‘I can imagine it all too well, yes—but I don’t share your opinion. I think any young boy would enjoy the experience.’
She glared at him. ‘Well, I think it would make him lose all track of what is normal.’
Should he tell her that Cameron’s life was never going to be normal again? Kadir felt almost sorry for her as he made himself appear to consider her words. But he could read the fierce determination which blazed from her blue eyes and so he made himself go through the motion of shrugging. ‘Very well. If those are your wishes, then I suppose I will be forced to comply.’
‘They are,’ she said, looking at him with suspicion—as if she couldn’t quite believe he was agreeing so easily. ‘We can start out slowly,’ she added placatingly. ‘Little by little, bit by bit. We’ll get some dates in the diary. How does that sound?’
‘Wonderful,’ he said sardonically, reaching towards a bell to summon a servant. ‘I shall leave you now to get ready for dinner. We will eat early so that Cameron can join us.’
‘Dinner?’ she echoed blankly.
‘Of course.’ Kadir felt a rush of pure pleasure as he registered the discomfiture on her face. ‘You agreed to stay for a couple of days, didn’t you? Surely you haven’t forgotten?’
He could see her long neck quiver as she swallowed, before appearing to regain some of her customary fire. ‘I’m not going to reconsider letting Cameron go to Xulhabi with you,’ she warned. ‘If that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Fortunately my thoughts are something you will never be privy to,’ he answered smoothly. ‘Though I cannot deny how disappointed I am that you have stubbornly refused to see the matter from my point of view.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘DO WE HAVE to go, Mummy?’
Caitlin gritted a smile which hopefully conveyed a sense of calm she was far from feeling. ‘Of course we do, darling. We’d only ever planned to stay in London for a couple of days, remember? And someone needs to get back to Scotland to feed your hamster!’
With fingers which were trying very hard not to tremble, Caitlin did up the final button of Cameron’s brand-new coat, having to battle feelings of pride and resentment as the soft cashmere brushed against her skin. It suited him very well, as did all the other clothes Kadir had insisted on buying from one of the city’s best-known stores—a bizarre shopping trip, by any stretch of the imagination, mainly because they had shut the shop especially for him. And although natural maternal pride made Caitlin acknowledge how cute her son looked in his new outfits, she’d been aware of feeling as if she had somehow failed him by bringing him up in such frugal circumstances. How she had blushed when one of the many fawning shop assistants had gingerly picked up Cameron’s old anorak and questioned whether or not madam would be keeping it. Madam had declined, of course, though she’d been unable to rid herself of a stupid sense of disloyalty as she did so.
If only she could dislodge the uncomfortable feelings which were swirling around inside her, because this weird trip to London was making her realise that, physically at least, she was still in thrall to the father of her child. One touch from the arrogant Sheikh and she’d been all melting compliance. How weak was that? But you don’t have to see him again for a while, she told herself fiercely—and there was nothing to stop her building up some kind of immunity to him.
Giving Cameron an encouraging smile, she ruffled his hair. ‘The plane will be leaving soon and so we’d better go and find your...daddy to say goodbye.’
‘I don’t want to say goodbye!’ Cameron shouted, in a tone she’d never heard him use before.
‘It will only be for a little while,’ came a velvety voice from the doorway and Caitlin looked up in alarm to see Kadir standing there, his quiet tone of reason worlds away from the look of fury he was flashing at her. How long had he been standing there? she wondered. Long enough to have heard Cameron cooing that this house was nice and warm? The implication being that the fire which blazed in their little sitting room in Cronarty never quite managed to eliminate all the icy drafts which whistled through the house in the dead of winter.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Cameron ran across the salon and hurled himself at the Sheikh, flinging his little arms around the legs of the golden-robed figure who laughed indulgently at his son.
And once again, Caitlin felt like the outsider. The usurper. The spoilsport who wouldn’t allow what father and son both clearly wanted—for Cameron to accompany the Sheikh to Xulhabi. She had been forced to listen while Kadir had waxed lyrical about his land. His poetic words had created vivid images of the country’s capital city of Azraq, where apparently a pair of red-footed falcons—the rarest of all the falcons—lived amid the soaring golden towers of the palace. He had regaled Cameron with tales of horse-riding and archery and how, when he was just seven years old, he had learned to sword-fight.
‘Can I learn to sword-fight, Daddy?’ Cameron had asked plaintively and Caitlin’s natural fears had made her wonder aloud about danger, before Kadir had given her a withering look, which had scorched across the room over his son’s dark head.
‘You think I would put him in danger?’ he had demanded. ‘Don’t you realise that in some countries boys learn to sword-fight as young as five?’
‘Not in Scotland, they don’t!’
‘Then all I can say is—it’s a pity for Scotland!’
And that was how it had gone on. Their two-day stay in the Sheikh’s luxury home had been difficult, to say the least—well, for her anyway. Not for Cameron, that was for sure. He had been happy enough to participate in the dizzying array of treats which had been planned for him and had quickly adapted to the bizarre concept of discovering that his previously unknown father was a powerful king of the desert.
Maybe children weren’t as aware of status as adults were, she thought. Cameron hadn’t commented on the fact that Kadir’s house was so big you could have fitted ten of their tiny cottages into its extensive space. Or that countless servants could constantly be seen gliding past, or silently lurking in corners—always ready to do the Sheikh’s bidding. And he certainly hadn’t raised any objections when they were whisked around London in yet another fancy car, with a professional guide who had been hired for their stay. Though in truth she thought that Kadir could have qualified for guide status himself, he seemed to know so much about the city.
‘Xulhabi does a lot of trade with the world’s major cities—so naturally I make it my business to know as much about them as possible,’ he had replied, in answer to Morag’s question. But he had followed this up with a smile which had made the middle-aged nanny melt—as usual. A smile which was also doled out on regular occasions to Cameron.
But never to her.
For her he reserved his best icy expression—a look as chilly as the wild winds which howled around the shores of Cronarty. Was he still angry that she had refused to allow Cameron to go back to Xulhabi with him, when surely he must realise that her reasons were perfectly valid? Or were they?
Weren’t they based on fear? A nebulous fear she couldn’t quite grasp and certainly couldn’t articulate?
It had been a shock to find out about his late wife’s drug addiction and her subsequent coma, but in a way it had added to the confusion of her feelings. The reasons for his infidelity no longer seemed so black and white, but that didn’t change the fact that he had kept his identity and marital status secret from her. She just needed some time alone to make sense of all she had learned and then to come to some acceptable decision about their future.