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

  “Yes, well…will you promise not to say anything till I’ve talked to Richard?”

  “All right,” Aly said unhappily. “It does make it difficult about the nests, though. Do I carry on flagging them? It’s a gold-embossed invitation to saboteurs.”

  “Well, I think what you’re already doing, moving the stake just one meter, sounds good. Carry on with that till we can get back to you. As you say, with luck you can correct to a greater distance next time round “

  Aly hung up, and sat there for a moment, irritated by the call without knowing why. Then she got up and wandered down to the galley in search of something edible. Her skin was itchy. Her whole body was restless. No food looked worth the trouble of preparing it.

  Hell. She was regretting that she hadn’t gone with Arif. But that was just crazy. What was in it for her but mortification? It would be even worse than the banquet. In an atmosphere like the Glen Eden, she wouldn’t even be able to dream.

  Even if she’d let him buy her an expensive outfit, she would have looked pathetic, surrounded by all the pampered, beautiful women coming off the mega yachts or staying at the Glen Eden. She would have hated exposing her failings to Arif like that.

  A Cup Companion with you on his arm?

  But he’s not a Cup Companion here. He’s incognito. If he cared about being seen with me, he wouldn’t have asked.

  He did mind. He wanted to put you into something expensive before being seen with you.

  Shut up!

  Aly slammed the fridge door, then climbed up on deck into the warm, soft evening. There she drew a deep breath. The heat of the day had lifted and there was a delicious sea-scented breeze. The harbor was enchanting by night. Lights glowed golden all round the bay—from many of the boats, from the village, and from the hotel that was nestled against the hillside to the right, where Arif was dining this evening. In the distance, above yearning elegiac music, a wailing wind instrument soared and searched the darkness for what was lost.

  She didn’t have smart clothes, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go ashore and find something to eat somewhere less posh than the Glen Eden. Aly ran below, combed her hair, changed into loose long pants and a short-sleeved shirt, slipped on sandals, grabbed up her handbag, and went back up on deck. She locked the hatch, lowered the gangplank, ran down onto the dock, then raised it again.

  People strolled along the dock or sat on aft decks with ice clinking in their glasses, laughing and chatting. She saw the flags of many nations as she passed. Approaching the shore she saw crowds in the distance, and the odor of spicy meat cooking made her mouth water.

  A kebab seller called to her from his kiosk just outside the harbor area, but she only called “Shokran,” and passed on up the road till she got to the main street. Brightly lighted shops offering carpets, ceramics, sweets, antiques, jewelry, ship’s chandlery, diving gear, luggage, clothing, and smartphones were all crowded with happy visitors. She heard French, German, English, and Russian as well as Parvani and Arabic. There were restaurants, snack bars, coffee shops, and tea houses. A wealth of choice.

  Aly paused in front of a women’s clothing shop. Among the items in the window was a white linen dress. A square neckline and a pencil skirt with a kick pleat on each side. Dead plain. No pretensions.

  Nice, but she looked like a stick in anything fitted.

  Poor little Aly. My poor little stick. A figure only a father could love.

  And even if she had been half inclined to try it on with a view to next time, she quickly reassessed the inclination: there were no price tags in the window. It was obvious what kind of tourist frequented this resort. She’d be lucky to find a sarong she could afford. In the old days her father would have loved Ausa Town, if he had ever bothered to take his “ocean-going” mega yacht out of the Med. So exclusive.

  Ah well. Aly bought a kebab and a lemonade from the kiosk and went and sat on a wall, watching the crowd pass as she ate.

  …

  Arif skimmed through the Turtle Watch file, making a mental note of which of his people had assessed the application and made recommendations for cuts, filing the information away in his brain for further consideration. On the surface there was nothing questionable, but he would read it more closely later.

  He opened the background file on Olivia Percy with more interest. She is the daughter of Alexander “Trojan” Percy, the infamous high-living financier whose exposure as a fraud precipitated a financial… So much he knew, and Arif’s eyes dropped to where Fouad had underlined the text and made a mark in the margin. Percy was also linked with certain of the Kaljuk ruling elite. Among the worthless investments he endorsed were Kaljuk “gold mine” stocks for mines that never existed, or were non-producing. Percy was the channel through which the fantasy of Kaljuk gold entered western mainstream financial wisdom. The collapse of his financial empire has also meant exposure and ruin for these corrupt Kaljuk officials.

  Arif sat up and gazed out over the sea, unconsciously closing the file as he absorbed it. This almost-forgotten fact had been nagging at the back of his mind ever since Aly had told him her father’s name.

  He had now to consider the possibility that the Kaljuks had got to her. That she was a woman who could be bribed he had dismissed early—her love of her work and her dedication to the Johari turtle’s continued existence was too obvious, too real. But threats? Those who were in power in Kaljukistan now were more than merely greedy. They were violent and vengeful men. It was possible.

  She had claimed ignorance of Kaljuk interest in Joharistan, and he had been convinced. But if she were trying to protect her family in this way, she would do everything in her power to hide the fact from him. For all he knew she had been acting from the beginning. That show of incompetence at the banquet. Richard Falbright’s convenient illness. Aly’s ridiculous determination to sail alone on this trip, her refusal to use Dhikra, her dismay and resistance to Plan C. Her insistence on patrolling the beaches alone, the way she had swum back to shore at Solomon’s Foot to move the nest marker she had just planted. The mismarking of nests since.

  He had always known there was something behind it all. But because she aroused his protective instincts and because he wanted to bed her, he had believed her innocent. The fool’s way.

  She had wept when she watched the hatchlings make their way to their home in the sea. He had taken that as a clear sign of her devotion to the work of saving them. But might it not equally be grief over her complicity with men who were killing them?

  He was taking too much on trust. He had been blindsided by her, by her unique beauty, by her awkward charm, by the potent female sexuality that seemed so unconscious.

  Was it all sleight of hand, a magician’s distraction?

  He had to find out, by whatever means possible, and immediately, just what Aly Percy was doing to those turtle nests. He had no right to judge by his gut instinct in a case so urgent. He had to know.

  His entree arrived with a discreet flourish, and he set the file aside and pondered while he ate. How to plumb the depths of the mystery? How to get her to lower her guard with him?

  There was one sure way to get to a woman—in bed. A woman who has been thoroughly pleasured is a woman whose heart is open to her lover. That much was certain. A woman’s surest weakness was sexual. It was somehow generally considered that only men were vulnerable through sex, but that, he was sure, was because so few men took the trouble to explore the farthest reaches of a woman’s pleasure—or even the nearest.

  The Prophet had left clear instructions as to a man’s duty in bed. Do not leap upon your woman like a mule, leaving her more dissatisfied than when you began. Send a messenger first, he said. And when they asked, what messenger? He said, A kiss, a caress.

  It didn’t take a genius to see that Aly Percy had so far met nothing but mules.

  Arif’s two very separate goals came together with a crack so loud he looked around for the source before he understood that the sound originated in his own he
ad.

  He would reveal Aly to herself, and then she would reveal herself to him. There was perfect symmetry in it.

  He considered the problem as he swallowed the perfectly presented gourmet meal. He was not unused to dining alone, but tonight solitude was somehow an irritation. Even excellent food like this was better shared.

  The problem was how to get her guard down far enough to get her into bed in the first place. She was not like most of the women he had met, who were only too ready to believe in their own attractions. Aly believed she had nothing to offer. Any time he got near she stiffened in rejection.

  “Was anything wrong with the dinner, Sir?” the maitre d’ asked in solicitous alarm. Arif looked down. He had left his entree half-eaten, succulent and delicately flavored as it was.

  “Nothing at all,” Arif said. He felt jaded tonight. He would have been better off staying to eat something simple on the yacht.

  You would not feel jaded if she were here with you.

  Arif pushed the thought away. The point was not his own pleasure.

  The dilemma is this—that you will not get near her until she believes that you find her attractive. And whatever you say, she will not accept her beauty until she sees it herself in a mirror.

  The maitre d’ gently removed his plate, handed it off to a busboy, and dusted the tablecloth. The sweets menu was presented. Arif lifted a negligent hand in rejection and it disappeared.

  “Coffee, perhaps? A brandy?”

  “The bill,” Arif said.

  As the man moved away to do his bidding, the solution came to him. Like a gift from the air. Arif pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

  “Princess?” he said, when a voice answered.

  “Arif, hello,” said Shakira. “How are you? What’s the news?”

  “Cousin, I come to you in quest of a favor,” he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  When she looked round and saw him, Arif was standing gazing at her, only yards away from where she relaxed on the low stone wall, her feet up, arms on her knees, her back against the trunk of a tree, watching the world go by. He was so darkly handsome in the black dinner jacket and white shirt that she caught her breath on a tiny moan before involuntarily smiling at him.

  He smiled, too, and a moment later he was right in front of her.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Chicken kebab and salad in a pitta bread,” she said. “What about you?”

  “Delicate curls of sautéed duck breast steeped in a deliciously piquant coulis of ginger and lime,” he recited gravely, “on a bed of brown rice fluffed with a whisper of garlic.”

  Aly laughed, as much at his attitude as the pompous silliness of the description itself. “Is that word for word?” she demanded. Arif shrugged and flicked her another smiling look that went right to her toes.

  “Close enough.”

  “And was it?”

  “Deliciously piquant?”

  “What else?”

  “It would have been better for your presence,” he admitted. “How about the kebab?”

  “Snap,” she said, just a little breathlessly.

  “And what did you have for dessert?”

  “I have been considering whether such a thing as an ice cream van exists in the rarefied atmosphere here.”

  “In the highest degree unlikely,” Arif told her, and held out his hand. “Come and we will find something suitably sweet together.”

  As far as Aly was concerned, his presence was sweetness enough, and she couldn’t resist the invitation to walk with him. She put her hand into his and swung her legs down from the wall. Just for a moment, as she stood straight, he was close, too close, making her yearn to be even closer. The tree, the stone wall, and Arif—all strong, all real, all sprung from the good earth, she thought with crazy abandon. A powerful current of strength flowed from his hand right into her bones, warming her from the inside. His hand was her sure support. He’s as trustworthy as tree and stone and I’m a fool to be swayed by Richard’s doubts.

  They walked with and through the strolling groups of yachting people and other visitors, stopping once to look in a carpet shop window, but not for long; Arif had something in mind. Somewhere music was playing again, soft and magical.

  “Come,” said Arif, and turning, he led her into a half-lit passageway between two dark stone walls. For one wild moment a crazy anticipation fluttered to life in her, her blood hot and honeyed as it pumped from her belly south. We will find something suitably sweet together. If he kissed her…

  Then she realized that the music was getting louder. A high gate barred the way, but Arif spoke to the young guard in the universal language, and the gate swung open.

  A moment later they were in a high-walled courtyard, where massed bougainvillea and hibiscus drooped against whitewashed walls and tables were lighted with soft fat bulbs holding tea candles. Thick banks of rose blossom clustered over a high trellis along one wall, the magic scent falling generously down. In a corner, on a tiny stage, a small band played instruments Aly had never seen before. Standing in front of the players, without benefit of a mike, a white-haired woman in shot-gold and turquoise robes was singing in the most haunting, tragic voice Aly had ever been privileged to hear.

  Her song ended as they entered, and as they joined in the prolonged applause a French foursome got up to leave. There was a buzz of conversation in the silence. Arif led the way to the table that had just been vacated. He pulled out a chair, and it took Aly a few seconds to realize that he was holding it for her. She wasn’t used to this kind of attention, nor to the look in his eyes as she passed him to sit down. She glanced around: every table was full.

  “You’ve got the magic touch,” she murmured, hoping to defuse the mood with the little joke, but her words took on another meaning, which only cranked up the feeling of connection.

  “I hope you think so, at any rate,” Arif said into her ear as he sat down at her left. Hot blood rushed into her chest and cheeks. Her breasts ached. It was meaningless, she knew that, just knee-jerk, but he couldn’t know, could he, that she was so unused to sexual banter, and already so foolishly attracted, that the comment had liquefied her bones?

  A waiter hurried over to the table and cleared the few glasses. After a short exchange, Arif asked her, “Sherbet, or traditional pastries?”

  “Sherbet,” Aly said, not because she wasn’t interested in the local cuisine, but because sherbet might help to cool her blood.

  “And coffee?”

  She nodded and the waiter disappeared. The band started playing an intro, and after a few moments the old woman opened her throat and began another song.

  “Aiiiiinaaa…”

  A collective sigh went up, and every conversation died. Aly glanced around in surprise. Except for one table of obviously foreign tourists, the space was filled with Bagestanis, and all of them had their eyes riveted on the singer with the kind of worshipful gaze normally associated with rock stars.

  And now Arif was murmuring in her ear underneath the tender, poignant voice of the singer,

  “Where is the Rose?

  When will I see her?

  The nightingale asks after his Beloved.”

  His whisper electrified her senses all the way to her toes. What did he mean? After a moment, Aly exhaled a little puff of scorn for her own foolishness: he was translating the song for her, that was all.

  “He asks the Night

  Where is the Rose?

  He asks the Moon

  Why does she hide herself

  From my eyes?”

  Her melting was sweet and tender now, soft as liquid honey poured over her heart, warm as tears of joy. An ache of yearning rose up in her, a hopeless hunger for Arif’s words to be for her.

  It was a song, nothing more. And she should focus on the singer and stamp hard on that foolish hope, because it was going nowhere. But the song was magic in her ears, strange and haunting and pure, undermining her resistance. No surprise that many
eyes were glistening with tears in the candlelight.

  “When the incense does not burn

  It gives off no perfume

  Only those who have been consumed by love

  Understand me.”

  Consumed by love. What might that feel like, to love so deeply that you burned up your own substance? Was it this feeling that she must lean in to Arif’s strong chest and nestle there all the rest of her life? That she would die if he did not move his arm from the back of her chair to enclose her body in safety forever?

  Fool that she was.

  “Aiiiinaaa al Warda,” sang the old woman, but it was not the old woman anymore, it was the song itself that sang, the air that breathed it; and the scent of roses was richer now, as if under the magic of the plaint, the Rose could no longer hide herself from her Beloved.

  “Where is the Rose? Where is the Rose?”

  Aly’s heart was beating so hard she was going to faint. Oh, let her not be consumed by love for Arif al Najimi! Please let this be just the hunger of physical desire. She could resist that, her recognition of her own impossible shortcomings would protect her there—but love? How much of a fool she could make of herself if she loved him. How her heart would be torn by love’s loss.

  “Haytha al Wardahhh…” the last notes of the song wailed out.

  “Here is the Rose,” Arif whispered, and then the place erupted with passionate joy, everyone on their feet crying and applauding, to the obvious amazement of the single table of foreigners, who looked around blinking. The old woman, ageless and beautiful in the candlelight that illuminated the courtyard, held up her arms to embrace them all. Aly discovered that she was standing, too. She opened her mouth and shouted, and found that her pent-up feelings were eased by it, and shouted again.

  “Suha! Suha!” they cried, and the singer pressed her palms together and bowed. A long white braid fell down over her shoulder almost to the ground. A moment later, she disappeared through a doorway, but the cheering did not stop.