The sheikh's chosen wife (20 page)

See, she told herself,
you can't resist him in Arab dress. It has nothing to do with what runs in the
blood. She even decided to tease him about it. 'If there is one thing I have learned
to understand since knowing you, it is why men prefer women in dresses."

'This is not a dress,' he
objected.

Getting up, she went to
stand in front of him and placed her palms flat against the wall of his chest
to feel warm skin, tight and smooth, and irresistible to seeking hands that
wanted to stroke a sensual pathway over muscled contours to his lean waist.

'I know what it is, my
darling,' she murmured seductively. 'It is a sinful temptation, and therefore
no wonder that you don't encourage physical contact between the sexes.'

His answering laugh was
low and deep, very much the sound of a man who was aware of his own power to
attract. 'Remind Samir of that, if you will,' he countered dryly. 'He is very
lucky I have not beaten him to a pulp by now for the liberties he takes with my
wife.'

But Samir, Leona
discovered as soon as they entered the main salon, was more interested in
extolling the liberties Hassan had taken with him. 'He cheats. He has no
honour. He went to Eton, for goodness' sake, where they turn desert savages
into gentlemen!'

'Oh...' Leona lifted her
head to mock her husband. 'So that's what it is I love most about you.'

'The gentleman?'

'The savage,' she softly
corrected.

He replied with a gentle
cuff to her chin. Everyone laughed. Everyone was happy. Zafina tried very hard
to hide her malicious glare.

They ate dinner beneath
the stars that night. Leona was surprised to see a bed of ice holding several
bottles of champagne waiting on a side table. Some of her guests drank
alcohol; some of them did not. Wine was the favoured choice for those who did
imbibe. But even when there had been cause to celebrate yesterday evening
champagne had not been served.

'What's going on?' she
asked Hassan as he saw her seated.

'Wait and see,' he
replied frustratingly, and walked away to take his own seat at the other end of
the table.

Ah, the last supper, she
thought then, with a pinch of acid wit. And, believing she had her answer, she
turned her attention to her meal, while Rafiq continued his opinions of men in
high positions who could lower themselves to cheat.

The first spoonful of
what was actually a delicious Arabian soup set Leona's stomach objecting.
'Never mind,' she said to soothe Samir's dramatically ruffled feathers as she
quietly laid aside her spoon. 'Tomorrow you and I will race on the jet-skis and
I promise that I, as an English gentlewoman, will not cheat.'

'Not on this trip, I am
afraid,' Hassan himself inserted smoothly. 'All water sports are now stopped
until we can replace the buoyancy aids with something more effective.'

Leona stared down the
table at him. 'Just like that?' she protested. 'I have an unfortunate and
one-in-a-million-chance accident and you put a stop on everyone else's fun?'

'You almost drowned. The
life jacket did not do what it is designed to do. A million-to-one chance of it
happening again makes the odds too great."

'That is the voice of the
master,' Samir noted.

'You heard it too, hmm?'
Leona replied.

'Most indubitably,'
Hassan agreed.

After that the
conversation moved on to other things. Soup dishes were removed and replaced
with a fish dish she didn't even attempt to taste. A richly sauced Arab dish
followed, with a side bowl each of soft and fluffy steamed white rice.

The rice she thought she
could just about manage to eat, Leona decided, listening intently to the story
Imran Al-Mukhtar was telling her as she transferred a couple of spoonfuls of
rice onto her plate then added a spoonful of sauce just for show.

One spoonful of soup, two
forkfuls of rice. No fish. No attempt to even accept a sample of the thick
honey pudding to conclude. Hassan watched it all, took grim note, glanced to
one side to catch Evie's eye. She sent him a look that said that she had
noticed too.

'The Sheikha Leona seems
a little...pale,' Zafina Al-Yasin, sitting to one side of him, quietly put in.
'Is she not feeling quite herself?'

'You think so?' he
returned with mild surprise. 'I think she looks exquisite. But then, I am
smitten,' he allowed. 'It makes a difference as to how you perceive someone,
don't you think?'

A steward came to stand
at his side then, thankfully relieving him from continuing such a discussion.

With a nod of
understanding he sent the steward hurrying over to the side table where he and
his assistants began deftly uncorking the bottles of champagne. Picking up a
spoon, he gave a couple of taps against a wine glass to capture everyone's
attention.

'My apologies for
interrupting your dinner,' he said, 'but in a few minutes our captain will
sound the yacht's siren. As you can see, the stewards are in the process of
setting a glass of champagne before each of you. It is not compulsory that you
actually drink it,' he assured with a grin for those who never imbibed no
matter what the occasion, 'but as a courtesy, in the time-honoured tradition
of any saibng vessel. I would be most honoured if you would stand and join me
by raising your glass in a toast. For we are about to cross the Tropic of
Cancer...'

With the perfect timing
of a man who was adept at such things, the siren gave three short sharp hoots
at the same moment that Hassan rose to his feet. On a ripple of surprise
everyone rose up also. Some drank, some didn't, but all raised their glasses.
Then there was a mass exodus to the yacht's rail, where everyone stood gazing
out into the inky dark Red Sea as if they expected to see some physical phenomenon
like a thick painted line to mark this special place.

Of course there was none.
It did not seem to matter. Moving to place his hands on the rail either side
of his wife, Hassan bent to place his lips to her petal-smooth cheek.

'See anything?' he
questioned teasingly.

'Oh, yes,' she replied.
'A signpost sticking out of the water. Did you miss it?"

His soft laugh was deep
and soft and seductive. As she tilted back to look at him the back of her head
met with his shoulder. She was smibng with her eyes. He wanted to drown in
them. Kiss me, they were saying. An Arab did not kiss in front of guests, so a
raised eyebrow ruefully refused the invitation. It was the witch in her that
punished him for that refusal when one of her hands sbd backwards and made a
sensual sweep of one of his thighs.

Sensation spat hot pricks
of awareness like needles deep into his flesh. She was right about the dishdasha,
he conceded, it had to be one of the ancient reasons why his culture frowned
upon close physical contact with the opposite sex whilst in the company of
others.

‘I will pay you back for
that later.' he warned darkly.

'I am most seriously
worried, my lord Sheikh,' she replied provokingly.

Then, in the way these
things shifted, the private moment was broken when someone spoke to him. He
straightened to answer Jibril Al-Mahmud who, since the meeting had spent every
minute he could possibly snatch trying to squeeze himself back into Hassan's good
graces. Leona took a sip at her champagne. That dreadful intruder, Samir,
claimed the rest of her attention. He was, Hassan recognised, just a little infatuated
with Leona, which offered another good reason why he would be happy when their
cruise ended tomorrow.

Jibril's timid little
wife came to join them. She smiled nervously at him and, because he felt rather
sorry for her, Hassan sent her a pleasant smile back, then politely asked about
her family. Raschid joined in. Evie and Imran went to join Leona and Samir.
Abdul and Zafina were the last to join his own group but at least they did it,
he acknowledged.

Tonight there was no
splitting of the sexes. No lingering at the table for the men. They simply
mingled, talked and lingered together. And, had it not been for one small but
important detail, Hassan would have declared the evening— if not the whole
cruise—a more than satisfactory success.

That small but important
detail was Leona. Relaxed though she might appear, content though she might
appear, he could see that the strain of the whole ordeal in general had begun
to paint soft bruises around her eyes. He didn't like to see them there, did
not like to notice that every so often the palm of her hand would go to rest
against the flat of her stomach, as if to soothe away an inner distress.

Nor had he forgotten that
she had barely eaten a morsel of food all day. He frowned down at his champagne
glass, still brimming with its contents. Tomorrow they reached Jeddah. Tomorrow
he would take her to visit a doctor, he decided grimly. If there was one rule
you were taught never to ignore when you lived in a hot country, it was the
rule about heeding any signs of illness. Maybe it was nothing.

Maybe it was all just
down to stress. But maybe she had picked up something in the water when she
fell in. Whatever—tomorrow he would make sure that they found out for definite.

It was a decision he
found himself firmly repeating when they eventually retired to their stateroom
and the first thing that Leona did was wilt.

'You are ill,' he said
grimly.

'Just tired,' she
insisted.

'Don't take me for a
fool, Leona,' he ground back. 'You do not eat. You are clearly in some sort of
discomfort. And you look ill.'

'All right.' She caved
in. 'So I think I have developed a stomach bug. If we have time when we reach
Jeddah tomorrow I will get something for it.'

'We will make time.'

'Fine.' She sighed.

He sighed. 'Here, let me
help you...' She even looked too weary to undress herself.

So he did it for
her—silently, soberly, a concentrated frown darkening his face. She smiled and
kissed him. It really was too irresistible to hold the gesture in check.
'Don't turn into a minx just because I am indulging you,' he scolded, and
parted the tunic, then let it slide to her feet.

'But I like it when you
indulge me,' she told him, her eyes lowered to watch him reach for the front
clasp holding the two smooth satin cups of her cream bra together. As the back
of his knuckles brushed against the tips of her breasts she drew back with a
sharp gasp.

'What?' he demanded.

'Sensitive.' She frowned.
He frowned. They both glanced down to see the tight distension of her nipples
standing pink and proud and wilfully erect. A small smug smile twitched at the
corner of his mouth. Leona actually blushed.

'I'll finish the rest for
myself,' she decided dryly.

'I think that would be
wise,' Hassan grinned, and pulled the dishdasha off over his head to show her
why he had said that.

'I don't know.' She was
almost embarrassed by how fiercely one responded to the closeness of the other.
'I'm supposed to be ill and tired and in need of much pampering.'

A set of warm brown
fingers gently stroked the flush blooming in her cheek. 'I know of many ways to
pamper,' he murmured sensually. 'Slow and gentle. Soft and sweet...'

His eyes glowed darkly
with all of those promises; hers grew darker on the willingness to accept. The
gap between them closed, warm flesh touched warm flesh, mouths came together on
a kiss. Then he showed her. Deep into the night he showed her a hundred ways to
pamper a woman until she eventually fell asleep in his arms and remained there
until morning came to wake them up.

At breakfast she actually
ate a half-slice of toast with marmalade and drank a full cup of very weak
tea—hopefully without giving away the fact that it was a struggle not to give
it all back up.

Little Hashim came to beg
to be allowed to sit on her lap. Leona placed him there and together they
enjoyed sharing the other half of her slice of toast, while Hassan looked on
with a glaze across his eyes and Evie posed a sombre question at her husband.
Raschid, with expressive eyes.

He got up and stepped
around the table to lay a hand on Hassan's shoulder. The muscles beneath it
were fraught with tension. 'I need a private word with you, Hassan,' he requested.
'If you have finished here?'

The same muscle flexed as
Hassan pulled his mind back from where it had gone off to. 'Of course,' he
said, and stood up. A moment later both men were walking away from the
breakfast table towards the stairs which would take them down to the deck below
and Hassan's private suite of offices.

Most watched them go.
Many wondered why Sheikh Raschid felt it necessary to take Sheikh Hassan to
one side. But none, friend nor foe—except for Evie, who kept her attention firmly
fixed on the small baby girl in her arms—came even close to guessing what was
about to be discussed.

By the time Raschid came
to search his wife out she was back in their suite. She glanced anxiously up at
him. Raschid lifted a rueful shoulder, 'Well, it is done,' he said. Though
neither of them looked as if the statement pleased them in any way.