‘It’s nothing.’ She tried to dismiss it.
But Hassan was already turning her round and his black eyes were hard as they began flashing over every other exposed piece of flesh he could see. ‘Me, or the fall?’ he demanded harshly.
‘The fall, of course.’ She frowned, because she couldn’t remember a single time in all the years they had been together that Hassan had ever marked her, either in passion or anger, yet he had gone so pale she might have accused him of beating her.
‘Any more?’ he asked tensely.
‘Just my right hip, a little,’ she said, holding her tongue about the sore spot at the side of her head, because she could see he wasn’t up to dealing with that information. ‘—Hassan, will you stop it?’ she said gasping when he dropped down in front of her and began to unfasten her white trousers. ‘It isn’t that bad!’
He wasn’t listening. The trousers dropped, his fingers were already gently lifting the plain white cotton of her panty line out of the way so he could inspect for himself. ‘I am at your feet,’ he said in pained apology.
‘I can see that,’ she replied with a tremor in her voice that had more to do with shock than the humour she’d tried to inject into it. His response was so unnecessary and so very enthralling. ‘Just get up now and let me dress,’ she pleaded. ‘Someone might come, for goodness’ sake!’
‘Not if they value their necks,’ he replied, but at least he began to slide her trousers back over her slender hip-bones.
It had to be the worst bit of timing that Faysal should choose that moment to make one of his silent appearances. Leona was covered—just—but it did not take much imagination for her to know what Faysal must believe he was interrupting. The colour that flooded her cheeks must have aided that impression. Hassan went one further and rose up like a cobra.
‘This intrusion had better be worth losing your head for!’ he hissed.
For a few awful seconds Leona thought the poor man was going to prostrate himself in an agony of anguish. He made do with a bow to beat all bows. ‘My sincerest apologies,’ he begged. ‘Your most honourable father, Sheikh Khalifa, desires immediate words with you, sir.’
Anyone else and Hassan would have carried out his threat, Leona was sure. Instead his mouth snapped shut, his hands took hold of her and dumped her rudely into a chair.
‘Faysal, my wife requires tea.’ He shot Leona’s own diversion at the other man. Glad of the excuse to go, Faysal almost ran. To Leona he said, ‘Eat,’ but he wasn’t making eye contact, and the two streaks of colour he was wearing on his cheekbones almost made her grin because it was so rare that anyone saw Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim disconcerted.
‘You dare,’ he growled, swooping down and kissing her twitching mouth, then he left quickly with the promise to return in moments.
But moments stretched into minutes. She ate one of the freshly baked rolls a white liveried steward had brought with a pot of tea, then drank the tea—and still Hassan did not return.
Eventually Rafiq appeared with another formal bow and Hassan’s apologies. He was engaged in matters of state.
Matters of state she understood having lived before with Hassan disappearing for hours upon end to deal with them.
‘Would you mind if I joined you?’ Rafiq then requested.
‘Orders of state?’ she quizzed him dryly.
His half-smile gave her an answer. Her half-smile accompanied her indication to an empty chair. She watched him sit, watched him hunt around for something neutral to say that was not likely to cause another argument. There was no such thing, Leona knew that, so she decided to help him out.
‘Tell me about your Spanish mistress,’ she invited.
It was the perfect strike back for sins committed against her. Rafiq released a sigh and dragged the gutrah from his head, then tossed it aside. This was a familiar gesture for a man of the Al-Qadim household to use. It could convey many things: weariness, anger, contempt or, as in this case, a relayed throwing in of the towel. ‘He lacks conscience,’ he complained.
‘Yet you continue to love him unreservedly, Rafiq, son of Khalifa Al-Qadim,’ she quietly replied.
An eyebrow arched. Sometimes, in a certain light, he looked so like Hassan that they could have been twins. But they were not. ‘Bastard son,’ Rafiq corrected in that proud way of his. ‘And you continue to love him yourself, so we had best not throw those particular stones,’ he advised.
Rafiq had been born out of wedlock to Sheikh Khalifa’s beautiful French mistress, who’d died giving birth to him. The fact that Hassan had only been six months old himself at the time of Rafiq’s birth should have made the two half-brothers bitter enemies as they grew up together, one certain of his high place in life, the other just as certain of what would never be his. Yet in truth the two men could not have been closer if they’d shared the same mother. As grown men they had formed a united force behind which their ailing father rested secure in the knowledge that no one would challenge his power while his sons were there to stop them. When Leona came along, she too had been placed within this ring of protection.
Strange, she mused, how she had always been surrounded by strong men for most of her life: her father, Ethan, Rafiq and Hassan; even Sheikh Khalifa, ill though he now was, had always been one of her faithful champions.
‘Convince him to let me go,’ she requested quietly.
Ebony eyes darkened. ‘He had missed you.’
So did green. ‘Convince him,’ she persisted.
‘He was lonely without you.’