Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ me beaten already, she thought. Certainly my resolve not to fall in love with him.

      ‘You are in love with him?’ probed Khalim quietly, uncannily seeming to echo her thoughts. But then, he was a very perceptive man. He watched and he observed and he allowed instinct to guide him.

      ‘Khalim!’ She turned to him, knowing that her cheeks had grown pink. ‘You can’t possibly ask me a question like that.’

      ‘I can ask anything I like—for I am the Sheikh!’ he teased, but then his eyes unexpectedly softened. ‘I think that you are, Lara. It is there for all to read when you are watching him and he cannot see you.’

      ‘And Darian?’ she questioned, her heart pounding, afraid of what she might hear. ‘What do you see when he watches me?’

      ‘I see a wary man,’ said Khalim truthfully. ‘He looks at you as I would a spirited horse who was perplexing me!’

      Which was an ironic comparison when she stopped to think about it. ‘Did he…did he say anything to you of what went on between us…before we arrived here?’

      Khalim shook his head. ‘He is a man who keeps his own counsel. He told me nothing, though some of it I have guessed.’ He smiled. ‘Do not worry yourself, Lara—these things have a habit of working out in the way that fate intends them to. Give it time.’

      But it was borrowed time, and she did not know how long it would last. How long before this suspended state would be broken into by the demands of real living?

      And then her question was answered. She saw the end in sight and a slow, waking dread came to life inside her.

      They were waiting in the dining room when Khalim swept in. Only for once he did not dismiss the retinue which always accompanied him. His face was unusually stern, and Lara saw Darian’s eyes narrow, as if he sensed that something was wrong.

      ‘I must go to Dar-gar,’ Khalim said immediately.

      ‘Is it Rose?’ questioned Lara at once. ‘Is the baby all right?’

      Khalim shook his head. ‘Rose is fine and so is the baby,’ he said gently. ‘Though I have been away from her too long. No, my police have brought me news of a divisive element which is growing within the city walls, and my place is there.’ He turned to Darian. ‘You will accompany me?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Darian had agreed without hesitation, without even thinking about it for a moment, thought Lara sadly. But her sadness was for what might have been—for shouldn’t she be joyful that Darian had a place here, that Khalim needed him, wanted him beside him to face the adversities as well as enjoy the pleasures of being ruler?

      Darian had changed, even in the short time they had been here. It was perfectly plain to see if you looked properly—though maybe up until this moment she hadn’t wanted to, or dared to.

      Here in Maraban his presence seemed even more dominating than it had the first time she had seen him. He exuded an indefinable air that was much more than the power he had attained through his own successful career as a businessman. It was something which went deeper than that, and it was all to do with his royal blood. She had thought it when she had met him, and it was even more evident now. Maraban had released something in him, and in so doing it had bound him to the place for ever.

      Darian belonged here, Lara recognised with a sinking heart. He did not need to wear the flowing robes of Khalim for anyone to be able to tell that at heart he was a true sheikh.

      She had seen him discover a part of himself here which had been missing before. The golden eyes had become even more alive. She had watched the way they looked up at the clear Maraban sky every morning, watched him suck in a breath of pure, clean air and smile the smile of a contented man.

      She had listened to the way he devoured facts about the country from Khalim, asking him this and asking him that, nodding his head as he absorbed as much of its history as was possible. Even the food they were served and the different drinks—he tried each and every one, and savoured them with the air of someone who had never really tasted before.

      Last night, in bed, she had dared broach the subject of what might have been.

      ‘Does it hurt?’ she’d said softly. ‘Or make you angry to think your mother had to struggle to survive when all this wealth was here for the taking?’

      There was silence, so that for a moment she wondered whether or not he had heard her. Or overstepped the mark, perhaps, by trying to delve into his innermost thoughts.

      Darian stared at the ceiling. He had been thinking about it a great deal, knowing that he had to come to terms with certain things or he would be unable to move on. If circumstances had decreed it, then he would have led a very different life.

      ‘The question is whether or not Makim knew that she was pregnant,’ he said slowly. ‘Whether he refused to stand by her—that would make a difference to the way I felt.’

      She stroked at his temple. ‘And is there no way of finding out?’

      ‘Oh, yes. He kept diaries. Khalim told me.’

      ‘So read them! Find out.’

      ‘There’s a fifty-year rule about opening them,’ he said slowly. ‘Or at least it’s fifty years before they can be brought into the public domain.’

      So he would never know, or at least not until he was an old man, when the knowledge would no longer matter as much as it mattered now. ‘Oh, Darian,’ she said softly, and kissed his cheek.

      Sometimes she was so damned soft and tender that he felt as weak as water, and Darian liked to feel strong. He turned over onto his elbow and concentrated on her pink and white naked body instead. ‘Oh, Darian—what?’ he questioned sulkily.

      She remembered thinking fleetingly that he always put barriers up—that he went only so far before the shutters came down. But then he had made love to her in a way which made her misgivings melt away with the sureness of his touch, and afterwards she had cried softly, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

      She stood watching now as he talked to Khalim, their heads bent and deep in low conversation, excluding her completely.

      ‘Lara, I will have the jet prepared for you,’ said Khalim, straightening up.

      She looked directly into the golden eyes which were trained on her watchfully. Make it easy for him, thought Lara. No bitterness, nor regrets, no tears or recriminations. Let it be a fond memory, something to warm him during the long, cold Maraban nights, until he finds another woman to replace me.

      She nodded. ‘I shall leave as soon as possible,’ she said.

      ‘How soon is soon?’ demanded Darian.

      Khalim glanced at his watch. ‘You can be airborne within the hour.’

      That quickly? Her head swam. But wasn’t anything possible for the Sheikh of Maraban? That didn’t even leave them time for one last, loving goodbye.

      ‘I’ll go and pack,’ she said, noticing that Darian didn’t attempt to change her mind for her.

      She went back СКАЧАТЬ