Desert Prince, Blackmailed Bride

Through his closed eyelids he could still see the pity in the Frenchman’s face. Pity. It was one thing that he could not, would not endure. He recoiled from the idea of seeing that same expression on the faces of people when they met him.

His jaw hardened and a look of steely determination and pride settled on his patrician features. That wasn’t going to happen. Eyes closed, Rafiq expelled the pent-up emotion in one long, sibilant breath. He refused to give way to terror or pity. He would die as he would live—on his own terms. But first there was much to do.

His face set in lines of ruthless resolve, he made his way out into the sunlight. Half an hour later he found himself in the stables, with no recollection of how he came to be there.

Hassan, the groom who had put him on his first horse as a boy, approached.

‘Prince Rafiq.’ The older man’s manner was deferential but not obsequious as he bowed his head.

‘Hassan.’ Rafiq’s smile left his dark eyes bleak.

‘You wish me to saddle a horse?’

Rafiq reached out and touched the flank of the mare in the nearest stall. He nodded and said carelessly, ‘Why not?’

Riding in the desert was to him the most life-affirming experience possible—and for the moment at least he was still alive. The desert was where he always found himself at times of stress. The sight and sounds of the ageless landscape always cleared his head and restored his focus.

‘He is not in the best of moods,’ Hassan warned. ‘Restless and in need of exercise.’ He was looking at the Prince as he said this.

The information was unnecessary as the black stallion being led towards him rolled his eyes, reared up on his hind legs and pawed the air.

‘I think perhaps you both are…?’ The older man’s eyes held a concern he knew better than to express as they scanned the Prince’s face.

He had watched the Prince grow from a lively, animated child into the man he was today—strong, resolute, decisive and strong-minded. Yet he was capable of compassion—for all but himself. A man, in short, who embodied all the qualities people expected of a leader, though occasionally in an unguarded moment Hassan fancied he glimpsed briefly the mischievous little boy who had once haunted the stables. The little boy whose passing he regretted.

A man, Hassan reflected, should have a place he could let down his guard, and it saddened him that for his Prince the stables were the closest thing he had to such a sanctuary.

Rafiq stepped forward with a grin. ‘I think you are right.’ He flashed the groom a warm smile. ‘Thank you, Hassan. I will go and change.’

‘It is always a pleasure to be of service, Prince Rafiq.’

Gabby identified herself politely. Little option, really, when her path was blocked by two big, bearded men wearing black flowing robes. It had always been her policy to be polite to very large men dressed in black—especially when they were both gripping the jewelled handles of scimitars. Common sense told her the barbaric-looking weapons were purely ornamental—she hoped.

Actually, this entire venture was a lesson in hope, but she always had been a ‘glass half full’ sort of person—though the last two days had cut deeply into her natural optimism.

It was impossible to tell from the larger of the two men’s stony expression if he understood a word she was saying, so Gabby repeated herself—this time speaking more slowly and waving her hands descriptively.

‘I have an appointment,’ she lied. ‘I got lost. The King is expecting me.’

The man looked at her in silence, his glance sliding briefly over her dishevelled figure. Gabby was sure guilt and desperation must be written all over her face—she had never really mastered the art of hiding her feelings.

It occurred to her that she should have dressed for the occasion, then her story might not have been met with such obvious scepticism. It was likely people did not take tea with the King of Zantara wearing grubby jeans and a torn shirt.

‘I had a slight accident on the way here,’ she told the silent man as she lifted a hand to smooth hair that at the best of times refused to be tamed, but just now probably gave her the appearance of an extra in a film that involved mad women and lunatic asylums.

When the man did break his silence it was not to speak to Gabby, whom he regarded with deep suspicion, but to the similarly clad man with him. They conversed briefly in Arabic, then the second man, after sliding a stern look in Gabby’s direction, gave a deferential nod of his head to the first and vanished through a door she had not noticed to the left.

Gabby smiled. It was rare that Gabby’s smile did not evoke a response from its recipient, but the man in the black robe seemed unfortunately immune to the infectious warmth and her dimple.

‘Children and animals like me.’

The limp quip did not draw any response.

He had, she decided, very poor people skills. Maybe being miserable came with the job of protecting the Zantaran royal family from contact with ordinary people? Did they ever step down from their ivory towers?

On the other hand, she conceded, it was possible he knew who she was, and this was the way he treated relatives of almost convicted felons—not that the almost, according to the man at the embassy, was anything more than a formality.

As far as he was concerned Paul was as guilty as hell—and this was the man who was meant to be on her brother’s side!

‘Your brother was caught carrying the drugs, Miss Barton,’ he had reminded Gabby, in response to her angry diatribe on the justice system in this dustbowl of a country. ‘And Zantara is not actually a dustbowl. There are desert areas, obviously, but due to the mountain range to the east and—’ He had caught Gabby’s eye and cut short the geography lesson, concluding apologetically, ‘And in fairness the zero tolerance attitude to drugs here is well known to visitors. Our own government guidelines to travellers actually—’

Gabby, who was not interested in fairness, had cut in, explaining she was not there to read government guidelines but to get her brother out of jail and back home, where she had every intention of throttling him personally.

‘My brother is not a drug runner. Stupid, yes,’ she conceded. ‘Very stupid,’ she added grimly. Only a total imbecile would carry a stuffed toy through Customs for a girl just because she’d smiled at him and looked helpless.

Gabby could see how people found his defence story lame, but they didn’t know Paul. He had spent his entire adult life being made a fool of by pretty girls, and still he retained his child-like faith in the basic goodness of human nature—especially the human nature of pretty girls. It was left to his sister to be cynical for him.

Predictably, the pretty girl in question this time had vanished without trace, and now her brother was incarcerated behind prison walls, where he was likely to stay for a very long time unless Gabby pulled off some sort of miracle. And that was looking about as likely as this guard smiling back at her.

She felt the stirrings of despair, and took a deep and sustaining breath before adding another hundred volts to her smile. Stay positive, Gabby, she chided herself. She had to, for Paul’s sake, and so far being positive had got her further than any of the embassy man’s depressing predictions.

When she had explained her embryonic plan the man at the embassy had laughed. He’d actually given her a patronising pat on the head while explaining that she had to be realistic. It was totally impossible, he’d explained patiently, for her to gain access to the royal palace. As for an audience with the King—well, he had been here twelve months, and that honour had not as yet been granted him.

Gabby had asked him if he had any better ideas.

Once he’d starting talking about tact and diplomacy she had tuned him out, deciding there and then she would get into the royal palace if it killed her.

It hadn’t—though she did have a few bruises to show for her efforts. She was inside—just—and the place looked as though it was straight from the pages of a fairy tale, complete with minarets that glistened with gold and lapis lazuli in the relentlessly fierce sun that shone down from the dizzyingly blue sky. Another time Gabby might have been enchanted by her surroundings, but she had no time for enchantment. She was on a mission.

First impossible step achieved. The next was to see the man himself—because, as her dad always said, if you wanted something you didn’t mess around with the little people, you went right to the top.

And the King seemed about as top as you could get in this oil-rich desert state, and Gabby had every intention of pleading her brother’s case to the man himself.

It had been simply bad luck, walking straight into two guards, but hopefully it was only a minor setback.

In deference to her aching face muscles she stopped smiling. She was wondering if it might actually be more useful to play dumb—though it went against the grain—when another granite-faced black-clad figure appeared—thankfully minus a scimitar.

The man with the face like granite looked Gabby up and down. You could almost hear him mentally filing her as harmless before he announced in perfect English that he was going to escort her from the premises.

‘I have an appointment with the King.’ The more often she said it, Gabby reflected, the less convincing and more crazy it sounded.

‘So I have been told. But there appears to have been a blunder, which I will look into immediately. The King does not have an appointment scheduled today. I am sorry for the inconvenience, Miss…?’

‘Barton.’

‘Miss Barton. I will have to ask you to leave and reschedule.’

He was scrupulously polite, but clearly—despite the lovely manners—not a man to be messed with. A winning smile was not going to work here.