Polly blinked hard, fiercely determined to pretend she was just fine.
‘All that has really changed is its commercial value. Frankincense is no longer as valuable as gold. Once upon a time men made their fortunes trading it against spices from India and caravans took it across the entire continent.’
He started towards the stony and uneven ground. Polly followed, still bemused as to how this bleak landscape could ever have been a golden city. Rashid stooped and picked up a sharp stone, which he then jabbed against the flaky tree bark.
Polly watched as an oozing blob of sap bubbled up out of the slash in the tree. ‘That’s frankincense?’
‘And it’s still harvested today and sold around the world.’ He pulled a bit and rubbed it between his finger and thumb. It gathered together into a glutinous ball which he flicked away.
‘I’d no idea it came from trees.’
‘As a child I thought it was magical.’ He seemed to be lost in thought, as though a bittersweet memory was crowding in around him.
His father was dying.
Immediately Polly felt guilty. There must be so much going on in his mind. Huge pressures crushing in on him. Nothing mattered so much in the face of that. She reached out and caught his hand. ‘Thank you. For showing me this.’
Rashid looked down to where their fingers were joined. His thumb moved against her palm. ‘There is somewhere else.’
‘Wh—?’ she began, but he shook his head.
‘You will see. Come, there is plenty of time yet.’
It would have been possible to negotiate the uneven ground alone, but she liked the feel of his hand in hers. ‘Can you land these things anywhere?’ she asked as they approached the helicopter.
Rashid lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss against the inside of her wrist. ‘That depends on the skill of the pilot.’
‘Can you land them anywhere?’
His blue eyes took on a sinful glint. ‘You had better hope so.’
Polly’s stomach performed a complete somersault. She climbed up into the helicopter and settled herself into the seat. Was it really possible to fall in love so completely and so quickly? Or was this like a desert mirage, nothing more than a distant reflection?
She glanced over at his strong profile. She only knew she’d give up everything to be with him. If he asked her to. This place, this country… She could love it.
Within moments they were airborne, the frankincense trees dotted below her. ‘Has anyone tried to find the city?’
‘Archaeologists. Adventurers.’ Rashid turned his head to look at her and smiled. ‘Your great-great-grandmother. No one has yet found incontrovertible proof one way or the other. Amrah is a country which holds its secrets closely.’
A mystical land. Polly stared out of the window as the stony land gave way to scrubby sand and, in the distance, wide-open desert. She turned back to Rashid. ‘The Atiq Desert?’
He nodded and excitement whipped through her body.
‘Not where you plan to film, but my home. The place I return to.’
The Atiq Desert stretched out endlessly. Not as she’d imagined it. It was a landscape studded with volcanic remains. Jet-black against the pale gold of the sand.
‘It’s amazing.’ Then, ‘There are people.’
‘Bedouin. “Conquerors come and go, but it is only the Bedouin who stay,”’ Rashid quoted softly.
‘Camels! Rashid…’
Rashid wished he could watch her face, but he needed to concentrate on landing safely. Her excitement was contagious. Whether or not the reality of Bedouin life would live up to her romantic dreams he couldn’t say, but he wanted her to experience it.
In many ways, if it didn’t it would help when the time came to watch her leave. And she would leave. She’d return to a life he was dismantling. Khalid would already have acted on his instructions. He’d wondered, today back at the hotel, whether her mother had said something and that was why she’d been crying.
She had been crying. And he’d ached for her. For what he was about to do to a place she loved so much. If she knew would she still quiver in his arms? Bahiyaa’s words echoed in his head: ‘I do not think she will be able to forgive you that, Rashid.’
‘Have they come to meet us?’ Polly asked, turning back from the stationary cameleers and their bad-tempered charges.
Rashid landed the helicopter with minimum sand disturbance. ‘You wished to ride a camel.’ He smiled at her inarticulate squeal beside him.
‘You arranged this. How? But, how did you do this in such a short time?’
‘I am a prince,’ he teased, ‘and we princes of the desert have a centuries-old method of communicating with our own.’
Polly wasn’t fooled for a minute. Her eyes sparkled. ‘You used a mobile.’
‘Even the Bedouin have cell phones these days,’ he agreed.
She was addictive, Rashid thought, loving the low chuckle she gave. If he could he would do more than this for her. Any dream she had he would strive to give her.
Anything that did not touch on his honour.
Anything but Shelton’s reprieve.
‘This is incredible! And Elizabeth came here?’
‘With King Mahmoud. Without a doubt. This is his tribe. His people.’
‘Am I dressed all right?’ Polly asked suddenly, reaching down for her lihaf.
‘You are beautiful. And you are with me. These men are my friends, my kin.’
Her beautiful eyes looked up at him.
‘And,’ he said with a smile, ‘they will think you are dressed very unwisely.’
Polly smiled and twisted the scarf around her head, the blue of the lihaf bringing out the deep sapphire colour of her eyes. She was more than beautiful. And he felt a fierce spurt of pride at the thought these men would think she was his.
His.
A possessive word. A word that sounded good to him.
Kareem, the man who had first sat him on a camel, came forward to greet them, bowing low.
Rashid moved close to Polly, saying quietly, ‘They do not speak any English.’
There was no time for any more before the chanteur offered his welcome. ‘Ahlan beekum. As-salaam alaykum.’
‘Wa alaykum as-salaam,’ Polly replied formally. She shot a mischievous look in his direction. ‘How was that?’
Her pronunciation needed a little work but it was impressive. As she was a foreigner, an ajnabi, not one of the men present would have expected that. He hadn’t. But Polly was a continual surprise to him.
Rashid went through the important process of enquiring after everyone’s health, one eye on Polly as she took in the camel asserting his male dominance by blowing out his throat lining.
Her blue eyes looked to him for reassurance and he smiled. ‘Ready?’
‘For what?’
‘Your camel ride?’
Polly looked hesitantly at the wizened little man coming towards her, gesturing back at a large one-humped camel. That had been her fantasy, but faced with the reality she was less sure. It was really only the glinting amusement in Rashid’s eyes that spurred her on.
She pointed at the camel, hoping her body language would convey what needed to be said.
Kareem nodded, stopping by a white camel. ‘Ashid.’
‘Ashid?’ Polly queried, looking back at Rashid.
‘The name of your camel,’ he said, strolling over with a smile.
Polly was pleased Ashid hadn’t been the one blowing out its neck like bubblegum. She turned, disconcerted, when Kareem started to make a noise that she could best describe as being like a cappuccino machine.
‘He’s asking it to sit.’
After a moment’s hesitation Ashid obliged, sinking down on its knees. Perilously perched on top of the single hump was a roll of fabric.
This couldn’t be any harder than mounting a horse, Polly told herself firmly. She allowed Rashid to help her sit astride. ‘Tuck your feet up behind,’ he instructed, ‘and grip with your knees.’
He’d barely finished speaking before Kareem gave an instruction that had Ashid lurching upwards. Polly let out a shriek and looked down to see Rashid’s laughing eyes watching her. She clutched at the makeshift saddle, glad another one of the cameleers had Ashid firmly on a lead.
She was too busy trying to get her feet up behind her to watch Rashid climb on his own ‘ship of the desert’. The heat was sizzling hot, scorching through the light scarf. Polly looked curiously at the turbanlike headgear the Bedouin wore, but Rashid was too far away to ask anything about it and within moments she was concentrating on adjusting to the camel’s movement.
Once she’d got used to the bouncing it was reasonably comfortable. The heat was something else. Minty’s insistence they try to film everything during the cooler months made absolute sense. Polly kept her eyes firmly on the tree they seemed to be making for.
It had the appeal of lights flickering in a cottage window on a stormy night back home. It spoke of safety and rest. But she loved every minute of her camel ride. She turned round to smile at Rashid, so happy she wanted to laugh.
Her desert prince looked as though he’d been born to ride a camel. Which, in a way, he had. The animal’s uneasy gait didn’t produce the same lurching it did for her. He was able to talk to the men walking beside him, laughing as one of them struck up a tuneless chanting. From the other men’s reactions she assumed the lyrics were probably quite rude.