Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ in so doing she had betrayed him. Surely Khalim could see that? ‘Perhaps.’

      ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ persisted Khalim softly. ‘I asked you whether it was serious.’

      Darian gave a lazy non-committal smile. ‘I don’t do serious,’ he said truthfully.

      Through the light mists of her snatched cat-nap, Darian’s words came drifting into her subconscious, and as she allowed them to register Lara was filled with a sick, cold feeling. Had he said that deliberately—hoping that she would hear, and hear very clearly in just which category he had placed her? And wasn’t it better to know, to hear the truth that she had instinctively guessed at spoken out loud?

      She pretended to sleep, but in reality she was listening to their conversation. Darian did not come out with any more comments like the preceding one. Instead, he asked Khalim questions about Maraban, and Khalim began describing the history and the culture of his people, his rich voice softening with innate pride. Now and then Darian prompted him with an insightful question, and once he made Khalim laugh. Lara didn’t know why this should surprise her so much, but it did.

      Until she reminded herself that Khalim was intimate with few; his position as leader isolated him from confidences and shared jokes.

      After a while she made a great show of stirring, and when she opened her eyes it was to find that unforgiving gold stare trained on her. She found herself in the infuriating position of half wanting to go over and slap him and half wanting him to come over and kiss her.

      Just reaction, she told herself. He could not be faulted as a lover, and her body was simply reminding her of that—it didn’t mean she had to act on it. She yawned, and the two men turned towards her, but all Lara could see was that burning golden gaze.

      Khalim smiled. ‘You are rested now, Lara?’

      ‘Thank you. Yes.’

      ‘You will have some refreshment? You have eaten nothing.’

      Lara shook her head. ‘Thank you, Khalim, but, no. I am not hungry.’ She glanced down at her watch. Not long to go now. ‘When do we land at Dar-gar?’

      Khalim hesitated. ‘We are not going to Dar-gar.’

      Lara frowned. ‘Oh?’

      ‘I am flying us to the western province instead,’ he said smoothly. ‘To Suhayb.’ He saw her look of consternation and his voice softened. ‘Rose is pregnant, as you know,’ he explained gently. ‘And such an unresolved development as this would merely trouble her. I am needed in Suhayb, and it is as good a place as any in Maraban for Darian to see a little of how we live.’

      Lara nodded. She had heard of Suhayb, of course, which was Maraban’s second city. Rose often wrote long and chatty letters about the country so that Lara felt she knew it well. She was aware that a second palace was sited there, and that the region was fringed by beautiful mountains from which crystal streams flowed to bring life to the parched earth.

      ‘Sounds wonderful,’ she said.

      As if this was some kind of damned holiday she had booked, thought Darian furiously—until he was forced to remember that she was here solely at his behest! But then the engines of the plane changed sound, giving the signal that they were about to land, and he leaned over to look out of the window, his heart beating with an odd kind of excitement as he stared down into Maraban.

      Beneath he could see mountains, snow-capped and gleaming in the late-afternoon sun, so that they looked as if they were lit from within by a copper-red flame. As the plane descended he could see the silver glint of water. His first impression was a land of light and fire. It looked, he thought, like a picture from a child’s book.

      A child’s book. Like the kind he had chosen to escape into, to blot out some of the harsh reality of his upbringing. His mouth hardened as the plane touched down. How different his life would have been if his father had stood by his mother!

      Lara stood up and saw his face, and suddenly and inexplicably she felt nervous.

      ‘The cars are waiting on the runway,’ said Khalim. ‘They will drive us to the palace.’

      CHAPTER TEN

      THE palace at Suhayb stood in an oasis of green as verdant and as manicured as the garden of a large English country house. Bright flowers, mainly roses, mingled in riotous and scented glory, and in the centre of a large square space of water a fountain sprinkled, catching the light in rainbow rays, the sound soft and soothing against the occasional cry of some unseen and unknown bird.

      The palace itself was fashioned from mosaic in every shade of blue imaginable—from pale sky to deep ocean and a hundred shades in between—and Darian was reminded with an unwelcome pang of how the blueness of Lara’s eyes had impressed itself on him the very first time he had seen her.

      Damn! He didn’t want to remember that—he didn’t want to remember anything other than the way she had deceived him.

      But as Lara gazed in wonder at the palace all she saw was the gold, which picked out the varying shades of blue, as deep and as rich a gold as the eyes of the man who walked slightly ahead of her beside Khalim, their voices speaking in a low tone, so that she didn’t have a clue what they were saying.

      Khalim turned, the dying embers of the sun beating down on his head, and Darian turned also, in a disturbing mirror image of the Sheikh. Despite the cool linen trousers he wore, and the fine shirt which hinted at the lean, muscular torso beneath, he looked…

      Lara swallowed.

      He looked as if he belonged here—and she didn’t, she thought, with a slight touch of hysteria. But wasn’t that what he was intending her to feel? With that stern and icy demeanour and the cold look of distaste? Didn’t he want to make her feel an outsider? To marginalise and isolate her? And you would not need to be a genius to work out why he should wish to do that…

      A veiled female servant stepped silently out from the shadows of the magnificent entrance hall and Khalim smiled.

      ‘Latifah will show you to your room, Lara,’ he said. ‘And Darian will accompany me. You will find there all you need, and later someone will come to collect you for dinner. Is that to your satisfaction?’

      What could she say? That she felt as though she was being edged aside, cast in a secondary role by these two powerful blood-brothers? And wasn’t it ever thus in Maraban? The men ruled and dominated—certainly in the external world, outside their homes.

      Rose at least had the protection of being married, surrounded by the invisible aura which was part and parcel of being loved so fiercely by the Sheikh.

      But what was Lara? A second-class citizen who could not even draw comfort from speaking to her friend, pregnant and far away in the capital of Dar-gar. Commanded here by Darian and not knowing his motives—though having a pretty good idea, she thought, with a sudden leap of her heart.

      She smiled at Khalim, determined that neither man should see her spirits flagging. She was tired; that was all.

      ‘That sounds perfect,’ she said softly. ‘I will see you later at dinner.’ And she inclined her head very slightly towards the Sheikh.

      Latifah led the way through a СКАЧАТЬ