The Arabian Mistress

‘This is a waste of time.’ Percy’s plump, perspiring face was full of exasperated impatience. ‘You’ve got to go and see Prince Tariq and ask him to have Adrian released!’

Beneath the pale blonde hair which merely served to accentuate her present lack of colour, Faye’s delicate profile froze. ‘I couldn’t—’

‘Well, how are you going to feel if Adrian picks up some ghastly Middle Eastern infection and pops his clogs?’ Percy demanded with brutal bluntness. ‘You know he’s never been strong!’

Her sensitive stomach churned for there was more truth in that melodramatic warning than she liked to credit. As a child, Adrian had had leukaemia and, although he had recovered, he still tended to catch every passing bug. His uncertain health had finally destroyed the army career he’d loved, forcing him to rethink his future and plunge into the business venture which had led to his current plight.

‘The Foreign Office assured us that he was being well treated,’ Faye reminded the older man tautly.

‘Insofar as he’s been locked up indefinitely! If I was a superstitious man, I would believe that your desert warrior put a hex on us all last year,’ Percy complained bitterly. ‘I was riding high then, making money hand over fist and look at me now—I’m practically broke!’

Just as he deserved to be, Faye reflected heavily. Her stepfather would walk over anyone and do anything to feather his own nest. But there was one surprising exception to that rule: Adrian had somehow become as dear to Percy as any flesh-and-blood son. It was ironic that Percy should have sacrificed his own security in trying and failing to keep her brother’s business afloat.

The prison lay well outside the city limits, housed in a grim fortress surrounded by high walls and lookout towers. They had to wait for some time before they were shown into a room where a line of seats sat in front of a sturdy glass partition. Faye only then appreciated that neither privacy nor physical contact were allowed between inmates and visitors.

But a bigger shock was in store for her when Adrian appeared. He had lost a lot of weight and his prison clothes hung loose on his thin frame. The drawn pallor of his features alarmed her: her brother looked far from well. His bloodshot eyes were strained and reluctant to meet hers.

‘You shouldn’t have come, sis,’ Adrian groaned on the phone provided for communication. ‘This is my mess. I got too cocky and over-extended myself. I let Lizzie spend like there was no tomorrow. It’s the way people live here…you go a bit mad trying to keep up—’

Percy snatched the receiver from Faye and growled, ‘I’ll go to the press back home and kick up such a stink they’ll let you out of this hell hole!’

Adrian studied his stepfather in open horror. ‘Are you crazy?’ he mouthed silently through the glass barrier.

Faye retrieved the phone, her violet-blue eyes full of anxiety. ‘We can’t raise the kind of money you need to get out of here. Your lawyer met us off our flight but he said that he could no longer act for you and that the case was closed. You have to tell us what else we can do to fight this.’

Adrian gave her a bleak defeated look. ‘There is nothing. Didn’t my lawyer tell you that there is no right of appeal in a case like mine? How are Lizzie and the kids holding up?’

At that reference to his wife, Faye tensed for she had no good news to offer. After the experience of having her luxurious home in Jumar repossessed and being deported with her twin toddlers because she no longer had any means of support, her sister-in-law, Lizzie, was feeling very sorry for herself.

‘Like that, is it?’ Adrian read his sister’s evasive gaze. ‘Lizzie didn’t even send me a letter?’

‘She’s pretty down…’ Faye hated adding to his misery with that admission. ‘She asked me to tell you that she loves you but that right now she’s having a problem just coping with being back home without you.’

Adrian’s eyes filled with moisture and he twisted his head away, swallowing hard to get himself back under control.

Faye blinked back tears at her brother’s distress and hurried to change the subject. ‘How are you managing?’

‘Fine…’ her brother mumbled curtly.

‘Are you being treated all right?’ Faye was intimidated by the suspicious appraisal of the two armed officers watching their every move.

‘I have no cause for complaint…just that it’s hell because I hate the food, speak rotten Arabic and keep on getting sick.’ Her brother’s jerky voice faltered. ‘But whatever you do, don’t let Percy go screaming to the media because that will make me a marked man in here. The locals see any criticism of Jumar as criticism of their lousy womanising ruler, Prince Tariq—’

In an abrupt movement, one of the armed officers strode forward looking outraged and wrenched the phone from Adrian’s grasp.

‘What’s wrong…what’s happening?’ Faye surged upright in a panic.

But on their side of the restrictive glass, she and her stepfather might as well have been invisible. Adrian was escorted back to the doorway through which he had earlier entered and vanished from view.

‘I bet those thugs are taking him away to beat him up!’ Percy was as aghast as Faye at what had happened.

‘But neither of those men put a hand on Adrian—’

‘Not in front of us…but how do you know what they’re doing to him now?’

They waited ten minutes to see if Adrian would reappear but he did not. Instead a severe-looking older man in uniform came in to speak to them.

‘I want to know what’s going on here,’ Percy demanded aggressively.

‘Visits are a privilege we extend to relatives, not a right in law. Your visit was terminated because we will not allow our most honoured ruler to be referred to in offensive terms.’ As Percy swelled like a ripe red fruit ready to burst in messy rage, the senior prison officer added loftily, ‘Let me also assure you that we do not abuse our prisoners. Jumar is a civilised and humane country. You may request another visit later this week.’

Registering then that every word spoken during such visits appeared to be monitored and that Adrian must have been equally unaware of that reality, Faye hurried her stepfather out of the room before he could add to her brother’s offence.

Percy raved in frustrated fury all the way back to their small hotel in the suburbs. Faye was grateful that the taxi driver did not seem to understand a word of Percy’s vitriolic diatribe against Jumar and all things Jumarian. Taking Tariq’s name in vain in a public place might well be tantamount to inviting a physical assault. As her stepfather headed straight for the residents’ bar on the ground floor, Faye got into the lift and went back up to her hotel room.

In her mind’s eye, all she could see was the look of naked despair on her brother’s haggard face. Just six short months ago, Adrian had believed he would make his fortune in a city reputed to be a building boomtown. Faye sat at the foot of the bed staring at the challenging reflection of the telephone in the dressing mirror facing her.

‘The number is easy to remember,’ Tariq had told her once. ‘We owned the first telephone in Jumar. You just dial one for the palace switchboard!’

Momentarily Faye shut her swimming eyes, pain and regret and bitterness tearing at her. However, like it or not, Prince Tariq ibn Zachir seemed to be the only option they had left. In most other countries, Adrian would have been declared bankrupt, not imprisoned for debt as if he were a criminal. She had no choice but to approach Tariq and plead her brother’s case. Tariq was all powerful here within his own country. Tariq could surely do anything he wanted to do…

So what if the prospect of crawling to Tariq made her cringe? How could she value her pride more than her brother’s welfare? Tense as a cat on hot bricks, Faye paced the room. Would Tariq even agree to see her? How did she beg such a massive favour from a male who despised both her and her stepfather? She was out of her depth here in Jumar where the very air seemed to smell of high-powered money and privilege, she thought bitterly. A year ago, she had been even more out of her depth with a male as exotic and sophisticated as Tariq ibn Zachir. And bone-deep foolish to imagine that anything lasting might come of such an inequal relationship. But, no matter what Tariq had chosen to believe, she had played no part in Percy’s sordid attempt to blackmail him!

Reminding herself of that essential truth, Faye reached for the phone. Dialling that single digit to be connected to the palace was easy. However, in the minutes that followed, she discovered that the palace switchboard was tended by personnel who spoke only Arabic. Breaking off the call in frustration, Faye reached for the purse in her bag. From the central compartment, she withdrew a slender gold ring etched with worn hieroglyphic symbols.

Her hand shook. For a split second, memory took her back to the instant when Tariq had slid that ring onto her finger in the Embassy of Jumar in London. She shivered, assailed by a tide of choking humiliation. How stupid she had been to believe that that was a real wedding ceremony! It had been a farce staged solely to combat Percy’s threat to plunge Tariq into a sleazy media scandal. But only when that cruel farce was over had Faye realised what a complete clown Tariq had made of her.

Making use of the hotel stationery, Faye dropped the ring into an envelope and dashed off a note requesting a meeting with Tariq. She went down to Reception and asked how to have an urgent letter delivered. The receptionist studied the name on the envelope with widened eyes and extended her interest to the additional words, ‘PERSONAL, PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL’ taking up half of the space. ‘This…it is for Prince Tariq?’

Faye reddened and nodded.

“One of our drivers will deliver it, Miss Lawson.’

Back in her room, Faye went for a shower and changed. Then she lay down on the bed. A loud knock, recognisable as Percy’s calling card, sounded on the door. She ignored it. He thumped again so loudly she was afraid that the hotel staff would come to investigate. She opened the door.

‘Right…’ Her stepfather pushed his way in, his heavy face aggressive and flushed by alcohol. ‘You get on that phone now and contact Tariq. Hopefully he’ll get a kick out of you grovelling at his feet. And if that’s not enough to please His Royal Highness, warn him that you can still go to the newspapers and give them a story about what it’s like getting married and divorced all in the space of the same day!’

Faye was horrified. ‘Do you really think that wild nasty threats are likely to persuade Tariq to help Adrian?’

‘Look, I may have miscalculated with Tariq last year but I know how that bloke ticks now. He’s a real tough nut to crack—all that SAS training—but he’s also an officer and a gentleman and he prides himself on the fact. So first you try licking boots and looking pathetic…’ Percy subjected her navy blouse, cotton trousers and her clipped-back long hair to a withering appraisal. ‘Look pathetic and beautiful!’

The light rap that sounded on her door at that point provided a merciful interruption. It was the hotel manager, who had greeted them on their arrival. He bowed as if she had suddenly become a most important guest.

‘A limousine has arrived to take you to the Haja place, Miss Lawson.’

Faye swallowed hard. She had not expected so speedy a response to her request for a meeting.

‘Don’t you worry…she’ll be down in two minutes.’ Percy turned back to his stepdaughter to say appreciatively, ‘Why didn’t you just tell me you’d already started the ball rolling?’