HE TURNED the engine off and climbed out, ducking beneath the slowing rotor blades to come around and open the door on her side.
‘Come,’ he said once more, the word peremptory but not an order. He took her hand to help her alight then led her towards the long shallow steps that rose towards the entrance of the huge, many-turreted building.
‘In the old days, when this was first built, it was a fort as well as a home, so instead of many buildings, as we have in the city compound, all the functions are in one main palace, broken up into many…I suppose you would say apartments—for different families and different uses.’
Mel looked around. The red stone, much of it ornately carved, was old enough to be crumbling in places, but she could see the design of an ancient fort in it, for the windows were narrow slits, many of them inset with carved stonework. Huge wooden doors were folded back and they walked beneath an arch and into a courtyard, not landscaped, as the city courtyard was, but cobbled.
Around the courtyard was a cloister, and Mel glimpsed, here and there, robed figures flitting through the shadows.
‘It was here the men prepared their mounts and armed themselves for raids,’ Arun said. ‘It was built for practicality, not beauty, but walk carefully—the cobbles are old and very rough in parts.’
He took her arm, drawing her across and to the left where they passed into the shadow of the cloister and shed their sandals before entering the building. Once inside she had to gasp for instead of the red stone all was cool white marble—the floor, the pillars, the walls, all the same white-grey, streaked here and there with black, and inlaid in the arches and above the windows with what looked like precious gems.
‘You cannot show your wealth to the enemy,’ Arun explained, leading from room to room, pointing out the tapestries and telling her the history of his family that was depicted in them, showing her the great hall where he and Kam would still hold audiences for their people, listening to grievances, trying to right wrongs.
Then up a winding staircase, into one of the turrets.
‘We played here as children, Kam and I, although we were forbidden to do so,’ he said, and she could imagine the twins racing each other up the stairs.
‘Or perhaps because you were forbidden,’ Mel said, knowing the lure of the forbidden to a child. ‘But is the whole place deserted now?’ she asked, thinking of the waste that all the rooms should be empty.
‘Far from it,’ he said, leading her out onto a small balcony that ran around the top of the turret. ‘Look.’
He pointed down and she saw that he’d landed on the shortest side of the huge building and led her into only one part of it. Below them was another courtyard, thick with palms and fruit trees, where men raked paths, and women walked, and children played.
‘When my father was alive, he wanted all the family to live here permanently and used whatever pressure he could, financial and emotional, to keep them here. I imagine it was part rebellion against his strictures that when he died most of them immediately moved to the city. But a couple of my sisters, some aunts and a few unrelated dependants still live out here all year round. Some prefer the old to the new.’
‘It’s very beautiful,’ Mel said, seeing the stunted date palms from the top and yellow lemons bright against the glossy leaves of their trees.
‘This part I have been showing you was my father’s domain,’ Arun continued. ‘Kam hates it still, but it has always had a special place in my heart, in spite of the unhappiness the old man caused us. Knowing this, Kam has insisted it be mine and after me it will be my child’s, because this is his or her history and heritage. I thought, in seeing it, you might understand why marriage is important to me.’
Mel could, but the word ‘marriage’ reminded Mel of Miriam’s words in the shopping centre.
‘You came here yesterday?’ Mel began, unsure what to say next.
Arun looked puzzled for a moment, then frowned.
‘Miriam told you? Yes, I did.’
He hesitated and Mel felt the chill of Hussa’s ghost floating between them.
Then Arun took her hand and held it gently, as if it was something very precious.
‘My first wife, Hussa, is buried here. I came to see her, Mel, to tell her all about you and about the happiness you’ve brought me, and as I sat there, I realised she would want me to be happy. It was an ending, Mel, so I could move on. So I could marry you—or so I thought.’
He was studying her face and although she could feel happiness singing in her blood, uncertainty held her mute.
Fortunately, Arun still retained the power of words. In a voice husky with an emotion she dared not guess at he said, ‘But you should know, Melissa, that I won’t force you to marry me any more…’
He paused and looked out over the buildings and beyond them to the desert, baking under the afternoon sun.
Then he turned and took her hands and looked at her.
‘Any more,’ he continued, ‘than I can force you to love me.’
Mel frowned at him, the words not computing into anything intelligible in her head.
‘Force me to love you?’ she repeated. ‘Why would you say that?’
A self-deprecating little smile pressed a line into his left cheek.
‘Because love has been off limits? Because of your insistence that our marriage is a practical arrangement? Because it’s so damn difficult for me to believe what I feel, let alone make a fool of myself by telling you?’
He turned away as if looking at her caused him pain, but Mel was catching up.
‘Arun?’
He swung back to look at her, strain around his mouth now and uncertainty in his eyes.
‘Make a fool of yourself,’ she begged, smiling at him as she said it. ‘Tell me.’
He sighed, then shook his head, the in-control sheikh suddenly lost.
‘I love you,’ he managed, then added, ‘There, it’s said!’
And sighed again.
‘That’s all?’ Mel teased, so happy she wanted to leap into the air and shout her joy to the world but holding it all under control because she wasn’t finished with this man yet.
‘Isn’t it enough?’ he grumbled, as if sure he’d made a total idiot of himself.
‘Of course it’s not,’ Mel told him. ‘Now you have to kiss me and tell me why you love me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear.’
‘Sweet nothings?’ he repeated, suspicion dawning in his eyes. ‘You’re happy about this? You’re not annoyed?’
Mel smiled at him and put her arms around him, drawing close to his body.
‘Why would I be annoyed when you’ve just made me the happiest woman in the world?’ she murmured. ‘When you’ve just told me the love I have for you is returned. When—’
‘Love is returned? You love me, too?’
He pushed away so he could look into her face.
‘If you love me, why did you say you wouldn’t marry me?’ he demanded, and Mel drew him close again, embarrassed by the intensity of her feelings and not wanting him looking at her as she confessed.
‘I thought you didn’t love me—couldn’t see why you would—especially when you’d so loved Hussa. Then I thought loving you without you loving me back would be easier if we weren’t married than if we were, so…’
Arun put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away, his face stern now.
‘Let us back up a bit here,’ he said, his voice stern as well. ‘I know we never talked of love, but surely you must have had some inkling of how I felt? And as for Hussa, yes, Melissa, I did love her, but she is gone and you have come to fill all the empty places in my heart. You must understand that or you will make yourself miserable. It is you I love—my brave, strong, independent, argumentative and beautiful Melissa. You I love now and will love for ever.’
And finally he kissed her, so sweetly, so tenderly Mel wondered if her heart might burst apart with the love it held, although she knew full well hearts were very tough structures and hers would probably handle the strain.