Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) Page 2

  She could see why Fouad had warned her against kissing the man’s hand. He was so bloody regal it was all she could do to resist the full kowtow. But when her hand got lost in the grip of his she wasn’t prepared for the rush of animal alarm in her veins.

  “The least interesting color in the spectrum,” Aly babbled. She was vulnerable with nerves, that was why he was getting to her. But the knowledge didn’t seem to help her get over it. “No one’s ever written a song to grey eyes.” Who had said that? Why was her father’s voice coming to her now, when what she needed was a bit of confidence?

  The sheikh’s steady gaze was heating her blood in spite of herself. It had been years since Aly really seriously wished she was beautiful, but somehow he was dragging her back to her teenage self, yearning for the impossible. Learning all over again how inadequate she was as a woman. The problem with the sheikh’s eyes was, they melted everything in their path. Plain and pretty alike. She’d heard of eyes like this.

  Fouad frowned. “Miss Percy is one of the scientists who will be setting sail shortly on the mission to save the Johari turtle from extinct—”

  Aly couldn’t stop her tongue. “I’m afraid that’s setting the goalposts a bit high.” Was that a mixed metaphor? “What we plan, Your Excellency, is to mark and monitor the nests for the rest of the nesting and hatching season, in the hopes of establishing some cause for the recent drastic decline in their numbers.”

  “His Excellency is familiar with the project,” Fouad Mukhtar murmured repressively, cutting her off. The sheikh, meanwhile, was still emitting the hot man-ray that took no prisoners, and Aly had to bite her tongue not to shout at him to turn it off. “And as you are also aware, Excellency, Dr. Falbright has fallen ill unexpectedly—just an hour ago, while on his way here. Miss Percy has kindly agreed to deliver his speech for him tonight.”

  “There’s no one else.” Totally unnerved now, Aly babbled on. “Ellen’s naturally gone to the hospital with Richard. It’s me or nothing.” And nothing might have been better. In a gathering of scientists, she would be perfectly confident. Here tonight, where she had so grossly underestimated what was necessary in the way of dress, and would undoubtedly be judged on her appearance more than what she had to say? If only she’d understood just how over-the-top a Bagestani “charity banquet” would be. If only she’d listened to her mother. There’s no need for such martyrdom, Olivia. We can spare a few hundred pounds for a decent frock.

  If only she were immune to the impact of those blue eyes.

  His Excellency’s black eyebrows twitched into a half frown and then cleared. “We are of course very grateful to you, Ms. Percy, for stepping into the breach,” he said. “You are a little anxious about the part you now must take, no doubt?”

  He was making his voice deliberately seductive. He must be. No one stroked anyone like that unconsciously.

  “Acutely nervous, if the truth be told,” she said. Aly was more than nervous now. She was heartsick. One of the most important events of their fundraising year, and she was going to blow it. If there was no money for Turtle Watch next year, it would be her own stupid fault. And his, of course. Why had he insisted on talking to her before her speech?

  “Life is full of challenges, if we live right,” said His Excellency with a little smile.

  “I’ll try to let that thought comfort me,” said Aly.

  …

  Arif al Najimi climbed up to the podium and stood looking out over the banqueting hall. The worst of modern fundraising was the constant necessity to stroke the egos of donors. True charity was invisible, as had been pointed out for at least two thousand years, but that truth had been all but forgotten in today’s world. All these people had donated money to the umbrella concern that oversaw environmental rehabilitation in Bagestan, and they expected to be publicly acknowledged and thanked. This evening was their thank you.

  “I know it is not necessary to describe again the depredations suffered by so many areas of the environment in Bagestan, during thirty years of the dictatorship that is now happily at an end,” he began, the formalities past. “Over the past few years, because of your generosity, much work has been committed to the task of undoing the savage assault on areas of natural beauty, pristine waters, ancient sites, and local cultures….”

  He scrolled through before and after pictures on PowerPoint, telling them how their hugely appreciated donations had been spent. He introduced various project managers who got up to tell them how much more there was to do.

  The turtle scientist sat gazing up at him throughout, her eyes getting wider and wider, like a cat begging for cream, her slender neck arched to reveal the pulse at the base of her throat. The signal of animal surrender.

  She pushed her lips out nervously as he watched. What the ancient poets of Bagestan called a “rosebud” mouth. It would make a perfect pink circle when—Arif suppressed his reaction and frowned. Her sexual appeal was all the more potent for being subtle.

  Her gaze pulled at him. What did she want? Was she trying to throw him? Why had she hidden herself in this way—hair pinned up so, the appalling dress? She had done everything to disguise her attractions, but now wanted his interest. It was perverse.

  “And now we turn to some new projects, where we face, if possible, even greater challenges…”

  …

  Aly was fixed by the blue gaze, which seemed to alternate been ice and blue fire as it flicked over her and away and back again. Blue was the hottest part of a flame, of course, and ice was only blue deep in the heart of Antarctic glaciers. A man of extremes, maybe. The thought gave her chills, though never before had she been aware of a desire to experience extremes. His gaze passed over her every few minutes as he spoke, and slowly tore away whatever self-confidence she’d managed to salvage from the ruins of this catastrophic evening.

  Maybe it was because he was so hot himself, and so obviously contemptuous of her own lack of appeal. If she were Viola, he wouldn’t be looking so dismissive. Aly let herself dream for a moment, imagining how it would feel to be her sister and have those hot blue eyes eat her up. Her stomach did a quick burst of melt that went all the way to her toes.

  “…Sadly, Dr. Falbright was taken ill this evening while on his way here. But another of the scientists with the mission has agreed to step into the breach. Ms. Olivia Percy…”

  Oh my God. It’s my turn already. What has he said, why wasn’t I listening? And where’s Richard’s speech?—I should have had it ready.

  Aly leapt to her feet and dashed to the broad steps leading up to the podium, one hand groping feverishly, in the ridiculous little beaded evening bag on her wrist, for the cards Richard had shoved into her hand. Too nervous to remember she should be picking up her skirts, she stepped firmly onto the hem of her dress and went headlong. The little cards containing Richard’s speech spilled everywhere, but Aly’s first concern was her bodice, which had dragged down so far she was in danger of exposing her lack of breasts to the whole world.

  Was there a camera on her? Oh, please not.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fouad Mukhtar and a young assistant scurry to collect the scattered cards, and on the giant screen behind the podium the figure of Sheikh Arif al Najimi was bending over…her. Damn.

  She looked up. Ice blue.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Are you hurt?” asked the sheikh, in a voice of concern. He must be furious behind that level gaze, though. Just like her father when she did something to embarrass him in public—a surface concern, and a flash of cold anger just for her.

  “Yes, no, I’m not hurt. Just feeling a fool,” she said, and was horrified to hear her own voice over the sound system. She’d spoken right into the mike on his bloody lapel.

  He gave her a look that said that was perfectly appropriate, but made no reply, and a few moments later Aly was established behind the podium, looking out on a sea of faces, each and every one showing an expression of embarrassment on her behalf.

&nb
sp; “That kind of thing is okay when there’s an Oscar waiting at the top of the stairs,” she said into the mike.

  Nobody, but nobody, laughed.

  Well, what do you expect? They’re all too appalled to access their sense of humor.

  Or maybe it just wasn’t funny.

  “Well, turtles.” Aly tried again. “Let me tell you about the life of the beautiful Johari turtle, sometimes called Aswad, a species of turtle unique to these islands and in imminent danger of extinction from unknown causes.”

  Fouad Mukhtar had handed her the collection of cards, but obviously they would not be in running order. “If you’ll just give me a moment here…” Aly said, and then her heart sank right through the floor.

  Richard hadn’t numbered the bloody cards. Aly looked on the front, she looked on the back…nothing.

  She wondered if there was such a thing as Absolute Zero on the self-confidence scale. If there was, she was pretty sure she’d hit it.

  …

  “What can I say, Richard? I got through it—more or less.”

  The phone to her ear, Aly leapt down into the cockpit of the converted fishing boat Turtle Watch had bought for the expedition. It was going to be another hot day, but the breeze was delicious with the scent of the sea. “If the truth be told—rather less than more,” she amended.

  She could laugh now, just, though her stomach did shrivel at the memory. At the thought of those blue eyes judging her in ice-cold fury. What a screw-up she had made of the whole thing. And what trouble she might have created for the future of fundraising for Turtle Watch. Her heart went cold at the thought. Her own personal humiliation, even witnessed by the judgmental Sheikh Arif al Nazimi, was nothing compared to that fear. Her attempt at laughter threatened to settle into a sob.

  Overhead a gull screeched its disdain.

  “I’m sure it can’t have been that bad,” Richard said comfortingly.

  “I’m afraid it can.” She’d been so wired up that at one point, when a lock of her own hair fell down into her peripheral vision, she’d screeched. “They all jumped as if I’d shot them,” she finished.

  “What?” demanded Richard, laughing helplessly and then grunting because it hurt.

  Shame burned in the old familiar place in her stomach, but at least she could make a good story out of it.

  “Why, Aly?”

  “Well, I think my reptilian brain—which was on high alert, after all—decided that the thing was alive.”

  And as for Sheikh Arif, he must have felt that her incompetence reflected on him. God knew what damage she had inflicted on his fundraising efforts. But it was about half his fault, after all. If he hadn’t unnerved her with that chilling blue gaze, she wouldn’t have been so terminally nervous.

  Still, it was all over now. She need never see His Excellency again. Or at least, not for weeks—not till this trip was done and dusted and the memory of last night had faded almost into oblivion. She hoped. And if they pinpointed the cause of the turtle’s decline…if the decline could be reversed…the ice-blue-eyed sheikh might look at her with a little more respect.

  Respect. Not what most women would dream of seeing in those blue eyes. But Aly wasn’t most women and she knew her chances.

  “So we haven’t made the best impression on Sheikh al Najimi, Richard, and I’m beyond sorry about it.”

  Richard groaned down the wire. “Well, and it’s my fault. I can’t believe I didn’t number the cards, Aly. Absolutely basic precaution. Repeated groveling apologies.”

  “Never mind. They got the message, in the end, that the Johari turtle is under dire threat and this trip is crucial to discovering why. And I assured them that I was just a humble assistant mistakenly thrust into the limelight and you and Ellen were actually in charge of the whole enterprise.”

  “Why did you tell them a whopper like that? Why didn’t you tell them you’re the prime mov—”

  “Because that wasn’t what they wanted to hear, Richard, nor what they would have believed,” she interrupted him. “I really was a one-woman Goon Squad. Anyway, update coming—I’ve filled up with water and diesel, and stocked up on non-perishables this morning, and tomorrow I can get all the equipment aboard.”

  Aly sank down onto the wooden seat and gazed around the little vessel in satisfaction. Pretty basic, but it had everything they needed for their six weeks of sailing around the Gulf of Barakat tracking turtles. They were all three used to roughing it, one way or another.

  “So then it’ll be just a question of shopping for perishables as soon as you’re back on your feet, and we’re off. How are you feeling now? When are you getting out of hospital?”

  “Aly, it’s bad news, I’m afraid,” Richard said.

  Her heart went dead with foreboding. “Oh, my God. And here I’ve been jabbering away…Tell me.”

  “I need surgery, sadly. Minor, but it needs doing right away.”

  “Surgery?” Anxiety ramped through her blood with one great thump of her heart. They’d all assumed it was nothing more than a bad bout of travelers’ tummy. “My God. Are you…are you…?” Richard was more than a research partner. He and Ellen were among her closest friends.

  “Aly, relax. It’s not serious, but it does require action. A fairly simple hernia.” He told her the details. “They say best to get it done sooner rather than later, and I think I should listen.”

  “Of course.” Her brain reeled, trying to piece it all together. “What will we do, Richard? Just delay the whole project for a couple of weeks? Or I suppose Ellen and I could manage for awhile without you. Will you be back on your feet in time to…what does Ellen say?”

  “Aly, Ellen’s coming home with me. I am desperately sorry about this, but I do need her beside me, and in any case, Ellen insists—”

  And that was when it hit her. It was over. Even simple surgery wasn’t something you recovered from in a couple of weeks. Aly’s breath locked just below her ribs. “Of course Ellen has to go with you,” she agreed in a whisper. Of course. And now she was torn in two. Her friend Richard. And the turtles.

  “I know how dreadful an effect it is going to have on your doctoral thesis as well as the project, Aly, and I’m sorrier than I can say. We have looked at putting it off, but I think I’d be a fool to risk sailing around those uninhabited islands with this hanging over my head. It could get serious very quickly.”

  “Good God, don’t even think of it,” Aly cried. “We’ll come up with something.”

  They wouldn’t, of course. There was no way around this. Aly gazed past masts and hulls out over the turquoise harbor, watching everything she’d been working toward for the past two years sink without trace into the blue, blue sea.

  “Such crap timing,” Richard said. “I’m sorrier than I can say, Aly.”

  “Richard, it’s just life. Don’t think about it, you have to concentrate on your health. Worrying about this won’t help anything.”

  After a short silence, Richard said, “We’re catching a flight tomorrow at two. There is still space available, but Ellen didn’t book for you. We weren’t sure if you might want to stay on here for a bit of a holiday.”

  “That’s a nice thought, but I’m coming home to hold your hand, Richard,” she said. “I’m sure Ellen’s going to need moral support, even if you aren’t.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. I’m suffering from enough guilt as it is, Aly. Anyway, the surgery is unlikely to be scheduled immediately. Now you’re here in paradise, why not stay on a bit? A very small consolation prize—I think the charity could spring for a week at the hotel for you.”

  “Yes, maybe. Thank you for the offer, Richard. I’ll have to think.” Her brain was blank with shock and disappointment. Anything like coherent planning was impossible right now. “Anyway, I don’t need the hotel, I can just move onto the boat here, if it comes to that.”

  “So you can,” Richard agreed in a tone of surprise

  “And I suppose someone should eat the food, now I’ve s
pent the money on it.”

  “That’s a point. All right, well, let us know what you decide.”

  “I’ll do that,” Aly promised.

  She disconnected, then leaned back on the wooden bench and stared into space.

  It couldn’t be over. It couldn’t be. She had worked so hard to make this trip a reality. Everything depended on the research being completed—everything. Not just her doctoral thesis, not just all the effort and money that had already been sunk into the project, but the turtles. She knew more about the Johari turtle than all but a handful of scientists. She knew how fatal was the pattern of dying nests to its future survival. She knew how little time there might be to find the cause and correct it.

  It had taken two years to get this far. If the trip didn’t go ahead this year, if she had to go home and start over planning for next year…

  It just wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be allowed to happen.

  You could go alone.

  Aly gasped as the thought unfolded in her mind, unveiling itself like a flower opening in time lapse.

  Why not? She could sail, she could navigate—she’d started sailing almost before she could walk. Trojan Percy might have been ruthless in pointing out her physical deficiencies, and uninterested in her academic abilities, but he’d made sure his children had all the modern accomplishments suitable to the young of their class. Aly was as much at home in and on the water as on land. She’d taken sailing courses every year from the age of eight till it all started coming apart, her father’s financial empire disintegrating round them to reveal the utter sham of their lives. And later, taking comfort in wind and water and solitude, she’d sailed alone every chance she got.

  She could do this.

  “This isn’t the Norfolk Broads,” Ellen objected five minutes later when, her decision made, she rang Richard again. “It’s not even the English Channel. It’s the Gulf of Barakat, Aly.”

  About which she knew a great deal as far as turtles went, but not much when it came to winds and currents and safe harbors.