Master of the Desert(19)

'Could we turn on a light?' she asked, hesitating on the threshold.

'Certainly.' Reaching past her, Ra'id switched on a cobweb-strewn  chandelier. Even now he made her tingle, Antonia felt, touching her  cheek as she walked deeper into the room.

Whatever she had expected after seeing that golden door, it was not this  shadowy interior, with sheets draped over the furniture and dust motes  floating in stagnant air. But what affected her most was the atmosphere  of abandonment, she realised, slowly turning full circle. It was as if  the walls were soaked through with loneliness and sadness. Her first  impression was that this was not the happy nest of a pretty girl, but a  prison, a cage-a gilded cage for the discarded mistress of a ruler who  had tired of her and moved on. But her mother hadn't moved on, Antonia  thought sadly as she trailed her fingertips across the yellowing cover  of a fashion magazine. She thought that the saddest artefact of all. 'It  doesn't look as if this room has been touched since my mother left for  Italy,' she said, rallying determinedly as she turned to speak to Ra'id.

She thought he seemed surprised she was holding it together. She raised  an eyebrow, as if to say that nothing would shake her from her path-and  that if anything this clearer picture of the young woman who had been  her mother had only strengthened her resolve.

He watched her closely. Knowing Antonia's background, he had been  half-expecting this indulged child of a fabulously wealthy father to  cross straight to her mother's dressing table, where a tumble of  priceless jewellery still lay in a careless heap. The valuable gems were  awaiting collection and a detailed inventory by his team of assessors,  and would have attracted most people's interest. But Antonia had stood  in silence when she'd entered the room as if she were battling some  emotion greater than he could grasp. It was an emotion that made her  shudder and clamp her jaw so hard a muscle jumped in her cheek.                       
       
           



       

The seconds ticked by while both of them remained quite still, and then,  instead of crossing to the dressing table, she went to the wall of  windows and started sliding bolts back on the shutters. 'Can you help  me?' she called to him, as if this was just an ordinary task. 'No need;  I've done it,' she said, spinning round in triumph when he was halfway  across the room. She opened every window to its fullest extent and light  streamed in; with it came the warm, scented air. 'That's better!' she  exclaimed, turning back to face the room.

She stood quite still for a moment and then proceeded to examine  everything in orderly sequence. Having apparently satisfied herself, she  made for the large double bed on its plinth in the centre, walking past  the jewels flashing fire on the dressing table and on across the room.  She ignored a silk gown glinting with rubies, that drooped sadly from a  padded hanger, until she reached the bed, where she stared down for a  moment until inch by inch she sank into a heap on the floor, as if the  bones were slowly melting in her legs.

He was a hard man, who had made many hard decisions since taking the  throne, and had seen many things in his lifetime that should have  affected him but had left his factual mind largely untroubled. Yet when  he saw Antonia weeping by her mother's bedside he had to turn and leave  the room.

He was showing respect, Ra'id reasoned, leaning back against the door.  He drew breath to steady his emotions, but however hard a face he turned  to Antonia he could not stand by and see her broken. Her defiance was  so much easier to deal with, he reasoned, knowing deep down he had hoped  she would exclaim with pleasure when she saw all the pretty things in  her mother's room. But instead she had got to the heart of the matter.

The heart of the matter …

Yes; the heart of the matter was the searing sense of loneliness and  rejection Helena must have felt before Antonio Ruggiero had arrived and  rescued her. He could see that now, thanks to Antonia.

But he could not hark back to a happier time on the desert island,  because that was stolen time, time he still regretted. His life, every  moment of his existence, was devoted to a country and its people, and  that was where his duty lay; on that there could be no compromise.  Antonia was not simply a girl he was attracted to, she was a threat to  his people's future happiness, with those documents granting her land in  Sinnebar. He would not allow chaos to return to his country. He would  bury the past, whatever it took.

Pulling away from the door, he opened it and stepped inside the room  again. Whatever he had expected it was not this-Antonia seated at the  dressing table, calmly reading letters.

'Why didn't you tell me about these letters, Ra'id?' she asked him in a voice that was calmer than he might have expected.

Had he anticipated hysteria-a broken woman, crushed beneath the weight  of grief? Had he forgotten the virago who had confronted him on the  yacht with a knife? This was no girl to be easily dismissed, but a  strong and determined woman, even if that woman resided in a young  girl's body.

'I had no idea my mother even had a maidservant in whom she confided,'  she said, flourishing the bundle of letters she'd found. 'No letters  were ever forwarded to Rome.'

'That might be because your mother wrote to her maidservant in English.'

'And the maidservant could only read Sinnebalese,' Antonia murmured,  understanding. Then her face hardened. 'The maidservant might not have  been able to read English, but she would have understood these.'

She was looking at photographs of herself as a baby in her mother's arms.

'I imagine so,' he agreed.

'You imagine?' Antonia bit out, springing to her feet. 'So why didn't I receive them?'

'They were overlooked, perhaps.' He made a dismissive gesture, but felt a  surge of arousal as they confronted each other, both with passions  raised. 'Are you finished here?' He held the door for her.

She shook her head slowly and her expression suggested she detested him. 'You have absolutely no heart, do you, Ra'id?'

He neither agreed nor disagreed with that assessment.                       
       
           



       

'I give up!' she flared. 'And don't think we're finished here.'

'You are finished here,' he told her coldly, pointing to the door.

She saw his shadow cross the courtyard from the window in her room and  felt a pang of regret. Standing in her chaste, cotton pyjamas watching  Ra'id stride purposefully towards some unknown destination, she realised  he still had the power to take her breath away. If anything, the deep  blue robes of office and the Arabian headdress, with its gleaming gold  agal holding it in place, only added to Ra'id's menacing appeal. Though  she had tried to hate him, that emotion was far too close to love. But  how cold Ra'id had been when he'd looked at her, Antonia remembered; how  dismissive.

And he was the father of her child …

As dusk thickened into glutinous night, she agonised over how to tell  him. Was he visiting a lover now-perhaps some glamorous and frivolously  dressed ladies in his harem? The father of her baby. The thought made  her sick-sick and angry. Swallowing deep, she turned away.

Shutting the window to give the air-conditioning a chance to work,  Antonia realised sleep was out of the question. How could she sleep with  Ra'id in her head? But she had no rights over him; they were  practically strangers, strangers who owed each other nothing, and who  knew less about each other now than they ever had.

But she missed him, she realised, angrily biting back tears. And what  would it bring her, this love of hers, other than distractions and more  unhappiness? Antonia Ruggiero in love with the Sword of Vengeance? It  sounded ridiculous even to her.

She padded barefoot across the room to her lonely bed. Some might think  it generous of Ra'id to allow her to stay in such splendid  accommodation, but she suspected it was his way of keeping her close so  he would know what she was doing. He was orchestrating her every step,  and what hurt the most was the knowledge that she was carrying his baby  and couldn't tell him.

How much closer could they be than parents of a baby? Yet how much  further apart? Antonia wondered, trailing her fingertips across crisp,  white linen sheets on a bed she doubted she would spend even a moment  on.

During the lonely vigil of the long night, Antonia considered what she  had learned from looking through what remained of her mother's  possessions. Helena had been very young, both in age and attitude,  although she'd already had a son by the ruling sheikh when she'd moved  to Rome to marry Antonia's father. Helena had never been allowed to see  her son again. Poor Helena; a girl who had liked pop music and fashion,  and who had traded on her looks, believing they were the key to  happiness. She had discovered that in the end those looks were her  downfall-for no one, especially not the ruling Sheikh of Sinnebar, had  wanted beauty without substance when the novelty had worn off.