The Sultan's Heir

by Alexandra Sellers

  Rosalind looked down at her hands in her lap, watching the ring with deep sadness, and thought how different her life might have been.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, interrupting him with quiet firmness. “Jamshid had no son. The day after I got that—that letter from your grandfather, I had a miscarriage. I lost Jamshid’s baby.”

  Three

  There was a startled silence. “A miscarriage?” he repeated softly. He did not look towards the entrance, where the plastic dinosaur was just visible.

  She remembered the terrible, stabbing pain as she read the letter, as if the old man had taken a knife to her womb. As if her child had responded to such viciousness by refusing to be born into the world.

  “It was the letter,” she murmured. “I knew it was the letter. It’s why I’ve hated you all so much.”

  He sat in silence, staring at her with a mixture of doubt and sadness. But there was nothing more to say. Rosalind shook her head, made a slight shrugging movement, then got up. She went to the bathroom, rinsed her face in cold water, stared at the ring, gazed at her reflection for a minute in blank disbelief, and came back.

  He was sitting where she had left him, holding one of the glass ornaments from the table, absently watching the snow settle around a perfect red rose. He looked up as she crossed the room and stopped in front of him.

  “I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?”

  “Thank you.”

  Moving around the kitchen, getting down the cafetière, filling the kettle, laying the tray, she could see him through the doorway. He sat on the sofa in the kind of coiled relaxation that could leap into action very quickly. He absently shook the ornament again, and a cloud of snow bubbled up and hid the rose.

  “How did you meet Jamshid? Were you a student, too?”

  She shook her head. “Not at the same time he was. I’d already done an undergrad degree in Parvani, and was working at the Embassy of Parvan as a junior translator. I was mostly doing stuff for tourist publications. Prince Kavian and Arash and Jamshid came and were living upstairs at the embassy,” she explained.

  “I was studying in Paris for much of that time. But my sister was a student at the university here at the same time as Jamshid,” he remarked. She was measuring the coffee, and looked up as he spoke. “Do you remember a girl named Lamis al Azzam?”

  The little scoop caught the edge of the glass cafetière and leapt from her grasp, the fine-ground coffee spraying all over the counter. Rosalind muttered and reached for a sponge.

  Next thing she knew, he was in the doorway, still holding the rose ornament. With forced calm, Rosalind wiped up the spilled grounds, dusted the residue from her pale blue shirt, rinsed her hands and the sponge under the tap.

  As she carefully measured another scoop of coffee into the cafetière, she said, “I knew Lamis, yes.” How much would Lamis have told him? “She’s your sister?” she repeated, carefully wiping all expression from her voice.

  He nodded. Rosalind swallowed. This was a complication she didn’t need. She would have to be careful. She lifted the kettle and poured boiling water over the grounds. The scent of coffee rose strong in the air.

  “Why don’t you have the same name?”

  He waved his hand as if the answer would entail some obscure cultural explanation that wasn’t worth the trouble.

  “You must be from Barakat, then? Jamshid told me once that other branches of the family were in Bagestan and the Barakat Emirates.”

  He hesitated. “Yes. We are in Barakat. My mother was half sister to Jamshid’s father. But the family is Bagestani originally.”

  She wondered if he had mentioned Lamis as a way of gaining her trust. If so, it was having the opposite effect. She would have to be on her guard with him.

  She lifted the tray, and he backed out of the doorway to let her pass. She carried it into the sitting room and set it on the low black table as they sat again.

  “Jamshid was from Bagestan originally? He never told me that.” She poured coffee into the delicate cream-coloured porcelain cup, set a spoon in the saucer and passed it to him.

  “He was born there,” Najib said briefly. He noted the hesitation that had crept into her manner. So she did know something. The mention of Bagestan had made her wary. He stirred sugar into his cup, laid the little spoon on his saucer, accepted a sweet biscuit from the plate she offered.

  “Really! And what made the family leave?” she asked, in a light, false voice.

  Overdoing the ingenuousness, he advised her silently.

  “Lamis is married now, with a young child. She works in television in Barakat.” He lifted the little rose again. “She collects ornaments like this.”

  A fact Rosalind knew well. The ornament was not in the same style as the others on her table. The others were mostly her own choice, a carved jade figurine, a chunk of raw amethyst, a polished rose crystal set in an antique wooden tripod, a decorated egg, but… Think of me when you look at the rose, Rosalind.

  “I am on a permanent commission to buy her a new one every time I come to Europe.” She was hiding something, that much was obvious. You rushed her, he told himself. Relax. Let her tell you in her own time.

  She gazed for a moment at the perfect red rose, with its little translucent drop like a tear on one petal. Rosalind had never really liked the idea of the rose being imprisoned. Like a woman in purdah. It was natural to think of Lamis when she looked at the rose: Lamis was the rose.

  “My sister was not the same woman when she returned from her time in England,” Najib murmured. “Do you know what happened while she was here to change her?”

  The black gaze seemed to probe her. Rosalind dropped her eyes and nervously adjusted one of the other ornaments on the table, then forced herself to meet his gaze again. She shrugged. “What, for example?”

  “I never knew. She never spoke of it. But she had been a carefree young woman. She came home marked by…suffering.” He set down the glass ball with a kind of protective care, as if the rose, or the thought of his sister, called up an instinctive tenderness for anything weaker than himself.

  Rosalind felt almost hypnotized by the gentle voice, the dark, dark eyes, the strong, sensitive hands. He sounded like a man in touch with life. It would be a relief to confide in him, but… The corners of her mouth pulled down to signal ignorance, she shook her head.

  “Maybe it was because of the war,” she said.

  But he only shook his head in his turn, still watching her, and somehow Rosalind felt compelled to speak.

  “We heard a rumour that Lamis went home under a bit of a cloud,” she offered, a little desperately. “Gambling, or something. They said she lost an absolute bundle in some Mayfair casino and her family had to bail her out.”

  “That was true.” He sipped his coffee. “But such a thing as this could not have caused the change I am speaking of.” His eyes were on her again, as if he knew she knew.

  “But you were here yourself. Surely you would have known if anything happened?”

  “I went home, like Jamshid, just before the Kaljuk War. Lamis remained to complete her studies.”

  She said, “Did Lamis ever mention me?”

  “She never talked about her time here. Did she know of your marriage?”

  Rosalind shrugged, not sure what to say. “People generally did,” she temporized.

  He nodded, drained his coffee cup, set it down.

  “Well, it is no surprise if she was afraid to tell my grandfather. The messenger’s fate is well-known. Perhaps you will enjoy making her acquaintance again.”

  “Oh, sure!” Rosalind smiled to hide her racing thoughts, her quickened heartbeat. “When is she coming to England?”

  He frowned at her.

  “Do you have no intention of visiting East Barakat to inspect your inheritance and meet the family, Rosalind?”

  Once she had dreamed of such a trip. But that was long ago.

  Rosalind hesitated. “I don’t know,” she be
gan. She glanced at her watch and leapt in sheer horror when she realized what time it was.

  “Oh!” she cried, slamming down her cup so that it rattled. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot! I—have an appointment.” She jumped to her feet. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m very late.”

  He obediently slipped the papers back into his case, snapped it shut and got to his feet. He followed her to the door. She was practically running.

  “Goodbye,” she said quickly.

  “We will talk again,” he said.

  “Yes,” she babbled. “Yes, give me a call….”

  She opened the door, but he did not step through. Instead, Najib al Makhtoum bent to set down his case beside the cheerful plastic dinosaur on wheels. He straightened, and Rosalind’s breath caught in her throat as his hands grasped her shoulders.

  He stared down into her face. For a strange moment, his mouth above hers, they seemed to slip into some other reality, a reality where they knew each other very well, where he had the right to kiss her. Rosalind had the crazy thought that by putting the ring on her finger he had opened a door onto another life, and tendrils of that other possibility were now reaching for them. His black gaze pierced her, searching for her soul, and her lips parted involuntarily.

  They blinked, and the world shook itself back into place. She is a complete temptress, he told himself. You will have to be on your guard every moment. Jamshid’s behaviour was a mystery no longer. His judgement must have been derailed as powerfully as if he were drugged.

  “Rosalind, this is of immense importance,” he said. “You cannot guess how vital it is that you tell me the truth. Do not allow an old grievance to affect you any further. Did you give birth to Jamshid’s son?”

  His long fingers were painful on the soft flesh at her shoulders. The look in his eyes frightened her.

  “Why is it so important?”

  “I am not at liberty to explain. But I ask you to believe that it is.”

  It was her pain speaking when she said, “How can a possibility that was totally rejected five years ago suddenly become a matter of immense importance?”

  He shook her. “Tell me.”

  She pulled out of his grasp and turned away. “I have told you. Jamshid’s baby died,” she said, her voice raw. She looked at her watch again. “Please go. I’m late.”

  “Goodbye, Rosalind,” he said, picking up his case. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He strode down the corridor to the wrought-iron cage that held the elegant Art Deco lift. But before he could push the button, it clanged and heaved and started its upward journey from the lobby.

  Rosalind bit her lip. Instead of closing the door she stood there, nervously planted in the doorway, following the sound of the machine’s tortured progress. How could she have failed to think of this?

  Najib glanced at her, his eyes widening and then narrowing into alertness at what he saw in her face.

  Rosalind waited with a kind of fatalistic foreknowledge as the lift creaked up three floors and ground to a stop. Then the door opened and, as she had known they would, a small, excited boy and a pretty teenage girl stepped out.

  Najib, holding the door open with one arm, turned to watch in disbelief as the child shot down the hall towards Rosalind, a decorated sheet of blue construction paper clutched in one tiny hand. Rosalind knelt down and held her arms open.

  “Mommy, Mommy!” cried Sam, his eyes glowing, as he flung himself into her embrace. “Look what I made you!”

  Over his head, Rosalind saw Najib al Makhtoum’s dark, accusing gaze rake over her for one horrible moment. Then he turned and stepped into the lift.

  “He’s the living spit of the old man,” said Naj.

  “Damn,” came Ashraf’s fervent voice. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  The was a silence. “And she knows nothing about the Rose?”

  “So she said. But she is living in a place she certainly did not buy on a translator’s income. In Kensington.”

  Ashraf cursed again. “You think she sold the Rose? Who to?”

  Naj shook his head, his lips pursed. “No guesses there. Depends how much she knew.”

  “She knows enough to deny the kid is Jamshid’s.”

  “And maybe when she’s had a little time to absorb the facts she’ll stop denying it. She naturally assumed we all knew about the exchange of letters and left her to swing in the breeze. And God knows what she thought Jamshid’s motives were.”

  “Naj, if he gave her the Rose she can’t have doubted his sincerity.”

  “True. Well, maybe she sold it because Grandfather’s letter killed off any sense of loyalty.”

  “It’s not fitting together,” Ash said.

  “She’ll tell me eventually,” Naj said, though he wondered whether it would be himself who cracked. “It may take her time to get up the courage to confess.”

  “We don’t have that luxury, time,” Ashraf pointed out. “We have to bring the boy here, and we have to do it yesterday.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you handle it, Naj? Want any backup?”

  He thought of her eyes in that odd, fleeting moment when life had seemed different. There had been a promise there, of a kind he had been waiting for all his life without realizing it.

  “I’ll handle it,” he said.

  Sam and Rosie sat on the sofa, Rosie cuddling her son as she read him a story from a book they had chosen from the library and he told her about the pictures. It was something they did nearly every day.

  But he was making do with less than her full attention today. Rosalind stroked her son’s head, kissed his hair, and murmured approvingly as he talked, but her eyes kept dropping to the beautiful ring, and her mind kept slipping back to her meeting with Najib al Makhtoum.

  Her head was buzzing with questions. Why had Jamshid never told his grandfather about the marriage? Why had he not told her he was from such a rich family? Had they really only found the will recently, or did the family have some reason for suddenly being willing to part with her inheritance?

  If so, that reason centred in the possibility that Jamshid had an heir. He had spoken about a jewel, but how likely was it that they really believed Jamshid would have given her anything so valuable? She looked at the diamond Najib had put on her finger. She knew little about precious stones, but this one had to be two carats at least. Bigger than this one—what were they talking about? The Koh-i-Noor? Why would Jamshid have given it to her when he hadn’t even told her about his wealthy background?

  He had given her gifts, of course. But nothing more valuable than an ordinary man would give his fiancée. He had bought her a leather jacket she had admired, and given her a gold chain with a heart on her birthday. Rosalind’s eyes drifted down to the coffee table. And the little antique crystal ornament when she told him she thought she was pregnant. That was absolutely all.

  She stared at the diamond ring Najib had just given her. She still could hardly believe it. Was it even real? But the light caught it as she moved her hand, and her question was answered. There was unmistakable fire in the heart of the stone.

  Someone somewhere was very disturbed, that much was clear. Najib al Makhtoum had come, not so much to right an old wrong, not to see that she got her inheritance after five years, but to discover if Jamshid had a son.

  She wondered if Najib had asked his sister about her. But anything Lamis might have told him was now overshadowed by the fact that he had seen Sam. He would be back, of course. She would have to plan what to say to him when he came.

  Four

  “Hello again, Rosalind.”

  Rosalind tilted her head in a small nod, marvelling at how strong the family likeness was, especially around the eyes. They were Sam’s eyes.

  “Najib. You do have a knack with the security guard. What is it, a Cloak of Invisibility?”

  He gave her a look. “May I come in?”

  “Do you think you might have phoned first?”

  “Would you have been here
if I had done so?” he asked dryly.

  She lifted a cool eyebrow to let him know what she thought of that. “What do you want at this hour on a Sunday?”

  Najib looked at Rosalind without answering. Her bare legs seemed too long under the unbleached cotton of her shirt, her hair was tousled, her lips vulnerable without any makeup, her eyes slightly swollen, and with a blow that rocked him he understood clearly that the answer to that was, I want you.

  He clenched his jaw, because he almost spoke the words on the thought. Instead he said urgently, “Let me in. I have to tell you—”

  She moved to block the doorway. “How did you get past the doorman, and this time I want to know?”

  He glared at her. Her distrust of him suddenly infuriated him. “I got in because I am officially a resident of this building. I have bought an apartment here,” he explained with irritated emphasis.

  She goggled at him. “You—you what? I don’t believe you!”

  “Money can do many things. You know it, so what is there to surprise you? Now let me in.”

  He put his hand on her arm, and that was a mistake. His skin seemed to glue itself to hers. Impelled by the urgency in his eyes, the heat of his flesh, she stepped back, and he followed her inside, his foot pushing the door shut behind him.

  Electricity from his touch rushed along her arm and through her body. What a fool she was not to have recognized this attraction for what it was before! But it had needed this combination of morning, being taken by surprise, and a sense of her own vulnerability, apparently, to show her what should have been totally obvious: it had a potency that was frightening.

  And just her luck she couldn’t even trust him.

  She glared down at his hand, strong on her bare flesh, and wished it were her fate to give in to such strength, to be protected by it instead of threatened. “Let go of me,” she said hoarsely.

  He was standing close, too close. Another mistake. He could smell the perfume of her skin, and worse, he could smell bed on her mussed hair, the drowsy smell of a woman newly climbed from the sheets.