From One Night to Desert Queen

by Pippa Roscoe

  She wondered whether Catherine had ever seen this, whether she had stood looking at it, searching for meaning the way that Kal seemed to have searched her eyes. She forced her mind away from him and onto the fact that she was on the second day of her search.

  Time was running out for Star to prove to her sisters that she could play her part, that she could travel to the other side of the world without needing their support, protection or concern. Why couldn’t her sisters trust her when she regularly and successfully managed to take care of a class of thirty seven-year-olds?

  She and Summer had decided that if there was no sign of the necklace she would return to Norfolk no matter what. From there, the sisters would decide together what to do next. If any more travel was needed, they would apply to Mr Beamish, the estate’s lawyer, and he—as stipulated in the will—would fund whatever expenses were needed during the two-month period. Well, one month and just over one week now, Star thought, doing the maths.

  Thirty-eight days. Her heart began to pound in her chest. It was the bass-line that beat beneath the layer of faith and hope she held in her heart. Constant, exhausting. She hated it and needed it. Because while that deep thrum in her heart was there, so was her mother, so was the chance that she’d be able to find the necklace. That she and her sisters would be able to find the diamonds, sell the estate and access the medical treatment Mariam Soames needed...and Star wouldn’t lose her only living parent.

  A flash went off, slicing through the rising panic in Star’s chest, and Wahed crossed the room to speak to the German tourist’s wife, who had clearly ignored the sign that said no photography. Before the argument could get heated, Star made her way back out of the room to one of the larger areas, looking for somewhere she could...breathe.

  She was trying to find her way out when the hairs on her arms lifted and heat broke out across the back of her neck. She paused, eyes closed, just feeling her way through that moment. Her pulse thudded in her ears for such a different reason than just seconds before, and when she opened her eyes and saw a figure marching down the corridor ahead of her, her heart raced. Instead of continuing down the hallway, he cut to the left and entered the beautiful green courtyard on the other side of the large glass wall that separated the corridor from the exhibition space.

  Star placed a hand gently against the glass, the smooth cold surface sucking the heat from her skin. It was one thing to bump into a man and a whole other thing to approach him. She should go back to the public area of the exhibition. She should absolutely do that.

  * * *

  Khalif leaned back against the wooden bench, feeling the sun on his face, eyes closed, remembering the way that Star had done something similar yesterday. Why couldn’t he get her out of his head? All the way through the council update with Reza, Duratra’s Prime Minister.

  ‘If I didn’t know better,’ he’d joked, ‘I’d ask who she was.’

  Khalif’s grunted reply had been as non-committal as he got with his oldest friend.

  All that morning he’d caught himself looking at his arm where her hand had been, remembering the way that her laugh had cut through him, recalling his last sight of her. It didn’t help that he knew she was here. Somewhere in the exhibition. It was as if his body had been in a heightened state ever since he’d reached the lower level of the palace and he bit back a curse. He was worse than an untried schoolboy, lusting over his first crush.

  Until the last hour, during a meeting with the Secretary of State for His Majesty Sheikh Abbad Al Jabbal. Samira’s father had found fault with nearly every suggestion that the team had put to him. Not that Khalif could blame him. He knew they still hadn’t come up with the best way to honour their loss. When it came down to it, there certainly wasn’t a right way. There was nothing right about the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, so why should their memorial be? Khalif braced himself against a shockwave of grief that sent out invisible ripples of incomprehension and pain, refusing to bend to it, to go under.

  ‘Funny meeting you here.’

  Khalif’s eyes shot open and he stared at Star, standing in the centre of the courtyard as if she’d just magically appeared.

  ‘How did you...?’ His words trailed off as he saw the commotion gathering on the other side of the glass at the corner of the east wing. Several dark-suited guards were reaching for their weapons, ready to storm the courtyard. He threw a glare their way, wondering how on earth this English girl had slipped undetected past his usually highly efficient bodyguards. He held his hand out to stop them intruding and turned back to Star, who was still looking up at him, thankfully having missed the exchange.

  ‘I hope that’s okay... I just... I saw you and you looked...’ She shrugged, not quite finishing her sentence.

  She looked around the space, giving him time to take in the dark blue cotton headscarf, grey floor-length skirt and white top she was wearing beneath the same denim jacket, so very different to the glitz and glamour he’d seen throughout Europe’s most fashionable destinations. But, instinctively, he knew that hers was the face he would remember in years to come. Her bangles clinked slightly as she moved forward to smell one of the plants in the giant urn in the centre of the courtyard.

  As he listened to her inhale, he forced his eyes away from her and instead took in the scene he’d been blind to until she’d appeared. Four separate areas were full of thick green foliage and he would always associate this courtyard with the oasis his family used to visit in the desert.

  ‘...hungry.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ he asked, dragging his eyes and awareness back to Star.

  ‘You looked hungry,’ she replied with a smile.

  ‘Really?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, but...’

  Star sat down beside him and began to unpack the large canvas bag she’d had slung over her shoulder. An impressive glass-bottomed lunch box landed between them on the bench. A flask of something was soon propped up against it, while she passed him a smaller box with the instruction, ‘Can you open that?’

  He found himself once again staring blankly at her before recovering and doing as she’d asked, the traces of yesterday’s smile returning to his lips. It had been so long since someone treated him like an equal, he was determined not to break the spell.

  He lifted the lid from the box she’d handed him and the smell of parsley and coriander and rich tomato sauce hit him hard, making his mouth water. He stared at the mahshi in wonder.

  ‘Where on earth did you get this?’

  ‘Oh, the chef at my hotel,’ she replied, reaching over to take one of the courgettes stuffed with rice and vegetables. ‘He promised that he didn’t mind making it for me.’

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ Khalif replied, thinking that she could probably talk the birds down from the sky as easily as getting a chef to make her whatever she wanted. He bit into the courgette he’d helped himself to and groaned. Hats off to the chef. He really hadn’t realised how hungry he was until she’d asked.

  ‘We were talking last night and he was telling me about...’

  He let her voice trail over him as he cast an eye back to where the security detail had come up against Amin, who seemed almost apoplectic that he’d taken food from a stranger. Khalif didn’t really know what he was so angry about. Amin would probably prefer it if there was poison in the food. That way he’d be able to fulfil his royal duties without the hindrance he clearly saw Khalif as being.

  He cast an eye back to Star, still talking but looking ahead of her and gesturing expressively with her hands, clearly missing the way that the thick tomato sauce was dripping perilously close to his trousers. Khalif supposed that she could be a spy sent to poison him—if it hadn’t been for the fact that there had been no threats to either the country or the royal family in over one hundred years. Faizan’s helicopter crash had been investigated by bot
h Duratra and an international investigative team and both had confirmed that a mechanical fault was to blame. Accidental death. Somehow the term seemed cruel, especially for the twin daughters he and Samira had left behind.

  ‘And so, after a few failed attempts, it was decided I should probably leave it to the professionals. But it’s so delicious I just couldn’t refuse,’ she said, handing him a piece of flatbread and the little porcelain pot of hummus. She’d managed to convince the chef to make her a packed lunch with breakable china? He stared between the little pot and the redhead, who seemed utterly oblivious to the impact that she had on those around her. And suddenly he envied her that. No second-guessing and doubting the impact of every single move, look, step, decision or indecision. As he scooped some of the hummus topped with beautiful pink pearls of pomegranate and flecks of paprika onto the flatbread, he saw his assistant throw his hands up in the air and as the taste exploded on his tongue Khalif decided that frustrating his particularly sanctimonious assistant was a small victory in an otherwise complete failure of a day.

  ‘That was the best mahshi I’ve ever had,’ she sighed, leaning back against the wooden bench.

  Khalif laughed. ‘Had a lot of mahshi, have you?’

  Star nodded, her smile lighting up eyes that were a touch lighter than they had been yesterday. ‘Yup. My mum, she’s...some would call her alternative,’ she said in a half whisper, as if confessing some great sin. ‘But she travelled a lot when she was younger and that influenced her cooking. We’re all vegetarian so we do a lot of cooking ourselves. That, and we didn’t have a great deal of money growing up,’ she announced without the resentment that usually weighed down such a statement.

  ‘What do they do? Your parents,’ he clarified, unable to resist going in for one last mouthful of the hummus.

  * * *

  She should have known it was coming. Usually she could feel it building in a conversation, but with Kal it had taken her by surprise so she hadn’t been ready for the swift pain that nicked her heart. ‘My father died when I was a few months old, but he was a carpenter.’ She rubbed her hands unconsciously, as she often did when she thought about her father, imagining the calluses on his hands that her mother had told her about.

  ‘That must have been very hard. I am sorry for the loss you have felt.’

  Rather than shy away, this time she wanted to feel the burn, the flame that was lit when Kal looked at her, even if she felt guilty for welcoming it to avoid that ache, but instead what she found in his eyes... Her heartbeat thumped once heavily in sympathy.

  ‘And I am sorry for yours.’

  He frowned, his head already beginning to shake, but she stopped him with her hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry if that was intrusive. I don’t know who or...’ she trailed off ‘...but I can tell.’

  Kal nodded once. It was an acceptance of her offered comfort, but a definite end to the moment. Seizing the threads of the earlier conversation and definitely not ready for him to leave just yet, she pressed on. ‘My mother has done lots over the years, but currently she’s into candle magic.’

  She folded her lips between her teeth, waiting for the inevitable reaction.

  ‘Wait...candle what?’

  ‘Magic. It keeps her happy and there is harm to none, so...’

  ‘Alternative, huh?’ he said, wiping his hands on the napkin she’d found tucked beneath the boxes, and she would have replied had she not been distracted by the way he smoothed the cloth across his skin.

  ‘You’re the youngest?’

  She turned to him, curious as to how he knew that she had siblings.

  ‘You said “we’re all” and you don’t strike me as an only child,’ he explained.

  ‘I’m the middle. Skye is older, and Summer is younger.’

  ‘And do they all have...?’ He waved his hand towards a strand of her hair that had come loose from her headscarf.

  Laughing, she tucked it back safely behind the stretchy jersey. ‘No, just me. Skye’s hair is a dark brown and Summer’s is cornfield blonde.’ She could see his mind working, trying to do the maths, and took pity on him. ‘Technically they’re my half-sisters. But I’d never call them that.’

  ‘Different fathers?’

  She could tell that he was trying to keep his tone neutral and she appreciated it. Not everyone was that considerate. ‘It certainly drew a lot of unwanted attention and judgement when we were younger, and a lot of stares.’ Her sisters thought she hadn’t noticed, but she had. Long before her grandparents had made their feelings known, Star had been aware of the way neighbours and some of the school parents and, in turn, their children had treated them, judged them, excluded them.

  ‘Ahh.’

  She cocked her head to look at him, as if the different angle would reveal more than he’d done already. ‘You know how that feels?’

  ‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘Different reason though.’

  Star looked him up and down, noticing the sharp cut to his clothes, the thick, heavy gold watch at his wrist, the expensive sunglasses sticking out of his pocket and smiled kindly. ‘Rich parents?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Rich and powerful. I am impressed,’ she assumed. He barked out a laugh and she felt as if she’d won something precious. ‘Children can be unintentionally cruel,’ she said, thinking of the young charges she loved working with.

  She sighed heavily, feeling very far away from her teaching assistant’s job in the New Forest, and allowed herself a moment to bask in the sun. The warmth of it on her face, the feeling of contentment was tinged with a little something more. She hadn’t realised how much of a relief it was to talk to someone. Okay, so she might have been talking at him, but still. Without opening her eyes, she drew his image to her mind, surprised how easily it came after the difficulties of yesterday. She mentally reached out to trace the strong jaw line shadowed with a close-cropped beard, imagining the feeling of him releasing the tension that she had seen when talking about loss. Unable to help the way her thumb stretched out to press against the plush lower lip, fire burning her thumb and core. The skin on her cheeks began to tingle, as if she had been stroked, and she leaned her head into the invisible touch, opening her eyes to find Kal staring at her, sending a jolt of pure lightning to her heart.

  But, rather than turn away, embarrassed at being caught staring, he seemed to focus only more intently now that her eyes were open. A moment that she would hold to her as more precious than any romance book and she wondered for just a second if he might kiss her. Then he blinked and the haze of desire was banked.

  ‘Where have you reached in the exhibition?’

  She took a breath and grounded herself, taking a second to focus enough to remember where she had been. ‘The attempted occupation by the Ottomans.’

  ‘Ah. A Particularly violent and difficult period.’

  ‘I should think so too. His Majesty Sheikh Omar could hardly allow the kidnap of his daughter to go unpunished.’

  * * *

  No, he could not, Khalif echoed silently, wondering what Star would think if she knew that, rather than being kidnapped, the family rumour was that Omar’s daughter had run off of her own volition to be with a Turkish prince and unwittingly nearly started a war.

  ‘And tomorrow?’ He cursed the question that had fallen from his lips before he’d had time to think it through. He really shouldn’t care what she had planned for tomorrow.

  Star smiled excitedly and it rivalled the sun. ‘Tomorrow is the Fatimid period.’

  ‘History interests you?’ he asked, unable to curb his curiosity.

  ‘Yes, I like to see how everything comes together. How one generation impacts another,’ she said, the blue in her irises deepening.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Who said I was looking for something?’ she asked a little too quick
ly and his eyes narrowed at the shift in her tone. He waited her out and, as expected, she clarified. The English were very predictable. ‘Research.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘A family thing.’

  And then, before he could stop her, she’d leaned over, clasped his wrist, turned it in her hand and read the time on his watch. It was not sensual, no trace of practised flirtation, it was perfunctory and over in a matter of seconds, but those seconds had branded him like molten metal.

  ‘I have to get back. I need to find out what happened to His Majesty Sheikh Omar’s daughter before it closes for the day,’ and, before he could say goodbye, she’d slipped through the doorway, passed the seven large suited men, none of whom could take their eyes off her, and disappeared into the exhibition.

  * * *

  That night, Star returned to the hotel after discovering that Omar’s daughter had been forced to marry a Turkish prince and felt the sting of injustice of a marriage not born from love. She sighed, thinking of Catherine’s marriage to her horrible cousin, a man whose sole interest was property and diamonds.

  He has always coveted them. The estate and the jewels are almost an obsession for him. And though society deems him worthy of my hand in marriage, I do not deem him worthy of them. They are the only part of the estate entailed to the female line and I will keep it that way.

  She had read Summer’s translations of the coded messages over and over again since they had first found them buried within the pages of her journals. For Catherine, Omar’s daughter and even her own mother, marriage had been nothing more than a shackle. But...for her? Secretly, she’d always thought that she’d quite like to be married. To have a wedding and stand beside someone who told the world how much she was loved. To be claimed publicly, completely. And though she’d never admit it to her mother, Star couldn’t help but wonder if her life might have been different had her parents married before he’d died, whether that might have changed the minds and attitudes of her grandparents, whether they could have been a positive part of her life rather than...