by Lucy Gordon
‘Impossible,’ Ali said at once. ‘If that were true she would never have-’ He stopped. His mother was looking at him with eyes raised. ‘Never mind.’
‘Perhaps I should have spoken of this last night, but first I wanted to meet this young woman, and see what kind of person she is. Now I think I know. Mr Marks is a banker. He has been going out with Miss Callam for some time, and has it in mind to marry her. He is evidently an extremely good match. Of course, I’ve been out of England for some time, but in my day a good match was the kind of thing a girl had to think of very seriously.’
‘Then why did she never speak to me of this man?’
‘From what I can see, you haven’t given her much chance to tell you anything.’
‘Then she can tell me now,’ Ali said grimly, rising to his feet.
Fran was lying down with her hands clasped behind her head, brooding on what she had learned that day. Her picture of Ali as a self-indulgent playboy had been wrong all the time. That was merely what he allowed the world to think. Behind the scenes he was a true father to his people. She felt happiness stealing over her at being able to think the best of him.
She wondered when she would see him. He would probably want to devote some time to his mother, but later perhaps he might come to her. She was eager to see him in this new light, and to let him know how her heart had warmed to him.
At last she heard his footsteps outside, and sat up eagerly as he came into the room.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about-?’ they both said together, and stopped.
‘I’ve been talking with my mother,’ Ali said. ‘Why did you never speak to me of Howard Marks?’
For a moment Fran had to think who he meant. Howard and the life he represented was so far away.
‘Ali-I don’t understand-’
‘Howard Marks-the man you were planning to marry. My mother knows all about him, so don’t pretend that you don’t. How could you have concealed such a thing from me?’
A moment ago she’d been full of tenderness towards him, but at this flash of the old, imperious Ali her temper rose quickly.
‘How could I-? Well, you’ve got a nerve!’ She bounded off the bed and confronted him. ‘Don’t tell me that my disappearance has been noticed after all?’
‘Evidently. According to my mother, Mr Marks has been asking questions, claiming to be your future husband. This was something you should have told me.’
Fran stared at him, outraged beyond speech. She hadn’t mentioned Howard because Ali had driven him right out of her mind. In Ali’s arms no other man had existed. But there was no way she could say such a thing to this arrogant, overbearing man who barked out his unreasonable orders like a tyrant.
‘You’re very fond of telling people what they should do,’ she seethed. ‘Perhaps it’s you that should listen. I never asked to come here; I was tricked into it. I don’t recall you enquiring if there was a man in my life.’
‘Are you saying that there is?’
‘Are you saying it would have made a difference?’
They glared at each other, both furious.
‘Was he the man with you at the casino?’ he snapped.
‘Of course not. That was Joey. I wouldn’t take Howard on a job.’
‘Ah, yes, you were on a job. A job entitled “the seduction of a prince”. You naturally wouldn’t want to tell Mr Marks about that.’
‘There was nothing to tell. You may recall that there was no seduction-’
‘Yes, you slipped out when my back was turned,’ he said grimly.
‘So you did know I’d gone,’ she said triumphantly. ‘That story of yours about not coming back was just to fool me.’
He regarded her coldly, and she guessed he was furious with himself for the slip.
‘It seems we’ve both been playing a game of delusion,’ he said at last, in a voice harsher than she’d ever heard him use before. ‘You set out to trick me into thinking you were a true woman with a heart to offer, and you were very convincing, for a while.’
‘Was it my heart you wanted, Ali? I wonder. Maybe we both played games at first, but we weren’t playing for hearts.’
‘Yes, I know the prize you were after,’ he said grimly. ‘Not a heart but a scoop for your paper. And I taught you that I’m not a man to be played with. Now tell me about this man who plans to marry you. What kind of man is he who permits you to take such risks?’
‘Howard doesn’t permit or not permit. He understands that I’m my own woman, not subject to his orders.’ Furious indignation made her say the next words. ‘It will be a great relief to get back to him.’
Ali drew a sharp breath. ‘Do you think I’m going to let you return to the west with the secrets you’ve discovered?’
‘What secrets? I’ve learned about your charities, not your national security.’
He didn’t answer in words, but he gave her a burning stare that told her his true meaning. Facts and figures weren’t the only secrets. There were also the secrets of a man’s heart that could be learned only in his arms, in his bed, when two eager bodies became one in the life of true passion. These were the secrets that lived in the night, in the incoherent words of love too deep to be spoken. They were secrets a man might turn away from by day because they confronted him with a self that he feared. But they couldn’t be denied, and his eyes told her that he would kill them both before letting her expose them to a derisive world.
But how could he know her so little, she wondered wildly, as not to understand that he could trust her with these things, because for her too they were sacred?
‘Even you must know by now that you can’t keep me here for ever,’ she said.
‘But I can, and I will. My mother says that I have compromised you, and so deprived you of a good marriage. Very well. Then I have a duty towards you. I will replace a good marriage with a better one. As my wife you will have nothing to complain of.’
‘Your wife?’ she echoed, aghast.
‘Our marriage will take place immediately.’
‘Our marriage will never take place,’ she flung at him. ‘I won’t stay with a man who informs me of our wedding as though he’s doing me a favour.’
‘You will stay,’ Ali said, ‘and you will become my wife. The truth that is between us will prevail and make our marriage a happy one. I shall give instructions immediately, and the ceremony will take place in three days’ time.’
‘It will not,’ Fran cried wildly. ‘Ali, understand once and for all that I won’t marry you. Not in three days’ time. Not ever.’
‘My mind is made up. There is nothing further to discuss,’ he said calmly, and walked out.
Marriage, for a ruler of Kamar, was a complex business. Officially it was a secular state. Three of the world’s great religions lived peacefully side by side, with no one religion predominating.
So there would be, in effect, four weddings. The first was a civil ceremony, conducted in a small room in the palace. Then the ruler and his bride would present themselves at each of the three main religious headquarters in the city for the pronouncement of a blessing. These were riotous occasions, with the public thronging the entrances, clapping and cheering.
If this had been a normal wedding Fran would have enjoyed the buzz of preparation. From dawn to dusk she was engulfed in the making of a new wardrobe, and the selection of adornments for her state rooms. Instead, she floated through it all in an unhappy dream, wondering how she could be so miserable when her life was about to be joined to that of the man she loved. No, she amended that. The man she could have loved. For he seemed bent on destroying her feelings for him.
Elise had said the right woman could make Ali listen, but he showed no sign of listening. And in this tyranny Fran saw an ominous portent for their future.
Two days before the wedding Ali departed on a flying visit to the north of his little country, stating that he would return the following day. Elise came to spend the evening with her future daughter-in-law.
‘You’ll be glad to know that Yasir will not trouble you again,’ she said. ‘His wound is superficial and healing well, and he will have left the country before your wedding. Ali has banned him from returning in less than five years.’
‘That’s good,’ Fran said.
Elise observed her critically. ‘You don’t look like a happy bride preparing for her big day.’
‘Don’t I?’ Fran asked listlessly.
‘Anyone would think you were going to your execution instead of your wedding.’
‘Well, it feels like the end of my life.’
‘How ungrateful you are! Ali will make you the princess of a wealthy country. You’ll never have to lift a finger again.’
‘Is that why you married?’ Fran asked, regarding Elise levelly.
It fascinated her to observe that even now the mention of her late husband could bring a faint blush to Elise’s cheek.
‘I married the man I loved more than anything in life,’ Elise said. ‘And I knew that he loved me the same way.’
‘You’re lucky it was that easy for you,’ Fran said wistfully.
Elise gave her rich laugh. ‘It wasn’t easy at all. We had terrible fights, especially in the first year. But we survived them all, because we knew that we couldn’t bear to be apart. Whatever happened, we knew how much we loved and needed each other.’
She fell silent, leaving the implication hanging in the air. Fran met her eyes.
‘Is that how you love my son?’ Elise asked at last.
‘I don’t know,’ Fran said desperately. ‘How can I know when he’s forcing me into this wedding? Because he knows his own feelings he thinks that’s all that matters.’
‘But what makes you think he knows his own feelings?’ Elise asked.
‘Well, he’s certainly acting like a man who knows.’
‘Nonsense. He’s acting like a man in the depths of confusion. Does he really love you? Or does he only want you? Even he doesn’t know. But he thinks if he acts firmly the confusion will sort itself out by magic. He’s wrong, of course. He’s merely ensuring that he’ll never know the truth. And neither will you if this ridiculous marriage is allowed to go ahead.’
‘I thought you approved of me,’ Fran said.
‘But I do. I think you’re extremely good for him. You’ve got him not knowing whether he’s coming or going, and he needs some uncertainty. He’s had things all his own way for far too long. I want to see you married to Ali, but, oh, Fran, my dear-not like this.’
‘Have you said all this to him?’
‘Of course I have, and I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. The men of this family have always been distinguished for their stubbornness, and their inability to see beyond the ends of their noses. I’m sorry to say that my son is a chip off several unfortunate old blocks. Your sons will probably be the same.’
‘You mean-my sons with Ali? Will they ever exist, I wonder?’
‘They will if we act sensibly. You say you don’t know how much you love Ali. But do you love him enough to leave him?’
A bleakness settled over Fran’s heart. To leave him, perhaps for ever, never to ride beside him, never again to lie in his arms?
But the alternative was to live by his side as his chief concubine-for she would be little more than that-enjoying his desire but not his respect, never knowing the truth of his heart or her own, and seeing their love wither in that uncertainty.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I love him enough for that.’
‘In that case,’ Elise said decisively, ‘we have work to do.’
It was unlike the princess to act impulsively, but when she announced her immediate departure nobody dared to argue. Ali’s chief adviser ventured to suggest that His Highness might prefer her to wait until his return, but she gave him her chilliest and most imperious stare until he faltered into silence. When he gathered his wits sufficiently to remind her that the wedding was set for two days hence, she informed him loftily, and with perfect truth, that she would have returned by then.
Instantly a smooth-running machine was set in motion. The princess’s personal limousine was brought to the front to wait for her with its engine running. A message was sent to her state apartments and a moment later Her Highness emerged, accompanied by a heavily veiled maidservant. In a few minutes they were in the car, on their way to the airport, and the flight to London.
Another limousine was waiting at the other end, to take them to Ali’s house. After a brief pause there, it set off again for the short journey to Fran’s address, where it disgorged the ’maid servant the ’maidservant’, now without her Arab garb and veils. The whole business had taken under twelve hours.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
E LISE was back in Kamar by noon next day. Ali reached the palace an hour later. Within minutes he was on his way to his mother’s room.
The thunder of his boots on the tiled floor caused a quaking everywhere, except in the princess’s apartment. She sat calmly writing at her desk, waiting for her son to arrive. The slam of the door shook the building. She glanced up, then returned to what she was doing.
Ali cast a glowering look at her bent head, and set about pacing the floor. When he’d covered the ground several times he snapped, ‘My grandfather would have fed you to the alligators for what you’ve done.’
‘Your grandfather was an exceedingly foolish man,’ Elise observed calmly. ‘I regret to say that you seem to have inherited the worst of his foolishness. Of course I got her away. Whatever were you thinking of to let things get so far?’
‘She is the bride I have chosen,’ Ali growled.
‘But has she chosen you? Marry her at the sword’s point and you would never know.’
‘Do you think I know nothing about her heart? There have been such things between us-I cannot tell even you-’ He found himself reddening, and turned away from his mother’s understanding eyes. ‘I promise you, I know her heart.’
‘No, my son, you know only her passion. Her heart is a secret to you. And when passion dies?’
‘That will never happen.’
‘For you, perhaps. But a woman’s heart is different. For her, passion is nothing without love. How can she know that you love her when you have behaved with arrogance and unkindness, and treated her wishes as though they were nothing?’
‘Everything I have is hers. What can she ask that it will not be my pleasure to give?’
‘Her freedom. Freedom to choose you-or reject you.’
He paled. ‘Reject me?’
‘You must win her, so that she can choose you freely.’
‘And if she does not?’ he asked, almost inaudibly.
‘Then you must let her go. Unless her happiness is more to you than your own, you do not truly love her, and she is right to refuse you.’
‘You’re asking me to beg from a woman.’
‘If she’s the woman I think her, she won’t make you beg.’
‘But to humble myself-to go to her as a suppliant, uncertain of her answer- I am the prince.’
‘And have never had to ask for what you wanted. It’s time you learned.’
‘And if I can’t?’
‘Then she will never be yours,’ Elise said simply.
He wheeled away from her sharply. His mother watched him with sympathy and pity. It was hard for her to do this to him. Only the knowledge that his eventual happiness depended on it had given her the courage.
When at last he spoke again his voice was shaking. ‘I can’t believe that she left without a message to me-not a single word.’
‘Have you looked everywhere?’
He stared at her, and after a moment he hurried out of the room.
The maids were still in Fran’s apartment. They took one look at his face and scattered. Ali raged through the rooms, looking for he knew not what. Somewhere, surely, there must be a sign that she hadn’t simply turned her back on him. Because if she had done that then everything he’d thought was between them was
no more than a mockery.
At last he found what he was looking for on a little inlaid table, held down by a gold box. He opened out the single sheet of paper and read:
My Darling,
I know you’ll think it’s a terrible betrayal, my leaving you, but try to understand that I have no choice. Nobody should get married like this. There would never be peace between us, and eventually there would be nothing at all.
Do you remember my dream of a flying carpet? Well, it happened, as you meant it to. The magician cast his spells and the prince came out of the coloured smoke. He was handsome and charming, and he showed me wonders that will live in my heart for ever.
It was a lovely dream and I shall always remember that I once had a little magic, all my own. But, sadly, magic doesn’t last, and the carpet flies away again.
Goodbye, my darling. I wonder where we’ll meet again? Will it be in the Enchanted Gardens? Were we ever destined to find them? Or maybe they don’t really exist.
I’ve wondered how to sign this letter. You gave me so many names, and it was lovely pretending to be them for a while. But they were only illusions, and I can’t live on illusions. If you can’t love the woman I really am, let us forget each other.
No, not forget. Never. But put the dream aside as too beautiful to be true. I’ve signed this letter with the one name you never called me, but the only one that was true. Try to forgive me.
The letter was signed, ‘Frances.’
When he’d finished reading Ali realised how quiet and empty the apartment was. Where once there had been her laughter, now there was nothing. Her defiance had enraged him, but he would have given all he had to have her there again, telling him that she would do as she pleased, no matter what he thought. With what courage she had opposed him, and how wonderful that courage seemed now.
Only the soft plashing of the fountains broke the silence, and suddenly he realised that another noise was missing. He’d grown used to the cooing of her white doves, the faithful birds that would never leave her. He strode out to the courtyard.
But the dovecote was empty. The doves had flown away.
He knew then that she had really gone.
