ALEXANDRA SELLERS - The Solitary Sheikh

Last week the school year had ended, and with it, the teaching career Jana had once looked forward to with such excitement, but which had been an indescribable mixture of joys and sorrows, frustrations and achievement The sorrows and frustrations had won in the end.

Her mother was in town now to discuss Jana’s future. She had been horrified to discover that that future was already all but decided, and in what manner—Jana was preparing for a final interview for a job to go abroad and teach English to a foreign family.

“In any case, he won’t, because the Rolls is air-conditioned.”

Jana sighed. “Why is it such a big deal, Mother?”

“If you will insist on taking a job with some oriental despot he should know who you are.”

“He knows who I am. I’ve never been so thoroughly vetted in my life. I think he’s checked the family all the way back to Robert the Bruce,” Jana pointed out mildly, looking at her mother curiously. “Why do you say he’s a despot? I’ve been told it’s a wealthy family with mining interests.”

“Darling, all important families in the Middle East are connected to the ruling house in any country. It’s simply the way things are.”

Jana forbore to suggest that things were not so different right here in England. “No one has said a word about royal connections.”

Her mother shrugged. “Even so, it beats me why you imagine you’ll meet less restriction there, Jana. In half those countries the women are being forced to wear the veil again.”

“I’ve been assured that the family and the country are liberal on the issue of women’s rights. And after all, the job is teaching English to the seven- and nine-year-old daughters of the house, so they can’t be that backward. And anything will be less restricting than not being allowed to teach with a method that works,” Jana added, with a dark thread of bitterness in her voice.

Her mother frowned worriedly. “You are so impulsive,” she observed for the thousandth time in Jana’s life. “Darling, please think it over. Please don’t go.”

“I want to get away, Mother.” She repeated it doggedly, like a mantra, because she had nothing else to say.

The pain was still raw.

“You are not absolutely prohibited from using these teaching methods, Miss Stewart,” the inquiry board had announced, and she had known then that what was coming was the end of her career in teaching, “but you may not abandon the national curriculum. You must teach first and foremost by the established method but may use your own methods as a supplement if you wish.”

“It isn’t possible to teach both!” Jana had shouted. She had pointed out a hundred times that her method worked, that it actually taught children to read. In addition, because the children were achieving something, there was far less class disruption.

The national curriculum method for teaching reading bored and defeated them, and they became unmanageable. When she had taught it, she, like so many others in the system, had been reduced to acting as a cross between a babysitter and prison guard.

The council had sat impassive while she railed at them for their narrow-minded ignorance and cowardly sticking to ineffective methods, but when she resigned they had accepted it with obvious relief. She had finished out the school year, but as of a week ago, Jana was unemployed.

Of course, the media had been on her side. It was just the kind of story they loved, but Jana had very soon tired of being fodder for the entertainment industry that masqueraded as news broadcasting, and in any case her story had a brief lifespan. It would take more than newspaper articles and talk shows to change the national curriculum, though a generation of children had already emerged from the schools unable to read

Fighting was what was needed, but Jana had temporarily run out of the famous Stewart fighting energy. She felt like her distant ancestor, Bonnie Prince Charlie, after the Battle of Culloden: defeated. Her father urged her to enter politics and run for parliament—that, too, was a part of the family heritage—and one day she might do that. But for the moment, Jana just wanted to get away and lick her wounds.

The ad for a private English tutor to “an important family in the small but prosperous Barakat Emirates” had caught her eye two months ago. The position was for a minimum of one year. She knew it was the escape she needed.

“There are better ways to get away than a job in the Barakat Emirates,” her mother said.

Jana shrugged. Her mother’s suggestion of a sailing holiday in the Maldives or a villa in Greece, either of which friends could be counted on to supply at short notice, had tempted her...until she saw what her mother was really planning. Jana had no intention of taking such a holiday if Peter was also going to be a guest—and her mother would make certain that Peter was a guest. Peter was the man her whole family adored.

“Mother, we’ve been over it.”

“I really think, Jana, that a few weeks in—”

“Mother.”

“Yes, darling.”

“I am not going to marry Peter,” Jana said, slowly and unmistakably.

“Oh, darling, why do you keep saying that? He’s so right—”

Jana couldn’t help laughing. Her mother was completely transparent. Peter was right for her parents, and would be a great brother for Julian and Jessica, her younger sister and brother. She knew all that. Unfortunately, he was not right for Jana. They agreed about nothing in life. She sighed and shrugged. She was so tired of fighting. Please, God, let me get this job, she prayed silently. Don’t let me end up married to Peter.

Her laughter cut her mother off. She looked at Jana and lifted her hands resignedly. “At least take the Rolls,” she urged.

Jana gave in. She knew her mother had manipulated her, had made it seem like a small concession when she was holding out on a major issue, and her own weakness frightened her. Her resistance was low. If the whole family started pressing her to marry Peter...Jana clenched her jaw. If she was offered the job she would take it even if the advertiser was’ an oriental despot.

Two

An hour later Jana slipped gracefully out of the back seat of the navy Rolls and into the heat of the city streets, looking as fresh as a spring morning. She stood for a moment looking up at the facade of the Dorchester Hotel. Under the caress of the hot summer sun it had a rich, satisfied glow.

“Thank you, Michael,” she murmured to the chauffeur.

“Good luck, Miss,” he said. “I hope you get the job.”

“Thank you. I do, too,” she said, a little grimly.

She thought her chances were good. Her experience was right for the job. She had had three interviews over the past six weeks—all with intermediaries—and she knew the numbers had been whittled down to a shortlist of three or four. Now the father of the children she would teach was in town and she was meeting him for the first time. She had been told that their mother was dead.

She flashed a quick smile at the doorman as he held the door for her, and he seemed to take in her slim, vibrant figure, her glowing red hair, wide-spaced eyes and dramatic flair with one comprehensive, appreciative glance that managed to indicate that he wouldn’t mind holding the door all day for her.

“Good afternoon, Miss. Lovely day,” he offered.

Then she was being ushered to the enquiry desk, where a stern, handsome, dark-eyed Barakati took her in tow, led her into an elevator, and then, as the doors closed, said, “Forgive me, but may I have your handbag?”

Jana stiffened. “What?”

“I request to search your handbag, Miss Stewart.”

She stared at him down her nose. “Certainly not!” she said, in her best imitation of her mother.