but its traditional design had withstood many centuries of desert winds and Xavier had no fears of it being plucked away.
Throwing back the cover from his makeshift bed, he pulled on the soft loose robe and strode towards the kitchen, briskly removing one of the empty bottles Mariella had left in the sterilizer and mixing the formula.
His grandmother—an eccentric woman so far as many people were concerned—had sent him to work in a refugee camp for six months after his final year at school and before he went on to university.
‘You know what it is to be proud,’ she had told him when he had expressed his disdain for her decision. ‘Now you need to learn what it is to be humble.
‘Without humility it is impossible to be a great leader of men, Xavier,’ she had informed him. ‘You owe it to your grandfather’s people to have greatness, for without it they will be swamped by this modern world and scattered like seeds in the wind.’
One of his tasks there had been to work in the crèche. For the rest of his life Xavier knew he would remember the emotions he had experienced at the sight of the children’s emaciated little bodies.
Snapping the teat on the filled bottle, he headed for the bedroom.
The baby’s cries were noticeably louder. Her feckless mother was no doubt sleeping selfishly through them, Xavier decided grimly, ignoring the fact that he himself had already noticed just how devoted Fleur’s mother was to her.
Fleur was crying too much and too long to be merely hungry, Mariella thought anxiously as she caught the increasing note of misery in the baby’s piercing cry.
To her relief, Fleur seemed to find some comfort as Mariella sat up in the bed and cuddled her against her own body.
‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’ she whispered to her. ‘Are you missing your…?’
She froze as the protective curtain closing off the room swung open, snatching at the sheet to cover herself, her face hot with embarrassment as she glared at Xavier.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded aggressively.
‘So you are awake. I thought—’
Fleur’s eyes widened as she saw that he was carrying her bottle.
‘What have you put in there?’ Mariella demanded suspiciously, holding Fleur even tighter as he held the bottle out to her.
‘Formula,’ he told her curtly. ‘What did you think was in it…hemlock? You’ve been reading too many idiotic trashy books!’
As she took the bottle from him and squirted a few drops onto the back of her hand, tasting it, he watched her.
‘Satisfied?’
Looking fully at him, Mariella compressed her lips.
‘My word,’ she heard him breathe in disbelief. ‘You even go to bed in those ridiculous coloured contact lenses! Hasn’t anyone ever told you that no one actually has eyes that colour? So if it’s your lovers you are hoping to impress and deceive…’
As Fleur seized eagerly on her bottle Mariella froze in outraged fury.
Coloured contact lenses. How dared he?
‘Oh, is that a fact?’ she breathed. ‘Well, for your information, whether you consider it to be ridiculous or not this just happens to be the real colour of my eyes. I am not wearing contact lenses, and as for wanting to impress or deceive a lover—’
Fleur gave a wail of protest as in her agitation Mariella unwittingly removed the teat from her mouth. Apologising to the baby, and comforting her, Mariella breathed in sharply with resentment.
Real? The only thing about her that was real was her outrageous lying! Xavier decided lowering his lashes over his eyes as he discreetly studied the smooth swell of her breasts as her agitated movements dislodged the sheet.
No wonder she had not wanted to feed her child herself. With breasts so perfectly and beautifully formed she would be reluctant to spoil their shape. He could almost see the faint pink shadowing of the areolae of her nipples.
Uncomfortably he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, all too conscious of the effect she was having on him. She was doing it deliberately, he knew that…She was that kind of woman!
When he came here it was to withdraw from the fast-paced city life and concentrate on more cerebral matters, Xavier reminded himself sharply.
The sheet slipped a little farther.
Her flesh was creamy pale, untouched by the sun. He frowned. Khalid had said specifically that he had taken her to the South of France. Surely there she must have exposed herself, as so many did, to the hot glare of its sun and the ever hotter lustful looks of the men who went there specifically to enjoy the sight of so much young, naked flesh?
Knowing his cousin as he did, he couldn’t imagine that Khalid would be attracted to a woman too modest to remove her bikini top!
He, on the other hand, found something profoundly and intensely sensual about the thought of a woman only revealing her bare breasts to her lover, her only lover…
Worriedly Mariella studied Fleur’s suddenly flushed face, reaching out to touch her cheek. It burned beneath the coolness of her own fingertips. Her heart jumped with anxiety.
Xavier’s stomach muscles clenched as she removed her arm, revealing the full exposed curve of her breast. As he had known it would be, her nipple was rose-pink and so softly delicate that he ached to reach out and touch it, explore its soft tenderness, feel it hardening in eager demand beneath his caress.
In her anxiety for Fleur, Mariella had all but forgotten that he was there, only alerted to his sudden departure by the brief swirl of air eddying the door-hanging as he left.
The minute he had gone Fleur started to cry again and nothing Mariella could do would soothe her.
In the end, terrified that he would reappear at any minute and demand that she silence the baby or else, Mariella got out of the bed and, wrapping the sheet around herself, started to pace the floor, gently rocking Fleur as she did so.
To her relief after about ten minutes Fleur began to fall asleep. Gently carrying her back to her cot she started to lie her down, but the minute she did so the baby began to cry again.
Resolutely Mariella tried again…and again…and again…
Three hours later she finally admitted just how afraid she was. Fleur was crying pitifully now, her cheeks bright red and her whole body hot and sweaty. Mariella’s own eyes ached and her arms were cramped with holding her as she walked up and down the bedroom.
Outside the wind still howled demoniacally.
‘Oh, poor, poor baby,’ Mariella whispered anxiously. Tanya had entrusted her precious child to her. How would she feel if she knew what Mariella had done? How she had brought her to the middle of the desert where there was no doctor and no way of getting to one? What if Fleur had something really seriously wrong with her? What if she had picked up some life-threatening infectious disease? What if…? Sick with anxiety and guilt, Mariella prayed that Fleur would be
