The sheikh's chosen wife(29)

'I did-by cheating,' he confessed.

'Did he know you cheated?'

'Of course,' Hassan replied. 'But he believes he is in my debt so he allowed me to get away with it.'

'You mean you played on his guilty conscience over my accident,' she accused.

He turned another slashing grin on her. It had the same force as an  electric charge aimed directly at her chest. Heat flashed across her  flesh in a blanket wave of sensual static. Followed by another wave of  the same as she watched him strip off western shirt and shorts to reveal  sleek brown flesh just made for fingers to stroke. By the time he had  replaced the clothes with a white tunic he had earned himself a similar  possessive glance to the one he had given her.

See, she told herself, you can't resist him in Arab dress. It has  nothing to do with what runs in the blood. She even decided to tease him  about it. 'If there is one thing I have learned to understand since  knowing you, it is why men prefer women in dresses."

'This is not a dress,' he objected.

Getting up, she went to stand in front of him and placed her palms flat  against the wall of his chest to feel warm skin, tight and smooth, and  irresistible to seeking hands that wanted to stroke a sensual pathway  over muscled contours to his lean waist.

'I know what it is, my darling,' she murmured seductively. 'It is a  sinful temptation, and therefore no wonder that you don't encourage  physical contact between the sexes.'

His answering laugh was low and deep, very much the sound of a man who  was aware of his own power to attract. 'Remind Samir of that, if you  will,' he countered dryly. 'He is very lucky I have not beaten him to a  pulp by now for the liberties he takes with my wife.'

But Samir, Leona discovered as soon as they entered the main salon, was  more interested in extolling the liberties Hassan had taken with him.  'He cheats. He has no honour. He went to Eton, for goodness' sake, where  they turn desert savages into gentlemen!'

'Oh...' Leona lifted her head to mock her husband. 'So that's what it is I love most about you.'

'The gentleman?'

'The savage,' she softly corrected.

He replied with a gentle cuff to her chin. Everyone laughed. Everyone  was happy. Zafina tried very hard to hide her malicious glare.

They ate dinner beneath the stars that night. Leona was surprised to see  a bed of ice holding several bottles of champagne waiting on a side  table. Some of her guests drank alcohol; some of them did not. Wine was  the favoured choice for those who did imbibe. But even when there had  been cause to celebrate yesterday evening champagne had not been served.

'What's going on?' she asked Hassan as he saw her seated.

'Wait and see,' he replied frustratingly, and walked away to take his own seat at the other end of the table.

Ah, the last supper, she thought then, with a pinch of acid wit. And,  believing she had her answer, she turned her attention to her meal,  while Rafiq continued his opinions of men in high positions who could  lower themselves to cheat.

The first spoonful of what was actually a delicious Arabian soup set  Leona's stomach objecting. 'Never mind,' she said to soothe Samir's  dramatically ruffled feathers as she quietly laid aside her spoon.  'Tomorrow you and I will race on the jet-skis and I promise that I, as  an English gentlewoman, will not cheat.'

'Not on this trip, I am afraid,' Hassan himself inserted smoothly. 'All  water sports are now stopped until we can replace the buoyancy aids with  something more effective.'

Leona stared down the table at him. 'Just like that?' she protested. 'I  have an unfortunate and one-in-a-million-chance accident and you put a  stop on everyone else's fun?'

'You almost drowned. The life jacket did not do what it is designed to  do. A million-to-one chance of it happening again makes the odds too  great."

'That is the voice of the master,' Samir noted.

'You heard it too, hmm?' Leona replied.

'Most indubitably,' Hassan agreed.

After that the conversation moved on to other things. Soup dishes were  removed and replaced with a fish dish she didn't even attempt to taste. A  richly sauced Arab dish followed, with a side bowl each of soft and  fluffy steamed white rice.

The rice she thought she could just about manage to eat, Leona decided,  listening intently to the story Imran Al-Mukhtar was telling her as she  transferred a couple of spoonfuls of rice onto her plate then added a  spoonful of sauce just for show.

One spoonful of soup, two forkfuls of rice. No fish. No attempt to even  accept a sample of the thick honey pudding to conclude. Hassan watched  it all, took grim note, glanced to one side to catch Evie's eye. She  sent him a look that said that she had noticed too.

'The Sheikha Leona seems a little...pale,' Zafina Al-Yasin, sitting to  one side of him, quietly put in. 'Is she not feeling quite herself?'                       
       
           



       

'You think so?' he returned with mild surprise. 'I think she looks  exquisite. But then, I am smitten,' he allowed. 'It makes a difference  as to how you perceive someone, don't you think?'

A steward came to stand at his side then, thankfully relieving him from continuing such a discussion.

With a nod of understanding he sent the steward hurrying over to the  side table where he and his assistants began deftly uncorking the  bottles of champagne. Picking up a spoon, he gave a couple of taps  against a wine glass to capture everyone's attention.

'My apologies for interrupting your dinner,' he said, 'but in a few  minutes our captain will sound the yacht's siren. As you can see, the  stewards are in the process of setting a glass of champagne before each  of you. It is not compulsory that you actually drink it,' he assured  with a grin for those who never imbibed no matter what the occasion,  'but as a courtesy, in the time-honoured tradition of any saibng vessel.  I would be most honoured if you would stand and join me by raising your  glass in a toast. For we are about to cross the Tropic of Cancer...'

With the perfect timing of a man who was adept at such things, the siren  gave three short sharp hoots at the same moment that Hassan rose to his  feet. On a ripple of surprise everyone rose up also. Some drank, some  didn't, but all raised their glasses. Then there was a mass exodus to  the yacht's rail, where everyone stood gazing out into the inky dark Red  Sea as if they expected to see some physical phenomenon like a thick  painted line to mark this special place.

Of course there was none. It did not seem to matter. Moving to place his  hands on the rail either side of his wife, Hassan bent to place his  lips to her petal-smooth cheek.

'See anything?' he questioned teasingly.

'Oh, yes,' she replied. 'A signpost sticking out of the water. Did you miss it?"

His soft laugh was deep and soft and seductive. As she tilted back to  look at him the back of her head met with his shoulder. She was smibng  with her eyes. He wanted to drown in them. Kiss me, they were saying. An  Arab did not kiss in front of guests, so a raised eyebrow ruefully  refused the invitation. It was the witch in her that punished him for  that refusal when one of her hands sbd backwards and made a sensual  sweep of one of his thighs.

Sensation spat hot pricks of awareness like needles deep into his flesh.  She was right about the dishdasha, he conceded, it had to be one of the  ancient reasons why his culture frowned upon close physical contact  with the opposite sex whilst in the company of others.

'I will pay you back for that later.' he warned darkly.

'I am most seriously worried, my lord Sheikh,' she replied provokingly.

Then, in the way these things shifted, the private moment was broken  when someone spoke to him. He straightened to answer Jibril Al-Mahmud  who, since the meeting had spent every minute he could possibly snatch  trying to squeeze himself back into Hassan's good graces. Leona took a  sip at her champagne. That dreadful intruder, Samir, claimed the rest of  her attention. He was, Hassan recognised, just a little infatuated with  Leona, which offered another good reason why he would be happy when  their cruise ended tomorrow.

Jibril's timid little wife came to join them. She smiled nervously at  him and, because he felt rather sorry for her, Hassan sent her a  pleasant smile back, then politely asked about her family. Raschid  joined in. Evie and Imran went to join Leona and Samir. Abdul and Zafina  were the last to join his own group but at least they did it, he  acknowledged.

Tonight there was no splitting of the sexes. No lingering at the table  for the men. They simply mingled, talked and lingered together. And, had  it not been for one small but important detail, Hassan would have  declared the evening- if not the whole cruise-a more than satisfactory  success.

That small but important detail was Leona. Relaxed though she might  appear, content though she might appear, he could see that the strain of  the whole ordeal in general had begun to paint soft bruises around her  eyes. He didn't like to see them there, did not like to notice that  every so often the palm of her hand would go to rest against the flat of  her stomach, as if to soothe away an inner distress.