Читать книгу Captured by the Sheikh - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 8
ОглавлениеKHALIL FELT ELENA’S body tense beneath his touch and wondered why he had chosen to clean the cut himself. The answer, of course, was irritatingly obvious: because he’d wanted to touch her. Because, for a moment, desire had overridden sense.
Her skin, Khalil thought, was as soft as silk. When had he last touched a woman’s skin? Seven years in the French Foreign Legion had given him more than a taste of abstinence.
Of course, the last woman he should ever think about as a lover was Queen Elena, Aziz’s intended bride. He had no intention of complicating what was already a very delicate diplomatic manoeuvre.
Kidnapping a head of state was a calculated risk, and one he’d had to take. The only way to force Aziz to call a national referendum was for him to lose his right to the throne, and the only way for that to happen was to prevent his marriage.
His father’s will, Khalil mused, had been a ridiculous piece of legal architecture that showed him for the brutal dictator he truly had been. Had he wanted to punish both his sons? Or had he, in the last days of his life, actually regretted his treatment of his first-born? Khalil would never know. But he would take the opportunity his father’s strange will offered him to seize the power that was rightfully his.
‘There you are.’ Khalil smoothed her skirt over her knee, felt her tense body relax only slightly as he eased back. ‘I see your skirt is torn. My apologies. You will be provided with new clothes.’
She stared at him, studying him as you would a specimen or, rather, an enemy: looking for weaknesses. She wouldn’t find any, but Khalil took the opportunity to gaze back at her. She was lovely, her skin like golden cream, her heavy-lidded eyes grey with tiny gold flecks. Her hair was thick and dark and gleamed in the candlelight, even though it was tangled and gritty with sand.
His gaze dropped to her lips, lush, pink and perfect. Kissable. There was that desire again, flaring deep inside him, demanding satisfaction. Khalil stood up. ‘You must be hungry, Your Highness. You should eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He took a piece of bread and tore off a bit to chew. Sitting across from her, he studied her once more. ‘I am curious as to why you agreed to marry Aziz.’ He cocked his head. ‘Not wealth, as Thallia is a prosperous enough country. Not power, since you are already a queen. And we know it isn’t for love.’
‘Maybe it is.’ Her voice was low, pleasingly husky. She met his gaze unflinchingly but he heard her breath hitch and Khalil smiled.
‘I don’t think so, Your Highness. I think you married him because you need something, and I’m wondering what it is. Your people love you. Your country is stable.’ He spread his hands, raised his eyebrows. ‘What would induce you to marry a pretender?’
‘I think you are the pretender, Khalil.’
‘You’re not the only one, alas. But you will be proved wrong.’
Her grey-gold gaze swept over him. ‘You genuinely believe you have a claim to the throne.’
His stomach knotted. ‘I know I do.’
‘How can that be? Aziz is Sheikh Hashem’s only son.’
Even though he’d long been used to such an assumption, her words poured acid on an open wound. A familiar fury rose up in him, a howl of outrage he forced back down. He smiled coldly at this woman whose careless questions tore open the barely healed scars of his past. ‘Perhaps you need to brush up on your Kadaran history. You will have plenty of time for leisure reading during your stay in the desert.’ Although he knew she wouldn’t find the truth in any books. His father had done his best to erase Khalil’s existence from history.
She stared up at him unblinkingly. ‘And if I do not wish to stay in the desert?’
‘Your presence here, I’m afraid, is non-negotiable. But rest assured, you will be afforded every comfort.’
Elena licked her lips, an innocent movement that still caused a hard kick of lust he instantly suppressed. Queen Elena was a beautiful woman; his body, long deprived of sensual pleasures, was bound to react. It didn’t mean he was going to do anything about it.
Perhaps the most attractive thing about her, though, was not her looks but her presence. Even though he knew she had to be frightened, she sat tall and proud, her grey eyes glinting challenge. He admired her determination to be strong; he shared it. Never surrender, not even when the whole world seemed to be against you, every fist raised, every lip curled in a sneer.
Had she faced opposition and hardship? She had, he knew, suffered tragedy. She’d taken the throne at nineteen years of age, when her parents had died in a terrorist bombing. She was only twenty-three now and, though she looked very young, she seemed older in her bearing, somehow. In her confidence.
She rose from her seat, every inch the elegant queen. ‘You cannot keep me here.’
He smiled; he almost felt sorry for her. ‘You’ll find that I can.’
‘Aziz will send someone to fetch me. People will be looking.’
‘Tomorrow. By that time any tracks in the desert, any evidence of where you’ve gone, will have vanished.’ He glanced towards the tent flap, which rustled in the wind. ‘It sounds as if a storm is brewing.’
Elena shook her head slowly. ‘How did you manage it? To get a false message to him, convince the pilot to land somewhere else?’
‘Not everyone is loyal to Aziz. In fact, few are outside of Siyad. You know he has not been in the country for more than a few days at a time since he was a boy?’
‘I know he is very popular in the courts of Europe.’
‘You mean the country clubs. The gentleman playboy is not so popular here.’
Elena’s eyes flashed gold. ‘That’s a ridiculous nickname, given to him by the tabloids.’
Khalil shrugged. ‘And yet it stuck.’ Aziz, the playboy of Europe, who spent his time at parties and on polo fields. He ran a business too, Khalil knew; he’d started up some financial venture that was successful, if just an excuse for him to party his way through Europe and avoid the country of his birth.
Aziz didn’t even care about Kadar, Khalil thought with a familiar spike of bitterness. He didn’t deserve to rule, even if he hadn’t been a bastard son.
‘No matter what you think of Aziz, you can’t just kidnap a queen,’ Elena stated, her chin jutting out defiantly. ‘You’d be wise to cut your losses, Khalil, and free me now. I won’t press charges.’
Khalil suppressed a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘How generous of you.’
‘You don’t want to face a tribunal,’ she insisted. ‘How can you become Sheikh if you’ve committed a crime? Caused an international incident? You will be called to account.’
‘You’ll find that is not how things are done in my country.’
‘My country, then,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think my Council, my country, will allow its queen to be kidnapped?’
He shrugged. ‘You were merely detained, Your Highness, as a necessary measure. And, since Aziz is a pretender to the throne, you should be grateful that I am preventing a marriage you would undoubtedly regret.’
‘Grateful!’ Her eyes sparked with anger. ‘What if your plan fails?’
He smiled coldly. ‘I do not consider failure a possibility.’
She shook her head slowly, her eyes like two grey-gold pools, reminding him of a sunset reflected on water. ‘You can’t do this. People don’t— World leaders don’t do this!’
‘Things are different here.’
‘Not that different, surely?’ She shook her head again. ‘You’re mad.’
Fury surged again and he took a deep, even breath. ‘No, Your Highness, I am not mad. Just determined. Now, it is late and I think you should go to your quarters. You will have a private tent here and, as I said before, every comfort possible.’ He bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Enjoy your stay in Kadar.’
* * *
Elena paced the quarters of the elegant tent Assad had escorted her to an hour ago. Khalil had been right when he’d said he’d give her every possible comfort: the spacious tent had a wide double bed on its own wooden dais, the soft mattress piled high with silk and satin covers and pillows. There were also several teak chairs and a bureau for clothes she didn’t even have.
Had they brought her luggage from the jet? She doubted it. Not that she’d even brought much to Kadar. She’d only been intending to stay for three days: a quiet ceremony, a quick honeymoon and then a return to Thallia to introduce Aziz to her people.
And now none of it would happen. Unless someone rescued her or she managed to escape, prospects she deemed quite unlikely, her marriage to Aziz would not take place. If he did not marry within the six weeks, he would be forced to relinquish his claim to the throne. He wouldn’t need her then, but unfortunately she still needed him.
Still needed a husband, a Prince Consort, and before the convening of the Council next month.
Elena sank onto an embroidered chair and dropped her head into her hands. Even now she couldn’t believe she was here, that she’d actually been kidnapped.
Yet why shouldn’t she believe it? Hadn’t the worst in her life happened before? For a second she remembered the sound of the explosion ringing in her ears, the terrible weight of her father’s lifeless body on top of hers.
And, even after that awful day, from the moment she’d taken the throne she’d been dogged by disaster, teetering on the precipice of ruin. Led by Markos, the stuffy, sanctimonious men of the Thallian Council had sought to discredit and even disown her. They didn’t want a single young woman as ruler of Thallia. They didn’t want her.
She’d spent so much time trying to prove herself to the men of her Council who questioned her every action, doubted her every word. Who assumed she was flighty, silly and irresponsible, all because of one foolish mistake made when she’d been just nineteen and overwhelmed by grief and loneliness.
Nearly four years on, all the good she’d done for her country—all the appearances she’d made, the charities she’d supported and the bills she’d helped draft—counted for nothing. At least, not in Markos’s eyes. And the rest of the Council would be led by him, even in this day and age. Thallia was a traditional country. They wanted a man as their head of state.
Tears pricked under her lids and she blinked them back furiously. She wasn’t a little girl, to cry over a cut knee. She was a woman, a woman who’d had to prove she possessed the power and strength of a man for four endless, stormy years.
It couldn’t end now like this, just because some crazed rebel had decided he was the rightful heir to the throne.
Except, Elena had to acknowledge, Khalil hadn’t seemed crazed. He’d been coldly composed, utterly assured. Yet how could he be the rightful heir? And did he really think he could snatch the throne from under Aziz’s nose? When she didn’t show up in Siyad, when the Kadaran diplomat who had accompanied her sounded the alarm, Aziz would come looking. And he’d find her, because he was as desperate as she was.
Although, considering she was being held captive in the middle of the desert, perhaps she was now a little more desperate than Aziz.
He could, she realised with a terrible, sinking sensation, find another willing bride. Why shouldn’t he? They’d met only a handful of times. The marriage had been her idea. He could still find someone else, although he’d have to do it pretty quickly.
Had Khalil thought of that? What was preventing Aziz from just grabbing some random woman and marrying her to fulfil the terms of his father’s will?
Elena rose from the chair and once more restlessly paced the elegant confines of her tent. Outside the night was dark, the only sound the sweep of the sand and the low nickering of the tethered horses.
She had to talk to Khalil again and convince him to release her. That was her best chance.
Filled with grim determination, Elena whirled around and stalked to the opening of her tent, pulled the cloth aside and stepped out into the desert night, only to have two guards step quickly in front of her, their bodies as impenetrable as a brick wall. She gazed at their blank faces, at the rifles strapped to their chests, and lifted her chin.
‘I want to speak to Khalil.’
‘He is occupied, Your Highness.’ The guard’s voice was both bland and implacable; he didn’t move.
‘With something more important than securing the throne?’ she shot back. The wind blew her hair about her face and impatiently she shoved it back. ‘I have information he’ll want to hear,’ she stated firmly. ‘Information that will affect his—his intentions.’
The two guards stared at her impassively, utterly unmoved by her argument. ‘Please return to the tent, Your Highness,’ one of them said flatly. ‘The wind is rising.’
‘Tell Khalil he needs to speak to me,’ she tried again, and this time, to her own immense irritation, she heard a pleading note enter her voice. ‘Tell him there are things I know, things he hasn’t considered.’
One of the guards placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and Elena stiffened under it. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘For your own safety, Your Highness, you must return to the tent.’ And, pushing her around, he forced her back into the tent as if she were a small child being marched to her room.
* * *
Khalil sat at the teakwood table in his private tent and with one lean finger traced the route through the desert from the campsite to Siyad. Three hundred miles. Three hundred miles to victory.
Reluctantly, yet unable to keep himself from it, he let his gaze flick to a corner of the map, an inhospitable area of bleak desert populated by a single nomadic tribe: his mother’s people.
He knew Abdul-Hafiz was dead, and the people of his mother’s tribe now supported him as the rightful ruler of Kadar. Yet though they’d even named him as Sheikh of their tribe, he hadn’t been back yet to receive the honour. He couldn’t face returning to that barren bit of ground where he’d suffered for three long years.
His stomach still clenched when he looked at that corner of the map, and in his mind’s eye he pictured Abdul-Hafiz’s cruel face, his thin lips twisted into a mocking sneer as he raised the whip above Khalil’s cringing form.
‘The woman is asking for you.’
Khalil turned away from the map to see Assad standing in the doorway of his tent, the flaps drawn closed behind him.
‘Queen Elena? Why?’
‘She claims she has information.’
‘What kind of information?’
Assad shrugged. ‘Who knows? She is desperate, and most likely lying.’
Khalil drummed his fingers against the table. Elena was indeed desperate, and that made her reckless. Defiant. No doubt her bid to speak to him was some kind of ploy; perhaps she thought she could argue her way to freedom. It would be better, he knew, to ignore her request. Spend as little time as possible with the woman who was already proving to be an unwanted temptation.
‘It is worth investigating,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll see her.’
‘Shall I summon her?’
‘No, don’t bother. I’ll go to her tent.’ Khalil rose from his chair, ignoring the anticipation that uncurled low in his belly at the thought of seeing Queen Elena again.
The wind whipped against him, stinging his face with grains of sand as he walked across the campsite to Elena’s tent. Around him men hunkered down by fires or tended to their weapons or animals. At the sight of all this industry, all this loyalty, something both swelled and ached inside Khalil.
This was, he knew, the closest thing he’d had to family in twenty-nine years.
Dimah was family, of course, and he was incredibly thankful for what she’d done for him. She had, quite literally, saved him: provided for him, supported him, believed in him.
Yes, he owed Dimah a great deal. But she’d never understood what drove him, how much he needed to reclaim his inheritance, his very self. These men did.
Shaking off such thoughts, he strode towards Elena’s tent, waving the guards aside as he drew back the flaps, only to come up short.
Elena was in the bath.
The intimacy of the moment struck him like a fist to the heart: the endless darkness outside, the candlelight flickering over the golden skin of her back, the only sound the slosh of the water against the sides of the deep copper tub as Elena washed herself—and then the hiss of his sudden, indrawn breath as a wave of lust crashed over him with the force of a tsunami.
She stiffened, the sponge dropping from her hand, and turned her head so their gazes met. Clashed. She didn’t speak, didn’t even move, and neither did Khalil. The moment spun out between them, a moment taut with expectation and yet beautiful in its simplicity.
She was beautiful, the elegant shape of her back reminding him of the sinuous curves of a cello. A single tendril of dark hair lay against the nape of her neck; the rest was piled on top of her head.
As if from a great distance Khalil registered her shuddering breath and knew she was frightened. Shame scorched him and he spun on his heel.
‘I beg your pardon. I did not realise you were bathing. I’ll wait outside.’ He pushed outside the tent, the guards coming quickly to flank him, but he just shook his head and brushed them off. Lust still pulsed insistently inside him, an ache in his groin. He folded his arms across his chest and willed his body’s traitorous reaction to recede. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he could not banish the image of Elena’s golden perfection from his mind.
After a few endless minutes he heard a rustling behind him and Elena appeared, dressed in a white towelling robe that thankfully covered her from neck to toe.
‘You may come in.’ Her voice was husky, her cheeks flushed—although whether from the heat of the bath or their unexpected encounter he didn’t know.
Khalil stepped inside the tent. Elena had already retreated to the far side, the copper tub between them like a barrier, her slight body swallowed up by the robe.
‘I’m sorry,’ Khalil said. ‘I didn’t know you were in the bath.’
‘So you said.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Why should I believe anything you say?’ she retorted. ‘You haven’t exactly been acting in an honourable fashion.’
Khalil drew himself up, any traces of desire evaporating in the face of her obvious scorn. ‘And it would be honourable to allow my country to be ruled by a pretender?’
‘A pretender?’ She shook her head in derisive disbelief, causing a few more tendrils of hair to fall against her cheek. Khalil’s hand twitched with the sudden, absurd urge to touch her, to brush those strands away from her face. He clenched his hand into a fist instead.
‘Aziz is not the rightful heir to the throne.’
‘I don’t care!’ she cried, her voice ringing out harsh and desperate. Khalil felt any soft longings in him harden, crystallise into determination. Of course she didn’t care.
‘I realise that, Your Highness,’ he answered shortly. ‘Although why you wish to marry Aziz is not clear to me. Power, perhaps.’ He let her hear the contempt in his voice but she didn’t respond to it, except to give one weary laugh.
‘Power? I suppose you could say that.’ She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them he was surprised to see so much bleak despair reflected in their grey-gold depths. ‘All I meant was, none of it really matters to me, being here. I understand this—this conflict is very important to you. But keeping me here won’t accomplish your goal.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘No.’ Her mouth twisted in something like a smile. ‘Aziz will just marry someone else. He still has four days.’
‘I’m aware of the time that is left.’ He regarded her thoughtfully, the bleakness still apparent in her eyes, the set of her shoulders and mouth both determined and courageous. He felt another flicker of admiration as well as a surge of curiosity. Why had she agreed to marry Aziz? What could such a marriage possibly give her?
‘So why keep me here?’ she pressed. ‘If he can fulfil the terms of his father’s will with another woman?’
‘Because he won’t.’
‘But he will. We barely know each other. We’ve only met once before.’
‘I know.’
‘Then why do you think he would be loyal to me?’ she asked and he felt a sudden flash of compassion as well as understanding, because he’d asked that question so many times himself. Why would anyone be loyal to him? Why should he trust anyone?
The person he’d loved most in the world had betrayed and rejected him utterly.
‘To be frank,’ he told her, ‘I don’t think loyalty is the issue. Politics are.’
‘Exactly. So he’ll just marry someone else.’
‘And alienate his people even more? They love the idea of this wedding. They love it more than they do Aziz. And if he were to discard one woman for another...’ As our father did. No, he had no wish to divulge that information to Elena just yet. He took a quick breath. ‘It would not be popular. It would destabilise his rule even more.’
‘But if he’s going to lose his crown anyway...’
‘But he won’t, not necessarily. Did he not tell you?’ Uncertainty flashed across her features and Khalil curved his mouth in a grim smile. ‘The will states that, if Aziz does not marry within six weeks, he must call a national referendum. The people will then choose the new sheikh.’
She stared at him, her eyes widening. ‘And you think that will be you?’
He let out a hard laugh. ‘Don’t sound so sceptical.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I told you, the next ruler of Kadar.’ Her gaze moved over his face searchingly, and he saw despair creep back into her eyes.
‘But Aziz could still go ahead and marry someone else while I’m stuck here in the desert. What happens then?’
‘If he does that, it might lead to a civil war. I don’t think he wishes for that to happen. Admittedly, Your Highness, I am taking a risk. You are right in saying that Aziz could marry someone else. But I don’t think he will.’
‘Why not just meet him and ask him to call the referendum?’
He shook his head. ‘Because he knows he won’t win it.’
‘And if it comes to war? Are you prepared?’
‘I will do what I must to secure my country’s rule. Make no mistake about that, Queen Elena.’ She flinched slightly at his implacable tone and something in Khalil softened just a little. None of this was Elena’s fault. She was a casualty of a conflict that didn’t involve her. In any other circumstance, he would have applauded her courage and determination.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a pause. ‘I realise your plans to marry Aziz have been upset. But, considering how they were made so recently, I’m sure you’ll recover.’ He didn’t mean to sound quite so cutting, but he knew he did, and he saw her flinch again.
She looked away, her gaze turning distant. ‘You think so?’ she said, not really a question, and again he heard the bleak despair and wondered at its source.
‘I know so, Your Highness. I don’t know why you decided to marry Aziz, but since it wasn’t for love your heart is hardly broken.’
‘And you know about broken hearts?’ she answered with another weary laugh. ‘You don’t even seem to have one.’
‘Perhaps I don’t. But you didn’t love him?’ That was a question, of a sort. He was curious, even if he didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to know more about Elena, to wonder about her motives or her heart.
And yet still he asked.
‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘Of course I didn’t—don’t—love him. I barely know him. We met twice, for a couple of hours.’ She shook her head, let out a long, defeated sigh, and then seemed to come to herself, straightening again, her eyes flashing once more. ‘But I have your word you will release me after four days?’
‘Yes. You have my word.’ She relaxed slightly then, even as he stiffened. ‘You don’t think I’d hurt you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I? Kidnappers are usually capable of other crimes.’
‘As I explained, this was a necessary evil, Your Highness, nothing more.’
‘And what else will be a necessary evil, Khalil?’ she answered back. He didn’t like the hopelessness he saw in her eyes; it was as if the spark that had lit her from within had died out. He missed it. ‘When you justify one thing, it becomes all too easy to justify another.’
‘You sound as if you speak from experience.’
‘I do.’
‘Your own.’
A pause and her mouth firmed and tightened. ‘Of sorts.’
He opened his mouth to ask another question, but then closed it abruptly. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t need to understand this woman; he simply needed her to stay put for a handful of days. He was sorry, more or less, for her disappointment. But that was all it was, a disappointment. An inconvenience, really. Her future, her very life, was not riding on a marriage to a stranger.
Not like his was.
‘I promise I will not hurt you. And in four days you will be free.’ She simply stared at him and, with one terse nod, he dismissed her, leaving the tent without another word.
