Engaged to the Doctor Sheikh

by Meredith Webber

  The car pulled up under the portico of what looked like a very flash hotel.

  ‘They have an arcade underneath with some of the best women’s clothing in Karuba,’ Barirah explained, while Sousa’s eyes grew round with amazement.

  ‘I thought we’d just be going to the mall, but this place?’ she said.

  Lila smiled. At least someone was happy about today’s outing.

  But once inside, an unfamiliar excitement stirred in her as well. The clothes were so beautiful, the fabrics so fine, the embroidery so exquisite, Lila found her breath catching in her throat as she looked at the outfits.

  ‘Wedding first,’ Barirah announced. She spoke quickly to the manager who had been summoned to give them personal service. The manager passed on the message and within minutes two younger women had appeared, each carrying an armful of beautiful clothing.

  It was all hung in a room larger than Lila’s bedroom in her old Sydney flat, and she was ushered in, refusing help with dressing, too embarrassed by her clean but practical underwear, and the thought of anyone seeing her dressed in some of these fantastical creations.

  But one dress drew her to it, a fine cream silk, its long slim lines appealing to her, the simplicity of its design leaving the embroidery to make it special. The moonflower vine design crawled and twirled thickly around the hem, some tendrils reaching as high as her waist. The embroidered flowers were echoed in the sleeves, close fitting to the elbow, then swelling out to fall in a graceful fold beneath her forearms and hands.

  She tried it on and smiled at her reflection, ignoring the knocks on the door and the pleas of Barirah and Sousa to let them see.

  Maybe when she went home she could take the dress, show her family...

  But the thought of going home—even with the dress—no longer brought excitement and she shook her head when she realised just why that was. There was something about the man she was about to marry that was getting under her skin, and not just in purely physical terms, although that part was becoming more and more distracting.

  She dressed in her own clothes again and emerged from the room, the dress in her hands.

  ‘This one is fine,’ she said, definitely understating how excited it had made her feel. ‘That was easy. Can we go now?’

  There were howls of protest from all three women. It seemed the dress needed sandals and a small handbag to match it, and then she would need formal outfits for palace dinners and casual outfits for lunches with her husband.

  She stopped listening to the list of what she needed, her thoughts flying to the pink sand. Tariq had said he would take her to see it.

  Would he?

  She would need a box like the one her mother had always carried, so she, too, could have pink sand to remind her of this strange and wonderful place.

  It seemed like hours later that Barirah called a halt to the shopping, perhaps realising just how exhausted Lila was feeling.

  ‘Come, we shall have lunch at the hotel and by the time we get home, everything will have been delivered to your rooms.’

  She bustled away to speak to the manager, then led Lila out into the arcade and along it towards the lobby of the big hotel.

  ‘Is Sousa not coming?’ Lila asked when she realised the young woman was not with them.

  ‘No, she will supervise the packing and delivery of the garments and return to the palace to unpack them.’

  She led Lila into a small dining room, and to a table in an alcove looking out over beautiful gardens. Amazed again at the beauty and intricacy of garden designs in Karuba, Lila stood at the window trying to take it all in.

  So it wasn’t until she heard Tariq’s voice that she realised he had joined them.

  Barirah’s whispering to the manager now made sense, but if sitting in a vehicle with him so close this morning had been torture, to sit with him at a small table, even chaperoned by Barirah, would surely be worse.

  She turned from the window and he greeted her with a smile.

  Damn him and his smiles! Did he not know how potent they were?

  She smiled back, but knew it was a pathetic effort, so sat down at the table and searched her mind for easy, undemanding conversation.

  ‘How was Khalil this morning?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not well, but that’s largely because of the preparation they need to do for the transplant. He needs chemo to kill off his own stem cells and antibiotics to ward off infection, so his body, which was already weak, is even more weakened.’

  Tariq knew his words were flat, but couldn’t rouse himself. Second Mother’s histrionics at the hospital this morning were still vivid in his mind.

  But Barirah must have picked up on his despair.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked him—demanded, really.

  He stifled a sigh. He really wasn’t a sighing person. He was a getting on with things person.

  ‘Second Mother?’ Barirah asked, and the empathy in her voice made him nod.

  ‘Drama?’

  ‘Of course,’ he told his half-sister. ‘Apparently we’re now all in a plot to kill Khalil. I am the leader of it, but you, I’m afraid, have also been drawn into it and will feel the force of her ire.’

  He reached out across the table and touched Lila’s hand.

  ‘I am sorry you have landed into the middle of this family furore,’ he said, and felt her fingers move, her hand turning so she could give his a light squeeze before withdrawing it and hiding it out of temptation’s way under the table.

  ‘It’s understandable she is so upset,’ Lila said, ‘with her son so ill. But does she have the power to stop the treatment?’

  Tariq studied the woman he was to marry in a couple of days’ time. She looked weary and he wondered if he should have made her rest after the injection.

  She raised her eyebrows and he realised she was waiting for a reply.

  ‘No, our father is the final authority but he has given me full rein in deciding who will treat Khalil, and how, and when. Professor Eckert is the best in his field and he will do everything in his power to save him.’

  He smiled at her, at this woman who was unsettling him so much, and added, ‘With your help, of course.’

  But there was no answering smile and he wondered what she was thinking. How could he know? How could he even guess? They were strangers, growing up with different ways and different cultures, no common thread except the thread of blood that ran through all the Karuban tribes.

  ‘Was your shopping successful?’

  This time the response was better, although definitely negative if the face she pulled was anything to go by.

  ‘Ask Barirah,’ she said. ‘I am really not a shopper, and wouldn’t have had a clue what I needed without her help.’ She paused, smiling at his half-sister, before adding, ‘Although I’m quite sure I won’t need a quarter of what she’s insisted I buy, and I think you’ll probably have to raid the Treasure Room to pay the bills.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Barirah told him. ‘She’s the most obstinate woman I’ve ever met. She refused more clothing than she agreed to. Just you wait until you’re married and you’ll see.’

  Just you wait until you’re married—the impact of the words ran south through his body, ignoring his head, which was reminding him of his bride-to-be’s conditions.

  A waiter hovered, ready to take their order, and conversation ceased as they checked the menu and decided on their meals.

  He heard Lila’s order for a Caesar salad and protested that she should be eating more to keep her strength up.

  Her response was a more genuine smile than the one she’d given him earlier.

  ‘It seems I never stop eating here,’ she said. ‘Sousa stands over me while I eat an enormous breakfast, Professor Eckert pressed tea and cakes on me,
and I have no doubt that there will be afternoon tea and then an enormous dinner before the day is done.’

  Tired though she looked, the smile lifted her face and even sparked her eyes, and his desire for her grew—his head powerless to stop it.

  Rational conversation, it reminded him, when it realised it had failed to control his desire.

  ‘It is because we have known bad times,’ he said. ‘When food is plentiful we eat. It was always the way, back through the generations. We build up stores of energy for when things are bad, when crops fail or the winter lasts longer than we were prepared for.’

  She nodded, as if she understood, and he wondered just how much of their ancient ways ran through her blood, and who her father might have been. A foreigner would mess with the blood line, but had he been Karuban, then the history of the people would be in her blood.

  ‘Well, fun though this has been, I have to return to work,’ Barirah announced when the meal was finished. ‘Tariq, you’ll see Lila safely back to the palace.’

  Tariq caught the look Lila shot his half-sister.

  Traitor, it seemed to say, but she didn’t argue, simply walking with him out of the restaurant, waiting by his side until the car appeared, then climbing in when the doorman opened the door for her.

  ‘You are tired?’ he asked, as he settled behind the wheel.

  ‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘Shopping is a rare experience for me, and shopping to that extent is so far beyond anything I have ever known, I’m probably more overwhelmed than anything.’

  He glanced her way, wondering what her life had been like. Growing up in a foster family, any number of children to feed and clothe, there was no doubt money would have been tight.

  Yet she spoke with love of her family, and with devotion when she mentioned Pop.

  ‘You had a happy childhood?’

  Her face lit up, banishing the tiredness.

  ‘The best,’ she said, ‘although I felt the loss of my parents and wondered so often about them, the house was filled with noise and laughter, and with love. We were all so different, yet the bond between us was unbreakable. The musketeer thing really, all for one and one for all, I suppose because the other kids at school and in the town saw as different—the foster kids at The Nunnery.’

  ‘A nunnery?’

  She smiled at his astonishment.

  ‘It was where we lived. An old nunnery, a big old building, as forbidding looking as the outside walls of the palace, but inside it was full or warmth and happiness and I was lucky to have been part of it.’

  Lucky? When she’d lost her parents?

  For her to feel that way, her foster parents must have been truly special.

  They were driving down the avenue of eucalypts, and he realised they always seemed to take her home, for once again there was a trace of moisture on her cheek, surreptitiously wiped away by a forefinger.

  Was he wrong to keep her here? To want to keep her here? If Khalil lived, should he still set her free?

  A wrenching twist in his belly told him no and, as far as he could tell, his head had no answer...

  CHAPTER NINE

  COULD A WEDDING day be a day just like any other day? Should it be that way?

  Her sister Izzy’s wedding day had been bedlam, mainly because so many of the family had managed to be there for it, and fitting everyone back into the old nunnery had been chaotic to say the least.

  But today, for all Sousa’s excitement, felt like any other day to Lila. She was up early, met Tariq by the front door, was driven to the hospital for her injection, then actually spent a quiet hour working on her report of the clinic run.

  She was so absorbed in the paperwork, in trying to think of ways they could do things better, that Barirah’s arrival in the little office startled her.

  ‘You’re getting married in an hour,’ Barirah reminded her. ‘I’m to take you home immediately.’

  Realising it would be futile to argue, Lila went along with her, although now she was not distracted by the report, the butterflies that had been causing havoc in her stomach for the last few days returned a hundredfold.

  ‘I don’t even know where this wedding is happening,’ she told Barirah.

  ‘You’ll see,’ her friend replied. ‘It is all arranged.’

  ‘But small, no big fuss?’ Lila asked. ‘Tariq said small.’

  Barirah laughed.

  ‘A small wedding here means maybe a hundred guests rather than a thousand, but Tariq insisted it was a private arrangement between the two of you and should remain that way. So, yes, it will be exceedingly small—an exchange of vows, nothing more.’

  Lila nodded, content that she didn’t have to face hordes of people she didn’t know but who would, for sure, have heard the stories of her mother.

  ‘And where is to be held?’

  ‘You will see,’ was all Barirah would tell her.

  And see she did!

  Once bathed and dressed in the beautiful gown, Barirah led her to the front door, family members and staff peeking through doorways, oohing and aahing as she passed, some even murmuring English words like beautiful.

  It was the dress, Lila told herself, but she knew it suited her, and hoped Tariq would think her beautiful in it as well.

  Though why care?

  It was a pretence, a marriage in name only, protection for her from an honourable man.

  Sousa was waiting by the car, something in her hands.

  ‘A bridal gift,’ she said, and lifted a shawl in the same pale green as the bedspread but embroidered with the moonflowers.

  She lifted it to drape it over Lila’s hair, left loose and falling down her back, and twisted the length of material beneath Lila’s chin, throwing the ends back over her shoulders.

  ‘It was how my mother wore the scarf, and is so very, very beautiful.’ She hugged Sousa, thanking her, fighting back tears. ‘You made it?’

  ‘You deserved it,’ was all Sousa said. ‘Now go and marry your Prince!’

  And while those words caused a silly weakness in Lila’s knees, and although she really wanted to see how she looked in the scarf, she went, aware the pale green of the filmy material would pick up the green embroidered leaves in her dress, and perfectly complete her bridal appearance.

  She slid into the waiting car, Barirah by her side, and they drove out of the palace and along the avenue of eucalypts.

  Except something was different. Up ahead, where the trees had been planted off to one side to make a shaded picnic spot, stood a tent—the faded brown structure familiar to her now, a tall pole holding it up at the front to provide a door, the material sloping downwards to the lower poles on each side.

  It was such a pleasing shape, Lila had to smile, imagining a family gathering there, maybe having a picnic or even camping out a few nights, as the sea was within walking distance, and the dunes behind the tent would provide children with hours of fun.

  But the car was slowing, now turning towards the tent, and closer to it Lila could see a brilliant textured carpet spread before the tent—crimson, and gold, with patterns of green and blue woven through it, one of the loveliest carpets she’s seen so far in her stay in Karuba.

  ‘We’re stopping here?’ she asked.

  ‘We are indeed,’ Barirah told her. ‘For many years the King has had his nurserymen collecting seeds from the eucalypts and now some of the seedlings have grown tall enough to make a bower around the tent.’

  The homesickness she usually felt as she drove down the avenue was forgotten, as was her wedding dress, and Barirah, even Tariq. She slid out of the car and went to see the saplings, straight and sturdy, each in a magnificent pot, circling the carpet like a loyal army.

  ‘I thought you might like a touch of home.’

  Tariq’s voice
came from the doorway of the tent, and she turned to see him standing there, and she hurried towards him, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘This is so wonderful,’ she said, smiling through her tears, while he retrieved a handkerchief from some hidden pocket of his robe and held her face while he mopped up her tears. ‘You are so kind, so thoughtful of me, I don’t know how to thank you.’

  He smiled gently down at her.

  ‘Marrying me is thanks enough,’ he said, and for one heart-leaping moment she wondered if that might be true.

  But no, she reminded herself as she stepped away from the touch that turned her bones to water and her brain to mush, he’s marrying you to keep you here, to help his brother. He’s a head before his heart man, remember!

  Another robed man appeared from inside the tent, then Tariq’s mother, who looked Lila up and down and then nodded as if she approved of something—probably the dress!

  Barirah was to stand beside Lila as witness, First Mother witness for her son.

  The ceremony was short, although the official spoke the words in English and Karuban, and when it was done, a servant brought cushions from inside the tent, setting them on the carpet for the guests, before bringing coffee pots and cups then trays of food.

  ‘You must feed your husband before you eat yourself,’ First Mother instructed Lila.

  Always? Lila wondered.

  ‘On your wedding day,’ Barirah explained, as if she’d guessed at Lila’s thoughts.

  Lila selected a date stuffed with cheese and with her fingers trembling held it to Tariq’s lips.

  He bit into it, his lips against her fingers, sending shivers of what could only be desire spiralling through her.

  And when he took the rest into his mouth, her fingers were caught there, and gently sucked, and for a moment the physical thrill was so intense Lila feared she might faint or at least do something foolish like throw herself into his arms.

  ‘Now I feed you,’ he said, his voice so deep and husky it exacerbated all the excitement in her body.

  ‘A small morsel of meat to keep your strength up,’ he said, lifting a tiny meatball from a platter, dipping it in yoghurt, then raising it to her lips.