‘Did you meet the Princess while you were there? Did you discuss the matter with her?’
‘Nessarah is a very traditional kingdom. Women there wear the veil. In the palace, they live a separate life in the harem. My meeting with Princess Tahira was heavily chaperoned, though it was sufficient for me to be sure of her utter indifference to me—and I to her. It made me very uneasy, but again I was selfish, thinking only of myself, thinking all that mattered was to steel myself. Only recently, only because I have been drawing parallels between our situations, have I come to consider her feelings—or lack of them. It shames me.’
‘Kadar,’ Constance said tentatively, ‘you must be very careful not to draw these parallels too closely. This Princess Tahira—it may well be that what you took for indifference was simply shyness or even understandable trepidation. She doesn’t know you. She will have had no say in the matter, but she must certainly be feeling, at the very least, like a—a parcel, handed from one prince to the next without any consultation. You can hardly have expected her to throw herself adoringly at your feet.’
He laughed, but it was a bitter sound. ‘You say nothing which has not occurred to me—recently, that is. Whatever her feelings, she had no more choice than you but to acquiesce. And like you, once we were married, she would have no choice but to feign affection, to play the amenable wife. Cupboard love, is how I believe you described it.’
And so she had, and it was the truth, but Constance felt distinctly uncomfortable. ‘There is one big difference though, Kadar,’ she said. ‘You are a man of honour and integrity. Were you to marry this Princess, you would do everything in your power to make her happy.’
‘Your faith in me is flattering, but you contradict your own logic. You imply that I could force the Princess Tahira to be happy, yet you insist that only you can be responsible for your own happiness. When it comes down to it, my decision is not based on the Princess Tahira’s feelings for me or lack of them. My own feelings are the only ones of which I can be certain. I will sacrifice almost anything for my kingdom, but not my integrity.’ He slipped his hand from hers. ‘I thought you would endorse my decision. I thought that this marriage which my brother arranged was as repugnant to you as your marriage was to me.’
‘That’s the first time you’ve actually admitted to that.’
He smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t need to. You seem able to discern my innermost thoughts with ease.’
‘You think so?’ Constance exclaimed in surprise. ‘I find your mind almost impossible to read. Especially when you do that—that Sphynx look.’
‘I beg your pardon, that what look?’
She tried, but completely failed to imitate it, succeeding only in making her eyes roll and her mouth pucker as if she were sucking a lemon. ‘Don’t laugh. It is no laughing matter, and anyway you know perfectly well what I mean. You always do, my mind is an open book to you.’
‘On the contrary. Your reaction tonight has surprised me.’
Constance bit her lip. The truth was, she was horribly relieved by his decision, and that, following the realization of just how much she had come to care for him, had set her completely off-kilter. ‘When I told you that I was not going to India, your first reaction was defensive. You wanted me to assure you my decision had nothing to do with my feelings for you—I mean, nothing to do with the attraction between us,’ she corrected herself hastily.
Kadar nodded slowly. ‘You seek similar assurance that your presence here, our relationship, however one chooses to define it, has not influenced my decision?’
‘Well, has it?’
He leaned back and stared up at the cool morning sky. The sun had not risen, but the stars were all gone. ‘The contrast between my desire for you and my complete lack of desire for the Princess is one of the things which has made me reconsider, but it is not the main factor. It is quite simple really. I do not love her and I cannot in conscience marry a woman I do not love.’
‘You don’t know her, Kadar.’
‘But I have known love, and I know that the princess could never hold a similar place in my heart. No one could,’ he said. ‘It is not possible to match perfection, far less improve on it. And even if it was, I doubt the fates would be so very cruel as to allow history to repeat itself in this twisted manner.’
‘What twisted manner?’
But Kadar was rising to his feet, staring out at the horizon, where the sky was beginning to change colour, the first intimation of the sun’s appearance. ‘So you may put your mind at rest. My decision was mine alone.’
Constance scrabbled off the cushions to join him, determined not to allow him to shut her out, tugging on the sleeve of his tunic. ‘Are you relieved to have come to a decision? Only I was vastly relieved, even though I still have no idea what the ramifications might be, and actually when I think about it I’m quite terrified, but I’m still more relieved than scared, and I expect at some point I’ll be excited.’
She was rewarded with a warm smile. ‘You know I can help smooth the path to your future if you’ll let me.’
‘No.’
‘Constance, I don’t mean money. I am not without influence.’
‘I hadn’t considered that.’
‘Then please do.’
‘Yes, but you haven’t answered my question, Kadar.’
He laughed somewhat bitterly. ‘Yes, I am relieved, but like you, rather daunted by the ramifications. I need to think about it very carefully, somehow find another way to discharge my duty to my people without compromising my own integrity. Then there is the Princess Tahira and her family. They will be expecting me to act on my promise to set a date for the wedding following my coronation. The whole thing will have to be managed with diplomatic sensitivity, observing every custom minutely, so for now it must remain our secret.’
‘Well, I’m hardly likely to blurt it out to Abdul-Majid during one of our language lessons.’
Kadar shuddered. ‘I should hope not. What sort of teacher is he proving to be?’
‘Surprisingly amenable,’ Constance said, choosing the word deliberately. She recited several phrases, and when Kadar looked impressed, several more.
‘You are making very good progress. Your pronunciation is excellent. Have you a facility for languages?’
‘I don’t know. I can read French and German—oh, and Latin—but I’ve never had much chance to speak them. I am enjoying it though. We have been discussing books. Abdul-Majid is extremely well read. It is a pity you cannot bring yourself to like him, for I have found our discussions extremely interesting, and I gather that he has no one else who shares his passion.’
‘He did have,’ Kadar replied. ‘Once.’
His wife? She waited for enlightenment, but he seemed to have nothing else to say on the subject, so Constance resolved to pursue it with Abdul-Majid herself. Besides, there were so many other more fascinating subjects whirling about in her head. She gazed out at the sunrise, distracted by its beauty. ‘I could never tire of this.’
‘Nor I.’
Kadar was not looking at the sunrise. Kadar was looking at her, and there was a heat in his eyes that was considerably warmer than the sun’s rays. That kiss. Those kisses. She had thought them an end in themselves, but her traitorous body had other ideas now. ‘I thought I saw a comet last night,’ Constance said, because she had to say something. ‘I thought it would be a good omen for you, on your coronation day.’
‘They are more often seen as portents of natural disasters,’ Kadar said. ‘Earthquakes. Droughts.’
‘And cats,’ Constance said. ‘There was an outbreak of the sneezing sickness in cats in Prussia following the sighting of a comet.’
Kadar laughed. ‘That tale is new to me. A comet tale, one might say.’
He was still looking at her in that way. She suspected she was looking back at h
im in exactly the same way. ‘Anyway,’ Constance said, ‘it transpires it was only a shooting star.’
‘So no omen, good or bad.’
‘You don’t need one. It is written in the stars that you will be the best prince Murimon has ever had.’
They were not touching, but they were looking at each other as if they were.
‘I thought court astronomers could not foretell.’
‘I am certain of this prophecy, Kadar.’
‘Constance.’ He touched her hair. She lifted her face. He bent towards her. A loud crash in the piazza below, where work had begun on clearing up the remains of the banquet, made them jump.
‘It is morning,’ Constance said. ‘Your first official day as Prince of Murimon, and you haven’t even slept. You must be exhausted.’
‘I’m not tired.’
‘You should be.’
‘Yes,’ Kadar said with a dawning smile. ‘The festivities went on very late. What I need is a day of rest.’
‘Yes,’ Constance agreed in some surprise.
He laughed at her expression. ‘I do not intend to sleep the day away. I mean to spend it away from here.’
‘So only a day into your new role, and you are absconding already,’ she teased.
‘On the contrary, I shall be spending the day in contemplation before assuming the heavy mantle of power.’ He cast a glance at the rising sun. ‘If we are to make the most of it, we should leave as soon as possible.’
‘We? But don’t you want to be alone?’
‘Constance.’ He took her hand, pressing a kiss to her fingertips. ‘We have both freed ourselves from a promise made mistakenly out of a sense of duty and honour. We will both have to face the consequences of that breach, and very soon. But can we not take a day to ourselves, to briefly enjoy that freedom?’
What did he mean by enjoy? Now that the barrier of his betrothal was removed, there was nothing to stop them—is that what Kadar meant? Constance decided it was better not to ask. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Yes, please. I would like us to do that very much.’
Chapter Ten
Kadar lowered the sail of the little dhow and leapt agilely into the shallows to pull the craft onto the beach. When she had first sighted the boat bobbing by the harbour wall and realised that his suggested day out involved going out on the water, Constance’s nerve had almost failed her. But he had been true to his word, keeping them well within the relatively calm waters of the bay, sailing with an obviously expert hand, and she had very quickly relaxed, enjoying the freshness of the sea breeze whipping her hair, the faint spray of salt on her face, and refusing to allow herself to associate any of it with the day the Kent went down.
As the wooden hull bumped onto the sand, she rolled up the legs of her pantaloons and climbed out, relishing the lapping of the waves on her ankles, watching as Kadar pulled the boat higher up the beach onto the soft white sand beyond the tideline. He had said little on the journey here, merely touching her hand reassuringly every now and then when the boat scudded over a wave. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would be able to sail, though when she had said so he had laughed. ‘This journey would have taken days by camel. Our dhows are the camels of the sea here in Murimon. Everyone can sail.’
‘I would like to learn,’ Constance said wistfully. ‘I would like to have a little dhow like this of my own to explore this beautiful coastline. I would stop on a whim at a sandy cove, and spend the night lying on the beach with the waves murmuring and the stars sparkling overhead.’ She smiled, shaking her head at her own foolishness. ‘I know, you are thinking it is a silly notion. Sailing is hardly a skill I am likely to need back in England.’
Kadar said nothing. Rightly so, England was a depressing topic on such a beautiful day as this. She didn’t want to think about England. Today she and Kadar were cast adrift from both the past and the future. Castaways, Constance thought, giving herself a little shake. Just the two of them here, on this deserted beach with the promise of...
Stop thinking about that! Just enjoy! She waded to the shore, gazing around her with delight. The tide was ebbing, leaving a long stretch of hard-packed golden sand in its wake. An odd formation of rocks which formed a natural harbour backed on to the cliffs behind them. Intrigued, Constance padded closer and clambered up a rough set of steps which had been hewn into the side. Not a harbour, but a huge rock pool greeted her, the waters a deep dark turquoise. Balancing on the narrow wall formed by the smooth rock, she made her way to the far side, where the rock sloped down into the pool like a little slipway.
‘What do you think?’
She had been so intent on keeping her balance she had not noticed Kadar. Now she wobbled on the wall, which was fortunately only about a foot above the sand at this point. He caught her, helping her step down onto the beach. ‘It’s remarkable. Is it naturally formed?’
‘Some work has been done to deepen it, and the steps you climbed were cut, but other than that, yes, it is completely natural.’
‘It’s wonderful.’
Kadar smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you think so. It’s perfectly safe too—as you can see, it is very shallow at this end.’
Comprehension finally dawned on Constance, setting off a flutter of butterflies in her stomach. ‘You brought me here to teach me to swim,’ she said, eyeing the pool anew.
‘This is where I learned to swim.’
‘Really? Who taught you?’
‘My father,’ Kadar replied. ‘When I was very young, four or five, he brought Butrus and I here in a dhow like the one in which I transported us.’
‘So he taught you to sail too?’
‘You look surprised. I told you, everyone sails here in Murimon.’
Constance shrugged, embarrassed. ‘It sounds so natural, a father teaching his sons to sail and to swim. I thought— I was under the impression that you— Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
She turned away, confused by her surge of emotion, and made her way across the beach to the boat, where Kadar had set out a blanket in the shade. ‘This really is a lovely spot,’ she said brightly, when he joined her.
He studied her with that look of his that made her uncomfortably sure he could read her mind. And so it proved. ‘Your father...’
Constance flapped her hands. ‘Oh, please, let’s not talk about him, not today. Tell me about your father. Your brother.’
He hesitated, but then to her relief, decided to do as she asked him. ‘I told you that Butrus and I were very unalike,’ he said, ‘which no doubt led to the impression you seem to have gained that I was unhappy growing up here in Murimon. I was not. As children we were close, and when it came to what my father thought of as manly pursuits, whether it was riding or swimming or sailing or sword fencing—I have a facility for such things.’
‘So your father was proud of you?’
‘He was—satisfied with me,’ Kadar said, choosing his words with his usual care. ‘I met his expectations.’ He picked up a handful of sand and allowed it to run though his fingers. ‘Unfortunately, my father turned our games into challenges which naturally Butrus, as the heir, was expected to win.’
‘I remember you said that you found it easier to refuse to race him on horseback.’
‘Yes, but I was not always so sensible,’ Kadar said, flushing. ‘When I was younger, I confess that my own competitive spirit meant I took pleasure in besting my elder brother. It is not something I am proud of.’
‘Sibling rivalry is a perfectly natural phenomenon!’ Constance exclaimed. ‘You would have been a very odd sort of child to have behaved in any other way.’
Kadar’s laugh was bitter. ‘A very odd sort of child is what my father thought me.’
‘Because you chose your studies over these manly pursuits he was so keen on? Didn’t he realise that it was his fault? That he
was forcing you to into the library because that was most likely the one arena your brother wasn’t interested in competing with you in?’
She had spoken indignantly, her heart touched by the image of Kadar’s younger self which his words had conjured, but for a moment she thought she had overstepped the mark with him. He was staring out to sea, but his thoughts were clearly focused inward. ‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly, ‘it is because you spend so much time looking at the stars through a telescope, that you see the world reflected in a different way. I mean,’ he added, taking her hand, ‘that I had not thought of my escape into my books in quite that way before. You may well be right, but if that is the case, my father did me a service.’
‘All the same, it cannot have been easy for you to be so very different to Butrus. To be mocked for spending so much time lost in your studies, to hold yourself deliberately apart from life in the palace—you told me once that you were “temperamentally, intellectually, and in many ways ethically” unsuited to life at court.’
‘It seems I am not the only one to recall conversations perfectly.’ He sighed. ‘I was not unhappy, Constance. Butrus and I would have grown apart regardless, because it is true, temperamentally we were very different.’
‘But you must have been very lonely growing up.’
He stilled. Something flickered in his eyes. Grief? Pain? ‘No, for I was fortunate enough to find a companion who shared both my interests and my views of life in court.’
‘I am glad you had a friend. Is he still here, in Murimon?’
He flinched. ‘He was a she,’ he said bleakly, ‘and she is dead.’
‘Oh, Kadar, I am so sorry.’
He disentangled his fingers from hers and shook his head. ‘We came here to enjoy a taste of freedom,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘to escape from the past and the future, not wallow in it. Now, are you going to allow me to teach you to swim?’
The subject was closed, and compelling as it was, Constance did not want to spoil the day. She too got to her feet, eyeing the calm waters of the swimming pool with trepidation. ‘What does one wear to swim?’
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