He paused before he enquired,
“Would you?”
Vanda shook her head.
“I would love his horses and enjoy some aspects of life in the desert, but when I marry I would wish it to be to an Englishman.”
She spoke very positively and the Sheik asked her,
“You would not for instance think of enjoying a life here with me?”
Vanda shook her head again.
“We live in different worlds. If you desire happiness I think you should find it in your own world in which there are many beautiful women. They would love you as you wish to be loved, not as a Sheik but as a man.”
The Sheik seemed to have difficulty finding his words before answering.
Then he said,
“My women love me because they admire me.”
Vanda shook her head.
“If they admire you as a Sheik, that is not love. What every woman wants and every man for that matter, is someone who loves them for themselves regardless of whether they are a King or a pauper, a Sheik or a slave.”
“Do you think it possible I could find such a woman?”
“If you have not found her already, there is still every possibility,” Vanda replied. “I have always been told that to the Arabs the stars are very important and some of them believe, like the gypsies, that there is a star for every man and woman. What you should be looking for is the woman who belongs to your star, and when you find her you will know real love and real happiness.”
Sheik Shalaan looked at her again in surprise.
“I never thought of it in such a way,” he admitted. “But I suppose you are saying that is what the beautiful Lady Jane found with her Sheik.”
“Of course. She had several other husbands, but none of them was the right man. She knew he was somewhere in the world and she found him in the desert.”
As she finished speaking she thought that perhaps this Sheik had also been in love with the beautiful Jane Digby and maybe that was why he was the enemy of her husband besides being the enemy of Sheik Abu Hamid.
She realised she had given him something to think about.
She added as if to make it easier for him,
“I think you should look amongst the women of your own country first. It would be easier for both of you than if you have to grow accustomed to strange habits, different standards and, of course most important of all, different religions.”
“I understand what you are saying to me. On the other hand there are many, many women in the world and I find it difficult to believe that one will be so very different for me from all the others.”
“She will be when you find her,” Vanda assured him. “Then you will realise that you have found the other part of yourself and you will be happy until you both die.”
She spoke so positively that Sheik Shalaan stared at her as if she was a Prophet or even a clairvoyant looking into his future.
To keep him interested Vanda continued talking about the happiness her father and mother had found together, and men and women throughout history who had searched the world until they found their true love and for whom their quest was like the Golden Fleece or the Holy Grail.
It was quite late when, almost like a child who had been listening to a fairy tale, the Sheik agreed that it was time to retire.
“Tomorrow morning,” Vanda suggested, “I am sure there will be a message, and then perhaps, Your Highness, we can discuss together the best way to respond.”
“I can only thank you,” the Sheik said, “for a very interesting and a most unusual evening. I have never before, Your Royal Highness, talked to a woman as I have talked to you tonight.”
Vanda stretched out her hand and he raised it to his lips.
“Sleep well,” he said. “You will not be disturbed.”
She understood as he spoke that he was reassuring her and the relief was almost like a stone being lifted from her breast.
She had been afraid, of course she had been afraid.
Perhaps, she thought, he might assault her in his desire to avenge himself on Sheik Abu.
As she walked away from him towards her tent, she felt certain that at any rate she was safe for tonight.
She still thought it strange that there had been no message from Sheik Abu or the Earl and her brother.
She was very conscious that Sheik Shalaan was waiting for them to attack and when she looked out from her tent, she could see that his men were armed and ready, their horses beside them.
If their enemy appeared they could go into battle in a few seconds.
Vanda was helped out of her clothes by the two Bedouin women. For dinner she had only been able to remove her riding jacket and now she took off her skirt and her pretty white chiffon blouse.
There was no sign of any sort of nightgown so she thought the only thing she could do was to sleep in the lace-trimmed vest she wore, and she would keep on the petticoat which went under her riding skirt.
She informed the two Bedouin women what she would do by gesturing with her hands.
Then she climbed into bed.
They were surprised but understood and bowing low they eventually went away and left her alone.
Vanda lay back against the soft cushions and it was too warm for the moment for her to need any covers over her.
She closed her eyes and started to pray that there would be no bloodshed between the tribes.
Apart from anything else, it would be dangerous if news of a tribal battle was broadcast too widely. The British Embassies in Beirut or Damascus might communicate with London and it would soon be discovered there was no one known to the Royal family as Princess Vanda of Thessaly.
‘Please God – help us – please,’ Vanda prayed.
She believed that her prayer was going straight to Heaven and the stars which were shining brightly outside would carry it up into the sky.
‘Perhaps – the Earl will rescue – me,’ she wondered.
Then she prayed that he would be brave enough to do so.
*
When it was discovered, and it took a little time, that Vanda was missing, there was much consternation.
Some of the less important Sheiks had hurried to the house to tell Sheik Abu that they had seen the Royal Princess being abducted.
The two riders, they conjectured, belonged to the Hassein tribe.
At first Sheik Abu did not believe the story.
“How is it possible?” he kept asking. “How could it have happened with all my men around?”
His immediate impulse was to lead all the tribes to attack Sheik Shalaan and kill every man of his tribe.
The Earl immediately appreciated the danger of such a course of action and quickly, because the Sheik was in such a towering rage, he cautioned,
“Be careful – very careful.”
“Why should I be careful?” Sheik Abu stormed. “Once and for all I will exterminate that despicable man and all his tribe.”
“Before you attempt any such attack,” the Earl advised, “you must understand that you will have the whole of Beirut and Damascus laughing at you. Sheik Shalaan spirited away your Royal guest in the middle of your party. They will not commiserate with Your Highness, but snigger at you.”
Sheik Abu quietened and there was absolute silence before he asked, “What then can I do?”
“I think with a little luck I might bring her back,” the Earl answered slowly.
The Sheik gazed at him in astonishment.
“How could you possibly do it?”
“I have an idea. I may be wrong, but I think it is an off-chance that is worth trying.”
“Anything is worth trying if we can find Vanda,” Charles added sharply.
“I know,” the Earl replied, “but we do not need a scandal and at all costs we must avoid bloodshed.”
He did not have to explain to Charles what he meant by a scandal.
The two men looked at each other and the Earl knew that Charles understood.
“Then what can you do?” Sheik Abu demanded. “I cannot permit that devil to take away my honoured guest without striking at him with every weapon at my command.”
“If it is at all possible and with the help of Allah,” the Earl declared, “we will arrange it so that Her Royal Highness is safe and you do not need to lose face.”
“I will give you thirty of my best Arab horses if you are successful, but personally I think it is impossible.”
“Let me try it my way,” the Earl demanded, “and if I fail, then we will assist you with your solution. That is my bargain.”
He held out his hand as he spoke and the Sheik felt obliged to take it, but he was extremely dubious as to whether the Earl could achieve anything and because he was sure that in the end his men would be required to free the Princess.
He promptly left the Earl and Charles to go and see how much ammunition there was in store and to check that every man in his tribe was well armed.
It was growing late in the afternoon and a number of the neighbouring tribesmen had moved away without realising what had happened.
The Sheik did not bid farewell to those of his guests who had not yet departed as at the moment he was still tense with anger.
His greatest enemy had stolen a march on him when he least expected it and yet he realised that the Earl was speaking the truth.
If what had happened became known all over Syria, he would undoubtedly become a laughing stock.
‘I have to do something drastic,’ he said to himself.
However he felt restrained for the moment by the quiet and confident way the Earl was behaving.
Inside the tent Charles asked,
“What the hell are you going to do, Favin?”
I have an idea or perhaps it is a premonition, but I don’t want to talk about it. I can only hope and pray that I will be successful.”
“As you can imagine I am praying too,” Charles assured him. “Vanda must be terrified by what is happening to her.”
He paused for a moment before he asked,
“You do not think, you do not imagine, Favin, they will hurt her in any way? You know these damn people better than I do.”
“I think they will respect her,” the Earl responded quietly, “because she is British and because they believe her to be Royal.”
“I can only hope you are right. If not, I think I will go out and kill somebody.”
The Earl did not answer. He merely walked out of the tent to find Carstairs. He needed something very important which he knew only Carstairs could find for him.
Then in his own room he went to the window and looked up at the sky. He had sounded very confident talking to Charles that Vanda would not be abused. However within himself he was suddenly very afraid for her.
She was so young, so innocent.
As he knew only too well, she had no knowledge of men. How could she cope with a man, especially a Bedouin, who desired her?
He could imagine her fear, her terror and her humiliation.
The very idea seemed to stab him as if by a dagger.
It was then that he admitted to himself something he had known for a long time – that he loved her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vanda was dreaming of the Earl.
She thought he was kissing her.
Then suddenly she awoke to find that he was!
His lips were on hers and a strange feeling she had never known seemed to whirl through her body and senses.
Thinking it could not be true, she opened her eyes and in the faint light filtering into the tent she could see the Earl kneeling beside her.
She would have spoken but once against his lips were on hers. She understood that he was telling her to keep quiet and when he raised his head he placed his finger on her lips.
She wanted him to kiss her and go on kissing her and nothing else mattered in the whole world.
The Earl rose slowly to his feet and began to pull Vanda from the bed.
Following him she tip-toed across the floor trying to think of how he could have entered the tent and then at the very back she could see a faint chink of moonlight.
A moment later the Earl bent down to the ground and started to squeeze himself through what Vanda now realised was a cutting at the bottom of the tent.
He moved very slowly and she thought he was almost like a snake slithering across the floor.
Once he was outside he reached out for her hand and pulled her forward. She managed to squeeze through the opening in the same way.
Only as she did so did she remember that when she had gone to bed, she was wearing only her vest and petticoat.
Outside the Earl pulled her to her feet and then he put a black burnous over her shoulders. It was what the Arabs always wore.
Although she could see him only dimly she realised he was wearing a burnous too and the effect was to make them almost invisible against the black tents which surrounded them.
Taking her by the hand he started to move slowly but determinedly along the side of the tents.
Vanda remembered being told that the Sheik’s tent was always on the West side of the camp and facing West. The most important guest, or in her case his prisoner, occupied a tent directly behind it.
At the moment the camp was quiet.
Vanda guessed that all the Arabs were in front of the other side of the camp, waiting for the attack they expected from Sheik Abu’s tribesmen.
The Earl walked on ahead quickly and now he was moving even faster. It seemed to Vanda a very long way, although there were still tents on one side of them and when they came to a small group of trees, the Earl turned in amongst them.
Now it was painful to walk barefooted on the twigs and small fir cones which lay on the ground. Vanda did not say anything but she stumbled and the Earl stopped and picked her up tenderly. He carried her as he had the night when they had dined with Sheik Abu.
She felt a thrill pass through her because she was in his arms. She looked up at him, wishing and almost praying that he would kiss her again.
Then she noticed that just ahead of them there were horses – three horses.
Only when the man in charge of the horses bent forward to kiss her cheek did she realise it was Charles.
She knew however that she must not say a word. The Earl without setting her down on the ground lifted her onto the saddle and mounted the other horse.
They moved slowly and very quietly away through the trees and as they emerged into the desert they started to gallop.
There was enough light from the stars overhead and the moon for Vanda to see clearly and as she glanced back she could see the mass of black tents below them.
She realised the desert over which they were riding was more hilly than she had encountered and they were heading North.
She realised that the plan was to ride well away from the tribesmen who were watching for the advance of Sheik Abu’s men.
She wondered if the Earl and Charles were taking her straight back to the yacht, but when they were completely out of sight of the back tents they turned to go downhill.
They rode round in what Vanda realised was almost a complete circle in order to return to Sheik Abu’s house.
It took quite a long time, even though the horse she was riding was as swift as the one she had ridden in the afternoon, but it was sad to think that she had left her white mare behind.
She only hoped they would be kind to her. If they could not keep her as their prize, at least the mare was a prisoner they would appreciate.
An hour and a half later and they had been riding at full speed all the time, Vanda saw Sheik Abu’s house just ahead of her.
It was then that at last she spoke.
The words came from the very depths of her heart,
“You saved me! You – saved me! How could – you have been – so brave?”
As she spoke the Earl turned to look at her and she thought how handsome he looked in the moonlight.
“Are you all
right?” he asked anxiously. “No one has hurt you?”
“No, but I was very frightened that there would be a battle and tribesmen and horses would be killed or wounded.”
“I think we may have avoided that catastrophe,” the Earl answered with a deep sigh.
“I never thought we would be able to rescue you,” Charles added emotionally.
Vanda did not answer as at that moment they arrived at the back of the house, where it would be impossible for anyone to see them.
As they dismounted servants appeared to take the horses.
Sheik Abu was standing in the open doorway.
“You have brought her back, my Lord,” he declared in a voice which showed he was much moved. “How is it possible you could be so daring?”
“The Earl has saved me,” Vanda said, “and no one will have the slightest idea until daybreak that I have been rescued.”
“Now listen!” the Earl intervened in an authoritative tone. “This is important and must be done at once. To save Your Highness’s name we need to leave immediately for Beirut.”
They all looked at him in surprise as he continued,
“I want you, Vanda, to dress in your best clothes and for Your Highness to command your men to escort us with their lances, flags and anything else which would appear impressive.”
Sheik Abu was listening in astonishment.
He managed to say,
“I do not understand, my Lord.”
“What Your Highness is going to do,” the Earl resumed, “is to make a dramatic entrance into Beirut. By the time we arrive it will be morning and the streets will be filled with people.”
Vanda observed a flash of excitement in the Sheik’s eyes.
“You will escort us to the best hotel and host a farewell party for Her Royal Highness for your friends and anyone else who pushes their way in.”
“In that case there will be a crowd,” Charles interposed somewhat mockingly.
“That is exactly what we want to achieve and when we finally board my yacht, it will be with the band playing and people throwing flowers towards Her Royal Highness which of course Your Highness will have to pay for.”
The Sheik gave a little laugh.
A Kiss In the Desert Page 11