And she saw it.
‘It is coming to the end of its life.’
‘So what will happen to Orion?’ She was tired now, but she loved his stories.
‘He will burn brighter for a while,’ Rakhal explained. ‘When he explodes and dies he will burn so bright he will be visible in the daytime.’
‘In our lifetime?’
‘No.’ He smiled.
‘How soon?
‘A million years.’
‘And that’s soon?’
‘It is to the desert.’
He wanted to turn to her, wanted the tiny years of his life to shine with a significance that was alien to him. It was not about his title, it was about a significant other, and that did not mesh with one who would be King. His mind must marry only his country. He could ponder the sky no longer, and now he was restless.
But not Natasha. His voice and his stories had soothed her and maybe now she could sleep. She was growing rather fond of the custard. Maybe a drink would help her. Maybe the cramps would fade and she would have more time here. She would ask the maidens to bring her some of that sweet brew. He had told her she could ask for anything. Her fingers reached for the rope above his head and pulled it.
‘What are you doing?’ His hand snatched at hers, but too late.
‘I want the potion,’ she explained. ‘I want something to help me sleep.’
And he tried.
Rakhal tried.
He told her to leave his bed, to go to her room, that the maids would bring it there. She could not understand his urgency, for he practically ordered her from the room, looked as if he was about to carry her. Then his voice stopped, and Natasha’s head turned to the woman who was stepping in from the shadows. She could hear the jangle of jewels, see the outline of her scantily clad body and the veil over her face, and even as he ordered her away in his language, even when she had gone, the musky scent of her lingered, and Natasha thought she might vomit as realisation dawned.
‘She was here to sleep with you.’
‘No.’
‘You were going to sleep with her tonight!’ Her voice was rising. ‘While I slept you were planning—’
‘No!’ It was Rakhal who shouted. ‘Fou were the one who summoned her.’ He pointed to the rope. ‘When you pulled that …’
And she laughed—a dangerous laugh, a furious laugh, an incredulous one. ‘I pull mine and I bloody well get custard!’
‘I did not pull it!’ Rakhal shouted his defence. ‘I have not.’
‘But you can!’
She looked at him and there was guilt in his eyes, for tonight perhaps he might have.
‘Yes.’ His voice was a touch hoarse. ‘Natasha, you must see reason. No man—no husband—will wait a year …’
‘A year …?’
‘You would get three months to rest after having the baby.’
She loathed him, and she loathed this land.
With a sob she left the room.
She hated this place and its strange rules—hated what she might become. Hated that she would be served on a plate to him once a year. She could not win, could only lose. And she hated that her period was near, and the music simply added to her madness. She shouted for it to be silenced, but of course she was ignored. She shouted again as Rakhal, with a sash at his hips, dashed from his room. He called for the maidens, for Natasha was raging, and they took her to her room, tried to force a drink on her and not the one she knew. But her screams grew louder. She screamed as if she was being poisoned.
Finally Rakhal intervened and took the brew from the maids.
‘This is cucumber to clear your head, and chestnut to calm you, and there is wild garlic too, to calm the anger …’
‘You’re poisoning me!’ she shouted. ‘You’re sedating me so you can sleep with her.’
‘Are you mad?’ Rakhal demanded. ‘Are you mad enough to think I would give you something that would harm—?’
‘Am I going mad?’ she begged. She truly thought she was, because she knew then that she loved him, and all he wanted from her was a baby. And she hated the harem, and that he had shared himself with the women there. ‘I can’t bear to be here for another minute.’
‘You must sleep.’
‘I can’t sleep with them watching.’
‘Leave,’ he said to his maidens, and when she still would not calm he took her kicking and screaming and carried her to his bed.
‘I have not slept with anyone since you!’ he roared, and he cursed, for it was killing him that he hadn’t. But still she did not calm, so he picked up his scythe. She screamed as he raised it and then he sliced the rope. ‘There!’
And she stopped, but her breathing was heavy. The sheer organza robe had risen and he tried not to look.
‘I have not slept with anyone,’ he said, and his breathing was hard too. He stood over where she lay.
‘And yet you won’t sleep with me?’
‘No,’ Rakhal said.
But he watched her gold curls disappear as she covered herself with the organza and she saw his eyes linger, saw the set of his jaw as he resisted what was normal.
She had only this chance and she took it. ‘You don’t have to treat me like glass, Rakhal.’ Still his eyes roamed.
‘What did the maidens do?’ He was curious when he should not be. ‘They painted me.’
He should not know of these things, but he knew a little, and his eyes flicked to her breasts. They were two tempting peaks, the nipples jutting, and he had to hold in his tongue so as not to lick one. Her body was pink beneath the sheer fabric and he knew where they would have painted her. So badly he wanted to see, to peel back the organza and explore her body, to see what a royal prince never should.
Her voice spoke on. ‘I’m bored waiting for my period, I’m bored being treated like glass, and it kills me being with you and you not touching me.’
Still he did nothing. She moaned in frustration, and he sensed danger as she climbed from the bed.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To bed.’
‘For your hands to roam your body?’ He could see the lust in her eyes.
‘Well, yours won’t.’
‘It is forbidden …’
‘For you, perhaps,’ Natasha said. ‘What are you going to do? Tie me to the bed?’
‘It could be bad for the baby.’
‘Oh, please.’ She could not stand it, could not bear it. She put her hands to her ears. ‘La-la-la …’ She would not give in to his thinking. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. Pregnancy is beautiful, and your wife’s body would crave you, and instead you’d be with her.’
She jabbed at the torn rope; she was going insane in the desert, but it wasn’t just sex, it was him. It was his caress that she craved, his mouth where there was heat, and she wanted his mind and his days and his nights too.
And perhaps Natasha had driven him crazy too, for he turned from the rules and to her.
He must not make love to her, but he could kiss her.
He pushed her down onto the bed. He would take the edge off her burning desire.
He hushed her with his mouth and she caved in to his tongue. But his words took the pleasure away.
‘Just a kiss,’ he said.
‘No.’
For he’d made it worse. His touch had made it more, not less, and she climbed from his bed and went to her own.
He stared to the skies for an answer, to the shapes and the stories he knew well. There was not a jewel on the earth that matched a single star’s splendour, but not even the stars could tell him what to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NATASHA awoke to the sound of him praying and knew he would not change—perhaps she had no right to expect him to. They were from different worlds after all.
She walked out to the breakfast table, but did not sit down on the floor to wait for him to join her; instead she went to the wash area to have what she already knew confirmed.
The maidens
bowed their heads as she informed them, and then she walked back to her bedroom and dressed in the clothes she had arrived in. As she pulled on her underwear she saw the fading flowers low on her stomach and ached with a strange grief that they would not blossom and grow and stretch. She mourned for something that had never been, nor could ever be.
Rakhal was seated on the floor at the breakfast table and turned when he heard her approach. His smile faded when he saw her face and registered the maidens who were quietly weeping, for they had grown fond of Natasha.
He dismissed them, and she was relieved that he did so, for she could not stand their tears. It was her period, for God’s sake, Natasha reasoned, not a baby she had lost. But her own disappointment sideswiped her. Might she crave what once she had feared?
‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ Rakhal’s voice was practical, though he cursed his own restraint, berated not taking her that second night—for then they would have had the ways of old on their side. ‘You must be relieved?’
‘Of course,’ she lied, ‘and so must you …’ She attempted a smile but her lips would not move.
‘No.’ He stood, for he did not want it to be over. ‘I should be relieved.’ And he did what he did not usually do—or never had till he had met her. He wrapped her in his arms and attempted to comfort her. ‘But I am not.’
And she did something that no one had ever tried to do with him, for he had never needed it: the arms that coiled around his neck offered comfort to him.
She let the tears fall and he held her, and they mourned what had never existed, let go of what could never be.
‘You can return to your life,’ Rakhal said.
‘You can choose your bride.’
And he felt her arms around him and offered what he’d thought he never would. But he wanted her in his life. He would somehow deal with his father’s disapproval and the fear and anger from his people at such an unwise choice—more so than if she were already pregnant.
‘I choose you.’ Rakhal bestowed the greatest honour. ‘I choose you to be my wife. I will marry you in fourteen days and you can come to my bed again.’
‘Only to be removed from it two days later,’ Natasha said, her eyes spilling tears as she looked up at him. ‘Only to be taken away when I’m pregnant and then brought back a year later.’
‘That is how it is,’ Rakhal said. ‘That is how it must be.’
‘And the harem?’
‘This is our way.’
‘But it’s not mine!’ She tried to fathom it, tried to see herself as a part of it, but then shook her head and declined his proposal. ‘No, I will not be your wife.’
‘It is overwhelming, I know.’ He did not linger on her refusal. In a moment she would come around. ‘I will deal with my father; in time the people will accept—’
‘It’s not your father or the people I need to accept me.’ Natasha looked at him. ‘It’s you, Rakhal, and you won’t. So, no, I won’t marry you.’
‘Have you any idea of the honour I’m giving you by asking?’ His arms released her.
She missed the shield of them and yet she stood firm, looked at his incredulous face and was angry for both of them. Angry that he simply did not get it—that he could not see how lonely his idea of a marriage would make her.
‘Have you any idea of my shame that you did?’
‘Shame?’
‘Yes—shame!’ Natasha was not crying now. Her eyes glittered instead with fury, and some of it was inward for she was so very tempted to say yes. But at what cost? she reminded herself as she spoke to him, as she pictured the future she simply must deny. ‘To be brought to your bed to provide you and your country with children. To know that when the need arises you simply pull a rope … I want a partner, Rakhal—I want someone to share my life with, the good bits and the bad, someone who wants me, not just the babies I can give him. It’s not going to happen, Rakhal. I want my passport. I want to go home.’
‘Your Highness …’ Abdul walked in at the most painful of moments.
‘Not now!’ Rakhal roared.
But Abdul did not flee. He stood and spoke to Rakhal in their own language and Natasha watched as Rakhal’s face paled. He gave a brief nod and uttered a response, then turned to her.
‘Abdul has just delivered some serious news.’
‘Your father?’
Rakhal shook his head. ‘No, but I do need to speak with him. You will wait here.’
And she waited for what was close to an hour until he returned. She’d hoped they would speak now more calmly, but Rakhal had other things on his mind.
‘I have to leave,’ Rakhal said. ‘I need to leave on this helicopter. But my people will arrange transport for you—whatever you want—if you choose to stay in a hotel for a few days, or see your brother, or …’ He hesitated. So badly he wanted to ask that she stay, but so badly it burned that she had refused him.
‘Rakhal—’ She was angry with him, but Natasha understood that something might have happened to his father. Yet he was dismissing her so coolly just because her period had come, just because she would not accept his ways, and that was the last straw. ‘You really know how to make a woman feel used.’
‘I asked you to be my bride less than an hour ago,’ Rakhal said, ‘and yet you accuse me of making you feel used.’ He did not have time for another row, and neither did he have time to explain properly, but he tried. ‘Emir …’ Rakhal’s words were sparse. ‘His wife died at dawn.’
‘The twins’ mother …?’
He gave a brief nod. ‘I must attend the burial, offer him condolences.’
‘Of course.’
And then Abdul came, and he must have informed Rakhal that his transport was ready for he nodded and said to Natasha that he must now leave. Abdul said something else, more words that she did not understand, but they were said with a smile that had Natasha’s stomach churning.
‘What did Abdul just say?’ she challenged when he had gone.
‘Nothing.’
‘Is this good news for Alzirz?’ She would not relent. ‘Has it bought you some time?’
‘They were his words, not mine,’ Rakhal pointed out. ‘Yes, it gives us some time. But for now …’ He felt as if a mirror was cracking in his mind. ‘Now Emir will be deeply grieving. In Alzan …’ how he wished she could understand ‘… because the King can take another wife they live as you would choose.’
And it was as if he was back in London, staring out of the window. The blackness in his soul had returned—only he recognised it this time. Recognised the jealousy that had burnt there. For in Alzan, where there could be more than one partner in a lifetime, all hope for the country’s future was not pinned on one bride. There the royals could live and love together and watch their family grow.
‘So could you,’ Natasha said, when he’d tried to explain to her.
Rakhal shook his head, for it could not be. ‘The people would never accept it. The King can be married only to his country. The wife of the King is to be—’
‘Locked away!’ Natasha shouted. ‘Kept on a luxurious shelf and taken down when needed!’ She hated Alzirz, hated this land and its strange ways, except she loved him. ‘Please, can you just think about it? Even if not for me. If you do marry a more suitable woman, can you at least think about it for her?’
‘I have to leave.’ There was no time to argue and Rakhal knew there was no point either. Had Natasha been pregnant there would have been no discussion—she would have had to conform to their ways—but she was not, so why didn’t he feel relief?
He should just go, and he moved to do so—did not give her a kiss. She had refused his offer and so it was not his place. But still he could not end it.
‘Stay.’ He swallowed his pride and forced the word. ‘We can speak on my return …’
‘And you’ll think about it?’
He gave a nod, for how could he not think about it? And yet it was an impossible ask. The King’s mind must be only on his country, not on his chi
ldren or his wife.
As he boarded the helicopter and it lurched into the sky, so too did his stomach lurch as Abdul made another comment about Emir that a few weeks ago might have brought a wry smile to Rakhal’s lips.
Today it did not.
‘You will show respect.’ He stared at his aide.
‘I would not say it to him.’
‘And neither should you say it to me.’
He saw the set of his aide’s chin, saw the pursing of his lips, for the Prince was more than chastising him. He was turning his back on a rivalry of old and it would no doubt be reported to the King. But his time with Natasha had changed things. This morning he had woken with a woman in his bed and hope for the future—he had glimpsed how Emir had lived.
And he wanted it.
Even the grief …
Such grief on Emir’s features as Rakhal entered the Palace of Alzan and he kissed him on both cheeks, as was their way. He offered him his sympathy, as was their way too; only for Rakhal it felt different. This time Rakhal spoke from a place he never had before. His words came from his heart.
Not that Emir noticed.
An English nanny held the tiny twins and she was weeping when Rakhal went over. He kissed each twin’s tiny cheek and offered them too his condolences. The babies were teary and fretful, and a veiled woman apologised to Rakhal.
‘They miss their mother’s milk.’
He did not nod and return to the men; instead he lifted one tiny child, whose name, he was informed, was Clemira, and told the veiled woman that it was her mother she missed. In that moment he missed his own.
Pink sapphires did not seem such a suitable gift now.
And the Sheikha Queen, Rakhal realised, was in fact indispensable. For he looked at Emir and realised he had loved his wife. Now Emir would have the agony of finding another bride while still grieving his loss.
As might he.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘YOU have been granted full privileges.’
She wanted Rakhal, but instead it was Abdul who returned that night and told her of her reward—that she could travel freely to visit her brother, go to the desert or to the harem and perhaps surprise Rakhal. Rakhal would see her at times in London too.
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