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Tariq al Askeba—either the head of the hospital or head of Paediatrics, she hadn’t quite managed to get that straight.
She handed the email to the official, and was surprised to see the frown that immediately gathered his eyebrows.
‘You are to work with Sheikh al Askeba?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, I am,’ Lila responded firmly. ‘And I’d like you to contact him as soon as possible so he can sort out whatever is going on here.’
The man looked even more upset.
‘But he is on his way now,’ he said. ‘You are perhaps a friend of his?’
‘I am about to be his employee,’ Lila countered.
‘Then he will be able to sort it out,’ the man assured her, although his increasing nervousness was now making her very worried indeed.
Fortunately, the worry was diverted when the door to the room opened silently and a tall, regal figure in a snowy white gown, and a black circlet of braid holding an equally white headdress in place, strode in.
An eagle was Lila’s first thought. Were there white eagles?
But the deep-set eyes, the slightly hooked nose, the sensuous lips emphasised by the closest of beards told her exactly who it was.
Even on a fuzzy video image, Dr—or Sheikh?—al Askeba had radiated power, but in full regalia he was beyond intimidating—he was magnificent...
Magnificent and, if the lines of fatigue around his eyes and bracketing his mouth were anything to go by, exhausted.
She stood, held out her hand and introduced herself. Long, slim fingers touched hers—the lightest of clasps—more from manners than in welcome.
Neither was there welcome in the dark eyes that seemed to see right through her, eyes set beneath arched black brows. Or in the sensuous mouth, more emphasised than hidden by the dark stubble of moustache and chin.
‘Dr Halliday, forgive me. I am Tariq al Askeba. I am sorry you have been inconvenienced. I had intended being here to meet you but—well, it’s been a long night.’
The words were right—the apology seemed genuine—but the man was studying her closely, confusion now adding to the exhaustion she could read in his face.
He turned to the first man and spoke quickly, musically almost, the notes of the words echoing way back in Lila’s memory and bringing unexpected tears to her eyes.
‘We have upset you,’ he said—demanded?—turning back to her and obviously noticing her distress.
She waved away his protest.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’d just like to know what’s going on. What am I doing here in this room? Why was I separated from the other travellers?’
She was trying to sound strong and composed but knew her fingers, toying nervously with her pendant, were a dead giveaway.
‘If I may,’ he said, coming closer to her, all but overwhelming her with a sense of presence she’d never felt before.
Power?
Why would it be?
He was just a man...
But he reached out his hand, calmed her fidgeting fingers, and lifted the pendant onto his long slim fingers so he could examine it.
She should have wrenched it away from him, or at least objected to him touching it, but he was too close—paralysingly close—and she could feel the warmth from his hand against the skin on her chest.
She tried to breathe deeply, to banish the uneasiness she was feeling, but her breaths were more like pants, so much was he affecting her.
‘This is yours?’ he asked at last.
‘Of course,’ she said, and cursed herself for sounding so feeble. ‘My mother gave it to me when I was small.’
He straightened, looking down at her, dark eyes searching her face—intent.
Intense!
Bewildered?
‘Your mother?’
Once again she, not the pendant, was the focus of his attention, his gaze searing into her, his eyes seeing everything.
And when he spoke, the word—one word—was so softly said she barely heard it.
‘Nalini?’
And somewhere through the mists of time, and hurt, and sorrow, the name echoed in her head.
‘What did you say?’ she whispered, shaking now, totally bewildered by what was going on, terrified that ghosts she’d thought long dead had returned to haunt her.
‘Nalini,’ he repeated, and she closed her eyes and shook her head.
But closed eyes and a headshake didn’t make him go away.
‘You know the name,’ he insisted, and she lifted her head. Looked into eyes as dark as her own, set in a face that seemed carved from the same rock as the mountains she’d seen from the plane.
Had he hypnotised her so that she answered?
Hesitantly—the words limping out—thick with emotion...
‘It might have been my mother’s name. It might have been! The police asked again and again, after the accident in Australia, but I didn’t know it. I was too young.’
Her body felt as if it was breaking into pieces, but as clear as the voices of the two men present she could hear another man’s voice calling, ‘Come, my lovely Nalini, come.’
They were at a beach, she could see it clearly, her father paddling in the waves, calling to Nalini...
Her father’s voice?
It was her mother’s name!
Had her interrogator sensed her despair, that he released the pendant and rested his hand on her shoulder? Heat radiated from the light touch of his palm.
‘Your mother is dead?’
The question was asked softly, gently, but he’d gone too far.
She’d been so excited when she’d finally found the name of the country she believed to be her mother’s that she’d pushed madly on with her quest, getting a job and making arrangements to go there. Travelling outside Australia for the first time in her life, to a place she’d only recently heard of, and might yet prove wrong. But to be treated like this, with—yes—suspicion of some kind on her arrival, with no explanation or excuse, it was just too much.
‘Look,’ she said, standing up to give herself more presence, although at five feet five that didn’t amount to much, ‘I have come here as a guest worker in your country with all the proper documentation and I have no idea why I’m being held here. I want to know what’s going on and I’d like to see my consul, please, and you might ask him to bring a lawyer.’
The Sheikh stepped back but she knew he wasn’t giving way to her—he was far too authoritative, too controlled.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘please, sit down again. I can explain, but perhaps some refreshments... You would like tea, coffee, a cool drink?’
Without waiting for a reply, he waved the other man from the room, giving an almost inaudible command that obviously would produce a variety of refreshment.
‘It is the locket, you see,’ he said, sitting opposite her as she sank into the chair, knees weakened by her momentary rebellion. ‘The immigration official recognised it. I would need to examine it to be sure, but it is very like a piece of jewellery that, among other pieces, went missing from the palace many years ago.’
Lila’s fingers felt for it again, remembering the familiar shape—the comforting shape—of it.
But his words were playing on a loop in her head. His words, and a hint of...menace, surely not—in his voice.
‘Missing?’ she queried, and he paused, then was saved from answering by the first man reappearing, followed by two women bearing trays, one with a coffee pot, teapot, cups and saucers, and a selection of cold drinks on it, while the other carried a tray with an array of food from tiny sandwiches to olives and cheeses and fruit.
‘Please,’ her new boss said, waving his hand at the trays on the table. ‘Help yourself.’
Does he really expect me to eat? Lila wondered.
Has he no idea just how knotted my stomach is?
How terrified I am?
‘I would rather finish whatever is going on here,’ she said, hoping she sounded firmer than she felt. ‘You are making me feel like a criminal when I have done nothing wrong.’
Okay, so the last words had come out a little wobbly and she’d had to swallow hard before she could get them said at all, but behind the polite façade of the two men in the room she could sense a tension—a danger?—she couldn’t fathom.
‘May I see the locket again?’
He reached his hand towards her, non-threatening words but a command in his tone.
‘I don’t take it off,’ she said, unwilling to be pushed further.
Stubborn now!
‘It was my mother’s last gift to me. About the only thing I remember from that day—the day my parents died—was my mother fastening it around my neck, telling me it was mine now, telling me it would protect me—my Ta’-wiz.’
Her fingers clung to it, hiding it from the stranger’s curious eyes.
‘They both died?’
Dr—Sheikh?—al Askeba’s words were gentle but Lila refused to let them sneak under her defences. She’d told the story before and she could tell it again—dry eyed, the anguish that had never left her hidden behind the mask of time.
‘In a car accident. The car caught fire, a truck driver who saw it happen pulled me from my seat in the back before the car exploded.’
‘And you were how old?’
Lila shook her head.
‘We guessed four—my new family and I—but we never knew for certain.’
‘And your mother’s name was Nalini?’
More worried now the conversation had turned so personal, Lila could only nod, although she did add, ‘I think so, but I had forgotten.’
The words caught at her and she raised despairing eyes to the stranger.
‘How could I have forgotten my own mother’s name? How could I not have remembered? Yet when you said it I saw her in my mind’s eye.’
She closed her eyes, more to catch wayward tears than to keep the image there.
Then cool fingers touched hers, easing them just slightly from the locket. She felt it lifted from where it lay against her skin, heard his small gasp of surprise.
‘You were burned?’
‘The car caught fire.’
‘And the locket burnt your skin—some protection!’
‘No, I survived!’ Lila reminded him, angered by his closeness—his intrusion into her life. ‘It did protect me.’
But now he’d grasped her fingers, turning them to see the faint scars at the tips there as well.
‘You kept hold of it?’
The words were barely spoken, more a murmur to himself, then he squeezed her fingers and released them, stepped back, apologising again for the inconvenience, adding, ‘I had rooms arranged for you at the hospital, a small serviced apartment close to a restaurant on the ground floor, but I think for now you should stay at the palace. You will be safe there, and maybe you can help us solve an old mystery.’
‘Palace?’ Lila whispered. ‘No, I’ll be very happy in an apartment at the hospital. The sooner I get settled the sooner I can make it a home. I’m sorry, I have no idea what’s going on but whatever it is I don’t like it, not one little bit.’
He smiled at her then, the exhausted stranger with the even stranger ways.
‘Perhaps you are home, Nalini’s daughter, perhaps you are home.’
* * *
Tariq knew he was staring. Not openly, he hoped, but darting glances at the young woman who was so like the one he’d loved as a child.
He’d been eight, and Nalini had been beautiful, brought into the household because she was Second Mother’s sister, to be company for her, someone familiar.
But very quickly she’d become everyone’s favourite. Back then she’d been like the Pied Piper from the old European fairy tale and all the children in the palace had followed where she led, laughing with her, playing silly games, being children, really, in a place that had, until then, been rather staid and stolid.
