Sheikh's Woman

“What is it?” she pleaded. “Ishaq, what have I done?”

He smiled and shook his head, a curl of admiring contempt lifting his lip. “You are unbelievable,” he said. “Where have you learned such arts, I wonder?”

Anna gasped. He suspected her of having a lover? Could it be true? She shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Whatever he might suspect, whatever he might have done, whatever disagreement was between them, she knew that she was simply not capable of taking a lover while pregnant with her husband’s child.

“From you, I suppose,” she tried, but he brushed that aside with a snort of such contemptuous disbelief she could go no further.

“Tell me why you won’t love me,” she challenged softly, but nothing was going to crack his angry scorn now.

“But you have just given birth, Anna. We must resign ourselves to no lovemaking for several weeks, isn’t it so?”

She drew back with a little shock. “Oh! Yes, I—” She shook her head. He could still kiss her, she thought. He could hold her. Maybe that was the problem, she thought. A man who would only touch his wife if he wanted sex. She would certainly hate that.

“I wish I could remember!”

He reached down and lifted up the silky white pyjama top, holding it while she obediently slipped her arms inside. He had himself well under control now, he was as impersonal as a nurse, and she tasted tears in her throat for the waste of such wild passion.

Funny how small her breasts were. Last time, they had been so swollen with the pregnancy…hadn’t they? She remembered the ache of heavy breasts with a pang of misery, and then reminded herself, But that’s all in the past. I have a baby now.

“Do you think I’ll remember?” she whispered, gazing into his face as he buttoned the large pyjama shirt. It seemed almost unbearable that she should feel such pain for a baby who had died two years ago and not remember the birth of the beautiful creature who was so alive, and whose cry she could suddenly hear over the subdued roar of the engines.

“I am convinced of it.”

“She has inherited your birthmark,” she murmured with a smile, touching his eye with a feather caress and feeling her heart contract with tenderness. “Is that usual?”

He finished the last button and lifted his eyes to hers. “What is it you hope to discover?” he asked, his hands pulling at her belt with cool impersonality. “The… Ahmadi mark,” he said. “It proves beyond a doubt that Safiyah and I come of the same blood. Does that make you wary?”

“Did you think I had a lover?” she asked. “Did you think it was someone else’s child?”

His eyes darkened with the deepest suspicion she had yet seen in them, and she knew she had struck a deep chord. “You know that much, do you?”

Somewhere inside her an answering anger was born. “You’re making it pretty obvious! Does the fact that you’ve now been proven wrong make you think twice about things, Ishaq?”

“Wrong?” he began, then broke off, stripped the suede pants down her legs and off, and knelt to hold the pyjama bottoms for her. His hair was cut over the top in a thick cluster of black curls whose vibrant health reflected the lampglow. Anna steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder and stifled the whispering desire that melted through her thighs at the nearness of him.

They were too big. In fact, they were men’s pyjamas.

“Why don’t I have a pair of pyjamas on the plane?” she asked.

“Perhaps you never wear them.”

He spoke softly, but the words zinged to her heart. She shivered at the thought that she slept naked next to Ishaq Ahmadi. She wondered what past delights were lurking, waiting to be remembered.

“And you do?”

“I often fly alone,” he said.

It suddenly occurred to her that he had told her absolutely nothing all night. Every single question had somehow been parried. But when she tried to formulate words to point this out, her brain refused.

Even at its tightest the drawstring was too big for her slim waist, and the bunched fabric rested precariously on the slight swell of her hips. Ishaq turned away and lifted the feathery covers of the bed to invite her to slip into the white, fluffy nest.

She moved obediently, groaning as her muscles protested at even this minimal effort. Once flat on her back, however, she sighed with relief. “Oh, that feels good!”

Ishaq bent to flick out the bedside lamp, but her hand stopped him. “Bring me the baby,” she said.

“You are tired and the baby is asleep.”

“But she was crying. She may be hungry.”

“I am sure the nurse has seen to that.”

“But I want to breast-feed her!” Anna said in alarm.

He blinked as if she had surprised him, but before she could be sure of what she saw in his face his eyelids hooded his expression.

“Tomorrow will not be too late for that, Anna. Sleep now. You need sleep more than anything.”

On the last word he put out the light, and it was impossible to resist the drag of her eyelids in the semi-darkness. “Kiss her for me,” she murmured, as Lethe beckoned.

“Yes,” he said, straightening.

She frowned. “Don’t we kiss good-night?”

A heartbeat, two, and then she felt the touch of his lips against her own. Her arms reached to embrace him, but he avoided them and was standing upright again. She felt deprived, her heart yearning towards him. She tried once more.

“I wish you’d stay with me.”

“Good night, Anna.” Then the last light went out, a door opened and closed, and she was alone with the dark and the deep drone of the engines.

Five

“Hurry, hurry!”

The voices and laughter of the women mirrored the bubble of excitement in her heart, and she felt the corners of her mouth twitch up in anticipation.

“I’m coming!” she cried.

But they were impatient. Already they were spilling out onto the balcony, whose arching canopy shaded it from the harsh midday sun. Babble arose from the courtyard below: the slamming of doors, the dance of hooves, the shouts of men. Somewhere indoors, musicians tuned their instruments.

“He is here! He arrives!” the women cried, and she heard the telltale scraping of the locks and bars and the rumble of massive hinges in the distance as the gates opened wide. A cry went up and the faint sound of horses’ hooves thudded on the hot, still air.

“They are here already! Hurry, hurry!” cried the women.

She rose to her feet at last, all in white except for the tinkling, delicate gold at her forehead, wrists, and ankles, a white rose in her hand. Out on the balcony the women were clustered against the carved wooden arabesques of the screen that hid them from the admiring, longing male eyes below.

She approached the screen. Through it the women had a view of the entire courtyard running down to the great gates. These were now open in welcome, with magnificently uniformed sentinels on each side, and the mounted escort approached and cantered between them, flags fluttering, armour sending blinding flashes of intense sunlight into unwary eyes.

They rode in pairs, rank upon rank, leading the long entourage, their horses’ caparisons increasing in splendour with the riders’ rank. Then at last came riders in the handsomest array, mounted on spirited, prancing horses.