Master of the Desert(24)

'I'll leave you to take a look around in private,' he said.

'No. Please stay.'

'As you wish. I'll open the shutters for you.'

As he did so the light streamed in, and she noticed something glinting  so softly she almost missed it. Lying forgotten in the dust, a tiny  necklace sparkled in the light. She scooped it up and slipped it into  her pocket. It was a diamond-studded heart on a broken chain, and  carried enough vibrations for her to know that it must have landed on  the floor when someone had snatched it from their neck as they ran out  of the room.

Her mother, maybe-tearing off the necklace before she'd left the citadel for good?

Ra'id remained silent in the background as she walked slowly round the  room. It was impossible not to notice the many photographs, poignant  reminders of a small boy with dark, curly hair and bronzed skin-a boy  who looked a lot like Ra'id. 'So, this is my brother,' Antonia murmured,  lifting up one of the frames to study the image more closely before  carefully putting the frame back in its place.

'This room hasn't been touched since your mother left-in a hurry, I'm told.'

And who could blame her? Antonia thought, shivering as she remembered  the tiny heart on its broken chain currently residing in her pocket. 'It  seems unfair that anyone would accuse Helena of deserting her little  boy.'

'What would you call it?' Ra'id demanded from his very different  perspective. 'When she was heard crying out that Razi was the worst  mistake she had ever made?'

'I would call this imprisonment,' Antonia said, gazing at the heavy door  with its prominent lock and bolt. 'Maybe my mother was no longer  attractive to your father once she'd had a baby-I don't know the reason.  She was frightened and very young. But I do know Helena must have been  distraught, losing her child, and she wouldn't have kept all these  photographs around her if she hadn't loved her son.' Antonia's hand flew  to her mouth as she stared around what to her seemed little better than  a prison cell. 'I'm not surprised Helena seized the opportunity to  escape.'

'And yet you want to live here?'

'I wouldn't be living here under duress.'

And she was a very different woman from her mother, Antonia realised,  knowing all the fripperies of life she had previously thought so  important to her had only left her hungry for real-life experience, like  an unrelieved diet of canapés when what she longed for was steak and  chips. 'And any time I want to leave, I'll just have to jump in the  car … ' The words froze on her lips as Ra'id stared at her, and somewhere  deep inside her heart she felt a stab of panic.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HE LEFT her tidying her mother's room. He couldn't bring himself to  stand over her, and any thought of gloating as Antonia viewed the sad  trivia of a life given over to pleasure had vanished. Whether he cared  to accept it or not, Antonia had made him see things differently. Helena  had been a victim, and a very young victim at that, with no means of  helping herself. He could see that now, and his father should have seen  it years back, but it was too late to revisit the past and change the  mistakes that had been made. Instead, he chose to do something about the  present, which in this case meant getting down and dirty with the  plumbing to see if it was possible to bring water here.

It would take major restoration work, he concluded, but it could be  done. He found he was pleased about that as he closed the door on the  ancient boiler-room and walked up the steps into the light. He was just  brushing off his hands when he spotted Antonia heaving a sack out of the  building. 'What do you think you're doing?' he said, racing across the  courtyard to lift it out of her hands.

She squinted her eyes against the sun in order to stare up at him.  'Collecting things for the thrift shop. You do have them in Sinnebar?'                       
       
           



       

'Yes, we do.' He gave himself a moment to rejig his air of command into  something more accommodating for the mother of his child-a woman so  determined to go ahead with her plan it wouldn't have surprised him to  see Antonia with a spade, digging a trench to change the water course by  herself, if she had to.

'You collect and I'll carry the bag for you,' he suggested, wishing he  could remain immune to the fact that Antonia had obviously been crying.  She'd put on a brave face for him while they had been in her mother's  room, but the moment he had left it, she must have broken down. 'We'll  stack them in here,' he said briskly, trying to harden his heart to her  and failing miserably. 'I'll have everything collected and cleaned, and  then distributed to the appropriate agencies.'

'So you do have a heart, Ra'id,' she said.

'I wouldn't go that far,' he said dryly, but he was relieved that  Antonia was recovering. This visit couldn't have been easy for her,  mentally strong as she was. So much for his determination not to get  drawn in! He almost convinced himself that today was different, and that  today he had no alternative other than to help her out; having agreed  to help Antonia make the place habitable, he would delegate the work to  the most appropriate team of experts the moment he returned to the  capital, and at that time he would distance himself from her. 'Now, I  think you should rest.' He was concerned for her, and worried that her  enthusiasm for the project would make her forget that she needed to look  after herself now.

'Rest? Rest where?' she said, gazing anxiously around the derelict ruin she had inherited.

Following her gaze, he felt her uncertainty, and her sense that the  enormity of the task she had taken on might just be too much for her in  her present condition.

Feeling nothing when she stared at him trustingly was a battle fought  and quickly lost. 'I'm going to take you somewhere to rest up where you  can bathe in fresh, clean water.'

'The water you'll be bringing here,' she said quickly, as if he might be allowed to forget.

'That's right,' he said, admitting to rueful admiration as he went to  fetch her horse. 'The water you'll need if you're still interested in  restoring this place?' He turned to look at her when he'd checked the  girth.

'Still interested?' she demanded. 'You don't know me, Ra'id.'

But he was beginning to. This time she didn't pull away when he offered her a leg up onto her horse.

This just wasn't fair. Of all the things Ra'id had said or done,  bringing her here was the cruelest-somewhere so beautiful, so tranquil,  so instantly enthralling.

They rode the short distance in silence. She didn't know where Ra'id was  taking her beyond his promise of rest and fresh water, but as they  crested the dune and she saw his tented pavilion on the shore of the  oasis she could have cried at the beauty of it-and with despair that  this aweinspiring wilderness she was quickly coming to love could never  be hers to enjoy free of Ra'id's disapproval.

She felt gritty and grubby as she eased in the saddle to survey the  limpid and oh, so tempting waters of an oasis streaked with moonlight.  'What do you think?' Ra'id asked, reining in his prancing stallion  beside her. 'I think it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my  life,' she said honestly, starting the steep descent.

Leaning towards her, Ra'id steadied her horse. 'If you want to take a  dip, I'll keep watch while you swim … to make sure you're safe.'

'You'd do that?'

'Of course,' he said, as if it were no big deal.

They had reached the flat ground, and Ra'id was waiting to help her  down. 'I can manage, thank you,' she said, freeing her feet from the  stirrups, but she was weary as she slid down from the saddle. She pulled  herself round before facing him. The days of showing her soft  underbelly to the world, and to Ra'id al Maktabi in particular, were  well and truly over. 'Would you like me to light a campfire while you  see to the horses?'                       
       
           



       

Ra'id unbuckled the saddlebags and threw them over his shoulder. 'If you're up to it.'

'I'm up to it.' She rested one hand on her horse's warm, steadfast neck  for a moment, thankful for the survival course her brother had insisted  she must take before involving herself in any more dangerous sports.

'Then let's set up camp.'

'Do we have food?'

He patted the saddlebags.

'You've thought of everything.'

Not quite. He had totally underestimated her, Ra'id concluded as Antonia walked ahead of him to the pavilion.

She wasn't quite out for the count, and had enough fizz left in her to  agree when Ra'id offered to light the fire after she had helped him with  the horses. 'You swim,' he said. 'Go on-you've earned it.'

She had nothing to prove, Antonia realised. She didn't have to stand on  her pride, or work herself into the ground. They'd been a good team, and  they could both cope with outdoor living, though Ra'id understood this  terrain a lot better than she ever would, and he would know just where  to look for tinder.