There will already be those who will look askance at you having read that article.’

‘At me, but not, of course, at you!’

‘I am a man, so it is different,’ he told her with a dismissively arrogant shrug that made her grind her teeth in female outrage.

Mariella couldn’t wait to speak to her sister to tell her what had happened!

Right now, though, Mariella dared not take the risk of defying him! He could, after all, if he so wished, not merely put his threats into action, but also take Fleur from her here and now if he chose to do so!

* * *

I
T
TOOK
HER
less than half an hour to pack their things, a task she performed in seething silence whilst Xavier stood in front of the door, his arms folded across his chest, watching her with smoulderingly dangerous eyes.

When she had finished she went to pick Fleur up, but Xavier got there first.

Over Fleur’s downy head their gazes clashed and locked, Xavier’s a seething molten grey, Mariella’s a brilliantly glittering jade.

* * *

T
HE
LIMOUSINE
WAITING
for them was every bit as opulent looking as the one the prince had sent for her, although Mariella was surprised to discover that Xavier was driving it himself.

Somehow she had not associated him with a liking for such a luxurious showy vehicle. She had got the impression that his tastes were far, far more austere.

But, as she had discovered, beneath his outwardly cold self-control a molten, hot passion burned, which was all the more devastating for being so tightly chained.

It didn’t take them long to reach the villa, but this time the gates were opened as they approached them and they swept in, crunching over a gravel drive flanked by double rows of palm trees.

The villa itself was elegantly proportioned, its design restrained, and Moorish in inspiration, Mariella noticed with unwilling approval as she studied its simple lines with an artist’s eye.

A pair of wrought-iron gates gave way to a gravelled walled courtyard, ornamented with a large central stone fountain.

Stopping the car, Xavier got out and came to open her own door. A manservant appeared to deal with her luggage, and a shy young girl whom Xavier introduced to her as Hera, and who, he told her, would be Fleur’s nanny. Smiling reassuringly at the nanny he handed Fleur to her before Mariella could stop him.

She certainly held Fleur as though she knew what she was doing, Mariella recognised, but even so! A pang of loss tightened her body as she looked at Fleur being held in another woman’s arms.

‘Fleur doesn’t need a nanny,’ she told Xavier quickly. ‘I am perfectly capable of looking after her myself.’

‘Maybe so, but it is customary here for those who can afford to do so to provide the less well off amongst our people with work. Hera is the eldest child in her family, and her mother has recently been widowed. Are you really willing to deprive her of the opportunity to help to support her siblings, simply because you are afraid of allowing anyone else to become emotionally close to Fleur?’

As he spoke he was ushering her into the semi-darkness of the interior of the villa. Mariella was so shocked and unprepared for his unexpectedly astute comment that she stumbled slightly as her eyes adjusted to the abrupt change from brilliant sunlight to shadowy darkness.

Instantly Xavier reached for her, his hand gripping her waist as he steadied her. Her dizziness must be something to do with that abrupt switch from lightness to dark, Mariella told herself, and so too must her accompanying weakness, turning her into a quivering mass of over-sensitive nerve endings, each one of them reacting to the fact that Xavier was touching her. Confused blurred images filled her head: Xavier, naked as he swam, Xavier leaning over her as he held her down on the bed, Xavier kissing her until she ached for him so badly her need was a physical pain.

Her need? She did not need Xavier. She would never, never need him. Never... She managed to pull herself free of him, her eyes adjusting to the light enough for her to see the cold disapproval with which he was regarding her.

‘You must take more care. You are not used to our climate. By the end of this month the temperature will be reaching forty degrees Celsius, and you are very fair-skinned. You must be sure always to drink plenty of water, and that applies to Fleur as well.’

‘Thank you. I do know not to allow myself to get dehydrated,’ Mariella told him through gritted teeth. ‘I am a woman, not a child, and as such I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. After all, I’ve been doing it for long enough.’

The look he gave her made her feel as though someone had taken hold of her heart and flipped it over inside her chest.

‘Yes. It must have been hard for you to lose your mother and your stepfather having already lost your father at such a young age...’

‘Lost my father?’ Mariella gave him a bitter look. ‘I didn’t “lose” him. He abandoned my mother because he didn’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood. He was never any true father to me, but he broke my mother’s heart—’

‘My own parents died when I was in my early teens—a tragic accident—but I was lucky enough to have my grandmother to help me through it. However, as we both know, the realisation that one is without parents does tend to breed a certain...independence of spirit, a certain protective defensiveness.’ He was frowning, Mariella recognised, picking his words with care as though there was something he was trying to tell her. He broke off as Hera came into the reception hall carrying Fleur.

‘If you will go with Hera, she will show you to your quarters. My aunt should arrive shortly.’

He had turned on his heel and was striding away from her, his back ramrod straight in the cool whiteness of his robe, leaving her no alternative other than to follow the timidly smiling young maid.

The villa obviously stretched back from its frontage to a depth she had not suspected, Mariella acknowledged ten minutes later, when she had followed the maid through several enormous reception rooms and up a flight of stairs, and then along a cloistered walkway through which a deliciously cool breeze had flowed and from which she had been able to look down into a totally enclosed private courtyard, complete with a swimming pool.

‘This is the courtyard of Sheikh Xavier,’ Hera had whispered to her, shyly averting her gaze from it and looking nervous when Mariella had paused to study it.

‘Normally it is forbidden for us to be here, as the women of the household have their own private entrance to their quarters...’

‘Let me take Fleur,’ Mariella told her, firmly taking her niece back into her own arms and relishing the deliciously warm weight of her.

A door at the end of the corridor led to another cloistered walkway, this time with views over an immaculate rose garden.

‘This was the special garden of the sheikh’s grandparents. His grandmother was French and the roses were from France. She supervised their planting herself.’

For Mariella the rigid beds and the formality of the garden immediately summoned up a vivid impression of a woman who was very proud and correct, a true martinet. Her grandson obviously took after her!

The women’s quarters, when they finally got to them, proved to be far more appealing than Mariella had expected. Here again a cloistered walkway opened onto a private garden, but here the garden was softer, filled with sweet-smelling flowers and decorated with a pretty turreted summer house as well as the customary water features.

They comprised several lavishly furnished bedrooms, each with its own equally luxurious bathroom and dressing room, a dining room, and a salon— Mariella could think of no other word to describe the delicate and ornate antique French furniture and decor of the two rooms, which she suspected must have been designed and equipped for Xavier’s French grandmother.

On the bookshelves flanking the fireplace she could see leather-bound books bearing the names of some of France’s most famous writers.

‘The sheikh has said that you will wish to have the little one in a room next to your own,’ Hera was telling her softly. ‘He has made arrangements for everything that she will need to be delivered. I am not sure which room you will wish to use...’

Ignoring the temptation to tell her that she wished to use none of them, and that in fact what she wished to do was to leave the villa with Fleur right now—after all, none of this was Hera’s fault and it would be unfair of her to take out her own resentment on the maid—Mariella gave in to her gentle hint and quickly inspected each of the four bedrooms.

One of them, furnished in the same Louis Fifteenth antiques as the salon, had quite obviously been Xavier’s grandmother’s and she rejected it immediately. Of the three others, she automatically picked the plainest with its cool-toned walls and simple furniture. It had its own private access to the gardens with a small clear pool only a few feet away and a seat next to it from which to watch the soothing movement of the water.

‘This room?’

When Mariella nodded, Hera smiled.

‘The sheikh will be pleased. This was his mother’s room.’

Xavier’s mother’s room! It was too late for her to change her mind, Mariella recognised.

‘What...what nationality was she?’ she asked Hera, immediately wishing she had not done so.

‘She was a member of the tribe... The sheikh’s father met her when he was travelling with them and fell in love with her...’

Fleur was beginning to make hungry noises, reminding Mariella that it was her niece she should be thinking about and not Xavier’s family background.

CHAPTER EIGHT

M
ARIELLA
stared worriedly at her mobile phone. She had just tried for the fourth time since her arrival at the villa to make contact with Tanya, but her sister’s mobile was still switched onto messaging mode. She had left a message saying that she was staying at Xavier’s villa, and had asked Tanya to contact her at the villa or call her cell phone. Mariella realised to her consternation that it was days since she had actually spoken to Tanya. A little tingle of alarm began to feather down her spine. What if something had happened to her sister? What if she wasn’t well or had hurt herself. Or...

Quickly Mariella made up her mind. It took her quite some time to get the telephone number for the entertainments director of her sister’s cruise liner, but eventually she managed to get through.

‘I’m sorry, who is this speaking, please?’ The firm male voice on the other end of the line checked her when Mariella had asked for Tanya, explaining that she had been unable to make contact with her via her mobile.

‘I am Tanya’s sister,’ Mariella explained.

‘I see... Well, I have to inform you that Tanya has actually left the ship.’

‘Left the ship!’ Mariella repeated in disbelief. ‘But...where? Why...?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t give you any more details. All I can say is that Tanya left of her own accord and without giving us any prior warning.’

From the tone of his voice Mariella could tell that he wasn’t very pleased with her sister!

Thanking him for his help, she ended the call, turning to look at Fleur, who was fast asleep in her brand-new bed.

As Hera had already warned her, Xavier had instructed a local baby equipment store to provide a full nursery’s worth of brand new things, all of which Mariella had immediately realised were far, far more expensive and exclusive than anything she or Tanya could have afforded.

Tanya! Where was her sister? Why had she left the ship? And why, oh, why wasn’t she returning her calls?

It was imperative that she knew what was happening, and, for all her faults, her impulsiveness and hedonism, Tanya genuinely loved Fleur. It was unthinkable to Mariella that she should not make contact with her to check up on her baby.

In Tanya’s shoes there was no way she would not have been on the phone every hour of every day... No way she could ever have brought herself to be parted from her baby in the first place, Mariella recognised, but then poor Tanya had had no alternative! Tanya had been determined to pay her own way.

Emotionally, she stood over Fleur looking down at her whilst she slept. Increasingly she ached inside to have a child of her own. When she had made her original vow never to put herself in a position where she could be emotionally hurt by a man, she had not foreseen this kind of complication!

* * *

X
AVIER
FROWNED
AS
he paced the floor of his study. A flood of faxes cluttered his desk, all of them giving him the same information—namely that his cousin had not been seen in any of his usual favourite haunts! Where on earth was Khalid?

Xavier was becoming increasingly suspicious that his cousin had been deliberately vague about Fleur’s true paternity. Out of a desire to protect Fleur and her mother, or out of a desire to escape his responsibilities?

Surely Khalid knew him well enough to know that, even if he couldn’t approve of or accept Fleur’s mother, he would certainly have insisted that proper financial arrangements were made for her and Fleur, and if necessary by Xavier himself? Of course he did, which was no doubt why he had now written to Xavier informing him that he was Fleur’s father.

It irked him that he had been so dramatically wrong-footed in assuming that Mariella was Fleur’s mother. The security information the prince had revealed to him had made it brutally clear just how wrong he had been about her.

Here was a young woman who had shouldered the responsibility, not just of supporting herself, but of supporting her younger half-sister as well. Not a single shred of information to indicate that Mariella had led anything other than the most morally laudable life could be found! There were no unsavoury corpses mouldering away in the dusty corners of Mariella’s life; in fact, the truth was that there were not even any dusty corners! Everyone who had had dealings with her spoke of her in the most glowing and complimentary terms.

And yet somehow he, a man who prided himself on his astuteness and his ability to read a person’s true personality, had not been able to see any of this! True, she had deliberately deceived him, but...

But he had behaved towards her in a way that, had he heard about it coming from another man, he would have had no hesitation in immediately denouncing and condemning him!

There were no excuses he could accept from himself! Not even the increasingly insubstantial one of wanting to protect Khalid.

Wasn’t it after all true that the last thing, the last person who had been in his thoughts when he had taken Mariella to bed had been his cousin? Wasn’t it also true that he had been driven, possessed...consumed by his own personal physical desire?

He could find no logical excuse or explanation for what he had done. Other than to tell himself that he had been driven by desert madness, and he felt riddled with guilt, especially for the way he had coerced her into staying with him at his villa. He would of course have to apologise formally to Mariella!

A woman who already had proved how strong her sense of duty and responsibility was. A woman with whom a man could know that the children he gave her would be loved and treasured...

He had sworn not to marry, rather than risk the hazards of a marriage that might go wrong, he reminded himself austerely.

Surely, though, it was better to offer Mariella the protection of his name in marriage rather than risk any potential damage to her reputation through gossip?

He had already provided her with sufficient protection in the form of his great-aunt as a chaperone, he reminded himself grimly. If he continued to think as he was doing right now, he might begin to suspect that he actually wanted to marry her! That he actually wanted to take her back into his bed and complete what they had already begun.

Angrily he swung round as the sudden chatter of the fax machine broke into his far too sensually charged thoughts.

* * *

‘S
O
,
HERE
WE
are, then. Xavier has summoned me to be your chaperone, and I am to accompany you to the palace whilst you paint pictures for His Highness,
non?
’

‘Well, not exactly,’ Mariella responded wryly. It was impossible for her not to like the vivacious elderly Frenchwoman who was Xavier’s great-aunt and who had arrived half an hour earlier, complete with an enormous pile of luggage and her own formidable looking maid.

‘I am not actually working at the palace, but at the new enclosure at the racecourse, and, to be honest, I don’t agree with Xavier—’

‘Agree? But I am afraid that here in Zuran we have to comply with the laws of the land,
chérie,
both actual and moral.’ Rolling her eyes dramatically, she continued, ‘I know how difficult I found it when I first came to live here. My sister was already married to Xavier’s grandfather for several years by then. She was older than me by well over a decade. Since the death of my husband, I live both in Paris and here in Zuran. The child I understand is Khalid’s?’ she commented, with a disconcerting change of subject. ‘He is a charming young man, but unfortunately very weak! He is fortunate that Xavier is so indulgent towards him, but you probably know Xavier does not intend to marry and he intended for Khalid’s son to ultimately take over his responsibilities! It is such foolishness...’

‘Xavier does not intend to marry?’ Mariella questioned her.

‘So he claims. The death of his own parents affected him very seriously. He was at a most impressionable age when they perished and of course my sister, his grandmother, was very much a matriarch of the old school. She was determined that he would be brought up to know his responsibilities towards his people and to fulfil them. Now Xavier believes that their needs are more important than his own and that he cannot therefore risk marrying a woman who would not understand and accept his duty and the importance of his role. Such nonsense, but then that is men for you! They like to believe that we are the weaker sex, but we of course know that it is we who are the strong ones!

‘You have great strength, I can see that! You will miss the child when you eventually have to hand her back to her mother,’ she added shrewdly.

The speed of her conversation, along with the speed of her perceptiveness, was leaving Mariella feeling slightly dizzy.

‘I see that you have chosen not to occupy my late sister’s room. Extremely wise of you if I may say so...I could never understand why she insisted on attempting to recreate our parents’ Avenue Foche apartment here! But then that was Sophia for you! As an eldest child she was extremely strong-willed, whilst I...’ she paused to dimple a rueful smile at Mariella ‘...am the youngest, and, according to her at least, was extremely spoiled!

‘You would not have liked her,’ she pronounced, shocking Mariella a little with her outspokenness. ‘She would have taken one look at you and immediately started to make plans to make you Xavier’s wife. You do not believe me? I assure you that it is true. She would have seen immediately how perfect you would be for him!’

Her, perfect for Xavier? Fiercely squashing the treacherous little sensation tingling through her, Mariella told her quickly, ‘I have no intention of ever getting married.’

‘You see? Already it is clear just how much you and Xavier have in common! However, I am not my sister. I do not interfere in other people’s lives or try to arrange them for them!
Non!
But tell me why is it that you have made up your mind not to marry? In Xavier’s case it is plain that it is because of the fear instilled in him by my sister that he will not find a woman to love who will share his dedication to his commitment to preserve the traditional way of life of the tribe. Such nonsense! But Sophia herself is very much to blame. When he was a young and impressionable young man she sent Xavier to France in the hope that he would find a bride amongst the daughters of our own circle. But these girls cannot breathe any air other than that of Paris. The very thought of them doing as Xavier has done every year of his life and travelling through the desert with those members of the tribe who had chosen to adhere to the old way of life would be intolerable to them!

‘Xavier needs a wife who will embrace and love the ways of his people with the same passion with which he does himself. A woman who will embrace and love him with even more passion, for, as I am sure you will already know, Xavier is an extremely passionate man.’

Mariella gave her a wary look. What was his great-aunt trying to imply? However, when she looked at her face her expression was rosily innocent and open.

Madame Flavel’s comments were, though, arousing both her interest and her curiosity.

Hesitantly she told her, ‘You have mentioned the tribe and Xavier’s commitment to it, but I do not really know just what...’

‘
Non?
It is quite simple really. The tribe into which Xavier’s ancestor originally married is unique in its way of life, and it was the life’s work of Xavier’s grandfather, and would have been of his father had he not died, to preserve the tribe’s traditional nomadic existence, but at the same time encourage those members of it who wished to do so to integrate into modern society. To that end, every child born into the tribe has the right to receive a proper education and to follow the career path of their choice, but at the same time each and every member of the tribe must spend some small part of every year travelling the traditional nomadic routes in the traditional way. Some members of the tribe elect to live permanently in such a fashion, and they are highly revered by every other member of the tribe, even those who, as many have, have reached the very peak of their chosen career elsewhere in the world. Within the tribe recognition and admiration are won, not through material or professional attainment, but through preservation of the old ways and traditions.

‘Xavier’s role as head of the tribe means, though, that he has a dual role to fulfil. He must ensure that he has the business expertise to see that the money left by his grandfather generates sufficient future income to provide financially for the tribe, and yet at the same time he must be able to hold the respect of the tribe by leading it in its ancient traditional ways. Xavier has known all his life that he must fulfil both those roles and he does so willingly, I know, but nevertheless it will be a very lonely path he has chosen to follow unless he does find a woman who can understand and share his life with him.’

Mariella had fallen silent as she listened. There was a poignancy about what she was hearing that was touching very deep emotional chords within. The Xavier his great-aunt was describing to her was a man of deep and profound feelings and beliefs, a man who, in other circumstances, she herself could respect and admire.

* * *

‘M
ADAME
, I
ASSURE
you there is really no need for you to remain here with me,’ Mariella told her chaperone firmly as she studied the long corridor that was to be her canvas.

Fleur was lying in her pram playing with her toes and Mariella had pinned up in front of her, on the easel she had brought with her, the photographs she had taken of the prince’s horses.

‘It is for this purpose that Xavier has summoned me to his home,’ Madame Flavel reminded her.

‘You will be bored sitting here watching me work,’ Mariella protested.

‘I am never bored. I have my tapestry and my newspaper, and in due course Ali will return to drive us back to the villa for a small repast and an afternoon nap.’

There was no way she intended to indulge in afternoon naps, Mariella decided silently as she picked up her charcoals and started to work.