Sheikh's Castaway Read online

  “I’ve already told you—you rejected my protection. On what grounds do you make a claim for it now?” he said when she raised the subject one evening, after a particularly gruelling day, as the sun went down and she faced another sleepless night.

  “Do I have to explain ordinary civilized behaviour to you?” Noor cried.

  Bari laughed with biting mockery. “Yes, let me hear Princess Noor’s explanation of ordinary civilized behaviour!”

  She wanted to tell him where he could put it, but the trouble was, she needed him and his masculine protection, however little she wanted it.

  “You’re bigger and stronger, and men have more reserves of body heat, or something,” she said. “You’ve also got the warmest piece of clothing. Doesn’t that equation suggest to you that you should share?”

  When she saw the expression on his face, she knew she’d let herself in for something, but it was too late to recall the words.

  “And you, Noor—you are beautiful, and graceful, and extremely charming when you want to be. And yet—how much generosity of spirit did you show to my mother and sisters? Did you share that charm with them?”

  “Oh, will you leave it alone!” Noor exclaimed impatiently, jumping up to stride around the fire that was cooking today’s fish.

  “All right! I acted like a spoiled brat, I admit it, all right?” She flung out her hands. “I was wrong and selfish…and pretty damned stupid, if you want the truth. So stupid that I didn’t even realize I was making them dislike me! Does my confession satisfy you? I’m sorry, but now I’m stuck on this island, and I can’t do anything to make amends to your mother till we get back to civilization! I promise you, I’ll abase myself to everyone I’ve insulted as soon as we get out of this hole! In the meantime, I’m freezing to death at night and not getting any sleep, and I have no stamina to get through what you’ll admit is a pretty hellish existence, with you constantly badgering me and making me do the dirty work!”

  “All the work is dirty work,” Bari said flatly.

  “All right, yes! You’re working just as hard—harder! I agree. But I am not used to it, and you’re not exactly making it easy for me, are you?”

  “How would you like me to make it easy for you?” he asked with silky calm. “By doing everything myself?”

  She could hardly keep the lid on. “No!” she shouted. “Not by doing it all yourself, though I know that’s no more than your opinion of me! But would it hurt you to empathize a little?”

  She was striding up and down, flinging her arms around for punctuation. “If it’s my job to clean the fish, or gather wood, or hold a rope while you put up a wall, do you think you might say so courteously? Does it always have to come out of your mouth with contempt, as if you’re utterly convinced that I resent lifting a finger to look after myself?”

  “And don’t you?”

  For a moment the quiet question flummoxed her. She stopped and gazed at him across the fire.

  “You act as if you resent lifting a finger to look after yourself, Noor. You seem to blame me for the deprivations you suffer, but who caused us to be in this situation? And as for the necessity to work, it is survival itself that makes these demands on you, not me.”

  Would he always succeed in putting her in the wrong? “I—I know that!” she faltered.

  “If you really know it, then why do you not take on the responsibility for your existence as an adult, instead of responding to every demand like a spoiled child who prefers to play?”

  “Do I do that?”

  He was silent, leaving it to her own conscience to answer. Noor heaved a breath, trying to calm her jangled feelings.

  “Do you think your constant bewailing of our position makes it easier for you, or for me?” he continued after a moment. “Why do you not accept the situation, Noor, instead of always regretting it? We are here together, and we need each other. You seem to want me to remember that fact, while you ignore it. But it takes two, Noor. Just like marriage.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes suddenly, but the sudden snapping of her overstretched emotions had nothing to do with that word marriage. She didn’t regret not marrying Bari in the least, however much she might wish she’d found a better way to avoid it.

  It was fatigue and stress and hunger that were the cause of her losing it like this. That and Bari’s constant determination to hold up a mirror to her least attractive traits, and make sure she looked closely at them!

  “I wish I could make you see yourself,” she said, as tears spilled down her cheeks in spite of her fierce efforts to contain them. “You’re not perfect, either, you know!”

  “No,” he agreed. “I’m not perfect, either. So what do you want from me, Noor?”

  She sniffed. “I can’t sleep because I get chilled. That’s all.”

  “All right, I can warm you at night. Is that what you want?”

  His rough, dark voice sent chills of a completely different kind through her. Whatever her conscious decision, she couldn’t seem to get her body to agree that Bari’s touch was poison to her.

  Her eyes widened. What was he offering? “I—” She licked her lips. “What, you mean…”

  He let the half words hang painfully in the silence, while the fire crackled merrily. His eyelids drooped, and he reached out and used a stick to prod the fish cooking on a palm leaf. Then he turned and gazed at her.

  “Do you want sex?” he asked baldly. His voice was heavy with reluctance, and Noor cringed inwardly. If his tone expressed any approximation of his feelings…

  “No!” she said, half-panicked at the thought that he should imagine she was angling for his lovemaking. “I told you!”

  “So you did,” he agreed in a bored voice. He nodded. “Although we are not the best examples of the fact, the most efficient warmth is human warmth,” he said with ironic humour. “I will give you the jacket to wear in bed, since you ask so nicely, and I will share your bed for warmth only. Is that what you want?”

  She felt unbelievably humiliated, without knowing why. “Yes, please,” she whispered. Then she had a thought. “Bari—”

  “Noor?”

  “I could…if you liked, I could make you a djellaba from my—my dress. I could braid some strips into a rope, too. Wouldn’t that be easier than your jacket?”

  His eyes blazed with an expression she hardly dared to read as approval. “Yes, it would be much easier. Thank you, Noor,” he said gravely, and her heart swelled.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it days ago!” she exclaimed.

  Bari smiled. “Don’t you?” he asked.

  Eleven

  “Please let me find some soap,” Noor begged as she gingerly lifted another blackened mud brick and tossed it onto the growing pile she was collecting.

  They had found the site of the destroyed village on the second afternoon, and had immediately begun the dirtiest salvage operation she ever hoped to undertake. And here she was yet again, under the watchful eye of the little black-and-white goat, who had taken to following her whenever she was in the forest, but still was nervous about visiting the campsite.

  Something had shifted for Noor. Although the work was still tedious, she experienced a sense of purpose. To be working to provide for her own needs gave her an odd kind of satisfaction—what she did, every minute of every day, was useful, necessary work. Bari was right. Without cooperation they would not survive, and there was pleasure in knowing that he needed her as much as she needed him, and that her work contributed to a larger, common goal.

  Even the little goat seemed to need her, and she guessed that he had been a family pet and was lonely for human company. She was slowly teaching him that she could be trusted, and that there was nothing to fear at the campsite. And every day he trusted her a little more, and that was a surprisingly powerful source of comfort.

  Still, she was almost constantly hungry. And their diet was unbelievably boring.

  “The food is terrible—and there’s not enough of it!” she joke
d to the goat now. The little animal gazed at her, chewing contentedly on a bright green leaf—one of the special herbs that Bari had pointed out to her, she saw.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re all right, Jack!” Noor said dryly.

  They had found another turtle’s nest, and every day they took a few eggs from one or the other, and carefully covered up the rest. They alternated between fish, the small animals Bari sometimes also caught, and eggs, and the root vegetables they sometimes found digging in the overgrown, deserted gardens in the village. Sometimes herbs lent a welcome piquancy to the food.

  Noor had been driven almost crazy by the lack of salt until Bari pointed out that the sea was full of it. After several frustrating attempts, she had at last been rewarded by the sight of a few white crystals on her palm leaf. The taste had brought tears of relief to her eyes.

  Her emotions were much too volatile, of course.

  The growing torment now was the lack of soap. Her hair got more matted every day. A couple of times she had tried to see herself in a section of the foil sheet, but she was almost grateful that it was too wrinkled to reflect her image. Really, she had only to look at Bari to get a fair approximation of her own state. Bari’s facial hair had progressed from shadow to stubble to bristles, and was now on the way to becoming a genuine beard.

  He looked wild and uncivilized, his skin getting darker every day, his face dry and cracked, as hers must be. His strong, expressive hands were as grimed and callused as any construction worker’s.

  At least, thank God, however badly they needed soap, they couldn’t really smell each other. Or at least, what she could smell of him was only pleasantly, if sharply, masculine.

  She fervently hoped she returned the favour. Right now Noor would have traded her entire newly inherited fortune for one day—one hour!—in her favourite health club.

  “Full-body Shiatsu Massage with Cucumber and Nine Essential Oils,” she called lyrically to the little goat, straightening for a moment to ease her aching back. It was astonishing how little a regular workout seemed to have prepared her body for real work.

  The goat stopped chewing and gazed at her with wide, half-fascinated eyes. “Manicure with Peach Essence Nail Rejuvenation Cream.” It was a comfort just to hear the words, to remind herself that a civilized world existed, and she would get back to it one day. “Pedicure with Sea Salt and Rosemary Footbath and Aro…no, wait a minute—sea salt and rosemary—isn’t that the flavouring of those organic chips I love? You’d probably like them,” she confided to the little goat.

  The little goat contentedly considered the proposition.

  Noor tossed another brick into the salvage pile. Whoever had been assigned the task of destroying the few modest little homes that had once graced this clearing among the trees had done no more than knock them down and put a torch to the ruins, but though Noor and Bari had searched diligently in the wreckage, they had found almost nothing, apart from the half-burned bricks, worth salvaging.

  The inhabitants must have taken everything of any use with them when they were moved out—or maybe the people sent to destroy it had scavenged the site.

  A rusted axe with a partially burned handle was their biggest prize so far, but the fire-blackened material that had once formed walls was very useful in their own building projects, and Bari was happy with that.

  Noor, however, still had hopes.

  “Please, God, just one little sliver of real soap!” she begged, returning to her work quickly, because the sun was getting higher and soon it would be too hot. There was no point in slacking, because Bari needed this stuff for the toilet he was now building.

  She was working at the outer edge of the little village, where the fire hadn’t burned so fiercely and the remains of a shattered house promised good pickings. With difficulty, using the stout stick Bari had found for her, Noor heaved up a sheet of corrugated iron. That would probably be very useful, but she wouldn’t get it back to the campsite on her own. Bari would have to come and help.

  Underneath was a piece of wood almost untouched by fire. Noor shifted the sheet to one side and let it fall, dragging her sarong up to cover her mouth and nose from the inevitable dust and soot thus stirred up. Then she bent and looked more closely at her find. It must be the door of the little house, and hardly touched by fire!

  With a cry of excitement that had once been reserved for finds in designer sales, Noor snatched up her stick again and poked it under the board, moving it back and forth to scare off any snakes that might have taken up residence there. Then she levered the board upright.

  Then she stopped, breathless, staring down at the flattened earth that had once been a family’s living space…to the little rag doll that lay sprawled and abandoned there.

  Noor’s hand was trembling as she reached down to pick it up. She let the board fall back into place as she gazed at her discovery.

  People were so outraged. International outcry.

  The little doll was homemade, from a long sock stuffed with wadding. So simple, she noted absently. The toe is the head, the heel is the bum, slit the fabric from the top edge of the sock to the heel and stitch into legs. Make two arms with a bit of leftover fabric and stuffing and attach to the body under the head.

  And with loving care, watched by an eager child, turn this basic shape into a personality with neatly embroidered black wool eyes, a smiling red mouth. Attach wool hair and braid thickly. Tie with a scrap of gold braid. Make a little floral-pattern tunic that matches the child’s own dress.

  Let the child dress and undress it, feed it and put it to bed, cuddle it and love it.

  …Then, one dark day, it will fall unseen from the top of a hastily packed box of your precious belongings, or from the arm of the child, screaming because she sees her parents frightened and powerless as you are dragged from your home by brutal, uncaring strangers.

  Noor could see the scene, could almost hear the shouts, the terrified wailing of children, the pleading of women, as if the anguish had imprinted itself into the little doll, into the broken bits of wood and brick, on the air, into the very earth.

  Humanitarian outrage. Until this moment they had been only words to her, and she realized it with shame. Noor Ashkani had always been quite sure she had a conscience. She gave to charity as religion dictated, and even went so far as to think the division of the world’s riches unfair.

  But as for real understanding…

  “Why can’t I go?” She could hear her own sulky voice arguing with her father, and remembered with deep, pulsing shame that when the resort on the main island had opened a few years ago and several of her wealthier friends had returned with stories of a holiday in heaven—she had wanted to vacation here.

  Her father had put his foot down. That had been long before the international outcry had started, but he had tried to tell her the truth. Noor had sulked for weeks.

  Now the human tragedy seemed to clutch at Noor’s heart, as if with the child’s desperate hands. The people to whom this had happened were her own people, but they were not alone in their suffering. She wondered how many ordinary people over the course of the past hundred years had been driven out of their ancestral homelands—by one means or another—in order to create playgrounds for the wealthy. Or military bases. Or cattle pasture. Or dust bowls.

  And she herself was no better than a vandal now, scrabbling through the wreck of human lives for something to make her own life more comfortable.

  To hell with it. Bari could be as scathing as he liked—she wasn’t doing any more scavenging today. Noor dusted off the little doll as best she could, straightened its stained, mouldy dress, picked up her stick, wiped her eyes, and ran away from the wretched sound and stench of human misery created by other humans in the name of greed.

  Noor returned to the campsite laden with fresh palm leaves to line the floor of their shelter, expecting to find Bari working.

  But he wasn’t there. The almost completed hut at the edge of the forest was deserted. So was the toil
et, further in among the trees. His tools were flung down haphazardly in the sand, and a burned board he had been attaching hung askew.

  Anxiety gripped her. Bari was methodical in his building, neat and precise with his few precious tools. What could have caused him to simply toss his work aside like this? Noor dropped her load and left the protection of the trees to look down the beach.

  A few yards away, tossed in a heap, lay the weather-faded white djellaba and rope she had made for him. Noor gazed along the beach, then out over the water. It was a moment before she noticed the flotsam that was spread over a broad area, being carried towards the island.

  She gasped in mingled surprise, excitement, and fright. Did this represent a wrecked ship, or only a cargo lost overboard? What was in those boxes and crates?

  The sea sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, lifting its tainted offering in a brilliant, tantalizing dance.

  Might there be soap? Food? Chocolate?

  From where she stood, she could see a large crate, a plastic-wrapped cardboard box, a cluster of rope, and dozens of lusciously bright, merrily bobbing oranges. It was probably only a matter of time before it all washed up on the beach, but Noor wouldn’t be waiting for the tide. She untied her sarong and dropped it at her feet. The teddy was getting more frayed every day, but it served well enough for a swimsuit.

  It was only as she was plunging into the water that she saw the rest. Further along the bay, another cluster of boxes and crates was heading towards the rocks. Noor stood for a blank moment, staring. The surf was rough around the rocks. It was probably a hopeless task. And dangerous, if she got caught in an undertow.

  And it might not even be worth it.

  But in a choice between things that would probably come ashore on an accessible beach without her intervention, and rescuing what would otherwise be smashed against the rocks…