haggard face. Just six short months ago, Adrian had believed he would make his fortune in a city reputed to be a building boomtown. Faye sat at the foot of the bed staring at the challenging reflection of the telephone in the dressing mirror facing her.
‘The number is easy to remember,’ Tariq had told her once. ‘We owned the first telephone in Jumar. You just dial one for the palace switchboard!’
Momentarily Faye shut her swimming eyes, pain and regret and bitterness tearing at her. However, like it or not, Prince Tariq ibn Zachir seemed to be the only option they had left. In most other countries, Adrian would have been declared bankrupt, not imprisoned for debt as if he were a criminal. She had no choice but to approach Tariq and plead her brother’s case. Tariq was all powerful here within his own country. Tariq could surely do anything he wanted to do…
So what if the prospect of crawling to Tariq made her cringe? How could she value her pride more than her brother’s welfare? Tense as a cat on hot bricks, Faye paced the room. Would Tariq even agree to see her? How did she beg such a massive favour from a male who despised both her and her stepfather? She was out of her depth here in Jumar where the very air seemed to smell of high-powered money and privilege, she thought bitterly. A year ago, she had been even more out of her depth with a male as exotic and sophisticated as Tariq ibn Zachir. And bone-deep foolish to imagine that anything lasting might come of such an inequal relationship. But, no matter what Tariq had chosen to believe, she had played no part in Percy’s sordid attempt to blackmail him!
Reminding herself of that essential truth, Faye reached for the phone. Dialling that single digit to be connected to the palace was easy. However, in the minutes that followed, she discovered that the palace switchboard was tended by personnel who spoke only Arabic. Breaking off the call in frustration, Faye reached for the purse in her bag. From the central compartment, she withdrew a slender gold ring etched with worn hieroglyphic symbols.
Her hand shook. For a split second, memory took her back to the instant when Tariq had slid that ring onto her finger in the Embassy of Jumar in London. She shivered, assailed by a tide of choking humiliation. How stupid she had been to believe that that was a real wedding ceremony! It had been a farce staged solely to combat Percy’s threat to plunge Tariq into a sleazy media scandal. But only when that cruel farce was over had Faye realised what a complete clown Tariq had made of her.
Making use of the hotel stationery, Faye dropped the ring into an envelope and dashed off a note requesting a meeting with Tariq. She went down to Reception and asked how to have an urgent letter delivered. The receptionist studied the name on the envelope with widened eyes and extended her interest to the additional words, ‘PERSONAL, PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL’ taking up half of the space. ‘This…it is for Prince Tariq?’
Faye reddened and nodded.
“One of our drivers will deliver it, Miss Lawson.’
Back in her room, Faye went for a shower and changed. Then she lay down on the bed. A loud knock, recognisable as Percy’s calling card, sounded on the door. She ignored it. He thumped again so loudly she was afraid that the hotel staff would come to investigate. She opened the door.
‘Right…’ Her stepfather pushed his way in, his heavy face aggressive and flushed by alcohol. ‘You get on that phone now and contact Tariq. Hopefully he’ll get a kick out of you grovelling at his feet. And if that’s not enough to please His Royal Highness, warn him that you can still go to the newspapers and give them a story about what it’s like getting married and divorced all in the space of the same day!’
Faye was horrified. ‘Do you really think that wild nasty threats are likely to persuade Tariq to help Adrian?’
‘Look, I may have miscalculated with Tariq last year but I know how that bloke ticks now. He’s a real tough nut to crack—all that SAS training—but he’s also an officer and a gentleman and he prides himself on the fact. So first you try licking boots and looking pathetic…’ Percy subjected her navy blouse, cotton trousers and her clipped-back long hair to a withering appraisal. ‘Look pathetic and beautiful!’
The light rap that sounded on her door at that point provided a merciful interruption. It was the hotel manager, who had greeted them on their arrival. He bowed as if she had suddenly become a most important guest.
‘A limousine has arrived to take you to the Haja place, Miss Lawson.’
Faye swallowed hard. She had not expected so speedy a response to her request for a meeting.
‘Don’t you worry…she’ll be down in two minutes.’ Percy turned back to his stepdaughter to say appreciatively, ‘Why didn’t you just tell me you’d already started the ball rolling?’
Keen to escape her stepfather’s loathsome company, Faye went straight down in the lift. She settled into the luxurious limousine, feeling like a fish out of water in her plain, inexpensive clothes. And she was, wasn’t she?
She had lived in a quiet country house all her life, rarely meeting anyone outside her late mother’s restricted social circle. Percy had married Sarah Lawson when Faye was five. Disabled by the same car accident in which her first husband had died, Faye’s mother had been confined to a wheelchair and desperately lonely. She had also been a well-to-do widow. After their marriage, Percy had continued to use a city apartment as his base and, pleading pressure of work, had spent only occasional weekends with his new family.
Faye had never gone to school like other children. Both she and her brother had initially been taught at home by their mother, but once Adrian had overcome leukaemia Percy had persuaded his wife that her son should complete his education with other boys. At eleven years old, hungry for friends her own age, Faye had finally worked up the courage to tell her stepfather that she too wanted to attend school.
‘And what’s your mother going to do with herself all day?’ Percy’s accusing fury had shaken her rigid. ‘How can you be so selfish? Your mother needs you for company…she’s got nothing else in her life!’
Faye had been devastated at eighteen when her gentle mother had died. But only then had she appreciated that some people believed she had led an unnaturally sheltered life for a teenager. Indeed, at the interview for the nursing course she was hoping to begin in the autumn, several critical comments had been made about her lack of experience of the real world. Had she felt like baring her soul, she might have told them that, with Percy Smythe in the starring role of stepfather, she had had ample experience of life’s nastier realities…
Having traversed the wide, busy streets of the city to a gracious tree-lined square, the limo pulled up in front of a vast old sandstone building with an imposing entrance. Spick and span soldiers stood on guard outside. Faye clambered out, flustered and unsure of herself.
Climbing the steps, she entered a vast and imposing hall crowded with people coming and going. Frowning, she hesitated. A young man in a suit approached her and with a low bow said, ‘Miss Lawson? I will take you to Prince Tariq.’
‘Thank you. Is this the royal palace?’
‘No, indeed, Miss Lawson. Although the Haja fortress still belongs to the royal family, His Royal Highness allows it to be used as a public building,’ her companion informed her. ‘The Haja houses the law courts and the audience rooms, also conference and banqueting facilities for visiting dignitaries and businessmen. While retaining offices here, Prince Tariq lives in the Muraaba palace.’
So this was not Tariq’s home and he had chosen a more impersonal setting for their meeting. Her eyes skimmed over the fluted stone pillars that punctuated the echoing hall and the wonderful mosaic tiled floor which gleamed beneath the passage of so many feet. The Haja was a hive of activity. An elderly tribesman was sitting on a stone bench with, of all things, a goat on a string. She saw women veiled in black from head to toe, other women in elegant western clothing, their lovely faces serene, clusters of older men wearing the traditional male headdress, the kaffiyeh, sharply suited younger ones bare-headed and carrying files and attaché cases.
‘Miss Lawson…?’
Forced to quicken her steps, she followed