Master of the Desert (15 page)

‘More?’ He hated the disillusionment spilling from Antonia’s lips, though he wondered if he had ever seen her looking lovelier than she did now with the morning breeze tossing her hair about and a vision of the future in her eyes.

‘I don’t mean more stuff,’ she said, perhaps sounding younger than she had intended. ‘I mean more time to be us—to be real—to do real things.’

‘If you mean time to work for the good of the charity?’ he said.

‘Yes!’ she exclaimed. ‘If you’ll let me work for Sinnebar, I’ll put my whole heart into it. I don’t need this pomp and ceremony, Ra’id. And, as for becoming a daughter of the tribe, it’s very kind of you—but it’s too late for me to become anyone’s daughter. I’m not a child any longer, Ra’id. Can’t you see that?’

His proposal for the tribe to adopt her had been his way of smoothing Antonia’s path so that they could be married. He had come to this conclusion without consulting her, he realised now. He hadn’t even told her how empty his life would be without her. In fact, life without Antonia was unthinkable. But had he told her that? Slowly unwinding his
howlis
, he stood staring out at the desert over which he ruled. He had made much of that desert into a garden for his people to enjoy and to nurture and harvest crops on. Was there as much hope for him?

Then she placed her hand on his arm and stared up at him, pleading. ‘Don’t drive me away.’

‘That’s the very last thing I’m trying to do.’

‘Then you must know I would never settle for anything less than a marriage based on love?’

Ra’id held her gaze. He looked more magnificent than she had ever seen him. There wasn’t a single item of his clothing, or even his expression, his hair or his eyes, that wasn’t unrelieved black, but she loved him without fear or favour. What did his outer coating matter? When she had seen him in regal robes of royal blue trimmed with golden thread and yellow sapphire, had she loved him more? Saif, in his worn, frayed shorts and faded top was the man she had fallen in love with, and they were one and the same. Except, Ra’id al Maktabi was a man turned hard by duty. But Ra’id’s fearful title didn’t frighten her. She wouldn’t allow anything to stand in the way of the people they could be. ‘You were wrong about me liking surprises,’ she told him softly. Still with her hand resting on Ra’id’s arm, she explained, ‘There are some surprises I do not like at all.’

Her heart faltered when he looked down at her and then she saw Saif in his eyes. ‘I think I get that,’ he said.

‘Can we talk?’ she whispered, hardly daring to believe what was happening.

‘We can talk,’ Ra’id confirmed, and, finding her hand with his, he linked their fingers together and, turning, they slowly walked together back to the tent.

He dismissed the servants so he and Antonia could be together.

‘It will cost you nothing,’ she told him earnestly, fixing her gaze on his. ‘No jewels, no land grants, nothing except you and me together, forging a future.’

He heard the question in her voice, and it was a question he couldn’t wait to answer. Drawing her to him, he kissed her gently on the brow. ‘Your wish is my command,’ he murmured.

He had dreams too, and his dream had grown to encompass the two of them standing together—but not too close for, in the words of the poet, even the pillars of the temple stood apart.

T
HE VALUE
of a hug could not be overestimated, Antonia realised as Ra’id held her close. Sometimes she needed a hug more than anything, and it turned out that Ra’id was really good at that too. They were talking now and he was listening, really listening; she was back with the man she loved, the man she had known as Saif. She had changed into a casual robe and was reclining on the cushions with Ra’id, staring out across the ocean of sand through the silken curtain that covered the entrance to his pavilion. ‘I could never live as my mother lived.’

‘You won’t have to. And, before you accuse me of fiendish plots and insurmountable character-flaws, let me reassure you that I do understand love. I also understand that love takes many forms and that sometimes fate doesn’t allow enough time for love to be proven.’

‘You’re not defending your father, I hope?’

‘He gave your mother land. People show their love in different ways, Antonia, and though I think my father loved himself best of all I also think he finally discovered a conscience.’

‘But he abandoned his son, Razi, for reasons of self-interest.’

‘I can’t argue with you on that point, but neither can I continue to believe that your mother didn’t care for you.’

‘What?’ Antonia turned to him in surprise.

‘She must have done.’

‘Or wanted to cause the maximum upheaval in Sinnebar as some sort of revenge.’

‘Isn’t it time to give her the benefit of the doubt?’

‘I never thought I’d hear you defending her.’ This was the pivotal moment, Antonia felt, when Ra’id would make sense of her past as she was beginning to understand his.

‘Helena must have known her life in Sinnebar would end some day.’

‘And in such a terrible way—locked up, incarcerated, forgotten. No wonder she bolted into the arms of my father.’

Ra’id nodded ‘Your mother escaped, as she saw it. And went on to make your father very happy, I believe. And when your mother wrote her will she wanted to be sure her children had something significant to remember her by.’

‘Her land in Sinnebar? But in leaving it to her children she must have known how much trouble that would cause.’

‘In Sinnebar when a parent dies their property is divided equally between their surviving children, so Helena had no choice in the matter. And, maybe, the country meant more to Helena than we know. She had that friendship with her maidservant, remember? Maybe Helena was just starting to grow up when my father decided he was tired of her.’

‘I can’t believe you’re taking her side,’ Antonia said, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

‘Why should you find it so hard to believe? You’re Helena’s daughter. I have to believe there was some good in her—unexplored possibilities.’

They remained quiet for a while, and then she said softly, ‘Thank you, Ra’id. I understand now why you wanted to be with me when I read that page from my mother’s diary.’ But she was thanking Ra’id for more than that, Antonia realised; she was thanking him for his ability to see through the muddle of the past to a place from where they could both move forward.

‘Don’t forget this when you put that page away safely, will you?’

Antonia gasped when she saw the necklace Ra’id was holding out to her. ‘Where did you find that?’

‘It dropped into my hand,’ he said, tongue in cheek.

She blushed. ‘I hope you don’t think…’

‘That you stole it?’ With a wry smile, he shook his head and then handed her the slender chain with the diamond-studded heart dangling from it. ‘This has always belonged to you, along with the rest of your mother’s possessions. I can only apologise that, like anything else that was left behind, it wasn’t found earlier and sent to you in Rome.’

‘I’m rather glad it wasn’t,’ Antonia admitted, knowing this was a much better way to receive it. ‘And you’ve mended it!’ she exclaimed.

Reaching behind her neck as Ra’id fastened the clasp for her, she rested her hand on his. ‘Do you think your father gave this to my mother?’

‘Who knows? And does it matter?’ he said. ‘All that matters is that you have it now. I believe your mother would have wanted that.’

‘You really are turning into a romantic.’

‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Ra’id cautioned. ‘A few romantic minutes a day are the most I can manage.’

‘So, not long enough—’ She had been about to say ‘for a wedding’, and only just managed to stop herself in time.

But Ra’id would not be distracted. ‘Not long enough for what?’ he said. ‘What were you about to say to me, Antonia?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, but her blazing cheeks gave her away. ‘Do I expect too much?’

Antonia’s face was as serious as he had ever seen it; this was the closest they had ever been, and she needed him to be absolutely honest with her. ‘You’ve certainly tested me to the limits of my endurance.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he said, his lips tugging in a smile. ‘Why don’t you test me again?’ he suggested. And this time she knew exactly what he meant.

It was much later when he caused her to cry out again, and this time with surprise. ‘Sorry,’ he mocked gently, removing the velvet box from her hand before she had a chance to open it. ‘I forgot you don’t like surprises.’

‘Just a minute,’ she admonished him, sitting bolt-upright, naked and beautiful. ‘Like you said about love, surprises come in many forms—and some of them aren’t so bad.’

‘Well, if you’re sure?’ he said, pressing his lips down in a pretence of doubt as he opened the catch on the velvet box to reveal the magnificent royal-blue sapphire surrounded by blue-white diamonds he had picked out in the hope that Antonia would wear it on her wedding finger.

‘Are you suggesting a partnership?’ she said, narrowing her eyes.

‘I was rather thinking a marriage. Isn’t that the same thing?’

‘No, it isn’t the same thing at all,’ she assured him with all the defiance in her voice that he loved.

‘A marriage and a partnership, then?’ he amended.

‘If I can have both…’ She appeared to think about it.

‘If I can have you standing beside me, you can have anything,’ Ra’id said.

‘In that case…’

‘I love you,’ he said simply as she threw herself into his arms. ‘I love you and I want to marry you, Antonia. Unfortunately that means you will have to be a queen, and for that I apologise. I know you, above all people, understand what is involved in loving a country and its people as I do.’

‘And I love its king,’ she assured him. ‘But, most of all, I love you…Saif, Ra’id, Sword of Vengeance—whoever you are.’ And then she laughed and warned him, ‘You’d better not use that sword on anyone else, or you’re in serious trouble.’

‘Grow up,’ he said, tumbling her onto the cushions.

‘In that respect? Never,’ she promised him defiantly.

Then he kissed her with all the passion with which only Ra’id was capable, and in a way that convinced Antonia she’d found not her lover, or even her husband, but her soul mate; there could be no other. Ra’id had kissed the last of her fears away until she was triumphant and strong. There was only one thing missing, Antonia realised as Ra’id pulled away.

But then he did that too.

‘Antonia Ruggiero,’ he whispered, kneeling in front of her with his head bowed. ‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

‘Yes…Oh, yes!’ she exclaimed.

‘Will you be my queen, the mother of my children, and will you work at my side for the good of Sinnebar?’ Ra’id demanded, lifting his proud, formidably handsome face to stare her in the eyes. ‘Because I love you—and will always love you.’

‘I will,’ she said fearlessly. ‘I will.’

Moving to embrace her, Ra’id cupped her face in his hands. ‘If you look with your heart, you will find as I did that the most important things in life aren’t land or possessions, they’re invisible.’

‘As long as
I’m
not invisible.’

‘You, Antonia?’ Ra’id’s expression changed from irony to sincerity. ‘You could never be ignored—you’d make sure of that. But please be serious for a moment. I’m saying I love you, and I’ll take a lifetime to prove it to you if I have to. And, as for the land, it will always be yours—’

‘Or I could give it to the people of Sinnebar,’ she interrupted him, which felt right to her.

A faint smile tugged at Ra’id’s firm mouth. ‘Now do you see why I love you?’ he said, and, taking the fabulous sapphire ring out of its velvet nest, he placed it on Antonia’s wedding finger.