Would he listen? Was he ready to do that now?
A log dropped in the grate and sent out a spray of crackling sparks. As it did so the Westminster mantel clock chimed the hour. Then a floorboard creaked somewhere, making Melanie turn to look at the door. Sensing her doing it, Rafiq did the same thing. It came again; the pair of them went so still they could hear their hearts beating. Melanie knew every bump and creak in this old house; she knew every draught and whistle.
‘What?’ Rafiq asked.
‘Robbie,’ she said, and started walking. ‘Stay in here,’ she cautioned as she opened the door. Then she disappeared, closing the door behind her without seeing that Rafiq was incapable of going anywhere.
He had frozen into a posture only his brother would recognise. But even Hassan had only seen it happen when it involved their father and his battles with death that were sometimes too close to call. The name of it was fear—fear of losing a man he loved above all else in this world—only here he was experiencing the same paralysed fear of meeting his seven-year-old son.
Would she do that? Would Melanie bring the boy down here and present them to each other without any preparation to ease the—?
Another log fell in the grate and broke him free from his stone-like stasis. He turned his head and saw the log was in danger of rolling into the hearth.
Robbie was just coming out of the bathroom when Melanie arrived on the upstairs landing. ‘Okay?’ she asked softly.
‘Mmm,’ he murmured sleepily. ‘I thought I heard voices.’
‘The television, probably.’ Melanie smiled through the untruth and walked with him into his bedroom, then helped to tuck him into bed.
‘I had a dream tonight, but it wasn’t a bad one,’ he told her.
‘Good.’ She stroked his silk dark head.
‘There was a man on a big black stallion and he stopped and said, “Are you Robbie?” I said, “Yes” and he smiled and said, “Next time, you can ride up here with me, if you like.”’
‘Well, that was nice of him.’ Melanie smiled, thinking she didn’t like the idea of some stranger offering her son rides.
‘Mmm.’ His eyes were drooping; he gave a yawn. ‘He was wearing one of those white robes and had a thing on his head, like Arabs wear.’
Melanie’s stomach rolled over. She wasn’t one of those people who believed dreams forecast the future, and Robbie knew about his Arabian side because William had spent hours with him in his study, filling his mind with all things Arabian. No doubt there had been a picture of an Arab on horseback at some time. But for her son to have the dream tonight of all nights disturbed her more than she liked.
‘Go back to sleep,’ she whispered.
‘You won’t go anywhere, will you?’
‘No, I won’t go anywhere,’ she softly promised. ‘Except back downstairs to watch television,’ she added, just in case he was expecting her to remain right here, kneeling beside his bed for the rest of the night. It had happened before and probably would again, she mused bleakly.
But not tonight, she saw as he dropped back into sleep without another murmur. She waited a few minutes longer to make sure he was fully asleep, though, taking no chances in a situation that was hazardous enough as it stood without Robbie deciding to follow her downstairs as she knew he was quite capable of doing. But eventually she rose up and left him, silently closing the bedroom door behind her—just in case voices became raised again.
Walking back into the living room required her to take a deep breath for steadiness. What she found was that Rafiq had removed his jacket to reveal a black cashmere roll-neck sweater and was squatting down in front of the fire. His body twisted when he heard her come in, eyes fiercely guarded as they shifted across the empty spaces at her sides. Tension screamed from every muscle, from every flicker of an eyelash. He was looking for Robbie.
‘He got up to use the bathroom,’ she explained quickly. ‘Then fell asleep again almost as soon as he’d climbed back into bed.’
With a nod of his head Rafiq turned away again, but not before she’d seen a war between desire and relief taking place upon his face, and her heart gave a twist of sympathy for this man who had to be struggling with just about every emotion available to him.
It was only as she began to walk forward that she noticed he held the hearth brush and pan in his hands. She also noticed the stretch of fine wool across expanded shoulder blades and remembered what it had felt like to press against them with the flat of her palms. Heat began to pool low down in her stomach; memories that really should not be so clear and sharp after all of these years sent her eyes on a journey down the length of his spine to the leanness of his hips and the power in his spread t
highs.
‘A log fell onto the hearth,’ he said as she came up beside him. His voice sounded rough, like gravel. He wasn’t actually using the brush and pan because he was just squatting there, staring at them as if they weren’t there.
Coming down beside him, Melanie took them from his loose fingers and laid them aside. ‘Rafiq…I’m sorry for saying what I said before. I was angry, and—’
‘You needed to say those things, and I suppose I needed to hear them.’
But he wasn’t sure. She watched the firelight play with his taut features and enrich the dark olive tones of his skin. ‘Here,’ she said, and dipped a hand into the pocket in her jeans, then gently slotted a photograph into one of his hands. ‘I thought you might like to have this.’
It was Robbie, looking all grown-up and smart in his school uniform and wearing that familiar rather sardonic half-smile. It had occurred to her as she was coming back down the stairs that Rafiq still had no conception of how like him his son was. If she had taken him into William’s study he would have seen Robbie’s face laughing back at him from photos on every available surface, because that was the way William had liked it and she hadn’t yet got around to moving anything—hadn’t had the heart to change anything anywhere in the house.