by Penny Jordan
The remaining twin, Prince Marco, might be happy now married to his English wife, Emily, but he had freely admitted that his childhood had been shadowed and difficult and that he had as an adult felt alienated from his birthright. So much so in fact that he had rejected the throne. She had no wish for her children to suffer the same fate. The burden of royal birth could be a heavy one if it was not lightened by love and the closeness of a shared family life and sense of purpose. She wanted her children to grow up in the sunshine of Niroli’s future with their hearts attuned to that future and the way in which they would share it with the people of their country.
The room they were in had windows that opened out onto a private inner courtyard garden on one side, and the sea on the other. Impetuously Natalia turned to the comptroller, addressing him directly for the first time.
‘Are there no rooms we could have that have windows overlooking the city?’
The comptroller was frowning. ‘There are such rooms, yes, but traditionally members of the royal family have preferred an outlook that gives them privacy.’
‘What is it you have in mind?’ she heard Kadir demanding, as though impatient of her input.
‘Our children will one day be the ones to take Niroli forward into the future,’ Natalia informed them both. ‘How can they do that if they grow up turning their faces away from our people? How will they understand and appreciate what it means to be of Niroli if they never see how our people live? As a child I roamed the city freely, exploring it, making it my own, binding it to me as it bound me to it. I could find my way through its streets blindfolded, I know now every nuance of its scents, all the places where the most precious flowers and herbs grow. Loving a country is something a child learns from its parents. Understanding it, knowing it and its people is something they can only learn by experience.’
She had said too much, been too outspoken, Natalia recognised, and in doing so would of course have antagonised Kadir and harmed her cause.
‘It is for His Highness to approve or disapprove our apartment,’ she told the comptroller tiredly. ‘I must be guided by what he says.’
‘My wife-to-be is right. I myself know now little as yet of my new country. A man who looks only inward learns much of himself but little of others. A king who would rule others must learn to study them as well as himself. If there are rooms available with windows that overlook the town…’
Natalia stared at the comptroller in disbelief. Kadir was agreeing with her, supporting her. A seed of something fragile but, oh, so precious was opening inside her heart beneath the warmth of her pleasure in his reaction, and putting out small quivering tendrils of hope. She turned to look at Kadir, but he was looking away from her.
‘It is also my wish that my wife and I share a bed instead of occupying separate rooms,’ Kadir was telling the comptroller in a businesslike voice. ‘After all, we have a duty to provide Niroli with the next generation of heirs.’
‘The state of marriage is so approved by God as to be the foundation of family life where children are born…’
Natalia tensed under the heavy weight of her ornate wedding gown and long veil. The Valenciennes lace overdress of her gown had originally been made for Queen Sophia’s wedding dress. Softly cream with age, it looked magnificent over the shimmering gold dress beneath it.
It had always been Natalia’s intention not to wear a white gown. She was a woman not a girl, a woman proud of all that she was. And if Kadir was not man enough to accept that, if he had felt it necessary to turn to her and give her a look of comprehensive cynicism when she had joined him at the altar, then that was his choice. Her conscience was clear.
Was it? If she should have conceived in Venice…If she should have, but how could she have done so when Kadir had used protection?
Kadir’s white uniform with its gold braid, instead of looking faintly ridiculous, actually brought home to her the reality of what it had meant in previous centuries for a king and his heirs to ride out into battle for their country at the head of their armies. All too easily she could see Kadir in such a role. Not that Hadiya or Niroli had been at war during Natalia’s lifetime, and nor would she want that. In fact she hoped that she and Kadir and then through him their children would play a strong role in promoting world peace. So why did she find it so stirring to visualise him in a combatory role? Women were drawn to the alpha men their instincts told them could protect them and, more importantly, their young, Natalia reminded herself as she forced herself to look forward instead of towards him.
‘I pronounce you man and wife…’
Natalia was shocked to discover that she was having to blink away emotional tears as the notes of ‘Ave Maria’ soared from the choir to fill the ancient cathedral and Kadir raised her fingertips to his lips.
It was done. She was his wife. Her commitment to her country and its future must now come before everything else.
Natalia was now his wife. This woman whom his intellect told him to despise and revile but whom his body ached for in the dark, empty hours of the night. Where had that admission come from? Kadir wondered grimly. So there might have been one night, possibly two when he had woken up like many another man with his body aching for a woman—that hardly meant that he desired Natalia Carini. Not Natalia Carini any more but Crown Princess Natalia, he reminded himself. His wife, his partner in this new venture he had committed himself to, a decision he’d probably made to avoid acknowledging his difficult relationship with his father.
How old had he been when he had first realised that the man he had believed to be his father did not love him, and that nothing he could do would ever draw the praise from him that he so willingly gave to Kadir’s younger brother? Eight? Six? Younger? Old enough to recognise he was being rejected certainly and at the same time still young enough for that to hurt, and for him not to have known how to put in place any defences against that pain. How could his father have turned away from him, his eyes cold and his manner aloof, whilst they had lit up with warmth the minute his gaze had rested on Kadir’s younger brother, his manner changing to become paternally indulgent?
He could still mentally see and sense his mother’s anxiety as she had stood watchfully in the shadows of the courtyard where he and his brother played. The minute his father had entered the courtyard a word from his mother had brought a maid to his own side, a firm hand on his shoulder as he had been led away, leaving his parents alone with his brother.
His protests had always been met by some rational explanation: he was the elder, and had his schoolwork to do; his brother was just a baby. And he had struggled harder to win his father’s attention and approval whilst his mother had in turn worked harder to keep them apart.
‘I did it for your sake,’ she had told him. ‘To protect you because I was afraid that he might look at you and see as I could see so clearly that you were not his child.’
All lies of course. She had not done it to protect him but to hide her shame and protect herself. But as he had come to learn, that was what women did. They lied to protect themselves and then added insult to injury by pretending that their motivation had been altruistic. A man did not allow women to undermine him. He certainly had no intention of allowing Natalia to undermine the position he intended to claim for himself here in Niroli. It was all too easy now for him to understand why his father had so often, and unfairly, he had believed at the time, questioned Kadir’s own allegiance to Hadiya and his ability to rule it well. His mother had sworn to him that her husband had never known he was not his son, but Kadir was not convinced. The sheikh might not have been able to prove he hadn’t fathered him, but Kadir felt sure that he had had his suspicions. He had seen by example what happened between man and child when that man did not accept his paternity of that child. That was not going to happen to him. No child growing up with his name would ever have cause to doubt his love or his complete belief that he had fathered him.
They were to spend the first night of their marriage in their palace
apartment before flying to Hadiya in the morning, and Natalia stood stiffly still and silent in the middle of her large dressing room whilst her maids removed her ornate gown. Whatever the circumstances she would have felt some natural apprehension about what lay ahead tonight. She might be old enough not to be sentimental about human sexual relationships, but she would be lying if she tried to pretend to herself that there wasn’t still a tiny part of her that foolishly longed to experience the close intimacy of a loving sexual relationship in which the two parties concerned were totally committed to one another, and that it hurt knowing that she would never have that.
Despite that she had determinedly refused to think of herself as a daydreamer or an idealist, but now she knew that her biggest mistake had been in believing that she and Kadir would bond over what she had believed would be their shared commitment to Niroli. Taking due care to make their relationship work would surely mirror the care they would take to work for the higher good of the island. That mind-set seemed risible now in view of what had happened. She thanked her maids as she stepped out of her gown and then scooped it up, acknowledging how bitterly disappointed she was and how bitterly angry with herself—and Kadir—she felt.
Beyond her dressing room lay her private bathroom just as on the other side of their shared bedroom lay Kadir’s dressing room and his private bathroom. She really didn’t want to think about the preparations he might be making for this, their first night together as the future King and Queen of Niroli. Was he still determined to wait a full month after Venice to consummate their marriage? Surely he would come to her on their wedding night?
She was under no illusions and knew that he had meant what he had said about having her watched night and day until she had conceived his child. How bitterly ironic it was considering her long years of celibacy. A celibacy broken only by her overwhelming desire for one man—Kadir himself.
She had already made it plain to her maids that she preferred to bathe alone, and her eyebrows rose when she walked into her bathroom and saw the champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. To calm her bridal nerves? Whose idea had that been? She would have preferred a glass of Niroli’s organic white wine, given the choice.
She showered quickly and efficiently instead of luxuriating in the huge round bath, drying herself and then pulling on a towelling robe to make her way to the bedroom.
Someone had been in to turn down the bed and switch on the beside lamps, and another ice bucket had been placed close to the bed.
She stared at the empty bed and then took a deep breath and pulled back the covers to get into it and wait for her husband.
Two hours later she was still waiting. She had heard sounds from Kadir’s dressing room, the murmur of voices, probably his valets, she guessed, and then silence, and now as she released her muscles from their bonds of tension she acknowledged the unwantedly unpalatable truth. Kadir did not intend to spend the night with her and she would not be spending her wedding night with her new husband, but on her own.
Had she been nineteen his behaviour might have reduced her to a tearful, quivering, shamed wreck of rejection. But she wasn’t nineteen and she certainly didn’t intend to let Kadir play mind games with her and win. And that ache deep down inside her? What ache? She refused to allow there to be any ache, she decided proudly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NATALIA had thought she knew heat, but Niroli’s heat was nothing compared to the hot blast of air that had greeted them on their arrival in Hadiya. It had been like standing in front of an open oven door with a fan blowing.
Here though, at least, in the private apartments she had been assigned in the women’s quarters of the Hadiya Royal Palace, the architecture made the most of what breeze there was, especially in the beautiful courtyard garden.
She had woken this morning breathing in the scent of the roses from that courtyard, whilst her ears were filled with the gentle sound of falling water and the fan of the whirring wings of doves. Every aspect of the apartment was designed to fill the senses with delight, right down to the coffee she was now drinking as she sat admiring her surroundings and considering everything that had happened following their arrival in Hadiya the previous night.
If she was honest it had shocked her to see just how very Eastern in its customs Hadiya actually was. There had been no question of her attending the formal reception that was given to welcome Kadir home as the Crown Prince of Niroli. Instead she had had to watch the proceedings from behind the delicate grill work that separated the women’s area from the public ‘divan’ Kadir’s brother was holding.
It had also seemed strange to her that Hadiya’s subjects were in theory free to attend such a ‘divan’ and ask questions of their ruler. The young woman who had been appointed as her guide in matters of Hadiya protocol had carefully explained to her that in these modern times all those wanting to approach the sheikh were carefully vetted first. It was a custom much like that of the traditional ‘laying on of hands’ common amongst European monarchs.
It was certainly potentially a very democratic process, making the ruler approachable and accessible to his subjects from all walks of life. And one from which Niroli might benefit?
A slightly wry smile touched Natalia’s mouth now. She doubted that many brides of two days’ duration would be spending their time thinking about matters of political domestic policy, especially not when they were married to a man as outwardly physically sexually attractive as Kadir. But then not many new brides would have spent all those nights sleeping alone.
It certainly wasn’t a part of Hadiya protocol for newly married couples to sleep alone and apart. Basima had already discreetly let her know that it was considered perfectly proper and indeed expected for a bridegroom to visit his bride in those rooms set aside for her.
‘It was the sheikh’s wish that you should be given the apartment of his mother, the sheikha,’ she had explained that first evening, and for a few minutes Natalia had thought she was telling her that it had been Kadir who had requested his mother’s rooms for her, but then she had realised that Basima was telling her that it had been Kadir’s brother, the kind and jolly new sheikh, who had requested that the rooms be prepared for her.
And what of the haughty and arrogant woman who had been introduced to her as the daughter of a prominent Hadiyan—Zahra Rafiq? What a wonderful thing the female instinct was. Natalia had disliked her intensely even before the other woman had let her know very unsubtly that she was Kadir’s mistress. Was? Zahra had certainly made it plain that she wanted that relationship to continue, but Zahra lived here in Hadiya and, as Kadir had already made clear to Natalia albeit in a very different context, he considered his future role as Niroli’s King of first and foremost importance to him, above and beyond everything and everyone else.
Had Kadir spent last night with Zahra? Her hand shook, making her put down the glass perfume bottle she had been given in Venice and which some impulse had made her bring with her to Hadiya.
She had watched whilst Zahra had prowled her room, picking it up herself. Somehow it had not surprised Natalia to see the way the beautiful glass had dulled the moment Zahra’s fingers had tightened around it. No wonder Zahra had replaced it so swiftly, looking at it with scorn. She on the other hand loved the way it glowed at her touch, giving off a warmth that seemed to heal the sore places of her heart, reaffirming for her that she was the worthwhile human being she knew herself to be. Now she put the bottle down.
Logically speaking, why after all should it bother her if Kadir had a mistress and that mistress was Zahra? But a person’s emotions weren’t always subject to logic, were they? Was she just a jealous wife resenting another woman’s role in her husband’s life? Since when had her emotions had any role to play in her marriage? They didn’t, and they must not, Natalia told herself fiercely. Just because she had felt physical desire for Kadir that did not mean that emotion was involved. Right now she was going to forget that she had ever had this time-wasting conversation with herself, and
focus instead on her new role as consort to Niroli’s Crown Prince.
This morning, for instance, she was going to be given a tour of Hadiya’s new technical college for girls, an innovative step towards modernisation set in motion by Kadir’s mother, where young women could learn modern business skills. The outer door to the room opened and, as though her thoughts had had the power to produce her like a genie from a bottle, Zahra herself stalked in. The lushly curved socialite with her dyed blonde hair was the kind of woman instantly recognisable to other women as cold and calculating and yet somehow perceived by men as being sweetly feminine and desirable.
‘I have told Basima that I shall accompany you on your formal visit this morning,’ she announced. ‘There are matters I wish to discuss with you that will be of benefit to you in your marriage to Kadir.’
Natalia gave her a long thoughtful look, and then reminded herself of the decision she had just made.
‘I doubt it,’ she told her calmly. ‘A mistress’s experience of a man rarely has any bearing on his wife’s experience of him. The role of a wife after all encompasses so much more than merely spending a few hours in his bed giving him pleasure.’
Natalia could see from the flash in Zahra’s hard brown eyes that her own deliberately pointed comments had hit their mark.
‘Kadir is right. You are not the kind of woman he would have married had he remained here,’ Zahra returned with a falsely sweet smile. ‘But of course we all know that the only reason you have been elevated to such a position is because of the folly of Kadir’s mother. Had she not compounded her sin of betraying her husband by keeping the truth of Kadir’s paternity to herself then there would have been time for Kadir to make more suitable arrangements for his marriage.’
‘I am not surprised that Princess Amira found it necessary to keep her secret, given the lack of understanding she was likely to have found,’ Natalia retaliated quietly. ‘But if by more suitable you are thinking of yourself…’