Desert Barbarian

by Charlotte Lamb

  Her father gestured to the other two men, introducing them to her. 'These are two gentlemen who work with Mr Grey, my dear. Stephen Brent and Henry Carr. My daughter, Marie…'

  She smiled and shook hands with them. Stephen Brent was the younger of the two, his hazel eyes pleasant, his smile admiring.

  'As you seem to have finished your meal, may I suggest you join us and drink your coffee at our table?' suggested her father.

  Clare cheerfully agreed to this, so they moved over to a table large enough to accommodate them all. The men ordered steaks and salad with a purely cursory glance at the menu.

  'Are you sure we won't be in the way?' Marie discreetly asked her father as they moved. 'Aren't you here to talk business?'

  James Brinton gave a little sigh. His face had the weary grey look which had worried her earlier. 'It's all over bar the shouting,' he said flatly.

  She gave him a quick, anxious look. 'What do you mean?'

  'Unex will take over Brintons,' he said in the same dull voice. 'Hamley tells me I can't raise the capital to match their offer, let alone outbid them. I'm overstretched as it is. He couldn't help me.'

  'Oh, Dad!' She put a hand over his and squeezed his fingers helplessly. 'Not even if you used your own money?'

  He shook his head. 'Even if I mortgaged or sold everything I had I couldn't pull if off, and if I did manage to do so by a superhuman effort I would handi­cap the firm for years to come with a massive burden of debt. The game isn't worth the candle.'

  She was stricken, looking at him with miserable anxiety. She could see that this had been a terrible blow to him. His whole life had been destroyed overnight. She looked at Stonor Grey as he seated himself at the table, the lean ascetic face as hard and immovable as flint while those dark eyes were lowered, his powerful body sheathed in elegantly cut evening clothes which disguised the predatory virility of the man in a way which the Arab robes had not done.

  He had done this to her father. Like some hawk of the desert he had flown down with cruel talons and ripped her father's life to pieces for a mere whim.

  Suddenly the dark eyes lifted and met the bitter, accus­ing glare of her blue eyes. He glanced down at her hand, tightly linked with her father's, and a cool comprehen­sion came into the intelligent face. It was, she thought, impossible to hide anything from this man. His mind was as quick as lightning, flashing into and illuminating the dark places of thought. He would always be able to read her expression. Grimly, she determined to learn to control her features so as to leave him no clues.

  While the men ate their meal, Clare talked, sipping cups of black coffee. She held them all captive, yet her talk was neither sparkling nor witty. Somehow she man­aged to captivate without effort. Marie marvelled at her ability. Only James Brinton seemed immune tonight, eating dully without interest, his mood too grim to respond to Clare's charm.

  A band began to play on a raised dais in one corner and some of the diners got up and began to dance on a tiny wooden floor just in front of the band.

  Stonor Grey flung down his napkin and rose. Before Marie had realised what was happening, he had bent and raised her to her feet with one compelling hand, in a grip she instinctively recognised.

  'Let's dance,' he said briefly.

  She would have protested had she not wished to pre­serve the peace, but tonight she was afraid to do anything which might further upset her father.

  So she allowed him to lead her on to the floor and pull her into a close embrace, his hand warm in the small of her back, while they moved to the deep rhythmic beat of the pop tune.

  'Better get it out before you explode,' he murmured drily into her ear.

  'What?' She turned her head to look at him and then looked away, her body springing wildly alive as she became aware of his closeness and the touch of his hand against her body.

  'You've been sitting there seething for the last half hour,' he said. 'You have a very expressive face, you know.'

  'What do you expect? You played a dirty trick on me. You made a fool of me…'

  'You were bored, so was I,' he said lightly. 'I thought we might have some fun together.'

  'I can imagine your idea of fun,' she snapped.

  He ran his hand along the full length of her spine, and she stiffened and glared at him. 'Stop that!'

  'Don't snarl at me, then,' he said blandly. 'You were lamenting the fact that you hadn't seen any of the wild, romantic side of Arab life, so I supplied it for you, free, gratis and for nothing. You ought to be grateful.'

  'Oh, I am, thanks a million,' she said sarcastically. 'You scared me out of my wits, you made me ride for miles across a barren desert, kept me up all night and told me a string of ridiculous lies… and you expect gratitude!'

  He laughed softy. 'Come on, admit it. You had the time of your life. Wasn't it romantic? The desert, the moonlight, the campfire?'

  'That evil-smelling cloth over my head stifling me, nearly being bitten by a poisonous black snake, riding until my back nearly broke in half… oh, it was certainly romantic! Like taking a bath in sheep dip.'

  His black eyes danced with amusement. 'Scorpion,' he murmured softly. 'You've had your revenge, haven't you?'

  Marie looked at him blankly.

  'You very thoroughly chastised me in front of them all just now and I couldn't do a thing about it,' he said teasingly.

  'Don't lie! You didn't give a damn what I said,' she said furiously. He laughed again. 'You looked so incredulous when you saw me! Rather like your expression when you saw that snake out in the desert'

  'Snakes always make me look like that,' she said mean­ingfully. 'What were you doing in the hotel garden any­way? Why were you lurking about at that hour of the night?'

  'I was on my way to bed,' he confessed.

  'You were staying in the hotel?' She was astounded. 'I never saw you.'

  'I wasn't exactly a guest,' he admitted. 'I own it'

  'I might have known it!' She looked at him with loathing.

  'I own a lot of hotels,' he told her. 'I visit them all once or twice. It just happened to be that one on that particu­lar night'

  'Why did it have to be while I was staying there?' she lamented to herself. 'Why not some other night of the year?'

  'It is the will of Allah,' he said mischievously.

  She looked up at him. 'That isn't how I would describe it. Why were you wearing Arab dress?'

  'I'm half Arab,' he said flatly. 'Why not? When I'm visiting my mother's country I always wear Arab dress. Don't you like it?' The dark eyes rested on her face.

  'It suits you,' she said, suddenly breathless.

  Stonor Grey smiled.

  For a few moments they moved in silence, with the harmony of people who habitually dance together, their steps moving easily and gracefully.

  Then Marie remembered, and looked up at him. 'You'll kill my father if you go on with this take-over bid, do you know that?'

  His face grew sombre. 'You exaggerate,' he said. 'Busi­ness is only business.'

  'Not to Dad. That firm is his life.'

  'Then he's a fool. He has you.'

  'He has always put the firm first,' she admitted.

  'No man should put his work before his family. People matter more than things.'

  'All the same, it will kill him to lose Brintons.'

  'I hope not,' he said flatly.

  'You could stop the deal,' she said huskily.

  There was silence. Marie looked up and found him watching her intently, a curious look on his face.

  'Couldn't you stop it?' she asked him in pleading tones.

  'Are you asking me to do this for your sake?' he asked in a neutral voice.

  She flushed hotly. 'No, of course not. For my father's sake.'

  He shrugged. 'Unex controls dozens of firms like Brin­tons. We took them all over in the same way, and none of their previous owners died as a result.'

  'Dad is different,' she said despairingly. 'He… has nothing to put in its place.'
>
  The music stopped, and the other dancers clapped. Stonor Grey guided her back to the table, his hand under her elbow. They found an argument going on between the other men. James Brinton was flushed, his eyes hot and weary. His voice rose above the others.

  'You'll put hundreds of workers out of a job if you close down the Birdley factory. Don't you care about that?'

  'It's uneconomic to run the plant,' said Henry Carr brutally. 'It overlaps with one of our others. We don't need it.'

  'Asset-stripping…' James Brinton ground the word out, rising, one hand at his collar, his breath coming in a ragged, uneven fashion that terrified Marie.

  'James!' Clare was at his side, her face pale, staring at him as she tried to catch him.

  He made a choked sound and fell forward on to the table. People at a nearby table screamed and the waiters came running, while the whole restaurant rose to stare. Marie ran and knelt beside her father, tears hot in her eyes.

  Behind her she heard Stonor say in decisive, icy tones: 'Get an ambulance here at once.'

  She looked round at him, white-faced and shrivelled with pain. 'You've killed him!' she whispered hoarsely.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HIS dark eyes looked into hers, the blackness of the pupils seeming to dilate with anger. Then he pushed her unceremoniously out of the way, bent and lifted her father with an ease that reminded her of the way he had carried her through the gardens of the Hotel Marina and down to the moonlit beach. Shouldering his way through the staring crowd, he paused to ask the head waiter: 'Is there a room we can use?'

  They were directed to a room on the ground floor. Clare and Marie followed the tall, striding figure, their eyes on his burden with the tension of terrified anxiety. James lay with head lolling back over Stonor Grey's arm, his silvery hair ruffled, pale pink patches of scalp showing through. One arm trailed along behind, the hand curi­ously, painfully, lifeless, the fingers loosely dangling.

  Stonor gently laid him on the narrow single bed in the room, while Clare stood, staring at the still body. She scarcely seemed able to breathe, her hands caught stiffly at her breast in an attitude of terror.

  A stir at the door heralded the doctor. He looked at them all impersonally. 'What happened?' As he spoke he was already beginning to examine James, and he cut short Stonor's curt explanation with a nod. 'Right, every­one out of the room now. Where the hell is that ambu­lance?'

  The next moment, it seemed, the ambulancemen were there, carrying James past on a stretcher, his face covered by an oxygen mask, while the doctor walked beside him.

  'I must go with him,' Marie cried, hurrying after them.

  Clare stood staring after her, her white face drawn. Stonor laid a hand on her arm and she looked round at him.

  'I'll drive you to the hospital,' he said gently. She nodded, silent and tearless, yet visibly on the point of tears.

  Then Stonor moved fast, catching up with Marie, his hand descending on her arm. She looked round at him in anger and shock.

  'You can't go in the ambulance,' he said.

  'Let me go! Who do you think you are?' She flung him off with a furious gesture.

  He caught hold of her again, with renewed force, his fingers biting into her wrist. The dark eyes were flintlike.

  'You can't go in the ambulance,' he repeated.

  'Who says I can't? You?' Her voice was contemptu­ous.

  'Yes,' he said. The simple monosyllable held her, her eyes fixed angrily on his.

  'I have a right to be with him. He's my father.' Her voice had lost some of its certainty.

  'I'll drive you and your mother to the hospital in my car,' he said.

  'Don't bother,' she snapped. 'I'll take a taxi.'

  He ignored the childish retort, turning towards Clare, his hand still holding Marie's wrist. 'My car is in the car park below. Would you like to get a coat from your room?' !

  She silently shook her head. 'Let's go now, quickly,' she said, after a moment.

  'Look after your mother,' said Stonor, turning to Marie, his dark eyes suddenly stern. 'She's very upset.'

  Marie looked at Clare with wide, incredulous, critical eyes. Her mother had shown no tenderness towards James Brinton for years, yet Stonor seemed to be im­plying that at this hour of danger for him, her father was more to her mother than to Marie. Then she realised that Stonor could not know that her parents had been div­orced. She looked at him scornfully.

  'They were divorced ten years ago,' she murmured in an icy undertone, turning away so that her mother should not hear. 'Dad means nothing to her.'

  Stonor looked down into her pale face. 'I know about the divorce,' he said coolly. 'Take a look at your mother, a good look. She's in a state of shock far worse than yours. I don't know what she feels about your father, but I do know she needs help.'

  Clare was leaning against the wall in an attitude of dispirited patience, just out of earshot, her eyes on the floor, her lips trembling and bloodless. Beneath the care­ful make-up her face was deadly white. She seemed to have aged ten years in the last quarter of an hour.

  Marie stared at her, then her face slowly flushed. She looked at Stonor with dislike.

  'You see?' he demanded.

  'Yes,' she said, 'I see.' At that moment she hated him for having realised something to which she had been blind. She moved towards her mother and put her arm gently around her.

  'Come on, Clare, we're going to the hospital.' Her voice was soft as she urged her mother along the corridor towards the lift down to the underground car park. Clare looked at her dumbly, her blue eyes like bottomless wells of pain.

  'He's going to die,' she whispered. 'James is going to die. What will I do?'

  Over her head Marie met Stonor's cold eyes. She hug­ged her mother and murmured comfortingly, 'No, he's strong. He isn't going to die…'

  Clare shook her head. 'I heard you say I'd killed him… you said it when he collapsed…'

  'Not you, Clare,' said Marie, aghast. 'I didn't mean you…'

  'It's my fault,' Clare whispered. 'All these years, my fault…'

  'No,' Marie urged, stroking her hair. She hesitated, biting her lip, then said recklessly, 'Dad loves you, he loves you!'

  Clare lifted her head then, her blue eyes wild. 'Do you think I don't know that?' Her voice held an agony of pain and self-reproach.

  Marie was silenced. The lift purred to a halt, Stonor moved over to his sleek silver-blue limousine, unlocked it, turned and helped Clare into the back. Marie slid in beside her. Stonor got into the driving seat and started the engine.

  They sat in the white-tiled corridor staring at a green baize-covered swing door which constantly admitted and expelled a number of medical staff. Above the door a large white-faced clock registered the minutes with a slow, remorseless click as the large black hand moved on. They had been there for two hours. No news had come out. James was in one of the rooms on the far side of that swing door, fighting for his life.

  Stonor came back for the second time with coffee in plastic cups. Clare accepted hers without comment, her face frozen. Marie looked up as she took a cup from him. Stonor's eyes were still icy. She knew he would never forgive her for what she had said to him when her father collapsed, but at this moment she did not care. She hated him. She hated everything he stood for: Unex, the im­personal brutal world of high finance, the spiritual desert of business where money meant everything and people nothing, where accountants were masters. She thought of the empty open spaces of the desert, the miles and miles of arid sandy waste. That night beside the campfire she had seen in it a terrible beauty. Now she saw only the bleached bones of its victims, the death and horror of its sterility.

  Stonor moved away again. Marie drank her coffee without tasting the plastic, crumpled up the cup and threw it into a waste bin. The slap of feet along the cor­ridor made them all turn their heads. A nurse in clean white apron and cap glanced at them without expression, went through the swing door. The black hand moved on once more with a sharp c
lick.

  A tired doctor in a crumpled white coat, stethoscope hanging from one pocket, came out of the door, paused and stared at them.

  Stonor rose and moved over to him, speaking in a low voice. Clare rose, her eyes stretched in agony.

  The doctor glanced at her, smiled politely. 'Mr Brinton is resting at the moment. I'm afraid there's no point in waiting any longer. No one can see him tonight.'

  'He's still…' Clare's voice broke off helplessly, her hands made a pathetic gesture of appeal.

  'He's holding his own,' the doctor said firmly. 'That's all I can say at the moment. There's no immediate danger, I assure you. I want you to go home now and sleep. Then you can come back here tomorrow and perhaps by then you may be able to see him.' He looked at Stonor. 'I could prescribe something to help her sleep.'

  Clare gestured again, irritably. 'I have sleeping pills, thank you. Never mind me. You swear James is all right?'

  He smiled gravely at her. 'Mrs Brinton, he has had a serious heart attack. You must judge for yourself what that means. All I can tell you is that he's holding on… if the will to live is there, he may pull through. It all depends on him now.'

  'The will to live,' Marie said huskily. She looked at Stonor, but his face was mask-like. 'But has he got that?'

  Stonor took the doctor's arm. 'Couldn't his daughter see him for a moment? Just look at him.'

  The doctor looked surprised, glanced at Clare, who stared at the floor sightlessly.

  Marie said huskily, 'No, my mother must go in… if anyone can give Dad the will to live it's my mother.'

  Clare's head lifted. She stared at Marie, her lips shak­ing. 'Marie…'

  'Go in and stand by his bed, Mother,' Marie said softy. 'Say his name. The firm doesn't matter—you do.'

  The doctor and Stonor exchanged glances, then Stonor nodded. The doctor hesitated, then said to Clare: 'Will you come with me, Mrs Brinton?'

  Clare followed him through the swing door.

  Alone with Stonor, Marie sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. After a moment he came and sat beside her, his long legs stretched out across the corridor.

  'That was very brave of you,' he said quietly.