Sheikh's Castaway

It was moving up and down with the stormy swell, the waves slapping it, the water on the floor sloshing around to produce deep discomfort. Once they felt a heave and a toss and then water pounded down on them, pushing at the canopy, and she knew a wave had washed right over them. The incessant drumming rain and the silence within made the little space even more claustrophobic.

Noor shivered. She had never been so close to the elements, so profoundly at their mercy.

And in this mood, that included Bari himself.

“How long do you think it will be before they find us?” she asked nervously.

Bari lifted an eyebrow and looked up from what he was reading.

“Who do you imagine will be looking?”

Five

There was a heartbeat of shocked silence. Thunder cracked and rolled again, but now, Alhamdolillah, it was moving off.

“What?” she whispered.

“Who knows we were on the plane? Who knows it went down?”

“But—radar!”

Bari shook his head. “We were probably flying underneath radar most of the time.”

He began to unravel the sea anchor rope. “Even when people do discover that we went off in the plane, will there be any reason to assume that we have not arrived safely at our destination, whatever that might be?”

She stared at him. Did he really mean this might go on?

“Unless, of course, someone is expecting you somewhere.” His eyes were hard as he spoke.

She didn’t know what that meant. “What about our hotel booking? Won’t they ask questions when we don’t turn up?”

A crack of laughter escaped him. “Who will be expecting us to take a honeymoon when we didn’t get married?”

He went on with his task, as if he could forget from moment to moment that she was there. She hated that. Bari had never ignored her before, and although now she knew his intense interest had been an act, still she missed it.

She suddenly began to wonder what had happened after she ran. When had the alarm been raised? The guards at the gate must have noticed as she went roaring past in the bridal limousine, but what had they actually seen?

“Did people know what happened? Did they…” She faded off.

“Did they know my bride had changed her mind?” Bari supplied in harsh mockery, and abruptly the cool veneer dropped and his raw anger surged up again. “I don’t know what they knew,” he growled. “What does it matter? Insulting our families, our friends and all our guests! No reason on God’s earth could justify such behaviour!”

No one ever criticized Noor, and in her current fragile state the stinging rebuke hit her hard.

“You were my reason!” she flared. “Easy for you to feel you should be allowed to walk all over me, but it’s a bit much to expect me to agree!”

She was all the angrier, perhaps, because now that events had overtaken her, she was suddenly feeling very guilty. In countries like Bagestan and Barakat, hospitality was taken very seriously. It was practically a religious duty. And she had grown up in a family of exiles determined to maintain such traditions. It was in her blood almost as much as his.

“Walk all over you? Easier to walk over a bed of nails!” he snorted.

“With a soul as calloused as yours, no problem!”

“Not so calloused that I don’t know when I’ve been lucky.”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Noor snapped furiously. “A few minutes ago you were all for forcing me to the altar! Anyway, you weren’t marrying me for my sweetness and light in the first place, were you? You had other mo—”

“Not even for your self-control under stress,” he agreed. “Do you never consider pulling your own weight, Noor? Whatever you want is right?”

That was so outrageously unfair she gasped. “What do you know about it?” she demanded. “You’ve only known me for a few weeks! Ask my real friends if you want to know!”

Bari only shook his head and opened the hatch again. As more rain drove inside, he pushed something down into the water, then began playing out a line. Noor watched in silence. Not even for ready money would she now have offered her help. It would seem like giving in to his opinion of her, trying to win his favour. Not for a world!

But it irked her that he seemed not to have any expectation that she would be of help in what he was doing. Maybe he really did believe that she couldn’t pull her weight; in any case, it seemed he could dismiss her completely from his field of consciousness.