Sheikh's Woman

Anna drew back suddenly, without knowing why. “What about my coat? Don’t I have a coat?”

“The car is warm. Come, get in. You are tired.”

His voice soothed her fears, and the combination of obvious wealth and his commanding air calmed her. If he was her husband, she must be safe.

In addition to everything else, being upright was making her queasy. Anna gave in and slipped inside the luxurious passenger compartment, sinking gratefully down onto deep, superbly comfortable upholstery. He locked and shut the door.

She leaned back and her eyes closed. He spoke to the driver in a foreign language through the window, and a moment later the other passenger door opened, and her husband got inside with the baby. The limo began rolling forward immediately. Absently she clocked the driver picking up a mobile phone.

“Are we leaving, just like that? Don’t I have to be signed out by a doctor or something?”

He shrugged. “Believe me, the medical staff are terminally overworked here. When they discover the empty cubicle, the Casualty staff will assume you have been moved to a ward.”

Her head ached too much.

The darkness of the car was relieved at intervals by the filtered glow of passing lights. She watched him for a moment in light and shadow, light and shadow, as he settled the baby more comfortably.

“What’s your name?” she asked abruptly.

“I am Ishaq Ahmadi.”

“That doesn’t even ring a faint bell!” Anna exclaimed. “Oh, my head! Do you—how long have we been married?”

There was a disturbing flick of his black gaze in darkness. It was as if he touched her, and a little electric shock was the result.

“There is no need to go on with this now, Anna,” he said.

She jumped. “What? What do you mean?”

His gaze remained compellingly on her.

“I remember my—who I am,” she babbled, oddly made to feel guilty by his silent judgement, “but I can’t really remember my life. I certainly don’t remember you. Or—or the baby, or anything. How long have we been married?”

He smiled and shrugged. “Shall we say, two years?”

“Two years!” She recoiled in horror.

“What of your life do you remember? Your mind is obviously not a complete blank. You must have something in there…you remember giving birth?”

“Yes, but…but what I remember is that my baby died.”

“Ah,” he breathed, so softly she wasn’t even sure she had heard it.

“They told me just now that wasn’t true, but…” She reached out to touch the baby in his arms. “Oh, she’s so sweet! Isn’t she perfect? But I remember…” Her eyes clenched against the spasm of pain. “I remember holding my baby after he died.”

Her eyes searched his desperately in the darkness. “Maybe that was a long time ago?” she whispered.

“How long ago does it seem to you?”

The question seemed to trigger activity in her head. “Six weeks, I think….”

You’re going to have six wonderful weeks, Anna.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as a large piece of her life suddenly fell into place. “I just remembered— I was on my way to a job in France. And Lisbet and Cecile were going to take me out for a really lovely dinner. It seems to me I’m…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Aren’t I supposed to be leaving on the Paris train tomorrow…Saturday? Alan Mitching’s house in France.” She opened her eyes. “Are you saying that was more than two years in the past?”

“What sort of a job?”

“He has a seventeenth-century place in the Dordogne area…they want murals in the dining room. They want—wanted a Greek temple effect. I’ve designed—” She broke off and gazed at him in the darkness while the limousine purred through the wet, empty streets. Traffic was light; it must be two or three in the morning.

“I can remember making the designs, but I can’t remember doing the actual work.” Panic rose up in her. “Why can’t I remember?”

“This state is not permanent. You will remember everything in time.”

The baby stirred and murmured and she watched as he shifted her a little.

“Let me hold her,” she said hungrily.

For a second he looked as if he was going to refuse, but she held out her arms, and he slipped the tiny bundle into her embrace. A smile seemed to start deep within her and flow outwards all through her body and spirit to reach her lips. Her arms tightened. Oh, how lovely to have a living baby to hold against her heart in place of that horrible, hurting memory!

“Oh, you’re so beautiful!” she whispered. She shifted her gaze to Ishaq Ahmadi. He was watching her. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

A muscle seemed to tense in his jaw. “Yes,” he said.

The chauffeur spoke through an intercom, and as her husband replied, Anna silently watched fleeting expressions wander over the baby’s face, felt the perfection of the little body against her breast. Time seemed to disappear in the now. She lost the urgency of wanting to know how she had got to this moment, and was happy just to be in it.

When he spoke to her again, she came to with a little start and realized she had been almost asleep. “Can you remember how you came to be in the taxi with the baby?”

Nothing. Not even vague shadows. She shook her head. “No.”

Then there was no sound except for rain and the flick of tires on the wet road. Anna was lost in contemplation again. She stroked the tiny fist. “Have we chosen a name for her?”

A passing headlight highlighted one side of his face, the side with the pirate patch over his eye.

“Her name is Safiyah.”

“Sophia?”

“Yes, it is a name that will not seem strange to English ears. Safi is not so far from Sophy.”

“Did we know it was going to be a girl?” she whispered, coughing as feeling closed her throat.

He glanced at her, the sleeping baby nestled so trustingly against her. “You are almost asleep,” he said. “Let me take her.”

He leaned over to lift the child from her arms. He was gentle and tender with her, but at the same time firm and confident, making Anna feel how safe the baby was with him.

Jonathan. “Oh!” she whispered.

“What is it?” Ishaq Ahmadi said, in a voice of quiet command. “What have you remembered?”