The Sheikh's Secret Babies

by Lynne Graham

  CHAPTER NINE

  WITH LIZZIE BY her side, Chrissie crossed the entrance hall of the British Embassy in Marwan City with her pale head held high, her hair swept up and ornamented only with a short veil and her perilously high sparkly shoes tap-tapping on the tiles.

  Her dress was such a neat fit that she could barely breathe in it but she felt like ten million dollars in the exquisite dress with its shimmering embroidered fabric glistening even in the dulled light. She was a stock size...just, and Zaliha had discovered that several exclusive designers were willing to fly in a selection of dresses and accessories for a queen’s approval. The gown hugged her arms and her upper body, nipping in at the waist before flaring out with the fluidity of the most expensive silk.

  ‘You look spectacular,’ her sister whispered with fierce pride. ‘And I’m so pleased that Jaul is making such an effort to give your marriage a firmer footing in the present.’

  If anything, Chrissie’s smile dimmed as she had not allowed it to dim during the lengthy photographic session that had preceded her departure from the royal palace. Lizzie had not recognised that Chrissie was fulfilling a more public than private role in agreeing to the renewing of her wedding vows. Chrissie, conversely, was hugely aware that a visible wedding was very much what the people of Marwan wanted to see and rejoice in. The first half of the day would celebrate her British identity with the blessing at the embassy followed by a formal wedding breakfast back at the palace. But afternoon would find Chrissie being prepared for a traditional Marwani wedding, which would be staged at the palace at dusk and followed by a big party.

  Jaul broke off his conversation with his brother-in-law, Cesare, to focus on his bride’s entrance with dark eyes that swiftly turned to scorching gold. She was so beautiful in that gloriously feminine gown. For the first time he appreciated what the hole-and-corner wedding he had insisted on in London two years earlier had cost her. That had been no dream day for a starry-eyed bride, he conceded remorsefully. He had wanted to present his father with a fait accompli but marrying Chrissie in the bright spotlight of paparazzi publicity would only have made his father more bitter and hostile. In the end, though, his attempt not to rebel too publicly against his father’s edicts had only exacerbated the situation and had ensured that their marriage remained a dangerous secret.

  As the embassy chaplain approached her, Chrissie could barely drag her eyes from Jaul’s strikingly handsome dark features. His lean, powerful physique sheathed in a light grey morning suit, Jaul was drop-dead gorgeous, but Chrissie had been even more taken with him when she had seen him wearing jeans at dawn to get down on the floor of the nursery and play with Tarif and Soraya before he began his working day. The twins chattered with excitement when their father appeared now, associating his frequent visits with the kind of fun rough-and-tumble games they adored. Watching Jaul play with their children warmed the cold spot deep inside Chrissie, which repeatedly sought to warn her that if she wasn’t careful she would get her heart broken again.

  Jaul reached for her hand as the chaplain began to speak and Chrissie suppressed the treacherous swell of her insecurity. For a few seconds indeed, she was lost in the memory of their wedding day two years previously and of the joyful sense of security she had experienced as that ring went on her finger, a security that had proved to be sadly short-lived. Her rings were back where they belonged now because she had reclaimed them from Cesare’s safe.

  Chrissie smiled, reminding herself that they were making a fresh start at being together and that, so far, Jaul was doing absolutely everything right. She didn’t need his love and devotion, she told herself impatiently. She would focus her energies on becoming the very best mother and Queen she could be, not on chasing soap-bubble dreams of romance. He had been her first love, for goodness’ sake, and they had only been students. That time couldn’t be reclaimed or relived and, anyway, would she even want to go back there? Back to the silly rows they had once had, rows redolent of their immaturity and inability to compromise?

  One thing she did appreciate was that Jaul had changed. She wondered if what he had endured in the wake of the accident had made that change in him because he was considerably more tolerant and less domineering than she remembered him being.

  More cameras flashed as Jaul escorted her out of the function room. In the limousine on the way back to the palace, he flashed her a charismatic smile and lifted a lean brown hand to acknowledge the crowds lining the side of the road. ‘One down, only one more to go. We will feel very much married by the end of this day.’

  Her turquoise eyes brightened with amusement. ‘Yes...’

  ‘Tonight we’ll be travelling into the desert for a few days. I have to meet with the tribal sheikhs and it’s the perfect opportunity to introduce you to their families. While we are becoming an increasingly urban society, there is not a family in the country that does not have a connection by birth or marriage to one of the tribes. Their support is influential,’ he told her quietly. ‘Zaliha will travel with us as an interpreter for your benefit.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll have to get lessons in Arabic.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be of much use to you in the desert. The tribes speak an ancient dialect,’ Jaul told her ruefully and reached for her hand, disconcerting her. ‘I really do appreciate your can-do attitude to all of this.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever I have to do to be a good queen,’ Chrissie assured him, lifting her chin. ‘I’m not planning to embarrass you or the children either now or in the future.’

  His luxuriant black lashes lowered over a brightly assessing gleam of gold. ‘A commendable goal but I have a rather more personal outlook.’

  Chrissie tugged her fingers free lightly. ‘Have you really?’ she dared before she could bite back that cynical challenge. ‘I doubt very much that you see our marriage in personal terms. How could you? The ceremonies today are the ultimate publicity blitz calculated to please your subjects.’

  ‘What we appear to feel in public can continue in private. It doesn’t have to be fake,’ Jaul countered smoothly.

  ‘Let’s keep it simple, Jaul. We’ll both do our best in our respective roles and see how it goes,’ she suggested lightly.

  ‘As you wish.’ Jaul wondered what had happened to the outspoken and passionate young woman he had married. That Chrissie would never have settled for such prosaic goals. No, indeed she would have demanded his love and attention and shouted loudly if she failed to receive her due. Was the change in her the result of his apparent desertion and the struggles of single parenthood? Ultimately was he to blame? The thought appalled him.

  Back at the palace a European-style meal was served. Tarif and Soraya joined the table in their high chairs and ate at speed before demanding the freedom of the floor, whereupon they made complete nuisances of themselves crawling below the table and tugging at shoelaces and trouser legs. Highly amused, Jaul hauled Tarif out from below the tablecloth and returned him to his nanny. Soraya was curled up sleepily on her mother’s lap, forcing Chrissie to dip into her dessert with one hand. Zaliha gave her a nod when it was time for her to go off and prepare for her second wedding. Passing Soraya to the nursemaid hovering expectantly behind her chair and closely followed by Lizzie, Chrissie left the table.

  Zaliha introduced Chrissie to the crowd of older women waiting in the bedroom suite, which had been set aside for the wedding preparations. Every tribe had put forward a representative to help dress the Queen. Chrissie removed her wedding gown and entered the bathroom, an old-fashioned one with a giant, sunken tiled tub that had evidently escaped Jaul’s improvements. The water in the tub was awash with rose petals and some highly fragrant herbal concoction. A basin was brought to help in the washing of her hair.

  ‘It must be done five times,’ Zaliha explained in an undertone. ‘Nobody knows why but it has always been done this way.’

  Lizzie grinned and parked herself down on the chair provided for her. ‘I’m going to enjoy every minute of watching this process
,’ she forecast cheerfully. ‘It’s so wonderfully exotic.’

  Chrissie bathed and lay back while her hair was soaked in scented oil and rinsed over and over again. She emerged from the bath swathed in a big towel and climbed straight onto a massage table, where she was expertly kneaded and moisturised while at the same time an artist drew swirling, elaborate henna patterns on the backs of her hands and on her feet. The painstaking care with which every strand of her hair and every inch of her skin were anointed with some special preparation was amazingly relaxing and at one stage she dozed off for a little while, only wakening when she was forced to do so by the woman trilling in the bedroom.

  ‘They chant for your good luck and fertility,’ Zaliha explained. ‘You’re already a step ahead there with twins...’

  While her hair was dried into a shining white-blonde sheet of silk falling down her back, make-up was applied. Zaliha passed her a turquoise silk beaded top and matching long skirt while ethnic turquoise and silver jewellery was tumbled out from a big casket onto the dressing table and picked through. A headdress of beaten silver coins was attached to her brow.

  ‘You look like a Viking warrior princess,’ Lizzie whispered teasingly. ‘Jaul will love it.’

  The whole regalia felt like fancy dress to Chrissie but she wore it with pride, knowing that the outfit she wore and the respect she was clearly demonstrating for Marwani traditions would please many people. Marwan was a rapidly changing society, keen to move forward into the modern technological world but afraid of losing its culture in the process. Professional photographs were taken with great care in the room next door and then she was led downstairs for the ceremony.

  Jaul had been enjoying much more relaxed preparations, which consisted merely of a shower, a change of clothing and prayers with the imam before he joined the retinue of VIPs and personal staff awaiting him.

  * * *

  Jaul saw Chrissie the minute he entered the room. In Marwani costume, she was the very image of a perfect porcelain doll but a breathtakingly beautiful one. His body reacted more like an adolescent boy’s than an adult’s. Instantly he turned his head away again, blocking her out, willing back his vanquished control with the grim awareness that no woman had ever affected him the way she did. But then she was the only woman he had ever loved and nothing had ever hurt as much as the loss of her. He had closed off those emotions inside him, never to revisit them. Hadn’t that been the healthy response to that much pain?

  ‘Your wife is even more lovely in person than she is in photos, Your Majesty,’ the elderly sheikh by his side remarked, shooting him out of introspection into looking at Chrissie again. ‘You are a very fortunate man.’

  Was it good fortune to have had her and lost her again? To have been forced to blackmail her with their children to win her back again? As his conscience bit into him Jaul thought not. He had put his children’s needs first, he reminded himself doggedly, ensuring that, unlike him who had lost his mother at birth, Tarif and Soraya would grow up with their mother loving and supporting them. But what if ultimately what he offered was not enough to keep Chrissie with him? A hollow expanded inside his chest at the prospect of losing her again. The answer was simple, he acknowledged grittily. He had to make very, very sure that Chrissie wanted to stay with him.

  Chrissie’s gaze flashed round the room before arrowing back to identify Jaul. It was the first time she had seen him clad in traditional clothing. A gold-edged black cloak flowing back over his broad shoulders, Jaul wore beige linen with a pristine white buttoned undershirt, the pale colour amplifying his bronzed skin. A headdress bound with gold cord covered his black hair and mysteriously contrived to enhance the flawless cut of his spectacular bone structure, highlighting the spiky ebony lashes rimming his lustrous dark eyes and the clean, sculpted beauty of his wide, sensual lips. He looked both exotic and sleekly, darkly beautiful. She sucked in a steadying breath.

  ‘Jaul’s a bit like Cesare. It doesn’t matter what you dress him in,’ Lizzie whispered teasingly in her ear. ‘He will always look hot.’

  The wedding ceremony was formal and brief. Their hands were ritually bound together and then released again. The more light-hearted aspect of their renewal of their vows at the British Embassy was replaced by a tone of gravity as prayers were chanted. A little intimidated by the solemnity of the occasion, Chrissie turned back to face Jaul, needing reassurance. He cupped her elbow, very much aware that their every move was still under scrutiny and that any public demonstration of intimacy would be unacceptable.

  ‘All done,’ he said quietly as if she were a child who had survived having a plaster ripped off a grazed knee.

  Night had fallen while they were indoors. In the palace’s largest courtyard, braziers burned and colourful lights illuminated the palm trees and shrubs against the darkness. Jaul guided Chrissie to one of a pair of gilded thrones set centrally while all around them staff hurried back and forth with trays of lightly steaming food.

  ‘I will serve you,’ Jaul declared, waving away the servant eager to wait on them with a determined hand and approaching a laden table to lift a plate.

  He was deep in thought. The wedding staged here in the home of his ancestors had touched him deeply. Chrissie was his wife and it was his duty to protect her, a duty he had failed in when he had first married her. While the accident had not been his fault and he could not have avoided it, he knew he had let her down. A man who took on the responsibility of a wife should always make provision for his wife’s safety and security in the event of a tragedy, he reasoned guiltily. He had been young and irresponsible and thoughtless and she had paid the price for his arrogance. But he would ensure that she had no further cause to regret their marriage.

  Chrissie was painfully aware of their guests watching as Jaul served her with food.

  ‘In seeing to your needs before his own, the King shows you great honour,’ Zaliha explained as a maid served them with glasses of juice.

  The music began. Dancers put on an exhibition of acrobatic athleticism. Poetry was recited. Good wishes were tendered. A comedian performed a skit but, even with Jaul’s translation, Chrissie didn’t get the jokes. Cameras gleamed and whirred in the bright lights, quietly recording everything. As the night air grew chillier and gooseflesh prickled below the sleeves of Chrissie’s light top, Jaul raised her up and dropped his cloak round her slim shoulders. ‘It is time for us to leave.’

  A convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles awaited them outside. Chrissie climbed into the lead vehicle and watched as Jaul’s bodyguards divided to fill the vehicles behind. Her brow indented. ‘What happened to your old bodyguards?’

  And she knew the instant she saw the pallor leach away his natural colour and his haunted eyes met hers that she need not have asked. ‘The accident?’ she whispered in distress, involuntarily recalling Hakim, the tall, thin, serious one and his younger brother, Altair, who had always had a smile on his face.

  Jaul nodded in silent acknowledgement and regret.

  Chrissie reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said frankly, painfully aware that Jaul had grown up with the two brothers.

  The convoy rocked noisily along a rough track into the desert. Chrissie almost tumbled off the seat several times until Jaul secured her with a protective arm. ‘Have we far to go?’ she asked, certain her teeth were going to rattle right out of her head with the jolts and bumps.

  ‘We are almost there. We pitched the camp closer than usual to the palace.’

  Jaul stepped out into the dense shadow cast by a huge tent while lights flared both outside it and within it. ‘We will have every comfort here,’ he assured her, helping her out. ‘The twins will join us tomorrow. It would not have made sense to disrupt their sleep.’

  The tent was in no shape or form what she had expected. For a start it was much more spacious than she had foreseen and partitioned off into different sections. The seating area was in the front portion and clearly for entertaining. The walls were hung w
ith bead and wool work while the floor was covered with an exquisite rug and fur and silk throws and elaborate soft cushions provided an opulent accent to the seating. ‘Wow...this is not camping as I imagined it.’

  ‘We’re not camping. Are you hungry?’ Jaul enquired, thrusting open a door hidden by a hanging.

  ‘No, I’m absolutely stuffed,’ Chrissie admitted, following him into a bedroom even more magnificently decorated than the entertainment area. ‘No stinting on comforts here...’

  ‘But we will have to share a bathroom,’ Jaul confided, casting open another concealed door to let her see the facilities. ‘We will be as comfortable here as we would be at the palace. For generations my forebears have visited the desert in spring and late summer to meet with the tribal elders.’

  Glancing in a mirror, Chrissie removed the coin headdress because, like the rest of the handmade antique jewellery she wore, it was very heavy. Stilling behind her in silence, Jaul undid the clasp of the necklace she wore without being asked and she caught it as it slid down and settled it on the mirror tray before pushing back her hair to detach the earrings.

  ‘Which outfit did you prefer?’ she suddenly asked him. ‘The wedding gown or this...?’

  ‘You looked fantastic in the white gown, like a model on a catwalk. But my heart raced when I saw you in this...’ He smoothed long brown fingers over a slender shoulder. ‘The colour reflects the shade of your eyes and your glorious curves are only hinted at, which I liked,’ he confided huskily. ‘Perhaps I am more like my ancestors than I ever dreamt and a hundred years ago I would have veiled you from all eyes but my own...’

  Warmth flared in her cheeks. She had expected him to tell her that he preferred her in the wedding gown and he had surprised her with an honesty that she found extraordinarily sexy. ‘Veiled?’ she teased.

  ‘Your beauty could blind a man,’ Jaul husked, trailing his warm mouth across the pale skin of her shoulder and drawing her back against him. ‘You blinded me the first moment I saw you but it was the wrong time in the wrong place and in the wrong company.’