Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) Read online

  “You’re a Cup Companion, aren’t you? A privileged position, I think. And you’re related to the royal family, and that means that in times past, your family had the easy road to riches. You can afford a yacht like this.” She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t you be determined to protect your exclusive lifestyle? Most people are.”

  “It is not my lifestyle that I am determined to protect,” he said. “Why do you assume so?”

  Aly lifted her hands. “Well, I did notice the other night that you were wearing more jewels than our own dear Queen ever gets under. And I also notice that there is poverty in Bagestan, as in every other country in the world. But you haven’t sold off that fabulous pearl rope to feed the poor, now, have you?”

  “Most people take a little time to investigate before they judge,” Arif said. His eyes were hard now, and Aly was sorry she’d been led into this conversation. Not the man to offend, and definitely not the time to offend him. But she couldn’t seem to stop. It was challenge him or do something really stupid, like ask him to kiss her.

  “Sorry,” she managed to get the word past her teeth. “But in what way have I misjudged you? Or is the truth offensive in itself?”

  “Do you know anything about the recent history of my country?”

  “If you mean the Silk Revolution, of course I do.”

  “Before what you in the West call the Silk Revolution, which we call the Return, Bagestan was in the power of a megalomaniac madman named Ghasib for thirty years.”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “This man broke into the treasuries of every family in the country, from the Sultan down to the simplest farmer, and took possession of the nation’s cultural heritage for his own pleasure. My family, along with many others, had all our property seized. Sometimes he merely stole the treasures he found and hid them in his own coffers. And sometimes it was his pleasure to take the treasures and melt them down for the sake of the gold and precious jewels they were made of. Ancient works of the greatest artistic merit and cultural importance were deliberately destroyed in this way. Perhaps a half of what once remained of Bagestan’s five thousand years of cultural heritage is now left to us. No one yet knows for certain. The rest is in ingots of gold and bags of rubies and diamonds, in Ghasib’s treasury. It is one of the great obscenities of his insane rule.”

  “That’s appalling,” Aly whispered. She had heard some of this, of course, but she hadn’t known the extent of the man’s depravity.

  “My own specific concern now is the destruction he also wreaked on the treasures of the environment. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to protect what is left of my family’s heritage for future generations. My father was forced to turn from the management of his seized estates to business, and the fortune he amassed from that hard work over many years now finances the restoration of our family heritage. Not the other way around.

  “What benefit will accrue to my people, Aly, if I sell the ceremonial sword of my ancestors to some greedy Western museum? There it will be divorced from the people whose heritage it is. Do you think that a people do not need the evidence of their forebears’ greatness in order to feel their own potential greatness? Do you think there is no nutrition for a people but what goes into their mouths? Do you think it contributes nothing to the psychological health of my country to see the great artistic creations of the past?”

  It was a real question: he waited for an answer. “I—well, I never thought of it that way before,” she stammered.

  “The Crown Jewels of your own monarch are on show for the people, are they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Aly rallied. “I suppose, because they bring in the tourists and tourists spend money.”

  Arif shook his head. “That is the least valuable element of such works. That is the crudest level of their function.”

  “You think?” she asked dryly, but in fact she was a little shaken by his vision.

  “My ancestors were patrons of the fine arts. They commissioned work from the great Johari and Bagestani artists of every age, and attracted some of the finest artists from abroad to live and work here. Those treasures were added to and protected by every generation of my family for hundreds of years—not out of greed, as you think, but for the benefit of present and future generations. Many of them can never be reproduced, because the methods of so much of ancient art have been lost. I intend to guard and keep what is left. That is my responsibility as the future head of my family.”

  “How can they benefit anyone if they’re kept from view unless you’re at a party?”

  He stared at her, his eyes sparking with sapphire light.

  “Who told you that it was so?”

  Aly faltered. She had merely assumed it. “Are you telling me that your family treasures are on public show?”

  “At certain times of the year my grandfather’s palace with all that it contains is open to the public, yes. The entry fee for Bagestani citizens is low. Our family treasures are also made available for viewing to researchers and students at any time, by appointment. More than this is not practicable. And it is enough to plant the seed.”

  Aly thought of her own father’s selfish greed. He had felt responsible for nothing but his own gratification. She was doubly ashamed for him, and for her own assumption that everyone wealthy must be like him. Had her experience of him given her such a jaundiced eye she could see nobility nowhere?

  And yet, what good would it do her, to understand and appreciate Arif’s true character? It would only make her unhappier in the end. She was better off thinking him a typical one percenter. Having the physical hots for the man was bad enough. It would be intolerable if she started to imagine herself in love with his soul.

  …

  At the next island, she discovered that Arif’s idea of not walking with her wasn’t quite the same as letting her go alone. Instead he tracked her along the beach in the dinghy. This meant saving time, as he was right there as soon as she finished, and it also gave her a solution to the false marking dilemma: she moved the stake only a meter away from the actual nest, on a direct line up from the beach. He would hardly notice that from where he was sitting in the water. It wasn’t the best protection against sabotage, but with luck she’d be able to move these stakes further away on the next pass.

  “I see you are no longer putting the stakes in so close to the nests,” Arif commented one afternoon as they headed back to the yacht.

  So much for his poor observation skills. Aly felt her cheeks get hot. “Yes, well, I thought over what you said about putting them in so close to the eggs,” she lied.

  It passed, or seemed to, but she couldn’t help wondering why Arif was watching her moves so closely.

  …

  “Before you go, Fouad,” Arif said to his PA one evening, when their usual work discussion was finished. “There’s something else I want in tomorrow’s post. Send me the file of all the documents relating to the original application for funds by the scientist’s charity. Turtle Watch.”

  Fouad said hesitantly, “It is late for that tonight, Excellency. I am not sure who would have seen the original application. I will have to enquire with Sadiq, who will not be in his office till morning.”

  “All right. I want to see the entire file from first application to final approval, as soon as possible.”

  There was a moment’s surprised silence. “Is—is there a problem, Excellency?”

  “If there is, I don’t want anyone to have time to redact the file. Supervise this yourself, Fouad. Find whoever is responsible, and take immediate possession of the complete physical and digital file. Keep the original in your own office. Make a hard copy of everything, and also copy it all to a memory stick for me. Make sure the information is complete. Then do not let it out of your possession until you pass it to the helicopter pilot.”

  “On my head and eyes, Excellency,” Fouad murmured, but Arif could hear in his voice that Fouad’s eyebrows were pinned to his hai
rline.

  …

  In the evenings, over drinks and dinner, they chatted. It was a perfect time of day, starlight glinting on black water, sometimes the sound of music coming from the shore, always the magical scents of a tropical night at sea.

  Even in England this was one of her favorite times when sailing, and one night Aly happened to say so.

  “What sort of boat do you have?” he asked.

  Aly smiled grimly. “None. When I want a sail I go up to the Norfolk Broads and rent a little runabout for the day, or get a canal boat for the weekend. I was speaking generally.”

  “But your father had a yacht, I think?”

  “Oh, yes, he did,” she said, looking around the bay. The moon had risen now, and glowed heavy and red above the sea. “Long ago, and far away.” Her voice had the peculiar soft resonance of voices over water at night.

  “Your father was not a good man?”

  She snorted softly. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “What?” The command startled her. “Why?”

  “Because he so often seems to be present with you. I would like to know him a little.”

  Aly set down her glass and leaned back in her chair. So much for the magic of the night. She slipped her hands to the back of her neck, linked her fingers, pushed her hair up in a ragged fan and, her elbows wide and resting on the night air, gazed up at the moon.

  “Tell you about my father.” She heaved a breath. “You talk about Ghasib. My father is a psychopathic, megalomaniac villain. He is ruthless and manipulative and can’t abide being crossed. He thinks of nothing but himself, what he wants. It was always no holds barred with him, however young his children. However ill his victims could afford to lose their money.”

  “Is that a fair assessment of him, do you think, or an angry daughter’s judgment?”

  She dropped her hands, sat up and gazed at Arif. “Well, you be the judge, Arif. What can I give you as evidence? Oh yes. My father was once asked to invest the massive insurance payout of a couple—personal friends of his—who, through medical negligence, had a severely disabled only child to care for. The payout was supposed to pay for support while they were alive, and full care after they died, but it wasn’t going to be enough if Michael lived beyond the age of forty. They wanted a totally safe investment to ensure his future comfort and care however long he lived.

  “My father must have known that it was all coming apart at that point, but he smiled and took their money. They were so grateful to him. My father’s magic touch! Michael would be safe forever. A year later, along with everyone else, that couple lost everything. Now they can’t afford even the most basic support in their son’s care, and they live in terror of their own deaths. Michael’s in a much worse prison than my father is. Every time I think of those people I cringe. But as my father famously said, ‘What would be the point of my expressing remorse?’”

  She smiled through the bitter taste in her mouth. “What else did you want to know about him?”

  “What is his name?” he asked, as if he had already guessed.

  “The papers call him ‘Trojan’ Percy. The nickname suits him well. Afterwards, the Sun called him ‘The Trojan Virus.’ Do you get it now?”

  “Yes, I get it,” Arif said, as if he really did. As if he could understand how bottomless was that well of grief and shame she drank from. “He lived like a rich man for many years.”

  “Oh yes,” she said dryly, gazing into her glass. She wished she’d asked for wine. Something to deaden feeling.

  “And then you lost everything, and now…you hate it all?”

  Aly took a long pull on her sparkling water and welcomed the sting at the back of her throat. “I didn’t lose everything. My family did, but I had never really…believed it. It was never real to me, the wealth.” She didn’t say why. She didn’t say it was because she had always felt herself to be on the outside, excluded from her father’s charmed circle, a cuckoo in the nest. “So it wasn’t losing money and houses and yachts that bothered me. That was the least of it.”

  She looked out to where a mega yacht was moored in the middle of the bay. “I hate all that, yes. You say the Sultan’s different and you’re different, and I believe you. But people like that,” she waved at the yacht, “are all, one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent, clones of my father. They all put themselves first, last and everywhere. Their selfish greed poisons the earth.” Moonlight sparkled in her glass as she took another drink. “And in their hearts, if they have hearts, they know it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A day later they sailed into the harbor at Ausa, the biggest island in the group, where several dozen boats, large and small, sail and motor, were already moored, just before sunset. It was a spectacularly beautiful bay, deep and clear and surrounded by forested hills. Off to the right around the curve of the bay, a luxury resort hotel nestled above the beach amongst trees and massive flowering shrubs. Its lights already beckoned. On the sea beneath, half a dozen mega yachts lay at anchor.

  “Lots of people here,” Aly observed as Arif motored in to a berth.

  “Today is Friday. People sail over from the mainland after work on Thursday night, and spend the weekend here.” In Bagestan, she already knew, the weekend was Friday and Saturday. “Jamila and Farhad will take the evening off, as usual. You and I will eat at the Glen Eden,” Arif finished, waving in the direction of the resort tucked against the hillside.

  He spoke with such easy command, as if she could have no objection, or he would brook none, that she almost let it go. But it was a crazy, dangerous idea, and Aly sat up straight and looked up at him standing with such authority at the wheel.

  “Isn’t the Glen Eden a five star resort?”

  “Six. Their chef is famous, the food beyond rubies. You will enjoy it, I’m sure.”

  She had to laugh. “Turtle Watch’s budget wouldn’t even run to the cover charge.”

  “You come as my guest, of course,” he said, concentrating on his engines while Farhad tossed ropes to a smartly uniformed docker and the yacht was moored. His complete lack of awareness of her situation had her clenching her jaw.

  “Thanks, Arif, but no thanks. And before you ask, for all the reasons I’ve told you before. Including my lack of anything approaching a suitable wardrobe. I learned my lesson at the…”

  “That can be fixed.”

  She glared at him. This was one of the worst times for her—when he was performing tricky maneuvers with the yacht. His hands moved so expertly, so knowingly on the controls. She could feel them on her body, every time. “How, exactly, can that be fixed?”

  “There are women’s boutiques at the Glen Eden and in Ausa Town. I will give you my credit card. We have time before dinner. If you go now, you are sure to find some outfit to dine in that will suit even the simplicity of your taste.”

  She could just imagine how many times he’d made that offer to women. Aly bristled. “No, thank you.”

  He had brought Janahine snugly home. Arif looked down at her in amazement as he cut the engines. “But what is the trouble? Think of it as an apology for our not having provided your charity with sufficient funding for your purposes.”

  She couldn’t guess what he was after. Was he trying to undermine her independence? Was it intended as a kind of bribe? Sand in her eyes? Not for one moment did she think he might be using this as a way of getting into her bed.

  If she’d believed that, a little voice whispered, she might have succumbed.

  “You don’t get it, do you? You really just don’t get it. I have work to do,” she said flatly. “If you don’t mind, I’ll feed myself from the fridge tonight.”

  …

  “Good evening, Sir,” the headwaiter said with a bow. “What name, please?”

  “Hamrahi,” said Arif. During his month in the mines he generally did his best to be incognito everywhere. No other false identity had been readily available, so he had some
of Jafar Hamrahi’s business cards in his wallet. Idly he wondered how the other Jafar Hamrahi was getting along at Anglo-Bagestan Oil. How narrowly he had missed being there instead of here. He sent up a small thank you, without knowing why.

  “Ah, yes,” the man said now, consulting his book of reservations. He looked up, glanced behind Arif’s shoulder. “For two?”

  “One, now.”

  The headwaiter sized him up for a moment in a way a Cup Companion seldom experienced, approved what he saw, inclined his head, twitched up a menu and slipped it under his arm. “This way, please.”

  He was ushered to a perfectly adequate table, but perhaps not the one he would have been offered if the headwaiter had recognized him as a Cup Companion. Arif sat down, ordered a whiskey, set a folder on the table in front of him, and began to read the information Fouad had sent him on Turtle Watch.

  …

  Left alone on the yacht, Aly used the opportunity to call Richard and Ellen. She wanted to discuss the problem she had, trying to false mark the nests when Arif insisted on accompanying her.

  “I’ll tell Richard what you’ve told me,” Ellen said, when Aly had unburdened herself. “But it won’t be tonight, I’m afraid. Richard’s just come out of surgery and he’s feeling very low. I don’t want to worry him about all this now. He may be well enough in the morning. Call again tomorrow and I’ll pass on any insights we may have.”

  Aly sighed to herself. “All right. But remember that when I call next time I probably won’t be able to talk freely. If I’m on satellite…other people can hear me.”

  “If I can just say one thing, Aly, and I’m sure Richard would agree, it’s—don’t confide in Sheikh Amir. Please don’t do that without approval from Richard. I know Richard doesn’t trust him, primarily because he insisted on traveling with you. That seems to both of us a very suspicious thing. I mean, he’s a busy man, he must have had to drop everything…it doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “Arif,” Aly corrected her irritably. “Sheikh Arif.” It had somehow sounded more reasonable when Arif put it to her, but she wasn’t arguing. The longer she was with him, the less clear-headed she was about the man. “I guess not. But he seems totally honorable to me, tell Richard.”