Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

It took her less than half an hour to pack their things, a task she performed in seething silence whilst Xavier stood in front of the door, his arms folded across his chest, watching her with smoulderingly dangerous eyes.

When she had finished she went to pick Fleur up, but Xavier got there first.

Over Fleur’s downy head their gazes clashed and locked, Xavier’s a seething molten grey, Mariella’s a brilliantly glittering jade.

The limousine waiting for them was every bit as opulent looking as the one the prince had sent for her, although Mariella was surprised to discover that Xavier was driving it himself.

Somehow she had not associated him with a liking for such a luxurious showy vehicle. She had got the impression that his tastes were far, far more austere.

But, as she had discovered, beneath his outwardly cold self-control a molten, hot passion burned, which was all the more devastating for being so tightly chained.

It didn’t take them long to reach the villa, but this time the gates were opened as they approached them and they swept in, crunching over a gravel drive flanked by double rows of palm trees.

The villa itself was elegantly proportioned, its design restrained, and Moorish in inspiration, Mariella noticed with unwilling approval as she studied its simple lines with an artist’s eye.

A pair of wrought-iron gates gave way to a gravelled walled courtyard, ornamented with a large central stone fountain.

Stopping the car, Xavier got out and came to open her own door. A manservant appeared to deal with her luggage, and a shy young girl whom Xavier introduced to her as Hera, and who, he told her, would be Fleur’s nanny. Smiling reassuringly at the nanny he handed Fleur to her before Mariella could stop him.

She certainly held Fleur as though she knew what she was doing, Mariella recognised, but even so! A pang of loss tightened her body as she looked at Fleur being held in another woman’s arms.

‘Fleur doesn’t need a nanny,’ she told Xavier quickly. ‘I am perfectly capable of looking after her myself.’

‘Maybe so, but it is customary here for those who can afford to do so to provide the less well off amongst our people with work. Hera is the eldest child in her family, and her mother has recently been widowed. Are you really willing to deprive her of the opportunity to help to support her siblings, simply because you are afraid of allowing anyone else to become emotionally close to Fleur?’

As he spoke he was ushering her into the semi-darkness of the interior of the villa. Mariella was so shocked and unprepared for his unexpectedly astute comment that she stumbled slightly as her eyes adjusted to the abrupt change from brilliant sunlight to shadowy darkness.

Instantly Xavier reached for her, his hand gripping her waist as he steadied her. Her dizziness must be something to do with that abrupt switch from lightness to dark, Mariella told herself, and so too must her accompanying weakness, turning her into a quivering mass of over-sensitive nerve endings, each one of them reacting to the fact that Xavier was touching her. Confused blurred images filled her head: Xavier, naked as he swam, Xavier leaning over her as he held her down on the bed, Xavier kissing her until she ached for him so badly her need was a physical pain.

Her need? She did not need Xavier. She would never, never need him. Never… She managed to pull herself free of him, her eyes adjusting to the light enough for her to see the cold disapproval with which he was regarding her.

‘You must take more care. You are not used to our climate. By the end of this month the temperature will be reaching forty degrees Celsius, and you are very fair-skinned. You must be sure always to drink plenty of water, and that applies to Fleur as well.’

‘Thank you. I do know not to allow myself to get dehydrated,’ Mariella told him through gritted teeth. ‘I am a woman, not a child, and as such I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. After all, I’ve been doing it for long enough.’

The look he gave her made her feel as though someone had taken hold of her heart and flipped it over inside her chest.

‘Yes. It must have been hard for you to lose your mother and your stepfather having already lost your father at such a young age…’

‘Lost my father?’ Mariella gave him a bitter look. ‘I didn’t “lose” him. He abandoned my mother because he didn’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood. He was never any true father to me, but he broke my mother’s heart—’

‘My own parents died when I was in my early teens—a tragic accident—but I was lucky enough to have my grandmother to help me through it. However, as we both know, the realisation that one is without parents does tend to breed a certain… independence of spirit, a certain protective defensiveness.’ He was frowning, Mariella recognised, picking his words with care as though there was something he was trying to tell her. He broke off as Hera came into the reception hall carrying Fleur.

‘If you will go with Hera, she will show you to your quarters. My aunt should arrive shortly.’

He had turned on his heel and was striding away from her, his back ramrod straight in the cool whiteness of his robe, leaving her no alternative other than to follow the timidly smiling young maid.

The villa obviously stretched back from its frontage to a depth she had not suspected, Mariella acknowledged ten minutes later, when she had followed the maid through several enormous reception rooms and up a flight of stairs, and then along a cloistered walkway through which a deliciously cool breeze had flowed and from which she had been able to look down into a totally enclosed private courtyard, complete with a swimming pool.

‘This is the courtyard of Sheikh Xavier,’ Hera had whispered to her, shyly averting her gaze from it and looking nervous when Mariella had paused to study it.

‘Normally it is forbidden for us to be here, as the women of the household have their own private entrance to their quarters…’

‘Let me take Fleur,’ Mariella told her, firmly taking her niece back into her own arms and relishing the deliciously warm weight of her.

A door at the end of the corridor led to another cloistered walkway, this time with views over an immaculate rose garden.

‘This was the special garden of the sheikh’s grandparents. His grandmother was French and the roses were from France. She supervised their planting herself.’

For Mariella the rigid beds and the formality of the garden immediately summoned up a vivid impression of a woman who was very proud and correct, a true martinet. Her grandson obviously took after her!

The women’s quarters, when they finally got to them, proved to be far more appealing than Mariella had expected. Here again a cloistered walkway opened onto a private garden, but here the garden was softer, filled with sweet-smelling flowers and decorated with a pretty turreted summer house as well as the customary water features.

They comprised several lavishly furnished bedrooms, each with its own equally luxurious bathroom and dressing room, a dining room, and a salon—Mariella could think of no other word to describe the delicate and ornate antique French furniture and decor of the two rooms, which she suspected must have been designed and equipped for Xavier’s French grandmother.

On the bookshelves flanking the fireplace she could see leather-bound books bearing the names of some of France’s most famous writers.

‘The sheikh has said that you will wish to have the little one in a room next to your own,’ Hera was telling her softly. ‘He has made arrangements for everything that she will need to be delivered. I am not sure which room you will wish to use…’

Ignoring the temptation to tell her that she wished to use none of them, and that in fact what she wished to do was to leave the villa with Fleur right now—after all, none of this was Hera’s fault and it would be unfair of her to take out her own resentment on the maid—Mariella gave in to her gentle hint and quickly inspected each of the four bedrooms.

One of them, furnished in the same Louis Fifteenth antiques as the salon, had quite obviously been Xavier’s grandmother’s and she rejected it immediately. Of the three others, she automatically picked the plainest with its cool-toned walls and simple furniture. It had its own private access to the gardens with a small clear pool only a few feet away and a seat next to it from which to watch the soothing movement of the water.

‘This room?’

When Mariella nodded, Hera smiled.

‘The sheikh will be pleased. This was his mother’s room.’

Xavier’s mother’s room! It was too late for her to change her mind, Mariella recognised.

‘What… what nationality was she?’ she asked Hera, immediately wishing she had not done so.

‘She was a member of the tribe… The sheikh’s father met her when he was travelling with them and fell in love with her…’

Fleur was beginning to make hungry noises, reminding Mariella that it was her niece she should be thinking about and not Xavier’s family background.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MARIELLA stared worriedly at her mobile phone. She had just tried for the fourth time since her arrival at the villa to make contact with Tanya, but her sister’s mobile was still switched onto messaging mode. She had left a message saying that she was staying at Xavier’s villa, and had asked Tanya to contact her at the villa or call her cell phone. Mariella realised to her consternation that it was days since she had actually spoken to Tanya. A little tingle of alarm began to feather down her spine. What if something had happened to her sister? What if she wasn’t well or had hurt herself. Or…

Quickly Mariella made up her mind. It took her quite some time to get the telephone number for the entertainments director of her sister’s cruise liner, but eventually she managed to get through.

‘I’m sorry, who is this speaking, please?’ The firm male voice on the other end of the line checked her when Mariella had asked for Tanya, explaining that she had been unable to make contact with her via her mobile.

‘I am Tanya’s sister,’ Mariella explained.

‘I see… Well, I have to inform you that Tanya has actually left the ship.’