Lucy Gordon: The Sheikh’s Reward

The figure lowered her hands from her face and held them clasped. Her head remained lowered, but her breast rose and fell as if from some violent emotion.

‘Why do I tell you this?’ Ali mused. ‘Perhaps it’s because you are a stranger and I cannot see your face that I can open my heart to you. I loved her, and I failed her-yes, truly, I did…’ For the woman had shaken her head. ‘When she was with me, there were many things I did not understand. Now it is too late.

‘And so she left me, and I shall-’ a shudder went through him ‘-shall never see her again. But she will live in my heart until my last breath. She is with me still, in every breeze that whispers. In the night her voice sings to me, in the morning her kiss awakens me. Her shadow will always be beside me.’

His voice had the quietness of heartbreak. The listening figure was very still, but in the flickering light from the lamp Ali saw a tear glistening on her cheek.

‘Why do you weep?’ he asked, taking a step towards her. ‘Not for her. She is free of a man she couldn’t love. Not for me, for I shall always have the joy of loving her.’

‘Always?’ the figure asked softly.

‘Always, until I lie in my grave and she lies in hers, and the wind blows the sand to infinity, and there is no trace of our lives. Perhaps somewhere there is a garden where we shall meet again, without pain or misunderstanding. So you see, you must leave me, for I have nothing to offer.’

At last she raised her head.

‘But I have not come to take,’ she whispered. ‘Only to give.’

Her veil fell. Ali stared in thunderstruck silence, then a glad cry broke from him.

‘You!’ he said. ‘You!’

The next moment Fran was in his arms, crushed by a kiss that felt like the first he had ever given her.

‘You!’ he said again. ‘You all the time. You came back to me. But how-?’

This time Fran silenced him with lips that never spoke a word, yet told him all he wanted to know.

‘How could I leave you?’ she said at last. ‘I thought I wanted to, but then you released me to marry Howard and I knew you loved me.’

‘I have always loved you,’ he said humbly. ‘But I never learned how to ask, only to take. If not for you, I might have gone through life without knowing that the greatest prizes can only be won, not seized. But for your wisdom, my sweet life, we might have married and yet lost each other on our wedding day.

‘Now we shall never lose each other, and our wedding day will be a time of joy and triumph. At least-’ he checked himself ‘-I beg you to marry me…’

She smiled. ‘Your mother is already arranging our wedding.’

‘My mother-?’

‘I telephoned her when you left me that day in England. She told me to fly out here, and arranged everything.’

‘Then-you love me?’ He said the words softly, as though he hardly dared to believe them. ‘After everything I’ve done-how can you love me?’

‘It’s only now that I know how much I love you. Now that I can be myself, I can give myself. A prisoner has nothing to give. And I want to give only to you. But you must tell me something. You spoke of a woman you loved, but you didn’t say her name. Tell me who you love.’

‘Frances,’ he said. ‘It is Frances that I love. The others-’ he gave a rueful smile ‘-perhaps they’ll return sometimes, for you are a woman of variety, and will always have a new self to bemuse me. But it is Frances that I love, and always will.

‘Be your true self. Come to me in freedom, and leave also in freedom, for I know-’ his face darkened, as though it was hard for him to say this ‘-you will wish to return sometimes to your own country. As long as you always come back to me.’

‘Always,’ she said. ‘Always. My darling, let us too build an Enchanted Garden.’

Looking into her eyes, he divined her true meaning.

‘One that we shall carry with us all our lives,’ he said, ‘until the time comes for us to wander in the Enchanted Garden for ever.’

Lucy Gordoncut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness, and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.

You can visit her website at www. lucy-gordon. com and look out for The Italian’s Passionate Revenge which will be available in May!