by Penny Jordan
Natalia could guess what the king was about to say.
‘Sir, you need have no fear that either of us will let you down,’ she assured him vehemently. ‘We are both committed to our duty to Niroli. I…I cannot speak, of course, for Kadir’s most private feelings but…’oh, how it tore at her heart to say that knowing those private feelings were given to Zahra ‘…but I know he will not allow them to come between him and that duty.’
Through his words, King Giorgio was making it clear that even he could see how much Kadir wished that he could have made Zahra his wife. It was more than Natalia could bear. Barely able to control her voice, she bowed her head and begged huskily, ‘Sir, if I might have your permission to retire…’
‘Your wife is leaving,’ Zahra told Kadir with obvious triumph. She smiled up at him provocatively and stroked the sleeve of his jacket with her fingertips.
‘Zahra, you should not have come here to Niroli,’ Kadir told her wryly.
‘How can you say that when I can see how much you need me?’ she reproached him.
Kadir shook his head reprovingly. He had not been at all pleased when Zahra had presented herself at the palace claiming to officials that they were close friends, and insisting to him that all she wanted to do was to make use of the new trade opportunities opening up between the two countries. She’d said she’d wanted to remain his friend, but when he had taxed her with it Zahra had been so sweetly insistent that she fully understood that their relationship was over, whilst begging him not to be cruel to her and send her away, that Kadir had felt reluctantly compelled to allow her to stay, at least until her business negotiations were completed.
‘I know now I should find someone else, Kadir,’ she was telling him softly now. ‘But how can I when you are the only man I want, and the only man I could ever want? I could never be your Queen, I know that now, but foolishly my heart can’t help hoping that you might find a small place in your life for me, even if it is only that of a trusted and discreet friend with whom you can spend a few precious hours relaxing.’
‘This is foolish talk, Zahra, and you know it.’ Kadir had to stop her. ‘I am a married man now with a country to rule and an example to set to my people.’
‘But you need me, Kadir. We are destined to be together. We would be together if it wasn’t for the meddling of your mother. It was only when that fool, your mother, revealed her lies to you that you put me to one side. Until then—’
‘Enough! I will not hear you speak of my mother so. You forget that she was your Queen.’ He was not going to let Zahra make him feel guilty about ending their relationship. He had hardly been her first lover, after all, and he’d always made the boundaries of their relationship clear. It had surprised him that his mother should have disliked her so intensely.
‘Your mother betrayed her husband; she was not fit to be Queen.’
‘That is enough!’
‘She claimed the sheikh as your father when he was not,’ Zahra continued ignoring him.
‘You forget that she was little more than a child when she made the decision to conceal my conception from her husband.’ What was he doing defending his mother, and, worse, echoing Natalia’s passionate arguments to him? Kadir didn’t know. All he did know was that Zahra’s unexpectedly venomously angry criticism of his mother had filled him with a desire to protect his mother from her.
‘Kadir, why are we quarrelling like this when we could be doing something so much more pleasurable?’
This was the Zahra Kadir knew, a wickedly provocative, wholly sensual woman, who knew very well how to please a man in bed.
But who left him cold emotionally?
Kadir shook both thoughts away. No matter what their relationship might have been in the past, there was no place here in his present or his future for it, and he had made that plain to Zahra from the moment he’d known he wanted to take up his father’s offer to succeed him to the throne of Niroli.
‘You should not have come here,’ he repeated firmly. ‘You must return to Hadiya; I think you already know that.’
She was looking away from him so that Kadir did not see the flash of fury in her eyes as she bent her head and said submissively, ‘Of course, as you wish, Kadir.’
It was unthinkable that Kadir should break with protocol here in the palace at this semi formal gathering of court officials and cause unwanted gossip by openly rejecting Zahra in front of everyone, but he still couldn’t stop himself from removing her hand from his arm and stepping away from her.
Why had Natalia almost run from the room like that? He had seen her talking with the king. Had his father said something to her to upset her? Had he perhaps asked her when he might look forward to hearing the news he so longed to hear?
‘You cannot deceive me, Kadir,’ Zahra was saying. ‘I know that it is me who you want. Let me be the one to give you your first child, not her, that nobody you have married. Let me give you your first son…come to me tonight and we can—’
‘Zahra, you are talking nonsense and you know it,’ Kadir checked her firmly. ‘Besides, it’s already too late,’ he told her curtly. Natalia was already carrying a child she claimed was his, but which he knew quite simply could not be. After all, he had used a condom. It was far too convenient for her to suggest that the condom might have been flawed.
Like her? Like the feelings for her he did not want to admit to? He shook the thought of Natalia away and tried to focus on Zahra instead. What on earth had got into her? She knew it was out of the question that they should restart their relationship, never mind that she should have his child, and he couldn’t understand why on earth she should be saying such nonsense. He hoped that letting her know that Natalia was already pregnant would underline those facts and bring her to her senses.
The door from their bedroom to Kadir’s dressing room stood open, the space beyond it dark and empty. Wherever Kadir was he was not here in their private apartments. Wherever he was, Natalia taunted herself bitterly. It was three o’clock in the morning. Where else could he be other than in the bed of his mistress? No wonder he had been so adamant that Zahra should not stay at the palace, but should instead have the use of a small private villa close by for the duration of her visit. Her visit or her permanent residence?
To her shock the outer door to the bedroom suddenly opened. Through the shadows Natalia could see Kadir look across to the bed where she lay.
‘What’s wrong? Did you decide it might not be a good idea to spend the night with your mistress after all?’
Why had she said that? She had promised herself she would not humiliate herself by descending to that kind of revealing sarcasm, but, as Natalia was beginning to discover, her emotions were far stronger than her logic.
‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’
Natalia could hear something beyond anger in Kadir’s voice that could have been exhaustion, but she did not want to listen to it.
‘You know exactly what I mean, Kadir. Zahra is your mistress; she made that plain enough to me in Hadiya. You invited her to come here and tonight you made it plain to everyone just what your relationship with her is.’
‘I did not send for Zahra.’ He had dropped down onto his own side of the bed and was sitting there with his back to her, Natalia saw as she switched on her own bedside light.
‘You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?’ she threw at him scornfully.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ he told her angrily. ‘You see, unlike you I do not lie and use deceit.’
‘Unlike me! You criticise me as freely as though you know everything there is to know about me, Kadir. And yet the truth is you know nothing about me, because if you did you would know that whilst, yes, I understand and enjoy my sexuality—what woman of my age does not unless she has serious issues on both counts—but that does not mean that I abuse it. In fact it may interest you to know that prior to my folly in Venice in giving in to…to what we did, I had been celibate for well over five years
—and by choice. You, of course, will not believe that because you would much rather believe the worst you can of me because that reinforces your decision to think badly of your mother and you have to do that otherwise you might—just might,’ she told him bitterly, ‘find yourself having to admit that you misjudged her. And that would mean that she died longing for your forgiveness and being refused it—’
‘No…’
His tormented denial shamed her back to reality. No matter how unhappy she was, that did not give her the right to try to hurt him, and, besides, the truth was that in reality she loved him too much to want to do so. Loved him! How that knowledge tore at her vulnerable heart, and how she wished it were not so.
A terse apology quivered on the tip of her tongue but before she could offer it he repeated, ‘No…you are wrong. I did…that is…No matter what I thought privately I could not let her die thinking…Of course I told her that I understood. How could I not? She was my mother…’
There was a huge lump in Natalia’s throat. ‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ she told him huskily. ‘I should not have said that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ Kadir agreed tiredly. ‘And as for your accusation that Zahra is my mistress. Yes, once that was true, but it ceased to be true with my mother’s death. Zahra’s decision to come here had nothing to do with me and I have made it clear to her that there is no place here for her, and certainly not in my life or my bed.’
Could that be true, and, if it were, perhaps this sudden mood of admittedly somewhat hostile exchange of confidences between them could lead to a better understanding between them? Perhaps that might mean that in time…What? That in time he would love her?
‘So if you haven’t been with her, then where have you been?’ she challenged him.
‘Driving…and then walking.’ Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘You say you were celibate before Venice. I am not a fool, Natalia. I’ve seen just what a woman will do to protect the child she carries. My mother told me that it was not out of love for King Giorgio that she allowed her husband to believe he was my father, it was out of love for me, her child. She told me that when a woman conceives a child, no matter what her feelings or her moral stance was before, from the moment she knows of the new life she carries within her, protecting that life becomes her prime concern. In many ways you remind me of my mother. You share the same concern for others and the same strength of purpose and spirit.’
‘And because of that you believe that I would lie to you about the paternity of your child—is that what you are saying?’ Natalia asked him.
It seemed incredible that they should be having a conversation of such intimacy when less than an hour ago she had believed him to be holding another woman in his arms. How odd and unfair it was that she should be able to accept his words as the truth when he could not do the same with hers. But then she did not have his experience with his mother to contend with.
‘You are lying to me. I know that.’
‘That is not true. I am telling you the truth. This baby is your baby.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you I was pregnant,’ Natalia burst out miserably when he made no response. ‘Perhaps I should have held back the truth and let you think I had conceived after we were married,’ she told him. ‘Only, you see, I didn’t want to think that the future relationship I hoped we might have together had been built on a lie.’ She put her hand on her stomach. ‘This is your child, Kadir. If you can’t believe that—or me—then there are always DNA tests,’ she reminded him, hating herself for being so weak as to offer him this instead of insisting that he accept her word. ‘Although they cannot be done until after the baby is born.’
‘Do you think I’m completely stupid? We used protection—this child cannot be mine and so there is only one way the situation can be resolved.’
‘And that is?’ Natalia demanded shakily.
‘A document must be drawn up which you will sign stating that this child is not mine and therefore cannot be my heir nor ascend to the throne of Niroli on my death.’
Natalia stared at his unbowed back. ‘I don’t understand what you are saying,’ she told him, but she was horribly, sickeningly afraid that she did. ‘Do you really expect me to sign away my child—our child’s rights to its paternity? Do you really think I would do that to our baby?’
‘Your baby,’ Kadir corrected her coldly. ‘This child is none of my doing, Natalia, and I will never accept it as such. So either you agree to sign such a document or I will have to go to King Giorgio and tell him that the marriage will have to be put aside and why.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Natalia whispered.
How could she tell him after what he had just said that she had truly come to believe that, somehow or other, illogical and fantastical though it seemed, something deep within her had somehow recognised in Venice all that he would come to mean to her, and that as a result fate had willed that she would conceive his child.
‘I don’t want to,’ he surprised her by admitting. ‘I have my father’s feelings to think of. He personally chose you to be my wife. He is a very proud man, and to learn what you are would humiliate him. Plus, your lack of sexual morals aside, rather surprisingly in the short time in which we have been married I have come to recognise how well equipped in other ways you are to be Niroli’s Queen, and how much the island will benefit from having you as their Queen,’ he told her sombrely. ‘Together we can work to give this island and its people all that they deserve to have, but I cannot and will not allow this bastard child to claim me as its father. You will do well to keep the child out of my way because it will for ever remind me of all the reasons why I have learned to doubt and mistrust your sex.’
Kadir thought about the hours he had just spent battling with himself, with what he truly believed was right. He had forced himself to admit how much she had already come to mean to him, and how much he wanted her by his side, but he could not overcome his fury that she continued to try to force on him a child he knew could not be his.
‘The choice is yours,’ he told her as he got up off the bed.
‘And if I refuse?’ Natalia asked him, dry-mouthed. But of course she already knew the answer. ‘Kadir, please, this is your own child you are talking about,’ she begged him. ‘The condom must have perished. The baby can have DNA tests and I promise you this is your child. You can monitor them yourself. Kadir, you grew up with a father who turned his back on you. You know how much that hurts and the pain it causes a child.’
‘Don’t ask me to lie to you, Natalia, because I won’t. I’m afraid I can’t see how this can be my child. I will sleep in my dressing room tonight.’
Natalia lay back against her pillows after he had gone.
He was offering her so much that she wanted, but at such a dreadful price. She could not and would not allow him to deny their child its right to his or her true paternity, but she could not force him to give the baby his love any more than she could force him to give it to her. Why, why, why had this had to happen? If only she had not gone to Venice, if only she had not met him until their wedding day…But why say that, why not ask herself why Kadir could not accept her word, why could he not accept the gift of herself she had already given him and the gift of his child that came from that night? But she knew the answer to that, didn’t she? Kadir’s inability to trust the female sex was very deeply rooted indeed.
Well, she would not let him punish their child because of what he himself had suffered in his own childhood. If he rejected it, then she would find a way of providing it with loving male influences from within her own family. She would protect and love their baby no matter what Kadir said, and even if it meant closing the door for ever on the love she had so longed to see grow between them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIROLI was experiencing one of its fortunately rare periods of bad weather, with fierce winds lashing the coast and whipping up the waves; grey skies had replaced the normal sunny blue and the outlook from the window of t
he salon in their private apartments looked dauntingly bleak. But nowhere near as bleak as her own future and the future of the child she was carrying, Natalia acknowledged.
She had planned to spend the morning working on her notes for a series of talks she’d been invited to give to Niroli’s young women, the mothers-to-be of the next generation. She had planned to talk to them of the many opportunities she hoped would be available, not just for their unborn children, but for them, as well, but now the words of hope and encouragement and excitement simply would not flow. All she could think of was the poor child growing within her body and the fact that it would not have the opportunity to be loved by its father, the opportunity to grow up confidently and happily in a loving atmosphere, secure in its knowledge of its place in the world. Maybe these were the issues she should be addressing in her speech; the sadness of children born without love, unwanted, their chances of human fulfilment in all its most important senses pitifully crushed before they even drew breath. What did her vision of a new wonderful Niroli have to offer these children? Natalia pushed back the laptop on which she had been working and stood up. Today, because there’d been no formal engagements, unlike Kadir who was due to go on a tour of the island’s vineyards, she had dressed in her own clothes, a soft off-white fine wool long sleeved top worn loosely beneath a tunic top in pale grey, worn over a gently flowing black shirt. It was one of her favourite outfits, designed by a talented young local designer. It was one of Natalia’s dreams to be able to establish the kind of art college on Niroli that ultimately would attract tutors and students from all over the world.