Sandstorm (17 page)

Her bedroom was on the upper floor of the two-storey building. It was an attractive room furnished in the modern style, but with traditional effects like the cedarwood ottoman in the corner, and the bed itself that stood on a low dais. There were even curtains to draw about the bed when privacy was desired, but Abby had never drawn them, and she couldn't remember Rachid doing so either. The room was light, and well-proportioned, with French doors opening on to an iron-railed balcony, and the air-conditioning which had been installed throughout the palace kept all the rooms cool in high summer, and free of dust when the hot dry winds blew in from the desert.

Abby had always admired her surroundings, their classic simplicity appealing to her. The tiled floor was always cool to her toes, and the sheets on the bed were made of silk. There were matching silk curtains at the long windows, a soft shade of honey, and the plain walls were hung with jewelled paintings, reflecting an historical love for colour.

But right now Abby found nothing appealing in her surroundings. She was confused and restless, unable to relax in the cool luxury of her bed, prevented from finding oblivion by the anxious turmoil of her thoughts. For the first time, sleep did not provide an answer, and turning out all but the lamp beside her bed, she pushed open the French doors and stepped on to her balcony.

It was a beautiful night. She had never seen stars so brilliant or a sky more reminiscent of black velvet. The air too was soft, and delicately perfumed, and she could almost believe there was a heaven, and she had accidentally stumbled into it.

A shadow moved in the garden below her, and her skin prickled. It could only be a guard, of course, but nevertheless she drew back a little, unwilling that anyone should observe her so scantily attired. She guessed that if he had seen her, he would conceal himself again, but the thought that she was under observation spoiled the magic, and brought the cold realities of her situation to the forefront of her mind.

She half turned towards the bedroom, and then froze as a dark figure stepped out from the trees, on to the terrace below her. It was not one of the guards. Without exception they wore Arabian dress, whereas the intruder below her was wearing European clothes. She tried to penetrate the shadows and identify her visitor, and as she did so he called softly up to her.

'Abby! Abby, it is I, Rachid. May I come up?'

Rachid! Her mouth dried instantly, but she moved almost automatically to the rail.

'What do you want?' she whispered, aware that other eyes might still be watching them. 'I—I was just about to go to bed.'

'I want to talk to you,' he said, his hands pushed deep into his trousers pockets. 'Surely you can spare me a few minutes of your time. And before you ask, it cannot wait until morning.'

Abby caught her lower lip between her teeth. 'The servants are in bed. If I come down, I'll disturb them.'

'I know another way,' he replied, pulling his hands free and walking to the creeper that grew up to her balcony.

'You can't—that is—Rachid, it's too dangerous!' she protested, guessing his intent as he grasped the creeper and swung one leg up the wall. 'Oh, God, be careful, can't you? If the creeper breaks ...'

'It is very strong,' Rachid assured her, as he thrust one leg over the rail and stepped on to the balcony. 'See! I am quite safe. But it is reassuring to know that you were concerned about me.'

Abby struggled to retrieve her lost dignity. 'I would have been concerned about anyone,' she retorted, suddenly aware of her state of undress. 'What on earth did you want to speak to me about that necessitates scaling the walls of your own palace?'.

Rachid surveyed her very thoroughly, brushing his hands down the sleeves of his jacket, removing the creamy petals of the flowers that grew so profusely on the creeper. Then, with a polite gesture, he indicated the room behind them, and with an uneasy shrug she preceded him inside. It was obvious they could not talk on the balcony, within sight and sound of an eavesdropper, but she was reluctant to allow him access to the bedroom they had shared so intimately three years before.

With the doors to the balcony closed, Abby was supremely conscious of their isolation. She could not imagine why Rachid had come or what he had to say to her, and she pictured Suni's reaction if she was summoned to mediate between her mistress and her husband. Despite the girl's affection for her, Abby had no doubts where her real Joy aides would lie, and she wrapped her arms about herself as if to ward off the very real feelings of apprehension she was experiencing.

Rachid's eyes lingered upon her, noting the nervous tightening of her lips, the way her eyes darted this way and that. But if he guessed she was alarmed by his intrusion, he made no mention of it, and instead dragged his gaze away to survey the shadowy corners of the room.

'You are comfortable here?' he enquired, after a moment, making Abby draw in her breath. 'It is little changed, you will find, but you used to like it.'

'I'm very comfortable, thank you,' Abby hastened tautly. 'But that isn't why you're here, is it, Rachid? To ask about my comfort?' She licked her dry lips. 'Would you mind coming to the point? I can guess what this is all about, and if you're about to reprimand me for speaking carelessly in front of your grandmother, then I accept that what I said was—was in bad taste.'

Rachid's mouth drew into a thin line. 'Bad taste?' he echoed dryly. 'Is that what you think? To imply to my grandmother that I am having an affair with another woman, you consider is—bad taste?'

Abby sighed, bending her head, the silky mass of her hair falling about her ears, hiding her expression. 'I suppose it was—unforgivable,' she acknowledged. Then, summoning all her strength, she lifted her head and faced him. 'But what you did was unforgivable, too, wasn't it? Am I to have no redress?'

Rachid uttered an oath. 'There are times, Abby, when I have the almost irresistible urge to strike you!' He breathed heavily. 'What is this all about? What am I supposed to have done? What—unforgivable sin am I to pay retribution for now?'

Abby hesitated. Then, squaring her shoulders, she said: 'Why didn't you tell your family I was expecting a baby? Why was it such a closely-guarded secret? Were you ashamed? Or was it, as I said, expedient for you to keep it to yourself?'

Rachid took an involuntary step towards her, and then halted, grim-faced. 'You have a suspicious mind, Abby,' he grated coldly. 'Of what possible expediency could it be to me to keep such a thing silent?'

'As I said‑'

'I know what you said.' He took a deep breath. 'But contrary to your conjecture, there is no one else with a priorclaim to my—how did you put it?—exclusive attentions? And my sole reason for keeping your condition to myself was a personal one.'

Abby ran a nervous hand over the gentle swell of her stomach. 'How—how personal?'

Rachid's jaw clenched. 'If you must know the truth, I was—apprehensive‑'

'You? Apprehensive?' Abby almost laughed.

'Yes, I,' he snapped savagely. 'When I left you before Christmas, you were sick and desperate. How could I be sure you would not refuse to come with me when the time came? Call it pride, if you will, but I practised my deception for purely selfish reasons. Having suffered the ignominy of your repudiation once before, I hesitated to anticipate something which might be denied me. Particularly when your condition forbade me to take more violent action!'

Abby looked at him now, her eyes wary as she confronted his outraged indignation. Could it be true? Was that why he had kept the truth to himself? She wanted to disbelieve him, to justify her own outburst, but his sincerity was hard to ignore.

'So no one knew?'

'No.'

'Why did you tell them you were bringing me back here, then?'

Rachid shrugged. 'I told them you had agreed to return to me. That was enough.'

'Yet you told your grandmother I would not be staying after—after the child is born.'

'Correction—I told her you had only agreed to stay until the child was born.' His eyes darkened. 'Do you deny this is what you said?'

Abby turned aside, caught by a trap of her own making. 'I—I—do the rest of your family know of this?'

'No.'

His response was abrupt, and she turned her head to look at him, looping her hair behind her ear as she did so. 'Why not?'

Rachid shook his head. 'Would you have me appear an object of pity? A contemptible creature worthy only of scorn? A man whose wife turns to him only as a provider, someone to supply the needs of herself and her child?'

'Your child, too, Rachid!'

'Yes, my child, too,' he agreed hoarsely, 'but only because I took advantage of you, took advantage of your compassion for a sick man, is that not what you said also?'

Abby made a negative gesture. 'You're taking my words out of context, using them against me‑'

'Do you deny you only returned to me because of the child?' he demanded, stepping closer to her so that his warm breath fanned her cheek. 'Would you have returned otherwise, when no argument of mine could persuade you?'

'No ...' admitted Abby unhappily. 'But you know‑'

'I know nothing,' he retorted roughly. 'I am a man adrift on a cruel sea, tossed by tide and circumstances, defending I know not what. You say you care nothing for me, yet tonight you are all allure, all enticement in my presence. You say you despise me for what I am—well, what am I but a man, with a man's strengths and failings. You tell me you hate me, that I only want you for the child I hope you'll give me, but if that is so, why am I here now, fighting the desire to take you in my arms and administer the kind of sweet punishment only a lover can dispense?'

Abby's breathing felt suspended. 'You—you don't mean that. Not after the way you behaved this morning. You— you said you didn't even want to touch me‑'

Rachid half closed his eyes against the unconscious seduction of her gently rounded figure, and Abby, watching him, felt again the unwilling stirring of her senses. She knew that if he didn't go soon, she would not have the strength to send him away, and her words were brusque as she sought to dispel the increasing intimacy between them.

'I—I think you should go,' she said, pressing her palms to the sides of her neck, moulding her hair to her nape. 'We—I—this has been quite a day, one way and another. Let's leave it now, while we're still on civil terms with one another, shall we?' She hesitated, and then added deliberately: 'If—if it's diversion you need, you'll have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid. You obviously misunderstood my—teasing. Go—go and look for Farah. I'm sure she'd be more than ready to‑'

His violent imprecation cut off her words, and his narrow fingers dug painfully into the smooth flesh of her upper arms. He stared at her with impassioned eyes, as he struggled to contain his temper, and then, with angry emphasis, he said:

'Do you want me to go to Farah, Abby? Is that what you really want? When you forbade me your bed two years ago, was it perhaps because you were bored with that side of our marriage, and you wished to be free of an unwanted responsibility…'

Abby gasped. 'You know why‑'

'Is that what you are saying now?' he persisted, ignoring her outburst. 'That even though you tremble when I touch you, you would rather avoid the inevitable conclusion to our love-play‑'

'No!
No!
' Abby spoke vehemently, forgetting for the moment exactly what she was saying in the need to defend her actions of two years before.

'No?' he taunted savagely. 'What would you have me believe? That you only kept me away from you because you were tired, because you were not well, perhaps?'

'I tell you, you know why,' she asserted tremulously. 'Can you deny that Farah was the woman your father wanted you to marry?'

'No,' he agreed, frowning, his fingers in no way loosening their painful hold. 'But you knew that. It is no secret. I have never denied it.'

Abby's lips trembled. 'She was your mistress, wasn't she?'

'Haji, you shouldn't speak of such things!' he muttered harshly. 'You are my wife. It is not seemly that we should be discussing such matters. What Farah was or was not is not in question here‑'

'I disagree‑'

'And I overrule your disagreement,' he retorted grimly. He shook his head a trifle wearily. 'You persist in turning over things past. Can we not consider the present? The future?'

Abby looked down at his fingers circling her arm. 'Let go of me, please. I—I'm tired. I want to go to bed. Have the decency to leave me alone.'

'So-be it.'

With a heavy sigh his hand fell from her, and she covered the place it had been with protective fingers. It was always the same, she thought despairingly. They could never be together without the past rearing its ugly head, and no matter how much she might wish it were otherwise, there was no escaping the truth.

Rachid hesitated only a moment longer, and then strode towards the balcony, flinging open the doors and stepping out into the night air. Abby watched him anxiously, unwillingly aware of the sense of anticlimax his leaving always provoked. Reluctantly she acknowledged that only when she was with him did she feel truly alive, but somehow she had to overcome her weakness and face a future that had never seemed more uncertain.

Rachid swung his legs over the rail, grasping the creeper with what appeared to Abby to be careless hands. She wanted to caution him, but his eyes when she encountered them were hard and guarded, and the sardonic twist to his mouth deterred her instinctive warning.

'Saida,' he said, inclining his head in a mocking gesture, and then Abby's cry of dismay mingled with the awful tearing sound the creeper made as it pulled free of its holding.

Rachid hurtled to the terrace below with what appeared to Abby to be devastating speed. She stood for a moment, transfixed, frozen by the horror of what had happened, and then stumbled weakly to the rail, peering down desperately into the darkness.

There was movement on the terrace, Rachid and some one else, someone who was kneeling down beside him, muttering words in stammering Arabic. Abby guessed it was the guard she had seen earlier, and turning back into her bedroom, she gathered up her muslin wrap and tied it hastily about her. Then she wrenched open her door, fleeing down the stairs which only minutes before she had denied Rachid the use of, unlocking the doors on to the terrace and emerging with tautly-strung nerves and a fast- beating heart.