Her Desert Dream

her but chosen discretion, she said, ‘Truly, that was a huge improvement on Mrs Latimer’s Year Six French class.’

‘Mrs Latimer?’ Lucy had been saying something about Rose not being allowed to go to school when he’d interrupted her. He wished now he’d been less impatient…

For a moment Lydia’s mind froze.

‘A t-tutor,’ she stuttered as Kal continued to look at her, a frown creasing that wide forehead.

She longed to tell him everything. Tell him about her brave mother who’d lost her husband and her mobility in one tragic moment on an icy road. Tell him about school, how she’d left when she was sixteen because what was the point of staying on when she would never have left her mother to go away to university? Tell him everything…

She was rescued from his obvious suspicion by the beep of a text arriving on her mobile phone.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, retrieving it from her pocket. ‘It might be…’ She swallowed, unable to say the word grandfather, turned away to check it, assuming that it was simply a ‘have fun’ response from her mother to her own text.

But it wasn’t from her mother. It was from Rose.

Vtl you b on frnt pge am!

Vital you be on the front page tomorrow morning…

Lydia swallowed. Had she been recognised? Clearly she had to convince someone that she really was in Bab el Sama.

She quickly keyed in OK and hit ‘send’, returning the phone to her pocket. Realised that Kal was watching her intently.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked as Yatimah offered them each a cup, then filled them with a thin straw-coloured aromatic liquid that was nothing like any coffee she’d ever seen.

‘Good heavens, no!’ she said with a nervous laugh which, even to her own ears, rang about as true as a cracked bell.

Only him.

Only her guilt that she was lying to a man who made her feel things that needed total honesty. And she couldn’t be honest. The text was a timely reminder just how deeply she was embedded in this pretence. She was doing this for Rose and right now only she mattered…

They were four hours ahead of London, plenty of time to make the morning papers, but to accomplish that she had to get into the open in daylight. On her own. Wearing as little as possible.

She and Rose both knew that what the paparazzi were really hoping for was a picture of her in a private ‘love nest’ scenario with Rupert Devenish.

That was never going to happen, so in order to keep them focused, they’d planned a slow striptease to keep those lenses on her for the entire week.

First up would be a walk along the beach in shorts with a shirt open over a bathing suit.

After that she was going to discard the shirt to reveal a bathing suit top beneath it. Rare enough to excite interest, but nothing particularly sensational-it was a very demure bathing suit. Finally she’d strip down to the swimsuit. That should be enough to keep the photographers on their toes, but there was a bikini in reserve in case of unforeseen emergencies.

Rose’s text suggested they were in the ‘unforeseen emergency’ category. What she didn’t, couldn’t know was that her good friend Lucy al-Khatib had provided her with a ‘protector’. Kal was relaxed about letting her wander, unseen by the outside world, in the shelter of the gardens, but she very much doubted that he’d sit back and let her take a walk along the beach without her minder.

While it was true that his presence would absolutely guarantee a front page spot, she also recognised that the presence of some unknown man in close attendance would cause more problems than it solved.

She was going to have to evade her watchdog and get down to the beach and she had less than an hour in which to manage it.

Kal watched Rose sip gingerly at the scalding coffee. Clearly, whatever had been in the text had not been good news. The colour had drained from her face and a man didn’t have to be fluent in body language to see that she was positively twitching to get away.

Which begged the question, why didn’t she just say, Great lunch, see you later…and walk away? Or tell him that something had come up that she had to deal with?

Why was she sitting there like a cat on hot bricks, doing her best to pretend that nothing was wrong?

A gentleman would make it easy for her. Make an excuse himself and leave her to get on with whatever it was she wanted to do.

A man who’d been charged with her safety, in the face of some unspecified threat, would be rather less obliging. Lucy might have disparaged the Duke’s concerns, but she hadn’t dismissed them entirely.

She hadn’t elaborated on them, either. Could it be that she was more worried about what Rose might do than what some imaginary assailant had in mind?

Maybe he should give her a call right now. Except that would leave Rose on her own, which didn’t seem like a great idea.

‘This is desert coffee,’ he said conversationally. ‘The beans are not ground but boiled whole with cardamom seeds. For the digestion.’

‘Really? It’s different. Very good,’ she said, although he doubted she had even tasted it.

As she put the cup down, clearly eager to be away, he said, ‘Traditionally, politeness requires that you drink two cups.’

‘Two?’

She scarcely managed to hide her dismay and his concern deepened. What on earth had been in that text?

‘They’re very small. If you hold out the cup, like this,’ he said, holding out his own cup, ‘Yatimah will refill it for you.’

Obediently she held out the cup. Drank it as quickly as she could without scalding her mouth, handed the cup back to the girl.

And it was refilled a third time.

‘She’ll refill it as often as you hold it out like that,’ he explained. ‘When you’ve had enough you have to shake the cup from side to side to indicate that you have had enough.’

‘Oh. Right.’ She swallowed it down, shook the cup the way he told her, thanked Yatimah who, at a look from him, quickly disappeared. Rose, looking as if she wanted to bolt after her, said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Kal, I’ll go and get my book. Find somewhere quiet to read. You don’t have to stand guard over me while I do that, do you?’

‘Not if you stay within the garden,’ he said, rising to his feet, easing back her chair.

‘What about the beach?’ she asked, so casually that he knew that was where she would be heading the minute he took his eyes off her. ‘That’s private, isn’t it?’

‘It’s private in that no one will come ashore and have a picnic. Local people respect the privacy of the Emir and his guests, but the creek is busy.’ He glanced across the water. ‘There are plenty of boats where a photographer hoping to catch a candid shot of you could hide out.’ He turned back to her. ‘Lucy said you found the intrusion stressful but if you want to risk a walk along the shore, I’ll be happy to accompany you.’

‘Lady Rose Napier plus unknown man on a beach? Now, that really would make their day.’ Her laughter lacked any real suggestion of amusement. ‘I’ll stick to the garden, thanks.’ Then, ‘Why don’t you take yourself off on that fishing trip you’re so keen on? Give me a break from the maggots.’

Give her a break? Where on earth had the secluded Lady Rose picked up these expressions?

‘The maggots will be disappointed,’ he said, coming up with a smile. ‘I’ll see you at dinner?’

‘Of course.’

Her relief was palpable at the prospect of an entire afternoon free of him. He would have been offended but, from the way she’d responded to his kisses, he knew it wasn’t personal.

‘Although I’d better put in a few laps at the pool, too, or at this rate none of the clothes I brought with me will fit.’

‘There’s an upside to everything,’ he replied.

His reward was a hot blush before she lifted her hand in a small, oddly awkward, see-you-later gesture and walked quickly towards the cottage.