Page 1 of At the Sheikh's Bidding
PROLOGUE
Gleave College, University of Oxford
Janey Montgomerie leaned back against the ornately carved dining chair. She crossed one long, tanned leg over the other, and swirled her brandy around the glass, inhaling its heady fragrance. But her eyes didn’t leave Dr Leonora Cooper, whose intense gaze shifted from Janey to the other woman at the table—Rosana—before she leaned forward, resting her arms on the highly polished dining table.
“Wehaveto find the Bahr Al Noor diamond,” Leonora said. Neither Janey nor Rosana questioned the statement. The diamond was the point at which the research of all three women converged. Each had their area of academic interest, some of which shed light on the whereabouts of the fabled diamond.
“That,” continued Leonora, “is the task we’ve been given and which I’ve accepted on our behalf. In a few months it will be the two hundred-year anniversary of this college and the Chancellor has given us a significant grant to research the whereabouts of the diamond. It’s an opportunity we can’t pass up. It’ll make our careers.”
Janey felt a rush of excitement, which set her heart and mind racing. It would certainly makehercareer. To visit places she’d only read about would give her work the edge it needed and would virtually guarantee her a professorial career in Gleave College. It was all she wanted. For a fleeting moment, she visualized her father’s reaction at being informed she was a professor at Oxford. Then reality hit, because this was an elusive diamond they were talking about, and this was her father—both as hard and remote as the other.
“But surely there’s no way we can find it in time for the anniversary celebrations?” Janey shrugged. “I mean, the ancient texts describe its unrivaled beauty, greater even than the Koh-i-Noor. It’s priceless. How do we stand a chance of finding it when, for centuries, others have failed?”
“Because,” said Sheikha Rosana bint Sumayya Al Khal—a princess in her own right and an exotic beauty who rarely bestowed a smile. She’d had to fight every inch of the way to gain permission from the men in her patriarchal homeland to use her excellent brain. “Each of us has unique knowledge that could help us find the diamond.”
“Exactly,” confirmed Leonora. “We are arguably the best equipped people in the world to locate it.”
“More so than the scholars of the countries to which the diamond is connected?” asked Janey, who still felt doubtful.
Both the other women nodded.
“They don’t have access to the college archives like we do,” said Leonora. “They don’t have access to the joint research you and Ashley have produced on harems.”
“True,” conceded Janey. “Now Ashley has married Sheikh Zyir, she’s passed on her research to me to continue.”
“And nor do they have access to your research, Rosana.”
Rosana bowed her head in dignified agreement.
“But where do we even start?” asked Janey.
“We start here.” Leonora pointed up to the ornate ceiling, whose centerpiece was an elaborate cut-glass dome. “With the newly revealed inscription. Thank goodness the college acted on our hunch to remove the false ceiling. The Persian text inscribed around the glass has to be the key. Two hundred years ago, Lord Gleave returned from his explorations in the Middle East and founded this college. And that was the last known sighting of the diamond.”
Janey put her hands behind her head, slipping down in the chair and looked up at the ceiling and read the inscription out loud.
“In that elevated place of sensual indulgence you shall find what you seek in the eye of heaven.”She sighed. “Could mean anywhere.”
“No. It means somewhere very precise,” said Leonora firmly. “Previous searches have focused on the belief that the diamond was stolen, either taken by Lord Gleave and ending up here, in England, which we know to be false. Or else bandits took it to India. I don’t believe it’s there either.”
“Where do you think it is?” Janey asked.
“Sifra.”
Janey’s eyebrows rose. “Sifra? Um… That could make sense, given the literature I’ve read.”
Rosana looked thoughtful. “I agree. It would fit with the evidence we have.”
“And it makes sense to me, too,” said Leonora. “I spent many months in Sifra and I believe it will still be there.”
“So, what do you propose, Leonora?” asked Janey. “I mean, Sifra is hardly a country you can enter with ease. How do we go about locating the diamond if the country is a closed book to outsiders?”
Janey and Rosana fixed their gazes onto Leonora, as the most senior academic.
“We open the book,” Leonora said simply, swirling her brandy around the glass before taking a sip, and placing it back on the table. “I propose we take it in turns to travel to Sifra, enter the country by whatever means we can, and test our hypotheses. Say two weeks max each and do whatever we have to do in order to locate the diamond. Are you in?”
Janey nodded. “I’m in. Sounds cool. A bit of an adventure. And I’d love to see the harems I’ve read so much about.” She deliberately kept her comments casual. She didn’t want anyone seeing how much this opportunity meant to her. Putting up defensive walls around her so no one could tell what she was thinking or feeling had been second nature since she could walk.
“Good. Rosana?”
