Master of the Desert(26)

She found what looked like a page from a diary underneath the robe Ra'id  had worn the day before. She guessed he had found it in her mother's  room at the fort and the sheet of paper must have fallen out of his  pocket. Backing deeper into the pavilion, she began to read it.

She'd never tidy up again, Antonia determined, biting back tears. Like  so many things at the fort, it must have been churned up, passed over  and forgotten. She handled the single sheet of paper carefully, sniffing  it, studying it, imagining her mother writing it, knowing it had been  written in despair, and in hope that one day someone would read it.

I wanted everyone to know how I had to live in the last few years, so you would understand why I went to Rome.

It was a scrawled page that told of unbearable loneliness-of no one for  Helena to talk to, or to share her fears with, and a child stolen away  from her, a blow that no deed of land could ever soften.

Money, land and jewels, in however much abundance, had done nothing to  ease a young girl's desolation, Antonia could see, and for a moment she  felt numb. Then Antonia realised her main reaction to this page from her  mother's diary was frustration, because it was too late for her to sort  out her mother's life. She could only be glad her father had found  Helena, and that they had been able to share a few months of happiness  together before her mother's untimely death.

Realising she had scrunched the piece of paper in her hand, she  carefully straightened it out again and put it with the other treasure  she had found at the fort-the broken chain, with the tiny,  diamond-studded heart. She would rather have these small things than all  the riches in Ra'id's treasury, Antonia mused, because the broken heart  and the note scrawled in the childish hand were in many ways her  mother's true legacy. And if she didn't learn from them, she really  would let her mother down, and the note would have been written for  nothing.

Ra'id was with the horses when she came out of the tent with the  intention of confronting him about her discovery. 'You've saddled up,'  she said with surprise.
                       
       
           



       
'I have something to do-for your benefit,' he assured her.

Ra'id was smiling, but she sensed that once again he was the autocratic  ruler who had made some plan without consulting her. 'Don't I have any  say in this?'

'You'll be quite safe here. Though you can't see them, there are security guards everywhere.'

'Oh, good … ' That was supposed to make her feel reassured?

'Trust me-I'll be back within the hour.'

The gap between her belief they had grown closer and the true situation  had just widened into a gulf, Antonia realised. She loved Ra'id and  could never say no to him, but as she watched him ride away she thought  that perhaps the time had come to do that.

No? Antonia had said no to his suggestions for her immediate future?  They were in the pavilion, facing each other, and the atmosphere between  them was as tense as it had ever been. He had offered her the sun, the  earth and the moon, and Antonia had turned him down. 'I don't think you  heard me,' he said as she stood with her back turned to him. 'I will  have the fortress repaired and refurbished to your specifications. You  will have your own palace in the capital, and I'll open a bank account  for you with more money in it than you could ever spend. And you can  spend that money on anything you want.'

'Subject to your approval?'

'Well, obviously I'll have a say in it!' he exclaimed impatiently.

'A say in it?' she echoed, spinning round. 'You'll choose. You'll pay.  You'll install me in one of your fabulous palaces and visit me as and  when you wish?'

There was no mention of their child, Antonia realised, hoping the terror didn't show in her eyes.

'I thought you wanted that?'

She did want to be with Ra'id, more than anything on earth, but not like  this. If she agreed to his terms she was effectively giving over her  life for Ra'id to control. He would hold the purse strings, the decision  strings, and as he already held the strings to her heart that was one  string too many. But how easy it would be to become dependent on him, a  man so compelling and powerful; he exerted some hypnotic spell over her.  It would be madness for her to fall under that spell, however much she  wanted to. She must remain free to make her own decisions, even if  sometimes she got it wrong. First off, she had to know his intentions  regarding their baby so she could counter them if she had to. 'What  about our child, Ra'id? Where will our baby live?'

For the first time since she'd known him, Ra'id's gaze flickered.

'No,' she repeated firmly, closing her fingers around her mother's note.

'You're being unreasonable, Antonia.'

'If it's unreasonable to defend my unborn child, then I am unreasonable,' she agreed.

'Defend the baby against me-its father?' he demanded incredulously.

'No, Ra'id, I'm defending our child against the past-a past that still seems to rule us both.'

'What are you saying, Antonia?'

'When were you going to show me this?' She produced the single sheet of  handwritten despair that she had found by his robe-pocket and had the  small satisfaction of seeing Ra'id reach inside his robe to check that  it had gone.

'You took that from my pocket,' he accused her.

'No. It must have dropped out.'

Dragging off his howlis, he tossed it aside. 'I picked it up at the fort  and intended waiting until you had recovered before showing it to you.'

'Recovered?' she said with only the smallest shake in her voice to betray her feelings. 'Let me assure you, I have recovered.'

'I was trying to protect you, Antonia.'

'I don't need that sort of protection, Ra'id. I need to face life,  however ugly it is.' And it was ugly sometimes, Antonia thought, as an  image of her mother as a very young girl, writing down her deepest  thoughts and fears because she had no one to confide in, appeared to be.

'I have your best interests at heart.'

'And thought you could woo me with expensive trinkets and the promise of  more money than I could spend? Do you really think you can buy me,  Ra'id?'                       
       
           



       

'I'm doing everything I can think of to reassure you.'

'To reassure me that it will be cosy in my gilded cage?' Antonia's voice  broke as she shook her head in despair. 'You really don't know me.'  Would Ra'id never be Saif again? Would he never hear her again?

'I'm prepared to give you everything I thought you wanted,' he said.

In fairness, that was exactly the type of girl she'd been, Antonia  reflected. How long had her journey been? And how short was Ra'id's?  Very short, she concluded. Nothing about the all-powerful ruler of  Sinnebar had changed. What was he thinking now? She could usually read  him, but today that famous connection of theirs had interference on the  line. Something big was brewing. Ra'id would never have left her side  for a minute if it had not been to make some special plan.

'I want nothing but the best for you.'

'And the best is to be your prisoner, because I'm carrying the heir to  the throne?' Ra'id's expression stopped her. She had come here with him  willingly, and in doing had crossed into dangerous, uncharted  territory-to take on a man who was accustomed to his every word being  law. Ra'id frightened her, but her fierce maternal instinct turned out  to be stronger. Brandishing her mother's note at him, she demanded,  'Have we learned nothing from this, Ra'id? Am I to be kept in a palace  as my mother was-another bird in a gilded cage, awaiting the sheikh's  pleasure, while you carry on as normal?' Shaking her head decisively,  she exclaimed, 'I won't do it!'

'Think, Antonia.'

'Oh, believe me, I've thought about this. Why would I agree to your plan  when my only purpose in life would be to perfect the art of becoming  invisible? I'd spend every day waiting for you, never knowing if you  would turn up.'

'You're growing hysterical. You will have the charity to occupy your time, and very soon your child.'

'A child to occupy me?' Antonia protested in outrage. 'Looking after my  baby will be a privilege. Yes, I'm expecting motherhood to be demanding,  but never a chore-never something to fill in my time. A child is far  too precious for that, Ra'id-something I don't expect you to  understand.'

'I understand more than you know.'

Something about the way he spoke sent a flash of guilt through her, and  then she realised he was thinking about Razi, the half-brother Ra'id had  brought up when his mother had been driven away and his father had  cared for no one but himself. 'I'm sorry. I should never have said that.  I'm just-'

'Frightened of taking a step into the unknown?' Ra'id suggested. 'Your  life doesn't have to be a repeat of the past, Antonia.' He glanced at  the sheet of paper she was still holding clenched in her hand. 'The path  you decide to take from here is up to you, and not some letter written  years ago.'