Sophie Weston - The Sheikh's Bride

She led the way purposefully. Leo grinned and followed.

Installed in the back of the hired limousine, Leo tipped her head back and looked at her mother appreciatively. Deborah fluffed up the organza collar to her stunning navy-and-white designer dress. The discreet elegance of her earrings did not disguise the fact that they were platinum or that the navy stones which echoed her ensemble were rather fine sapphires.

‘You look very expensive,’ Leo said lazily.

She did not mean it as a criticism. But Deborah flushed. She swung round on the seat to inspect her weary daughter.

‘And you look like a tramp,’ she retorted. ‘Do you dress like that to make a point?’

Leo was unoffended. She had been taller than her exquisite mother when she was eleven. By the time she entered her teens she had resigned herself to towering over other girls. She had even started to stoop until an enlightened teacher had persuaded her to stand up straight, mitigating her height by simple, well-cut clothes. Deborah had never resigned herself to Leo’s chosen style.

Now Leo said tolerantly, ‘I dress like this to stay cool and look reasonably professional during a long working day, Mother. Besides,’ she said as Deborah opened her mouth to remonstrate, ‘I like my clothes.’

Deborah gave her shoulders a little annoyed shake.

‘Well, you won’t need to look professional tonight. So you can buy something pretty for once. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.’

Leo flung up her hands in a gesture of surrender.

The car delivered them to a small shop. The window was filled with a large urn holding six-foot grasses. Leo knew the famous international name. And the prices that went with it. Her heart sank.

‘It’s lucky I paid off my credit card bill just last week, isn’t it?’ she said.

Deborah ignored this poor spirited remark. ‘We’re going to buy you something special,’ she said firmly, urging her reluctant daughter out of the car.

‘Here comes the frill patrol,’ groaned Leo.

But she did her mother an injustice. Deborah clearly hankered after a cocktail suit in flowered brocade. But she gave in gracefully when Leo said, ‘It makes me look like a newly upholstered sofa.’ Instead they came away with georgette harem pants, the colour of bark, and a soft jacket in a golden apricot. Deborah gave her a long silk scarf in bronze and amber to go with it.

‘Thank you mother,’ said Leo, touched.

Deborah blinked rapidly. ‘I wish you were wearing it to go out to dinner with someone more exciting than me.’

For a shockingly irrational moment, Leo’s thoughts flew to her mystery rescuer. She felt her colour rise. Inwardly she cursed her revealing porcelain skin and the shadowy Amer with equal fury. To say nothing of her mother’s sharp eyes.

‘Ah,’ said Deborah. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘There’s no one,’ said Leo curtly.

She stamped out to the limousine. Deborah said a more graceful farewell to the sales staff before she followed.

‘Darling,’ she began as soon as the driver had closed the door on her, ‘I think we need to have a little talk.’

Leo stared in disbelief. ‘I’m twenty-four, Mother. I know about the birds and the bees.’

Deborah pursed her lips. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Not that anyone would think it from the way you go on.’

‘Mother—’ said Leo warningly.

‘It’s all right. I don’t want to know about your boy-friends. I want to talk about marriage.’

Leo blinked. ‘You’re getting married again?’

Deborah enjoyed the attentions of a number of escorts but she had never shown any sign of wanting to have her pretty Holland Park house invaded by a male in residence.

Now Deborah clicked her tongue in irritation. ‘Of course not. I mean your marriage.’

Leo was blank. ‘But I’m not getting married.’

‘Ah,’ said Deborah again. She started to play with an earring. ‘Then the rumours about you and Simon Hartley aren’t true?’

Leo stared at her in genuine bewilderment. ‘Simon Hartley? Dad’s new Chief Accountant? I hardly know him.’

Deborah twiddled the earring harder. ‘I thought he was the brother of a school friend of yours.’

Leo made a surprised face. ‘Claire Hartley, yes. But he’s quite a bit older than us.’

‘So you’ve never met him?’

Leo shrugged. ‘Dad brought him out here a couple of months ago. Some sort of familiarisation trip. All the Adventures in Time staff met him.’

‘And did you like him?’

Leo gave a snort of exasperation. ‘Come off it, Mother. The strain is showing. Believe me, there’s no point in trying to make matches for me. I’m not like you. I honestly don’t think I’m cut out for marriage.’

Slightly to her surprise, Deborah did not take issue with that. Instead she looked thoughtful. ‘Why not? Because you’ve got too much to do being Gordon Groom’s heir?’

Leo tensed. Here it comes, she thought. This is where she starts to attack Pops.

She said stiffly, ‘I chose to go into the company.’

Deborah did not take issue with that, either. She said abruptly, ‘Leo, have you ever been in love?’

Leo could not have been more taken aback if her mother had asked her if she had ever flown to the moon.

‘Excuse me?’

The moment she said it, she could have kicked herself. Deborah would take her astonishment as an admission of failure with the opposite sex. Just what she had always warned her daughter would happen if she did not lighten up, in fact.

‘I thought not.’

But Deborah did not sound triumphant. She sounded worried. And for what must have been the first time in her life she did not push the subject any further.

It made Leo feel oddly uneasy. She was used to maternal lectures. She could deal with them. A silent, preoccupied Deborah was something new in her experience. She did not like it.

Amer had given Hari a number of instructions which had caused his friend’s eyebrows to climb higher and higher. He took dutiful notes, however. But at the final instruction he put down his monogrammed pen and looked at Amer with burning reproach.

‘What am I going to tell your father?’

‘Don’t tell him anything,’ said Amer fluently. ‘You report back to my uncle the Minister of Health. My uncle will tell him that I made the speech I was sent here to make. Et voilà.’

‘But they will expect you to say something at the dinner.’

Amer gave him a wry smile. ‘You say it. You wrote it, after all. You’ll be more convincing than I will.’

Hari bit back an answering smile. ‘They’ll find out,’ he said gloomily. ‘What will they say?’

‘I don’t care what a bunch of dentists say,’ Amer told him with breezy arrogance.

‘I wasn’t thinking of the dentists,’ Hari said ironically, ‘I was thinking of your uncle the Health Minister, your uncle the Finance Minister, your uncle the Oil Minister…’

Amer’s laugh had a harsh ring. ‘I don’t care what they think, either.’

‘But your father—’

‘If my father isn’t very careful,’ Amer said edgily, ‘I shall go back to university and turn myself into the archaeologist I was always meant to be.’

Hari was alarmed. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have said that the women you know were programmed to think you are wonderful. You’ve taken it as a challenge, haven’t you?’

Amer chuckled. ‘Let us say you outlined a hypothesis which I would be interested to test.’

‘But why Miss Roberts?’

Amer hesitated for the briefest moment. Then he gave a small shrug. ‘Why not?’

‘You said she was like stale bread,’ Hari reminded him.

Amer’s well-marked brows twitched together in a frown.