by Nora Roberts
Like a child, Adrianne dried her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She rose up for the kiss. “Grandmother. You’re more beautiful than I remembered. I’ve missed you.”
“You come back to me a grown woman, with the look of your father.”
She stiffened, but managed to smile. “Perhaps I have the look of my grandmother.”
Jiddah smiled back, showing teeth too white and straight to be her own. The dentures were new, and she was as proud of them as she was of the emerald collar at her throat. “Perhaps.” She accepted tea from a servant. “Chocolate for my granddaughter. You still have a taste for it?”
“Yes.” Adrianne settled on a cushion by Jiddah’s feet. “I remember that you used to give me a handful all wrapped in red and silver paper. I’d take so much time unwrapping them that they’d melt. But you never scolded me.” She noticed then that Yasmin was still standing beside her, her young face impassive but for a glint in her eyes that might have been jealousy. Without thinking, Adrianne lifted a hand and drew her down to the cushion. “Does Grandmother still tell stories?”
“Yes.” After a brief hesitation, Yasmin unbent. “Will you tell me about America and the man you will marry?”
With her head against her grandmothers knee, and a cup of green tea in her hand, Adrianne began. It wasn’t until later that she realized she’d been speaking in Arabic.
As far as palaces went, Philip decided he preferred the European style. Something in stone with mullioned windows and old, dark wood. This one was dim, as blinds and shades and lattices closed out the power of the sun. It was rich, certainly, with wall hangings spun from silk, and Ming vases tucked into wall niches. It was modern. The bath in the suite he’d been given had water that steamed hot out of gold faucets. He supposed he was too British to appreciate the Eastern flavor of prayer rugs and gauzy mosquito netting.
His rooms overlooked the garden, which he could approve of. In spite of the sun, he threw open a window and let the hot scent of jasmine blow in.
Where was Adrianne?
Her brother, Crown Prince Fahid, had met him at the airport. The young man, barely into his twenties, had worn a burnoose over an impeccably tailored suit. Philip had found him a perfect example of East meets West with his excellent English and his inscrutable manners. His only reference to Adrianne had been to tell Philip that she would be taken to the women’s quarters.
Closing his eyes, he imagined the blueprints. She would be two floors down and in the east wing. The vault was in the opposite end of the palace. Tonight he would take a tour on his own. But for now—he flipped open his suitcase—he would play the perfect guest and prospective bridegroom.
He’d taken advantage of the huge sunken tub and had finished his unpacking when he heard the prayer call. The deep throated voice of the muezzin came through the open window. Allahu Akbar. God is great.
With a glance at his watch Philip calculated that this would be the third call of the day. There would be another at sundown, then the last at an hour past.
The markets and suqs would close, and men would kneel to touch their faces to the ground. Inside the palace, as everywhere else, all business would stop in submission to the will of Allah.
Moving quietly, Philip opened his door. It was as good a time as any to take stock.
He thought it best to check out his neighbors first. The room next to his was empty, the drapes drawn, the bed made with military precision. The room across was the same. He edged down the hall and pushed open another door. Here there was a man, no, a boy, bent in supplication, his body facing south toward Mecca. His prayer rug was threaded with gold and the hangings over the bed were royal blue. Philip pulled the door to before making his way to the second floor.
Abdu’s offices would be there, along with the council rooms. There was time enough to look if warranted. He walked down to the main floor, where the rooms were quiet as a tomb. Conscious of the time elapsing, he made his way through the winding corridors to the vault room.
The door was locked. He had only to take a nail file out of his pocket to open it. With a quick glance right, then left, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Where other rooms had been dim, this was dark. There were no windows here. Wishing he’d risked bringing a flashlight, he groped his way in the direction of the vault. Its door was smooth steel and cool to the touch. Using his fingertips as his eyes, Philip measured its length, its width, the position of the locks.
As Adrianne had told him, there were two combinations. He was careful not to touch the dials. He used his nail file to measure and found the keyhole oversize and old-fashioned. The picks he carried wouldn’t work on a lock that old, but there were always other ways. Satisfied, he stepped back. He’d need to come back with a light, but that was for later.
His hand was nearly on the doorknob when he heard footsteps outside. There wasn’t time to swear as he plastered himself against the wall behind the door.
There were two men speaking Arabic. One of them, if tone was any indication, was angry, the other tense. Philip willed them to pass by. Then he heard Adrianne’s name. He could only curse the fact that he didn’t speak Arabic.
They were arguing about her. He was sure of it. There was enough venom in one of the voices to have his muscles tense and his hands ball into fists. There was a sharp command answered by silence, then the impatient click of heels on tile as one man strode off. With his ear at the door Philip heard the one remaining mutter a curse in plain English. Prince Fahid, Philip mused. Then it was certain the angry voice had come from Abdu. Why were Adrianne’s father and brother arguing about her? Over her?
He waited until Fahid walked away, then let himself out. The hall was deserted again, the door locked. With his hands in his pockets Philip strolled in the direction of the gardens. If found there, he could make a plausible enough excuse about his interest in flora. The truth was, he wanted out, and he wanted to think.
Adrianne hadn’t realized it would be so hard to do what she had come to do. Not technically—she was confident in her skill, and in Philip’s. What she hadn’t known was that there would be so many memories. Like ghosts, they whispered to her, brushed against her. There was something comforting about the harem with its women’s talk, its women’s scents, its women’s secrets. It was possible to forget its confines for a short time and bask in its security. No matter what happened now, she’d never be able to fully turn her back again.
Talk went on, still focusing on sex and shopping and fertility, but there were new things. A cousin who’d become a doctor, another who’d earned her teaching degree. There was a young aunt who worked in construction as an administrator, though all contact with the men she worked with was done by letter or phone. Education had opened up to women, and they were taking it with both hands. Male instructors taught over closed circuit television, but they taught. And the women learned.
If there was a way to juggle the old with the new, they were going to find it.
She didn’t notice the servant slip in and lean close to her grandmother’s ear. When Jiddah touched a hand to her hair, Adrianne turned and smiled.
“Your father wishes to see you.”
Adrianne felt her pleasure dry up as if it had been a pool struck by the desert sun. She rose. Though she slipped the abaaya over her shoulders, she refused the veil. He would see her face, and he would remember.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Like Jaquir, its ruler had changed yet had remained, essentially, the same. He’d aged. It was the first thing that struck Adrianne when she saw him. Her memory, enhanced by the old newspaper prints her mother had hoarded, was of a man hardly older than she herself was now, with a hawklike, unlined face and rich black hair. The hawk was still there in features carved sharp and hard, but there were lines that time and sun had dug deeply. They were chiseled beside a mouth that smiled rarely, etched around eyes that watched and measured. His hair was still rich, still brushed back like a mane, as full as in his youth and
part of his vanity. Silver glinted in it. Over the years he’d put on very little flesh so that his body remained one of a soldier.
His white throbe was embroidered with gold, his sandals studded with jewels. If possible, age had made him only more handsome in the way it does with men. It was a face women would be drawn to even though, or perhaps because, there was so little compassion in it.
Adrianne’s stomach clenched as she approached. She moved slowly, not from uncertainty, not even from respect, but from the desire to bring this moment, so long awaited, so long imagined, into clear focus. Nothing had been forgotten. Nothing would be forgotten.
As with that one stunning moment of memory in the harem, there were scents here—polish, flowers, a trace of incense. She continued, moving closer to a past she had never fully released. She had walked toward him before, or cowered away. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she couldn’t recall one instance when he had come to her.
He hadn’t brought her to one of his private rooms, but to the large, brightly lit area where he would give his weekly majlis, or audiences. The drapes on the windows were heavy, the royal blue he had always preferred. The rug was old, one his father, his grandfather, and the kings before them had all walked over. It had a dense pattern of blue and black worked through with gold in a sinuous design, like a snake. There were urns as tall as a man on either side of the door. Legend had it that they had been brought from Persia to another Abdu two centuries before. Inside each had been a virgin.
A lion fashioned from gold with sapphire eyes guarded the chair of blue silk, where Abdu would sit and grant his time to his people.
Though this room was closed to women on such occasions, it showed Adrianne that he still thought of her as a subject, not as a daughter. Like the virgins of Persia, she would be expected to submit to the will of the king.
She stopped in front of him. Though he wasn’t a tall man, she had to tilt her chin to keep her eyes directly on his. Whatever he felt, if he felt, was carefully masked. He bent and gave her the traditional greeting. He barely touched his lips to her cheeks, and with less emotion than he might have given a stranger. It hurt. She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t been prepared for it, and it hurt.
“You are welcome here.”
“I’m grateful for your permission to return.”
He sat, and after a long, silent moment, gestured to a chair. “Are you a child of Allah?”
This she had expected. Religion was breath in Jaquir. “I am not a Muslim,” she said steadily, “but God is One.”
Apparently it satisfied him, because he signaled for a servant to pour tea. It was a concession of sorts that two cups were waiting. “It pleases me that you will marry. A woman requires a man’s protection, his guidance.”
“I’m not marrying Philip for his protection or his guidance.” She sipped at the tea. “Nor does he marry me to increase his tribe.”
She had spoken flatly, as a man might speak to another man, not as a woman to a king. He could have struck her; it was his right. Instead, he sat back, cupping the tea in both hands. The cup was delicate, of fragile French porcelain. His hands were broad and studded with rings, “You’ve become a woman of the West.”
“My life is there, as my mother’s was.”
“We will not speak of your mother.” He set his cup down, then held up a hand as a servant sprang forward to refill it.
“She spoke of you. Often.”
Something came into his eyes. Adrianne couldn’t prevent a part of her from hoping it would be regret. But it was anger. “As my daughter you are welcome here, and with the honor that is your right as a member of the House of Jaquir. While you are here, you will abide by the rules and traditions. You will cover your hair and cast down your eyes. Your dress and speech will be modest. If you bring me shame, you will be punished as I would punish any woman of my family.”
Because her fingers weren’t steady, she dug them into the teacup. After all these years, she thought, so many years, and he could speak only in orders and threats. Her plan to be the woman he would expect was overrun with her need to be what she was.
“I bring you no shame, but I feel shame. My mother suffered and died miserably while you did nothing to help.” When he rose, she stood as well, so quickly that the cup fell from her hand and shattered on the tiles. “How could you do nothing?”
“She was nothing to me.”
“Nothing but your wife,” Adrianne tossed back. “It would have taken so little, but you gave nothing. You abandoned her, and me. The shame is yours.”
He struck her then, with a backhanded blow that snapped her head back and made her eyes water. It wasn’t the careless slap an angry parent might give an ill-mannered child, but the deliberate, full-fledged hit a man deals an enemy. If she hadn’t crashed into the heavy chair and gripped for support, she would have fallen. Though she staggered, she managed to stay on her feet.
Her breath came quickly as she fought for control, fought to keep the stinging tears back. Slowly, she lifted a hand to wipe at the blood where a jewel from his ring had nicked her. Their eyes held, so similar in shape, so alike in expression. It hadn’t been her he had struck, and they both knew it. It had been Phoebe. It was still Phoebe.
“Years ago,” she managed, “I might have been grateful for that much attention from you.”
“I will say this, then it will not be spoken of again.” Carelessly, he signaled for the broken china to be cleared. The rage she incited in him was rage unbecoming a king. “Your mother left Jaquir and forfeited all rights, all loyalty, and all honor. By doing so, she also forfeited yours. She was weak, as women are, but she was also sly and corrupt.”
“Corrupt?” Though it might have earned her another blow, Adrianne couldn’t bite back the words. “How can you speak of her so? She was the kindest, most pure-hearted woman I’ve ever known.”
“She was an actress.” He said it as though a word could taste vile. “She flaunted herself before men. My only shame is that I allowed myself to be blinded by her, to bring her to my country, to lie with her as a man lies with any whore.”
“You called her that before.” This time Adrianne’s voice shook. “How does a man speak so about the woman he married, about the woman he shared a child with?”
“A man can marry a woman, can plant his seed within her, but cannot change her nature. She would not embrace Islam. When I brought her here and my eyes were cleared, she would not accept her place, her duties.”
“She was ill and unhappy.”
“She was weak and sinful.” He held up his hand, a man used to doing no more to be obeyed. “You are the result of my early blindness and are here only because my blood runs through you and because Fahid interceded on your behalf. This is a matter of honor, my honor. You remain only so long as you respect that.”
She wanted to toss it back in his face, to shout, to scream that he had no honor. The part of her that had still yearned for love closed off. Not even the most clever of thieves could have broken the lock now. Adrianne folded her hands. She lowered her eyes. Gestures of submission. He could have struck her again, and she would have accepted it. He could have maligned her mother, insulted her, and she would have accepted it. Such was the power of revenge.
“I’m in my father’s house and respect my father’s wishes.”
He nodded, expecting no less from a woman of his family. His kingship sat on him comfortably. When he had returned to Jaquir so many years before with a queen, a Western queen, he had been bewitched. He had forgotten his roots, his duties, his laws because of a woman.
His punishment had been that his first child had been a female, and his queen unable to give him more children. Now the daughter of that shameful marriage stood before him, her head bowed, her hands folded. Since Allah had willed that she would spring from his first seed, he would give her her due, but no more.
With one sharp word and a gesture a servant hurried over to give him a box. “A gift, for your betrothal.”
Now it was just a colored rock. She’d always stolen better ones.
“You’re very generous. I’ll think of my father whenever I wear it.” That was a promise.
He signaled again before he spoke. “I will meet your betrothed. Then, while we discuss the terms of the marriage, you will go back to your quarters or walk in the garden.”
She tucked the box into the folds of her abaaya so that he wouldn’t see her fingers tighten on it. “As you wish.”
When Philip followed the servant into the room, he wasn’t expecting to see Adrianne at all, much less to see her still dressed in black with her head bowed and her shoulders braced as if for a blow. Beside her, Abdu’s white throbe was a striking contrast. They stood close, so close the materials nearly touched, but there was no sense of reunion or kinship. Abdu looked over her head as if she didn’t exist.
“With your permission,” she murmured.
“Yes.” Abdu gave it without glancing at her.
“King Abdu ibn Faisal Rahman al-Jaquir, head of the House of Jaquir, sheikh of sheikhs, may I present Philip Chamberlain, the man, if you consent, I will marry.”
“Mr. Chamberlain.” With a hand extended, Abdu stepped forward. He could behave in Western fashion when it suited him. “Welcome to Jaquir, and to my house.”
“Thank you.” Philip clasped hands. Abdu’s was smooth and strong.
“Your rooms are suitable?”
“More than. I’m in your debt.”
“You are my guest.” He flicked a glance toward Adrianne. “You may go.”
It was the tone one used to dismiss a servant. Philip caught it, resented it, had nearly decided to be amused by it. Then she lifted her face. The look was brief, but long enough for Philip to see the mark along her cheekbone that was already darkening to a bruise. She bowed her head again, and with her long skirts whispering around her, she left them.