a real Don Juan, a man who is so entirely male that females of the species practically throw themselves at his feet, you can look no farther than the family of your steppapa. Has he told you nothing of Jourdan?’ he asked in some surprise when Danielle stiffened slightly ‘I can hardly believe it. Jourdan is his favourite nephew.’
‘He may have mentioned him—he has so many relatives, I can’t remember them all,’ Danielle lied, wondering why she should feel this sudden frisson of fear at the mention of the previously unheard-of nephew, Jourdan! It was a strange name, but she wasn’t going to betray her curiosity to Philippe’s too knowing eyes.
‘If he had mentioned him you would surely have remembered it,’ Philippe stated positively. ‘It is odd that he has not. Hassan and Jourdan are very close. Jourdan is more of a son to him than a nephew.’
Danielle’s eyes mirrored her disbelief. If this Jourdan was as close to her stepfather as Philippe claimed how was it that she had never heard of him; never seen him?
An explanation was soon forthcoming.
‘Of course, Jourdan did not approve of Hassan marrying your mother,’ Philippe told her, ‘although I would have thought he would have put all that behind him now. The marriage is fact, and I should have thought Jourdan far too sensible a man to continue to antagonise a man as powerful as Hassan needlessly, especially when he has so much to gain by not antagonising him.’
‘Such as what?’ Danielle asked. It seemed to her as it had done in the past that her stepfather was not treated as well by his relatives as he ought to be.
Philippe looked at first puzzled and then slightly amused.
‘Surely Hassan has told you the story of how he comes to be controlling Qu‘Har’s oil industry?’
‘My stepfather doesn’t believe in discussing business with women,’ Danielle replied coolly, wishing she did not have to admit this fact. Once she herself would have bridled instinctively at such an insult to the female sex, but she had come to realise that in her stepfather’s case his decision sprung more from a misguided desire to protect both Danielle and her mother from worry than a desire to exclude them from that part of his life, although the effect was much the same. Sheikh Hassan was a benevolent autocrat whose care for his womenfolk was unceasing, but Danielle shuddered to think what it must be like to be at the mercy of an Eastern husband who considered women to be on the same plane as domestic pets. Danielle had every European’s girl natural desire for independence, but for her stepfather’s sake she masked it, unwilling to hurt the man who had done so much for her and her mother.
‘That at least is something Jourdan would approve of,’ Philippe told her with a smile. ‘He is very much what you would term a chauvinist, that one. The last time he came to Paris I was amazed by the low opinion in which he holds your sex, ma chérie, and even more amazed by the way your sisters responded to his chauvinism. Of course, power and wealth are a heady combination, and Jourdan has both in full measure, although not in as full a measure as he would wish, perhaps.’ He gave Danielle a speculative sideways glance, which she missed as she tried to analyse the intense dislike—almost to the point of hatred—which seemed to be consuming her at the thought of this Jourdan, who apparently despised her sex and made use of it simply for his own pleasure before discarding it like an unwanted suit of clothes.
‘You know, of course, that Hassan’s father as outright ruler was free to choose which of his sons would rule after him?’ Philippe asked Danielle.
She hadn’t known, but rather than betray this she nodded and waited for him to go on. In spite of her reservations about letting Philippe confide in her, her curiosity about her stepfather’s family could not be denied.
‘Sheikh Ben Ibn Ahmed had four sons, of whom Hassan was very obviously his favourite, and would undoubtedly have succeeded him had it not been for the fact that he himself had no sons. With three jealous brothers to contend with Sheikh Ibn Ahmed felt that a man without sons to come after him was not the right choice for ruler of Qu‘Har. Nevertheless Hassan was his favourite son, so after consultation with his advisers, the company which controls Qu‘Har’s oil production and revenues was set up, with Hassan as head of it for his entire lifetime. His choice was a wise one, for under Hassan the company has diversified and grown, and its profits are used to benefit not only his family, but also their people. You may, or may not know that Hassan’s ancestors belonged to a small tribe renowned for their ferocity and independence. It was one of my ancestors who persuaded the Sheikh to have his sons educated abroad, by the way, and that is where the connection between Hassan’s family and mine comes from. My father says that Hassan has more than repaid whatever his father might have owed my grandfather in the volume of business he puts our way…’
‘But you don’t agree?’ Danielle asked shrewdly, noting the discontent suddenly marring his handsome features.
‘He has been generous,’ Philippe agreed grudgingly, ‘but he could be more so. A seat on the board of several of his companies, for instance. It would cost him little, and do much for us.’
As Danielle knew that her stepfather believed that men must earn their way in life by merit, she wisely refrained from answering. Philippe was charming when he had a mind to be, but he did not have the same dedication to work evidenced by his father and hers, and she suspected that as a young man who enjoyed the sophistication of life in Paris, Philippe also wanted the wealth to match his ambitions. She knew that Philippe found her attractive, but she also knew that when he married it would be to a girl of his own class from a wealthy background, a calm and placid Frenchwoman who would turn a blind eye to her husband’s other affairs. She could never do that, Danielle acknowledged, a little surprised by the force of her own feelings. When and if she married it would be to a man who loved her as intensely as she loved him, a man who would make her his whole world, just as she would make him hers. She smiled a little sadly. Such men were few and far between. Even her stepfather, who adored her mother, had outside interests which excluded her.
Did her mother know what Philippe had just revealed to her about Hassan’s background? she wondered. Surely she must do, and yet she had never spoken to Danielle about it. But then why should she? Danielle admitted. It was only since her return from finishing school that her mother had started to treat her as a woman instead of an adolescent, and she must not forget that to her mother, who had been a mother and a widow at her age, she must seem very young and inexperienced. She didn’t feel particularly young, though, Danielle reflected. She had a sensitivity which seemed to draw people with problems to her, and at boarding school and in Switzerland she had often been forced into the position of confidante, lending an ear. Listening to girls confiding to her their problems had given her a greater maturity than most of her peers and she was determined to avoid the pitfalls which seemed to beset them; although, as she freely acknowledged, when the emotions were involved it became hard to stand back and make dispassionate judgments. The one vow she had made to herself which she intended to keep at all costs was to be true to her own code and never to allow anyone to persuade her to compromise it.
‘Am I boring you?’ Philippe enquired in mock reproof.
Danielle hid a small smile. In point of fact she was very interested in what he was telling her, but she sensed that even had she not been, Philippe’s ego would never have allowed him to believe that she was anything other than flattered by his attentions.
‘Not at all.’ she told him calmly. ‘Please go on.’
‘There is still the best to come. When Hassan’s wife realised that her husband was not to become the ruler of Qu‘Har she divorced him—Oh yes, Muslim women have that right under the law of the Koran, although very few of them invoke it. Without a wealthy and powerful family to support them divorced women can have a pretty
