ALEXANDRA SELLERS – The Sultan's Heir (страница 2)

“It’s a will,” said Ashraf, surprise in his voice. He looked at the brown envelope. “And a letter addressed to Grandfather.” He dropped that on the table and turned to the will, starting to unwind the red string that held the flap in place.

“What firm?” asked Najib. “Not old Ibrahim?”

Ashraf turned it over to show the looping logo of a legal firm and shook his head. “Jamal al Wakil,” he read, and glanced up. “Ever heard of him?”

The other two shook their heads, and a frown was settling on his brow as Ashraf lifted the flap and drew out the formal legal document. “Why does a man go to a stranger to draw up his will on the eve of war?” he murmured, then bent to run his eyes over the legal phrases.

“Grandfather, his mother…” he murmured, flipping to a new page, and then stopped, his eyes fixed to the page.

“What is it?” demanded the other two simultaneously.

“‘To my wi…’” Ashraf read, then looked up to meet the startled eyes of his brother and cousin. “‘To my wife.’ He was married. He must have—” He broke off and resumed reading as the other two exclaimed in amazement.

“Married! To whom?”

Ashraf read, “‘My wife, Rosalind Olivia Lewis.’ An Englishwoman. While he was in London. Has to be.” His eyes roamed further and he stiffened and raised his gaze over the edge of the paper to fix them with a warning look. “She was pregnant. They thought, a son.”

“Allah!” one whispered, for them all. The three men stared at each other. “She would have contacted the family if there was a child,” said Haroun weakly. “Especially if it was a boy.”

“Maybe not. Do you think he told her the truth before marrying her?”

“Let’s hope not.”

Ashraf was still reading. He shook his head in contradiction. “He must have told her. Listen. ‘…and to my son, I leave the al Jawadi Rose.’”

There was another silence as they took it in. “Do you think she’s got it?” Haroun whispered. “Could he have been so besotted as to leave it with her?”

“Not so crazy, maybe,” Ash pointed out. “Maybe he thought it would be wiser than bringing it back to Parvan on the eve of war.”

Najib picked up the other envelope his cousin had drawn from the box. He lifted the flap and drew out the first thing that his fingers found—a small stiff white rectangle. He flipped it over and found himself looking into the softly smiling eyes of a woman.

“It’s her,” he said.

For an unconscious moment he sat gazing at the girl’s face. She was young and very pretty, her face rounded and soft. Looking at the face, he was mostly aware of regret—that five years had passed since the photo had been taken, and that he had not known her like this, with the bloom of sweetness on her soft cheeks…

It was obvious that the man behind the camera had been Jamshid, and that she had loved him. He wondered who she loved now.

“The child will be four years old,” Haroun said, voicing the thought all shared. “My God.”

“We have to find her. And the boy.” Ashraf took a breath. “Before anyone else does. And Haroun’s right, he might have left the Rose with her. Allah, a son of Kamil and the Rose together—what a prize. Who can we trust with this?”

Najib was still looking down at the photograph on the table, his hand resting on its edge, as though protecting the face from a draft. Abruptly he flattened his hand, drew the little piece of card to the edge of the table, scooped it up, and slipped it into his inner breast pocket.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

One

“Mrs. Bahrami?”

Rosalind stared at the man at her door. It was a long time since anyone had called her by that name. Yet she was sure she had never met him before. He wasn’t the kind of man you forgot.

“That is not my name,” she said, in level tones. “Why didn’t the doorman ring me?”

“Perhaps I mistake,” the stranger murmured, with the air of a man who never did. His hair was raven-black above dark eyes and strongly marked eyebrows. Although he wore a tweed jacket and expensive Italian loafers, his foreignness was betrayed by the set of his mouth, the expression around his eyes, the slight accent. “I am looking for Mrs. Rosalind Bahrami.”

Rosie’s lips tightened. Behind the added years and the different features, there was an unmistakable resemblance. A wave of hostility rose in her, sharpening her senses, so that she picked up the scent of his aftershave. “You—”

“Please,” he overrode her urgently, as if sensing that she was about to deny it. “I must find her. Rosalind Lewis married my cousin Jamshid Bahrami some years ago. Are not you this Rosalind Lewis?”

Cousin. Her stomach tightened.

Najib al Makhtoum took in the long, impossibly thick, beige hair, a wave falling over hazel eyes, the slender oval of her face. Soft lips that had once been trusting were set firmly, a slightly ironic tilt at one corner expanding into a challenging half smile now as her eyebrows lifted dismissively. Angry mockery was evident in the curving eyelids too, as she gazed at him. She was not wearing a ring.

“I am,” she said flatly, giving no ground. “And it was a long time ago, and as Jamshid’s cousin, what do you care?”

He was conscious of irritation. Women did not usually treat him so dismissively.

“I must talk to you. May I come in?”

“Not on your life,” she said, with slow, implacable emphasis. “Goodbye.”

His hand prevented the door’s closing. “You seem to regard your late husband’s family…”

“With deep and abiding revulsion,” she supplied. “Take your hand away, please.”

“Miss Lewis,” he said urgently, his accent reminding her with wrenching sharpness of Jamshid. “Please let me speak to you. It is very important.”

His eyes were the colour of melted bittersweet chocolate. The full mouth showed signs that the crazily passionate nature was the same, but was tempered with self-control. If Jamshid had lived, probably his mouth would have taken on the same learned discipline by this age, but the memory of the young passionate mouth was all she would ever have.

“What’s your name?”

“I am Najib al Makhtoum,” he said, with a kind of condescending air, as if he was not used to having to introduce himself.

“And who did you say sent you?”

“I have urgent family business to discuss with you.”

“What business?”

“I represent Jamshid’s estate. I am one of his executors.”

She gazed at him, recognizing a man who would get what he wanted.

“I assure you it is to your advantage,” he pressed, frowning as if her reticence made him suspicious.

“Uh-huh.” The look she gave him left him in no doubt of what she thought of her chances of hearing something to her advantage from him. “Half an hour,” Rosalind capitulated flatly, falling back. She pushed aside a child’s bright green wheeled dinosaur with her foot and held the door open.

“Half an hour to the representative of your dead husband’s family,” he remarked without expression, stepping inside.

“Which is exactly thirty minutes more than they ever gave me.”

He took that with a frowning look. “You made an attempt at contact, then?”

She looked at him, not answering. The skin on her back shivered, and she had a sudden understanding of how animals felt when confronting danger. If she were a cat, probably she would look twice her normal size now, her fur standing out in all directions.

But she didn’t suppose that that would scare him off. He looked like a man who thrived on challenge.

“Over there,” she said, closing the door and lifting a hand to direct him. She watched as he moved ahead of her into the sitting room and towards the sofas at the far end of the long, elegant room. Jamshid had been shorter, a little slimmer. His cousin’s frame was powerful, his shoulders broad, strong bones under a firm musculature.

In the bright sitting room Najib glanced around at the resolutely European decor. A beautiful sheaf of white flowers graced the centre of a square black coffee table, with half a dozen little onyx and crystal ornaments. Around it were sofas and chairs, with decorative touches that combined to give the room a soft, expensive sophistication.

Only a couple of pieces gave evidence that she had ever been married to a Parvani—an extremely beautiful silk Bagestani prayer rug in front of a cabinet and an antique miniature of the Parvan royal palace in Shahr-i Bozorg, painted on a narrow strip of ivory in a delicate inlaid frame, hanging on one wall in elegant isolation.

“Sit down, Mr. al Makhtoum,” she invited, without pretending to any social warmth. She crossed to a corner of the sofa kitty-corner to the chair she indicated to him. It was only when he set it on the black table that she noticed he was carrying a briefcase.

Rosie was barefoot, wearing soft blue cotton leggings and a long blue shirt. The briefcase suddenly made her feel vulnerable. Unconsciously she drew one bent leg under her, lightly clasped her bare ankle, her gold bracelet watch tumbling down over her wrist, and sat sideways on the sofa, facing him. Her other arm rested on the sofa back and supported her cheek as she gazed at him.

“What can your family possibly want with me after all this time?” Rosalind demanded, curious if not really caring, but a little nervous, too, as he snapped the case open.