Asim was out attending to his duties as was his habit during the middle part of the day. Evie hadn't been feeling too well that morning, sickly and aching as if she might be going to come down with a bug.
'You are unwell, Miss Delahaye?' he'd enquired when she'd declined their usual walk on the roof garden before he'd left her.
Evie had just sent him a rueful look. 'You're the doctor,' she'd said dryly. 'You tell me why I feel sick all the time.'
Asim had grimaced his understanding of her condition, and left her lounging on one of the living-room sofas, apparently content to read a book, which she did, in a half-hearted kind of way until the sound of steps in the hallway brought her jack-knifing to her feet.
Since no one else but Asim had access to the apartment, and he wasn't due back for ages yet, she thought it was Raschid returning at last. So her eager expression reflected that assumption as the living-room door swung firmly inwards only to cloud in confusion when two complete strangers stepped boldly into the room.
Two Arabs, to be precise, dressed in smart western suits and looking about as innocuous as two gangsters.
'Miss Delahaye?' the taller, sharper-looking of the two enquired.
Evie's stomach muscles contracted, her shoulders straightening slightly as if in readiness to receive a dreadful blow. 'Who are you?' she demanded. 'What are you doing here?'
She was offered an obsequious bow, and Evie didn't like it. It sent an icy shiver chasing down her spine, as if the cold hand of fate had just touched her shoulder.
'My apologies for this intrusion,' the spokesman murmured politely. 'My name is Jamal Al Kareem. I am come bearing messages for you from Crown Prince Hashim,' he explained.
'And Prince Raschid?' Evie questioned. 'Is he not with you?'
'Prince Raschid is engaged on official business,' she was informed. 'In our neighbouring state of Abadilah.' Abadilah ... That cold hand touched her shoulder again. Abadilah was the state Aisha's father ruled.
'Then how did you gain access to this apartment?' she asked coldly.
'As the Crown Prince's head of security I have access to all Royal residences. It is, I am afraid, a necessary evil for powerful families to take special precautions to protect themselves,' he explained, moving ever closer to her as he spoke. 'For power brings with it its own enemies, and those enemies may decide that trouble can best be served from within, so to speak.'
He came to a stop at the rear of the sofa where Evie had been sitting. In response, Evie found herself taking a defensive step backwards, something in his super-polite, very silky tone making her feel threatened. As if he was subtly informing her that she was classed as an enemy here.
'Y -you said Crown Prince Hashim sent you,' she prompted, utilising a cool aloofness in an attempt to offset whatever it was this horrible man was giving off.
Another bow, another shiver. 'The Crown Prince is most concerned about the predicament you find yourself in at present,' the messenger confirmed. 'He wishes me to relay to you his most sincere apologies for any distress you have been forced to endure due to his premature announcement to the media.'
'Th-thank you,' Evie said, her eyes flicking nervously to where the other man was standing by the door, half in and half out of it as if he was on alert, listening for Asim's return. 'But you may assure Crown Prince Hashim that no apology was necessary.'
'He will be most humbly grateful for your gracious understanding,' the spokesman returned courteously. 'But the Crown Prince is disturbed that your feelings were not taken into account when he released the statement about his son's forthcoming marriage. It was insensitive of him, as his revered son pointed out. Now he wishes to make recompense for any distress caused to yourself.'
Watching him lift a hand to his inside pocket, Evie felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten just a little bit more. What she thought he was going to withdraw from that pocket she wasn't quite sure, but what she didn't expect to see him holding out towards her was a slender slip of paper.
Wary, confused, instinctively suspicious of what was taking place here, Evie stepped forward so she could take the piece of paper, then stepped quickly back before letting her eyes drop from Jamal Al Kareem's expressionless face to check out what she was holding. And felt a sense of chilling horror slide slowly through her blood.
It was a cheque made out to the World Aid Foundation for two million pounds.
'The Crown Prince is aware of the good work you do for this particular charity,' the messenger explained while Evie just stared unblinkingly down at the cheque. 'He begs you will accept this small donation as a gesture of atonement. And in the light of events,' Jamal AJ Kareem smoothly continued, 'he feels sure you will understand the necessity for him to also offer you this.'
Evie blinked, glancing up rather dazedly to find yet another offering was being held out to her. It was a business card; she could see that even before she stepped forward to take it. But it was only as she lowered her eyes and found herself staring at the famous logo of a very exclusive private clinic right here in London that the full horror of what was really being relayed to her here finally hit her.
'The Crown Prince is, of course, confident of your continued discretion during this delicate time,' Jamal Al Kareem silkily concluded. 'In anticipation of your understanding, he remains your most humble servant, and hopes this will put an end to the matter.'
An end to the matter, an end to the matter. Those few terrible words went round and round in Evie's head as she stared at that wretched business card while her two visitors made their bows and left her to it.
She didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't do anything at all as far as she was aware. She felt strange, separated from herself almost. As if she were now standing where Jamal Al Kareem had been standing and was observing from a distance someone who looked like her, staring down at the cheque and the business card she was holding in her hands with absolutely no reaction at all. Her face was very white, her lips cold and bloodless. Her eyes were lowered so she couldn't tell what they were doing, but her chest wasn't moving, as if her heart and lungs had simply stopped functioning, effectively cutting the oxygen off from her brain so that it couldn't even attempt to think. Because thinking meant pain the worst kind of pain. The pain of knowing that this truly was the end of the matter. No hope left. No more waiting. No chance that Raschid was going to walk through that door at any moment now and tell her that everything had been sorted in their favour. For Raschid was in Abadilah, with Aisha. And Evie should not be standing here in his apartment. From that very cold, distant place she seemed to have retreated into, she watched her other self open her fingers and let both the cheque and the card drop to the floor. Then that person simply turned and walked away out into the hallway, out of the apartment and into the waiting lift. It took her downwards. She didn't even stop when the concierge called out to her sharply.
Outside, the good weather was still holding. London was baking beneath a heat wave that had most people walking around in shirt-sleeves. So she didn't look out of place in her pale blue knitted top and casual white cotton trousers as she joined the lunchtime rush taking place on the pavements. A car followed her for a while, though she didn't know that, its two occupants pacing her progress along the embankment until she turned onto a paved walkway where a car could not go.
An hour later, maybe two and she was still walking.
It must have been instinct that eventually made her aware of where she was, because she suddenly found herself standing outside her mother's apartment. She rang the bell, and her mother's disembodied voice sounded in the communication box.
'It's Evie,' she heard herself say. 'Can I come in?' There was a moment's surprised silence, then the buzzer sounded to tell Evie she could open the front door now. Her mother's apartment was on the first floor. She was already standing at the flat door when Evie got there. Lucinda took one look at her daughter and went as white as a sheet.
'Oh, my God, Evie,' she gasped in shaken dismay. 'You're bleeding!'
Evie barely heard her; she was too busy fainting at her mother's feet.
It was very late that same evening and Lucinda was sitting beside her daughter's hospital bed when the door suddenly swung open and Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah stepped into the room with his faithful servant crowding right behind him. He took one look at Evie lying so still in the bed and strode urgently forward. Only to pull to a halt when Lucinda Delahaye jumped to her feet and placed herself firmly between him and her daughter. For once, Lucinda looked less than her usual immaculate self. Her hair was untidy, silken threads of gold were tumbling around her face where they had escaped from the elegant chignon they were supposed to be contained in. She had aged decades, her usually alabaster-smooth skin scored by lines of strain.
She grimly ushered them out of the room, firmly closing the door behind her. 'How dare you people show your faces here?' she raked at them viciously.
Raschid didn't seem to hear her. His bronzed skin looked grey, his golden eyes blackened by a terrible shock. 'The baby?'
'Oh, I suppose it would solve all your problems to hear that she's lost it!' Lucinda lashed at him.
'No!' Raschid ground out, and swayed, his face going so white that it was only as Asim reached out to take hold of him that Lucinda realised how Raschid had misunderstood her meaning.
'Well, she hasn't lost it.' She grudgingly rectified the error. 'Though how she didn't after what your henchmen did to her has to be a miracle.'
'Is there somewhere we can discuss this in privacy?' Asim quietly suggested.
The hospital corridor wasn't busy, but some of the patients had the doors to their rooms standing open. They had to be able to hear every word that was being said. Asim still had an arm around Raschid's shoulders while Raschid himself seemed incapable of anything except just standing there looking devastated. And for some reason that devastation utterly incensed Evie's mother.
'You want privacy?' Lucinda hissed. 'I can give you privacy,' she grimly decreed, and stalked off down the corridor with the two men following behind her. And she was in no mood to be pleasant. Having just gone through the worst experience of her life, watching the very lifeblood seep out of her daughter, Lucinda wanted someone else's blood as recompense. Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah's blood.
'Do you know what those two men did to her?' she demanded the moment they were shut away inside the waiting room. 'If Evie ever forgives you in this lifetime, Sheikh, then I certainly will not!'
'It was a mistake,' he muttered, still so caught up in his first impression of what Lucinda had said to him that even with her swift correction of that misunderstanding he still hadn't recovered.
'Was it also a mistake when you didn't bother to get in touch with her for two whole weeks?' Evie's mother challenged.
'I had nothing good to say,' Raschid thickly explained. 'It seemed kinder to wait until I could relay only good news.'
'Kind?' Lucinda scorned that excuse. 'Where was the kindness in keeping her in suspense like you did? She bottles things up!' she cried. 'She always has done! I thought you knew that! You told me you loved her! You promised to take care of her!' she went on remorselessly. 'Instead she was treated like a whore by your people!'
Raschid flinched then suddenly folded into a nearby chair to bury his face in his hands.
'Lady Delahaye .. .' It was Asim who tried to calm the situation, his voice that soothingly diplomatic one Evie knew so well. 'We understand and accept your right to be angry. But we would sincerely appreciate it if you could explain to us what happened after Miss Delahaye left the apartment. '
As he stood there, tall and proud beside his crumpled master, Lucinda felt a sudden urge to leap on both of them. Instead she turned her back, folded her arms across her trembling body and tried at last to get a hold on herself.
'She walked out of there with nothing,' she whispered starkly. 'In shock. No money. No idea of what she was doing.' There was a pause while she swallowed several times before she could continue. 'I don't know how long she walked for but she eventually found her way to my door, my door!' she swung around to fling at Raschid. 'Do you realise how far that is from your apartment? And she was bleeding!' Lucinda choked out on a wretched sob. 'Bleeding and she didn't even know it!'
Lurching violently to his feet, Raschid took two tense strides towards the door then just stopped, his whole frame clenched by some powerful inner tension that held him locked right there to the spot. 'Did they touch her?' he rasped out tautly.
'Who?' Lucinda said bitterly. 'Your men?'
'They were not Sheikh Raschid's men, Lady Delahaye,' Asim denied.
'His father's men, then what's the difference?' she flashed. 'But in answer to your question Evie didn't say they physically touched her, only that they made her see that if your father could hate her that much, then there really was no chance for the two of you. '
'And her health?' Asim enquired gently.
Tears washed across Lucinda's eyes but she blinked them away again as determinedly as Evie herself would have done. 'She lost a lot of blood,' she replied. 'But by some quirk of fate managed to hang on to her baby. Now they are prescribing bed-rest, no stress and no confrontations. So I would appreciate it, Sheikh Raschid, if you would respect those things.'
A warning. A threat. The English way of issuing both that was just as effective as the Arab way. Raschid didn't answer. But he did move at last, lifting a hand to rub wearily at his eyes before turning around to face Lucinda. It was the first time Lucinda had actually allowed herself to look at him-and at last she saw the ravages that had taken place on his face. The man looked tormented, stripped clean to the bone of his arrogance and hurting for it.
'May I see her?' he gruffly requested.
But Lucinda firmly shook her head. 'Not without Evie’s agreement,' she said. 'Seeing you may upset her, and, as I just said, I won't have her upset.'
Raschid nodded his head in acknowledgement of that. 'Then I will wait until you acquire her permission,' he announced, walked back to the chair and sat down again.
He was still sitting there twelve hours later, and even hardhearted Lucinda was beginning to feel sorry for him.
'I don't want to see him,' Evie stated stubbornly.
'But, darling!' her mother pleaded. 'He's been sitting out there throughout the whole night! Surely that deserves some consideration!'
'I said,' Evie repeated, 'I don't want to see him.'
Lucinda looked utterly bewildered. 'I never thought I would hear myself say this, Evie,' she admitted. 'But I don't think you're being fair to the man. He's distraught! It is his baby too, you know! He has a right to reassure himself that you are both okay!'
'You reassure him, then,' Evie suggested coldly. 'The doctors say I mustn't get stressed, and Raschid stresses me.' With that, she turned her head away to stare fixedly out of the window. It was unbelievable what the last twenty-four hours had done to her. It was as if the trauma of almost losing her baby had forced her to grow a protective shell around herself that nobody could penetrate.
It had also brought her mother crashing down from the haughty pedestal she usually sat upon. That frightening ride in an ambulance with all sirens blaring had shaken her more than she cared to admit. For a while last night she'd truly believed she was going to lose her daughter. Shocks like those focused the mind on what was really important in life.
And nothing could be more important than life itself. By some miracle the doctors had managed to stem the bleeding and keep the baby safe, but at what cost to her daughter's sanity Lucinda wasn't really sure, because in all Evie's twenty-three years she had never known her to cut herself off from others as coldly as she was doing now.
'I thought you loved him,' she murmured. 'In the name of that love, doesn't he deserve a hearing?' 'No,' was the blunt reply.
'Evie-'
'I'm tired now,' Evie interrupted, and closed her eyes, bit deep into the inner cushion of her lower lip, and silently prayed that her mother would drop the subject!
'You need to eat something, Miss Delahaye,' she said. 'You've gone over twenty-four hours without food and that isn't good for your baby.'
'Can I get out of bed?' she asked; she needed the bathroom badly.
But the nurse sadly shook her head. 'Not yet, I'm afraid.' Which meant that Evie had to suffer the indignity of using a bedpan.
Which also didn't help her mood when, washed by the nurse and her hair combed and plaited, the mobile tray that held her dinner was moved across Evie's lap and the nurse said gently, 'You have a visitor. He's been waiting for hours. Will you agree to see him, for just a minute?'
Evie stared down at the bowl of soup that suddenly tasted like sawdust in her mouth when only seconds before it had tasted rather pleasantly of chicken.
'I don't think he's going to leave here until you do see him,' the nurse added. 'He arrived late last night, and hasn't left the waiting room since except to wash and change his clothes in one of the spare rooms along the corridor. Your mother has pleaded with him, his companion has pleaded with him and we have pleaded with him. He doesn't even acknowledge that we've spoken! I have never come up against such intransigence in all my life!'
Watch this space, Evie thought coldly, and went on with her soup without making a single comment. After a while the nurse sighed and left her to it. A little while later Evie curled up on her side, folded her arms protectively over her stomach, and went to sleep thinking about Raschid sitting there in the waiting room.
The next time she came awake, a grey dawn was just beginning to lighten the bedroom and there was a man standing at the bottom of her bed, reading her medical chart.
He glanced up when she moved. 'Good morning, Miss Delahaye.' He smiled before returning his attention to whatever he was reading. 'Your child is most determined to stay exactly where he is,' he remarked lightly. 'I suspect a mixing of two sets of very stubborn genes must give him his tenacity.'
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