Defiant in the Desert(5)

                ‘Now we can do this one of two ways.’ His words cut through her insult like a honed Qurhahian knife. ‘The easy way, or the hard way.’

                ‘You mean we do it your way, rather than mine?’

                ‘Bravo—that is exactly what I mean. If you behave reasonably—like a woman who wishes to bring no shame onto her own royal house, or the one you will embrace after your marriage to the Sultan—then everyone is happy.’

                ‘Happy?’ she echoed. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

                ‘There is no need for hysteria,’ he said repressively. ‘Our journey to Qurhah may not be an expedition which either of us would choose, but I don’t see why we can’t conduct ourselves in a relatively civilised manner if we put our minds to it.’

                ‘Civilised?’ Sara stood up and pushed herself away from the desk so violently that a whole pile of coloured felt-tips fell clattering to the ground. But she barely registered the noise or the mess. She certainly didn’t bend down to pick them up and not just because her skirt was so short. She felt a flare of rage and impotence—that Suleiman could just march in here as if he owned the place. Start flexing his muscles and telling her—telling her—that she must go back and marry a man she barely knew, didn’t particularly like and certainly didn’t love.

                ‘You think it’s civilised to hold a woman to a promise of marriage made when she was little more than a child? A forced marriage in which she had no say?’

                ‘Your father himself agreed to this marriage,’ said Suleiman implacably. ‘You know that.’

                ‘My father had no choice!’ she flared. ‘He was almost bankrupt by that point!’

                ‘I’m afraid that your father’s weakness and profligacy put him in that position. And let us not forget that it was the Sultan’s father who saved him from certain bankruptcy!’

                ‘By demanding my hand for his only son, in return?’ she demanded. ‘What kind of a man could do that, Suleiman?’

                She saw that her heartfelt appeal had momentarily stilled him. That his flat black eyes had narrowed and were now partially obscured by the thick ebony lashes which had shuttered down to veil them. Had she been able to make him see the sheer lunacy of his proposal in this day and age? Couldn’t he see that it was barbaric for a woman of twenty-three to be taken back to a desert kingdom—no matter how fabled—and to be married against her will?

                Once Suleiman had regarded her fondly—she knew that. If he allowed himself to forget that stupid kiss—that single lapse which should never have happened—then surely there still existed in his heart some of that same fondness. Surely he wasn’t happy for her to enter into such a barbaric union      .

                ‘These dynastic marriages have always taken place,’ he said slowly. ‘It will not be as bad as you envisage, Sara—’

                ‘Really? How do you work that out?’

                ‘It is a great honour to marry such a man as the Sultan,’ he said, but he seemed to be having to force some kind of conviction into his words. He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Do you have any idea of the number of women who would long to become his Sultana—’

                ‘A sultana is something I put on my muesli every morning!’ she spat back.

                ‘You will be prized above all women,’ he continued. ‘And given the honour of bearing His Imperial Majesty’s sons and heirs. What woman could ask for more?’

                For a moment Sara didn’t speak, she was so angry. The idea of such a marriage sounded completely abhorrent to her now, but, as Suleiman had just said, she had grown up in a world where such a barter was considered normal. She had been living in England for so long that it was easy to forget that she was herself a royal princess. That her English mother had married a desert king and produced a son and a much younger daughter.

                If her mother had been alive she would have stopped this ludicrous marriage from happening, Sara was sure of that. But her mother had been dead for a long time—her father, too. And now the Sultan wanted to claim what was rightfully his.

                She thought of the man who awaited her and she shivered. She knew that a lot of women thought of him as a swarthy sex-god, but she wasn’t among them. During their three, heavily chaperoned meetings—she had felt nothing for him. Nada.

                But mightn’t that have had something to do with the fact that Suleiman had been present all those times? Suleiman with his glittering black eyes and his hard, honed body who had distracted her so badly that she couldn’t think straight.

                She glared at him. ‘Doesn’t it strike at your conscience to take a woman back to Qurhah against her will? Do you always do whatever the Sultan asks you, without questioning it? His tame puppet!’

                A nerve flickered at his temple. ‘I no longer work for the Sultan.’

                For a moment she stared at him in disbelief. ‘What...what are you talking about? The Sultan values you above all other men. Everyone knows that. You are his prized emissary and the man on whom he relies.’

                He shook his head. ‘Not any longer. I have returned to my own land, where I have built a different kind of life for myself.’

                She wanted to ask him what kind of life that was, but she reminded herself that what Suleiman did was none of her business. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t even seem to like you any more. ‘Then why are you here?’

                ‘As a favour to Murat. He thought that you might prove too much of a challenge for most of his staff.’