by Nora Roberts
“We’re not getting engaged as far as anyone’s concerned.”
“Think about it a minute. It makes sense. After all these years you’re going back to Jaquir to make peace with your father before you marry. Just to fit in a bit better, the trip could have been at my insistence. I’m happy to play the arrogant chauvinist.”
“You’d do it well.” But she was thinking. Taking the carton from him, she sampled. “I suppose it could work. It might even be an advantage. He’d want you to stay at the palace so that he could look you over. He’d expect his approval to carry weight. If you’re going to be there in any case, you might as well be of some use.”
“Thank you very much.” He pushed her nose into the carton. “Now, why don’t you practice playing the quiet, subservient wife-to-be while I make some calls?”
“I’d rather swallow a roach.”
“Be that as it may, it wouldn’t hurt you to brush up on how to nod agreeably and walk two paces behind.”
“I don’t intend to be there more than two weeks.” She wiped ice cream from her nose. “So don’t get used to it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Who are you calling?”
“I have to pull a few strings to get a visa for Jaquir. And then I’m going to insure that news of our engagement spreads quickly. All the better for cover, Your Highness.”
“I’m not going to marry you, Philip.”
“Right.” He started out, then turned back. “One question. If I’m caught making love with you in Jaquir, what can I expect?”
“Being camel-whipped, at the very least. A beheading’s more likely—for both of us.”
“Hmmm. Gives a man something to think about.”
Adrianne shook her head when the door swung shut behind him. Glancing down at the coffeepot, she set it aside. What she wanted now was a drink. A stiff one.
Part Three
THE SWEET
Soon or late love is his own avenger.
—LORD BYRON
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
—SHAKESPEARE
Chapter Twenty-Two
Seventeen years was a long time to wonder. It was a long time to plan. It was a long time to hate. The deep sapphire blue of the Mediterranean spread like a carpet below, disturbed by a few wispy clouds and a dot of land that was Cyprus. Jaquir was almost in reach. The waiting was over.
Adrianne settled back. Beside her in the cushy seat of the private jet, Philip dozed. His suit jacket, his tie, even his shoes were on the seat behind them so that he could stretch out unencumbered and take advantage of the last stage of their journey. Adrianne was fully dressed, fully awake, and fully aware of each minute that passed.
They’d made desperate love after their takeoff from Paris. Or perhaps it had been only she who had been desperate. She’d needed that wild, mindless intimacy of flesh against flesh as much as she’d needed the comfort and serenity that followed.
Most of her life had been devoted to this homecoming. Now the years had whittled down to minutes, and she was afraid. It wasn’t a fear she could explain to herself or to Philip. The emotion didn’t make the hands clammy or leave a taste of copper in the mouth. It rolled unsteadily in the stomach and beat, a dull ache, behind the eyes.
She still had the image of her father that had formed in a child’s mind, with the intense love and fear that accompanied it. She could see him as he had been then, an athletically trim man with an unsmiling mouth and strong, beautiful hands.
For two decades she had lived under Western law, Western tradition, Western beliefs. Never once had she allowed herself to doubt that she was, in every way, a Western woman. But the truth, long buried, was that she had bedouin blood, and that blood might respond in a way no American woman would understand.
Who would she become once she was back in Jaquir, living in her father’s house, bound by the laws of the Koran and the traditions decreed and enforced by men? Much sharper than the fear of being caught, of being imprisoned or executed, was the fear of losing the woman she had worked so hard to become.
That fear kept her from making promises to Philip. It kept her from saying the words that came so easily to the lips of other women. She did love him, but love wasn’t the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love, with its twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromise their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another.
The plane dipped. The sea seemed to rise up toward them. Nerves taut, Adrianne laid a hand on Philip’s shoulder. “I have to get ready. We’ll be landing soon.”
He came awake instantly, recognizing the tension in her voice. “You can still change your mind.”
“No. I can’t.” Rising, she moved across the aisle to open a flight bag. “Remember, after we deplane we’ll be taken to the terminal in separate cars. There’s customs to deal with.” While she spoke, she bound her hair in a black scarf until no wisp showed. “That can be a humiliating process, but Abdu’s influence should take the edge off. I won’t see you again until we’re inside the palace, and I can’t say when that will be allowed. Outside, there can be no contact at all. Inside, because I am not full-blooded, and am believed to be marrying a Westerner, the rules will be somewhat more relaxed. Don’t come to me under any circumstances. If and when possible, I will come to you.”
“Forty-eight hours.” While he knotted his tie he watched her cloak herself in the black abaaya. It covered her from neck to foot, as drab as sackcloth. More than her eyes or the color of her skin, it made her a woman of Islam. “If you haven’t found a way to contact me by then, I’ll find you.”
“And be deported at the very least.” It was the veil that bothered her the most. Rather than attach it, Adrianne let it dangle from her fingers. With his suit jacket smoothed over his shoulders, Philip looked very British and suddenly foreign. She ignored the ache in her throat where her heart had begun to pound. The gulf was widening. “You have to trust my judgment in this, Philip. I intend to spend no more than two weeks in Jaquir, and I intend to leave with the necklace.”
“I’d rather you made that we.”
“We, then.” With a hint of a smile she waited until he’d stepped into his shoes. “Just make sure you convince Abdu that you’ll make me a proper husband. Oh, and haggle over the bride price.”
He stepped closer to take both of her hands. They were steady against his, but cold. “How much do you figure you’re worth?”
“A million would be a good starting point.”
“A million what?”
It was a relief that she could still laugh as she took her seat and strapped in. “Pounds sterling. Anything less, with the background you’ve invented for yourself, would be an insult.”
“In that case we’d better start with this.” He took a box out of his pocket. The ring inside it made Adrianne pull her hand back. Philip merely took it in his and slipped the diamond on her third finger. Her reaction was precisely the reason he’d waited until the last minute. This way she’d have little chance to argue. “You can consider it part of the cover if you like.”
It was more than five carats, and from its icy white fire, Adrianne thought it would be Russian, of the finest water. Like the best diamonds, it was both passionate and aloof. Against the stark black of her abaaya it shot flame—and made her want more than she should have. “A costly deception.”
“The jeweler assured me he’d be more than happy to buy it back.”
She looked up quickly at that, and saw his grin just before his mouth covered hers. There was fire here, too, climbing higher even as the plane bumped to earth. For a moment she wanted to forget everything but this, the promise on her finger, the seduction of the kiss.
“I’ll go first.” After taking a long breath, she unhooked her belt. “Be careful, Philip. I don’t want your blood on The Sun and the Moon.”
“In two weeks we have a date in Paris with a bottle of champagne.”
“
Make it a magnum,” she told him, then veiled her face.
It had changed. Even knowing that the oil boom had swept through Jaquir in the seventies, knowing that the West had pushed its way through hadn’t prepared her for the huddle of buildings, some shiny with steel and glass, or the roads smoothly paved to accommodate the now heavy traffic. When she had left, the tallest building in Karfia, the capital of Jaquir, had been the water tower. Now it was dwarfed by office buildings and hotels. Still, despite the modern highways and glittering glass, it seemed as though the city could, if Allah decreed, slip back into the desert.
There were huge Mercedes trucks barreling down the highway. Freighters crammed the port while shipments waiting for clearance lined the docks. She knew that Jaquir straddled the political fence, managing through skill, guile, and money to placate its neighbors in the East and its nervous backers in the West. War raged close by the borders, but Jaquir, at least on the surface, clung to neutrality.
It had stayed so much the same. As they drove into town, Adrianne saw that in spite of the buildings, the modern roads, and the stubborn struggle of Western expatriates, Jaquir was as Jaquir wished to be. She had seen that at the airport, as women, loaded down with baggage, bedding, and strollers were herded into separate buses and ushered through a door marked WOMEN AND FAMILIES, always policed by men barking orders. She saw it now as the minarets on the mosque pierced through the pristine blue sky.
Noon prayer call was over, so the shops and markets were open. Though she kept her window up, she could almost hear the hum of activity, the cadence of Arabic, the click of prayer beads. Women wandered the stalls, in groups or accompanied by a male relation. Policing the streets, jealously guarding the religious laws were the matawain with their straggly henna-tipped beards and camel whips. Through the tinted window of her limo Adrianne watched one advance on a Western woman who’d had the bad sense to push up her sleeves and reveal her arms.
No, it may have been the last years of the twentieth century, but Jaquir had changed little.
Date palms lined the road. So did Mercedes, Rolls Royces, and limos. The House of Dior boasted two doors, one for males, one for females. She caught the glint of precious stones beaming in the midday sun in a shop window. There was a donkey, laden with dust, being led by a man in a white throbe and broken sandals.
Here much of the housing was made of mud, and no more permanent than the desert sand. Yet flowers climbed the walls. Windows were latticed, always latticed, to hide the women within—not because they were prized and revered, Adrianne thought, but because they were considered foolish creatures, victims of their own uncontrollable sexual drive.
Men, robed and turbaned, sat on red carpets eating sandwiches. Shwarma. Odd that the taste of the spiced lamb on flat bread came back to her, she mused.
The limo passed through the market and climbed. Here the houses were more elegant, shaded by trees. One or two even boasted the luxury of grass. She thought she remembered visiting in one of them, drinking green tea in a dim parlor with the sound of silk rustling and the smell of incense clogging the air.
They drove through the gates to the palace, past the dark, blank eyes of the guards. This, too, had changed little, though her child’s mind had lent it more grandeur than it deserved. In the harsh afternoon sun its stucco walls were brilliantly white. The green tile roof was an arrogant slash of color. Its windows, most curtained against the glare, glinted. Its minarets rose, but in deference to Allah rose no higher than those of the mosque. Parapets circled so that in times of civil strife or foreign attack it could be defended. The sea hammered at its back. Its gardens were lush, shielding it from prying eyes, and, more, shielding the women of the house from temptation when they chose to wander through them.
Though there was a door for women as well as one for men, it was to the garden rather than the main entrance the limo drove. Adrianne’s brow rose only slightly. So, she was to be delivered to the harem before seeing Abdu. That was perhaps for the best.
She waited until the driver opened her door. Though she was certain he must have been a relation, however distant, he didn’t offer a hand to assist her out. His eyes remained carefully averted. Gathering up her skirts, she stepped out into the blast of heat and scent. Without a backward glance she let herself in through the garden gate.
There was a trickle of water from the fountain, the fountain she knew her father had had built for her mother during their first year of marriage. It fed a small pond where carp grew as long as a man’s arm. Around it flowers bent, drawn to the moisture.
Before she reached the hidden door, it was opened. Adrianne stepped through, beyond the black-clad servant, and smelled the women’s scents that brought her back to childhood. As the door shut, closing her in, she did what she had longed to do throughout the long drive from the airport. She pulled off her veil.
“Adrianne.” A woman stepped into the shadowed light. She smelled strongly of musk and wore a red-sequined gown suited to a nineteenth-century ball. “Welcome home.” As she spoke, the woman gave the traditional greeting, a kiss on both cheeks. “You were only a child when I last saw you. I am your aunt, Latifa, wife of Fahir, brother of your father.”
Adrianne returned the greeting. “I remember you, Aunt Latifa. I’ve seen Duja. She’s well and happy. She sends love to you and honor to her father.”
Latifa nodded. Though Adrianne outranked her, she had given birth to five strong sons and held a place of honor and envy in the harem. “Come, there is refreshment. The others want to welcome you.”
Here, too, little had changed. There was the scent of spiced coffee and the heavy seduction of perfume mingling with the bite of incense. A long table had been spread with a white cloth edged in gold and was laden with food no less colorful than the gowns of the women. There were silks and satins, and even though the temperature soared, the sheen of velvet. Beads and spangles glistened. There was the warmth of gold, the ice of silver, and always the sparkle of jewels. Bracelets clanged and lace whispered as traditional greetings were exchanged.
She brushed her lips over the cheeks of Abdu’s second wife, the woman who so many years before had caused Phoebe such unhappiness. Adrianne could find no resentment. A woman did as a woman was bid. That was confirmed as Leiha, already the mother of seven, and more than forty, was obviously pregnant again.
There were cousins she remembered and a score of minor princesses. Some had cropped or crimped their hair. This was, like the vivid gowns, something they did for their own pleasure, and like children with a new toy, to show off among themselves.
There was Sara, Abdu’s latest wife, a small, big-eyed girl of about sixteen who was already swollen with child. From the looks of it, both she and Leiha had conceived at about the same time. Adrianne noticed that the stones on her fingers and at her ears were no less brilliant than those worn by Leiha. Such was the law. A man could take four wives, but only if he could treat each equally.
Phoebe had never been an equal here, but Adrianne couldn’t find it in her heart to despise a young girl because of it. “You are welcome here,” Sara said in a whispery, musical voice that stumbled over the English phrase.
“This is Princess Yasmin.” Adrianne’s aunt put a hand on the shoulder of a girl of about twelve with dusky cheeks and thick gold hoops through her ears. “Your sister.”
She hadn’t expected this. She’d known she would meet Abdu’s other children, but she hadn’t expected to look into eyes the same shape and color as her own. She wasn’t prepared for the spark of kinship or recognition. Because of it, her greeting was stilted when she bent to kiss Yasmin’s cheeks.
“Welcome to my father’s house.”
“Your English is good.”
Yasmin lifted her brows in a gesture that told Adrianne though she was months away from the veil, she was a woman. “I attend school so that I will not be ignorant when I go to my husband.”
“I see.” The acknowledgment was equal to equal as Adrianne removed her abaaya. G
esturing a servant aside, she folded it herself, and carefully. Sewn into the lining were the tools of her trade. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve learned.”
Yasmin studied Adrianne’s simple white skirt and blouse with the eyes of a fashion critic. Once Duja had smuggled in newspaper pictures of Adrianne, so Yasmin knew her sister was beautiful. She thought it a pity Adrianne hadn’t worn something red that glittered.
“First I will take you to my grandmother.”
Behind them women were already dipping into the buffet. Food, the richer the better, was a favored recreation. Talk was already centering around babies and shopping.
The old woman seated in a brocade chair was resplendent in emerald green. The wrinkles and folds of her face had fallen into jowls, but her hair was stubbornly hennaed. Fingers, curled a bit with arthritis, were studded with rings that flashed as she cuddled a boy of two or three on her lap. Two servants flanked her, waving fans so that the smoke from a brass incense jar would scent her hair.
It had been nearly twenty years, and Adrianne had been only eight when she’d left, but she remembered. The tears started so abruptly, so stunningly, she could do nothing to stop them. Instead of the greeting expected, she went to her knees and laid her head in her grandmother’s lap. The mother of her father.
Her bones were thin and brittle. Adrianne could feel them beneath the stiff satin. Her scent was the same, incredibly the same, a mixture of poppies and spice. As she felt the hand stroke her hair, she leaned into it. The sweetest, the kindest memories she had of Jaquir were of this woman brushing her hair and telling her stories of pirates and princes.
“I knew I would see you again.” Jiddah, a frail seventy, the mother of twelve, the only wife King Ahmend had ever taken, sat stroking the hair of her much-loved grandchild and cuddling her newest against her breast. “I wept when you left us, and weep when you come back.”