‘I did that for your sake! Because I thought that you too had fallen in love with her.’
‘And it was for your sake that I didn’t ask what was going on.’ There was a hint of self-reproach as well as compassion in Vere’s voice. ‘I should have spoken more openly to you. But you know that I am not as comfortable in my emotional skin as you are in yours. I told myself that were I in your shoes I would want to choose the moment to tell you of my feelings rather than have you confront me with them. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what you were thinking. I should have guessed.’
‘How could you?’ Drax told him, sensing that this twin was blaming himself for what that happened. ‘It is a well-known fact that when a man falls passionately and deeply in love he is lost to all reason. I assumed that because I love Sadie you must do the same. I was jealous, bitterly so, but I felt I had to stick to my statement to you that I was bringing Sadie back to Dhurahn for you.’
‘Have you told Sadie any of this?’
‘No. I couldn’t bring myself to do so.’
‘She is very distressed by your behaviour towards her,’ Vere told him gently.
‘She told you that?’
Now Vere could smile, as he heard and recognised the reason for the hostility in his twin’s voice. ‘Not as such. But it is plain to me that she is unhappy.’
While they had been speaking the noise of the wind had been increasing, to the point where now they had to talk loudly to make themselves heard above it.
‘We need to return to the city,’ Vere said. ‘We don’t want to be caught out here in the storm.’
‘I’ll drive Sadie back myself,’ Drax said. ‘And the first thing I shall want to do when we get back is set in hand the arrangements for my marriage—after I have apologised to her.’
Suddenly they were both laughing, embracing one another with genuine understanding and mutual happiness.
As they stepped back, one of the workmen suddenly burst into the tent, exclaiming, ‘Highness! The English girl has just driven out of the camp in one of the Land Rovers.’
Drax released Vere and turned to look at the anxious man who had come hurrying into the tent.
‘What?’
It couldn’t be possible that Sadie had done something so dangerous. But the look on the workman’s face confirmed that it was.
The two brothers ran for the exit.
Outside, men were battling against the strong winds to pack everything up, some of them bent almost double against the force. A thick veil of storm-driven sand was turning the landscape into a yellow fog.
‘Which way did she go?’ Drax yelled at the workman above the keening howl of the wind.
The man pointed in the direction of the eye of the storm. Drax and Vere exchanged grim looks.
‘I’m going after her,’ Drax said.
‘You can’t—you won’t—’ Vere began, and then stopped when he saw the expression in his twin’s eyes. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said instead.
Drax shook his head, but the look he gave his twin was filled with love and gratitude.
‘No, Vere,’ he told him gruffly. ‘We both know that I have to go after her, even though we also know the danger. My life is nothing without her.’
‘As is mine without you, my brother,’ Vere said simply.
Tears burned the backs of Drax’s eyes. ‘You will go on because you must—because our people and our country need you. But I cannot go on without Sadie. Before I met her I would have sworn that there could be no bond, no love that could ever be as strong as what I share with you. But Sadie has shown me that I was wrong. I have to find her.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘I won’t rest until I do. I won’t come back until I find her. And I will find her. Even if I have to search the desert through this life and eternity for her.’
Vere gave a small nod of his head.
‘Go, then, my brother,’ he said softly. ‘And my prayers go with you. We will leave the generator and one of the tents, just in case you should need it.’