They took the coast road. The day was deliciously warm, the merest breath of fresh air from the air-conditioning fanning her hair as they sped towards the city. The leather seats reclined to contour the body, and the radio emitted soothing music, but Felicia could not relax. She was as tense as a coiled spring, unwittingly betraying her anxiety in her tightly clenched fists.
‘Relax,’ Raschid surprised her by saying. ‘Or is it merely the fact that you are a passenger rather than the driver which makes you so tense? How you European women rob yourselves of your very femininity by insisting on doing everything for yourselves!’
‘Perhaps because our experience of your sex has taught us how unwise it is for us to rely on them for anything,’ Felicia retorted unwisely, thinking of Uncle George, and how selfishly he had refused to allow either her aunt or herself the slightest little pleasure, begrudging every small thing he had done for them.
‘Is that why you want to marry Faisal?’ Raschid asked astutely. ‘Because you see in him a shoulder on which to lean? Strange—I had not thought of you as a clinging vine; I see I shall have to revise my strategy. Clinging vines are notoriously difficult to remove, but Faisal is weak, Miss Gordon; whoever marries him will need to be mother, lover, and even jailer at times. Are you sure you are able to fulfil all those roles?’
‘It’s easy to list his failings when he’s not here to defend himself,’ Felicia retorted hotly, trying not to acknowledge the truth of what Raschid had said. Hadn’t she sometimes noticed an inclination to adopt the role of helpless little boy by Faisal, when all was not going his way?
‘You are loyal at least,’ Raschid responded in clipped accents, as though the admission displeased him, then changed the subject to draw her attention to the British Embassy. Because he hoped that she would soon be entering that building, asking to be sent home, all her dreams of marriage to Faisal turned to so much dust.
Not for the first time Felicia wondered at her own foolish impetuosity in allowing Faisal to persuade her to come to Kuwait. He had paid for her air ticket; her own slender savings had gone on her new wardrobe, but Faisal had glibly assured her that it would not be long before he was able to join her in Kuwait, taking it for granted that she would remain with his family until their marriage. If that was not to take place until he was twenty-five she would have to return to England. Which meant that she would have to write and ask Faisal for the money for her ticket, for she was convinced that Raschid would never allow him to return to Kuwait while she was there.
As soon as Zahra’s birthday was over she would write to him, she promised herself, comforted by this gesture of independence.
They drove past the Sief Palace, where guards stood stiffly to attention. A flag flew from the tall, square clock tower.
‘His Highness the Emir is holding his majlis,’ Raschid told her.
‘And I’m sure I’m safe in assuming the Emir’s government is overwhelmingly male,’ Felicia could not resist retorting.
‘You seem to have an outsize chip on your shoulder regarding my sex, Miss Gordon—or is it that having gained your independence, you find you no longer want it?’
Felicia turned away from the malice-spiked glance. She had never been an advocate of Women’s Lib, being quite happy to play the role for which nature had intended her; a role which she did not in any way consider to be subservient, however, so she now found herself saying quite heatedly, ‘You do not deny that in your country women often still have to fight for equal status?’
‘And that arouses your crusading instinct? Would it surprise you to know that women do have rights here; that they can vote or run for office?’
‘But they didn’t have those rights until very recently,’ Felicia responded briefly, looking away, suddenly conscious of the insolent appraisal of narrowed grey eyes.
Raschid swung the car over, throwing her heavily against him, his arm brushing against her breasts and leaving her tingling with an awareness she had never experienced in Faisal’s arms. What was this tension that seemed to vibrate in the air whenever she was near him? Whatever it was she did not like it.
‘We are now entering the main souk and banking area, Miss Gordon,’ Raschid informed her. ‘I suggest that I park the car so that we can do the rest of our tour at a more leisurely pace.’
They left the car in a huge underground car-park beneath a towering plate glass and chrome office block.
‘This is where we have our head office,’ Raschid explained. ‘In fact this building was one of our first ventures into the construction industry.’
‘But not your last,’ Felicia commented, remembering Faisal saying that the Bank had helped to finance the building of a hotel, amongst other things.
Raschid’s hand was under her arm, a courtesy she had not expected, and she stumbled slightly as they emerged into the bright sunlight, his hard body taking the full impact of her tensed slenderness as they collided. Even that brief contact was enough to disturb her; the grey eyes cynically amused as they took in her flushed cheeks and angry eyes.
‘No, not our last,’ he agreed. ‘Although this particular venture was extremely profitable. As I am sure you already know, construction finance accounts for some forty per cent of our profits.’ He looked at her averted profile, and gave her another thin-lipped smile.
‘Am I boring you? Surely not. It is my experience that most women find the making of money almost as absorbing as the spending of it.’
‘Well, I’m not most women,’ Felicia replied shortly, pulling up with a start as they rounded a corner.
The wide street in front of them was laid out with trees and flower beds, greenery and tropical colour rioting everywhere. Where once there had been barren desert, fountains played, and instead of walking beneath the scorching glare of the sun, cool shady trees spread their green cloak invitingly over the strolling shoppers.
‘Kuwait’s Bond Street,’ Raschid offered sardonically, as Felicia stared at the bewilderingly exotic display of precious stones in a jeweller’s window.
‘I have no doubt that you would far rather tour this area in Faisal’s company than mine,’ he drawled coolly, intimating that Faisal could have been persuaded to do more than merely glance disparagingly at the glittering diamond display that commanded the front of the window.
‘I would have preferred to. But not for the reasons you suppose,’ Felicia stressed pointedly, peering a little closer into the plate glass in the hope of finding something a little more modestly priced that she could buy for Zahra. Already she had learned of the younger girl’s love of jewellery, and she smiled a little as she contemplated her reaction to the display of gems in front of her. She gave a faint sigh. There was nothing here to suit her slender pocket, and the shops, although luxuriously expensive, were disappointingly Westernised.
‘What did you expect?’ Raschid asked in thinly veiled amusement when she ventured to say as much. ‘Souks in the traditional manner, complete with beggars with alms bowls? At one time the blind men of the city were employed to call the muezzin from the minarets, lest strange male eyes perceived an unveiled woman—such are the wonders of modern science that nowadays the minaret towers are fitted with loudspeakers which do the job far more effectively, and our poor are supported by the State.’
‘Blind men were deliberately employed for such a purpose?’
Intrigued despite her hostility, Felicia hesitated, to turn an enquiring face up to the saturnine dark one above her.
‘You find such safeguarding of the modesty of our women amusing, I am sure. But not so long ago