Alex sat up on the edge of the bed, but before she could offer Clarice a chair, the woman had sat down by the window, where the play of light made patterns on her skin, illuminating her golden beauty.
‘I’m going home any day now,’ Alex told her, then realised it might have sounded rude, so she quickly added, ‘not that I wouldn’t want to be friends with you, but as I say…’
She left the sentence hanging.
‘Really?’ Clarice said, and it seemed to Alex that there was relief in the word, although it was a mystery why Alex’s departure should please Clarice.
‘Once the children are settled here,’ Alex expanded, ‘I’ll be free to go. It just seemed wrong to take them from their village and dump them somewhere strange without a little bit of time for them to adjust.’
Clarice looked perplexed, or as perplexed as someone who had very little in the way of facial expressions could look. Her eyebrows had moved as if to come together in a frown, but no lines marred her smooth forehead.
‘But why would you care?’ she asked. ‘You didn’t know the children and they barely know you and they must be so delighted to get out of their squalid little village and come to live in a palace, they wouldn’t care who looked after them.’
The local people adored someone who spoke of ‘squalid little villages’?
Alex pushed the thought away and concentrated on the main issue.
‘These children have lost their mother. No matter where they came from or how magnificent their current circumstances might be, they are grieving and need time to adjust to the worst loss a child can suffer. They need to feel secure in their surroundings, and to know they can trust the adults around them. They need to feel wanted and loved and to know that their little family won’t be split up.’
Clarice stretched and ran a hand through her glorious mane of hair.
‘Sounds like a load of psychological claptrap to me,’ she said. ‘Kids are kids, they adapt.’
Swallowing the growl that rose in her throat, Alex rose from the bed.
‘I really need to shower. Was there something else you wanted?’
Clarice seemed put out.
‘I only came to chat,’ she said. ‘With Bahir gone, there’s no one in this place I can talk to. I should just get out of here—go home to the States, I’ve houses there—but there’s this mourning thing they do and I don’t want to upset everyone in case I want to come back some day.’
Alex sat down again. The words sounded false, somehow, but the woman was recently bereaved.
‘I am sorry for your loss.’ It was a trite statement, but Alex meant it.
Clarice waved it away.
‘I gather you made a misyar marriage with Azzam while you were out there at the earthquake place,’ she said, and Alex wondered if that was what her visitor had come to discuss.
‘Apparently it was the only thing to do,’ she answered, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt because whatever had happened between Azzam and herself was not only private but also precious in a way she didn’t fully understand.
‘Oh, yes,’ her visitor agreed, rather too readily. ‘He couldn’t have had his reputation tarnished by sharing a tent with a foreigner. Of course, no marriage in these parts, even a misyar marriage, is legal until it’s consummated.’
Alex’s breathing stopped, and her heart stood still, then picked up and raced, while small, shallow breaths saved her from passing out completely.
Had Clarice seen her reaction?
Alex sincerely hoped not, but the statement had raised so many questions in Alex’s head that she needed to get rid of the woman so she could at least try to sort through them.
Realising some kind of reply was needed, she shrugged her shoulders.
‘I wouldn’t know about any of that,’ she said, hoping she sounded a lot more casual than she felt. ‘Now, I really must shower and dress. Samarah wants to see the children.’
Now Clarice stood up.
‘Oh, well, whatever Samarah wants Samarah must have,’ she said, not even attempting to hide the bitchiness in the words. And on that note she swept out of the room.
Alex lay back on the bed.
Azzam would have known this thing about marriage and consummation.
She’d sensed the previous afternoon in the colonnade that he was using her against Clarice in some way.
Introducing her as his wife.
When, apparently, she wasn’t his wife.
Was that why he’d taken her to that magical place last night?
Was that why he’d seduced her?
Be honest, she told herself, it had hardly been a seduction—she’d wanted it as much as he had.
Maybe more?
She sighed and rolled over on her stomach, pressing her hot face into the pillows, aware of how little she knew of male-female relationships, aware of how lost she was…
She’d go home. The children would adapt. They were already at ease with Ghaada, for Alex had seen them laughing and playing with her in the courtyard gardens, and Samarah would give them love. They would be all right.
She heaved herself off the bed, showered hurriedly, then stood in front of the wardrobe. Much as she’d have loved to put on her jeans and a clean shirt, she didn’t want to hurt Samarah’s feelings by not wearing one of her gifts.
Sorting through them, she found a pale pink tunic and trousers, less fancy than the other sets, although once she was dressed she realised the pink material took on a life of its own, deepening in colour in the folds, paling almost to white where it crossed her breasts and hips.
It was beautiful and a tiny little bit of her was glad because she looked beautiful in it—or as beautiful as someone as nondescript as she was ever could look. She hooked her hair up using two of the jewelled combs from the bathroom, wrapped a scarf around her head and once again put pale pink lipstick on her lips.
The children came bounding in just as she finished and she knew from their excited chatter that they were complimenting her. Ghaada translated their exuberant comments so Alex was blushing as she made her way with them, Ghaada carrying Masun today, along the colonnade to where Samarah held her daily court.
In Alex’s mind, as she approached the gathering, she had it sorted that she didn’t want Azzam to be there, but when she saw him, seated beside his mother, her heart gave a treacherous little leap, and warmth flooded recently excited parts of her body. Breathing deeply so she appeared calm and focussed, she greeted Samarah, nodded hello to Azzam as if he hadn’t ignited her body in ways she still couldn’t believe possible the night before, then urged the children forward to greet both adults.
Zahid greeted Azzam like an old friend and showed him a treasure he had found—a small white stone from the lagoon—while Tasnim drew close to Samarah, who lifted the child onto her lap and gave her a hug.
‘I am blessed to have these children in my life,’ Samarah said. ‘Last night I read to them before they went to sleep. I had forgotten what a simple joy that was.’
Hearing Samarah’s sincerity in the simple words, Alex could only smile, certain that the children had found a secure home here at the palace and a very special guardian in Samarah.
‘I, too, have something special,’ Azzam said, and, thinking he was speaking to Zahid, Alex barely glanced his way, but he was handing a little lamp to Zahid, speaking to him in his own language, although when the little boy came and shyly presented the lamp to her, Alex could only stare—first at it, and then at Azzam.
‘The guide told me you admired one,’ he said, as she turned it around in her hands, looking at it from all angles, aware that it was very different from the market lamp, yet not understanding how.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, ‘but it looks expensive. I can’t accept expensive gifts from you.’
Samarah waved away her protest.
‘You are his wife so he can give you anything—far better things than an old lamp—although I suspect objects, possessions aren’t as important to you as
people, isn’t that so?’
‘Not important at all,’ Alex assured her, remembering how it had been the need for possessions—a fine house for his wife, good art works, the best furniture—that had started Rob’s gambling.
Azzam had watched her approach, drinking in the sight of her. She’d tied a pale pink scarf across her head, the material so fine he could see, beneath it, the combs she’d used to hold her hair back from her face.
She’d looked so serenely beautiful his mouth had gone dry and he’d wondered if he’d be able to speak to her at all, let alone say the things he wanted to say.
Now he watched her turning the lamp in her hands, answering his mother, rejecting any wish to have possessions. Something in her past has made her this way—not only about possessions, but had made her remote, untrusting, Azzam decided.
If he managed to speak, how could he bridge the gap between them—a gap he very definitely wanted to bridge?
He accepted that they barely knew each other, but he believed the bond between them, forged in the chaos of the disaster, was rare and special, something that should be nurtured so it could grow and flourish into a deeply loving marriage.
But he’d upset her, and she’d drawn away, and he had no idea how to bring her close again. He watched her, still studying the little lamp—a trinket, nothing more—and wondered what she’d think if he told her he’d, foolishly he knew, already wished on it—wished for her to stay here in Al Janeen, to stay as his wife and consort.
Ask her, his mother had said when he’d sought her advice, but how to ask? When?
She held the lamp, showing it to the children, then smiled at him, a smile that seemed to rip his heart apart, so much did it hurt him.
‘Thank you. It will be a wonderful reminder of Al Janeen for me to take home with me.’
‘Must you go?’
Really smooth move, brother, the ghost of Bahir teased, but desperation had prompted the words.
Now she smiled again, a sad smile this time that tore a bit more of his heart.
‘You know I must. Originally I came to tend Samarah on the flight—I’ve already stayed longer than I should.’
‘There is family back at home? You miss them? Is that why you are so determined to leave us?’
He was saying this all wrong, but he badly needed to know she had pressing reasons to go—apart, of course, from putting a vast distance between herself and him.
‘Family obligations,’ she replied, not meeting his eyes but with enough emotion in her face for him to know it hurt her to say it. Because she didn’t want to leave?
Or maybe it was the obligation that hurt her?
How could that be?
He wanted to know more.
Put bluntly, he wanted to know everything about her, but for him to learn about her, and she about him, she had to stay.
Could he order it? Wasn’t he the ruler—couldn’t he command it?
Command this woman?
Of course he couldn’t. Not her or any other woman, realistically…
‘But now you have obligations here, too,’ he said, speaking quietly, although his mother’s women friends had withdrawn, taking the children into the garden so only he, Alex and his mother remained on the carpets. ‘There are the children, and as my…’
He hesitated before saying the word ‘wife’, knowing it wasn’t right for he’d told her there’d be no strings attached to their misyar marriage but desperate to get her to change her mind about leaving. Fortunately, before the word came out, Clarice had appeared, coming to stand beside him, taking his arm, urging him a little apart.
‘This conversation isn’t finished,’ he said to Alex, then he followed Clarice a little way along the colonnade.
‘Your mother is finding happiness in the children,’ she began, and Azzam wondered where the conversation was leading for Clarice rarely gave a thought to other people’s happiness.
‘She is,’ he replied. ‘I think it takes her mind off her loss.’
Clarice smiled at him—more a smirk than a smile for it sent coolness through his blood.
‘Then perhaps soon I will give her more pleasure—the greatest pleasure of all. I’ll give her a child with real meaning for her.’
He heard the words but they made little sense, but as he turned to look at her he saw she was patting her stomach and looking unbearably pleased with herself.
‘You’re pregnant?’
He spoke quietly, not wanting to raise false hope in his mother, should she hear the quiet conversation.
‘It would seem so,’ Clarice said, but now the smile he’d once let light his world seemed smug and even devious.
‘That would be good news indeed,’ he said, wondering why he was feeling so doubtful.
‘The child, if it’s a boy, will be the true heir, of course.’
She was looking at him now, as if the words might hold some hidden meaning.
Did she think it would hurt him? That he might resent his brother’s child? How could he, he who’d loved Bahir better than himself?
Of course Bahir’s son would be the heir. Perhaps, even, should the child be a girl, his country would have grown enough to accept her as the ruler. Such a time, he was sure, wasn’t that far away.
But Clarice was still talking to him, standing a little behind him and speaking quietly so no one else would hear the conversation.
‘That’s the real reason I thought we should marry, you and I. That way the succession is protected. Bahir’s child grows up as yours, and becomes the prince in due time.’
The conversation that had begun, he felt, at the worst possible time, had now taken such a truly outlandish turn that it took him a moment to get his head around it.
‘We do not have to be married for the child to grow up to be the ruler,’ he told her. ‘Bahir’s child would be the heir, my place that of a regent until he was of age.’
‘And if I were to marry someone else? Take my child back to my homeland of America so he grows up there? How would that suit your ideas of national identity?’
Cold fear gripped him as he realised what the woman was doing. She was bartering with the life of her unborn child, for how could a child raised in another country understand the people and the land he was born to rule?
And how could he allow Bahir’s child to be raised by another man—particularly the kind of man Clarice, now she had more than enough money than she would need to keep her in style for life, might choose?
He took her arm and led her down into the garden courtyard, staying away from the children and in the shade of trees for the sun was still hot. But for all the heat, his body shivered as the dreams he’d spun of a real marriage between himself and Alex vanished into the ether, dreams of love crumbling to dust beneath his feet, lost forever because of the obligation of family.
The obligation he felt towards his beloved brother, his twin, his other half…
CHAPTER TEN
THIS conversation isn’t finished. Wasn’t that what he’d said? Yet he’d walked away with Clarice. Alex excused herself to Samarah and went to play with the children in the garden, chasing the two older ones around the beautifully crafted hedges and topiary shaped as balls. Tired at last, she sat on the edge of the fountain and took Masun from Ghaada, dabbling his feet in the water, making him laugh, his innocent chuckles bruising her heart because she would never see him grow up.
‘It is time for the children’s dinner,’ Ghaada said, taking the now sleepy baby from Alex and leading the children back to their rooms.
Alex remained by the fountain. Trailing her fingers in the water, drinking in the peace of the tranquil setting, seeing the fierce red sun dropping below the high walls of the palace. Darkness fell swiftly and she saw the women moving back towards the building that housed them, next to what she now knew was the visitors’ building, where she and the children had rooms. Looking around, she realised it was more a series of houses than one large palace, for there were other buildings she didn’t
know, but all were linked by the colonnade.
One would be Azzam’s, of course, and presumably Clarice still lived in what had been Bahir’s building, and from what Samarah had said, there were receiving areas where people came to meet their prince, and places where dignitaries were entertained. There were areas also for servants and old family retainers, and for cousins and aunts and the women who were friends. Alex was considering how reassuring it must be, this self-enclosed community, how safe people must feel within it, when she felt, rather than saw, Azzam approach.
‘I thought you would be eating with my mother,’ he said quietly, sitting beside her but not touching her. Not that touch was needed, for awareness was flaring between them with a galvanic power that singed the skin and burned along the nerves.
On her side, anyway…
‘I wanted to see the sun set,’ Alex told him, unwilling to admit she’d been lost in thoughts of safeness and community.
‘And I need to talk to you, but I find I have no words for what I want to say, or, now, the right to say them,’ he said quietly. He took one of her hands in both of his, and held it, warm and—yes, safe!
‘I would have asked you to stay,’ he said then he gave a short, abrupt laugh. ‘Asked? How stupid! I probably would have begged you to stay.’
He turned her hand over and dropped a kiss into the palm, then folded her fingers over it to keep the kiss, the hand again held between his.
‘But circumstances have changed and I cannot tell you things I would have said. For that, I am truly sorry. But know that when you go, and it can be tomorrow if you wish, you will take a piece of me with you.’
A feeling akin to panic flashed along Alex’s nerves and she stood up, moving slightly away, then turning back towards him because she was puzzled as well, and aching with her love for him.
‘Is this to do with my overreaction last night? Is it because of that you cannot talk?’
He stood up, put his hands lightly on her shoulders, and looked down into her face.
‘It is not to do with you, but with a—a constraint I suppose you would call it, put on me by family obligations.’
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