The Solitary Sheikh

“It’s No Wonder People Fall In Love In The Desert.” Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Omar’s Inheritance The Cup of Happiness Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Copyright

“It’s No Wonder People Fall In Love In The Desert.”

Prince Omar’s jaw tightened at Jana’s words, but she was looking at the distant dunes and did not notice. “Do you think so?”

The tone of the sheikh’s voice startled her, so full of cynical unhappiness that she turned and blinked at him. “Don’t you?”

“I have never loved the desert or thought it inspired love,” he said flatly.

She watched him for a moment under the starlight. “What do you love, then?”

He gave a bark of laughter. “You speak as if everyone must love something.”

“A person would have to be very hard not to love someone, some part of the world,” Jana said mildly. “So hard they couldn’t be called human.”

“Oh, I am human,” he replied, reaching through the moonlight to touch her hair. “And I have you to remind me that I am a man....”

Dear Reader,

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We begin with the brand-new title you’ve been eagerly awaiting from the incomparable Ann Major Love Me True, our May MAN OF THE MONTH, is a riveting reunion romance offering the high drama and glamour that are Ann’s hallmarks

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Barbara McMahon’s moving story The Cowboy and the Virgin portrays the awakening—both sensual and emotional—of an innocent young woman who falls for a ranching Romeo But can she turn the tables and corral him? Beverly Barton’s emotional miniseries 3 BABIES FOR 3 BROTHERS concludes with Having His Baby. Experience the birth of a father as well as a child when a rugged rancher is transformed by the discovery of his secret baby—and the influence of her pretty mom. Then, in her exotic SONS OF THE DESERT title, The Solitary Sheikh, Alexandra Sellers depicts a hard-hearted sheikh who finds happiness with his daughters’ aristocratic tutor And The Billionaire’s Secret Baby by Carol Devine is a compelling marriage-of-convenience story

Now more than ever, Silhouette Desire offers you the most passionate, powerful and provocative of sensual romances Make yourself merry this May with all six Desire novels—and buy another set for your mom or a close friend for Mother’s Day! Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

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The Solitary Sheikh

Alexandra Sellers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

for my sister, Margaret,

who helped

About the Author

ALEXANDRA SELLERS was born in Ontario, and raised in Ontario and Saskatchewan. She first came to London to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and fell in love with the city. Later she returned to make it her permanent home. Now married to an Englishman, she lives near Hampstead Heath. As well as writing romance, she teaches a course called “How To Write a Romance Novel” in London several times a year.

Because of a much-regretted allergy she can have no resident cat, but she receives regular charitable visits from three cats who are neighbors.

Readers can write to her at P.O. Box 9449, London, NW3 2WH, England.

THE BARAKAT EMIRATES

SHEIKH’S RANSOM, Prince Karim’s story, April 1999

THE SOLITARY SHEIKH, Prince Omar’s story, May 1999

BELOVED SHEIKH, Prince Rafi’s story, June 1999

Available only from Silhouette Desire.

Omar’s Inheritance The Cup of Happiness

To Prince Omar’s lot fell the Kingdom of Central Barakat, a land of sometimes rich, sometimes desolate desert, and the high, rugged, white-capped mountains of Noor with their many valleys. To him also was given the cup of his ancient ancestor Jalal, a magnificent pedestal cup of ruby, emerald and gold that was said to confer happiness on its owner. It had not conferred happiness on Omar. From the moment his father’s will had granted him the cup, his life had seemed a bitter betrayal.

There was once a king of ancient and noble lineage who ruled over a land that had been blessed by God This land, Barakat, lying on the route of one of the old Silk Roads, had for centuries received the cultural influences of many different worlds. Its geography, too, was diverse: it bordered the sea; then the desert, sometimes bleak with its ancient rums, sometimes golden and studded with oases, stretched inland for many miles, before meeting the foothills of snow-capped mountains that captured the rain clouds and forced them to deliver their burden in the rich valleys. It was a land of magic and plenty and a rich and diverse heritage.

But it was also a land of tribal rivalries and not infrequent skirmishes. Because the king had the ancient blood of the Quraishi kings in his veins, no one challenged his right to the throne, but many of the tribal chieftains whom he ruled were in constant jealousy over their lands and rights against the others.

One day, the king of this land fell in love with a foreign woman. Promising her that he would never take another wife, he married her and made her his queen. This beloved wife gave him two handsome sons. The king loved them as his own right hand. Crown Prince Zaid and his brother were all that he could wish for in his sons—handsome, noble, brave warriors, and popular with his people. As they attained the age of majority, the sheikh could look forward to his own death without fear for his country, for if anything should happen to the Crown Prince, his brother Aziz would step into his shoes and be equally popular with the people and equally strong among the tribes.

Then one day, tragedy struck the sheikh and his wife. Both their sons were killed in the same accident. Now his own death became the great enemy to the old man, for with it, he knew, would come certain civil war as the tribal chieftains vied for supremacy.

His beloved wife understood all his fears, but she was by now too old to hope to give him another heir. One day, when all the rituals of mourning were complete, the queen said to her husband, “According to the law, you are entitled to four wives. Take, therefore, my husband, three new wives, that God may bless one of them with a son to inherit your throne ”

The sheikh thanked her for releasing him from his promise. A few weeks later, on the same day so that none should afterwards claim supremacy, the sheikh married three beautiful young women, and that night, virile even in his old age, he visited each wife in turn, no one save himself knowing in which order he visited them. To each wife he promised that if she gave him a son, her son would inherit the throne of Barakat.

The sheikh was more virile than he knew. Each of his new wives conceived, and gave birth, nine months later, to a lusty son. And each was jealous for her own son’s inheritance. From that moment the sheikh’s life became a burden to him, for each of his new young wives had different reasons for believing that her own son should be named the rightful heir to the throne.

The Princess Goldar, whose exotically hooded green eyes she had bequeathed to her son, Omar, based her claim on the fact that she herself was a descendant of the ancient royal family of her own homeland, Parvan.

The Princess Nargis, mother of Rafi and descended from the old Mughal emperors of India, had in addition given birth two days before the other two wives, thus making her son the firstborn.

The Princess Noor, mother of Karim, claimed the inheritance for her son by right of blood—she alone of the wives was an Arab of noble descent, like the sheikh himself. Who but her son to rule the desert tribesmen?

The sheikh hoped that his sons would solve his dilemma for him, that one would prove more princely than the others. But as they grew to manhood, he saw that each of them was, in his own way, worthy of the throne, that each had the nobility the people would look for in their king, and alents that would benefit the kingdom were he to rule.

When his sons were eighteen years old, the sheikh knew that he was facing death. As he lay dying, he saw each of his young wives in turn. To each of them again he promised that her son would inherit. Then he saw his three sons together, and on them he laid his last command. Then, last of all, he saw the wife and companion of his life, with whom he had seen such happiness and such sorrow. To her willing care he committed his young wives and their sons, with the assistance of his vizier, Nizam al Mulk, whom he appointed Regent jointly with her.

When he died the old sheikh’s will was revealed: the kingdom was to be divided into three principalities. Each of his sons inherited one principality and its palace. In addittion, they each inherited one of the ancient Signs of Kingship.

It was the will of their father that they should consult the Grand Vizier Nizam al Mulk for as long as he lived, and appoint another mutual Grand Vizier upon his death, so that none would have partisan advice in the last resort.

Their father’s last command had been this: that his sons should never take up arms against each other or any of their descendants, and that his sons and their descendants should always come to each other’s aid in times of trouble. The sheikh’s dying curse would be upon the head of any who violated this command, and upon his descendants for seven generations.

So the three princes grew to maturity under the eye of the old queen and the vizier, who did their best to prepare the princes for the future. When they reached the age of twenty-five, they came into their inheritance. Then each prince took his own Sign of Kingship and departed to his own palace and his own kingdom, where they lived in peace and accord with one another, as their father had commanded.

One

A black stallion, its tail tossing, galloped over the desert. Its hooves thundered against the hard sand, sending notice of its presence for miles on the silent air. His sweat-glossed sable coat glistened, and gold threads in the embroidered saddlecloth and gold studs in the black bridle were picked out by the rays of the early-morning sun just rising over the rugged white mountains in the distance.

The tall, straight figure of the rider on its back seemed one with the graceful horse as the beast pounded towards a rushing, roaring river. The man’s hair, as black as the stallion’s pelt, waved thickly back from a high forehead, stirred by the wind of their speed. His slim, broad-shouldered body moved in rhythm with the horse as his knees urged it faster and faster, until it seemed that the rider intended to jump the river that now cut across the horse’s path.

The feat would be impossible over the broad, wild torrent. Yet the man urged the horse on towards the wild rush of water, and the horse obeyed. At the last moment, just when it seemed as if its only choice was to dash itself and its rider into the churning waters, he pulled up. The horse reared and snorted; his forelegs danced on air and came to rest a few inches from the edge.

On closer view, it could be seen that both the man’s hair and the horse’s mane were not completely black, but were threaded with strands of silver. The man’s broad, intelligent forehead was pulled into a frown over deep green, troubled eyes.

They paused there, horse and rider, while the man scanned the horizon and the horse stamped and snorted nervously at the noisy river. The frowning eyes seemed to take no pleasure from the sight of the rugged expanse of desert turned golden by the rising sun, nor the vigorous blue-black of the chilly river that rushed by at his horse’s feet, nor the ferocious white-topped mountains in the distance. His small pointed beard and, moustache neatly framed a once-generous mouth that now seemed twisted with sorrow and bitterness. His eyes gazed across the river down towards the ocean, which he knew was there, in the distance, invisible, indistinguishable from the sky.

His brother’s land. The river marked the boundary of the land his father had bequeathed to him. Everything he saw on the other side, including the miles of distant shoreline, belonged to one of his brothers. If he turned to ride west he would, after many miles, come to the border he shared with his second brother.

His brothers. He had no brothers now. His father and mother were dead, his wife was dead, his brothers were lost to him. What did he have left in the world? A land of desert and mountain, much of it inhospitable, and even so, his right to rule over it was disputed by a fool who would stop at nothing to gain power. Two young daughters, whom he scarcely knew and could not love.

He did not love anyone, he realized with the curious enlightenment that recognition of the obvious sometimes brings. He had loved his father, but his father was dead, and had betrayed him in death, leaving him this inhospitable land. If he had ever loved his mother, she had killed that love by her ignorant ambition for him. She had wanted him to be king, without ever thinking of his happiness, and she had destroyed all chance of happiness for him when she had forced him to marry a woman he had found it impossible to love. And her ambitions had backfired when, long after his father had died, leaving him the least share of the kingdom, his wife had borne only daughters.

He had once loved his brothers, but they had betrayed him and their father’s last command. His wife had died as a result, and though he had not loved her as a woman, as the passionate partner of his destiny he had once, long ago, dreamed of meeting, he had felt responsible for her and suffered at the loss.

His heart was cold and hard, as toughened as his body. Except for the basic sexual needs which there were many women willing to satisfy, he had no desires now, no love—only a diamond determination to keep this land, inhospitable as it was, under his own hand, and if possible pass it on to his daughters. He had no desire, even, to love. He wanted nothing that would disturb his hard reserve, his ability to face, without protest, whatever the world handed him.

He had no son. His daughters might be rejected by the tribes, they might never be allowed to inherit. In that case his land would be divided by the heirs of his brothers, and his name would disappear from the earth; but he wanted no wife, and he would not take another for the sake of producing a more acceptable heir. He wanted nothing from life now.

Minutes passed. The sun rose a little further in the sky to his left, disentangling itself from the mountaintops so that their shadow retreated across the foothills, revealing the huddle of houses in the village that had been his resting place in the night. Still the man made no signal to the restive beast.

It was the sound of hooves that roused him at last from his reverie. The faintest signal from the man’s knees turned the horse in the direction of the noise, and then he cursed himself for a fool. They had crept up on him, and now they were spread out in a line between him and the safety of the foothills. Six riders, their white burnouses blowing in the wind as they rode at him, their rifles held in one hand above their heads, their throats giving forth the high ululation of attack.

The horse tossed its head, almost making the man drop the rifle that he swiftly withdrew from its home on the saddle. Urging the horse into a gallop towards them, guiding only with his knees, the reins loose on its neck, the man fired the rifle three times in quick succession without raising it to his shoulder, and three men as quickly cried out. Two rifles and one man fell into the sand, but still three horses came on towards him.

They did not want to kill him—he had that advantage. They wanted him captive, whereas he did not care whether any of them lived or died. If he killed them, they would lie in the desert until their fellow tribesmen came and collected the bodies. If they escaped, hurt or unhurt, they would return to their desert home and their leader. He wanted no rebel captives in his prisons, providing a rallying cause for the disenchanted.

He fired again as they were almost on top of him, and a horse stumbled into another and two riders were brought down. He galloped past the last rider and quickly urged the black stallion to wheel till he faced his attackers again.

There was one man still on his horse.

“We meet again, son of Daud!” called the bandit, and now the man recognized the rider in the centre of the splintered group.

“For the last time,” Prince Hajji Omar Durran ibn Daud ibn Hassan al Quraishi agreed grimly. He raised his rifle, but his attacker flung down his own gun into the dust. “My gun is useless!” the bandit leader cried.

For a moment two men on two heaving, sweating horses faced each other with the desert dust swirling between them. Through the sights and the dust Omar saw the man who wanted his throne, whose attempts to gain it had caused the death of his wife. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“You are a warrior, not an executioner, Prince of the People!”

Not disturbing the aim of his rifle, Prince Omar lifted his head and gazed at the man. The two were close enough to see each other’s eyes.

At last Omar lowered his rifle. “Jalal, son of the bandit, be warned!” he called. “At our next meeting you will be dependent on the mercy of God. I will show none!” Then he wheeled his mount and with urgent knees encouraged it to a gallop again. Once he turned in the saddle to look back at his attackers. None showed any intention of following or firing at him. Beneath him the exhausted horse galloped on.

“Darling, take the Rolls,” her mother pleaded, in her lead-crystal voice. “It’s going to be a very hot day, and anyway, parking will be impossible. Let Michael drive you.”

“Michael will get just as hot as I would,” Jana said. “Why should he take the heat for me?”

“Because Michael is a chauffeur.” Her mother ignored the joke with the irritated calm of one having to explain the same thing for the millionth time but determined not to let it bother her. “It’s his job.”

Well, it was and it wasn’t. For the first seven years of her life, until her parents had separated, chauffeured limousines had been a normal part of Jana’s existence. But then she had moved to Calgary, where her mother had taken a job. There, apart from going to a private school, Jana had led a pretty ordinary life. When her parents reconciled after ten years—an event Jana had longed for every day of those years—she had found that the return to her old life in the Scottish manor house that was her father’s ancestral home was more difficult than she had imagined. She was impatient of the restrictions that both her parents suddenly seemed to want to impose on her, in keeping with her position as the daughter of a viscount descended from the Royal Stewarts.

After university, determined to make some contribution to the world that was a little more intensive than opening the next charity ball or fete, Jana had gone to teach school in an underprivileged area of London. Her parents had not objected too strongly until they discovered that instead of living in their apartment in posh Belgravia, where they kept a housekeeper and chauffeur full-time, she was determined to rent a place not far from her school and drive her own little Mini. But as time passed and no disaster befell her, they had stopped protesting.

Last week the school year had ended, and with it, the teaching career Jana had once looked forward to with such excitement, but which had been an indescribable mixture of joys and sorrows, frustrations and achievement The sorrows and frustrations had won in the end.

Her mother was in town now to discuss Jana’s future. She had been horrified to discover that that future was already all but decided, and in what manner—Jana was preparing for a final interview for a job to go abroad and teach English to a foreign family.

“In any case, he won’t, because the Rolls is air-conditioned.”

Jana sighed. “Why is it such a big deal, Mother?”

“If you will insist on taking a job with some oriental despot he should know who you are.”

“He knows who I am. I’ve never been so thoroughly vetted in my life. I think he’s checked the family all the way back to Robert the Bruce,” Jana pointed out mildly, looking at her mother curiously. “Why do you say he’s a despot? I’ve been told it’s a wealthy family with mining interests.”

“Darling, all important families in the Middle East are connected to the ruling house in any country. It’s simply the way things are.”

Jana forbore to suggest that things were not so different right here in England. “No one has said a word about royal connections.”

Her mother shrugged. “Even so, it beats me why you imagine you’ll meet less restriction there, Jana. In half those countries the women are being forced to wear the veil again.”

“I’ve been assured that the family and the country are liberal on the issue of women’s rights. And after all, the job is teaching English to the seven- and nine-year-old daughters of the house, so they can’t be that backward. And anything will be less restricting than not being allowed to teach with a method that works,” Jana added, with a dark thread of bitterness in her voice.

Her mother frowned worriedly. “You are so impulsive,” she observed for the thousandth time in Jana’s life. “Darling, please think it over. Please don’t go.”

“I want to get away, Mother.” She repeated it doggedly, like a mantra, because she had nothing else to say.

The pain was still raw.

“You are not absolutely prohibited from using these teaching methods, Miss Stewart,” the inquiry board had announced, and she had known then that what was coming was the end of her career in teaching, “but you may not abandon the national curriculum. You must teach first and foremost by the established method but may use your own methods as a supplement if you wish.”

“It isn’t possible to teach both!” Jana had shouted. She had pointed out a hundred times that her method worked, that it actually taught children to read. In addition, because the children were achieving something, there was far less class disruption.

The national curriculum method for teaching reading bored and defeated them, and they became unmanageable. When she had taught it, she, like so many others in the system, had been reduced to acting as a cross between a babysitter and prison guard.

The council had sat impassive while she railed at them for their narrow-minded ignorance and cowardly sticking to ineffective methods, but when she resigned they had accepted it with obvious relief. She had finished out the school year, but as of a week ago, Jana was unemployed.

Of course, the media had been on her side. It was just the kind of story they loved, but Jana had very soon tired of being fodder for the entertainment industry that masqueraded as news broadcasting, and in any case her story had a brief lifespan. It would take more than newspaper articles and talk shows to change the national curriculum, though a generation of children had already emerged from the schools unable to read