Sandstorm

‘You’ll have to. I’m not coming back to you, Rachid. I—I don’t love you.’

‘I love you.’

‘Do you?’ Abby’s mouth quivered. ‘I’m afraid your ideas of love and mine are sadly different.’

Rachid’s hand was suddenly hard upon her knee. ‘Listen to me, Abby. I need you—’

‘You need a woman,’ Abby corrected tautly. ‘Only a woman. Any woman—’

‘No!’

‘Yes.’ She tried to dislodge those hard fingers which were digging into the bone. ‘You only think you want me because I left you. When I was there…’

‘Yes? When you were there? Did I not treat you as the much-loved wife of my father’s eldest son?’

Abby bent her head. ‘You treated me—honorably, yes. But you know as well as I do, that—that isn’t enough.’ She shook her head. ‘Rachid, you know you must have an heir. And we both know that you’re not to blame for not producing one.’

‘Abby!’

His tone was impassioned now, and she knew she had lit some flame of remembrance inside him. It was hard for him, she knew that, but where there was no fidelity there was no trust, and she would not—she could not—share him with his mistresses.

‘Abby,’ he went on now, ‘I know my father spoke with you—’

‘You do?’ She stiffened.

‘Yes.’ He uttered a harsh oath. ‘Sweet mother of the Prophet, do you think I did not turn heaven and earth to find out why you had left without telling me?’

‘You knew why I’d left,’ she reminded him, as memories fanned the fires of her resentment. ‘Your father’s words were no news to me. You’d made the position quite clear enough.’

‘Abby, listen to me…’

‘No, you listen to me.’ She succeeded in thrusting his long fingers aside and moved as far away from him as she could. ‘When I married you, I was an innocent, I realise that now. I believed—I really believed you loved me—’

‘I did. I do!’

She shook her head. ‘I know that it was partly my fault. I know you were disappointed when we didn’t have a child—’

‘Abby!’

‘—but these things happen, even in the best of families. There was nothing I could do.’

‘I know that.’

‘You should have divorced me then,’ she went on in a low monotone. ‘You should have set us both free. At least I would have been spared the humiliation of—of—and you could have married the—the wife your father chose for you.’

‘Abby, I did not want the wife my father chose for me. I wanted you!’

‘Not enough,’ she said painfully. ‘Oh, this is hopeless, Rachid. We’re just going over all the old ground. Why couldn’t you just have accepted that our marriage was over and freed yourself? I wouldn’t have stood in your way—’

‘Abby, stop this!’

‘I won’t. I can’t. I did love you Rachid, once. But I don’t love you now. And I won’t come back to you.’

‘Abby, you’re my wife—’

‘You’d have been better making me your mistress,’ she retorted recklessly. ‘Mistresses aren’t expected to produce heirs. As it happens, I would have had to refuse that offer, but it would have saved us both a lot of heartache.’

Rachid took a deep breath. ‘Abby, I don’t care about an heir. For the love of God, listen to me! My father now knows how I feel. There will be no more of his philosophising—’

‘No, there won’t,’ Abby interrupted him shortly. ‘Because I’m not coming back, Rachid. You’ll have to drug me or knock me unconscious to get me to go with you, and somehow I don’t think the Crown Prince would like it to be known that his wife is so unwilling.’

Rachid’s eyes glittered in the dim light. ‘You will fight me?’

‘Every inch of the way.’

He hesitated a moment, and then picked up the intercom that connected to his bodyguard in front. ‘26, Dacre Mews,’ he directed shortly, giving the address of Abby’s father’s house, and then sank back against the soft leather at his side of the car, resting his head wearily against the window frame.

Abby’s silently expelled sigh of relief was tinged with unexpected compassion. So, she thought weakly, he had accepted her arguments. He was taking her home; and while she was grateful for the victory, she wondered if she had really won. She had never known Rachid give up without a battle, and reluctant emotion stirred in the embers of discontentment. Once she would not have hesitated in giving in to him. Once he had controlled her every waking breath. But no longer. And although she was glad of the freedom, she remembered the sweetness of the past with unbearable bitterness.

Rachid let her out of the car in Dacre Mews, and waited, a tall, dark figure standing beside the limousine, as she fumbled for her key. It was only as she stumbled into the house that he climbed back into the vehicle, and she heard the whisper of its tyres as it moved away.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_8ecd5575-7614-5e41-9080-37add9dc7185)

HER father was in his study. He looked up rather myopically as she put her head round the door, removing the thick-lensed spectacles to blink at her in surprise.

‘You’re early aren’t you?’ he asked, trying to focus on the dial of his pocket watch. ‘I thought you were going to Liz’s party.’

Abby tried to keep her tone light. ‘I was. I did. I just came home sooner than I expected, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ Professor Gillespie scratched his scalp through the thinning strands of grey hair. ‘Wasn’t it any good? I thought you usually enjoyed Liz’s company.’

‘I do, usually,’ agreed Abby, withdrawing her head again, in two minds whether to mention Rachid to her father or not. ‘I’m going to make some coffee,’ she called. ‘Do you want some?’

‘I’d rather have cocoa at this time of the night,’ replied her father absently. ‘It’s ten o’clock. I think I’ll have a sandwich.’

‘I’ll make it,’ Abby assured him, her voice drifting back to him as she walked into the kitchen.

The Gillespie house was one of a terrace, matching its fellows on either side. Tall and narrow, it stretched up three floors, with the kitchen, the dining room, and her father’s study on the ground floor, and living rooms and bedrooms above. It was easier for Professor Gillespie to work at ground level, even though it would have been quieter on the upper floors, but since his retirement from the University, her father had taken private students, and it was less arduous for him not to have stairs to negotiate every time he had to answer the door.

He came into the kitchen as Abby was spreading the bread with butter, filching a piece of cheese from the slices she had prepared. Although he was only in his early sixties, he looked older, and Abby knew he had aged considerably since her mother’s death a year ago. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his work, and it had become both a pleasure and a distraction, filling the empty spaces he would otherwise have found unbearable.

Now he studied his daughter’s bent head with thoughtful eyes, before saying perceptively: ‘What’s happened? Have you and Liz had a row or something? You’re looking very flushed.’

Abby sighed, turning to the kettle that was starting to boil and lifting out earthenware beakers from the cupboard above. ‘Oh, you know Liz,’ she said, trying to sound inconsequent. ‘She’s not the type to row over anything. She’s far too together for that.’

Professor Gillespie grimaced. ‘Together!’ he repeated distastefully. ‘Where do young people find these words? Together means in company with someone else.’

‘Well, she’s usually that, too,’ remarked Abby, hoping to change the subject, but he was not to be diverted.