Beloved Sheikh

He made his way around the room and at last appeared at Zara’s side. Now she was aware of two things not quite so obvious from a distance—a heady yet elusive scent of sandalwood or myrrh or something similar, and the powerful physical aura of the man. He was not tall, but he exuded power.

“Miss Zara Blake, Your Highness,” said Arif, and a well-shaped, graceful hand was extended to her. Aware that she was blushing, Zara flicked her eyes to his face as she put her hand into his. “Miss Blake, His Serene Highness Sayed Hajji Rafi Jehangir ibn Daud ibn Hassan al Quraishi.”

The name rolled off his tongue like poetry.

“Miss Blake, it is a very great pleasure,” said the prince in a tiger’s fur voice, with such emphasis she almost believed him.

“How do you do, Your Highness,” Zara murmured, finding that, whatever her democratic principles, her head seemed to bow of its own accord. Dimly she supposed that was the definition of true royalty—when you couldn’t help bowing.

“I hope your stay in my country will be long and fruitful,” he said.

Zara looked up again, but found that she could not meet his dark eyes for long. She blushed even more warmly, though she had hardly blushed in her life. “Your Highness is very kind,” she murmured.

She expected him to move on then—he had only exchanged a few words with each of the others—but to her surprise he asked, “Your name is Zara?” He pronounced it with a little explosion of air on the first vowel. Zahra.

“Yes.”

“This is a very beautiful name. In my language it means both flower and splendour, beauty.” Without saying it, he managed to imply that she was well named.

“Ah . . . oh.”

“Are your parents perhaps Arabic speakers?”

“No . . . my father’s background is French and my mother—” she shrugged and tried to smile “—just plain Canadian. Sort of mixed.”

Zara was amazed to find herself so stumbling and confused. It was not at all like her, and she was furious with herself. He was a prince only by the luck of birth, and his compliments were no more significant than anyone else’s! There was no reason to start blushing like a fifteen-yearold. A glance around the room showed her that the others had noticed his interest. Passionately she wished he would move on to the next team member.

He did not. She looked at him again in time to intercept the tiniest flick of his long black lashes to Arif ur-Rashid.

The Companion nodded, raised his mellifluous voice slightly for attention, and said, “Here in Barakat, ladies and gentlemen, we do not follow the Western custom of preliminary drinks and hors d’oeuvres while standing. You are invited now to sit at the prince’s table.”

The wall behind Zara suddenly opened, and only then did she notice the big wooden arch she had been standing in front of, revealed as a doorway as servants lifted the heavy draperies that had closed it.

Prince Rafi lifted his arm. “Allow me to escort you, Zara.”

At the sound of her name on his lips, Zara stiffened a little. Okay, this had gone far enough, and it was going to stop right here, before she found herself ensconced in the harem.

“Thank you, Rafi,” she said coolly, and put her hand on his arm.

He smiled into her eyes and drooped his eyelids with pleasure, tilting his head in acknowledgement. Zara gasped a little. She was a fool to play games in so different a culture. She had no idea what message she had just sent him. For all she knew she had already said yes to a postprandial romp.

And, she recollected somewhat belatedly, she had more than herself to think of. The whole future of the dig was under this man’s sole sway. He could wave one graceful, masculine hand and the desert would be clear of them tomorrow.

The archaeological team filed after them through the arched doorway and into the dining room, where they stopped amazed, cries of astonishment soft on their lips, and feeling just a little, Zara thought, like barbarians seeing civilisation for the first time. Among them, the Companions moved with polished grace, inviting them individually to sit.

Prince Rafi led her all the length of the room while Zara gazed in unaffected delight at the spectacle before them. Dozens—hundreds!—of multicoloured silk and tapestry cushions lay massed around the long, low rectangular table that stood about six mches off the ground. It shone with cut crystal and painted porcelain, silver and old gold. Down the centre of the table and all around the walls could be seen the flicker of numerous flames under the most artistically painted glass globes. Against one wall there was a large fountain—she couldn’t believe it, but it was a real marble fountain, and the sound of the softly splashing water was better than music. All along the opposite wall, panels had been rolled up to allow the gentle night breeze to cool them, and the moon and the stars and the desert to form part of the decor. Zara had never seen anything to equal it in her life.

“It’s very beautiful,” she said quietly, and Prince Rafi smiled.

“I am very happy to please you, Zara.” He led her to the farther end of the table. The smell of cooking food rose deliciously on the air.

Prince Rafi stopped and guided her to a place. He stood beside her, and with a curious sinking elation she understood that she had been chosen to sit beside him during the meal. A Companion was on his other side, and next to the Companion was Gordon. All around, the others were finding their places, and in a moment it became clear that every second or third place was taken by one of the Cup Companions.

Prince Rafi raised his arms and gestured them to sit. Zara settled herself among the most comfortable cushions she had ever sat on in her life, and tucked her feet neatly beside her. She turned to find that Arif ur-Rashid was on her other side.

Music started playing. Several musicians with stringed and other instruments—some of which she had never seen before—had come in and settled in a corner and were playing a soft accompaniment to the coming meal.

Arif clapped his hands, and a small army of white-clad boys and girls appeared, each boy carrying a pitcher, each girl a basin, all in silver chased with gold. They approached the table and knelt by the diners. One girl knelt between Prince Rafi and Zara, and, balancing the basin on her knee, offered the prince a bar of soap. He spoke a few gentle words, and she blushed and turned to Zara, offering her the bar. Grateful that Gordon had warned them of the ritual, she took the offered bar and washed her hands lightly under the flow of water that the boy produced from the pitcher.

When Zara had finished, the girl reached to take the soap from her, but her hand fell back as Prince Rafi’s own hand stretched across the basin. Her heart beating hard with unaccustomed confusion, Zara slipped the perfumed soap into his hand. His dark hand closed firmly on the slender white bar, and Zara’s mouth opened, gasping for more oxygen than seemed to be available. She watched transfixed as he stroked the bar of soap into a lather between his hands, then, as if without volition, felt her gaze drawn upwards to his face.

He was watching her, a half smile in his dark eyes. Slowly, lazily, he set the soap in the basin and held his hands under the stream the boy carefully poured. The scent of rosewater mingled with the other subtle scents assailing her nostrils.

“The towel is offered you, Miss Blake,” said the prince, and she blinked and smiled at the worried girl who was holding the soft oblong of fabric up for her.

“Thank you,” she said. She dried her hands and watched as the prince did the same. Then the boy and girl moved away to join the phalanx of water bearers, who all bowed and then filed neatly out of the room.

Almost immediately another group of servants filed in, bringing with them this time the welcome, delicious odour of food. Within the next few minutes a feast appeared. Some dishes were placed on the table, some were carried around and offered to the guests. The beautiful silver and gold goblets were filled with water and wine and exotic juices.

After the bustle had died down, Prince Rafi lifted his gold cup. “I extend to all members of the archaeological team my congratulations on the important historical site which you have discovered and will no doubt in the years to come excavate, to enrich the knowledge of my country’s and the world’s ancient history. In particular, I commend Mr. Gordon Rhett, whom I know well from those occasions when he visited and wrote to me in his enthusiasm for this project.”

He turned and saluted Gordon with his glass, and everybody drank.

“But now is not the time for speeches. The pleasures of the mind are offered when the pleasures of the flesh have been satisfied.” He invited them all to eat and drink, but Zara could hardly take in the words. When he said those words, “the pleasures of the flesh,” it was as if his body sparked with electricity so strong she received a shock from it. She was covered in gooseflesh.

She thought, I’m helpless already. If he really does want me, I won’t be able to refuse.

Three

It became clearer and clearer as the evening wore on that Prince Rafi had eyes only for Zara. Whether he was speaking to the whole room, or to an individual, or listening or silent, there was a kind of glow around the two, apparent to almost everyone in the room. Several times, as if hardly realizing it, the prince would break off what he was saying to lean over and encourage Zara to try the most delicious tidbit on the platter that was being offered, or to signal the cupbearers to refill her glass, or to ask her with an intimate smile whether she liked some flavour.

When the whole roast sheep came in, he regaled them all with the story of the time his father had, according to custom, made the grand gesture of giving one of the sheep’s eyes to his most honoured guest—the British Ambassador. He mimicked the British Ambassador’s false expressions of gratitude.

He was a magical storyteller, with the knack of making people laugh. “Did he have to eat it in front of everyone?” Zara asked.

Prince Rafi turned lazily approving eyes upon her, which shocked her system as if with an unexpected touch. “My stepmother, my father’s first and most beloved wife, was then a new bride. She was sitting on the other side of the Ambassador. Just after the sheep’s eye was served to him, my stepmother had the misfortune to knock over her water glass. The ambassador certainly put something into his mouth and ate it with great enjoyment. But it was rumoured that my stepmother afterwards berated my father and made him swear never again to offer sheep’s eyes to a foreign guest.”

They were all laughing. Rafi watched in admiration how Zara’s neck arched, her eyes brimming over with mischief and merriment, her black lustrous curls falling just so with the tilt of her elegant head.

“My stepmother was a foreigner herself,” he said then. “She understood the ways of foreigners, and she gave my father much good advice. She was of great assistance to him in his rule. He always said so.” He paused. “They were much in love, all their lives.”

He said this gazing right at Zara. The laughter died in her, and heat crept visibly up her cheeks. She was beginning to be a little angry now. Making eyes at her was one thing. This was getting ridiculous. She was starting to feel like an idiot.

She returned his look coolly. “It didn’t stop him taking other wives, though, did it? She was not, after all, your own mother.”

Instead of chilling him, this comment had the effect of making his eyes spark with interest, as if she had betrayed jealousy and he counted that a point in his favour. “Ah, you do not know my father’s tragic story!” Rafi exclaimed, He looked around at the musicians. “Where is Motreb? Ask him to come forth.”

A man in curious dress entered carrying yet another unfamiliar stringed instrument not unlike a banjo. “Motreb, I ask you to sing for my friends the song of my father’s love,” cried Prince Rafi.