Master of the Desert (11 page)

S
O NEITHER
of them had slept, Ra’id noted, carrying the image of Antonia’s unusually pale face with him into his private quarters. There had been dark circles under her eyes and her face had been tense. Had she finally accepted there was no point in her staying on in Sinnebar? Would she return home without a fuss? And, if she did, how would that make him feel?

He showered fast before dressing in workmanlike robes, prior to striding at a brisk pace to the breakfast room where he had arranged to meet her. She was standing by the buffet table dressed in a safari suit, seeming uncertain while a manservant was doing his job well, trying to tempt her with morsels of food from the wide selection.

Everyone stood and bowed to him. Antonia looked troubled when she turned. ‘Ra’id,’ she said, causing a murmur of surprise by using his first name.

No one addressed him that way. In time he might have forgotten what his first name was, if it weren’t for Antonia and his brother, he reflected wryly.

Desire for her swept over him as their gazes met and
held. But he had closed his heart to her, he reminded himself sternly, to protect her from a ruthless king.

‘You had a good night, I trust?’ he said, taking the plate out of her hands and choosing some delicacies for her himself.

‘No. Did you?’

Would he ever get used to her bluntness? He saw hurt and disappointment mixed with the defiance in her eyes. She had expected him to come to her, he realised. However deep the rift between them, she thought they could get over it and pick up where they had left off. ‘I rode out,’ he said briskly. ‘Is there anything else you want from here?’ He scanned the buffet.

‘No, thank you. Did you ride all night?’ she asked innocently. ‘Did you have things on your mind, Ra’id?’ The look she gave him was fast and accusatory.

‘No. Should I?’

She raised a faint smile. ‘I guess not.’

Now her cheeks were flushed and her breath was coming faster, as if her heart couldn’t keep pace with her emotions. He turned away, effectively dismissing her, but he carried with him her fresh, clean scent and innocent appearance. That and the appeal in her eyes had almost melted him, he realised, but thankfully he was ruled by his head and not his heart, so it was easy for him to walk away.

He had almost reached the door when he realised she was at his elbow. He glanced down. ‘Yes?’

‘I can’t wait to see the citadel,’ she said, as if this was a holiday for her and he was her tour guide.

He made a brief hum of acknowledgement, before sweeping on his way.

‘What about your breakfast?’ she demanded catching hold of his sleeve.

He looked down at her incredulously, ignoring the collective gasp.

She seemed unaware of it. ‘Aren’t you going to eat anything, Ra’id?’

His look hardened. ‘I have more important things on my mind.’

‘So you don’t feel like eating either?’ she said, actually tightening her fingers on his sleeve so the fabric was crushed.

‘On the contrary—but I will eat in private.’ He shook her off.

‘Of course. I forgot,’ she snapped. ‘In your ivory tower.’

‘Will you excuse me?’ he murmured, ignoring the barb. Whether she would or not, he was going to the stables to make sure their horses were ready for them to leave at once.

She shouldn’t have annoyed him. She ate breakfast, if only for the baby’s sake, and returned to her room to get ready to leave. If Ra’id took her to see the citadel, which was by no means certain now, it would be no magnanimous concession on his part, but another opportunity to rub her nose in the fact that her dream of a fun-filled castle to be used to such good effect by the charity was a naive and frivolous plan. One which without Ra’id’s water supply would fail utterly.

But she was going to call Ra’id’s bluff. She refused to be put off by his threatening manner. She would go into the desert. Whatever it took she would find the water she needed somewhere, and then she would renovate the ancient building and make it live again.

The opportunity to tell Ra’id about their baby seemed
further away than ever, Antonia reflected anxiously, but she wouldn’t get a chance to tell him unless she stayed close to him. She had to keep with her original plan to visit the citadel with Ra’id. How could she not when there was still this huge and pressing secret between them?

He watched Antonia stride across the stable yard in a blaze of purpose. She had put on a little weight, he noticed, and it suited her. She was glowing with health, in fact. Her hair in particular seemed to gleam more than it ever had, though she had made an attempt to tame the abundant locks in a severe chignon which did her no favours. The hairstyle was the one jarring note in her appearance—that and the look in her eyes.

So this was war, he thought with a mixture of anticipation and amusement. Excellent. Let battle commence.

‘Are you ready to go?’ she said, eyeing the quiet gelding he had chosen for her before raising an eyebrow when she viewed his stamping monster of a stallion.

He almost had to curb a smile at the sight of the girl he recognised even without a knife in her hand. This was Antonia white-lipped with determination, and even the kind gelding he had selected for her was hanging its head uncertainly, as if it sensed trouble approaching its back.

He soothed it with a gentle touch as she mounted up, and then said, ‘Ready?’

Her gaze was like a lick of flame that wavered when he held it. Travelling into the desert with him wasn’t so appealing, suddenly, he guessed.
On my own?
he imagined her thinking.
With you? Without anyone to take my part?

‘You have a hat, I hope?’ he said. ‘The sun is hot. You may have noticed?’

She crammed on the totally unsuitable headgear she had been holding crushed in her hand.

‘That hat isn’t suitable for the desert,’ he pointed out.

‘Well, it’s what I’m wearing.’ She gave the brim a defiant tug.

‘You’ll need this.’

She huffed contemptuously at the scarf he was holding out for her to wind about her face and head. ‘Keep it!’ she exclaimed, as if accepting anything from him was the first step on the road to damnation. ‘I’m just fine as I am,’ she assured him, wheeling her horse around.

One hour and a sandstorm later, she was begging him for the Arabian headgear.

‘I suppose you think this is funny?’ she demanded as he sipped cold, clean water from a ladle offered to him by the Bedouin who had set up temporary camp around a well of clean drinking-water.

‘Not at all.’ Having unwound the yards of fabric he wore to protect his head, neck and face, he was largely untroubled by grit and sand, while Antonia looked more like a sand sculpture, with her red-rimmed eyes the only sign that she was human. ‘I have a solution for you.’ He smiled.

‘You do?’ She glanced towards the stallion, where his saddlebags full of the supplies he considered necessary were hanging.

‘Certainly,’ he said, tipping the bucket of water over her head. ‘That should clean you up a bit—and cool you down.’

Spluttering, she swore at him. ‘Why, you—’

‘Brute?’ he supplied mildly, already on his way to retrieve the spare
howlis
he’d brought for her to wear.

By the time he had returned, the laughing women of the camp had helped Antonia to wash her hair, and were hustling her away between them, no doubt to find her something more suitable for the desert than her Hollywood gear. Bedouin were kind that way, he reflected; infinitely generous.

He waited with mounting impatience as the minutes ticked by, chatting with the men whilst keeping an eye on the women’s tent where they had taken her. He wouldn’t put it past Antonia to steal a camel and make a break for it—and this time when she left the country he wanted to be sure it was for good.

But as he held that thought Antonia just ducked her head to leave the tent, and now was coming towards him with her head held high and that seemingly irrepressible look of determination and challenge locked in her eyes. She was wearing a serviceable but undeniably sexy outfit. The Bedouin women knew a thing or two about such things. It comprised a robe and a headdress that both protected her and—regrettably, as far as he was concerned—made her seem only too well suited to the hostile environment. She didn’t belong here, and in his opinion the sooner Antonia realised that, the better.

‘Ready?’ she said, taking her revenge cold as she sprang into the saddle of the gelding he was holding for her.

‘Ready,’ he confirmed, handing her the reins.

Far from buckling and demanding a helicopter out of what had to be both an alien and terrifying terrain for her, Antonia had adapted and was still intent on going forward.
So be it. He was equally determined that this would be Antonia’s first and last taste of the desert adventure she so foolishly craved.

At least she was clean. The women had allowed her to use their private bath-house, which was basically a tent they had erected over the stream that bubbled up to the surface from some underground keep far below the surface. But never had a bathroom seemed more luxurious to her, or people more friendly and fun as they poured buckets of cold water over her.

It was the first time she had been able to relax in a long time, Antonia felt. The women had made that possible for her with their lighthearted banter and teasing looks through the tent flap, at Ra’id and then at her. She had tried to mime that he was way too important for her, and that anyway she wasn’t interested, but they just laughed at her. And after an hour of constant teasing she found her hunger for Ra’id had only increased.

Black-hearted Ra’id, as she was determined to think of him, was already mounted when she stepped outside the tent. He was holding the reins of her horse with his gaze inscrutable behind the folds of his dark and forbidding headgear. Thankfully, the women had arranged her own scarf so that, just like Ra’id, only her eyes were showing—which meant he couldn’t see her blazing cheeks, or the way her lips had swollen with desire for him. Perfect. She angled her head to give him a glare. She wanted to be sure he could see her resolve, and that she would go on with this without allowing any personal considerations to get in her way.

The fact that she was terrified—of Ra’id, of the desert,
of the safety of their unborn child—was something she, like countless women before her, would simply have to take in her stride. There was a job to be done, and only unflinching determination was going to get her through it.

Antonia’s heart sank as their horses slowed to a trot outside the crumbling walls of the ancient citadel. This was not what she had expected at all. Instead of a fine fort sitting foursquare in the desert, the fortress she had inherited from her mother was a sad, run-down place with doors hanging off the hinges and windows boarded up. ‘No wonder you wanted me to see it,’ she said to Ra’id brightly, determined he wouldn’t see her alarm. ‘It’s a blank canvas, isn’t it?’ she said, making the derelict wreck sound like the most desirable real-estate on the face of the earth.

‘It’s a blank something,’ he agreed.

It was just a pity her horizons had been stretched somewhat since arriving in Sinnebar so that now they encompassed doors formed from solid gold, decorated with gem-studded handles. And windows—always made of crystal glass.

She smiled to herself at the irony of it all and was glad of something to cheer her up as she stared at the dried-out skeleton of a once-majestic home. Shielding her eyes against the glare of a sky bleached white by the sun, she tried to sum up her decrepit inheritance. ‘A heap of stones’ was a generous description. ‘Is it safe to go inside?’ she asked Ra’id, who had reined in beside her.

‘I’ll take a look.’

Before she could stop him he had urged his stallion into a brisk canter and was almost instantly swallowed up inside the walls.

Sitting alone on a fidgeting horse, breathing air that was heavy and still, was an unnerving experience. The heat was like a smothering cloth that choked off the last of her optimism, and the silence was overwhelming. There was no birdsong here, no leaves rustling, no sound at all.

Patting her horse, she rested her cheek against the firm, warm neck for comfort. She had never felt the need of a friend more. Had her mother felt like this? Antonia wondered, imagining Helena’s feelings on being moved from one palace to the next by her disenchanted lover. This ancient fortress must have come as quite a shock after the opulent palace in the city. Her gaze swept the pitted stone, lingering on the mean little windows. How oppressive a building could seem, she reflected, remembering Ra’id explaining on the ride that the old fort had originally been built as a defensive outpost to guard the nearby water-supply—water that would now be held from her at Ra’id’s whim.

She was beginning to hate it here, Antonia realised as the minutes ticked by. The ancient citadel was like nothing she had imagined, and had nothing to offer other than a home to desert rats and scorpions. It was ugly, and it stood in lonely isolation in the fire-pit of the world. She must have been mad to think she could restore it. Surely no human being could bear to live in a place that was so remote and hostile? It was sheer vanity on Antonia’s part to think she could wave a magic wand and transform this tumbling ruin into a welcome retreat for hard-pressed parents and their children. That was definitely a fantasy too far.

And where was Ra’id? She was growing increasingly anxious about him. Old buildings could be dangerous, and he had been gone a long while…

Antonia’s imagination started running riot. If Ra’id came to harm because of her, she would never forgive herself—and how would she help him here? The sooner they left the better, she concluded, regretting her earlier optimism.

She exclaimed with relief as he rode into view.

‘It’s safe to come in,’ he said, reining in his prancing stallion. ‘Antonia?’ he pressed when she hesitated. ‘Have you changed your mind? I thought you were on fire to see this?’

When she saw the glint in Ra’id’s eyes and realised this was a test, and that he expected her to turn tail and run back to the city as fast as she could, she said, ‘I am keen.’ And picked up the reins.