‘I … I … I’m hungry. For food,’ she added, her face crimson with embarrassment.
Rafiq inhaled, his flared nostrils quivering as he scented her perfume. ‘I too am hungry …’ Ravenous described better the desire pounding through his veins.
He moved abruptly, and broke the tableau a split second before Sayed announced his return with a tentative knock.
‘What is it, Sayed?’ He assumed a neutral expression. She was a sensual banquet, but not his.
Standing in the vault of the room, Sayed raised his voice to reach the mezzanine level. ‘I am afraid that there has been a landslip in Bahu.’
Gabby saw Rafiq stiffen as the two men continued their interchange in rapid Arabic. It didn’t take an ability to understand the language to see that the situation they were discussing was serious.
Halfway to convincing herself that the entire sizzling moment had only existed in her head, Gabby was sure of it when Rafiq turned back to her, with no residual trace of warmth in his sombre manner.
‘I am needed. I must leave you.’
‘Take me with you,’ she heard herself say. ‘That is …’
‘All right,’ he said, telling himself that it was a good thing if she saw some of his country and fell under its spell.
It was not a good moment to think of spells.
Conversation was not possible due to the noise during the helicopter flight. It took them three quarters of an hour, but for Gabby, staring down at the fascinating and constantly changing scenery of this geographically diverse country, the time went quickly.
Gabby wrapped the silk scarf she had been given around her head as she stepped out into the sun. She shaded her eyes and stared.
A group of black tents were scattered around a green oasis, but what dominated the site was the towering ancient stone wall rising up behind them.
Rafiq watched her jaw drop.
‘It is the remains of a Crusader castle. Like the Bedouin, the Crusaders were attracted by the water, and due to the height nobody—enemy or friend—can arrive unseen.’
It was clear from the small group who came to greet them that Rafiq fell into the latter category.
‘There are no men.’ Gabby voiced her observation out loud.
‘The men are all helping in the rescue. My father gave permission for an archaeological dig to go ahead down in the valley.’
‘That’s where the landslip is?’
Rafiq nodded, his expression sombre. ‘Yes, several young men from here were working on the site.’
‘There are injuries?’
‘It appears so. The rescue is being made more difficult by sheer inaccessibility. The overhanging cliffs make helicopter access impossible, and the track is too rough for four-wheel drives. That just leaves …’ He nodded towards a distant dust cloud that as Gabby watched became a group of horsemen, approaching at great speed.
She felt her stomach lurch as she saw the spare horse they were leading.
‘You’re going in?’
He nodded, and looked surprised by the question. ‘Of course.’
‘Can I come with you?’
He shook his head, something close to tenderness flickering across his face as he looked at her. Gabby’s stomach flipped.
‘Not this time,’ he said. His expression grew troubled as he focused on her face. Then, as he hooked a thumb under her chin and tilted her face up to his, it hardened into one of self-recrimination. ‘I should not have brought you.’
‘What if when you go with them—?’ She nodded towards the men who had reined in their mounts close by. ‘What if—’ she repeated, unable to keep the anxiety from her voice. ‘What if you get ill?’
‘I won’t.’
Not a very practical response, but one that seemed to Gabby very typical of this man—this very hands-on Prince, who took responsibility a lot more literally than most.
‘The women will look after you.’ Rafiq had turned away to speak to the group from the tents, varied in age and all looking visibly comforted by what Rafiq said to them.
He only looked back once as he strode out to the waiting men and vaulted with lithe ease into the saddle of the spare horse. Gabby watched until the riders were nothing more than specks in the shimmering desert landscape.
The women did look after Gabby, but as they spoke no English and she spoke no Arabic, communication was limited. Her anxiety levels were rising, and she had almost chewed her nails off. When the braziers were lit, sending clouds of smoke into the darkening sky, still there was no sign of Rafiq.
She had tried several ways to ask the women when they thought Rafiq might be back, but the mention of his name had produced many giggles and smiles that were pretty much the same in any language.
Dawn was breaking when Gabby curled up on a rug beside one of the open camp fires, finally succumbing to exhaustion. But that exhaustion paled into insignificance beside the pallor of fatigue in the grime-streaked face of the man she saw when she awoke a couple of hours later.
‘Rafiq!’
He stretched his long legs in front of him and hooked one ankle over the other, looking at her over the rim of his coffee cup.
‘Good morning. I am sorry you were left for so long.’
Dismissing the apology with a wave of her hand, Gabby pushed aside the blanket someone had placed over her while she slept and shot into a sitting position, wincing as her cramped limbs complained.
‘You should have woken me. How long have you been sitting there? You’re hurt?’ she asked, as her horrified gaze fastened on the blood seeping from a gash on his wide forehead.
‘I am fine.’
From the way he said it Gabby knew the same could not be said of everyone. ‘Were many hurt?’ she asked quietly.
‘One fatality,’ he said, placing his cup down on a level stone with an exaggerated care that did not quite hide the tremor in his hand. He thought of the boy who had died in his arms. Later he must speak to the mother who had lost her son. ‘Twenty injuries. Five of those are critical; one man lost an arm.’
She watched as he passed a hand across his eyes. The need to wrap her arms around him and offer the comfort that would obviously be rejected was so intense that it took every ounce of her self-control to stay put. She could feel his pain in her bones.
‘I’m sorry.’ This was a prince, she realised, who took duty to a very personal level. He really cared.
He flicked her a half-smile that was very white in his grime-streaked face. ‘They have been airlifted out now. A helicopter will be back for you presently.’
‘You’re not coming?’
He shook his head. ‘I must stay.’
She didn’t even try and persuade him otherwise. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to change his mind.
‘What about my princess lessons?’
Rafiq felt something move and twist inside his chest as he looked at her, her hair a wild halo, the dark smudges under her eyes making them seem huge. Swallowing, he shook his head. ‘I think you have had a baptism of fire into our culture, so we will skip the cutlery lesson.’
‘Did I pass?’
He looked at her in silence for a moment, then rose to his feet. ‘Yes,