‘But—’
Barirah looked troubled.
‘What is it? Lila asked her, not wanting to offend the woman who had been kind to her.
‘It’s the Ta’wiz,’ Barirah whispered. ‘I know this might sound like some ancient superstition or witchcraft to you, but Tariq believes—we all believe—that things have not gone well since the Ta’wiz left the palace. It is why he wants you here. He understands it was a last gift from your mother and you do not want to be parted from it, so you must stay here too.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Lila muttered, fingering the little locket. ‘He’s a modern man, a doctor, he’d have a scientific mind. Why on earth does it matter where the Ta’wiz is? I begin injections tomorrow to improve my stem cell count in my blood so living at the hospital would be more convenient. Perhaps I should speak to him.’
Barirah shook her head.
‘He is seeing our father at the moment, but I can leave a message that you wish to talk to him.’
Barirah departed, leaving Lila with a decision—to pack her things or not. Actually, it wasn’t much of a dilemma as she knew Sousa could probably have everything packed within minutes. So she lay down on the bed that had the cover like her mother’s shawl and wrapped it around herself, feeling the embroidery thread slightly rough against her skin, feeling her mother so close she could have wept.
But it appeared battle lines had been drawn by Second Mother and she, Lila, could not afford the weakness of tears.
She must have slept, for the room was dark when she awoke, Sousa little more than a shadow by her door, fingers busy under the glow of a small lamp.
‘You needn’t have stayed,’ Lila told her. ‘I know how to reach you now if I want anything.’
Sousa stood and hurried to the bed, turning on lamps as she approached.
‘I have a message but I heard about you driving the medical truck and didn’t want to wake you.’
‘I hope it’s a message to say I can move to the hospital,’ Lila said, trying to shake the sleep from her mind.
‘Oh, no,’ Sousa said. ‘It is from the Prince, from Tariq. He wishes you to join him for dinner.’
‘Where?’ Lila asked, knowing it was unlikely he would be asking her to his apartment in the palace.
‘At his mother’s house—well, in the rose arbour there. She will not be present but you will be chaperoned by servants and she will be close.’
Lila laughed.
‘I’m not really expecting him to seduce me, you know,’ she said, then remembered the stories circulating about her mother. ‘Or me him,’ she added, rather sadly.
Surely the stories couldn’t be true, because whatever Tariq said about sins of the fathers, she knew the stories cast a shadow on her.
She showered and dressed, tonight putting on a pretty pale pink outfit Izzy had given her, insisting she needed something special for going out. Lila’s attention had been so focussed on getting to Karuba, her shopping had been automatic—tunics and loose trousers as suggested by the hospital ‘Information for foreign workers’ FAQs.
Sousa led her through the garden, to where Tariq waited, a sheikh again, and looking so regal, so magnificent Lila had to distract herself by wondering what he wore beneath the robes.
Surely not anything as mundane as a pair of boxers or jockey shorts.
He showed her to a comfortable settee and sat beside her—far too close given the effect his body always had on hers, and the fact that tonight he was even more magnificent than usual.
‘You have had time to rest?’ he asked, and she nodded.
‘I slept for a couple of hours. I must have been more tired than I thought.’
There, she told herself, you can manage this. Just perfectly normal, polite conversation.
‘I am glad,’ he said, ‘for there is something I wish to discuss with you. But we will eat first.’
Lila’s stomach cramped immediately. What could he want to talk about that was serious enough she’d need food inside her to consider it?
But as servants were already appearing with an array of dishes, she didn’t ask, although she only picked at the cheese-filled dates, and took only a small helping of the couscous and chicken with apricots.
With the servants present, the conversation was formal, Tariq thanking her for driving the truck, saying how pleased he was the trial clinic run had gone so well, discussing the injections she was to have over the next four or five days. Lila responded when necessary but became more and more uptight as she tried to imagine what was coming.
* * *
She was beautiful, Tariq thought as he carried on about nothing in particular, wanting—needing—to keep some conversation going, if only to distract himself from her beauty. The pale pink of her tunic made her face glow, while the dark plait down her back shone from a recent shower.
He imagined it spread across his pillow, felt himself respond to the thought, and tried to get back on track by asking if she’d phoned her father to tell him all was well.
‘I’ll do it later, when it’s a better time at home,’ she said, but the questions in her eyes had nothing to do with her reply.
Of course she’d be wondering why he’d invited her, but now she was here—here and so stunning—he didn’t know how to find the words he needed.
Use your head, he reminded himself, but his head wasn’t working too well at the moment, distracted, not by the heart but by his libido.
His guest had finished the meagre amount of food she’s served herself and was now looking expectantly at him.
‘Did Barirah tell you I wish to move to the hospital apartment, is that what this is about?’ she asked, with a no-nonsense, let’s-cut-to-the-chase look in her eyes.
He shook his head.
‘Well, I certainly don’t want to stay here with the stories about my mother growing more insulting every day!’
Tell her, his head said, but his heart was pounding—with apprehension, nothing else.
Well, probably nothing else!
‘A problem has come up but I think we can handle it quite easily,’ he finally said, then realised he could go no further. By stepping down from his position as heir to the throne, he’d thought he’d escape the tradition of arranged marriage and so avoid the possibility of hurting a woman as his mother had been hurt.
Anger at his father for putting him in this position rose inside him, especially as Lila was looking at him with trust and expectation in her lovely eyes.
How could he tell her of his father’s directive?
Explain the duty the felt he owed his father, especially after he’d let him down once before? Hurt her with the alternative he was offering?
She sat watching him, dark eyes scanning his face as if to read his mind.
Dark eyes that saw too much, he rather thought.
‘So?’
It might only have been a small word, but it was a demand. Cut to the chase!
‘Second Mother has been causing more trouble than you know, done more damage than spreading gossip...’
His words dried up as he thought of the dilemma he would be forcing on this woman who, for all he knew, might have a man waiting for her back in Australia, might have dreams of a real marriage, of love and the happy-ever-after endings of his mother’s books...
‘What kind of damage?’
Direct and to the point, his Lila—only she wasn’t his, and even married to him she might never be...
‘She has persuaded my father that you are trouble. That you will infect the family, particularly the younger girls, with your Western ways, and cause even more trouble than your mother did. I don’t know if my father believes this, but Nalini’s departure caused him much pain as he’d arranged a very advantageous match for her, and he felt dishonoured when he had to ad
mit it couldn’t go ahead.’
‘And?’ Lila prompted, obviously aware that there was more to come.
‘His ultimatum is marriage or exile. You must understand that, to his way of thinking, once a woman is married she virtually vanishes from sight, so married you’d soon be forgotten.’
There, it was out, and from the look on her face she was even more shocked than he had been when his father had imparted this news to him this afternoon.
‘Just vanishes? You can’t be serious! And just who does he think I can marry? Should I advertise, or just grab a man off the street, perhaps pay him to marry me?’
Her disbelieving reaction was so heated Tariq had to smile, although it was a weak effort and soon faded.
‘Me,’ he said baldly. ‘You could marry me.’
‘Marry you?’
She sounded so incredulous Tariq felt a stab of what could have been pain, but he couldn’t think about that now. He had to convince her that it was the answer, because the thought of her leaving—
‘Would it be so bad? I know you would not be used to the idea of arranged marriages but if you want to stay...’
He faltered again, mainly because Lila had leapt to her feet, a pale wraith in the scented shadows of the arbour.
‘You’d marry me so I’d vanish from the scene and no longer be an embarrassment? How kind of you, offering me a chance to be a nobody!’
Head, head, head! Tariq told himself, but his head didn’t seem to be working tonight.
‘You wouldn’t be a nobody—you’d be my wife,’ he pointed out.
‘And I’m supposed to leap about in excitement at that thought? Or am I supposed to feel honoured? To be married to such an important man as Sheikh al Askeba!’
Lila thought she was doing quite well, given the total shock Tariq’s words had generated. But yelling at him wasn’t enough, not when she felt like grinding her teeth or punching something.
Someone?
But neither option would solve the problem.
Marry Tariq, who’d been forced to offer marriage? Not love, just marriage...
Her heart scrunched in her chest, but that was stupid—this was a land where the head ruled the heart and his head had offered marriage.
But what alternative did she have?
Leave this place that she’d just discovered for certain was her heritage? Leave the family she’d only just found? The family she’d sought for so many years?
But marriage? To Tariq?
A quiver ran through her body at the thought—a quiver she set aside to consider later.
But the alternative was exile!
Khalil was her cousin! There was a possibility, however small, that she could help him.
Could she just walk away?
‘It would need to be announced,’ Tariq said quietly, his face utterly devoid of expression—a graven mask, his words telling her he assumed she’d accept. ‘Though, given Khalil’s condition, it wouldn’t be a grand wedding, just a quiet ceremony.’
‘There won’t be any kind of wedding,’ Lila told him. ‘I don’t want to marry you, and you don’t want to marry me, and no one can make us.’
Or could they?
She paused, thinking of the story of the Keeper of the Treasure who could have been executed.
Karuba was a different country, with different customs.
‘Can they?’ she asked, and hated the weakness she heard in her voice.
‘They can make you leave. If you want to stay, it is the only answer,’ Tariq said, calmly ignoring her question—and her protest. ‘You must have already realised that Second Mother is a vindictive woman. She lost face when her sister went missing and was declared a thief, and has never forgiven her. Now you are here, and she is spreading the stories about your mother through the palace. When she heard your stem cells will save her son, her jealousy grew even greater. That is the reason you cannot stay without the protection of a husband.’
This is ridiculous, Lila thought, and that little skip of excitement that had spread through her body at Tariq’s mention of marriage was even more ridiculous. She took a deep breath, telling herself to calm down, then plunged into battle once more.
‘But she has already blackened my mother’s name, what more can she do to hurt me? Send an assassin?’
She’d expected Tariq to smile, but his face remained sombre.
‘I do not think she would dare go that far, but anything is possible. It would look like an accident, of course.’
‘Well, thanks very much,’ Lila said. ‘So I’ll be pushed under a bus rather than stabbed through the heart. Anyway, if I move to the hospital apartment, I’ll be out of her way and I won’t hear whatever gossip she spreads.’
‘Except she is at the hospital almost as often as she is in the palace, and you must know that hospital staff love a good gossip.’ He paused, studying her intently, before adding, ‘Is the idea of marriage to me so repugnant you’d prefer to leave the country?’
The idea of marriage to Tariq repugnant?
Unfortunately she couldn’t tell him it was, because the little quiver, the little skip of excitement was still there, bouncing around, causing havoc in her body.
Enough! she told herself. Think this through. Khalil needs your stem cells. You want to get to know your family. You want to find out who your father was, and if possible clear your mother’s name. So packing up and going home isn’t an option.
She glared at the man who was causing all her problems.
‘I need to stay,’ she muttered, ‘and if that’s the only way I can be safe then, yes, I’ll marry you.’ Flinging away childhood dreams of wedding flowers and white ribbons on the church pews and herself in a trailing white dress, she searched her prospective bridegroom’s face for any hint of a reaction, but instead was met with graven stone!
‘But on one condition,’ she added. ‘If Khalil dies, then you grant me a divorce.’
He looked puzzled, frowning at her.
‘What does Khalil’s health have to do with it?’ he finally asked.
‘Do you really need to ask that? You aren’t stupid and must know that if Khalil dies you will have to take on the role of the next king. Would you want a wife so tainted with gossip and innuendo? Would your country want a queen whose name is whispered in the kitchen of every house, in every shop and market stall? What damage would it do to the country you love?’
She didn’t add the ‘and I’m beginning to love’ that popped into her head as she spoke, although it was true.
The blank look on his stern face told her he hadn’t considered any of this, though possibly because he couldn’t accept that his brother might die, but she couldn’t weaken her stance. She might not have been here long but she knew that members of the royal family must be beyond reproach.
‘So,’ she said, determined to get this over and done with. ‘If you agree to that condition I will marry you.’ She paused, thinking of possible consequences—unwanted consequences like falling in love with a man who didn’t love her, giving herself to him with all her heart, and then having to leave him.
‘I’ll marry you but I will not be your wife.’
She turned away, fleeing through the gardens, overwhelmed by the torrent of emotions flowing through her. Excitement, regret, the death of dreams...
For an instant, Tariq watched her go, then sprinted after her, telling himself there was no way she was in danger—and that of course Second Mother wouldn’t hire an assassin—but apprehension gripped his stomach until he was close enough to call to her.
Softly so the night was not awakened.
‘Lila, wait!’
She halted, a pale ghost in the moonlight, and he came up to her, resting his hands on her shoulders.
‘I apologise for upsetting you,�
� he said, the words stiff and awkward on his lips because, looking down into the depths of her dark eyes, seeing the creamy skin, and rosy lips, what he really wanted to do was kiss her.
Ask for a kiss?
He was a prince and could ask for what he wanted—
As if!
So he took it, tipping his head forward to capture lips that seemed to tremble beneath his, so he had to add pressure, kissed her harder to stop the trembling.
And to taste her!
To feel the softness of her skin.
To learn her mouth and all its mysteries.
To tell her something with a kiss?
His mind blurred and his head, after some initial muttering, appeared to have gone to sleep, so the kiss was only taste and touch, exploration and learning.
He slid his tongue between the lips that had been taunting him for days, felt the warm softness within, felt her tongue touch his, and her body move closer, now returning the kiss.
It’s perfectly natural, quite acceptable, because you’re betrothed. His head had obviously woken. Maybe now it would take control.
But when she reached up to clasp her fingers around his face, his chin, his neck, to hold his head closer to hers the better to return his kisses, he was lost.
He clasped her to him, felt her slim body fit itself to his harder planes, knew she’d feel his reaction to the kiss, but he knew her nipples had peaked beneath the fine material of her tunic, and were pressed like little stones against his chest.
A marriage in name only?
Al’ama! He would never survive it! To have her close, living in his apartment, and he not able to bed her?
Impossible.
He felt a slight movement as she eased her body from his, looking up into his face, his eyes, so many questions in hers.
Questions he couldn’t answer.
He had no idea where the kiss had sprung from.
Certainly not from his head, and although blaming his libido would be convenient, he wasn’t entirely sure that was the right answer either.
‘I’ll walk you back to your rooms,’ he said, because what else was there to say?
Engaged to the Doctor Sheikh Page 10