Darker Side Of Desire

As her composure returned she realised that she was not, as she had thought, the only female in the room. Several tables away a young Arab girl was trying to feed a small baby, strapped into a highchair. The child, a little boy, was protesting volubly, pushing away the proffered spoon, and Claire could tell that the girl was getting impatient with him. Twice she slapped the small plump legs, raising crimson marks, making the child cry loudly in retaliation. The girl was too uncaring to be the child’s mother, and Claire guessed that she must be his nurse, but there seemed to be little sympathy between them, and she was aware, as she glanced up from her own breakfast, that the man with the green eyes was also studying the little boy and his nurse, with a frown.

When the proffered spoon was pushed away for the umpteenth time the girl lost her temper, forcing it into the small mouth. The result was inevitable. The child started to cry loudly, and his efforts to avoid the unwanted food dislodged the dish holding it, spreading it over the table and the floor. The girl threw down the spoon, smacking the chubby legs hard as she pushed away her own chair. Claire noticed that as she stood up she glanced at her watch, hesitated, and then saying something in Arabic to the gathered men, walked towards the door.

The baby was still crying, quite hard now, and against her will Claire felt herself sympathising with him. He had been naughty with his food, but perhaps if the girl had cajoled instead of forced he might have been better behaved. He was wriggling violently in his chair, and Claire gasped as she saw it tilt, rushing instinctively to steady it before it fell.

Close to the baby was enchanting, with soft olive skin and huge tear-drowned dark eyes. He clutched hold of her blouse, the crying stopping as he gazed up at her. He wasn’t even secured properly in the chair, and Claire wondered a little at the child’s parents, allowing such an inexperienced and uncaring girl to have charge of him. Was one of the men seated at the table the child’s father? She glanced towards them and found herself pinned where she stood by the sharply cold glance of the man with the green eyes. What was the matter with him? she thought, unconsciously touching her tongue to suddenly dry lips. Did he think she was going to run off with the baby? His eyes dared her to so much as touch the child, and perhaps it was that, or perhaps it was the piercingly forlorn cry the baby gave as she started to move away that prompted her next action.

Almost automatically she turned back, smiling a little as the baby, sensing victory, lifted his arms. She half expected the man watching them to tear the baby out of her arms, but surprisingly no one moved. When she had been training to be a secretary she had often supplemented her income by baby-sitting and although it had been a couple of years since she had last held such a small child she found herself instinctively slipping back into the mothering role.

The olive cheeks were faintly flushed, his skin hot, and Claire guessed that he was probably teething. His clothes were obviously expensive but crumpled and stained with food. Suddenly realising what she was doing Claire moved to put him back into the chair. He cried protestingly, clinging on to her. Torn between common sense and an inborn instinct to comfort him she glanced across the room. He was still watching her and it was something in that look that impelled her towards defiance. Turning away from the chair and walking back to her own table, she soothed the complaining howls, murmuring soft nonsense which seemed to have the desired effect for the cries gradually ceased. She had just reached her table and turned when she saw the men enter the room.

Later she decided she could only have acted by blind instinct, because surely there hadn’t been enough time for her to register the menacing appearance of the gun; the silent intent of the man pointing it towards the now empty highchair, and even as he sought her out she was pushing over the sturdy table and crouching behind it, cradling the baby as she heard the sharp splinter of china and another noise that chilled her blood.

Gunfire was something she was familiar with from television, but she had never before experienced it so close at hand. The silence that followed those staccato spurts of sound was, in its way, even more terrifying than what had gone before. Dimly she was aware of running feet, of doors being closed, of someone approaching, a dark hand resting on her shoulder. She knew she tensed, unable to turn and look up, her too-vivid imagination working overtime, so that when she was eventually able to move the first thing she saw was the gun, held casually in the hand of the man standing over her.

Fear thundered through her body, leaving her drenched in perspiration, and trembling so much that he had to drop the gun to pull her to her feet. She heard him mutter something she couldn’t understand and she had a vivid moment’s recognition of green eyes, no longer ice-cold but hard with a burning anger, as her head was pushed against his shoulder and her body, betrayingly, sank gratefully against solidly braced male muscles, taking the support they offered without paying the slightest heed to her brain’s feverish command to resist and pull away.

Dimly she was aware of the doors opening, of hurried, staccato conversation; her eyes fluttered open, to discover that she was still holding the baby and that both of them were safe and unharmed.

The arms that had been holding her fell away and she told herself it was foolish to experience such an acute sense of loss. Dizzily she became aware of her surroundings; of the limp, lifeless dark-suited bodies lying on the floor; of the small, voluable middle-aged man who had erupted into the room, and whose features she vaguely recognised; but most of all of the man who had been holding her and who was now standing several feet away talking calmly to his plump, disturbed companion, both of them pausing to glance at Claire.

She only realised when the baby let out a protesting cry that she was holding him too tightly. Her head felt as though it was full of cotton wool. She seemed to have strayed into another world and she still couldn’t take in what had happened. Now, only the overturned table and the smashed crockery remained to prove that it had been real, that she had actually taken shelter behind it while bullets flew about the room. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to laugh—or to cry—and the only thought surfacing through the muddle of her brain was that if she had to pay for the broken china it would probably use all her godmother’s parting cheque.

‘Please… forgive me… I am so disturbed that I forget my manners.’ Claire smiled vaguely at the plump bearded man. ‘I am Sheikh Ahmed ibn Hassan,’ he told her, introducing himself, ‘and if you had not…’ He tried to compose himself, shaking his head slowly. ‘Allah must have been smiling upon us this morning, Miss…’

Dutifully Claire supplied her name. ‘But, we cannot talk of this here. Will you come up to my suite so that I can thank you more properly…?’ He saw her hesitation and smiled, warmth and charm lighting his rather heavy features, and in that instant Claire recognised him.

He was the head of a small Middle Eastern state and she had seen his photograph in the papers. He was in Britain on a state visit, although the Press had suggested there might be something more in it than that. His country would offer a strategic point for Europe and its allies in a military sense, and it was strongly hinted that this could be the purpose underlining his visit. Claire also remembered reading that his nephew and heir had recently been killed in an accident together with his wife, and there had been rumblings of a Soviet plot to instate a ruler of their choice with sympathies to them rather than to the West.

‘I can ask the hotel management to vouch for me…’ her companion was saying earnestly and Claire realised that he had misinterpreted her hesitation.

She shook her head and proffered a brief smile. ‘No… no. I recognise you from your photograph in the papers, Sheikh.’

When they left the room they were followed by most of the other occupants, although Claire noticed that one man stayed behind and the mockery in his green eyes seemed to follow her as she walked out of the room, head held high, the baby still clutched in her arms, surrounded by what seemed like a phalanx of silent men.

The lavishness of the Sheikh’s suite made her blink, and as she sat down Claire found herself wondering curiously about the child she was still cuddling. She couldn’t blot out of her mind looking up and seeing that gun pointed lethally in the direction of the highchair.

‘You must be wondering what is going on,’ Sheikh Ahmed announced when she had refused a cup of coffee and his attendants had been dismissed. ‘This child,’ he looked at the baby on her knee, ‘is the only son of my nephew, and will in time succeed me as ruler of our state. Today’s events have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that his life is at risk.’ The baby started to cry and he frowned in concern. ‘There is something wrong?’

Claire shook her head wryly. ‘Not really. He is wet and hungry. His nursemaid… the girl who was with him in the dining-room…’

‘I suspect she was a plant who had been paid to leave him unattended. He is normally guarded at all times, but Raoul tells me that the girl insisted that I had said he was to eat in the dining-room. This is not true, and if it had not been for your quick actions…’

‘I thought we were both going to die,’ Claire admitted, shuddering herself.

‘And yet thinking that, you did not abandon Saud,’ the Sheikh commented watching her. ‘Raoul tells me that but for your quick thinking Saud would be dead.’

‘Were you… were you expecting something to happen?’ Claire asked, remembering the guns which had appeared as though by magic in the hands of the men in the dining-room.

The Sheikh shrugged fatalistically. ‘Not so much expecting as suspecting. There is a faction in our country that does not approve of our ties with the West. It is not always easy to know friend from foe and one must always be on one’s guard. Saud’s nursemaid is an example of how easy it is to be deceived. I myself am widowed and have no female relatives close enough to trust with the child.’ He suddenly looked tired and careworn. ‘But I must not burden you with our problems. I should like to reward you for…’

‘No…’ Claire spoke quickly and automatically, reiterating, ‘no… please, I would rather you did not. I simply acted instinctively.’ She looked down at the child now sleeping on her lap. ‘Is there someone who ‘can change and feed him?’ It seemed incredible to her that this child, who was apparently so important, should have no one to care properly for him.

‘I had hoped to find a nanny for him while we are here, but Raoul is opposed to it. He believes Saud would be better looked after by one of our own race.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps because of his own dual blood, Raoul is more opposed to Saud having a foreign nanny than might otherwise be the case. He feels very deeply the differences which set him aside from his peers.’

What relationship did Raoul have with the baby on her lap, Claire wondered, but it was a question she could not ask, she had no desire to pry into the personal life of the man who had looked at her so coldly with those too-seeing green eyes. Had they registered her minute, betraying reaction to his proximity? The momentary weakness which had had nothing at all to do with her shock and had instead sprung from an entirely voluntary response to him as an intensely male man? It was humiliating to think that they might, especially when she had on more than one occasion seen the derisive dismissal of her as a woman in his eyes.

‘Er…’ She paused, seeing hesitation and embarrassment on the Sheikh’s face, intrigued because she sensed it wasn’t a habitual expression for him.

‘Saud’s room is through there.’ He indicated a communicating door. ‘Would it be trespassing too much to ask you to…?’

‘You want me to change and feed him?’ Claire supplemented, hiding a small smile.

‘We did not bring a large entourage; the boy’s nursemaid was to have been sufficient. I feared to leave him behind unprotected, but now… I think what happened this morning will prove to Raoul that we cannot entrust his care to anyone lightly. The girl who had charge of him came extremely highly-recommended, and yet it is plain that she was part of the plot to kill him.’

Remembering how the girl had lost her temper with the child, and looked so pointedly at her watch before she left the dining-room, Claire suspected that he was right.

The Sheikh was charming and as she allowed herself to be manoeuvred into taking Saud into his own bedroom to attend to his needs, she repressed a small smile. This was most definitely not what her godmother had had in mind for her stay in London.

The baby was supplied with every luxury imaginable, from toys to silk and satin clothes, but there seemed to be scant love in his young life, Claire thought pityingly as she first fed and then bathed him. He was not a difficult baby really, responding affectionately to her when she cuddled and held him. She was just towelling him dry, laughing as he lay gurgling on her lap, when the door opened. She tensed automatically, unable to blot out the mental image of men carrying guns and the high-pitched whine of bullets.

Cool green eyes surveyed her speculatively. ‘A very domesticated picture. What a shame that it is me and not Ahmed who is witnessing it. What are you hoping for with this touching display of maternalism, Miss Miles? More than a diamond bracelet, obviously.’

Claire winced, recognising that he had overheard her conversation with her godmother the previous night, and then anger replaced embarrassment as she recognised the calculated insult behind his words. He was implying that she was motivated by materialism. Her full pink lips tightened ominously, and for a moment she considered thrusting the still damp baby into his arms and letting him finish the task for himself. That would soon destroy his sardonic dignity. A small giggle bubbled up inside her as she pictured his immaculately suited figure dealing with the squirming baby.

‘Sheikh Ahmed asked if I would help, and I agreed,’ she said calmly, ‘but only because Saud was both wet and hungry, and too small yet to fend for himself. Sheikh Ahmed tells me that you are against his employing a European nanny for Saud.’

‘You have been exchanging confidences, haven’t you? What else did he tell you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Liar. I’m sure knowing my uncle as I do that he also told you of my mixed blood, and now, no doubt, you are on fire with curiosity to know more.’

His arrogance provoked her into an instinctive anger. ‘On the contrary,’ she told him coldly, ‘I have no desire to know the slightest thing about you. Why should I?’ She finished buttoning Saud into clean rompers and got up, thrusting the baby towards him, a little surprised by how deftly he held the child, then swept out of the room before he could stop her, seething with fury, because he was right—she had been curious about him. Of course, he must be used to women finding him fascinating. That blend of East and West was a potent one, and he knew it, damn him!

She had always loathed arrogant, self-assured men, Claire reminded herself as she let the door slam behind her and hurried towards the lift, and if she had responded momentarily to the sheer male power of his body against her, it had been a reaction intensified by weakness and relief. After all, she would be a fool to think for one moment that those green eyes might burn with tenderness and passion for her, or that that hard, faintly cruel mouth might touch hers in need and hunger. A complete fool.

CHAPTER TWO (#udcbd0257-9d19-5b03-8003-e53947470b2b)

THERE was no reason for her to feel so dissatisfied. Her day had passed pleasantly enough, Claire told herself. She had visited the Tate to admire many old favourites, and then there had been a pleasant walk through the park. Now she was on her way back to the Dorchester to indulge herself with afternoon tea in the promenade room, so why should she feel this tiny feathering of restlessness that kept disturbing her? Perhaps it was because she was alone. She would write to Teddy, send him a postcard of the hotel. Thinking of Teddy reminded her of her ever-present worries about finding his school fees. Generous though her salary was, it couldn’t cover them. She would have to find a part-time job. By her reckoning, she could just about manage two more terms with what savings they had left, and the present term’s were paid.

‘Afternoon tea, madam?’ The waiter’s voice broke into her reverie, and when she nodded he showed her to a comfortable padded chair, the small table in front of her set for two.

It was just gone five o’clock, obviously a popular time for tea, because most of the tables were taken, and Claire amused herself as she waited for hers to be brought by studying her surroundings. The room itself was long and rectangular with several sets of doors leading off it which she knew led to the restaurants. Decorated in soft buttercup-yellow with the frieze picked out in gold, the decor was an attractive one. Marble columns soared up to the ceiling, and underfoot was a soft patterned carpet rather like an Aubusson. Voices rose and fell mingling with the chink of china cups and the clatter of cutlery against plates.

Nibbling her dainty sandwiches, Claire continued her scrutiny. Expensively and elegantly dressed men and women sat at the small tables, couples in the main, although there were some family groups. All at once she felt very alone, the food she was eating turning to sawdust in her mouth. Pushing away her plate, Claire got up unsteadily, the events of the morning catching up with her. The Head Porter handed her her key when she asked for it, and also an envelope bearing her name. Unable to recognise the handwriting, Claire frowned as she headed for the lift, the small mystery solved when she opened the envelope and realised that the letter was from Sheikh Ahmed.

The lift came. She was the sole passenger and started to read her letter as she was borne upwards. Barely able to take in its contents before the lift stopped, she hurried to her room, unlocking the door with nervous fingers, sinking down into the comfortable chair by the window before unfolding the heavy, expensive paper and reading through the note again.