Sheikh's Ransom

Her neat white linen travel suit was smudged, damp and badly creased, her skin was beaded with sweat all over her body, her makeup was history, her short honey-gold hair now clustered in unruly curls around her head, her always volatile temper was in rags.

It didn’t help to know that if David had been with her, her arrival in this little-known country would have been very different. The smell of money generally ensured that for David things ran smoothly. But at the last minute David had called to say that he could not make the trip—and Caroline had come alone.

She had not really been surprised when David cancelled. She had almost been expecting it. There was something about this trip that David hadn’t liked right from the beginning. He had even tried to talk her out of buying the raffle ticket.

“I’ve never yet met anyone who won a raffle, Caroline,” he had said with raised eyebrows, as though the only reason for parting with money must be in the hope of getting a return.

“Well, it’s for a charity, David,” she had smiled pacifically, pulling out the few dollars that was the price of three tickets. They were being sold in aid of a hospital being built in the Barakat Emirates. “I don’t mind not winning.”

He picked up the ticket stub. “The Queen Halimah Hospital, Barakat al Barakat!” he read with derision. “Do you really believe that your money is actually going towards such a purpose?”

But she had already taken out the money, and the child selling the tickets—by the pool at the exclusive club where David was a member—had said indignantly, “Yes, it is! They’re building a new children’s wing!” And she had passed the money over and written her name and phone number on three pale green tickets.

When she won, it had been a small triumph of feeling over logic. She had been thrilled with her prize—a first class, all-expenses-paid visit to the new resort in West Barakat—but she had managed to damp down her excitement before telling anyone about it. David no more liked to see evidence of her volatile nature and easily touched feelings than did her parents. He had predicted a chaotic holiday where nothing ran on time, but he had agreed to come along.

When he had cancelled, only a few hours before their flight, he had made it clear he expected Caroline to give it up, too. It was too late for her to invite anyone else along in his place, and he was sure she would not want to go to a somewhat remote Islamic country on her own. He would take her “somewhere equally exotic” within a week or two.

But Caroline, unusually for her, had dug her heels in.

“Oh, darling, are you sure you should?” her mother had asked nervously, but Caroline had gone on packing.

“The condemned man ate a hearty meal, Mother,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of holidays paid for by someone else. I won this, it’s my holiday, and I’m going to take it,” she said. For years now they had been entirely dependent on someone else for everything, Caroline impatiently felt, and she hated it.

Caroline’s parents had been born into East Coast aristocracy. Both had generations of breeding, wealth and influence behind them. But Thomas Langley had not inherited the business brain of his forebears, nor, more fatally, the wit to recognize the fact. On the advice of his son, he had attempted to shore up his failing business with investment in the junk bond market during the eighties. When that bubble burst, his son had died late one night as his car hit a bridge. No one said the word except the insurance company, but even if the policy had paid the double indemnity due in cases of accident, the money would have been a drop in the sea of Thom Langley Senior’s mounting debts. And he had followed that catastrophe with a steady string of bad decisions that had finally wiped him out.

Those terrible years had naturally taken a disastrous toll on Caroline. She was a straight-A’s student, but her marks had gone into instant decline in the months after Thom Junior’s suicide. She had won no scholarships, and she certainly wouldn’t have been accepted to any of the top universities she had once confidently dreamed of attending.

But she wasn’t going to university anyway. It was one thing for her parents to live on family handouts, and her sister Dara was still in high school; it was another thing entirely for Caroline. In spite of protests from her long-suffering uncles that there was of course no objection to paying for Caroline’s education, she had declined to apply for university and had taken a job.

She had wanted to leave home at the same time, but her mother had begged her to stay on in the family mansion, the one thing to have survived the disaster. Her salary helped against the ridiculous expense of running the place, her domestic labours increasingly helped make up for departing servants, and her presence seemed to give her mother “moral comfort, darling.”

If she had stuck to her plans to go, she would never have met David.

There were several men striding up and down in front of the Information Desk when she got there, and she eyed them with a sinking heart as she approached. Most were jingling car keys. There wasn’t one who looked like someone she cared to entrust her health and safety to; young and fleshy, with their strutting self-importance, they looked too heedless to be chauffeurs.

The men stood aside to let her approach the desk, eyeing her with a wet-eyed interest as if hoping she was their fare and wondering what kind of tip they could extort from her.

“My name is Caroline Langley,” she said, when the woman behind the desk turned to give her her attention. “You paged me.”

“Ah, yes!” said the young woman, consulting her pad. “Your driver is here, Miss Langley...where did he go? Oh, yes, there!” She smiled and pointed, and Caroline, following her gesture, gasped slightly as her eyes fell on a man who was not in the least like the others.

He was well-built, tall, with an air of purpose and decision, and an unconsciously aristocratic bearing that would have put David in the shade. He stood by a pillar, quietly talking to another man. Caroline blew a damp curl out of her eye and smiled involuntarily just with the pleasure of looking at him.

His hair was dark and cut close against a well-shaped head, his wide, well-shaped mouth not quite hidden by a neatly curling black beard. Big as he was, there seemed to be not a spare ounce of flesh on his frame. Except for the beard, he looked like a glossy magazine photo of a polo player. He had straight, heavy black eyebrows, and curling black lashes clustered thickly around eyes that now, as if intuitively, rested on Caroline.

She smiled; he frowned. Then, under his lowered eyebrows, his dark eyes widened in an intent look, his gaze questioning, and more than questioning. Caroline shivered with awareness of his sheer physical presence and unconsciously drew herself up straighter, her shoulders back, as if he were a threat. As if his look was a challenge and she must not show any sign of weakness.

He spoke to his companion, who also whirled to stare at her, and left him standing by the pillar as he moved to approach her. “Miss Langley?” he enquired in a deep, strong voice that, except for a certain throaty emphasis on the consonants, had little trace of accent. “Miss Caroline Langley?”

She had the craziest urge to deny it, and run. The smile faltered on Caroline’s lips, but she submitted to the human reluctance to make a scene on inadequate grounds. “Are you from the hotel?” she temporized.

“Not precisely the hotel, but rather the Royal Barakat Tour Agency. My name is Kaifar, Miss Langley. I am your personal guide. It is my job to liaise for you and your fiancé with the hotel and all the other sites you choose to visit to make sure that your trip is an enjoyable one.”

“I see.” His voice was deep and warm, rippling along her nerves. Perhaps it was just being alone in a very unfamiliar country that made her so nervous, not his presence at all.

“Your fiancé, Mr. Percy—where is he?” he continued. “He has been detained at Customs?”

His gaze was clear and steady. He was a very good-looking man. She swallowed. “David had to cancel, I’m afraid. I’m here alone.”

The strong black eyebrows snapped together. “He did not come?” He was frowning almost fiercely, his gaze piercing her, yet why should he be angry? It must be a cultural misunderstanding. Or perhaps in his experience women were not such good tippers.

“David couldn’t make it. Is there a problem with my being on my own here?” She had been told that the Barakat Emirates were secular and moderate, but maybe as an unaccompanied woman she should be wearing chador or have a chaperone or something. She hoped not.

He laughed at her, his teeth white against the black beard, charismatic as a fairy-tale brigand. “Certainly not!” he assured her. “I am merely surprised. I was prepared to pick up two people. One moment.”

He moved over beside the man to whom he had been speaking a minute ago and spoke a few words in a language she took to be Arabic. The companion flicked her a glance, and then began to argue. But the chauffeur merely held up his hand and said something in a very autocratic manner, and his companion fell silent, shaking his head. The man named Kaifar returned to her.

“My companion will bring your bags.” At his request Caroline pointed to where her luggage sat. “Follow me. Please,” he added as an afterthought, and with an arm not quite touching her he guided her through the thronging mass of humanity and baggage that was between them and the door.

And then, with her dark guide beside her, Caroline stepped out of the airport into the heat and beauty of the exotic, exciting, little-known land that was called, in the language of its people, Blessing.

Kaifar led her to a vintage Rolls Royce and installed her in the back seat while the other man stowed her luggage. The two men spoke together for a moment, then bid each other farewell as Kaifar climbed into the driver’s seat. But instead of starting the car, he sat for a long moment, stroking his beard, his eyes shuttered, deep in thought. Caroline shivered.

She leaned forward abruptly. “What is the problem?”

He came out of his trance in some surprise, and looked haughtily over his shoulder at her, as if she had no right to question his actions. Caroline thought dryly, Well, if West Barakat wants to attract tourists, the guides are going to have to get used to women who know what they want.

But his next words indicated that he was already aware of that. “I beg your pardon, Miss Langley,” he said with a brief nod.

She felt a sensation of unease that she could not pinpoint. Belatedly she saw that she had only Kaifar’s word for it that he had been officially sent to pick her up. She had seen no identification. And he was not in uniform, merely a white shirt and dark trousers. He could be anyone. She thought about his reaction to the news that David had not come. He spoke good English—he might easily have discovered that David was rich. Suppose he was planning something?

“Where are you taking me?” she challenged, realizing that she was in a position from which it would now be almost impossible to escape. Why hadn’t she asked him for some I.D. inside?

He leaned forward and pressed the car into life. He spoke over his shoulder without turning his head to look at her as the car moved forward.

“I am taking you to your hotel, where else?” he said shortly.

“What is the name of the hotel?” she said, but it was too little, too late if her nameless fears were right. The car was already picking up speed.

He smiled in the mirror at her, looking like nothing so much as a desert bandit in a fairy tale. “The name of the hotel is the Sheikh Daud, Miss Langley. It is on the Royal Road that runs near the coast to the west of the city. Please calm your fears. Not all dark Arabs are desert sheikhs carrying off beautiful women to their harems. Some of us are so civilised we would even consider many of your own compatriots barbarian.”

His teeth looked white and strong behind the black beard. He seemed to be inviting her to smile with him at her own foolish, unfounded nervousness. Kaifar slowed the car and turned out of the airport onto a wide, palm-lined boulevard, and this might be her last chance to leap out of the car. Caroline tensed.

Kaifar turned slightly to look at her. “You will find the hotel very pleasant, Miss Langley. It is the best and most exclusive hotel in the Barakat Emirates. You were very lucky to win such a prize, yes?”

She felt the buzz of his smile, the impact of the arrogant, effortless masculinity against her feeble guard, and thought, Is that what I’m afraid of? The fact that he’s so masculine and sexy?

Maybe she should have listened to David. Maybe it had not been wise to come on her own. She had suspected that there was something David was worried about, though he had denied it. Had it been a fear that she would fall for some attractive foreigner?