In The Arms Of The Sheikh. Sophie Weston
figure and an anxious expression.
‘Big house syndrome,’ said Dom affectionately as she fled upstairs to change.
Kazim was startled. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Izzy went into a spin when I took her home to meet my parents. Now anything resembling a portrait of an ancestor and she freaks.’
A nineteen-twenties interior decorator had covered the walls of the entrance hall of Serenata Place with Victorian hunting prints. Kazim looked at the nearest picture of scarlet-coated fat men on fatter horses thundering over a hedge.
‘They’re not my ancestors,’ he said, revolted.
Dom grinned. ‘I’ll tell her. That will set her mind at rest.’
Kazim, taking hourly phone calls from a jumpy security officer, did not have a lot of time for socialising that evening. But even to him it was obvious that red-headed Izzy was more and more distracted as the guests arrived and the party started. Eventually he came out of the study to find Dom looking worried.
Kazim raised his eyebrows. ‘Now what?’
‘The best friend hasn’t arrived,’ said Dom. ‘We can’t announce the engagement until she gets here, apparently.’
Kazim stayed calm. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Murder the woman.’
‘Obviously,’ said Kazim dryly. ‘Failing that?’
Dom scowled at the florist’s best efforts. ‘Postpone everything. Announcement, champagne, fireworks, the lot. Put it all on hold until tomorrow and hope the damn woman gets here then.’
Kazim blinked. But all he said was, ‘Just as well all your guests are staying for the whole weekend, then.’
‘Yes, thanks to you.’ Dom gave a heartfelt sigh and biffed him lightly on the upper arm. ‘I’ve definitely got a better class of friend than Izzy has.’
Kazim was amused. ‘You have met the missing friend, then?’
‘Miss Hot Shot?’ Dom shook his head. ‘Not so far.’
‘She sounds intriguing,’ said Kazim politely.
Dom let out a crack of laughter. ‘Not your type.’
‘I thought you hadn’t met her.’
‘I don’t have to. She’s been a prize pain in the neck so far. And quite apart from that, I hear she is definitely a twenty-first-century go-getter.’
Kazim shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know why you would say that’s not my type.’
‘Because you think a woman’s place is on the receiving end of roses and poetry,’ said his friend. ‘Just before you send them home, leaving you to get on with saving the world from itself.’
Kazim was unoffended. ‘Very amusing,’ he said calmly. ‘But—’ His phone began to beep again. He flicked it open. ‘Excuse me.’
Tom’s text message was unequivocal. Kazim must call him immediately. New information was coming in about threats to the reconciliation talks, and to Kazim in particular. Tom needed advice.
Kazim sighed. ‘Sorry, Dom. Work. It never goes away entirely. I’ll deal with this and catch you later.’
Dom nodded. Kazim’s friends were used to such interruptions. ‘I’ll persuade Izzy to come down and open some bottles. We’ll get the party on the road.’
‘And have the firework people come back tomorrow,’ Kazim reminded him.
Natasha had a bad day. First, the purple pie chart did not do the business for her. Nor did her superb presentation file. David Frankel wanted her personal, undivided attention and he was paying the piper. There was no way he was going to let her go before he was good and ready, preferably not until she agreed to have dinner with him.
As he asked question after pointless question, she saw her chance of getting first one flight, then another disappear. Smiling hard, she excused herself and called Izzy from the ladies’ cloakroom. Izzy did not answer.
Natasha left a message. ‘Izzy, I’m going to be late. Powerful men and their little quirks! Sorry, love. See you as soon as I can.’
It was a repeating pattern in the frustrating hours that followed. The last flight out took off late; hit fog; was diverted…Natasha calculated time-zone differences and called and called. Izzy never once picked up her phone.
In the end it was a dark Saturday evening when Natasha’s hired limousine edged its way through narrow Sussex lanes at last. The chauffeur’s silence was more eloquent than a stream of complaint. They had been through a ten-house village at least three times when Natasha spied a steep single-track road to their left.
‘There.’
Sulkily the chauffeur did as he was told. The heater spluttered and died.
Natasha shivered. She didn’t travel in Prada, but she didn’t travel in Arctic expeditionary wear either. In ten denier and handmade stilettos, her toes were slowly turning to ice.
‘I hope it’s not far. We’re miles from anywhere.’
The chauffeur sniffed.
To their right, there were hedges and dark fields; to their left, a high laurel hedge. It was beautifully clipped.
‘Looks like some sort of stately home in there,’ Natasha said doubtfully. ‘Hope we haven’t gone wrong again.’
And then there was a signpost. ‘Serenata Place. Strictly Private.’
‘Friendly,’ Natasha remarked.
And very, very grand. She was startled, though she did not say that aloud.
What did it matter how grand it was? she told herself robustly. She could handle grand. She could handle anything.
But as the limo turned in through high hedges and was brought to a stop by massive wrought-iron gates Natasha felt her confidence wavering, for once.
She set her teeth and did not let it show. Instead she lowered the electric window and spoke briskly into the entry camera.
‘Ms Lambert for Ms Dare. I’m expected.’
There was no voice on the other end. No response at all. Just a long, sinister pause.
Then, at last, the gates swung inward. Silently.
Natasha shivered again; not entirely because of the temperature.
‘Oh, great. All it needs is for Lurch the butler to come swaying out of the shadows,’ she muttered, thoroughly put out.
She closed the window and sat back, looking about her. They were going through some seriously stately grounds. The drive was longer than a jumbo’s runway. And then they came to the house…
‘Enough turrets to turn Disney studios green with envy,’ said Natasha, blankly. ‘And Sleeping Beauty’s forest to protect it! Why on earth didn’t Izzy tell me she was borrowing a Gothic mansion?’
The chauffeur did not answer.
The limousine stopped. However sulky he felt, the chauffeur had been well trained. He extracted her compact luggage and took it up the front steps. He rang an impressive bell pull before coming back to open the door of the limousine for her. If it had still been raining he would have held an umbrella over her head.
‘Thank you,’ said Natasha, getting out like a princess.
She had the oddest feeling she was being watched. But the front door remained closed and the windows were dark. In spite of a porch light like a beacon, there was no sound of life.
She went up the front steps. They struck cold as ice through the soles of her fashionable pumps. Marble, she thought, resigned. Definitely the real thing. A mansion