Michelle Reid - Hot-Blooded Husbands

When it was decided that they would move up to the sun deck, with its adjoining salon, to take refreshment and talk in comfort, Leona quickly shifted herself into hostess mode and led the way upstairs with her small bundle in her arms and her husband walking at her shoulder.

He didn’t speak, and she could sense the same mood about him he had donned when he’d come face to face with Raschid and his son. It hurt. Though she strove not to show it. But his manner made such a mockery out of everything else he had said and done.

They arrived on the upper deck as the yacht slipped smoothly from its moorings and began making its way towards the mouth of the Suez Canal. Medina Al-Mahmud suddenly appeared in front of Leona and politely begged to hold the baby. She was a small, slight woman with nervous eyes and a defensive manner, but as Leona placed the little girl in her arms Medina sent her a sympathetic look which almost broke her composure in two.

She did not want people’s pity. Oh, how she had come to hate it during her last year in Rahman when the rumours about her had begun flying. With a desperate need of something else to do other than stand here feeling utterly useless, she walked into the salon to pick up the internal phone and order refreshments.

It was really very bad timing for Hassan to follow her. ‘I must offer you my deepest apologies,’ he announced so stiffly it was almost an insult. ‘When I arranged this surprise for you I did not expect the Al-Kadahs to bring their children with them.’

She was appalled to realise that even Hassan believed her an object of such pity. ‘Oh, stop being so ultra-sensitive,’ she snapped. ‘Do you really believe that I could resent them their beautiful children because I cannot have them for myself?’

‘Don’t say that!’ he snapped back. ‘It is not true, though you drive me insane by insisting it is so!’

‘And you stop burying your head in the sand, Hassan,’ she returned. ‘Because we both know that you know it is you who lies to yourself!’

With that she stalked off, leaving him to simmer in his own frustration while she went to check that the accommodation could stretch to two more guests than they had expected. Faysal already had the matter in hand, she discovered, finding several people hurriedly making ready a pair of adjoining suites, while others unpacked enough equipment, brought by the Al-Kadahs, to keep an army of young children content.

On her way back upstairs she met Rafiq and Samir. Rafiq studied her narrowly, his shrewd gaze not missing the continuing paleness in her face. He was probably questioning whether one sniff at suspect milk could upset her stomach for so long when in actual fact it had never been the milk, she had come to realise, but sheer anxiety and stress.

Samir, on the other hand, noticed nothing but a target for his wit. By the time the three of them had joined the others, Samir had her laughing over a heavily embroidered description of himself being put through the agonies of hell in the gym by a man so fit it was a sin.

After that she played the circulating hostess to the hilt and even endured a whole ten minutes sitting with Zafina listening to her extol the virtues of her daughter, Nadira. Then Evie rescued her by quietly asking if she would show her to their room, because the baby needed changing.

With Hashim deciding to come with them, they went down to the now beautifully prepared twin cabins and a dark-eyed little nurse Evie had brought with them appeared, to take the children into the other room. The moment the two women were alone Evie swung round on Leona and said, ‘Right, let’s hear it. Why did Hassan virtually beg and bribe us to come along on this trip?’

At which point; Leona simply broke down and wept out the whole sorry story. By the time she had hiccuped to a finish they were curled up on the bed and Evie was gently stroking her hair.

‘I think you are here to make me feel better.’ She finally answered Evie’s original question. ‘Because anyone with eyes can see that the Al-Mahmuds and the Al-Yasins wish me on another planet entirely. Hassan doesn’t know that I’ve always known that Nadira Al-Yasin is the people’s preferred wife for him.’

‘I’ve been there. I know the feeling,’ Evie murmured understandingly. ‘I suppose she’s beautiful, biddable and loves children.’

Leona nodded on a muffled sob. ‘I’ve met her once or twice. She’s quite sweet,’ she reluctantly confessed.

‘Just right for Hassan, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’

‘And, of course, you are not.’

Leona shook her head.

‘So why are you here, then?’ Evie challenged.

‘You tell me,’ she suggested, finding strength in anger and pulling herself into a sitting position on the bed. ‘Because I don’t know! Hassan says I am here for this reason, then he changes it to another. He is stubborn and devious and an absolute expert at plucking at my heart strings! His father is ill and I adore that old man so he uses him to keep me dancing to his secret tune!’

‘Raschid’s father died in his arms while I held Raschid in my arms,’ Evie told her sadly. ‘Wretched though it was, I would not have been anywhere else. He needed me. Hassan needs you too.’

‘Oh, don’t defend him,’ Leona protested, ‘It makes me feel mean, yet I know I would have gone to his father like a shot with just that request. I didn’t need all of this other stuff to make me do it.’

‘But maybe Hassan needed this other stuff to let him make you do it.’

‘I’m going to sit you at the dinner table between Mrs Yasin and Mrs Mahmud tonight if you don’t stop trying to be reasonable,’ Leona said warningly.

‘Okay, you’ve made your point,’ Evie conceded. ‘You need a loyal champion, not a wise one.’ Then, with a complete change of manner, ‘So get yourself into the bathroom and tidy yourself up before we go and fight the old dragons together.’

Leona began to smile. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she enthused, and, stretching out a long leg, she rose from the bed a different person than the one who’d slumped down on it minutes ago. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Evie,’ she murmured huskily.

It was a remark she could have repeated a hundred times over during the following days when everyone did try to appear content to simply enjoy the cruise with no underlying disputes to spoil it.

But in truth many undercurrents were at work. In the complicated way of Arab politics, there was no natural right to succession in Rahman. First among equals was the Arab way of describing a collective of tribe leaders amongst which one is considered the most authoritative. The next leader did not necessarily have to be the son of the one preceding him, but choice became an open issue on which all heads of the family must agree.

In truth everyone knew that Hassan was the only sensible man for the job simply because he had been handling the modern thrusts of power so successfully for the last five years as his father’s health had begun to fail. No one wanted to tip the balance. As it stood, the other families had lived well and prospered under Al-Qadim rule. Rahman was a respected country in Arabia. Landlocked though it was, the oil beneath its desert was rich and in plenty, and within its borders were some of the most important oases that other, more favourably placed countries, did not enjoy.

But just as the sands shifted, so did opinions. Al-Mahmud and Al-Yasin might have lived well and prospered under thirty years of Al-Qadim rule, but they had disapproved of Hassan’s choice of wife from the beginning. Though they could not fault the dedication Hassan’s wife had applied to her role, nor ignore the respect she had earned from the Rahman people, she was frail of body. She had produced no sons in five years of marriage, and then had made Hassan appear weak to his peers when she’d walked away from him of her own volition. Divorce should have followed swiftly. Hassan had refused to discuss it as an option. Therefore, a second wife should have been chosen. Hassan’s refusal to pander to what he called the ways of the old guard had incensed many. Not least Sheikh Abdul Al-Yasin who had not stopped smarting from the insult he’d received when Hassan had not chosen his daughter, Nadira, who had been primed from birth to take the role.