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He swept a cavalier’s bow with an imaginary hat. ‘I wouldn’t be hampered.’ His brown eyes roamed appreciatively over her beautiful, laughing face and he sighed. ‘You’re right—I’m a hopeless flirt. I can’t help it. You are much too distracting, Polly. But there are times when distractions are welcome.’ He stared moodily out at Raschid cantering through the gates. ‘He is a very tough act to follow.’
‘Are you in competition?’
He didn’t look at her. ‘When Raschid was a boy, he trained his own falcon. For three months it went everywhere with him until it was tamed. He didn’t mind getting clawed in the process. Our father was very proud of him. In his eyes that’s the sort of behaviour that separates the men from the boys. I’ve still to make the grade, and the most hellish side of it is that you can’t dislike Raschid for it.’ He turned back to her with a rueful smile. ‘For his family, even his unworthy brother, there is no sacrifice he would not make.’ He evaded her gaze and sounded a rather strained laugh. ‘But when the competition gets too much I can always think of the jeans.’
‘The what?’
He pulled open the door, slim and elegant in his tailored riding gear. ‘It is what you call an “in” joke, Polly,’ he divulged, having recovered his natural buoyancy.
Unable to see anything humorous in Raschid choosing to relax in less formal clothing, Polly soon cast the trivial remark from her mind. Asif’s undeniable uneasiness with her for several uncomfortable seconds had concerned her more. Was he afraid that Chassa had made indiscreet confidences? He should know his wife better. Chassa was too loyal to spill the secrets of their marriage.
Returning upstairs, she wandered into Raschid’s study. It was really a library, shelved from floor to ceiling with books in several languages. She ran a thoughtful fingertip along the spines of a collection of poetry books. Berah’s? Frowning, she passed on, surveying the dull appointments of the cheerless room. Apart from the telephones and the computer it was as early medieval as the rest of the place. Only the bathrooms and the kitchen quarters had been modernised—quite the opposite of Asif and Chassa’s wing, which was full of designer furniture and pale, pearlised carpets. Then it was a challenge to picture Raschid against a similar backdrop.
Her hand trailed idly over the back of the chair by the desk. Did he ever think about the woman inside her pleasing shell? Her pride, her emotions, her needs? How were they to live together? How did you begin when the end was already within view? But she had begun. Why did she continue to deny the obvious? She was drowning in a physical infatuation that was terrifyingly intense. Of course she didn’t know herself any more. Raschid walked into a room and there wasn’t a skin cell in her body which didn’t leap to that awareness. She had fought him less than she had fought herself.
Feed a cold, starve a fever; the old saying sang in her head. Could she equate a fever with an obsession? Raschid was fast becoming one. He might infuriate her, he might confound her understanding and he might sting her pride, but at no stage did he do less than fascinate her. She was on the edge of a precipice and the ground was suddenly crumbling from beneath her feet. She didn’t want to be starved of him. She was already wondering how long they would have together before his next trip abroad. And if she fell in love with him, what then? Irritably she quelled that foolish worry. The more she looked back at the amount of time she had wasted mooning about over Chris, the more her stomach curdled. Her intelligence was now in firm control of her imagination and her emotions. She was not, she told herself thankfully, likely to be vulnerable in the same direction again.
‘You would like tea, lellah?’
Zenobia smiled at her from the doorway. Reddening, Polly set down the gold pen she had absently lifted, studying it, questioning how it had got into her hand. ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ she said vaguely.
She kept her nose in a newspaper over breakfast. Raschid fingered through his mail and watched her in exasperation. After they had eaten, an air-conditioned limousine ferried them away from the palace at speed. They travelled along a wide thoroughfare banked by young trees being industriously watered. Taking in the size of an impressive building near completion, Polly asked what it was.
‘A second hospital. It is due to open in a few weeks.’
‘I’d love to see it.’ Her mouth compressed. ‘But I suppose that would be out of order. It wouldn’t do for anybody to hint that you had a wife animated by intelligence.’
‘I am not sure that it is intelligence that is animating you at this moment. I will see what I can arrange.’
As they topped the brow on a rolling hill, Jumani spread out before them. The glass of tall office blocks reflected the cloud formations. As they drove through the city her bad humour melted away as her attention roamed in eager darts. Modern skyscrapers vied with wedding-cake mosques and graceful minarets. Green expanses of parkland gleamed at intervals between the buildings. The pavements were busy and the inviting window displays she glimpsed as they sped past belonged to retail outlets that were many and varied.
‘How does civilisation look now that you have got over the wall?’ Raschid enquired silkily.
‘It’s lovely. Is that a shopping centre?’ she exclaimed.
His eyes gleamed. ‘Yes, Polly. Jumani has several.’
It happened slowly. He began to smile, and it was like no smile he had ever given her before. Like the sun after the rain, it was brilliant and warm.
A herd of dinosaurs could have been running amok in the city traffic—Polly would not have noticed. That smile that was neither cynical nor merely polite passed through her with the paralysing force of an electric current.
The day was an entertaining whirl. She enjoyed the tour of the warehouses and the excessive attention they received. She found herself laughing a lot, relaxing as she had never relaxed before in Raschid’s company. They had lunch in a private room in a luxury hotel in the city centre; men didn’t take their wives into public dining-rooms in Dharein. Raschid was not entirely at ease during the meal while the manager and waiters swarmed about them. Polly suspected he was breaking new ground. And deep in her tangled thoughts she was vaguely conscious that she would do almost anything to waken that charismatic smile again.
That evening they had barely finished dinner when Raschid’s secretary, Medir, made an apologetic intrusion to mention an important phone call. Restive on her own and pleasantly relaxed, Polly decided to go for a walk in the palace gardens. In the shelter of the steep walls pepper and tamarind trees shaded fragrant oleanders with heavy pink blooms that scented the night stillness. Strolling back, she was in a brown study, and she gasped in dismay when a dark shadow moved into her path.
‘Good heavens!’ Clasping a helpless hand to her palpitating heart, she stared accusingly up at Raschid. ‘Could you make a little more noise? You scared me—I thought I was alone out here.’
His mouth slanted. ‘You are far from alone. Seif and Raoul have not been more than a few steps from you since you came outside.’
Dazedly she followed the direction of his hand and registered two more shadows over by the wall. Raschid’s bodyguards.
‘I am sorry if I startled you, but then you are not very observant.’ His manner was teasing.
‘What were they doing following me?’
‘They are there for your protection.’
Before she could drily enquire if walls half-way to heaven were not protection enough, the unmistakable sound of voices raised in argument filtered down from the balcony above them. Polly recognised Asif’s voice immediately.
‘I believe we should go back inside,’ Raschid drawled.
‘All couples argue,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘Few as much as they do.’ It was grim.
Polly frowned. ‘Well, I hope you’re not blaming her. She’s very easygoing.’
‘You don’t understand the situation.’
‘Educate me, then.’ A silence that was deeply mortifying stretched in answer to her request.
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