‘Indisputably, my lady.’ His mouth almost cracked into a smile but he was too stressed at having her hands on his, and in the end she relented and moved away.
‘If you would come this way…’ he bowed ‘…I am to escort you to my lord Hassan.’
Ah, my lord Hassan, Leona thought, and felt her lighter mood drop again as Faysal indicated that she precede him down the steps she had taken a tumble on the night before. On the other side of the foyer was a staircase which Leona presumed led up to the deck above.
With Faysal tracking two steps behind her, she made her way up and into the sunlight flooding the upper deck, where she paused to take a look around. The sky was a pure, uninterrupted blue and the sea the colour of turquoise. The sun was already hot on her face and she had to shade her eyes against the way it was reflecting so brightly off the white paintwork of the boat.
‘You managed to make Faysal blush, I see,’ a deep voice drawled lazily.
Turning about, she found that Faysal had already melted away, as was his habit, and that Hassan was sitting at a table laid for breakfast beneath the shade of a huge white canvas awning, studying her through slightly mocking eyes. Her heart tried to leap in her breast but she refused to let it. ‘There is a real human being hiding behind all of that strict protocol, if you would only look and see him.’
‘The protocol is not my invention. It took generations of family tradition to make Faysal the man he is today.’
‘He worships you like a god.’
‘And you as his angel of mercy.’
‘At least he felt I was approachable enough that he could bring his concerns to me.’
‘After I had gently suggested it was what he should do.’
‘Oh,’ she said; she hadn’t realised that.
‘Come out of the sun before you burn.’
It was hot, and he was right, but Leona felt safer keeping her distance. She had things to say, and she began with the one subject guaranteed to alter his mellow mood into something else entirely. ‘I was hoping that Ethan would be here with you,’ she said. ‘Since he isn’t, I think I will go and look for him.’
Like a sign from Allah that today was not going to be a good day, at that moment the launch powered up and slipped its ties to the yacht.
Attention distracted, Leona glanced over the side, then went perfectly still.
Hassan knew what she was seeing even before he got up to go and join her. Sure enough, there was Ethan standing on the back of the launch. As the small boat began to pick up speed he glanced up, saw them and waved a farewell.
‘Wave back, my darling,’ he urged smoothly. ‘The man will appreciate the assurance that all is well.’
‘You rat,’ she whispered.
‘Of the desert,’ he dryly replied, then compounded his sins by bringing an arm to rest across her stiff shoulders and lifting his other to wave.
Leona waved also, he admired her for that because it showed that, despite how angry she was feeling, she was—as always—keeping true to her unfailing loyalty to him.
In the eyes of other people, anyway. He extended that statement as the two of them stood watching Ethan and his passage away from them decrease in size, until the launch was nothing more than an occasional glint amongst many on the ocean. By then Leona was staring beyond the glint, checking the horizon for a glimpse of land that was not there. She was also gripping the rail in front of them with fingers like talons and wishing they were around his throat, he was sure.
‘Try to think of it this way,’ he suggested. ‘I have saved us the trouble of yet another argument.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WE HAVE to put into port some time,’ Leona said coldly. She twisted out from beneath his resting arm then began walking stiffly towards the stairs, so very angry with him that she was quite prepared to lock herself in the stateroom until they did exactly that.
Behind the rigid set of her spine, she heard Hassan release a heavy sigh. ‘Come back here,’ he instructed. ‘I was joking. I know we need to talk.’
But this was no joke, and they both knew it. He was just a ruthless, self-motivated monster, and as far as she was concerned, she had nothing left to—Her thoughts stopped dead. So did her feet when she found her way blocked by a giant of a man with a neat beard and the hawklike features of a desert warrior.
‘Well, just look what we have here,’ she drawled at this newly arrived target for her anger. ‘If it isn’t my lord sheikh’s fellow conspirator in crime.’
Rafiq had opened his mouth to offer her a greeting, but her tone made him change his mind and instead he dipped into the kind of bow that would have even impressed Faysal, but only managed to sharpen Leona’s tongue.
‘Don’t you dare efface yourself to me when we both know you don’t respect me at all,’ she sliced at him.