by Jane Porter
Mikael was already there, waiting for her.
“I recognize those clothes,” he said.
“It’s all I have with me.”
“I had some gowns put in your wardrobe.”
“I didn’t see them,” she answered, aware that she hadn’t looked, either.
He was silent a moment, studying her. “We need to talk, but you also need to eat, so we shall sit, and eat, and talk and hopefully become better acquainted so this wedding night will be more...comfortable...for you.”
She made a soft sound of protest. “I don’t think eating and talking will make anything about tonight comfortable. I can’t believe this is real. Can’t believe any of this is happening. I didn’t say any vows. I didn’t agree to anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I claimed you and that was all that was needed. My word is law.”
“That makes for a very quick and convenient ceremony.”
“The ceremony might be quick, but the honeymoon isn’t. We will stay together here for sixteen days before we return to my palace in the capitol.”
“You don’t even like me. How can you contemplate bedding me?”
His lips quirked. It was as close to a smile as she had ever seen from him. “You are not an unattractive woman, Jemma. And I’m sure you are quite aware that a man can desire a woman without engaging one’s emotions.”
“So when you bed me tonight, it will be without tenderness or passion.”
“If you are worried about the act itself, you needn’t be. I am a skillful lover. I will take my time and be sure to satisfy your needs. It wouldn’t be a proper honeymoon if I didn’t.”
A proper honeymoon.
A proper honeymoon was the trip to Bali with Damien. They’d already booked their air and hotels when he’d broken it off. She’d planned a wedding that hadn’t taken place. And now she was married without a wedding and trapped here for a honeymoon she didn’t want.
Her eyes burned. Her throat ached. Jemma blinked and looked away, across the courtyard, to the splashing fountain. The water danced and trickled and it amazed her that the water could be so light and tinkling when her heart felt so heavy and broken.
“I don’t want to be pleasured,” she whispered, reaching up to brush away a tear before it could fall. “I don’t want any of this.”
“You will become less resistant to the idea as time goes on.”
She choked on a hysterical laugh as she glanced at him. “You think?”
He shrugged. “I imagine for you, being from a Western culture, this is terribly strange, but it is not as strange for me. I hadn’t ever expected to marry for love. I’ve known all along that my bride would be from a different tribe. I just didn’t expect it to be...yours.”
“The despised Copelands.”
“Fortunately, you are no longer a Copeland, but a Karim. You’ve left your family and are now a member of mine. You have a new name. A new start. And new responsibilities. I think it will be good for you.” He gestured to the table in the shade. “We can talk more, as we eat. Sit—” he broke off, even as her eyebrows arched.
His lips curved grimly. He gave her a slight bow. “Forgive me,” he drawled, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “Let us sit. We should try to be comfortable.”
She didn’t like his tone, and she hated the situation. Nothing about this was right. She would have gladly picked jail or house arrest over being trapped with him. “I can’t eat. I’m too upset.”
“Then I shall eat, and you can watch, because I am hungry.”
“And you wonder why I’m not excited about this honeymoon.”
“Yes, I do wonder. By choosing you as my first wife, I’ve made you a queen. You are wealthy beyond measure. That should please you to no end.”
“I’ve had money. I don’t care about money. I care about kindness, and decency. Strength. Compassion. Integrity.”
“I have all that, too, so you’re in luck. Now, let’s eat.”
“You are not compassionate.”
“I am, for those requiring compassion. But you, my queen, do not need my compassion. You are doing an excellent job feeling sorry for yourself already.”
She exhaled in a quick rush. “You lack sensitivity, Sheikh Karim.”
“Possibly, as well as patience. Particularly when I am hungry.” His dark gaze met hers and held. “But you are only making this more difficult for yourself. Fighting me, fighting the marriage, fighting to accept that we are married and that this marriage is real. I take our vows very seriously.”
“What vows? I said none!”
“I claimed you, I’ve married you,” he said, “and so it is done. Now sit. Before I carry you to the table myself.”
Reluctantly, unwillingly, Jemma took a seat at the low table inside the shaded pavilion kept cool by overhead fans.
She hadn’t thought she could eat, but the first course of chilled soup settled her stomach and she was able to eat some of the grilled meat and vegetables in the second and third courses. She felt better with food, calmer and less jittery. But even then, she was in shock. She thought she’d be in shock for quite some time.
There wasn’t much conversation during the meal, which was fine with her. Instead Mikael studied her from across the table as if he were a scientist and she an animal he was observing.
He was the animal, though.
Maybe not an animal. But he was the one that was untamed and unpredictable. The very air around him seemed to snap and crackle with energy and tension, making the soft afternoon light dangerous, mysterious, while her heart raced and her pulse drummed, too thick and quick in her veins.
“Saidia is nothing like your country. Saidia is still essentially tribal in culture,” Mikael said, as the last of the dishes were cleared away and he rinsed his fingers in a bowl of hot scented water and dried them on a soft cloth before sending the bowl and towel away. “I expect it will take you time to adjust to our culture, but you must keep an open mind. Our customs will be foreign to you but there is a reason for everything, and value to everything we do.”
“And that includes kidnapping one’s bride?”
“Most definitely.”
“I don’t see how kidnapping a woman can ever be justified. Women are not objects, not property.”
“Only princes and kings, members of the royal family, kidnap a young woman for marriage.”
“That’s even worse.”
He shook his head. “The custom of kidnapping one’s bride goes back a thousand years. It helps protect one’s family and society by strengthening tribal relations, forging bonds between rival tribes, protecting one’s women and children from nomad tribes that might seek to prey on vulnerable tribes.”
“I’m sorry. I still can’t wrap my head around the custom.”
“Many of Saidia’s young people joke about the ancient customs when attending university, but if you asked them if forced marriages and arranged marriages should be banned, not one of them would vote to have them outlawed. It’s part of our history. It’s a big part of our cultural identity.”
“So not all Saidia citizens have an arranged marriage?”
“About half of our young people in the urban areas choose a love marriage. If you move away from the big cities, nearly everyone prefers arranged marriages.”
“Why the difference?”
He shrugged. “In the desert, people strongly identify with their tribe and tribal customs. You don’t have the influence of technology. Towns are remote. Travel is difficult and change is viewed with suspicion. When you come to Haslam or the other desert communities south of the Takti Mountains, it’s like traveling back in time. Haslam isn’t the city capitol. The desert isn’t urban. And I, as the king, must be sensitive to the new and old faces of my country. I can’t alienate the youth in the
city, but I must also respect the youth in the desert.”
“They don’t both want the same thing?”
“They don’t want the same thing, nor do they understand each other. It’s been a struggle for us, in terms of keeping Saidia connected. When our students are ten, we try to encourage the children to do an exchange; children from the desert leaving home to spend a week in the city with a host family, and the children in the city to go to the desert for a week. It used to be mandated but that became problematic. We still want children to participate, but our city children are bored by the desert and the lack of entertainment, and the children from the desert are overwhelmed by the city noise, pollution, and frenetic activity.”
“So what do you do?”
“Try to respect both aspects of the Saidia culture, and be careful not to alienate either.”
“It’s a balancing act,” she said.
“Absolutely.” He studied her a long moment, his gaze slowly sweeping from her face down to her shoulders and then breasts. “I don’t want to see you in those clothes anymore. I have provided you with a wardrobe, a more suitable wardrobe for the climate, the Kasbah, and our honeymoon.”
Jemma had just begun to relax, forgetting her own situation having been pleasantly distracted by the discussion, but suddenly reality came crashing back. She tensed, flushed, angered as well as frustrated. “Is that a request or a command, Your Highness?”
“Both.”
“It can’t be both. It’s either one or the other.”
He gave his dark head a shake. “There you go again, making it difficult. You don’t need to resist so much.”
“Oh, I do. I most certainly do. I’m not a doll, or a mindless puppet. I’m an adult, a woman, and very independent. I’ve been on my own, and paying my own bills, since I was eighteen. I value my independence, too.”
“I appreciate spirit, but there is a difference between spark, stubbornness and plain stupidity.” He lifted his hand to stop her before she could speak. “And no, I’m not saying you are stupid. But right now you’re stubborn. If the stubbornness continues too much longer, then yes, you’ve moved into stupidity.”
Her cheeks burned. Her temper blazed. “I could say the same for you. You are equally stubborn in your refusal to see me for who I am.”
“I see exactly who you are.”
“A criminal Copeland!”
“No.” He leaned forward, his dark gaze boring into her. “My wife.”
Something in his words and fierce, intense gaze stripped her of speech and the ability to think.
For a moment she simply sat there, dazed, and breathless.
“You are going to experience culture shock,” he said firmly, “but I fully expect you to adjust. We will be here until you adjust. So instead of arguing with me about everything, I think it is time you tried to be more open minded about this, us, and marriage to a Saidia king.”
“I’m trying.”
“No, I don’t think you are, not yet. But I have all day. We have all day. We have all night. We have weeks, actually.”
Her lips pressed firm. She glanced away, studying the exotic pink and blue mosaic tile work on the inside of the pavilion. The tiles were beautiful, the colors gorgeous, and unabashedly romantic. The remote Kasbah would have been extremely romantic if she were here, with someone else. Someone like Damien.
She still loved him.
Or maybe, she still loved who she thought he had been. Loving, strong, protective.
Turned out he wasn’t so loving. Or protective. His strength was an illusion...all beautiful body and muscle but no core. No spine. No backbone, at least not when it was needed.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Mikael asked, a hint of roughness in his deep voice.
She shook her head hard. “No.”
“You’re looking very sad at the moment. Thoroughly crushed. Don’t tell me that twelve hours of marriage to me has broken you already.”
Jemma jerked her chin up. “Not crushed, or broken. Nor will I be. I won’t give any man that kind of power over me.”
“Not even that pretty model ex-boyfriend of yours?”
Jemma stifled a gasp. So Mikael had done his research then, and discovered her humiliation at the hands of Damien. She lifted her chin defiantly.
“Especially not him.”
“Mmm.” But Mikael didn’t sound as if he believed her.
“Damien hurt me, but he didn’t break me. And my father hurt me, but he didn’t break me. And you, Sheikh Karim, might intimidate me, and bully me, but you will not break me, either.”
“I do not bully you.”
“Oh yes, you do. At least, you try to.”
He leaned farther back into the pillows surrounding the low table. The corner of his mouth curved. “You really aren’t afraid of me?”
“Why should I be afraid? You’re Drakon’s friend. You came to his wedding. You saved me from seven years of jail.”
He must have heard the ironic note in her voice because the corners of his mouth quirked, and that faint lift of his lips made her heart suddenly do a strange double thump.
The man was extremely intimidating, and yet when he smiled, even this faint half-smile, he became dangerously attractive.
“Ah, yes, I saved you from jail. And you, my queen, are so very grateful.”
She didn’t miss his sarcasm. “I would have been more grateful if you’d put me on a plane back to London. That would have been nice.”
“Indeed, it would have been. But terribly weak on my part. A man must have morals, and principles, and a king even more so.”
She stood up and paced restlessly around the pavilion. She knew he watched her. She glanced at him and saw the same, faint smile playing at his lips, eyes gleaming. He seemed amused or entertained. Maybe both. “You’re in a good mood,” she said, facing him from across the pavilion.
“Would you prefer it if I were in a bad mood?”
Jemma didn’t need to think about that one too much. “No, but surely you didn’t anticipate taking a Copeland daughter for your wife?”
“That is correct. But you are easy to look at, and I am quite certain, a pleasure to hold.”
“That sounds terribly shallow.”
His broad shoulders shifted. “It’s not a love match. I don’t have to like you, or love you. I just need you, as my first wife, to be good, obedient and fertile.”
She stiffened and looked at him askance. First wife? There would be others? “Multiple wives, Your Highness?”
“Traditional Islamic law allows men four wives, but a man must be able to treat them equally. And not all men choose to have multiple wives. It’s really an individual decision.”
She couldn’t help laughing. It struck her as terribly wrong, and yet also, terribly funny. This wasn’t her life. This couldn’t be happening. He might as well have plucked her from the photo shoot and locked her in his harem. “Do you intend to take more wives?”
“I haven’t thought that far, but my father had four wives. My grandfather, his father, just had two.”
But two wives was still one too many.
She shot him a swift glance, trying to decide if he was joking. She hoped he was. Or hoped he’d come to his senses and let her return home. “I thought the practice of polygamy had been outlawed in modern Arab countries,” she said, leaning against one of the columns supporting the pavilion arches.
“Tunisia did, yes,” he agreed, “But most other countries have focused on reform. In Iraq, a man can take a second wife if he obtains permission from the government, while Morocco and Lebanon have added a clause in the premarital contract, allowing a woman to divorce her husband if he takes a second wife without her consent.”
“Were your father’s wives happy?”
He
reached for a bite of mango from the platter of dried and fresh fruit. “Most of them. He was an excellent provider. But my father was also good to them. Respectful. Tried to please them. Refused to beat them.”
Jemma’s jaw dropped. “And that constitutes a good husband?”
His dark eyes met hers across the table. He arched a brow. “Don’t you think so?”
“No.”
“Marriage in Saidia is a duty. It’s our duty to have children. It is through marriage we gain family, and family is our most cherished institution. Family is everything here. You protect your family at all costs.” He paused for a half second. “Which is how your father failed you. He refused to protect you.”
CHAPTER SIX
MIKAEL STUDIED JEMMA as she leaned against the column, her face turned away from him, giving him just her profile.
The late afternoon sun dappled her with light and shadows. He was too far away to see the freckles across the bridge of her nose but he imagined them there, as well as the soft pink of her lips.
Looking at her from across the pavilion made him remember her working yesterday, posing for that Australian photographer. She’d been so fierce and determined as the sun beat down on her, baking her inside the fur and thigh-high boots. But she hadn’t complained, nor had she as they’d traveled by camel to the Kasbah late last night, her slim warm body against his chest and thighs. He’d felt protective of her last night as they’d crossed the desert. He’d been aware of the dangers in the desert, but even more aware of her.
Last night she’d stirred now and then, restless, and probably uncomfortable, but she hadn’t uttered a word. He’d respected her for that.
He had wished she wouldn’t wiggle though, as each time she shifted in his arms, her back had rubbed against his chest, and her small, firm backside had pressed against his groin.
He had tried not to think about her firm backside, her rounded hips or her full soft breasts, which he’d seen in all their glory earlier.
And now she was his wife. His bride.
The villagers of Haslam had been happy for him. His people wanted him settled. They wanted him to have children. They wanted to know that there was an heir, and a spare, and then another dozen more. They were also glad he’d taken a bride, following tradition. Tradition was still so very important in Saidia.