Her parents had been killed in a car crash when she was fourteen. She had been living with her maiden aunt for a year, and felt restless, trapped, alone and unhappy. With few friends and no money, Bethsheba had been desperate for someone to come along and help her.
Chris recognised her talent as well as her desperation, and took her under his wing.
At that time, Chris had a small twenty-four-track studio in a London suburb. Working every hour of the day, he too was desperate: desperate to finally succeed in the music business.
Bethsheba learnt the ropes of the industry with him, watching him write, record, arrange and produce song after song, then suffer the painful setbacks and frustrations of life on the fringes of the music business.
She virtually lived in that studio for three years. They rarely performed live in the end; just spent endless hours recording, followed by more endless hours hiking their demos around major record labels, trying for a deal.
Eventually Chris lost his temper with the major labels. In a whirlwind of furious determination he formed his own record company, released his own singles, and pushed Bethsheba as his first release.
He had to mortgage his house to do it. Everything was riding on Bethsheba’s single, and she suffered agonies of guilt as they waited for DJs to play it, magazines to talk about it, and the public to buy it.
The record went to number one and stayed there for eight weeks.
Over the next four years Bethsheba released fifteen records, all of which went to number one. Teen magazines featured her continually, television videos made hit after hit.
Now Chris Burton was the biggest force in the music industry. Everyone wanted to work with him. He had a stable of international stars and more money than he could even count.
But Bethsheba was still his biggest star—and his favourite, for she had been there with him at the beginning, in the dark ages, when they had lived on black tea, chips and grim determination.
‘Let’s have lunch out!’ Chris said when they had finally finished recording. ‘Go to the kasbah, get some knick-knacks, discover an intriguing harem, perhaps.’
‘I’m rather tired,’ Bethsheba heard herself say. ‘I think I’ll stay home and get some rest.’ As the words left her mouth her stomach started to churn and she knew she was going to Suliman’s palace.
They left on foot, and Bethsheba watched them go, her body alive with sick excitement. As soon as they had disappeared from view in their bright summer clothes, she raced upstairs, tugged on cream jodhpurs, a white shirt, long black boots and brushed her tousled curls into a mass of silk, then added a dash of pink gloss to her mouth for luck and rang down to the kitchen to get the car keys.
‘Got bored and decided to go sightseeing in Rabat,’ she wrote on a piece of paper. ‘Might have dinner there. Don’t worry.’
Leaving the note on the kitchen table, she slipped out of the front door so that Mohammed, their manservant, would not see her leaving and ask awkward questions about her riding outfit.
The drive to the sheikh’s palace was long but relatively easy, a straight road, more or less, all the way there. As she approached the palace from Agadir she began to panic again, her stomach churning and her mouth as dry as ashes.
But as she drove through the main gates, and saw Achmed waiting for her at the doors, her stomach lurched with excitement. Suliman had not forgotten either.
The courtyard was so different by daylight—there were stone arcades and guards with dogs and a slumbrous air of mystery about it; fountains gushing into sculpted marble, greenery hanging from meshed wood balconies, and the dogs were roused from their slumber, barking as Bethsheba stepped from the car.
‘Greetings, sitt.’ Achmed gave a deep salaam. ‘The sheikh is expecting you. Please to follow me.’
Locking the car door, she shoved her keys in her handbag and followed Achmed into the palace. This time she was led a different way. The cool arcades with high Moorish arches were carved with Arabesque script, and small alcoves with richly embroidered divans nestled along the way, the scent of spicy coffee clinging to the air and the low murmur of Arabic voices lazy in the hot afternoon. Obviously, these were the day quarters.
Achmed stopped outside a purple hanging, swept it aside and gestured for her to enter.
The room was vibrant with colour and brass-ware. Incense filled the air, cushions littered the floor, and everywhere was the stamp of barbaric luxury that seduced her with its blatant sensuality.
‘So, Sheba.’ Suliman stood at the far end of the room, magnificent in white robes and gold iqal, oxblood riding boots on his strong legs, the dark blue and red of his shirt deepening that skin to mahogany. ‘You have kept our appointment.’
Her heart missed several beats. ‘I always keep my promises.’
The hard mouth curled. ‘So do I, bint!’ he said softly, and the look in those dark eyes made her body throb in response to him as he stepped forward, tall, primitive and magnificent. ‘Come.’ He took her hand. ‘Let us ride while the sun lights our way!’ He led her across the room and into the corridor, drawling, ‘We start as we mean to go on—the hawk leading the dove!’
Bethsheba laughed, allowing him to lead her along the cool arcade. ‘The hawk and the dove…! Arabia…!’
‘You embrace my culture,’ Suliman observed, flicking a glance at her. ‘I have noticed it before.’
‘I find it very beautiful,’ she agreed.
‘And it is,’ he drawled coolly, ‘particularly in regard to women. Here, our women are admired for everything that is uniquely feminine about them. They are the goddesses of our desires, our hearts, our childhood—and we anoint them with our love.’
‘That is not the Western view of the East,’ she said.
‘You are but one woman,’ he pointed out, ‘not one quarter of the world, and it is your view of my culture that I desire, not theirs.’
Suddenly they reached a vast arched doorway, and beyond it lay the bleached stone-dust of a courtyard. The scent of horses, of manure, of leather and of sweat pervaded the air.
A groom in grubby beige jellaba led two horses to them. A white Arab stallion and a gold Arab stallion with a mane the colour of honey. Bethsheba was handed a riding whip, and the groom made a bridge with his hands for her to mount the gold-coloured horse.
She mounted, laughing with a sudden rush of excitement as she sat astride that honey-coloured stallion and felt it dance beneath her as the sheikh swung on to his powerful white steed and met her gaze, laughing also.
‘You are keen, bint!’ he shouted across to her, and kicked his horse. ‘Let us ride!’
They cantered out of the courtyard, hoofs clattering as the men cried in Arabic, hands raised in salute to their sheikh as he thundered into the desert, white robes flowing.
Exhilarated, the wind in her hair and sand stinging her face, Bethsheba galloped beside her sheikh and saw the light of dreams in the blue, blue sky above that ocean of golden sand. She felt brave and beautiful and free, the scent of horseflesh in her nostrils and the feeling of power as she rode fast, fast, faster.
The spurs on the heels of Suliman’s dark red boots flashed gold in the hot sun. His head-dress flashed back to show the strength of his jaw, the narrowed determination of his dark eyes.
Desert landscape engulfed them, a great silence broken only by the sound of their horses’ hoofs. She saw thick clumps of greenery strangled by clustered boulders near a well, and the dusty white gleam of dead animals’ bones close by. Sweat covered her face and body, the saddle thudded against her thighs, her hair whipped back in a golden, tousled banner.
How