by Liz Fielding
Ameerah’s voice jerked her back to the present. The child was standing in the doorway, her expression anxious.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said, sniffing back the threatening tears, smiling as she reached out a hand, inviting her to come and play. ‘Do you want to help me unpack?’
She needed no further encouragement and together they dived into the boxes, spreading clothes over every surface. They exclaimed over the colours, sprayed scent on each other, laughed, talked—the words didn’t matter. Two females exclaiming over clothes were always going to be talking the same language.
‘What shall I wear?’ Lucy finally asked, her gestures, making the meaning clear. Then, ‘What would you wear?’
Ameerah went straight for a raw silk shalwar kameez in a deep glowing red, holding the top up against her small body.
‘Good choice!’ she exclaimed, clapping. The outfit was stunning, sophisticated, exotic. She might be only three years old, but this little girl clearly knew what she wanted, what was due to her. ‘Well, that’s you sorted,’ she said, helping the child into it, laughing as she paraded with all the haughty air of a catwalk model. Then she looked around a little desperately for something ordinary that she would feel at home in. Everything was so beautiful. So stylish.
Nothing was her.
But she had to wear something and, in the absence of anything as plain as a white cotton shirt, she chose the nearest alternative in amber silk, teaming it with a pair of beautifully cut black linen trousers that amongst the jewel-bright colours were positively understated.
Unfortunately, the legs of the trousers proved too narrow to accommodate the splint. Ameerah, who had not been impressed with the trousers, offered her a rich blue kaftan as an alternative.
The style was practical, but Lucy picked out one in silvery grey, with black embroidery around the hem, at the wrists, the neck. It was not exactly plain, but it was more in keeping with her Anglo-Saxon need to blend into the surroundings.
Ameerah pulled a face but accepted her decision and set about finding a scarf to go with it while Lucy confronted the piles of sexy underwear.
For a girl, woman, who’d never worn anything but plain white and practical, the underwear was a revelation, but since it quickly became clear that every outfit had been teamed with its own matching bra and pants, choice was not a problem. Grey silk it was.
Han was right. Those two women had really enjoyed themselves at his expense.
Lucy, anxious now to shower and get into some real clothes, sent Ameerah to show herself to Fathia, then braced herself to face her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
The bruising was shocking, it was true, but her eye was open now and the swelling was nowhere near as bad as she’d imagined.
She unfastened her hair and, for just a moment, held the thin leather cord that Han had used to tie it back, touched it to her cheek as she had the silk. Then, about to place it on top of the nightdress and robe that had once belonged to his wife, knowing that as soon as she left the room someone would come and clear them away, she tucked it into the pocket of the bathrobe.
She managed the shower more easily this time, even washed her hair without too much difficulty. She was recovering, she thought. Regaining her strength. Regaining her life. She was even getting about on her crutches without help. In a day or two she’d be able to leave Rawdah al-’Arusah, return to the real world.
And tried to feel a little happier about that.
She’d half expected to find Ameerah waiting for her when she emerged in her new bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel, but the sitting room was empty, although someone had folded the clothes, had brought them through to the bedroom and taken away all the empty packaging.
The toiletries had been neatly arranged on the dressing table, along with combs, brushes, hairpins. There was a hair-dryer, too. Not a new one, though.
She didn’t bother with make-up; there was, after all, nothing that could cover up the interesting colour effects. She just dried her hair, trying not to think about the way Han had done it for her. Then, rejecting the pull of the leather cord in her pocket, she pinned it at the nape with the intricate silver clip.
When she was done, she slipped her feet into a pair of grey ballet-style pumps made from butter-soft suede, picked up the long palest primrose scarf that Ameerah had selected for her and stepped out onto the balcony to cool herself in the breeze from the mountains.
Han saw Lucy long before she saw him.
Jamilla, his youngest sister, had called him from Rumaillah, wanting details of Lucy’s colouring. Zahir, she’d said, had been no use whatever. On reflection, he wondered if that was true or whether Milly had made an excuse to find out if he’d noticed the colour of his guest’s eyes.
Whatever her reason, he had to admit that she’d chosen well. The light grey silk, caught by the breeze, moulded itself to Lucy’s figure. With a pale scarf draped loosely over her hair and floating over her shoulders to the ground, she looked more like a fairy tale princess from a tale woven by Scheherazade than some modern western woman with the troubles of the world on her shoulders.
Then, as if suddenly aware that she was not alone, she turned, saw him, smiled, and something deep inside him warmed and smiled back.
‘You look stronger, Lucy Forrester.’
‘I feel stronger. There’s something about wearing night-clothes in the day that makes one feel like an invalid. Just getting dressed has made me feel better,’ she said, and then she turned away quickly, but not before he saw that her cheeks burned.
‘You must not do too much too quickly,’ he said, and he burned too, thinking, as she must have, that she was dressed, as a wife or mistress would be, wrapped at his insistence, in clothes it pleased him to see her wear. Knew that every time the breeze caught the silk, brushed it against her skin, she would remember that.
For a woman to wear the clothes that a man had bought her was to feel his touch with every movement. For a man to hear the whisper of cloth as she walked, was to feel her response to him, the throb of her pulse as it intensified, the silky heat between her thighs as she waited for him to unwrap her.
It hadn’t occurred to him that she would feel this. She had not been brought up to think in that way, not taught that her role was to please her husband. But neither was she like the western women he had met in his youth, at university, in the free and easy days before he’d buckled down to duty, accepted the bride his family had chosen for him. Spirited women who took life head-on, denied themselves nothing, knew everything, or thought they did.
He had enjoyed their company, had taken pleasure in their freedom, admired their directness. Lucy had something of their spirit in her character, but she had an innocence too, like a girl before she had been touched by a man. Knowing but unknowing. Afraid and yet trembling with eagerness.
And he was clearly losing his mind.
‘I was wondering, Han, would it be acceptable for me to write notes to your sister, to Zahir’s sister, to thank them for taking such trouble on my behalf today? I accept your assurance that they enjoyed themselves, but even so.’
‘I know that Jamilla would be touched by the thought.’
‘Thank you. And I’d like to see more of the garden before I leave,’ she said, as the silence between them stretched to breaking point. ‘If I may? Are there places where I should not go?’
‘You are free to wander where you will, Lucy. No one will bother you.’
‘I was thinking that I might be the one causing a disturbance. You said there is a hunting lodge. I’d hate to blunder into some men-only territory, make anyone uncomfortable.’
She had the courage to hunt down a fraudster in his own territory, yet she retained the air of a virgin, had all the instincts of a princess. She would grace the garden with her presence.
‘You need not concern yourself,’ he said.
His men, those who came to hunt, those who worked here, would melt away at her approach. She would never suspect they were
there unless she needed help and, unless it was urgent, they would summon him to provide it.
She was under his protection and they would treat her with the same respect as they would any woman in his family. The same respect they would show towards his wife.
About to offer to show her the hidden beauties of the garden, he instead inclined his head and said, ‘The garden is yours, sitti.’
Sitti? It was a word Lucy was unfamiliar with and she wished she had her language CDs, her phrase book. Already her ear was becoming accustomed to the sounds and this would have been the perfect place to continue with her studies of the language.
Sitti. My lady…
Han stepped back within the safety of his study, crossed to his desk, hunted desperately amongst the drawers for the photograph of Noor that he had put away, unable to bear the love in her eyes.
He set it where it belonged, where he would see it every time he looked up. Touched her face with his fingers as he had done a thousand times before, as if he could somehow call her back, as he’d tried to hold her in this world when all she wanted to do was leave it.
‘I did everything I could to keep her alive,’ he said, aware that Lucy had followed him, was standing in the doorway. He didn’t turn. Already she was filling the places in his home, in his head, that belonged to Noor.
If he turned from the photograph to look at Lucy, the image, already fading, would become fainter. Her voice, her laughter, dimmed to nothing more than a distant rustle in the memory.
‘She wanted to come back here, spend some time with her baby. Die in peace,’ he said, jabbing himself with the words. ‘I couldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her go, and to please me she spent the end of her days in the hospital, having the treatment that was too late to do anything but cause her pain.’
Lucy propped her crutches against his desk, took the photograph from him, looked at it for a while.
‘She was very beautiful.’
‘It was Noor who broke the mirror,’ he said. ‘In the bathroom. She threw a bottle of scent at her reflection, unable to bear what was happening to her. She thought she had become ugly.’
‘How could she have believed herself ugly when she only had to see herself reflected in your eyes to know how you loved her?’
He frowned, looking at Lucy, not the photograph she was holding out to him.
‘I’ve seen the way your eyes soften as you speak of her, Han. Appearances may alter, but love is constant.’
‘Is it? If I’d loved her, I’d have let her die as she wished—at home, with her baby in her arms.’ He’d never voiced his guilt before, had never said the words out loud. He’d kept them locked up inside him, afraid that if the pain of it escaped it would devour him. He didn’t know why he was doing it now. Only that since Lucy’s accident everything inside him felt shaken up, disturbed. Like a numb limb coming back to painful life. He looked at her now, as if it was her fault, and demanded, ‘How can I forgive myself for that?’
‘You’re human, Han. You couldn’t bear to lose her. She knew that.’
‘Being human is an excuse?’
‘It’s why she broke the mirror. Her reflection was a constant reminder to her that she was never going to see her baby grow into a young woman, have children of her own. That she wasn’t going to grow old with you in this garden.’
Lucy had followed him on pure instinct. Nothing in his expression, his voice, had indicated that she had said or done anything to offend him, yet the abruptness with which he’d left her was so at odds with his usual manner that she had barely been able to stop herself from reaching out to him, holding him beside her.
She’d left it a few moments, telling herself that she was wrong, giving herself time to think.
But it had been no good. Something had disturbed him. While self-preservation had suggested it would be wiser to take advantage of his invitation to make free with his garden and leave him to get over it, she had found she could not simply walk away.
She’d had the excuse of asking him for paper, a pen, to write her thank you letters while the moment was fresh, should she need it.
Too late she wished she had chosen the garden option, not because she didn’t have the answer to his question, but because she did. From the outside, looking in, it was easy to see that he was angry with Noor, angry with Ameerah, and he hated himself for it.
Easy to tell him that he would not find self-forgiveness in a photograph, that he must look to the living, to his daughter, for that. To tell him that only when he’d forgiven her for living when Noor was dead, to find it in his heart to love her as a father should, would he be able to forgive himself.
Move on.
Easy, but impossible. Besides, she was certain that at some untapped, deeper level of consciousness he already knew it. If it was that easy, he would have done it long ago.
All she could do, would do, in the limited time available to her, was to make herself a bridge between them. Hope that he could find the way across.
‘You loved her, Han.’ She set the photograph carefully on the desk. ‘She submitted to the treatment because she loved you, wanted you to be able to feel that you had done everything possible.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because it is what I would have done,’ she said truthfully. ‘She did it because she chose to, not because you insisted.’
He stared at her.
‘You could not make her hurt her child, Han. Do you truly believe that she would have let you hurt her?’
She might be so far out on a limb here that she was about to drop off the end, but she could only say what she believed. And she believed—no, she knew—that Noor would have been willing to suffer anything to save Han from what must have been desperate feelings of helplessness.
She gave a little shake of her head.
There was no point in telling him that the last thing his wife would have wanted was for him to spend the rest of his life beating himself up with guilt. He was right, he should have accepted Noor’s decision, but desperation made fools of us all, and maybe Noor, human and afraid, had hoped a little too, that somehow, against all the odds, he might in the end save her.
Instead she briefly rested her hand on his sleeve, an instinctive gesture of reassurance, then lowering her head in the slightest of bows, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I have disturbed you.’
As she turned away Han half reached for her, then, as if burned, he snatched his hand back, let it drop. ‘What did you want, Lucy?’
‘Nothing. It does not matter.’ Then, ‘Just some notepaper. And a pen.’
‘You were brought up to write your thank you letters before you enjoyed your gifts?’
He was, she thought, mocking her. In truth, thank you letters hadn’t featured much in her childhood, but she smiled and said, ‘It’s just good manners.’
He took notepaper and envelopes from a stand on his desk, found a pen. Handed them to her.
‘And their names? Jamilla al-Khatib?’
She spelled it out and he nodded, clearly impatient for her to be gone. ‘I’ll have to ask her which of Zahir’s sisters accompanied her.’
Han watched her swing easily away from him on her crutches, her name already filling his mouth, to call her back, before he caught himself, tightening his hand into a fist, rubbing it against the place on his sleeve where she had touched him as if to capture her essence, to hold it fast.
Her own life was in turmoil and yet she’d brought him a glimpse of peace, as if she had opened the door a crack and shown him a way through to warmth and light.
He took a step after her, pulled himself up, confused, turning to snatch up the telephone as if it was an anchor holding him in place, punched the button on the fast dial.
‘Hanif. How good to hear your voice.’
Milly’s voice was warm, but he caught the subtext. That it had been too long since he’d called her.
‘I wanted to thank you for your time today. I realise how onerous a task it must ha
ve been.’
She tutted at his sarcasm. ‘Did your guest have everything she needs?’
‘Everything and more, I suspect.’
‘She may have needs she is too shy to mention to a man who is not her husband.’
If her husband was any kind of a man, he thought, it wouldn’t be necessary.
He said, ‘I doubt it.’
Lucy might blush like a maiden, but she didn’t seem to have any problems communicating with him. On the contrary, the insight she’d given him into Noor’s state of mind in those last weeks had been like hearing her speak from the grave.
A superstitious man might have believed her to be a Peri, one of those fair spirits, endowed with grace and beauty, who inhabited the empty places, a genie, sent to guide him from the wilderness.
‘Hanif?’
‘I’m sure you covered every possibility. She will be writing to thank you herself. In fact that was my reason for calling you; I need the name of your partner in retail therapy.’
She laughed. ‘It was Dira. I’m so glad she called me. We had a wonderful time.’
‘Will you please find her some suitable gift? A token, from the family, of our appreciation for her help.’
‘Of course.’
‘And when Lucy’s fit enough to come down to Rumaillah to sort out her passport, can you find time to take her to stores where she can buy the sort of clothes she would normally wear in England? Nothing too expensive. She can’t afford designer labels and she’ll insist on paying for it herself.’
‘An independent woman.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. But not independent enough for the totally inappropriate responses she stirred in him.
He needed to distance himself a little from Lucy.
Distance himself a lot.
With that in mind, he put through a call to Fathia, suggesting she ask Lucy to spend the evening with her, to eat with her, then he wrote Dira’s name on a sheet of paper, planning to leave it for her before he took himself to the lodge to eat with men whose conversation would consist of nothing more disturbing than the speed of their horses, the superiority of their falcons, the stamina of their camels.