The Arabian Mistress

Keen to escape her stepfather’s loathsome company, Faye went straight down in the lift. She settled into the luxurious limousine, feeling like a fish out of water in her plain, inexpensive clothes. And she was, wasn’t she?

She had lived in a quiet country house all her life, rarely meeting anyone outside her late mother’s restricted social circle. Percy had married Sarah Lawson when Faye was five. Disabled by the same car accident in which her first husband had died, Faye’s mother had been confined to a wheelchair and desperately lonely. She had also been a well-to-do widow. After their marriage, Percy had continued to use a city apartment as his base and, pleading pressure of work, had spent only occasional weekends with his new family.

Faye had never gone to school like other children. Both she and her brother had initially been taught at home by their mother, but once Adrian had overcome leukaemia Percy had persuaded his wife that her son should complete his education with other boys. At eleven years old, hungry for friends her own age, Faye had finally worked up the courage to tell her stepfather that she too wanted to attend school.

‘And what’s your mother going to do with herself all day?’ Percy’s accusing fury had shaken her rigid. ‘How can you be so selfish? Your mother needs you for company…she’s got nothing else in her life!’

Faye had been devastated at eighteen when her gentle mother had died. But only then had she appreciated that some people believed she had led an unnaturally sheltered life for a teenager. Indeed, at the interview for the nursing course she was hoping to begin in the autumn, several critical comments had been made about her lack of experience of the real world. Had she felt like baring her soul, she might have told them that, with Percy Smythe in the starring role of stepfather, she had had ample experience of life’s nastier realities…

Having traversed the wide, busy streets of the city to a gracious tree-lined square, the limo pulled up in front of a vast old sandstone building with an imposing entrance. Spick and span soldiers stood on guard outside. Faye clambered out, flustered and unsure of herself.

Climbing the steps, she entered a vast and imposing hall crowded with people coming and going. Frowning, she hesitated. A young man in a suit approached her and with a low bow said, ‘Miss Lawson? I will take you to Prince Tariq.’

‘Thank you. Is this the royal palace?’

‘No, indeed, Miss Lawson. Although the Haja fortress still belongs to the royal family, His Royal Highness allows it to be used as a public building,’ her companion informed her. ‘The Haja houses the law courts and the audience rooms, also conference and banqueting facilities for visiting dignitaries and businessmen. While retaining offices here, Prince Tariq lives in the Muraaba palace.’

So this was not Tariq’s home and he had chosen a more impersonal setting for their meeting. Her eyes skimmed over the fluted stone pillars that punctuated the echoing hall and the wonderful mosaic tiled floor which gleamed beneath the passage of so many feet. The Haja was a hive of activity. An elderly tribesman was sitting on a stone bench with, of all things, a goat on a string. She saw women veiled in black from head to toe, other women in elegant western clothing, their lovely faces serene, clusters of older men wearing the traditional male headdress, the kaffiyeh, sharply suited younger ones bare-headed and carrying files and attaché cases.

‘Miss Lawson…?’

Forced to quicken her steps, she followed her escort under an archway. Tribal guards armed with both guns and ornate swords stood outside the door which was being spread wide for her entrance. She forced her feet onward, heart thundering, throat tightening. Perhaps what she least expected was to find herself standing alone in a beautiful inner courtyard, lush with islands of exotic greenery and embellished with a tranquil central pool. She blinked. Hearing the sound of footsteps, she turned and saw Tariq coming down a flight of steps about twenty feet away.

To disconcert her yet further, Tariq was clad in riding gear, a white polo shirt open at his throat, skintight beige breeches outlining his narrow hips and long powerful length of leg, polished brown boots on his feet.

Her tummy muscles clenched. She had forgotten quite how tall Tariq ibn Zachir was and how dynamic his presence. He stilled like a lion on the prowl. Magnificent, hugely confident, his silent grace of movement one of his most noticeable physical attributes. In the sunlight he was a golden feast of vibrant masculinity. His luxuriant black hair shone. His tawny skin glowed with health and his stunning bronze eyes gleamed like precious metal, both brilliant and unreadable. Indeed, he was quite staggeringly beautiful and it was an appalling challenge for Faye not to stare at him. Her mouth ran dry, a slow, painful tide of pink creeping up to dispense her pallor. Her heart hammered against her breastbone so hard she could barely catch her breath.

‘I appreciate your agreeing to see me so quickly,’ Faye muttered dry-mouthed.

‘Unfortunately, I haven’t much time to spare. I have a charity polo match to play in an hour’s time.’

Tariq came to a halt at the stone table by the pool and leant back against it. He angled his arrogant head back and studied her with a bold, all-male intensity that made her feel horribly self-conscious. His expressive mouth quirked. ‘Surely Percy did not advise you to wear trousers to this meeting? Or is that sad outfit supposed to be a plea for the sympathy vote?’

At that all too accurate crack about her stepfather, Faye turned as red as a beetroot and stammered. ‘I c-can’t imagine why you should think that.’

‘Don’t play innocent.’ Tariq gave her that advice in a tone as smooth as glass. ‘I had a surfeit of the blushing virgin act last year. I should have smelt a rat the instant you ditched it and appeared in a plunging neckline but, like most men, I was too busy looking to be cautious.’

Writhing with chagrin under such fire, some of which she knew to be justified, Faye snatched in a stark breath of the hot, still air. ‘Tariq…I very much regret what happened between us.’

Tariq dealt her a slow smile which chilled her to the marrow for it was not at all the charismatic smile she recalled. ‘I’m sure you do. It could not have occurred to you then that your precious brother would soon be locked up in a prison cell in Jumar.’

‘Of course, it didn’t.’ Faye took that comment at face value, striving to be grateful that he had rushed them straight to the crux of the matter. She curled her hands together. ‘But you like Adrian. You know that he’s been gaoled through no fault of his own—’

‘Do I?’ Tariq broke in softly. ‘Is our legal system so unjust? I had not thought so.’

Recognising her error in appearing to criticise that system, Faye said hastily, ‘I didn’t mean that. I was only pointing out that Adrian hasn’t done anything criminal—’

‘Has he not? Here in Jumar it is a crime to leave employees and tradesmen unpaid and clients with buildings that have not been completed according to contract. However, we are wonderfully practical in such cases.’ His shimmering smile was no warmer than its predecessor. ‘To regain his freedom, Adrian has only to satisfy his creditors.’

‘But he’s not able to do that…’ As she was forced to make that admission, Faye’s discomfiture leapt higher still. ‘Adrian sold his home to start up the construction firm. He plunged everything he had into the venture—’

‘And then lived like a king while he was here in my country. Yes, I am familiar with the circumstances in which your brother’s business failed. Adrian himself was foolish and extravagant.’

As Tariq completed that brief but damning indictment, Faye lost colour. ‘He made mistakes…yes, but not with any bad or deliberate intent—’

‘Surely you have heard of the principle of criminal irresponsibility?’ Indolent as a sleek jungle cat sunning himself in the sweltering heat that she was finding unbearable, Tariq surveyed her. ‘Tell me, why did you send me this?’

That switch of subject disconcerted Faye almost as much as his complete lack of emotion. The last time she had seen Tariq he had been hot with dark fury and outrage. Now she focused on the ring in the extended palm of his lean brown hand and her tummy twisted. He tossed the ring into the air where it caught the sun and glittered, exercising the strangest fascination over her. Catching it again with deft fingers, he then tossed the ring with speaking carelessness down onto the stone table where it finally rattled into stillness.

‘Were you hoping that I might have some sentimental memory of the day I put that ring on your finger?’ Tariq asked with cold derision.

Faye studied his superb riding boots until they blurred beneath the fierceness of her gaze. A wave of deep shame enveloped her and roused a terrifying lump in her throat. How very hard it was to accept that he had caused her such immense pain yet deprived her of any real right of complaint. True, he had misjudged her, but he could hardly be blamed for that when her own stepfather had tried to blackmail him. Nonetheless, unjust as it might be, Faye hated Tariq for believing that she was as calculating and mercenary as Percy Smythe.

‘Tell me…’ Tariq continued with awesome casualness, ‘…do you think of yourself as my wife or as my ex-wife?’

Reacting to that light and, to her, inappropriate question as if it was the cruellest of taunts, Faye’s pale head flew up and mortified pink warmed her cheeks afresh. ‘Hardly. At the time you made it very clear that that wedding ceremony was a charade! I know all too well that I was never your wife.’

His dense black spiky lashes lowered over dark deep-set eyes for once unlit by any lighter hue. ‘I was curious to find out how you regarded yourself.’

‘I’m only here to discuss Adrian’s position—’

‘Adrian doesn’t have a position,’ Tariq interposed without hesitation. ‘The law has already dealt with him and only repayment of his debts can free him.’

He was like a stranger. Neither courteous nor sympathetic, neither interested nor perturbed. This was Tariq as she had never known him. Hard, distant, forbidding. Terrifyingly impersonal. A male whose cool authority of command was so engrained that it blazed from him even in casual clothing. Faye’s slim hands closed in tight on themselves. ‘But surely you could do something…if you wanted to…’

‘I am not above the law,’ Tariq stated, ice entering his rich dark drawl.

Her desperation grew. ‘But, even so, you can do exactly as you wish…isn’t that what being a feudal ruler is all about?’

‘I would not interfere with the laws of my country. It is a grave insult for you to even suggest that I would abuse the trust of my people in such a way!’ Hard golden eyes struck hers in a look of strong censure.

Faye tore her shaken gaze from his and tried not to cringe. She fully understood that message but did not want to accept it. Even though she was standing in partial shade, she was perspiring and wilting in the suffocating heat that he seemed to flourish in. But knowing that she undoubtedly only had this one chance to speak up on her brother’s behalf, she persisted. ‘Adrian can’t work to pay off his creditors from inside a prison cell—’

‘No, indeed, but how is it that you and your stepfather find yourself so poor that you cannot rescue him?’

‘Percy used up all his surplus cash trying to save Adrian’s business. And don’t tell me that you weren’t aware of that.’ Faye could not conceal her bitterness at the brick-wall reception she was receiving. It was now clear that, even before she’d approached him, Tariq had known all the facts of her brother’s case but had already decided not to interfere. ‘I’m only here begging you to find some way to help my brother because I have nowhere else to turn.’

‘You have yet to explain why I should wish to help Adrian.’

‘Common decency…humanity…’ Faye muttered shakily. ‘Officer and a gentleman?’

Tariq elevated an aristocratic dark brow. ‘Not where your self-seeking, dishonourable family is concerned.’

‘What can I say to convince you that—?’

‘Nothing. You can say nothing that will convince me. Tell me, were you always this obtuse? Or was I so busy looking at your angelic face and divine body that I failed to notice a pronounced absence of brain cells?’

His ruthless mockery lashed red into her tense, confused face. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at—’