Beholden to the Throne

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I did not realise then that they were learning only to speak in English, that they knew nothing of our ways …’

  ‘They would know a whole lot more if you spent more time with them. They don’t need another nanny!’

  ‘She will be more suitable. We must hold on to the ways of old.’

  ‘What about London? What about their education and all Queen Hannah wanted for them?’

  ‘This is their land.’

  She really would never see them. Amy knew this was a goodbye for ever, and she forgot to be brave and strong. ‘What you said before … about me being your lover …’ She could not bear to leave—would give anything, even her pride, if it meant that she could stay. Because it was three times her heart was being broken here. She was losing three of the people she most loved. ‘What you said about me raising the girls in London …’

  ‘It is the type of thing men say when they want a woman in their bed. It is the type of thing a man says when his thoughts are not clear.’ Completely devoid of emotion, he threw the most hurtful words at her, a round of bullets shot rapidly straight to her heart. He didn’t stop firing. ‘You really think I would choose you for that role?’ He let out an incredulous laugh at the very thought. ‘Here a mistress is a man’s respite—a woman he can go to to relax and not be bombarded with everyday trivialities. You would be most unsuitable.’

  He was right.

  Amy felt the colour flood back to her cheeks, and she felt the fire in her soul return too—a fire that had been doused by the accident, that had flared only on occasion in recent times. But it was back now, and burning even more brightly, fuelling her to stand up to him.

  ‘I would be a most unsuitable mistress.’ She gathered her dignity and held on to it tightly, determined that she would never let it go again. She could hardly believe the offer she had made him just a few moments before and she told him why. ‘I’d be a terrible mistress, in fact. I’d bombard you with news about your daughters. Every achievement, every tear I would share with you. I would busy your distinguished brain with my voice and my opinions, and …’ She walked over to him—right over to where he stood. He lifted his jaw, did not look at her as she spoke, but it did not stop her. Her words told him all he would be missing. ‘And there would be no relaxing.’

  ‘Go!’ Emir said, and still he could not look at her.

  Amy knew why. He was resisting his need for her, refusing the comfort that was within his grasp.

  ‘Go and spend time with the twins.’

  ‘I’m going now to pack,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll spend the afternoon at the airport.’

  There was nothing left to say to him, no point pleading with him, nothing she could do for the twins. She was an employee, that was all.

  But she had been his lover.

  ‘We both know why you need me out of here today, Emir. We both know you’d be in my bed tonight, and heaven forbid you might show emotion—might tell me what’s going on in the forbidden zone of your mind. You can stop worrying about that now—I’ll be gone within the hour,’ Amy said. ‘All temptation will be removed.’

  ‘You flatter yourself.’

  ‘Actually, I haven’t for a while. But I will from now on.’

  Amy had once read that people who had been shot sometimes didn’t even know, that they could carry on, fuelled by adrenaline, without realising they had been wounded. She hadn’t believed it at the time, but she knew it to be true now.

  She packed her belongings and rang down to arrange a car to take her to the airport. There wasn’t an awful lot to pack. She’d arrived with hardly anything and left with little more—save a heart so broken she didn’t dare feel it.

  And because it was a royal nanny leaving, because in this land there were certain ways that had to be adhered to, Emir came out and held Clemira while Fatima held Nakia.

  Amy did the hardest thing she had ever done, but it was necessary, she realised, the right thing to do. She kissed the little girls goodbye and managed to smile and not scare them. She should probably curtsy to him, but Amy chose not to. Instead she climbed into the car, and after a wave to the twins she deliberately didn’t look back.

  Never again would she let him see her cry.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HE HEARD the twins wail and sob late into the night. He need not have—his suite was far from the nursery—but he walked down there several times and knew Fatima could not quieten them.

  ‘They will cry themselves out soon,’ Fatima said, putting down her sewing and standing as he approached once again. She had put a chair in the hallway while she waited for the twins to give in to sleep.

  Still they refused to.

  He could not comfort them. They did not seem to want his comfort, and he did not know what to do.

  He walked from the nursery not towards his suite but to Amy’s quarters. It was a route he took in his head perhaps a thousand times each night. It was a door he fought not to open again and again. Now that he did, it was empty—the French doors had been left open to air it, so he didn’t even get the brief hit of her scent. The bed had been stripped and the wardrobes, when he looked, were bare, so too the drawers. The bathroom had been thoroughly cleaned. Like a mad man, he went through the bathroom cupboards, and then back out to the bedroom, but there was nothing of her left.

  He walked back to the nursery where the babies were still screaming as Fatima sewed. When she rose as he approached he told her to sit and walked into the nursery. He turned on the lights and picked up his screaming girls.

  He scanned the pinboard of photos and children’s paintings. There he was, and so too Hannah, and there were hundreds of pictures of the girls. But there was not a single one of Amy—not even a handprint bore her name. Emir realised fully then that she was gone from the palace and gone from these rooms—gone from his life and from his daughters’ lives too.

  The twins’ screams grew louder, even though he held them in his arms, and Emir envied their lack of restraint and inhibition—they could sob and beat their fists on his chest, yell with indignant rage, that she was gone.

  He looked out of the window to the sky that was carrying her home now. If he called for his jet possibly he could beat her, could meet her at the airport with the girls. But she was right, Emir thought with a rueful smile—she would make a terrible mistress.

  She should be his wife.

  ‘Ummi?’ Clemira begged. Now she had two mothers to grieve for. He held his babies some more until finally they were spent. He put them down in one crib, but still they would not sleep, just stared at him with angry eyes, lay hiccoughing and gulping. He ran a finger down Clemira’s cheek and across her eyebrows as Amy had shown him a year ago, but Clemira did not close her eyes. She just stared coolly back, exhausted but still defiant. Yes, she was a born leader.

  As was Emir.

  Except the rules did not allow him to be.

  ‘I’m leaving for the desert,’ he told Fatima as he left the nursery. ‘The new nanny starts in two days.’

  Fatima lowered her head as he walked off. She did not ask when he would return, did not insist that he tell her so she could tell the girls. That was how it was supposed to be, yet not as it should be, Emir realised.

  He joined Amy in the sky—but in his helicopter.

  Once in the desert, he had Raul ready his horse and then rode into the night. He was at the oasis for sunrise. The first year was over and now he must move on.

  He prayed as he waited for counsel from the wizened old man—for he knew that he would come.

  ‘Hannah will not rest.’

  The old man nodded.

  ‘Before she died she asked that I promise to do my best for the girls.’ He looked into the man’s blackcurrant eyes. ‘And to do the best for me.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘First I have to do the best by my country.’

  ‘Because you are King?’

  Emir nodded. ‘I made that promise to my father when he died,’ he said. He remem
bered the loss and the pain he had suffered then. His vow had been absolute when he had sworn it. ‘The best for me is to marry Amy. It is the best for the girls too. But not the best for my country.’ Emir told the old man why. ‘She cannot have children.’ He waited for the old man to shake his head, to tell him how impossible it was, to tell him there was no dilemma, that it could not be; instead he sat silent, so Emir spelt it out for him. ‘She cannot give me a son.’

  ‘And the new wife you will take can?’ the old man checked.

  Emir closed his eyes.

  ‘Perhaps your new wife will give you girls too?’ the old man said. ‘As Queen Hannah did.’

  ‘Without a son my lineage ends,’ Emir hissed in frustration. ‘Alzirz will swallow Alzan and the two lands will be become one.’

  ‘That is the prediction,’ the old man said. ‘You cannot fight that.’

  Emir was sick of predictions, of absolutes, of a fate that was sealed in the sand and the stars. ‘It must not happen,’ Emir said. He thought of his people—the people who had rejected his daughters, was his first savage thought. Yet they were not bad—they were scared. Emir knew that. He loved his people and his country so much, and they needed him as their leader. ‘I cannot turn my back on them. There are rules for Alzan …’

  ‘And for Alzirz too,’ the old man said, and Emir grew silent. ‘You are King for a reason.’

  He reminded Emir of his teachings and Emir knew again that the year had passed and it was time for Hannah to rest, time for him to face things, to come to his decision. He stood. The old man stayed sitting.

  ‘You will know what to do.’

  He knew what to do now, and nothing could stop him.

  Emir mounted his stallion and kicked him on, charged towards a land where he was not welcome uninvited. No one stopped him.

  On his entering Alzirz, Rakhal’s guards galloped behind and alongside him, but no one attempted to halt a king propelled by centuries of fury.

  King Rakhal was alerted, and as Emir approached he saw Alzirz’s King standing waiting for him outside his desert abode. His tearful wife was by his side, refusing to return to the tent; yet she would be wise to, for both men would draw swords if they had to—both men would fight to the death for what was theirs.

  Emir climbed from his horse and it was he who made the first move, reaching not for his knife but deep into his robe. He took out the two precious stones that had been sent to taunt him and hurled them at Rakhal’s feet. ‘Never insult me again!’

  Rakhal gave a black laugh. ‘How did my gift insult you? They are the most precious sapphires I could find. I had my people look far and wide for them. How could they offend?’

  ‘They arrived on the morning of Sheikh Queen Hannah’s death. The insult was for her too.’ He spat in the sand in the direction of the stones and then he spat again, looking to Rakhal as he told him how it would be. ‘I am marrying soon.’

  ‘I look forward to the celebrations,’ Rakhal said ‘Who, may I ask, is the fortunate bride?’

  ‘You have met her,’ Emir answered. ‘Amy.’

  ‘Congratulations!’ Rakhal answered, and then, because of course his wife would have told him, he smiled at Emir. ‘Shouldn’t you also offer congratulations to me? After all, Alzan will be mine.’

  ‘No.’ Emir shook his head.

  ‘What? Are you considering your brother as King when you step aside?’ Rakhal laughed. ‘That reprobate! Hassan would not stay out of the casino or be sober long enough to take the vow.’ Again Rakhal laughed. ‘Congratulations to me will soon be in order.’

  ‘Not in my lifetime,’ Emir said. ‘And I plan to live for a very long time. I am the King and I will die the King. Alzan will cease existing when I do.’ He watched the mocking smile fade from Rakhal’s face. ‘I pray for a long life for your son, who will inherit all that you pass on to him. I pray that the rules are kind to him and he marries a bride who gives him healthy children. I pray for a long life for her too—for your father was lonely when his wife died, was he not? But because of your rule he could not marry again. I will pray history does not repeat for your son.’ He heard Natasha really weeping now, but Rakhal stood firm.

  ‘Your people will not be happy. Your people will never accept—’

  ‘I will deal with my people,’ Emir interrupted. ‘And I will continue to pray for your son. I hope that his time in the desert proves fruitful, and hardens and prepares him for all he faces. Yes, my people will be unhappy when their King has gone. They will rise and fight as their country is taken.’ He watched as for the first time Rakhal faltered when he realised the burden being placed on his newborn son, the weight both Kings carried being passed onto one. ‘We are Kings, Rakhal, but without real power. For now I will rule as best I can, and do the best that I can for my children too.’

  He meant it. Knew this was the right thing to do. He could no longer fight the predictions.

  He rode back through the desert with rare peace in his soul. He could feel the peace in Hannah’s too, for now she could rest.

  Suddenly Emir halted his horse so abruptly it rose on its hind legs for a moment—or was it the shock that emanated from his master that startled the beast? Emir’s realisation dawned: he had not yet discussed this with Amy. Yet surely his concern was unnecessary, he told himself. Surely no woman would refuse such a request.

  But she was not from this land, and she was like no woman he knew. His last words to her had not been kind. He was back to being troubled as he realised she might not want to rule with him a people who with each passing year would grow more and more despondent. She might well prefer not to live in a land where her fertility or lack of it was a constant topic.

  It dawned on him fully then—Amy might not say yes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT WAS hell being back in England.

  It was lovely to see everyone, and it was good to be home, Amy told herself. Good to be at her mother’s.

  For about one day, seven hours and thirty-six minutes.

  But when she was told by her mother again that she’d warned her not to get too attached, as if the twins were like the hamsters she’d once brought home to care for during the school holidays, Amy knew that she had to move out.

  It took her a week to find a small furnished rental while she looked around for something more permanent, something that might one day feel like home. Right now her heart still lived at the palace. At night she yearned to be next to Emir, and she still slept with one ear open for the twins. Her breasts ached as if she were weaning them, but she knew she had to somehow start healing—start over, start again. She’d done it once, she told herself. The next time would surely be easier. Right?

  She tried to hold it together—she went out with friends, caught up with the news, bought a new London wardrobe and even went and had her hair done, in a nice layered cut with a few foils. Her friends told her she looked amazing. Those days swimming in the pool with the twins meant that she had arrived in the middle of a London winter with a deep golden tan.

  She had never looked better—except her appearance didn’t match the way she felt.

  ‘You look great,’ her ex fiancé told her.

  If she heard it again she thought she might scream. But he’d heard she was back and wanted to catch up, and Amy was actually glad for the chance to apologise.

  ‘For what?’ he asked.

  For the year of bitterness she had needlessly carried. He’d been right to end things, Amy told him.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked, before dropping her home. Fresh from a break-up with a single mum, he had revised his paternity plans and suggested that they might try again.

  She was sure, she told him. Because it wasn’t a logical love she wanted, Amy knew as she headed inside, it was an illogical one.

  She knew what love was now.

  Even if she did not understand it.

  Even if it could never be returned.

  She’d had her heart broken three times.
/>   The accident, losing her fiancé, the aftermath—they didn’t even enter the equation. They had been tiny tasters for the real grief to come.

  She missed her babies, loved each little girl as fiercely as she would have loved her own. She had been there at their birth and held them every day since and she ached for them. She felt she had let Hannah down—not by sleeping with Emir, but by leaving the girls.

  She was tired of being told she’d get over it—as if the love she felt didn’t count, as if in a few days’ times she’d wake up not missing them—but somehow she had to work out how to do just that.

  She would not cry, Amy told herself. She had to keep it all together. She would look for a job next week and make some appointments—catch up on the life she’d left behind. Except as she went in her bag for her phone it was not to see if he’d called—because it had been two weeks now and still he had not—but to look at the photo of Emir and the girls that she had taken on that precious morning in Alzan.

  She was horrified when she opened her bag to find that her phone was missing. Amy tipped out the contents, frantically trying to remember when she had last used her phone, positive she had taken it out with her. Perhaps she had left it at the restaurant? But, no—Amy remembered that she had sneaked a peek of the photo in the car.

  It wasn’t the phone that concerned her but that image of Emir, Clemira and Nakia that she could not stand to lose. It was all she had left of them.

  Amy couldn’t even telephone her ex to ask if he had it, because his number was in her phone. Just as she started to panic the doorbell rang. Amy ran to it, hoping he had found it, even smiling in relief as she opened the door. Her smile faded as soon as she saw who it was.

  ‘Emir?’

  There were so many questions behind that single word, but his name was all she could manage. She wasn’t even sure that it was him. For a moment she even wondered if he had sent his brother, for the man standing in her doorway was the Emir she had never seen—a younger looking, more relaxed Emir—and he was smiling at her shocked expression. How dared he look so happy? How dared he look so different? For though she knew he wore suits in London, she had never seen him wear one and he truly looked breathtaking.