‘I was drugged and kidnapped—’
‘But Tahir was intercepted as soon as the plane landed and you were immediately removed from his keeping. You are unharmed,’ Azrael reminded her.
‘But I could’ve been the victim of sexual violence!’ Molly shot at him with knotted fists, her temper only rising at his refusal to do a single thing that she asked.
‘I doubt that. Tahir is many foolish things but he’s not a rapist. He thought he could bring you here and shower you with clothes and jewels and that then you would magically find him more appealing,’ Azrael recited with derision. ‘He is infatuated with you but he would never have physically harmed you.’
‘So, in your opinion, it’s basically all right for him to have drugged and kidnapped me?’
‘No, of course it is not right, it is very wrong!’ Azrael proclaimed heatedly, his own temper flaring at her wording. ‘It was a crime and there is no dispute on that issue but we will not involve the police in this matter.’
‘That’s not your decision to make,’ Molly told him angrily, green eyes glittering like jewels, coppery ringlets dancing across her slim shoulders with the livewire energy of her every restive movement.
‘It is my decision,’ Azrael contradicted softly, wondering what colour would best describe that dark red and yet strangely bright hair and furiously repressing the irrelevant thought. ‘And in Djalia my word is law.’
‘Then Djalia must be a pretty backward place!’ Molly hurled back at him loudly.
Azrael froze as if she had thrown a flaming torch at him, every line of his lean, extravagantly handsome face drawn taut with offence and growing anger. ‘I will not discuss this business again with you until you have calmed down and thought it over.’
‘I’m as calm as I’m ever going to be after waking up to see a desert out of the freakin’ window!’ Molly flung hotly and as he turned on his heel, making her realise that he intended to leave again, she was fit to be tied. ‘Don’t you dare walk out of here and leave me!’
‘You are not in a mood to be reasonable—’
‘How blasted reasonable would you be after being drugged and kidnapped?’ Molly shouted after him, and she kicked the door shut with a resounding clunk on his sweeping departure. She hurt her bare toes and cursed and hopped round the room, ineffectually trying to soothe them while boiling with frustrated fury at Tahir’s brother.
Clearly insanity ran in the family! One abducted her to a foreign country and the other wanted her to be reasonable. What century was he living in? What kind of country was Djalia where women had no rights and some good-looking louse could tell her and with a straight face, mind you, that his word was law? Who the blazes did he think he was to talk to her like that? Well, Molly had no intention of standing for that kind of nonsense. His countrywomen might have no rights, but she knew she had hers and she had every intention of exercising them in the UK, if need be, where the crime had taken place. Yes, she registered belatedly, Azrael’s attitude didn’t really matter because she could go to the police at home and report the crime once she got back there. And he couldn’t stop her doing that, could he?
As if she cared about Tahir or what happened to him! She wanted to know that Tahir would be punished and that he could never, ever do to any other woman what he had done to her. As for that assurance that Tahir would never have physically harmed her, Molly was not impressed. Did she look stupid enough to credit that Tahir had gone to such extraordinary lengths merely to offer her new clothes and jewels? No, she would ensure that the British police dealt with Tahir.
Mollified by that idea, Molly greeted the surprised Gamila with a smile when she crept in carrying Molly’s freshly laundered clothes. Thanking the other woman, Molly vanished into the bathroom to put on her own clothes, snapping her bra on again with deep satisfaction and shimmying into her jeans and sweater. Only as perspiration began to gather on her skin and her face did she appreciate that what she had worn for a London winter was quite unsuitable for a desert climate. Crossly she stripped again and put the stupid dress back on because at least it was cool and comfortable.
Leaving the bedroom, she walked out onto a stone corridor and espied a worn spiral staircase, brows climbing at the sight of it. She walked down into a square turreted forecourt of some kind that was crowded with uniformed soldiers carrying guns, all of whom turned to stare at her in the most unsettling way. Taken aback, she coloured and froze and was grateful when a wiry little man in robes hailed her from several feet away. ‘Miss Carlisle? How may I assist you?’
‘I want to speak to Azrael again,’ Molly said, moving towards him. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Of course. Please come this way. I am Butrus. I work for the King.’
‘What king?’ Molly almost whispered.
‘His Majesty, King Azrael of Djalia,’ Butrus proclaimed with clear pride. ‘Our Glorious Leader.’
Glorious Leader? Oh, how Molly enjoyed that label and she would have struggled not to laugh at it in any other mood but her aggression had been swallowed alive by mind-blowing surprise. Tahir’s brother was the King of this country? That was why there had been that portrait hung in the Djalian Embassy, she realised belatedly. But Tahir had not mentioned his big brother’s exalted status, possibly because he lived in a different country. Molly had looked up Quarein on the Internet, not Djalia, and she knew nothing whatsoever about the country she had landed in.
‘I didn’t realise he was the King,’ Molly admitted thinly, not best pleased to accept her own ignorance.
But it didn’t essentially change anything, she reasoned angrily. She now understood why Azrael could declare that his word was law in Djalia and not be carted away to the funny farm. She also understood that he had much more power over the situation than she had initially appreciated. Well, that was good, Molly thought grimly. With his influence, he would surely be able to get her home to London even faster. And she had to get back, had to get home to be available for Maurice should he need her. After all, she was her grandfather’s only relative and his only representative and she needed to be on the spot to ensure that his needs were always met and that he received the best possible care.
AZRAEL’S HEART SANK when Butrus ushered Molly Carlisle into the library of his desert fortress, where he normally contrived to relax. In truth, while deeply resenting the position he found himself in when he had done nothing wrong, he had had enough of her for one day. But he straightened his broad shoulders, reminded himself of his duty to Djalia and felt ashamed of that momentary shrinking from what had become necessity.
Whether he liked it or not, he had to placate Molly Carlisle. It didn’t matter how much money it cost to buy her silence. It didn’t matter even that bribery of any kind appalled him and contravened his values. Butrus was correct: ‘needs must when the devil rides’, some homely but apt saying the older man had picked up from his Scottish grandmother. But the entire distasteful business might have been more bearable had he found Tahir’s victim less attractive, he conceded grudgingly.
Of course, he couldn’t remember when he had last had sex. That was probably all that was amiss with him: the weight of a celibate life. Not that, strictly speaking, he was expected to be celibate but he could only relax and enjoy his sensual nature outside Djalian borders because to do otherwise could risk attracting unsavoury comparisons with Hashem’s orgies with his so-called concubines. Unhappily for Azrael, the time and freedom to travel abroad where casual affairs were not seized on and dissected did not feature in his current crammed schedule. And he had already learned that nothing he did, nowhere he went and nobody he even spoke to was considered too trivial to provide fodder for the Djalian free press. His every word, his every act was reported on. Only here in the desert at the fortress built by his ancestors was he usually left alone in peace.
And