Читать книгу Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin - Ким Лоренс, Kim Lawrence - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

PEOPLE assumed that Tair Al Sharif was a natural diplomat, but they were wrong.

He was so not a diplomat—though there had been many occasions when that role had been forced upon him by necessity—that as his cousin’s glance once more drifted from him to the young Englishwoman seated on the opposite side of the table he wanted quite badly to drag the other man from his chair, give him a good shake and demand to know what the hell he thought he was playing at.

‘How is your father, Tair?’

The soft buzz of conversation around the table stilled as Tair removed his steely stare from the Crown prince of Zarhat’s profile and turned his attention to the man who was the hereditary ruler of that country.

‘Hassan’s death was a shock to him.’

The king sighed and shook his head. ‘A man should not outlive his children. It is not the natural order of things. Still he has you, Tair, and that must be a comfort to him.’

If this was the case his father was hiding it well.

There was an ironic glitter in Tair’s blue eyes as his thoughts were drawn back to his last verbal exchange with his father.

‘I trusted you and what did you do, Tair?’ King Malik’s face had been suffused with a dark colour as he’d slammed his fist down on the table, causing all the heavy silver to jump.

Years ago when he had been a boy, Tair had struggled to hide his reaction to his father’s sometimes violent and unpredictable outbursts, though such displays of unbridled fury had left him sick to the stomach. Now he did not need to struggle, as his father’s rages no longer seemed frightening to him, just vaguely distasteful.

‘It is a pity it wasn’t you who walked in front of that car instead of your brother. He knew what loyalty and respect is due me. He would have supported me in this, not taken advantage of my grief to go behind my back.’

‘I tried to contact you in Paris.’

His father’s grief had not interfered in any noticeable manner with his social life.

King Malik dismissed this comment with a wave of his short, heavily ringed fingers and a contemptuous snort.

‘But I was told you were not to be disturbed.’ Tair knew this had been shorthand for his father being in the middle of a very high-stakes poker game.

The king’s eyes narrowed further as he glared at his remaining son without a hint of affection.

‘Your problem, Tair, is you have no vision. You do not think on the grand scale, but of such things as a water-treatment plant…’ His sneer registered utter contempt for such a project. ‘You exchanged those mineral rights for a water-treatment plant instead of a new yacht!’

‘Not just a water-treatment plant, but an undertaking to recruit locally whenever possible, a training programme for our people and fifty per cent of the profits for them once they have recouped a percentage of their initial outlay.’

The deal he had renegotiated had not made the international firm he was dealing with exactly happy. They had been under the impression he was there to rubber stamp the contract as it stood, but they had at least viewed him with grudging respect as they had walked away looking like men who were not quite sure what had just happened to them.

Of course, Tair conceded, he’d had the element of surprise on his side. Next time—though considering his father’s reaction that might not be any time soon—he would not have that advantage.

But Tair was not a man to avoid challenges.

‘Profits!’ His father had dismissed those intangible projected figures with a snap of his swollen fingers. Overindulgence had left its mark on his coarsened features and his once athletic body. ‘And when will that be? I could have had the yacht next month.’

His suggestion that it would perhaps be no great hardship to make do with last year’s yacht had not been received well! And though Tair had not expected, or fortunately needed, praise, the lecture had been hard to take.

It was much easier to accept the censorious finger his uncle waved in his direction because Tair knew that, unlike his own father, King Hakim’s remonstrance was well intentioned. His uncle was a man who had always put the welfare of his people above his own comfort and would be able to appreciate what Tair was trying to achieve.

‘Remember the next time you feel the urge to fly into a desert storm…alone…that you are all your father has left.’

It was hard to tell from his manner which action appalled his uncle the most: the danger of the desert storm or the fact his nephew had not travelled with an entourage of hundreds as befitted his station in life.

‘There are responsibilities in being heir.’

Tair inclined his head in courteous acknowledgement of the royal rebuke. ‘I am new to the role, Uncle, so I’m bound to make some errors.’

From the moment Tair had become heir to the throne many had considered his life public property and he accepted this, but there were some freedoms that he was not willing to relinquish. He needed places, moments and people with whom he could be himself in order to preserve his sanity.

‘But you are not new to fobbing off old men. Do you think I don’t know that you smile, say the right things and then do exactly what you want, Tair? However I know that, despite your action-man antics, you are aware of your duties. More aware than your brother ever was. I know one should not speak ill of the dead, but I say nothing now that I would not have said to his face and nothing I have not in the past said to your father.

‘Malik did nobody any favours when he turned a blind eye to your brother’s scandals and as for the dubious business dealings…?’ Clicking his tongue, King Hakim shook his leonine head in disapproval. ‘I have always been of the opinion that your country would have been better off if you had been born the elder.’

It wasn’t often that Tair struggled for words, but, more accustomed to defending his actions from criticism, he was stunned to uncomfortable silence by this unexpected tribute from his uncle.

It was Beatrice who came to his rescue.

‘I wouldn’t mind getting my pilot’s licence one day.’

The innocent comment from a heavily pregnant and glowing princess successfully diverted her father-in-law’s attention from his nephew—as Tair was sure it was intended to—and began a good-natured joking debate among the younger generation around the table that centred on the hotly disputed superior ability of men to master any skill that required hand-eye co-ordination.

Everyone joined in except the mouselike English girl, who either through shyness or total lack of social skills—Tair suspected the latter—had barely spoken a word throughout the meal unless directly addressed.

The second silent party was Tariq.

Tair’s irritation escalated and his suspicion increased as he watched the pair through icy blue eyes.

Tariq was the man who had it all, including a wife who adored him, a wife who was carrying his first child.

Tair’s expression softened as his glance flickered to the other end of the table where Beatrice Al Kamal sat looking every inch the regal princess even when she winked at him over the head of her father-in-law the king.

He turned his head, the half-smile that was tugging at his own lips fading as he saw that Tariq was still staring like some pathetic puppy at the English mouse.

Tair’s lip curled in disgust. He had always liked and admired the other man, and had always considered his cousin strong not only in the physical but also in the moral sense. Tair had felt it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving man when Tariq had met and married the glorious Titian-haired Beatrice after a whirlwind romance.

If two people were ever meant to be together it was Beatrice and Tariq. Their clear devotion had touched even Tair’s cynical heart, and made him hope in his less realistic moments that there was such a soul mate waiting for him somewhere, though even if there was it seemed unlikely they were destined to be together.

His future was intrinsically linked with that of the country he would one day rule. What his country needed and deserved after years of neglect by his father and Hassan, who had both been of the opinion the country was their own personal bank, was political and financial stability. It was Tair’s duty to make a marriage that supplied both. Improving transport links and dragging the medical facilities of Zabrania, the neighbouring country to Zarhat, into the twenty-first century were more important things than true love.

He directed another icy glare at his cousin, and considered the other man’s stupidity. Tariq didn’t seem to have a clue as to how lucky he was!

Didn’t the man know he had it all?

And even if he wasn’t insane enough to risk his marriage by actually being unfaithful—though in Tair’s eyes the distinction between fantasy and physical infidelity was at best blurred—he was obviously stupid enough to risk hurting Beatrice by being so damned obvious.

Even a total imbecile could have picked up on the signals his cousin was being so mystifyingly indiscreet about hiding, and Beatrice was far from stupid.

It was totally inexplicable to Tair that Tariq could have so little respect for his wife that he would insult her this way, and for what…?

He allowed his own scornful gaze to drift in the direction of the English girl, who was clearly not the innocent she seemed because no man acted like Tariq without some encouragement. Tair tried and failed to see something in the mouselike girl that could tempt a man like Tariq…or for that matter any man!

Unlike red-headed, voluptuous Beatrice, this was not a girl who would turn heads. Small and slight, her brown hair secured in a twist at the nape of her neck—a good neck, Tair grudgingly noticed as he allowed his glance to linger momentarily on the slender pale column—she was not the sort of woman who exuded any strong allure for the opposite sex.

Trying to picture the small oval-shaped face without the large heavy-framed spectacles that were perched on the end of a slightly tip-tilted nose, Tair conceded that an investment in contact lenses might make her more than passable.

But such a change would not alter the fact that her body, covered at this moment in a peculiar sacklike dress the shade of mud, totally lacked the feminine curves which, like most men, he found attractive in the opposite sex.

His blue eyes narrowed as he watched the English girl turn her head to meet Tariq’s eyes. For a moment the two simply looked at one another as though there were nobody else in the room. The outrage, locked in Tair’s chest like a clenched fist, tightened another notch.

Then she smiled, her long curling eyelashes sweeping downwards creating a shadow across her smooth, softly flushed cheeks and the corners of her mouth. How had he missed the blatant sensuality of that full pouting lower lip?

Tair’s mild concern and annoyance at his cousin’s uncharacteristic behaviour morphed abruptly into genuine apprehension. Up until this point he had thought that his cousin had simply needed reminding that he was one of the good guys; now it seemed that more might be required.

This silent exchange suggested to him a worrying degree of intimacy. For the first time he seriously considered the possibility that this situation had progressed beyond mild flirtation.

Tair’s long fingers tightened around the glass he was holding. Under the dark shield of his lashes his blue eyes, now turned navy with anger, slid around the table. The other guests at the family party continued to talk and laugh, seemingly oblivious to the silent communication between Tariq and the deceptively demure guest.

His brows twitched into a straight line above his strong masterful nose. Were they all blind?

How was it possible, he wondered incredulously, that he was the only person present who could see what was going on?

Could they not see the connection between these two?

Then his study of his guests revealed that Beatrice was also watching the interchange between her husband and friend. Tair’s admiration of the woman his cousin had married went up another level when she responded to a comment made by her brother-in-law, Khalid, with a relaxed smile that hid whatever hurt or anxiety she might be feeling.

Beatrice was a classy lady. Clearly her mouse friend was not; she was a predator in mouse’s clothing and his cousin was her prey.

He briefly considered the option of speaking directly to Tariq and telling him point-blank he was playing with fire. Such a discussion would end at best in harsh words and at worst in an exchange of blows—not really ideal from either a personal or political perspective. On reflection he decided it would be better by far to speak to the woman who was pursuing Tariq.

He would warn Miss Mouse that he would not stand by and watch her ruin the marriage of his friends. And if Miss Mouse didn’t listen he would have to take direct action. He had no idea what form that direct action would take, but Tair’s inspiration had so far not let him down. He had frequently walked into a room full of dignitaries whom his brother had insulted with no idea what he was going to say, but the right words had always come.

Though maybe this situation would require more than words… He gave a mental shrug, as he was capable of that too. Capable, according to some, of great ruthlessness, but Tair did not think of it in such emotive terms, he just did what was necessary and he never asked anyone else to perform an unpleasant task that he himself was not willing to do.

He looked at the sexy curve of the Mouse’s mouth and wondered if that unpleasantness would take the form of sampling those lips…? Perhaps at a chosen moment when his actions could be observed by his cousin. The plan, unlike the lady, had some virtue as he was sure Tariq was not a man who would enjoy sharing any more than he would.

She was, he mused, staring at that mouth, nothing like any woman he had ever kissed. She had nothing to recommend her beyond neatness, a conniving nature and a sexy—actually very sexy—mouth, and he had done worse to help a friend.

The Mouse, perhaps sensing his study, suddenly stopped gazing at Tariq and turned her head, the action briefly causing her gaze to collide with his cold, hostile stare.

He watched with clinical detachment, the guilty colour rise up her slender neck until her small face was suffused with heat.

His lip curled in contempt as he smiled and watched her literally recoil before she looked away. At least she now knew that there was someone who was not fooled by her meek and mild act.

Tariq was still wearing the dark formal suit that he had been wearing at dinner, but his tie now hung loose around his neck.

Molly closed the door and motioned him to a chair. She perched on the edge of the big canopied bed suspecting her cotton pyjamas looked totally incongruous against the silken opulence, much the same way as she looked totally incongruous and out of place in the palace.

Some of the awkwardness and wariness she felt in Tariq’s presence had dissipated over the past couple of weeks but she still couldn’t totally relax around him.

She got the impression that he too was still feeling his way. Which wasn’t that surprising given this relationship was still very new for them both. Fortunately Khalid, with his naturally outgoing nature, had not been similarly stilted and Molly felt much more at ease in his company.

Tariq, tall and lean, took the chair, turned it round, then straddled it, resting his hands on the back as he looked across at her. Molly realised that Beatrice had not been exaggerating when she had told her that her husband was not a man who felt any need to fill silences. Molly, impatient to know the reason for his visit, stifled her impulse to demand an explanation.

‘I have not disturbed you? You were not asleep?’

She shook her head and there was another lengthy silence while she wondered some more why he had come.

‘Khalid is concerned he might have offended you.’

Molly’s bewilderment was genuine. ‘Why would he think that?’

‘He introduced you to Tair as Beatrice’s friend.’ For once Tariq had not been pleased to see his cousin and he had been hard put not to show his lack of enthusiasm for the extra dinner guest. ‘He is afraid,’ he explained, ‘that you might mistake his reasons for not revealing your true identity.’

Tariq’s voice receded into the distance as an image rose in Molly’s head of the tall man with the electric blue eyes who had arrived at dinner looking dusty but remarkably good considering he had apparently just made an emergency landing at the airport after flying through an unexpected dust storm.

‘The families are connected, loads of intermarriage. He’s a cousin and heir to the throne of Zabrania.’ Beatrice had explained the stranger’s presence in a quiet aside to Molly while the men spoke together in a bewildering mixture of rapid Arabic, French and English.

‘He has blue eyes!’ Deep cerulean blue, the most intense shade that Molly had ever seen.

‘You noticed?’

Hard not to!

‘Apparently blue eyes crop up every so often in the Al Sharif family. There’s a nice story about that, according to family legend. How true it is, I don’t know, but they say a Viking got lost way back when. Rumour has it he got a bit too friendly with a royal princess and since then the blue eyes pop up every few generations. Tair is quite a looker, isn’t he?’

Vaguely aware of Beatrice’s amusement but totally unable to control her own expression, Molly closed her mouth with an audible snap and lowered her gaze, wondering if it was the incredible level of testosterone circulating in the room that was responsible for her erratic heartbeat.

‘Really…?’ she said, adopting a look of wide-eyed, exaggerated innocence. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Her humour was a little shaky, though Beatrice seemed not to notice, responding to the husky irony with an appreciative chuckle.

Molly’s gaze was drawn back to their dinner guest.

Not notice! There was no way women hadn’t been noticing this man from the moment he began shaving, a task that the shadow on his firm angular jaw suggested he had not performed since at least that morning.

Casting a covert look at the newcomer through her lashes, she noted the rest of his skin was the shade of vibrant gold and blemish-free if you discounted a fine white scar that began just beneath one razor-sharp cheekbone and terminated at the corner of his wide, mobile and almost indecently sensual mouth.

Actually there was no almost about it—his mouth was indecent. The maverick thoughts that popped into her head when she looked at it certainly were!

His strongly delineated brows were the same raven shade as his hair, which looked like black satin and touched the collar of the open-necked shirt he wore. Under the layer of red dust the shirt might be the same colour as his eyes, though she doubted it—that unique shade of blue was not one that would be easy to duplicate.

Fortunately nobody seemed to notice her compulsion to look at him as her eyes roamed across the angles and strong planes of his face. She was staring, but how could she not? Beauty was a term that people flung around casually but here was someone who actually merited the description, although not in a Hollywood type of way. The newcomer had looks that affected the onlooker on a much earthier and more primal level.

Or maybe it’s just me, she thought.

It was a worrying thought, but she doubted her reaction was unique. She doubted any woman would not be inclined to stare open-mouthed when they saw the six feet four inches of lean muscle and hard sinew that was Tair Al Sharif. He really was the most extraordinary-looking man Molly had ever seen.

But the prim voice in her head reminded her that looks were not everything.

It was something her father, thinking he was being kind, had told her frequently as she grew up beside two stepsisters who were as beautiful as they were lovely-natured. Sometimes, Molly reflected, it would have been easier if Rosie and Sue had been mean and nasty. At least then she could have been jealous without feeling guilty. And there was something much more romantic about being oppressed and exploited by mean stepsisters than spoilt and indulged and told you were lovely inside.

Only last month Rosie had offered her a makeover when she had wailed in frustration that she’d prefer to be lovely on the outside and happily exchange ten points of her impressive IQ for another inch on her flat chest.

She snapped out of her reverie and drew herself back to the present to respond to Tariq. ‘I completely understand why Khalid said what he did. Please tell him not to worry. However, I don’t think the prince…’ She stopped, realising this did not narrow the field much in the circles she was currently moving in, where princes were pretty thick on the ground! She gave a rueful grin as she added, ‘Your cousin—I don’t think he likes me much.’

The grin died as she recalled sensing, feeling, his extraordinary and unbelievably eloquent eyes upon her.

‘Tair?’ Tariq said, shaking his head. ‘You must be mistaken. He does not know you. Why should he dislike you?’

Good question, but Molly knew there had been no ambiguity about the message she had seen in those glittering azure depths.

Having never in her life inspired any strong feelings in gorgeous-looking men—obviously they remained oblivious to the fact she was lovely inside—to have someone looking at her with that level of hostility and contempt had been quite disturbing.

His face floated into her mind gain; she tried to expel the image but it lingered. It was a face with a ‘once seen never forgotten’ quality. Even if you wanted to forget the golden skin stretched over hard angles and intriguing hollows, the sensual mouth and searing blue stare.

‘You must have been mistaken, Molly.’

‘I expect so,’ she said, already wishing she had not introduced the subject. But no matter what Tariq said she knew she was not mistaken—Tair Al Sharif could not stand the sight of her.

Not that she was going to lose any sleep over his opinion of her. As first impressions went she hadn’t taken to him either.

‘If it will make you feel better I will explain our relationship to him straight away.’

‘There’s really no need.’ She wondered if the flicker she saw in her brother’s eyes was relief. The possibility shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. ‘And I’d actually prefer if you didn’t.’

On a practical level she knew the searing dislike she had read in the Arab prince’s face was not going to alter just because he knew she was Tariq and Khalid’s English half-sister.

No, it had been loathing at first sight.

Besides, there were some people you didn’t want to like you, and he was one of them, she decided. She mentally ticked off the qualities that made him undesirable—off-the-scale arrogance, no sense of humour, and he was in love with himself. The last seemed a reasonable assumption to Molly, who reasoned a person who looked at that face in the mirror every day would have to be just a little fond of himself.

‘It is up to you, Molly, but what I came to say to you is that it is not a relationship that we are ashamed to acknowledge, quite the contrary…though,’ Tariq conceded with a grimace, ‘obviously it would be difficult to go public because…’

‘This isn’t easy for your father.’

Tariq looked grateful for her understanding of the situation. ‘It was hard for him when our mother left… He is a proud man and the scandal of a divorce in our society, the gossip and stories, left its mark.’

It had been hard for Tariq too, but this was something Molly had not appreciated until very recently.

‘Your father has been very kind to me and I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass him. I’m not about to go public. I promise you I won’t breathe a word to a soul. If anyone asks I’m Bea’s friend.’

It was not a hard promise to make, as the level of hospitality she had received from the king had touched her deeply. However, she realised it could not be easy for him to have his ex-wife’s child as a guest.

Molly knew enough about Zarhat culture to recognise that when Tariq had touched on the subject of the royal divorce he had, if anything, been downplaying the situation, yet the king had welcomed her into his home when many in his position might not have even wanted reminding of her existence.

Her solemnity as she made her vow of silence brought an affectionate smile to Tariq’s face ‘I appreciate that, Molly. But you do know that Khalid and I would both have been proud to have introduced you as our sister tonight.’

Warm moisture filled Molly’s amber eyes as emotion clogged her throat. ‘Really…?’

‘You can doubt this?’ he asked, before a spasm of self-condemnation twisted his dark features. ‘Of course you can. Why would you not after I have ignored you for the past twenty-four years? If you had told me to go to hell it would have been what I deserved.’

A grin spread across Molly’s face as she flicked away a strand of waist-length hair that had drifted across her face. It was still slightly damp from the shower. ‘The way I recall it I pretty much did just that.’

The reminder of that meeting brought a rueful grin to his face.

‘If it wasn’t for Beatrice coming to see me I wouldn’t be here now,’ she said frankly.

It was true. When the half-brother who had ignored her since birth had suggested they should get to know one another, her response had been to angrily reject his overtures. What did she need with a brother who she knew had caused their mother so much heartache by refusing any contact with her after her second marriage to Molly’s father?

They were strangers and Molly had been happy for it to stay that way; she’d wanted nothing to do with him.

Why would she?

She owed Tariq nothing. He hadn’t just ignored the fact she existed, he had pressured Khalid, whom she had seen and adored as a small child before their mother’s premature death, to reject her too.

It had been a visit in person from Beatrice pleading her husband’s case that had persuaded her to accept the invitation.

Molly had come prepared, almost wanting, to despise this brother, but to her amazement after a slightly rocky start she had found herself liking Tariq.

‘And you are glad you did come?’

Molly uncurled her legs from underneath her as she lifted her chin and scanned the lean dark face of the brother she still barely knew. ‘Very glad,’ she admitted huskily.

Tariq smiled and got to his feet. ‘And you will think about what I have said?’

‘I will,’ she promised, walking with him to the door.

‘Tariq!’

Standing framed in the doorway, he turned back.

‘I do understand, you know…why you wouldn’t come and visit Mum when she was alive.’

She hadn’t always. As a small child the only thing she had understood was the desperate hurt in her mother’s eyes when the eldest son she had been forced to leave behind when she’d divorced the King of Zarhat had not accompanied his brother for the arranged visit.

It had not crossed her mind at the time that Tariq had been hurting too and perhaps feeling betrayed that the mother he had loved had chosen her freedom over her sons.

‘Dad told me, when he knew I was coming here, how she never stopped feeling guilty about leaving you and Khalid, but she knew you would be safe and loved. She always knew that your place was here.’

‘And hers was not.’

There was no trace of criticism in Tariq’s manner but Molly felt impelled to defend the choice their mother had made.

‘She must have been very desperate.’

Molly could only imagine the sort of unhappiness that would make a woman make that choice. She knew nothing about the strength of maternal bonds, but something deep inside her told her that to leave a child would be like ripping away part of yourself and you’d walk around with that awful emptiness the rest of your life.

Without being judgemental, Molly really couldn’t imagine a situation where she would make the same decision.

‘But she knew you and Khalid would be well cared for and I think me being here would have made her very happy.’

Without a word Molly stepped into arms that opened for her and the years of rejection and anger melted away.

‘God, look at me, I’m crying,’ she said as she emerged from a crushing brotherly hug. She wiped the moisture from her face with one hand and pushed back her hair with the other.

‘Go on,’ she sniffed. ‘Or Beatrice will be sending out the search party.’