She looked up, but still he was silent, watching her with his green falcon’s eyes.
“But I want more than that, Latif. I love you. I want you to love me, the way you once did. I want to marry you, and have your children, and give them Bagestan as their home.”
A sob caught in her throat. “But you don’t want that anymore.”
He moved towards her and put his arms around her, and she felt the masculine heat of his hands against her back. Their warmth moved into her blood, her heart, her head, and she lifted her face to smile up at him.
“My Beloved,” said Latif, “who has told you such a terrible lie?”
And then she was home, against his heart.
Later, they walked in the garden, where the night flowers tempted the moonlight with their heady perfume. His arm was around her, her head against his shoulder.
“I thought that you did not know your own heart, that you loved me and did not know it. I thought I could teach you the truth of your feelings for me.”
She said, “You were right, but it was a long time before I could admit it to myself. Was that why you tricked me into going into the mountains with you? It was a trick, wasn’t it? All that talk about Mansour’s young son. I finally saw it.”
Latif laughed. “There was no hope of teaching you anything if I could not be with you, and you had been very adept at avoiding me before the wedding.”
“And my mother knew!” Jalia exclaimed. “She must have been in on it, or she wouldn’t—”
“Your parents understood my feelings. When you left the country so suddenly after the Coronation I couldn’t hide my reaction from them. They knew what I intended, and what you meant to me.”
Jalia shook her head. “That thought only occurred to me way too late. I should have guessed why my mother was so cool about my travelling around with you. ‘Tell them he’s your husband!’” She mimicked her mother’s advice. “I seem to have walked into every trap you set for me.”
“Why not?” he said, kissing her softly. “I had already walked into yours.”
“And then, just when you thought you had me where you wanted me…”
“Just as I had begun to hope I had succeeded in showing you your heart, Michael was there, claiming you.”
The fountain splashed in the darkness and she put out her arm to catch the soft cool drops of water on her skin. Sensation shivered to her scalp, as if at the touch of his fingers.
“When Michael turned up, did you think I’d lied on our…that night when I told you the engagement was invented?”
“On our wedding night,” he amended firmly, and wrapped his arm more securely around her. “At first, perhaps. I was so maddened with jealousy I did not know what I believed. But that you had put yourself beyond my reach, stealing from me the chance to show you how strong our love could be, was certain. And I had to accept that that might be exactly what you intended.”
“But I was appalled when Michael turned up! Didn’t you see that?”
“That might have been only your distress at the presence of the journalists. Otherwise, I could see no reason for you not to repudiate the engagement instantly.”
A heavy blossom drooped from a branch overhead, offering them its musky perfume as they passed. Its scent mirrored the sweetness she felt in her heart. Jalia smiled and sighed.
“So I decided to play the Western game after all,” he continued. “To pretend that I no longer wanted you, in the hopes that it would make you see what you wanted, in order to show you your choices, and make you fear the truth that doors may close when we do not go through them at the right time.”
“And all the time you had Gazi on the case.”
“I could see no easy way out of that engagement once it was made public,” Latif said. “The story of a forced marriage might have dogged us for a very long time, and I thought it would make you and your parents unhappy. Do you blame me for taking steps to protect our future together even when it seemed we might not have one?”
“N-o-o-o. Poor Michael, though. And I look—”
“Michael will be made happy by the Sultan’s silver plates. And when we find the Sey-Shahin treasures, I am sure he will be delighted if we ask him to examine them.”
She laughed aloud. “Oh, that’ll sort Michael out, all right. And what about me…was it necessary to make me look such a mad fool?”
He turned to face her. “Who is not mad, who loves?” he demanded roughly. “I am insane for you, Jalia. From the moment I first saw you I have been wandering in the desert like Majnun dreaming of his Layla.”
“But you stopped loving me,” Jalia murmured. “When I told you I loved you, you weren’t even interested. I was too late. I’d left it too late. All of a sudden, you didn’t care anymore.”
She looked up at him, her eyes shadowed with the memory of that dark moment.
“You had learned that you loved me. But you hadn’t yet learned that you loved this country. How I wanted to take what you offered, what I had prayed for! But I knew it was a dangerous temptation. What would I do with a wife half-won, only grudgingly mine?” He spoke as if he were understanding it clearly only as he spoke.
“I saw that if out of love for me you gave in grudgingly to the necessity to live here, we would never be truly happy.
“Life will not always be easy for us, Jalia. There is work ahead. I saw that if you did not come to me from a complete conviction that your home was here in Bagestan, there would be too much room for regret. You had to find your love for the country, too.”
She heaved a deep sigh for the old life—her friends, her students, the university. But she had no doubts anymore. Her life was here, her heart was here, her fate was to be beside Latif all her days.
“So I offered you scope to learn about your heart, and your blood, and your generosity.”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it not partly your concern for the women of Sey-Shahin Valley that taught you that your heart was here in Bagestan?”
“Maybe,” Jalia began indignantly, “but you can hardly take the credit for that! Offered me scope? If you suggested that I’m marrying you because otherwise the women of your valley won’t get a look-in, you’d be closer…” Jalia’s voice faded off as the last piece fell into place.
“Oh no! Oh, what an idiot I’ve been!”
He was laughing and shaking his head. “Did you really imagine, my Beloved, that I could care so little about something so important affecting my people’s well-being, simply because it concerned women?”
“You set me up!” she accused. “Right from the start! Right from that day in Sey-Shahin!”
“I only feigned a little indifference in the hopes of engaging your interest on my people’s behalf. I hoped that even if you did not love me, Jalia, your love of my people would teach you to love their Shahin.”
“Or vice versa,” said the Princess, and nestled against his heart.
Epilogue
PRINCESS WINS HER SHEIKH
Princess Jalia al Jawadi Shahbazi, recently appointed Cup Companion to the Sultana of Bagestan, and the Sultan’s Cup Companion Latif Abd al Razzaq Shahin are to marry. A palace spokesman said that the possibility of a joint wedding with the Princess’s cousin, Noor, and her fiancé, Bari al Khalid, has not been ruled out.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8051-3
THE ICE MAIDEN’S SHEIKH
Copyright © 2004 by Alexandra Sellers
The author would like to express her grateful thanks to the publisher for permission to use the following stories: “There is more Light here,” the story of Mulla Nasrudin and the lost key, has been retold from THE EXPLOITS OF THE INCOMPARABLE MULLA NASRUDIN by Idries Shah (Octagon Press, London, 1983). Used by permission.
“Hospitality,” the story of Anwar Beg and the horse, has been retold from CARAVAN OF DREAMS by Idries Shah (Octagon Press, Ltd., London, 1968). Used by permission.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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*Sons of the Desert
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