The Sheikh’s Reward

‘Release you?’ he echoed in amazement. ‘After this?’ He took a long, hard breath. ‘Much as I would like to let you feel the full weight of my displeasure, I have to approach the matter more subtly. Tomorrow you will be taken to a different apartment.’

‘Aha!’ she said triumphantly. ‘The dungeon!’

Ali gritted his teeth. ‘Your new apartment will be of the greatest comfort and luxury. You will have eight maidservants with instructions to attend to your every whim. Wherever you go, people will bow. I shall shower you with jewels, which you will wear at all times.’

‘What is this?’ Fran demanded suspiciously. ‘If you’re hoping to change my mind, let me tell you-’

‘From this moment you are my official favourite, entitled to the special treatment of one who has exerted herself to please me.’

‘But I didn’t exert myself to please you. Nor will I, ever!’

‘Well, if you think I want the world knowing that-!’ he said savagely.

Fran stared at him, her jaw dropping as the implications of this washed over her.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ she breathed. ‘You’re caught, aren’t you? You can’t let anyone suspect that Prince Ali Ben Saleem had his face slapped by a woman he’d deigned to honour.’ She gave a peal of laughter.

‘If you don’t stop that,’ he grated, ‘I really will throw you into a dungeon.’

‘No, you won’t,’ she choked. ‘It would give too much away. And after you paid all that money for me you wouldn’t want people to know that your judgement was slipping. Oh, heavens! This is wonderful!’

‘That’s enough!’ There was real menace in his eyes this time. ‘You’re very sure of yourself, but suppose I decided to dispense with your consent? Who do you think would help you?’

She met his eyes, unafraid, defiant. ‘You won’t do that.’

‘Let me remind you who I am, and what my powers are.’

‘But that’s why you won’t,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It would be an admission of failure, an admission that you can’t win me. Nobody else might know, but you and I would, and you couldn’t live with that.’

His face was black with anger and she knew she’d touched a nerve.

‘And there’s another reason,’ she added. ‘You couldn’t do it. You’re a tyrant, a scheming manipulator and an arrogant, conceited dictator, but you’re fundamentally a decent man, and it isn’t in you.’

He regarded her. The fury had died out of his face but his eyes were still unforgiving.

‘You have the tongue of a serpent,’ he said bitterly. ‘Let me warn you that a woman who can discern a man’s weaknesses should have the good sense not to taunt him with them.’

‘So you admit you have weaknesses? Well, that’s a step in the right direction.’

‘Does nothing make you afraid?’ he snapped.

‘Would I tell you?’

‘Even you have weaknesses.’

‘But perhaps I’m better at keeping them hidden.’

Ali breathed hard. ‘To think that I-’ He checked himself, on the verge of putting something into words that shocked him.

‘That you what?’

‘Nothing. But one day I shall have sons. And I shall tell them about women like you, and warn them to avoid such women like scorpions.’

‘Pity someone didn’t warn you,’ Fran said affably. ‘I think I’ll be going now. Will you summon the bearers?’

‘Are you mad?’ he demanded. ‘You can’t leave before morning or the whole palace will know.’

‘And your reputation will be shot to pieces,’ she teased.

‘Do you realise that you’ve condemned us to a night of making small talk?’

‘You could give me that interview.’

‘Be very careful!’

‘All right, then I’m going to sit down and finish my supper. And why shouldn’t we make small talk? I’ll bet you’ve never done that with a woman before.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘It isn’t nonsense. You only have two attitudes to women-seductive and dismissive. But you can’t seduce me and for a few hours you can’t dismiss me, so you’ll have to talk to me properly, about something that really matters.’

‘I’ve told you I don’t do that with women.’

‘Exactly my point. So we seem to be faced with a long, boring night, chatting about the weather.’

He merely scowled and seated himself. When Fran poured him some wine he scowled again, but accepted it. She had a sudden conviction that he was longing to rub his cheek, but would die rather than let her see him do it.

Her lips twitched. On the face of it nothing had changed. She was still Ali’s prisoner, subject to his power. But she had challenged that power, and discovered its limits, and her confidence was coming back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘TELL me some more about Yasir,’ Fran suggested.

‘His father was my father’s brother-his elder brother, unfortunately, so Yasir thinks that his father should have taken the throne, instead of mine.’

‘Doesn’t the eldest son take over automatically?’

‘No. This part of the world is dangerous, and a ruler must be strong. My father was the stronger, so he took the throne as was his right. But Yasir feels that he, not I, should rule, and the result is a scene such as you saw tonight, for which I apologise. He had no right to burst in here, and I shall make sure he knows it.’

‘I think he already does. Were you wise to strike him?’

‘Most unwise. Luckily he’s a good-natured fellow, and will forgive me easily.’

Fran decided to say no more. But she had seen a burning resentment in Yasir’s expression that told her Ali had misread his cousin. She became thoughtful.

As she watched Ali’s scowling countenance an imp of mischief was taking possession of her. It might be reckless and unwise, but that was in her nature. She’d never run from a risk.

‘Something amuses you?’ Ali growled.

‘I was just thinking about the fix you’re in.’

‘Then I advise you to keep your amusement to yourself.’

‘All right, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go back to the beginning, and talk as we might have done that first night, if I could have told you everything.’

‘I thought you told me a good deal,’ Ali said. He added with a touch of bitterness, ‘But of course it was all invented-all those pretty stories about the Arabian nights were planted, because you thought they would entice me to indiscretions that you could make use of.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said quickly. ‘That was all true. I told you things about myself I’ve never told anyone else, and I’d hate you to think-that, at least, was real. Please, Your Highness, you must believe me.’

He gave a twisted smile. ‘I think we’ve got a little beyond “Your Highness”.’ This time he did rub his cheek, and actually managed to return her smile. There was a touch of ruefulness in his eyes that almost made her start to like him again. Almost. She must guard against his charm, she told herself.

‘I told you those things because I knew you’d understand. Nobody else ever could. Uncle Dan and Aunt Jean thought only solid things mattered. They didn’t have any time for “fancy ideas”. At school I took supposedly useful, worthwhile subjects, like mathematics and computing, because they wanted me to. And when I turned out to be good at them I was kind of set on my path for ever. After that nobody ever thought of me as having a fanciful side- until you.

‘It was a glorious release, being able to talk about those things after all these years. It was like somebody opened a door.’

‘Yes,’ Ali said quietly. He wished she wouldn’t say these things that reminded him of his own feelings that night. The certainty that he’d found a sympathetic soul, able to understand him without words, had almost