Polly moistened her top lip with the tip of her tongue. ‘I still don’t understand why it matters if people know where we’re going.’
‘It might not matter. But Hanif stands for conservative liberalism in a country where there are active extremists.’ Rashid’s eyes held hers, fiercely blue. ‘I have always been aware your visit here might be seen as an opportunity to undermine what Hanif is trying to achieve.’
‘In what way?’
‘His political opponents could use your visit as propaganda. It would be easy to suggest Hanif is nothing more than a puppet of Western governments.’
‘I see.’
‘More probably they could seek to embarrass us by compromising your safety.’
News programmes she’d seen over the years of Western journalists being kidnapped suddenly flashed in her mind. She wasn’t brave. She didn’t feel any great compulsion to ‘get a story out there’. At this moment, given the choice, she’d fly straight back home.
‘This morning I received the information that your planned itinerary might have been leaked so I have decided on changes. It is a precaution merely.’
‘And you’re coming with us?’ Polly said, casting an uneasy glance in his direction. If it were a ‘precaution merely’ why would Rashid Al Baha put aside everything else that claimed his time?
‘I am responsible for your safety and I will see no harm comes to you. You have my personal guarantee.’
It was the strangest thing, but Polly didn’t doubt it. Looking at Rashid, you simply couldn’t doubt he’d deliver exactly what he promised. She’d never had anyone in her life make her feel safe.
Not even in childhood. When her father had died she’d been so scared. Within weeks they’d had to move out of their home on the Shelton estate and buy a small terrace house in Shelton itself. Her room had been painted in gloss red and smelt damp and she’d hated it. For months and months she’d cried herself to sleep, but she’d never told her mother.
Not once. Her father had asked her to look after her and she’d done that. Her role had always been to be ‘strong’. Long before the accident that put her mother in the wheelchair. She was still doing it.
But with Rashid Polly felt she could give over control. She looked at his blue eyes and her initial fear receded. He would keep them safe. Her safe.
‘Are you happy to continue?’
‘Of course,’ she answered quickly. ‘Will we still leave tomorrow?’
‘Unless I hear anything which gives me cause for concern.’
‘And if you do?’
‘I will send you home.’
He stood up and Polly felt compelled to do the same. Their interview was over and he no doubt had much to do. ‘How do I get back to rejoin the others?’
‘Do you wish to?’
Heat rippled through her. It would certainly be the safest option but, no, she didn’t want to. He was an irresistible temptation. The feeling of being on the edge, of not quite knowing what he was thinking and feeling about her was addictive.
‘You haven’t had a chance to see Elizabeth’s garden in daylight. It would be a shame not to. I could show you now.’
Why was he doing his? Her eyes flicked to his lips. What did he want from her?
‘If you have the time, I’d like that.’
No one had ever kissed her as Rashid had last night. Not with that expertise and control. It had been a few seconds of pure sensation before sanity had kicked in. But he was like a drug. He’d awoken her to possibilities, things she really hadn’t allowed herself to think. And now he was choosing to spend time with her again.
‘I will ask for refreshments to be brought to the summer house.’
‘There’s a summer house?’
‘This garden was designed to soothe Elizabeth’s longing for home, remember. An English garden must have its summer house. Besides which it provides some welcome shade.’ He reached for the phone on his desk and spoke quickly and in Arabic.
This was probably the craziest decision of her entire life. Polly knew it, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.
‘That is settled.’
His smile sent shivers coursing through her. A feeling of anticipation. She kept pace as Rashid led her through a maze of corridors. Even if she’d felt at liberty to wander around the palace freely, which she didn’t, she wouldn’t have had the faintest idea which way to head.
They walked through a Moorish archway and into a formal seating area with low couches. The room was filled with a heady scent that seemed to envelop her. ‘What is that smell?’
‘Bokhur.’
‘Bokhur,’ Polly repeated the unfamiliar word.
Rashid smiled. ‘It’s incense. Although to say that doesn’t communicate its importance to Amrahi households.’ He stopped, allowing her to breathe in the complex aroma. ‘Every village will have their own bokhur maker who will create incense which is unique to that area. The ingredients might be any combination of frankincense, rosewater, sandalwood, ambergris…’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘Each recipe is a closely guarded secret, handed down from one generation to the next. And once it is made it is scattered over hot charcoals,’ he said, pointing at a silver incense-burner.
It certainly beat the rather bland pot-pourri she placed around the castle, but she wasn’t sure she liked it. It was unfamiliar, exotic and slightly cloying as it seemed to seep into the light fabric of her borrowed clothes.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure. It’s so different.’ But then everything here was so different. She was different.
Rashid laughed. ‘It is the scent of home.’
She looked at him curiously but, of course, he was right. And for her the ‘scent of home’ would be newly cut grass, old books and beeswax polish. Nothing as exotic as bokhur.
As she went through the doors that led into the garden and into the full heat of the sun she was glad of the co-ordinating lihaf Bahiyaa had placed across one shoulder. Deftly, as she’d been shown, Polly placed it over her head.
She looked up and caught Rashid watching her. Again. ‘It’s hot,’ she said foolishly.
‘And you are fair. You are wise to cover up in the sun.’
Rashid started down one of the paths and, coming into the rose garden from a different direction, Polly immediately saw Elizabeth’s summer house. It was open on all sides, more of a pavilion, and smothered in rambling roses.
Elizabeth’s summer house. Built for her by a man who had loved her.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said softly.
Rashid looked down at her. ‘I think so.’ He watched as she lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun, then turned to look back at the palace.
He truly wanted Polly to like this garden, he realised. He loved her wide-eyed enthusiasm. The feeling he was sharing something with her she would treasure.
From the moment his father had given him this palace as his home the rose garden had been a strange attraction. He’d spent years trying to distance himself from his English heritage, but he’d always been drawn to this garden with its strange melding of East and West.
He felt at home here. Peaceful. And that was the purpose of a garden. A place where you could feel at one with yourself and with your God.
‘It’s not a very English garden, though,’ Polly said, looking out across the orange trees, then up at him. ‘Don’t exactly run to those back home.’
Bahiyaa must have persuaded her to line her eyes in kohl. A dark smoky line around sparkling eyes that were as blue as his own. She looked as much a hybrid as this garden. In traditional Amrahi clothes, hands covered in an intricate henna pattern, she was the embodiment of a fantasy.
It was no part of his plan now to want to kiss her. He’d brought her here to talk. Only it was hard to remember that when his body responded to her with sharp immediacy. He didn’t want to talk. He knew what she felt like, tasted like. He knew how her curves fitted against him, how soft her skin was, the warmth of her breath against his mouth, and he craved that.
He hadn’t wanted to like her, didn’t want to respond to her, but she drew him in anyway. Like a fly on a cobweb, he was more securely caught the more he struggled against it.
But at what cost? Amrah’s future rested on the next few days and he’d been indiscreet in what he’d told her earlier. The knowledge that negative publicity would harm Hanif was power if she chose to use it.
He needed to be sure of her reasons for being here. It wasn’t enough to believe her innocent. He had to know. His feelings for Polly were complicated, but he needed to focus on why he’d arranged for her to stay at his home.
‘Fresh oranges still warm from the sun is about as far from a frost-bitten February day as you can get. Even if we manage to restore the orangery we’ll never be able to recreate anything like this at Shelton.’
‘But it’s not a traditional Amrahi garden either,’ Rashid countered, watching the sunlight catch at the silver embroidery that edged her lihaf, ‘although it has elements you’d expect to find in one. The fountain, the long rills of water… Even the simplest Arab garden finds space for water.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Polly said, looking up at him.