The Sheikh's Jewel

by Melissa James

  ‘None of you will listen or stand nearby,’ he snapped at the walls, and she was filled with gratitude when she heard the shuffle of many feet moving away.

  Lost in awe, she faltered in her traditional greeting, but bowed in the traditional show of deep respect. ‘M-my husband, I…’ She didn’t know how to go on, but surely he’d understand how she felt?

  Without a change of expression from the serious, cool appraisal, he closed the door behind him, and offered her a brief smile. ‘Sit down, please, Amber.’

  Grateful for his understanding, she dropped to the bed, wondering if he’d take it as a sign, or was she being too brazen? She only wished she knew how to go on.

  He gave her a slow, thoughtful glance, taking in every inch of her, and she squirmed in embarrassment. Her heart beat like a bird trying to escape its cage as she waited for Harun to come to her, to kiss her or however it was this thing began. ‘Well?’ she demanded in a haughty tone, covering her rush of nerves with a show of pride, showing him she was worthy of him: a princess to the core. ‘Do I pass your inspection, Habib Numara?’

  For a moment, she thought Harun might actually smile as he hadn’t done since the hero’s return. There was a telltale glimmer in his eyes she’d noticed when he was in a rare, relaxed moment. Then, just as she was about to smile back, it vanished. ‘You have to know you’re a beautiful woman, Amber. Exquisite, in fact.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, her voice losing its power. He thought her exquisite? Something inside her melted—

  He turned from her, and, drawing out a thin wreath of papers from a fold of his robe, sat at her desk. ‘This should cover the necessary time. I forgot my pen, though. Do you happen to have one handy, my dear?’

  Her mouth fell open as he began perusing whatever work he’d brought with him. He’d brought work to their wedding night? ‘In the second drawer,’ she responded, feeling incredibly stupid, but what else could she say?

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied, his tone absent. He pulled out one of her collection of pens and began reading, scrolling up and down the pages with his finger, and making notes in the margins.

  She blinked, blinked again, unable to believe what she was seeing. ‘Harun…’ Then she faltered to a stop.

  After at least ten seconds, he stopped writing. ‘Hmm…? Did you say something, Amber?’ His tone was the cold politeness of a man who didn’t want to be disturbed.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she retorted, furious. At least five different things leaped to her mouth. What do you mean by covering the necessary time? What is it with the el-Kanar men? This is our wedding night!

  Don’t you want me?

  But at the thought of asking it, her confused outrage turned cold inside her, making her ache. Why should this brother want me when the other two didn’t?

  What’s wrong with me?

  But what came from her mouth, born of the stubborn pride that was her backbone in a world where she’d had beautiful clothes and surroundings but as much control over her destiny as a piece of furniture or a child’s doll, she stated coldly, ‘If there’s no blood on the sheet tomorrow, the servants will talk. It will be around both our countries in hours. People will blame me, or worse, assume I wasn’t a virgin. Will you shame me that way, when I’ve done nothing wrong?’

  His back stiffened for a moment.

  Amber felt the change in the air, words hovering on his lips. How she knew that about him, when they’d still barely spoken, she had no idea, but whatever he’d been about to say vanished in an instant.

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly, with only a very slight weariness in the inflection. ‘Of course they will.’

  He stood and stripped off his kafta, revealing his nakedness, and Amber’s heart took wings again. Magnificent? Even with the scars across his back and stomach he was breathtaking, a battle-hardened warrior sheathed in darkest gold, masculinely beautiful and somehow terrifying. Involuntarily she shrank back on the bed, wishing she’d found another place to sit. I’m not ready for this…please, Harun, be gentle with me…

  She couldn’t breathe, watching him come to her.

  But he walked around the bed as if she weren’t there. He didn’t touch her, didn’t even look at her. At the other side of the bed, he put something down, and used both his hands to sweep all the rose petals from the coverlet. ‘I don’t like the smell. Cloying.’

  ‘I like it,’ she said, halfway between defiance and stupidity.

  He shrugged and stopped brushing them away. ‘It’s your bed.’ Then he lifted the thing he’d put on the bed: a ceremonial knife, beautifully scrolled in gold and silver.

  ‘What’s that…Harun…?’ Her jaw dropped; she watched in utter disbelief as he made a small cut deep in his armpit, and allowed a few drops of blood to fall into his cupped palm.

  ‘What—what are you…?’ Realising she was gaping, she slammed her mouth shut.

  ‘Making a cut where it won’t be seen and commented on,’ he said in a voice filled with quiet irony. ‘Thus I’m salvaging your pride in the eyes of others, my dear wife.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Beyond pride now or remembering any of her instructions for tonight, she gazed at him in open pleading. ‘What are you doing?’

  He sighed. ‘As you said, virgins bleed, Amber. It’s my duty to ensure that your reputation isn’t ruined. Pull the coverings down, please, and quickly, before the blood drops on the rug. Imagine what the servants would make of that.’ His tone was filled with understated irony.

  She closed her mouth and swallowed, and then swivelled around in the bed to pull the covers down.

  She watched as he dripped blood into his other hand. ‘It seems enough, I think,’ he said after thirty seconds. Her husband of six hours looked at her. ‘Which side of the bed do the servants know you prefer?’

  Torn between shock and fury born of humiliation, she pointed.

  ‘Thank you.’ As casually as if he’d spilled water, he smeared his blood on the bed. Then he walked into the bathroom; she heard the sound of running water.

  When he came out he returned to the desk, picked up his bridegroom’s clothing, pulled it back over his head and let it fall to his feet. He sat down again, reading, scrolling and making notes.

  Not knowing what else to do, she sat on the bed, drawing her knees under her chin, her arms wrapped tight around them. And for the next hour, she watched him work in growing but helpless fury.

  Why won’t you touch me? she wanted to scream. Why don’t you want to touch me? What did I do wrong?

  But she’d made an innocent scene with Fadi when it was obvious he was running from her, and he’d told her about Rafa. I can’t marry her, but I love her, Amber.

  She’d made another scene before her father when Alim fled the country rather than marry her. He has rejected both Fadi’s position, and Fadi’s bride.

  She was already the bad-luck bride in the eyes of the servants and the people—but if they found out about this, she’d never recover. Fadi had loved another; Alim fled the country—but neither of them had made the rejection this obvious.

  Asking him why would only humiliate her further.

  After a while, her husband said without looking at her, ‘It would be best if you went to sleep, Amber. It’s been a very long day for you.’

  She lay back on the sheets, avoiding the smeared blood—but she kept watching him work out of a stubborn refusal to obey anything he asked of her. If he wasn’t going to be a real husband, it relieved her of the necessity to be any kind of wife.

  Suddenly she wondered how long a day it had been for him. How long had he been working—right up until he’d dressed for the wedding? During the ceremony and after he’d kissed her hand, touched her face with a smile, played the loving bridegroom—for the cameras and the people, no doubt. Now he was working again. Barely two months ago, Harun fought for his life, for the sake of a nation that didn’t belong to him.

  Did he ever stop, and just be a normal man?

  Harun, just l
ook at me, be kind to me for a minute. I’m your bride, she wanted to say, but nothing emerged from her mouth. She was lying on their marriage bed, his for the taking in this shimmering piece of nothing, and he was doing stupid paperwork.

  He didn’t even look at her, just as he never had before.

  As a soldier, they said, he’d fought with a savagery beyond anything they’d seen before. Like Fadi, had he done it to escape her? What a shame for him that he’d lived, forced into taking a wife he clearly didn’t want in the least.

  She hated him. She hated this bed…and she couldn’t stand this ridiculous situation any more.

  Pulling her hair into a messy knot, she got to her feet, stalked into the bathroom, shredded the stupid negligee in her haste to take it off, and scrubbed away all traces of perfume and make-up under the stinging heat of the shower.

  Using the pumice stone she scrubbed at her skin until it was raw, and took minimal comfort in the fact that Harun would never know how he’d made her cry.

  But as she scrubbed herself to bleeding point she vowed she’d never make a fool of herself for an el-Kanar man again. No, she’d show Harun nothing, no emotion at all. She’d be a queen before him at all times, damn it! And one day he’d come to her, on his knees, begging for her…

  If only she could make herself believe it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Three Years Later

  ‘MY LADY, the Lord Harun has requested entrance!’

  Startled, Amber dropped the papers she was reading and stared at her personal maid, Halala. Barely able to believe the words she’d heard, she couldn’t catch her breath. All the ladies were in a flutter of excitement…and hope, no doubt.

  She could almost hear the whispers from mouth to ear, flying around the palace. Will he come to her bed at last?

  Her cheeks burned with embarrassment at the common knowledge within the palace of the state of her marriage, the tag of bad-luck bride she couldn’t overcome, but she answered calmly enough. ‘Please show my husband in, and leave us. I need not remind you of what will happen if you listen in,’ she added sternly, holding each of her ladies-in-waiting with her gaze until they nodded.

  As the room emptied she smoothed down her dress, her hair, while her pulse beat hard in her throat. What could he want? And she had no time to change out of one of her oldest, most comfortable dresses—

  Then Harun entered her rooms, tall and broad-shouldered, with skin like dark honey and a tiny cleft in his chin; she’d long ago become accustomed to the fact that her husband was a quiet, serious version of her dashing first crush. But today his normally withdrawn if handsome face was lit from within; his forest-at-dusk eyes were alive with shimmering emotion, highlighting his resemblance to Alim more than ever. ‘Good morning, Amber,’ he greeted her not quite formally, his intense eyes not quite looking at her.

  He doesn’t care what I’m wearing, Amber thought in sullen resentment. How foolish she’d been for wishing to look pretty for him, even for a minute. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Or why it still hurts after all this time.

  Why had her father wanted her to wed this—this robot? He wasn’t a man. He was barely human…at least not where she was concerned. But, oh, she’d heard the rumours that he was man enough for another.

  She tamped down the weakness of anger, finding strength in her pride. ‘You need something, My Lord?’ she asked, keeping her tone meek, submissive, but just as formal and distant as his. ‘It must be important for you to actually come inside my rooms. I believe this is the first time you’ve come here willingly in three years.’

  He looked at her then—with a cold flash in his eyes that made her feel like a worm in dirt. ‘Since you’re taking the gloves off, my wife, we both know it’s the first time I’ve been in here willingly at all, not merely since our wedding night.’

  The burning returned in full measure to her cheeks, a stinging wave of embarrassment that came every time she thought of that awful night. Turning from him with insulting slowness, as if she didn’t care, she drawled, ‘You never did explain yourself.’

  Yes, she’d said it well. As if it were a mere matter of curiosity for her, and not the obsession it had been for so long.

  She marvelled that, in so long, there’d never been an opportunity to ask before—but Harun was a master at making certain they were never alone. His favourite place in the palace seemed to be his office, or the secret passageway between their bedrooms—going the other way, towards his room. Only once had she swallowed her pride, followed him out and asked him to come to her—

  ‘I’m sure you’ve noticed that my life is rather busy, my wife. And really, there’s no point in coming where you aren’t welcome.’

  The heat in her cheeks turned painful. ‘Of—of course you’re welcome,’ she stammered. ‘You’re my husband.’

  He shrugged. ‘So says the imam who performed the service.’

  Knowing what he’d left unsaid, Amber opened her mouth, and closed it. No, they weren’t husband and wife, never had been. They hadn’t even had one normal conversation, only cold accusation on her part, and stubborn silence on his.

  Didn’t he know how much it hurt that he only came to her rooms at night when the gossip became unbearable, and that he timed the hour and left, just as he had on their wedding night? Oh, she’d been cold and unwelcoming to him, mocking him with words and formal curtsies, but couldn’t he see that it was only because she was unable to stand the constant and very public humiliation of her life? Every time he was forced to be near her she knew that soon, he’d leave without a word, giving her nothing but that cold, distant bow. And everyone in her world knew it, too.

  ‘I didn’t come here to start an argument.’ He kept his gaze on her, and a faint thrill ran through her body, as delicious as it was unwelcome—yet Harun was finally looking at her, his eyes ablaze with life. ‘Alim’s shown up at last,’ he said abruptly.

  Amber gasped. Alim’s disappearance from the clinic in Bern three years ago had been so complete that all Harun’s efforts to find him had proven useless. ‘He’s alive?’

  Harun nodded. ‘He’s in Africa, taken by a Sudanese warlord. He’s being held hostage for a hundred million US dollars.’

  Her hand fluttered to her cheek. ‘Oh, no! Is he well? Have they hurt him?’

  The silence went on too long, and, seeing the ice chips in his eyes, she realised that, without meaning to, she’d said something terribly wrong—but what?

  Floundering for words when she couldn’t know which ones were right or wrong, she tried again, wishing she knew something, anything about the man she’d married. ‘Harun, what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Pay the ransom in full, of course. He’s the true Sheikh of Abbas al-Din, and without the contracts from the oil he found we’d have very little of our current wealth.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I’m going to Africa. I have to be there when he’s released, to find out if he’s coming home. And—he’s my brother.’

  She’d expected him to say that, of course. From doing twelve hours of mind-numbing paperwork to meeting dignitaries and businessmen to taking up sword and gun, Harun always did what was right for the country, for his people, even for her, at least in public—but she hadn’t expected the catch in his voice, or the shimmer of tears in those normally emotionless eyes. ‘You love him,’ she muttered, almost in wonder.

  He frowned at her. ‘Of course I do. He’s my brother, the only family I have left, and he—might come home at last.’

  The second catch in her stranger husband’s voice made her search his face. She’d never seen him cry once since Fadi’s death. He’d never seemed lonely or needy during the years of Alim’s disappearance, at least not in her presence. But now his eyes were misty, his jaw working with emotion.

  Amber felt a wave of shame. Harun had been missing his brother all this time, and she’d never suspected it. She’d even accused him once of enjoying his role too much as the replacement sheikh to care where Alim was, or if he
was alive or dead. He’d bowed and left her without a word, seconds before she could regret her stupid words. She’d wanted to hurt him for always being so cold, so unfeeling with her—but during the past three years she’d been able to call or Skype with her family daily, or ask one sister or another to visit. She’d left him all alone, missing his brother, and she’d never even noticed until now.

  The sudden longing to give him comfort when she knew he’d only push her away left her confused, even frightened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in the end—a compromise that was so weak, so wishy-washy she felt like an idiot. ‘I hope he does come home, for your sake.’

  ‘Thank you.’ But it seemed she’d said the wrong thing again; the smile he gave her held the same shard of ice as his eyes. ‘Will it make a difference to you?’

  Taken aback, she stammered, ‘W-what? How could Alim’s return possibly make any difference to me?’

  Harun shrugged, but there was something—a hint of fire beneath his customary ice with her. She didn’t know why, but it fascinated her, held her gaze as if riveted to his face. ‘He surrendered himself to the warlord in order to protect the woman who saved his life, a nurse working with Doctors for Africa. Very courageous of him, but of course one expects no less from the Racing Sheikh. Soon Alim will become the true, hereditary sheikh he should have been these three years, and I’ll be back to being—Brother Number Three.’

  By this point she wondered if any more blood could possibly pool in her face. Ridiculous that she could feel such envy for a woman she’d never met, but she’d always yearned to have a man care enough about her to make such a sacrifice. To know Alim, the man who’d run from her, could risk his life for another woman—

  Then, without warning, Harun’s deliberate wording slithered back into her mind like a silent snake, striking without warning. Frowning, she tilted her head, mystified. ‘What did you mean by that—Brother Number Three?’