Читать книгу Falcon's Prey - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

‘WILL she be all right?’

The anxious question hovered somewhere on the outer periphery of her subconscious, registering in a dim and distant fashion even while its import eluded her. The voice was familiar, though, and Felicia struggled to recognise it. Mercifully, someone else took on the responsibility of replying, a male voice, deep, crisp, with faintly indolent overtones; a voice that sent small feather tendrils of fear curling insidiously down her spine, so that she was tempted to curl up into a small ball and hide away from it.

‘Don’t worry, Zahra. It’s a combination of exhaustion and temperature change, I suspect, coupled with too much rich food on an empty stomach. Now you know why your mother forbids you to go on these ridiculous slimming diets.’

‘Felicia doesn’t need to slim,’ Zahra objected. ‘She looks so pale, Raschid. Don’t you think we ought to send for a doctor?’

Raschid! Now she remembered! Felicia opened her eyes, wincing in the electric light, forcing away the darkness that reached out for her and struggling to sit up. She was in her bedroom—she recognised that much at least—and Umm Faisal was hovering anxiously in the doorway, while Zahra and Raschid stood by her bed.

‘I don’t need a doctor,’ she croaked, disconcerted when all three pairs of eyes focused at once upon her.

‘You’ve come round!’ Zahra exclaimed thankfully. ‘We were so worried about you. What could we have told Faisal if you had fallen ill?’

‘I’m sure Faisal would have agreed with me that Miss Gordon should have told us she was feeling unwell,’ Raschid interrupted unsympathetically. ‘Zahra, find one of the maids and get some fresh fruit juice for our patient. After her long flight she is probably somewhat dehydrated, and perhaps a sleeping pill will help Miss Gordon to get a good night’s sleep, Fatima?’