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‘Really?’ And then she laughed. ‘Tell me, Tim, where do you go when you go “out of town” in Ras al Hajar?’
‘Nowhere. That’s the point. You leave civilisation behind.’
‘I’ve done that.’ She’d been in some very uncivilised places in the last few years. Too many. ‘It’s overrated.’
‘The desert is different. Which is why, if you’re someone like Hassan, the first thing you do when you get home is take your hounds and your hawks out into the desert and go hunting. And if you’re his aide, you go with him.’
‘I see.’ What she saw was that if Simon Partridge was back in town, then so was Prince Hassan. ‘Tell me about him. Simon Partridge. It’s unusual for someone like Hassan to have a British aide, surely?’
‘His grandfather had one and lived to tell the tale.’
‘Did he?’
Tim frowned. ‘Hassan’s father. He was a Scot. Didn’t I say?’
‘No, you didn’t.’ Well, he hadn’t. ‘It explains a lot.’
Tim shrugged. ‘Maybe he feels he can rely on Partridge one hundred per cent to be his man, with no divided tribal loyalties, no family feuds to get in the way.’
‘A back to get in the way should someone feel like stabbing him in it?’ she pondered. ‘What does Simon Partridge get out of it?’
‘Just a job. He’s not Hassan’s bodyguard. Partridge was in the army, but his Jeep got into a bit of an argument with a landmine and he was invalided out. His Colonel and Hassan were at school together…’
‘Eton,’ she murmured, without thinking.
‘Where else?’ Tim had assumed it was a question. ‘Partridge, too.’ He looked pleased at her apparent interest in his absent friend and Rose sighed, suspecting a little furtive matchmaking. ‘So?’ Tim retrieved the invitation. ‘What shall I tell him?’
That was easy. The racing might be a non-starter, but Rose wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to meet Hassan’s aide. She handed him back the note. ‘Tell him… Miss Fenton accepts…’
‘Great.’ The phone rang and Tim answered it, listened, then said, ‘I’ll be right there.’ He was halfway to the door before he remembered Rose. ‘Simon’s number is on the note. Will you call him?’
‘No problem.’ She picked up the receiver, dialled the number. As it rang, she looked again at the bold cursive and decided Tim was right for once. She was sure she would like the owner of such a decisive hand.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Partridge? Simon Partridge?’
There was the briefest pause. ‘I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Miss Rose Fenton.’
‘Er, yes.’ She laughed. ‘How did you know?’
‘If I told you I was psychic?’ the voice offered.
‘I wouldn’t believe you.’
‘And you would be right not to. Your voice is unmistakable, Miss Fenton.’
While Simon Partridge sounded rather older than she had expected from Tim’s description of him, his voice was low, deeply authoritative, velvet on steel. Not that she was about to drool into the phone.
‘That’s because I talk too much,’ she replied crisply. ‘Tim’s had to rush off to the stables, but he asked me to ring you and say that we’re delighted to accept your invitation to dinner this evening.’
‘I have no doubt that the delight will be all mine.’
His formality was so very… foreign. She wondered how long he had been in Ras al Hajar. She’d assumed it was a fairly recent thing, but maybe not. ‘You know he has to go to the races first, of course—’
‘Everyone goes to the races, Miss Fenton. There is nothing else to do in Ras al Hajar. You will be there?’
‘Well…’
‘You must come.’
Must she? ‘Yes,’ she said, rapidly changing her mind. She rather thought she must. After all, she reasoned, if everyone went to the races, Hassan would be there. ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it.’ And suddenly she was. Very much.
‘Until this evening, Miss Fenton.’
‘Until then, Mr Partridge,’ she replied. And she put down the receiver feeling just a touch breathless.
Hassan switched off the cellphone that had been purchased in the souk that morning and registered in an entirely fictitious name and tossed it on the divan. Beyond the opening of the huge black tent he could see the lush palm grove watered by the small streams that ran from the craggy mountainous border country. In spring it was paradise on earth. He had the feeling that Rose Fenton might not view it in quite the same way.
‘Come home quickly, Faisal,’ he murmured. At the sound of his voice the hound at his feet rose and pushed a long silky head against his hand.
Rose was thoroughly dissatisfied with her small wardrobe. She’d felt like an absolute dowd at the embassy cocktail party. She’d assumed that it would be smart but casual. Tim had been absolutely no help and in the end she’d decided on her crush-proof go-anywhere little black dress. In the event, of course, all the other women had taken the opportunity to wear their latest designer creations, leaving the black dress looking as if it had already been around the world and back again. Well, it had.
She hadn’t anticipated so much socialising, and besides, she had nothing that could possibly cover an evening outdoors at the races followed by a private dinner.
She would normally have asked her hostess what would be suitable. But there was no hostess, and something about Simon Partridge had precluded that kind of informal chattiness. It was the same something that urged her to make a real effort, pull out all the stops, and she decided to wear the shalwar kameez that she’d been given on a trip to Pakistan and packed in the hope of an interview with the Regent. Something she’d been doing her best to avoid ever since she’d arrived, although even she had begun to run out of convincing excuses.
The trousers were cut from heavy slub silk in a dull mossy shade, the tunic a shade or two lighter and the hand-embroidered silk chiffon scarf paler still. She should have worn it to the embassy.
‘Wow!’ Tim’s reaction was unexpected. He didn’t usually notice what anyone wore. ‘You look stunning.’
‘That’s worrying. I suddenly get the feeling that everyone else will be wearing jeans.’
‘Does it matter? You’re going to absolutely knock Simon’s eyes out.’
‘I’m not sure that’s the effect I’m striving for, Tim.’ Remembering the effect of his voice on her ability to breathe, she thought she might just be kidding herself. ‘At least not until I know him better.’
‘In that outfit he’ll definitely want to get to know you better.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better go. Got everything?’
‘Hanky, safety pin, ten pence for the telephone,’ she said solemnly. Her cellphone, tape recorder, notebook and pen went without saying. And she didn’t say anything because she had the feeling they would make her brother uneasy.
Tim laughed. ‘I’d forgotten the way Mum used to say that.’ He put his arm beneath her elbow and helped her up into the Range Rover.
‘How far is it?’
‘Oh, just a couple of miles beyond the stables. Once you get through these low hills there’s a good flat piece of ground that’s perfect for racing.’ He pulled a face as they bumped over the rough track. ‘Sorry about this. The Emir’s had a dual-carriageway road laid from town, but this way’s much quicker for us.’
‘Hey, this is “Front-line” Fenton you’re talking to. A few bumps aren’t going to… Oh, look out!’
A pale riderless horse leapt from a low bluff and landed in front of them, turning to rear up in front of the car, mane flying, hooves pawing at the air. Tim swung to avoid it, throwing the car into a sideways skid that seemed to go on for ever on the loose gravel.
‘It’s one of Abdullah’s horses,’ he said, as he brought the Range Rover under control. ‘Someone’s going to be in trouble—’ The moment they stopped, he flung open the door and leapt down. ‘Sorry, but I’ll have to try and catch it.’
‘Can I do anything?’ She turned as he opened the tailgate and took out a rope halter.
‘No. Yes. Use the car phone to call the stables. Ask them to send a horsebox.’
‘Where?’
‘Just say between the villa and the stables; they’ll find us.’
The interior light had not come on and she reached up, clicked the switch, but nothing happened. She shrugged, lifted the phone, but there was no dial tone. Great. She picked up her bag and dug out the new mobile phone that Gordon had included in the carrier with the book and the cuttings. It was small, very powerful and did just about everything except play the national anthem, but she wasn’t confident enough with it to press buttons in the dark, so slid down from her seat to check it out in the headlights. Her feet had just touched the ground when the headlights went out.
She could hear her brother, some distance off, gentling the nervous horse, hear the scrabbling of hooves against the rough ground as the lovely creature danced away from him. Then that sound, too, abruptly stopped as the horse found sand.
It was so quiet, so dark in the shadow of the bluff. There was no moon, but the stars were brilliant, undimmed by light pollution, and the sand reflected the faintest silvery shimmer against which everything else was jet-black.
A shadow detached itself from the darkness.
‘Tim?’
But it wasn’t her brother. Even before she turned she knew it wasn’t him. Tim had smelt faintly of aftershave, was wearing a light-coloured jacket. This man had no scent that she could discern and he was dressed from head to foot in a robe of a blackness so dense that it absorbed light rather than reflecting it. Even his face was concealed in a black keffiyeh worn so that nothing but his eyes were visible.
His eyes were all she needed to see.
It was Hassan. Despite the charge of fear that fixed her to the spot, despite the adrenalin-driven panicky race of her heart, she knew him. But this was not the urbane Prince boarding a private jet in expensive Italian tailoring; this was not Hassan in playboy prince mode.
This was the man promised by granite-grey eyes, deep, dangerous and totally in command, and something warned her that he wasn’t about to ask if she needed help.
Before she could do more than half turn to run, before she could even think about shouting a warning to her brother, he’d clamped his hand over her mouth. Then, with his free arm flung around her, he lifted her clear of the ground as he pulled her hard against his body. Hard enough for the curved weight of the dagger at his waist to dig into her ribs.
Definitely not from the local branch of auto rescue.
She might have done a self-defence course but so apparently had he, because he knew all the moves. Her elbows were immobilised, and with her feet off the ground she had no platform from which to launch a counter-move. Not that it would do her any good. She might make the high ground, but what then? There was nowhere to run to and, although she couldn’t see anyone else, she doubted that he was alone.
She struggled anyway.
He simply tightened his grip and waited, and after a moment she stopped. There was no point in wearing herself out unnecessarily.
When she was quite still except for the unnaturally swift rise and fall of her breast as she tried to regain her breath, he finally spoke. ‘I would be grateful if you did not shout, Miss Fenton,’ he said, very quietly. ‘I have no wish to hurt your brother.’ And his voice was like his hand, like his eyes, hard, uncompromising, not playing games.
He knew who she was, then. This wasn’t some random snatch. No. Of course it wasn’t. It might have been some days since they’d exchanged that momentary glance on the plane that had brought her to Ras al Hajar, but she’d heard the voice much more recently. Heard it insisting that she must go to the races. And she had blithely assured him that she would be there. That had been the reason for the invitation; he’d wanted to be sure she would be there so he could plan exactly where and when to abduct her.
Not Simon Partridge, then. But Hassan. She realised that she wasn’t as surprised as she might have been. The voice was a much better fit.
But what did he want? Just because she’d read a few pages of The Sheik in an idle moment, that didn’t mean she subscribed to the fantasy. She didn’t think for a minute that he was about to carry her off into the desert for the purposes of ravishment. She was a journalist, and not given much to flights of fancy. And why would he bother when, with the click of his fingers, he could bring just about any woman he desired to his side?
‘Well?’ He was offering her a choice? Not much of one. She nodded, once, promising her silence.
‘Thank you.’ The formal courtesy was unmistakable. As if she had had any choice but surrender! But, as if to prove that he was a gentleman, Hassan immediately removed his hand from her mouth, set her feet to the ground, eased his grip on her. Maybe he was so used to obedience that it didn’t occur to him that she wouldn’t keep quiet, keep still. Or maybe it didn’t matter all that much. There was only Tim, after all, and with a sudden sense of dread she recalled the sudden silence.
‘Where is Tim? What have you done with him?’ she demanded as she spun back to face him, her own voice hushed in the absolute still of the desert night. Hushed! She should be screaming her head off…
‘Nothing. He’s still chasing after Abdullah’s favourite stallion.’ The eyes gleamed. ‘I imagine he’ll be gone some time. This way, Miss Fenton.’ Her eyes, quickly adjusting to the darkness, saw the uncompromising shape of a Land Rover waiting in the shadows. Not one of the plush, upmarket jobs that her brother drove, but the basic kind that took to hard terrain like a duck to water. The kind used by military men the world over.
Far more practical than a horse, she didn’t doubt, any more than she doubted that she would go wherever he was taking her. Her only alternative was to run for it, try and dodge him in the rocky outcrops of the rising ground behind her. As if he anticipated she might try it, Hassan tightened his hold and urged her towards the waiting vehicle.
Despite the prickle of fear that was goosing her flesh, all her journalist instincts were on red alert. But, although her curiosity was intense, she didn’t want him to think she was going willingly. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said, and dug in her heels.
‘Kidding?’ He repeated the word as if he didn’t understand it. Then he raised his head, looked beyond her. The moon was rising, and as she turned she saw the dark silhouette of her brother in the distance. He had managed to get the head rope on the stallion and was leading him quietly back towards the Range Rover, completely oblivious to her plight, to the danger he was walking into.
Hassan had seriously underestimated his skill, his empathy with even the most difficult of horses, and, realising it, he swore beneath his breath. ‘I don’t have time to argue.’
She wasn’t about to let Tim walk into trouble, but even as she drew a ragged breath to shout a warning she was enveloped in blackness. Real blackness, the kind that made starlight look like day, and she was wrapped, parcelled, bundled, lifted off her feet and slung over his shoulder.
Far too late she stopped being the cool correspondent, absorbing every last detail for her report, and began to struggle in dreadful earnest. Too late she realised she should have yelled when she’d had the chance. Not for help, since that would surely be pointless, but to make sure that Tim called her news editor to tell him what had happened.
She kicked furiously in an effort to free her head, not wasting her breath in shouting, because her voice wouldn’t make it beyond the confines of the heavy cloth. But although her feet were free to inflict whatever damage she could manage they appeared to make no impression upon her captor. If only she could free her hands! But they were pinned uselessly to her sides… Well, not quite uselessly. One them was still gripping the little mobile phone. She almost smiled. The mobile. Well, that was all right, then. She’d call the news desk herself…
Then she was dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the truck, and even through the thick muffling cloth she could hear the sound of an engine, smell hot diesel oil. Diesel oil? Where were the horses? Where was the glamour?
Right now, according to the book she’d read on the plane, she should be racing across the desert crushed against her captor’s hard body and struggling desperately for her honour…
She almost laughed. Times had certainly changed. Her honour was the last thing on her mind. She’d been kidnapped and all she could think about was calling in the story.
Well, not quite all. There had been a moment as she’d been crushed against Hassan’s chest, with his hand clamped across her mouth and his gaze locked with hers, when swooning would have been very easy. And it didn’t need a particularly vivid imagination to picture his body hard against hers, holding her tightly as she continued to fight him even as the Land Rover sped away.
Only three days ago she’d been joking about being swept off by a desert prince. Bad mistake. It wasn’t a bit funny. She was being jolted hard against the Land Rover floor and, as if he realised it, her captor rolled so that he was beneath her, taking the worst of it. Although whether lying on top of a man hell-bent on abduction could be described as an improvement… But with his arm still clamped about her, she didn’t have any choice.
Maybe it would be wiser to stop struggling, though, put the fantasy firmly from her mind, ignore the intimacy of their tangled legs and try and work out what on earth Hassan thought he was doing. Ask herself why he had taken such a crazy risk.
It would be easier to think without the suffocating weight of the cloak depriving her of her senses, without his arms wrapped tightly about her.
She supposed she should be afraid. Poor Tim would be frantic. Then there was her mother. So much for the constant nagging to be prepared. For the first time in her life she had a real use for the safety pin, could have jabbed it into His Highness’s thigh hard enough to make him seriously regret grabbing her, maybe even hard enough to make him let go so that she could throw off the covering.
Unfortunately her handbag, containing the pin, was sitting on the floor of Tim’s Range Rover. Along with the clean hanky and the ten pence piece for the emergency telephone call.
This situation certainly fell into the emergency telephone call category, although how many public telephones was she likely to find in the desert? Her mother hadn’t thought of that one.
Still, when she found out that her daughter was missing, Pam Fenton would spend far more than ten pence on the telephone giving the Foreign Office hell.
If she found out her daughter was missing. Rose had the feeling that her disappearance would be kept out of the news if Abdullah could manage it. And he probably could. Tim wouldn’t be too hard to convince that her safety depended upon it. And the embassy would do whatever they thought was most likely to achieve her safe return. Just as well she had the mobile, then; Gordon would never forgive her for failing to turn in this scoop.
Oh, Lord! Whatever had happened to her fright-or-flight mechanism? She wasn’t afraid; she wasn’t planning escape. The primary emotion flowing through her system was indignation at the unromantic manner of her abduction.
She should just be grateful that Hassan hadn’t hurt her, that he hadn’t tied her up, or gagged her. Well, he hadn’t needed to. She hadn’t yelled when she could have, should have. Even now she was lying still and doing nothing at all to make life difficult for the man. That was because curiosity was running indignation a close second.
What did Hassan want?
