“No doubt you would have relished a public confrontation, Noor, but I did not. We will return to the house and you will marry me without comment, or any public airing of your unforgivable actions.”
“Return to the house?” Her voice climbed in startled objection as she suddenly realized he had been altering course to fly back to Bagestan. She straightened with a jerk. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“We will land at the dock and walk up to the house and apologize to our guests for the delay. Then we will take our vows,” he said with the clarity that only the coldest fury can impart. “A little late. But the bride is allowed that, I believe.”
She stared at him. What arrogance! Noor’s doubts about her behaviour were conveniently swamped in outrage. “Maybe you didn’t notice that the bride changed her mind, Bari! I’m not going to marry you!”
“You did not change your mind,” he informed her contemptuously. “You would not be acting like this if you had ever intended to marry me, of course. But you chose the wrong man. I do not play these Western games, Noor. You said you would marry me. You will do so.”
“It’s no game! Turn this plane around!” she screeched. How dare he brush her off when he must know her reasons for what she did? At the very least, he suspected! Who did he think he was?
“Who do you think—”
“It will not take long. You may pass the time by telling me what it is, if not a game. And I will have the truth.”
“The truth! Oh, that’s good, that is! I’m not the one who’s been lying from beginning to end of this whole affair! I’m not the one with zero conscience! Suppose you begin by telling—”
“Do you talk to me about conscience?” he shouted, as if suddenly losing his grip on a fierce control. Her heart gave a nervous kick; his temper was at white heat. “What has been your motive in pretending to agree to marry me and then playing such a terrible trick? Hundreds of people have come—”
“You must have a very good guess as to what motivated me! Your lies! You must have known I’d find out the truth soon—”
“—from all over the world to celebrate not just our wedding but their hopes for the rebirth of our country!”
“—er or later! I guess you were counting on later! Too bad!”
“Do you know you nearly ran into the Sultan’s motorcade as you drove out the gates? He and the Sultana—”
“The Bagestani flags on the fenders gave me a hint,” Noor admitted. “He hires good outriders, your boss. They nearly drove me off the road.”
He turned on her a gaze so black with threat she cowered. “Do not speak slightingly to me of a man of whose courage and strength you are ignorant.”
The plane had turned 130 degrees, and the expanse of cloud covering the mainland suddenly came into view again out the window behind her head.
Bari’s eyes widened, and then narrowed. How had he let his anger suck him into argument when he should have been watching the sky?
Noor turned to follow the direction of his gaze and let out a breath of stunned surprise. Bari had made his appearance not a minute too soon. The cloud had built fast and was rushing towards them.
If I were alone now, I’d be saying my last prayers.
“Cumulonimbus,” the dark-eyed Sheikh murmured softly. “I am a thousand fools.”
She gasped hoarsely, her hand lifting to press against the window in protest as she stared out at the sinister mass that approached.
But Bari was right.
“The airport said nimbostratus!” she cried.
He made no reply, except to the threat they faced. He was throttling back.
Cumulonimbus clouds were dangerous even to the most experienced instrument-trained pilot. They could carry severe turbulence. Turbulence might easily cause the plane to break up.
The plane began to lose height, and she felt it alter course again, away from the coastline. Of course he would try to get under the cloud, Noor realized. If only he could…
“Not even the sense to remove your lace finery before taking off into cloud!” he said harshly, his eyes on the instrument panel. The acres of silk and tulle surrounding his ex-bride didn’t make his task any easier. “In the water, it would drag you down to certain death. Get rid of it.”
His air of cold command was completely new. Noor gnawed her lip at that in the water, for it seemed to make the danger real. While he tried fruitlessly to raise air traffic control, she lifted her hands and frantically began to pull out the first of dozens of pins fixing the wreath of white roses in her hair, though if the plane broke up in the air it wouldn’t be her bride’s finery that killed her.
Abruptly, sea and sky and sun disappeared, and the little plane entered a world all grey. Noor heard a strange, quiet shushing. Droplets of water appeared on the glass.
Her fingers trembled and hesitated, then went on with their task. What else was there to do? Bari was in command of the situation as far as that was possible, and to offer resistance—or even help—now would be ridiculous.
Bari leaned over to peer at an instrument, and she distantly noted how a dark curl gleamed in the reflected glow from the panel. What a powerfully handsome man he was! Noor thought involuntarily. Not conventional, Hollywood handsome—he wasn’t even at handshaking distance with the bland, polished looks that passed for masculinity on a movie screen. No, Bari was one of Saladin’s warriors. Fierce nobility was what shaped his jaw, not pineapple facials and a perfectly judged beard shadow. If only…
But now was not the moment for such thoughts.
At last the flowers and tulle began to come loose, and Noor ignored the remaining pins and dragged at the headdress, wincing at the pain as hair came away with it. She tossed it over her shoulder onto the floor behind, where it sank into the nest of itself.
A faint, delicate perfume floated to her nostrils from the bruised roses. Her senses, it seemed, were heightened. Her fingers unconsciously massaging her protesting scalp, Noor picked out the pins that were still caught, combing through her hair, trying not to remember the excited, happy moment when the hairdresser had set the wreath on her head.
Without warning, a fierce gust of wind smacked them. The plane rocked, and so did her heart.
“Ya Allah!” Bari exclaimed, and the grey all around them abruptly turned dark. Another sharp slap of wind.
Then, much more ominously, a low rumble.
Horror shivered down her spine. Noor’s heart lurched in frantic denial and her mouth was suddenly dry as the desert. It wasn’t possible! Please, God, let it not…
Another crack of thunder cut her off. A thunderstorm. And they were in it.
Three
There are few things more dangerous than a thunderstorm embedded in cloud, and Noor knew it. It is the pilot’s nightmare.
She might have chosen death not only for herself, but for Bari. Her heart thudded with useless regret.
“Are you strapped in tight?”
His voice was so calm it shocked her, an incongruity her mind couldn’t cope with. It had the effect of setting her building panic at bay.
“No. My dress—”
“Damn your dress.” She could feel that the plane was still descending, but there seemed no bottom to the cloud. “Get your harness on. Fast.”
Though a stubborn part of her resented his autocratic