"Your father has given his permission for the two of you to marry," her mother said in a husky, excited voice. She gazed at Leila with shining eyes. "Oh, my child, I am so happy for you. Mr. Gallagher must love you very much, to honor you so."
Leila was glad she was no longer holding the cup of coffee in her hands; as badly as they were shaking, she would surely have dropped it-or perhaps hurled it into the nearest fountain. Inwardly she was seething with anger, with outrage. Remembering the way he had thrust her away from him, as if she were something vile. Remembering the humiliation. How dare he!
Why is he doing this? she thought desperately. What can he possibly hope to gain? Is he trying to humiliate me even more?
Because she knew, she absolutely knew, that whatever Cade Gallagher's motive might be for marrying her, it most definitely was not because he loved her.
"Mother," said Leila in a choked voice, "I do not want to marry Mr. Gallagher. I will not." A tear ran down her cheek.
Her mother made a distressed sound and brushed it away. "Oh dear-I thought you would be pleased. But tell me, why not?"
Why not? Because he made me feel like… like I never knew it was possible to feel. Because he opened a door and beckoned to me, showed me a gliwpse of paradise, then slammed the door in my face. Because he made me want him… and I cannot stop thinking about him… and I know I will never be able to forget him. How can I forgive him for that?
"He is from America!" Leila cried, brushing furiously at both the tears and her mother's hand. It was the only thing she could think of to say. "From Texas!"
Her mother looked startled, but only for a moment. Then she put her arms around Leila and patted her on the back as she crooned, "Yes, of course…I understand. Don't cry, my sweet. Naturally you would not wish to marry someone who would take you so far away from your home…your family. I hadn't thought, but yes- you would have to live in America-in Texas! Your father and I would hardly ever see you. What were we thinking? Hmm. Well. Never mind."
She gave Leila one last little hug and rose. "Don't worry, my sweet, I will explain things to your father." She smiled and leaned down to kiss Leila's cheek. "To be honest, I think he will be glad that you will be staying right here in Tamir."
When her mother had gone, Leila reached for her coffee cup, then pushed it savagely away from her.
Nadia put aside her sketchbook. "Have you suddenly lost your mind?" she asked mildly. Leila said nothing, but stared at her coffee cup with hot, tearless eyes. "Or," said Nadia, "are you merely being contrary?" She gave a sigh of exasperation. "Did I not hear you say, two days ago, how attractive you thought Mr. Gallagher? And, were you not talking about how much you wanted to go to America? Especially Texas! It seemed like an impossible dream, even I thought so. To have it realized would have taken a miracle. Now, it is as if you had rubbed a magic lamp! All your wishes have been granted. And you would turn them down? Leila-for mercy's sake, why?"
"Because I do not love him," Leila said flatly. Her voice was as dry as her eyes. "And he certainly does not love me."
With an exasperated noise, Nadia flung herself away from the table. "Leila, you are such a child."
Leila stared at her, stung. Although it was the sort of thing people were always saying to her, for some reason, this morning, it hurt more than usual. She swallowed, then said softly, "I do not think it is childish to want to be loved. You have known love, Nadia. Why should I not have the same?"
For a moment, as she gazed back at Leila, Nadia's face softened. For a moment. Then her eyes darkened with pain and she veiled them with her lashes before she turned away. "You don't know what you are talking about. Love brings only pain. Trust me-you do not ever want to know pain like that."
"I am sorry, Nadia," Leila whispered, belatedly remembering her sister's secret heartbreak.
"Besides," Nadia went on briskly, "we are not talking about love, but about marriage, which is a different thing entirely. Love is a terrible reason to get married. It is a recent idea, this notion that one must be in love in order to marry-don't you know that? And look at what that has done! So much unhappiness. Inevitably, love leads to disappointment, and disappointment to misery and even divorce. No, thank you."
"So," said Leila grudgingly, "what reason do you think people should marry for, if not love?" She was by no means ready to agree with such a cynical point of view, but there was no arguing with Nadia.
"Why, for practical reasons, of course." Nadia looked as annoyingly superior as an older sister can. "Marriage should be entered into as a business agreement-a contract, mutually advantageous, of course. I, for example," she said loftily, holding her head high, "have decided to marry Butrus. Why?" Ignoring Leila's gasp of surprise, she rushed on, ticking off reasons one by one on her fingers. "One, Butrus wishes to marry me in order to gain favor with Father, therefore, he knows he must treat me well-very well-because if I were to be made unhappy, Father would not be pleased. Two, as Father's advisor, Butrus is away a great deal of the time. So, I would not only have the status of a married woman, but at the same time I would be assured a considerable amount of freedom. And three, I wish to have children. Butrus is handsome and physically well made. So, we would have beautiful, healthy babies. And, he has rather nice teeth, I believe."
"Nadia," Leila said, giggling in spite of herself, "you sound as though you are buying a horse."
"It is very much the same thing," Nadia said airily. A moment later, though, she was serious again as she bent down to cover Leila's hand with her own and give it an urgent little squeeze. "Leila-for once in your life, use your head. Think. Cade Gallagher will make beautiful, healthy babies, too. And, he will take you to America-to Texas." She glanced quickly over her shoulder and lowered her voice. Even so, it quivered with passion. "Away from here. Just think, Leila-in America you can do-you can become-anything you want to. Anything. Do you understand? The freedom…" She straightened abruptly, biting her lip. " Think about it, Leila," she whispered, and snatching up her sketchpad, walked quickly away without looking back.
Leila did not know how long she stayed there, biting her lip and stubbornly frowning at nothing. Bees hummed among the roses, birds came to drink and play in the fountain and a servant came quietly to clear away the remains of the meal. And still she sat…quivering with the burden of unshed tears.
* * *
It was the strangest meeting Cade had ever been a part of. Definitely not what he'd expected. Though he'd have had a hard time putting into words just what it was he had expected.
One thing, definitely-he'd expected to have at least one more chance to talk with Leila. Alone. But clearly, that wasn't going to happen. Instead they each occupied separate leather chairs facing Sheik Ahmed's long mahogany desk, with several feet of space between them. It might as well have been several miles. Like a cross between a biblical Moses and a junior high school principal facing down a couple of co-conspirators in mischief, Sheik Ahmed presided behind his desk. His wife, Alima, Leila's mother, sat in a comfortable chair near one of the casement windows that overlooked the sea. She wore a serene smile and held in her hands a small, leather-bound book.
As for Leila, she hadn't spoken a word to Cade, or even looked at him. She sat straight-backed in her chair with her head held high, the arch of her throat as pale as the marble columns that graced the palace gardens. There was only a quivery softness about her mouth to betray any emotion or vulnerability at all, but to Cade, that was enough. Disliking the queasy, seasick feeling he got when he saw…when he remembered…that incredibly ripe, incredibly fragile mouth, he'd stopped looking at her at all.
With a face as stern as an old-fashioned Texas hang-'emhigh judge, Sheik Ahmed was speaking, "…and that you have entered into this decision of your own free will, and with pure mind and sincere heart?"
"Yes-" Cade cleared his throat. "Yes, sir, I have."
The sheik went on talking, something solemn about a man's heart being the province of God and therefore not to be questioned b
y man, but Cade wasn't listening. His mind was full of the incredible fact that he, Cade Gallagher, an American businessman living in the twenty-first century, had just agreed to an arranged marriage. Arranged-like in medieval times! How had such a thing happened to him?
Right now, more than anything, what he felt was dazed, bewildered, at a loss to explain how a man such as he, a master at navigating through the most circuitous and complex of business negotiations, could have gotten himself so completely boxed in. Because the truth was, he just didn't see any other way out of this. Not unless he was prepared to take it all back, right here and now, in front of Leila and both her parents. Say he hadn't meant the proposal of marriage to begin with, that it had been a mistake and he wasn't prepared to go through with it after all. Say it to her face.
There was no way. He could not do that. No way in hell.
Because if there was anything he'd learned as a kid growing up in Texas, it was to stand up and take the consequences for his actions like a man.
Consequences… Elena had said something like that, hadn't she? They'd had only a few minutes together, while Hassan was speaking to the foreman at one of the refineries they'd visited this afternoon about some sort of minor problem or complaint. Even now, remembering the disappointment in her eyes made Cade squirm. "Cade, I warned you…"
"You did," he'd acknowledged, and added, grimly joking, "Don't worry, I take full responsibility for my own stupidity."
But Elena hadn't smiled, and with a sad little shake of her head had murmured, "This isn't what I wanted for you, Cade." Her eyes had gone to where her husband stood with his back to them, deep in conversation with the refinery foreman. "I'd hoped…someday…you'd find someone you could love the way I love Hassan." Her voice had broken then, and Cade had snorted to cover the shaft of pain that unexpectedly pierced his heart.
Why he'd felt such a sense of loss, he didn't know. He'd never expected to experience that kind of love, anyway. The kind of love that lasts a lifetime. From his own personal experience he thought it doubtful love like that even existed.
As for his own feelings about Leila, since they were so confusing to him, most of the time he tried not to dwell on them at all. If he had to define them, he'd have said they pretty much consisted of a mix of anger and remorse. Yeah, she'd behaved like a moonstruck girl, but he was old enough, experienced enough, and he should have known better. He was responsible and it was up to him to make it right. But there was something else in the stew of his emotions that wasn't as easily defined, possibly because it was a whole lot less unfamiliar. The closest he would allow himself to come to defining it was protectiveness. With his own carelessness he'd hurt this child-woman immeasurably, and he never wanted to do so again.
Understandable enough. But even that didn't account for the strange ache of tenderness that filled his throat sometimes when he looked at her-like now, as she murmured affirmative responses to her father's questions.
Do you agree to this marriage, Leila, and enter into it of your own free will?
Yes, Father…
But still, not once did she look at Cade. And he felt a strange, unfamiliar emptiness inside.
Alima rose then, and came to her daughter's side. She placed the leather-bound book on the shiny desktop. Sheik Ahmed picked it up and handed it to Cade, explaining that it was an English translation of the Quran, which he might wish to study in his own time. Cade nodded, accepted the book and murmured his thanks. The sheik then repeated, in Arabic, the words of the eshedu, which Cade would be required to recite later that evening, before the marriage ceremony itself. Cade nodded again. Then Alima touched Leila on the shoulder. Without a word, she rose and followed her mother from the room.
"Now, then," purred the sheik when the women had gone, leaning back and lacing beringed fingers across his ample middle, "let us discuss the Mahr… It is our custom that a husband bestow upon his wife a gift. This may be money or jewels, of course-" the sheik waved a hand in a casually dismissive way "-or something of even greater, if less concrete value. That is up to you. You will no doubt wish to give the matter some thought…"
Once again, Cade could only nod. His heart was beating hard, gathering speed like a runner hurtling downhill.
This is real, he thought. It's actually happening. I'm marrying a princess of Tamir. And a virgin princess, at that.
* * *
Leila gazed at her reflection in the mirror, eyes dark and solemn in her waxy pale face. She saw her mother's hands, graceful and white as lily petals as they plucked and tweaked at the veils that covered her long black hair, veils that soon would be arranged to cover her face as well, until the final moments of the nikah ceremony later that morning when her husband would lift them to gaze at last upon the face of his wife.
At least, she thought, there would not be many people present to witness that moment. Only her parents and her sisters, Nadia and Sammi, of course, and Salma, and perhaps a few of the other servants who had known her since she was a baby. She was glad she would not have to face Elena, and especially Hassan. Salma had told her that they had left last evening for their honeymoon trip, right after returning from their tour of the oil refineries with Cade. Most of the guests who had attended Hassan and Elena's wedding had left yesterday, as well, and probably would not even know yet of Leila's humiliation.
Sadly, she thought of the wedding she had always imagined for herself, the most wonderful, beautiful occasion…even more glorious than Hassan's. Instead, it must be only a brief and private, almost secretive affair, with only her closest family attending. Papa would preside over the ceremony, of course. She would not even have a Walima, since she and Cade would have to leave for his home in Texas immediately after the nikah ceremony, and so how could there be a joyous celebration of its consummation?
Her stomach lurched and she swallowed hard. I wish I had some makeup, she thought. Lipstick, at least. What will Cade think, when he sees me looking so pale?
Does he think I am pretty at all?
Will he want to kiss me again, the way he did that night?
Her stomach gave another of those dreadful lurches. Oh, she thought, I do hope I'm not going to throw up.
Another time… another place…
She took a deep breath, and then another. After tonight I will be his wife. Will he want we then?
"Are you all right?" her mother asked, holding her hands away from the veils and looking concerned. "Do you need to sit down for a moment?"
"I am fine, mother," Leila said, trying a light laugh. "I was just thinking about Sammi and Nadia. Are they very angry with me?" Not Nadia, of course-she was the one who had convinced Leila to go through with this. But Leila had not told her mother that.
Her mother gave a rather unladylike snort. "Of course they are not angry with you." She paused to consider the effect she had just created with the drape of the veils, then threw Leila a quick, bright glance by way of the mirror. "They have been no more happy than you have, you know, with some of our more… restrictive ways. To have one such restriction done away with they see as a victory for themselves as well as for you."
Leila could only stare back at her, openmouthed with surprise. She had never heard her mother speak so freely. It occurred to her then, perhaps for the first time, that her mother was a person in her own right, a woman of intelligence, with her own thoughts, opinions, hopes and dreams. And she suddenly wished with all her heart, now that it was too late, that she could have talked with her about those things.
This time, the lurch was not in her stomach, but in her heart. She made an impulsive movement, a jerky half turn. "Mother-" she began, then paused, because Alima's eyes had darkened with worry…and something else. Embarrassment?
Her mother took a small step back and clasped her hands together in front of her ample chest. "Leila…my dear, you are the first of my daughters to marry. I am sorry-I do not know…exactly how…" She closed her eyes for a moment and bent her head over her clasped hands, as if in prayer, then dr
ew a resolute breath. "What is it you would like to know? There must be questions you wish to ask. Please do not be afraid. I will try-"
A strange little bubble rose into Leila's throat-part nervousness, part excitement, a little guilt-but she bit it back before it could erupt in laughter. A wave of unheralded tenderness swept over her; she suddenly felt quite amazingly mature and wise. "Mother," she said gently, "I know about sex. Really. You do not have to worry."
"Oh dear." Alima closed her eyes and let out an exasperated breath. "I was afraid of that."
"From school." Leila was softly laughing. "It is all right. Really." She did not think it necessary to mention to her mother that most of her "education" on the subject of sex had not come from classrooms and textbooks, but from the lurid novels and how-to books smuggled in from time to time by Leila's classmates and examined late at night, by flashlight, under the covers, to the accompaniment of giggles, gasps of amazement and sometimes, outright horror.
Her mother sighed, reached for her and drew her close, in a way she had not done since Leila was a little girl. "Then…you are truly all right? You are not afraid?"
As she fought back tears, Leila briefly considered lying. Then, trembling, she whispered, "Mummy, I am terrified."
"Oh, my dear one-"
"He is a stranger to me! Who is he? What is he like, this… Cade Gallagher? Mummy, I do not know him at all!"
"Then you will learn," said her mother in an unexpectedly firm voice, putting Leila away from her and making little brushing adjustments to her veils. "And he will learn about you. And, God willing, you will continue doing so all the days of your lives. As your father and I have."
"Mother?" Leila brushed a tear. "Did you know Father well before you married? Did you…love him?"
Alima considered that for a moment, and there was a faraway look in her dark eyes. Then she smiled. "I knew that he was a good man…" Then she added more firmly, "And I believe Cade Gallagher to be a good man, as well."
Virgin Seduction Page 8
