Sweet Revenge

by Nora Roberts

  remember the time when he had looked at her with love and warmth. “In America they’d line up for miles to see you.”

  Pleased with the idea, Adrianne smiled. “The way they did for you?”

  “Yes.” She looked back at the water. It was sometimes hard to remember the other person she had been. “They did. I always wanted to make people happy, Addy.”

  “When the reporter came, she said you were missed.”

  “Reporter?” That had been two or three years before. No, longer ago than that. Perhaps four years. Strange how time was blurring. Abdu had agreed to the interview to silence any gossip about their marriage. She hadn’t expected the child to remember it. Why, Addy couldn’t have been more than four or five then. “What did you think of her?”

  “Her talk was strange and sometimes too fast. Her hair was cut very short, like a little boy’s, and it was the color of straw. She was angry because her camera was allowed only for a few pictures, then taken away from her.” When Phoebe sat on a marble bench, Adrianne continued to throw pebbles. “She said you were the most beautiful and most envied woman in the world. She asked if you wore a veil.”

  “You don’t forget anything, do you?” Phoebe remembered as well, and remembered spinning a tale about the heat and dust and using the veil to protect her complexion.

  “I liked when she talked about you.” Adrianne remembered, too, that her mother had cried after the reporter had gone. “Will she come back?”

  “Maybe, someday.” But Phoebe knew that people forgot. There were new faces, new names in Hollywood, and she even knew a few of them for Abdu allowed some letters to be delivered to her. Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Ann-Margret. Beautiful young actresses making their marks, taking the place that had once been hers.

  She touched her own face, knowing there were lines around her eyes now. Once it had been on every magazine cover. Women had dyed their hair to match hers. She had been compared to Monroe, to Gardner, to Loren. Later she had not been compared to anyone; she had set a standard.

  “Once I almost won an Oscar. That’s the very biggest prize for an actress. Even though I didn’t, there was a wonderful party. Everyone was laughing and talking and making plans. It was all so different from Nebraska. That’s where I lived when I was the age you are now, darling.”

  “Where there was snow?”

  “Yes.” Phoebe smiled and held out her arms. “Where there was snow. I lived there with my grandparents because my mother and father had died. I was very happy, but I didn’t always know it. I wanted to be an actress, to wear beautiful clothes, and to have lots of people love me.”

  “So you became a movie star.”

  “I did.” Phoebe rubbed her cheek against Adrianne’s hair. “It seems like hundreds of years ago. It didn’t snow in California, but I had the ocean. To me it was a fairy tale, and I was the princess I’d read of in all the storybooks. It was very hard work, but I loved being there, being a part of it. I had a house on the water all to myself.”

  “You would be lonely.”

  “No, I had friends and people to talk to. I went places I’d never imagined going—Paris, New York, London … I met your father in London.”

  “Where is London?”

  “England, Europe. You’re forgetting your lessons.”

  “I don’t like lessons. I like stories.” But she thought hard because she knew the lessons were important to Phoebe, and another secret between them. “A queen lives in London whose husband is only a prince.” Adrianne waited, certain her mother would correct her this time. It was such a ridiculous idea—a woman ruling a country. But Phoebe merely smiled and nodded. “It gets cold in London, and it rains. In Jaquir the sun always shines.”

  “London’s beautiful.” One of her greatest skills was the ability to put herself in a place, real or imagined, and see it clearly. “I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. We were filming there and people would line up at the barricades to watch. They would call for me, and sometimes I would sign autographs or pose for pictures. Then I met your father. He was so handsome. So elegant.”

  “Elegant?”

  A dreamy smile on her face, Phoebe closed her eyes. “Never mind. I was very nervous because he was a king, and there was protocol to remember and photographers everywhere. But then, after we talked, it didn’t seem to matter. He took me to dinner, he took me dancing.”

  “You danced for him?”

  “With him.” Phoebe set Adrianne on the bench beside her. Nearby a bee droned lazily, drunk on nectar. The sound buzzed pleasantly in Phoebe’s ears, made musical by the drug. “In Europe and America men and women dance together.”

  Adrianne’s eyes narrowed. “This is permitted?”

  “Yes, it’s permitted to dance with a man, to talk to a man, to take drives or go to the theater. So many things. People go on dates together.”

  “Go on?” Adrianne struggled with her English. “Dates are to eat.”

  Phoebe laughed again, sleepy in the sun. She could remember dancing in Abdu’s arms, and his smiling down at her. How strong his face had been. How gentle his hands. “These dates are different. A man invites a woman out. He comes to her house to pick her up. Sometimes he’ll bring her flowers.” Roses, she remembered dreamily. Abdu had sent her dozens of white roses. “Then they might go to dinner, or to a show and a late supper. They might go dancing in some crowded little club.”

  “You danced with my father because you were married?”

  “No. We danced, we fell in love, then we were married. It’s different, Adrianne, and so hard to explain. Most parts of the world aren’t like Jaquir.”

  The niggling fear she had lived with since the night she had witnessed her mother’s rape took hold. “You want to go back.”

  Phoebe didn’t hear the fear, only her own regrets. “It’s a long way back, Addy. Too far. When I married Abdu I left it all behind. More than I understood then. I loved him, and he wanted me. The day we were married was the happiest day of my life. He gave me The Sun and the Moon.” She touched a hand to her bodice, almost feeling the weight and the power of the necklace. “When I wore it, I felt like a queen, and it seemed that all those dreams I’d had as a young girl in Nebraska were coming true. He gave me part of himself then, part of his country. It meant everything to me when he fastened the gems around my neck.”

  “That is the most precious treasure in Jaquir. It showed that he valued you above all else.”

  “Yes, he did once. He doesn’t love me anymore, Addy.”

  She knew it, had known it, but wanted to deny it. “You are his wife.”

  She looked down at her wedding ring, a symbol that had once meant so much. “One of three.”

  “No, he takes others only because he needs sons. A man must have sons.”

  Phoebe cupped Adrianne’s face in her hands. She saw the tears, and the pain. Perhaps she had said too much, but it was too late to take the words back. “I know he ignores you, and it hurts you. Try to understand that it isn’t you, but me.”

  “He hates me.”

  “No.” But he did hate his daughter, Phoebe thought as she gathered her close. And it frightened her, the cold hate she saw in Abdu’s eyes whenever he looked at Adrianne. “No, he doesn’t hate you. He resents me, what I am, what I’m not. You’re mine. He sees only that when he looks at you; he does not see the part of himself, maybe the best part of himself, that is in you.”

  “I hate him.”

  The fear grew sharper as she looked quickly around. They were alone in the garden, but voices carried and there were always ears to listen. “You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t even think that. You can’t understand what’s between Abdu and me, Addy. You aren’t meant to.”

  “He strikes you.” She drew back, and now her eyes were dry and suddenly old. “For that I hate him. He looks at me and doesn’t see. For that I hate him.”

  “Shh.” Not knowing what else to do, Phoebe pulled Adrianne back in her arms and rocked.
/>   She said nothing else. It had never been her intention to upset her mother. Until the words had been spoken, she hadn’t even been aware she’d held them in her heart. Now that they had been voiced, she accepted them. The hate had been rooted even before the night she had seen her father abuse her mother. Since then it had grown, nurtured by his neglect and disinterest in her, the subtle insults that set her apart from his other children.

  She hated, but the hate shamed her. A child was meant to revere her parents. So she no longer spoke of it.

  Over the next weeks she spent more time than ever with her mother, walking in the garden, listening to the stories of other worlds. They continued to seem unreal to her, but she enjoyed them in much the same way she enjoyed her grandmother’s tales of pirates and dragons.

  When Meri gave birth to a girl and was summarily divorced, Adrianne was glad.

  “I’m happy she’s gone.” Adrianne played a game of jacks with Duja. The toy had been allowed in the harem after much discussion and debate.

  “Where will they send her?” Though Duja was older, it was understood that Adrianne had a way of ferreting out information.

  “She is to have a house in the city. A small one.” Adrianne chuckled and scooped up three jacks with nimble fingers. She might have pitied Meri her fate, but the ex-wife of the king had made herself disliked among the women.

  “I’m glad she won’t live here.” Duja flipped back her hair as she waited her turn. “Now we won’t have to listen to her brag about how often the king visited her and how many ways he plants his seed.”

  Adrianne missed the ball. She glanced quickly around for her mother, but since they were speaking Arabic, she decided Phoebe wouldn’t have understood. “Do you want sex?”

  “Of course.” Duja let the jacks fall, then studied the outcome. “When I marry, my husband will visit me every night. I will give him so much pleasure he will never need another wife. I will keep my skin soft, my breasts firm. And my legs open.” She laughed and plucked up jacks.

  Adrianne noticed one of the jacks shivered, but let the infraction pass. Her hands were quicker and more clever than Duja’s, and it was her cousins turn to win. “I don’t want sex.”

  “Don’t be stupid. All women want sex. The law keeps us separate from men because we’re too weak to resist it. We stop only when we are as old as Grandmother.”

  “Then I am as old as Grandmother.”

  They both laughed at that and went back to the game.

  Duja wouldn’t understand, Adrianne thought as they continued to play. Mama didn’t want sex, and she was young and beautiful. Leiha was afraid of it because it had given her two daughters. Adrianne didn’t want it because she had seen that it was cruel and ugly.

  Still, there was no other way to get babies, and she liked babies very much. Perhaps she would get a kind husband who already had wives and children. Then he wouldn’t want sex from her and she could care for the babies of the house.

  When they tired of the game, Adrianne found her grandmother and climbed into her lap. Jiddah was a widow, and had been a queen. Her love of sweets was costing her her teeth, but her eyes were dark and clear.

  “Here’s my pretty Adrianne.” Jiddah opened her hand and offered the foil-wrapped chocolate. With a giggle Adrianne took it. Because she loved the pretty paper as much as the candy, she worked slowly. In a habit that never failed to soothe, Jiddah picked up a brush and began to draw it through Adrianne’s hair.

  “Will you visit the new baby, Grandmother?”

  “Of course. I love all my grandchildren. Even ones who steal my chocolate. Why does my Adrianne look so sad?”

  “Do you think the king will divorce my mother?”

  Jiddah had noticed, and worried, that Adrianne no longer called Abdu her father. “I cannot say. He has not in nine years.”

  “If he divorced her, we would go away. I would miss you very much.”

  “And I would miss you.” The child was not a child in too many ways, Jiddah thought as she set the brush aside. “This is not for you to worry about, Adrianne. You are growing up. One day soon I will watch you marry. Then I will have great-grandchildren.”

  “And you will give them chocolate and tell them stories.”

  “Yes. Inshallah.” She pressed a kiss to Adrianne’s hair. It was lightly scented and dark as night. “And I will love them as I love you.”

  Turning, Adrianne circled Jiddah’s neck with her arms. The fragrance of poppies and spice on her skin was as comforting as the press of her thin body. “I will always love you, Grandmother.”

  “Adrianne. Yellah.” Fahid tugged at her skirt. His mouth was already smeared from an earlier visit to his grandmother. The silk throbe his mother had had designed for him was streaked with dirt. “Come on,” he repeated in Arabic, tugging again.

  “Come where?” Because she was always ready to entertain him, Adrianne slid down and tickled his ribs.

  “I want the top.” He squealed and squirmed, then gave her a smacking kiss. “I want to see the top.”

  She pocketed another handful of chocolate before she let him drag her along. They were laughing as they raced down the corridors with Adrianne making exaggerated moans and pants as Fahid pulled on her hand. Her room was smaller than most of the others, one of the subtle insults dealt by her father. Its single window faced the very edge of the garden. Still, it was beautiful, decorated in the pink and white she had chosen herself. In one corner were shelves. On them were toys, many of which had been sent from America by a woman named Celeste, her mother’s best friend.

  The top had come years before. It was a simple toy, but very brightly colored. When the handle was pumped, it made a satisfying whirling sound as it spun fast, blurring the red and blue and green. It had quickly become Fahid’s favorite—such a favorite that Adrianne had recently taken it from the shelves and hidden it.

  “I want the top.”

  “I know. The last time you wanted it you bumped your head trying to climb up and get it when I wasn’t here.” And when the king had heard of it, Adrianne had been confined to her room for a week. “Close your eyes.”

  He grinned, and shook his head.

  Grinning right back at him, Adrianne bent down until they were nose to nose. “Close your eyes, my brother, or no top.” His eyes snapped shut. “If you are very good, I will let you keep it all day.” As she spoke she backed away from him, then she wiggled under the bed, where she kept the best of her treasures. Even as she reached for the top, Fahid wiggled under beside her. “Fahid!” With the exasperation mothers show to their favored children, she pinched his cheek. “You are very bad.”

  “I love Adrianne.”

  As always, her heart softened. She stroked his untidy hair back from his face and nuzzled his cheek. “I love Fahid. Even when he is bad.” She took the top and started back out, but his sharp eyes had landed on the Christmas ball.

  “Pretty.” Delighted, he grabbed it with hands that were sticky with candy. “Mine.”

  “It’s not yours.” She took his ankles to pull him out from under the bed. “And it’s a secret.” As they snuggled together on the rug, Adrianne put her hands on either side of Fahid’s and shook. The top was forgotten as they watched the snow fall. “It’s my most precious treasure.” She held it up so that the light shot through the glass. “A magic ball.”

  “Magic.” His mouth hung slack as Adrianne tilted it again. “Let me, let me!” Taking it from her, he scrambled to his feet. “Magic. I want to show Mother.”

  “No. Fahid, no.” Adrianne was up and after him as he raced to the door.

  Thrilled by the new game, he set his short, husky legs pumping. His laughter rang off the walls as he raced, brandishing the glass ball like a trophy. To keep the game alive, he swerved into the tunnel that connected the women’s quarters with the king’s apartments.

  Adrianne felt her first true concern then, and it made her hesitate. As a daughter of the house, the tunnel was forbidden to her. She stepped f
orward with the idea of luring Fahid back with a promise of some new treat. But when his laughter shut off abruptly, she hurried inside. He was sprawled, lips quivering, at Abdu’s feet.

  Abdu looked so tall and so powerful as he stood, legs spread, staring down at his son. His white throbe skimmed the floor where Fahid had fallen. The lights in the tunnel were dim, but Adrianne could see the glint of anger in his eyes.

  “Where is your mother?”

  “Please, sir.” Adrianne rushed forward. She kept her head bowed in submission while her heartbeat thundered. “I was caring for my brother.”

  He looked at her, the tumbled hair, the dust on her dress, her damp, nervous hands. He could have knocked her aside with one sweep of his arm. His pride told him she was worth not even that. “You do a poor job of caring for the prince.”

  She said nothing, knowing no response was expected. She kept her head lowered so that he couldn’t see the flash of fury in her eyes.

  “Tears are not for men, and never for kings,” he said, but he bent with some gentleness to set Fahid on his feet. It was then he noticed the ball his son still gripped tightly. “Where did you get this?” The anger was back, slicing like a sword. “This is forbidden.” He snatched the ball from Fahid and made him wail. “Would you disgrace me, disgrace our house?”

  Because she knew her fathers hand could strike quickly and with