The Ice Maiden's Sheikh

by Alexandra Sellers

  In the bright light of morning, all the opposing certainty came rushing back, and she called herself a fool for imagining that she could forget all her life to date, make a new self of herself, pretend she belonged in this rugged land.

  Then she felt he cheated, took advantage of her sexual susceptibility, gave her the wild pleasure she experienced in his arms only as the means to an end.

  And yet, now that he was offering to end the ordeal, she had refused. Did that mean she secretly wanted this torment to go on?

  Jalia wasn’t at all used to second-guessing herself like this; it made her uncomfortable in her own skin. Until now she had always felt a measure of certainty over her choices, a certainty that was unassailable.

  Or, perhaps, had never been deeply challenged. When she had made up her mind to reject her parents’ life map, they had given in with sadness but little argument.

  When she had made her life-directing decisions—to be an academic, for example—life had given in without much fuss. She hadn’t found a position at the prestigious university of her choice, but she had been hired at a small, reputable university, a post that could easily lead to the greater things she still envisioned.

  Life hadn’t ever really fought back. Now that it was doing so, Jalia made the discovery that self-doubt is an enemy so potent and crippling no other may be necessary.

  So for a moment now, watching with fascinated detachment as Latif brought the truck under control, she didn’t reject the thought of oblivion as an end to her disquiet.

  Or perhaps it was just that she was now dealing with almost unbearable guilt—the guilt of having tried so hard to convince Noor that she was making a dangerous, foolhardy leap in marrying Bari al Khalid. As long as she was here, searching, she didn’t have to face what perhaps they had faced days ago at home—that hope diminished with every passing day.

  If she had recognized what was really frightening her, if she had faced her own dangerous weakness relative to Latif instead of transferring it…Noor might never have had the second thoughts that had caused her flight.

  “There is another road from Matar Filkoh that leads down to the plain and takes a different route back to al Bostan. It is not a good road, but I will ask at the airport if it is still passable after the rains. If it is, we can return that way. But it is futile to talk of going further into the mountains.”

  Jalia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Never had she been so filled with guilt and self-doubt. Never had she been so unsure of her course.

  They radioed home from the airport, but learned nothing new. The air search hadn’t yet been abandoned, but only because of who was missing. For less high profile people, the search would have been given up long ago. Latif and Jalia reported their own lack of success, and both sides were more depressed after the call than before.

  The road down was terrifyingly rugged, with the truck bouncing and jolting and threatening to pitch over the edge every five miles.

  If she had had to drive it herself, Jalia would have turned tail (if there had been any room to do so) and fled back up to Matar Filkoh and the other road home.

  Worse, the terrain made it impossible to pitch the tent, or even to find a comfortable spot for a sleeping bag. They spent their nights cramped and uncomfortable in the truck, while a wolfish wind howled around outside, battering their tiny haven and screeching into every crevice.

  Jalia, lying on the back seat while Latif slept half-sitting in the front passenger seat, listened to the wind for hours in the night, where guilt and doubt took renewed strength from the darkness.

  Each night she wrestled with the urgent need to sit up, bend over Latif, kiss him awake, and beg him to comfort her, to love her, to decide her terrible dilemma for her.

  It was a massive relief when they finally found themselves back on the plain, with brown and gold and green stretching flat for miles ahead. And how glad she was to see villages again, and discover that for other people, ordinary life had gone on during her ordeal.

  Still they got no news of Bari’s plane.

  Every day was making it more likely that the plane had headed out over the sea, for in not one village anywhere did Jalia and Latif find anyone who had heard or seen any sign of a distressed plane on the day of the storm.

  “If they did come down over water…” Jalia began hesitantly, when at yet another village they had drawn a blank. She broke off, and Latif glanced at her.

  “There is no way to say. It depends on how they came down. If they were hit by lightning, or they broke up in the air, then it is as God wills. But if Bari was able to bring it down with some kind of control—there is a life raft aboard the plane.”

  “But then why wouldn’t they have activated the plane’s EPIRB?” she pointed out sadly. “Or at least set off some flares.”

  The signalling device from Bari’s plane, which would have allowed survivors to be found within hours, had never been activated, which was the single biggest argument against the couple’s survival. If they had both been so hurt they couldn’t find and activate the EPIRB, how long could they have lasted without rescue?

  Jalia had begun this search full of hope and the determination that two such vibrant people as Noor and Bari couldn’t just die like that, just disappearing into nothing. They would have had to leave some trace.

  But as the days stretched into weeks, her hopes had begun to dim. Now she just wanted to get home, to the comfort of the family and familiar surroundings, where perhaps the grieving process had already begun.

  They both greeted the approach to Medinat al Bostan with relief.

  As they caught sight of the great golden dome of the mosque and its picturesque minarets glowing in the hot, bright sunshine, Jalia was suddenly sharply aware of how grubby she was, and began to yearn for a long, warm bath, and her comfortable bed, with a power that had never assailed her on the road.

  It was just before lunch when they drove between the gates into the great palace that now housed the Sultan again, after thirty years as a museum.

  Jalia clambered out of the car, too tired to be anything but grateful when one of the servants who materialized dived for her backpack as she tried to shoulder it.

  “Is there any news of the Princess, Massoud?” she asked, and as she expected, the man sighed gloomily.

  “Nothing at all, Your Highness. And you—?”

  “We found nothing.” With Latif close behind, she followed Massoud under the arched passageway into the beautiful private courtyard, where she stood for a moment looking around her.

  All around the courtyard arches and columns presented the eye with the comfort of perfection. With a delicious babble the fountain tossed diamonds up to be kissed by sunshine in endlessly repeated beauty; trees waved patterns of shadow against the worn tile over which her ancestors’ feet had passed for generations; and ripe pomegranates weighted the branches of the tall shrubs, presenting their rich redness invitingly close.

  Jalia reached out to stroke the dimpled fruit with a luxurious sigh. Would she ever get used to such beauty? “Allah, it’s good to be—”

  The look in Latif’s green eyes made her suddenly conscious, and she choked the word back.

  “Home?” he prompted.

  “Jalia!” She heard the urgent voice overhead and looked up to see her mother anxiously leaning over a balcony. “Thank heaven you’re back!”

  Jalia’s heart kicked hard. “Has there been news, Mother?”

  “Yes—no, not about Noor,” her mother cried. She flicked a glance at Latif. “But…”

  “For heaven’s sake, what is it?” Jalia called anxiously. “Mother, what’s happened?”

  “Well, darling—Michael rang yesterday.”

  So far from her thoughts was her previous life that Jalia only blinked. “Michael?”

  Princess Muna cleared her throat. “Your fiancé, Jalia. He’s flying out today.”

  “Flying out where?” she asked blankly.

  “Here. He’s coming…”
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br />   Latif’s eyes were the precise green of jealous fury. She thought she had never seen anything more coldly beautiful, or more compellingly frightening, in her life.

  “Here?” she almost shrieked. “Why?”

  Her mother’s eyebrows went up. “He said something about your hour of need.”

  “What?”

  “His flight arrives in two hours,” said her mother.

  Fourteen

  “There is absolutely no reason for you to come with me!”

  In dark glasses and with a scarf hiding her hair like a fifties Hollywood starlet, Jalia hissed her continuing protest as she strode into the concourse to wait for Michael’s plane. Latif followed as close as her shadow.

  “But yes,” Latif Abd al Razzaq contradicted calmly.

  “You’ll only draw attention to us both. People know who you are, Latif. They’re bound to start wondering who I am!”

  “I wish to meet Michael,” he said, with an immovability that made her want to sink her nails into something.

  “And why can’t you wait to meet him at the pal—at home? This is ridiculous! All we need is for some damned journalist to be here, casting around…”

  “I want to meet your fiancé,” Latif repeated.

  “He is not my fiancé,” she hissed furiously.

  “And then I wonder why he has come here.”

  “I wonder, too, Latif. But can we get one thing straight? You do not have the right to this little show of jealous possessiveness!” Her hand flattened the air. “I made it clear from the outset that—”

  “Do you talk about rights? I talk about love. There are no rights and wrongs. There is only—I want to see this man you tell me is not your fiancé. If you have told me the truth about him, why do you fear my meeting him?”

  “I do not fear your meeting him!” she lied fervently, though she didn’t know herself why she feared a meeting. Perhaps because she didn’t understand Michael’s motives in coming here.

  The Arrivals doors opened into the small waiting area and in ones and twos the people from the latest flight started trickling out. Jalia licked her lips and nervously began to watch their faces.

  “Jalia!” Michael’s voice cried, and she turned to see him break away from a small group just emerging through the door, to stride towards her. He had lost none of the attention-seeking flair that made Michael a star amongst the staid university lecturers.

  People turned to look, and Jalia instinctively lifted a hand to adjust her sunglasses and dropped her head.

  A moment later Michael grabbed her close for a warm, enthusiastic hug.

  “Darling, how good of you to meet me yourself when you must be nearly exhausted. Desperately sorry I couldn’t get here sooner!”

  “Hello, Michael. This is a surprise! I—”

  His arms still tight around her, he gave her a firm peck on her mouth that effectively silenced her, kissed her on each cheek, and lifted his head to smile a warning down into her startled face.

  “I’m surprised, too! I certainly wasn’t expecting to see you! Your mother said you were out scouring the mountains! When did you get back?”

  She was acutely, uncomfortably aware of Latif standing behind her, watching with unblinking attention and restrained fury, a falcon choosing his moment to strike.

  “A couple of hours ago. Michael, why on earth—”

  “Not a word now, darling!” Michael hushed her with another little kiss, and she sensed his discomfort. He really was not happy that she had met him. “Plenty of time to talk.”

  “Yes. Michael, this is Latif Abd al Razzaq,” she said, easing out of the embrace. “He—”

  Michael didn’t go for the dark, hawklike type, and he scarcely looked at Latif. “Great!” he said, grabbing his hand. “Great to meet you! You look after the Princess, I imagine.”

  Latif stood unmoving as a rock, so obviously dangerous that Jalia cowered for Michael. But he was oblivious.

  “I take good care of her, as you will see,” Latif murmured.

  “Great!” Michael said again. “Any news about Noor, darling?”

  “No, nothing new. Let’s go, Michael. Is that the only luggage you brought?” She could see nothing but a leather carry-on bag slung over his shoulder. It looked new and very expensive. Too expensive for an underpaid university lecturer.

  “I had no idea what clothes I’d need at the palace,” he explained breezily. “For all I knew I might need a djellaba!”

  “Michael, could you lower your voice, please?” she murmured. “There might be journalists around. Latif—”

  Michael’s laughter was long, loud and false. “But of course there are journalists around!” He turned and held out a conjuror’s hand towards a sharp-faced young blond woman standing nearby.

  “Meet Ellin Black—from the Evening Herald. You probably know her name. Ellin, my very own Princess Bride!”

  “Great to meet you, Princess,” said Ellin Black, smiling at her with cool, self-possessed assessment. Her eyes flicked to Latif and widened with such an expression of curiosity, interest and female intent that Jalia would have laughed, except that she didn’t feel like laughing. “And who are you?”

  “I look after the Princess,” Latif said smoothly.

  “And John is the Herald photographer,” said Ellin, quickly disowning any closer relationship with a fair, heavyset, middle-aged man a few feet away.

  John Bentinck lifted his hand away from his face and genially nodded at them before fitting the video camera to his eye again.

  “Sit down, Michael,” Jalia said crisply, leading the way into her private apartment at the palace an hour later. She was absolutely furious, and not hiding it well. “What would you like to drink?”

  “I’m absolutely gasping for a cup of tea,” he said.

  They had driven from the airport in silence, Jalia furious with his betrayal, and Michael almost equally angry because she had refused to let the journalists into the car. At first he had tried to explain how brilliant a coup it had been for him to sign an exclusive with the Herald, then had descended into sullen silence.

  In the front seat beside the driver Latif might as well have been carved in stone—not that Michael spared a thought for her “bodyguard.” But Jalia had been nervous and edgy all the way, wondering when and how he would pounce.

  He never did. On their arrival at the palace, he simply bowed and disappeared, leaving Jalia even more anxious, and faintly disappointed.

  Of course she would have to sort this out with Michael privately, and yet—it would have been so much easier if Latif had insisted on staking his claim.

  Jalia reminded herself that Latif had no claim. She had told him so herself. What had she been expecting? That he would knock Michael down? Send him packing?

  Belatedly, very belatedly, she saw that she should have forced the showdown at the airport before Ellin Black got the wrong idea. Michael had found some way to cash in on the situation, that was clear. And it was going to involve publicity. By not denying their engagement instantly, she had given him a credibility that might now be harder to dislodge.

  Why hadn’t she seen things so clearly an hour ago? But she had been so obsessed with avoiding notice, with not causing any kind of public scene that might get into the papers, that she had missed the chance to deliver a short, sharp shock.

  It was all Latif’s fault! If she hadn’t been so worried about what he was thinking, she might have dealt with this better. And if only he had said something, Michael might have realized…

  She brought herself up short. How could she have such ridiculously contradictory thoughts?

  In a cool voice Jalia dispatched the ever-attentive servant for tea and fruit juice, then settled in a chair.

  Michael stood in the doorway to the balcony under the arched framework of stained glass, gazing out at the courtyard. Across the way the rows of similar arches lay in picturesque light and shade. The music of the fountain and birdsong were the only sounds that met the ear.
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  “This is fabulous!” he exclaimed after a few minutes of silent appreciation. “Beats the new palaces all to hell, doesn’t it? Look at that tiling—I’ve been on digs where we’ve found floors just like that dating from eight hundred years ago! The place must be—”

  “Yes, Ghasib had some justification for turning the palace into a museum,” she agreed. “It’s still open to the public, of course, except for this wing, where the family live.”

  “The family!” Michael said, laughing and shaking his head. “You know, no one was all that surprised. In the Senior Common Room people were joking about how they used to call you the Ice Princess. Did you know that? They were walking around saying, ‘Well, we always knew!’”

  He laughed, but Jalia didn’t. The servant returned with a tray, and when he had set it down she quietly dismissed him.

  “No, I never knew it,” she said, with a calm she didn’t feel. “Come and have your tea.”

  He left his admiration of the courtyard from another age and sank onto the sofa opposite her as the door closed behind the servant.

  Jalia poured out the amber liquid, passed him the small gold-traced crystal cup and said, “What exactly do you hope to get out of this, Michael?”

  He laughed a little anxiously. “Come on, Jalia! There’s no need to take that tone! You’re getting what you want out of the engagement. Why shouldn’t I benefit, too?”

  “That’s what you call it? You’ve come here without warning, at a hugely difficult moment for me and my entire family, with a sleazy tabloid journalist in tow—”

  “Ellin is hardly sleazy!” he said. “And how was I to know you’d take it so hard? What’s so terrible if our engagement is publicly known? How does it affect your life, Jalia?”

  “I think the point is, how does it affect yours?”

  He carefully chose a lump of sugar, set it between his teeth, and sipped his tea like an expert.

  “A huge difference. You would not believe.” He leaned forward earnestly, the cup held loosely between his knees, but looked down at it instead of at her.