by Jane Toombs
Each new day with Linnea would be rose-filled, he would never tire of her touch, of touching her, of having her near him. He wanted no one else.
Remembering her poor, bruised feet, he felt his smoldering anger threaten to erupt. Damping it down firmly—now was not the time—he captured the soap and groped underwater for a foot. After raising one of her feet free of the water, he stared in dismay at the scratches and cuts on her sole and instep. The other foot was little better. As gently as he could, he lathered them, her muffled gasp of pain striking to his heart.
No one would ever hurt her again!
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring Basheem’s message to the king,” she said, biting her lip. “I didn’t intend to betray anyone. I didn’t really trust him, but he claimed he’d kill Yasmin if I told anyone and I was afraid to take the risk. I should have had the sense to realize he needed a hostage to escape Kholi and had no intention of bringing my daughter to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t. If you hadn’t found me when you did—” She broke off.
Talal didn’t dare dwell on what Basheem had intended to do or his rage would erupt. “Did he tell you where Yasmin was?” he asked.
Linnea shook her head. “He laughed at me but he claimed he knew.”
Much as he longed to prolong their time together in the tub, he knew he must leave Linnea and get to the hospital to question Basheem Khaldun—if the man was capable of being questioned. He had some of the answers but not all, not enough. He now had a fair idea of why Basheem had begun this charade, but he still didn’t know where Malik’s daughter was nor where the changeling Yasmin had come from. Nor did he understand why Basheem had set up his web of deception in the first place. He also had to report to his great-uncle.
He leaned to Linnea and brushed her lips with his, not daring to make the kiss lingering because then he’d never leave her. “I can’t stay,” he murmured against her mouth.
“I know,” she whispered. “Go. I’ll be fine with Grandmother Noorah.”
After his grandmother arrived, Linnea reluctantly watched Talal leave, trying not to show how she longed to have him stay. Never had she thought she’d find herself praying for Basheem Khaldun’s survival, but she did now. He mustn’t die, because he might well be the only person who knew where her daughter was.
“In hareem, rumors fly,” Grandmother Noorah said as she seated herself in the upholstered rocker beside the bed where Linnea lay propped on pillows. “Dying, the evil one?”
“He’s unconscious. Talal’s gone to the hospital in the hope Basheem will have improved enough to answer questions, but...” Her words trailed off and she sighed.
“Sleep, you,” the older woman said.
“I can’t. What if I never find Yasmin?” She sat up, clutching the coverlet with tense fingers. “I couldn’t bear that.”
Grandmother Noorah reached over and patted her hand. She’d started to speak when a tap at the door alerted them both.
“Who is it?” Linnea cried, at the same time the older woman spoke in Arabic.
“Sahar and Huda. May we speak with you?” Linnea nodded to Grandmother Noorah, who rose and unlocked the door. Both women slipped in and the older woman relocked the door behind them.
“We’ve come about Widad,” Sahar said.
Linnea drew a blank. Grandmother Noorah asked, “Servant, Widad?”
“One of the recently hired ones,” Huda said. “Another servant identified her as the one who passed Basheem Khaldun’s message to Linnea. Widad admits this but refuses to speak to anyone except Linnea.”
“We’ve locked her in a small room no one uses,” Sahar said.
“Must be told, king,” Grandmother Noorah advised.
“We will,” Sahar told her. “But Widad threatens to kill herself if she can’t speak to Linnea. What use is a dead woman who can answer no questions?”
Linnea swung her bandaged feet over the side of the bed. “I want to speak with her. I insist.”
Staring at her feet, Sahar said, “Can you walk?”
“Not walk, Linnea.” Grandmother Noorah’s voice was firm. “Must come here, Widad. Fetch, you and you. Then stand guard.”
“We’ll bring her,” Sahar said.
As the two women hurried away Grandmother Noorah warned, “Careful, Linnea.”
When Sahar and Huba returned, they more or less dragged a limp young woman in servant’s garb between them. As soon as they released her, Widad fell prostrate, her arms reaching toward Linnea as she jabbered in Arabic.
“She begs for mercy,” Sahar said.
“I can promise her nothing, but if she answers all my questions, I’ll try to intervene for her with the king,” Linnea said, struggling not to be influenced by the desperate sobs of the woman. “Ask her what her relationship with Basheem Khaldun is.”
Widad raised herself onto her knees when Sahar began questioning her, keeping her gaze fixed on Linnea as she answered. “She says Basheem knew what she was—I think because he used her—and threatened to tell the king if she didn’t obey him.” Sahar frowned. “It seems she was—maybe still is—a loose woman and would have lost her place here in the palace if it became known and, perhaps, even faced death.”
Was it possible this woman knew where Yasmin was? Linnea told Sahar to ask that question.
“I’m not certain she understood,” Sahar said, “because her answer seems to concern a child she once bore but rid herself of as an infant. Apparently she’d done this more than once—she had several children no man would admit to having fathered. All were boys except one. Basheem found this girl in an orphanage and tracked Widad down, forcing her to do as he asked or be exposed as one who lent herself to men for money and abandoned babies. This is no light matter in Kholi.”
“Obviously Widad is no friend of Basheem,” Linnea said. “But she must know about my daughter, Yasmin Khaldun. Did Basheem tell her where Yasmin is?”
Linnea watched Sahar frown as she listened to Widad’s response. “She has never heard of your daughter,” Sahar reported. “I asked her about the daughter she bore and she says she thinks the father was a foreign worker from Europe who left the country before the child was born. Because the child was a girl she was unable to sell her as she did the boys so she left her in an orphanage. This was about three years ago and she’s never seen the girl since then but she knows Basheem removed her from the orphanage.”
Dread washed over Linnea in a dark tide. “Ask her what Basheem did with the girl,” she managed to say.
Widad hung her head and had to be persuaded to speak. While waiting, Linnea felt as though she was groping through an increasingly dense fog of misery and fear.
“Widad believes Basheem took the girl from the orphanage to bring to the king,” Sahar said finally. “She had no idea why.” Shaking her head, she added, “This woman doesn’t seem to care what may have happened to her child. Or any of her children.”
Widad suddenly burst into impassioned Arabic.
“She hopes Basheem Khaldun will be beheaded by the king so she’ll be rid of him once and for all,” Sahar translated. “She asked where he is.”
“In the hospital.” Stunned by what Widad had revealed, Linnea spoke automatically without truly being aware of what she said.
A moment later, after Sahar told her, Widad smiled. Through her own numb despair Linnea shuddered at the hate revealed in that smile. She hugged herself, her body trembling.
Grandmother Noorah rose and rattled off orders in Arabic. Linnea heard the click of the door lock, then the older woman sat on the bed next to her, drawing her close, murmuring soothingly in Arabic. In some dim corner of her consciousness she understood the two of them were now alone in the room.
When she finally was able to stop crying, she found one of Grandmother Noorah’s lace-edged handkerchiefs in her hand and mopped at her wet face. The older woman urged her back against the pillows and pulled the light coverlet over her. “Sleep, Linnea,” she said softly.
Linnea tried to protest, t
o explain why she couldn’t, but exhaustion overtook her and her eyes fluttered closed.
She woke to a sunlit room and Talal asleep in the rocker where Grandmother Noorah had been. For a moment she relished the sight of him, and then what she’d heard from Widad rushed back into her mind and she moaned in protest.
Talal sat up abruptly, sprang to his feet and leaned over her. “Are you in pain? Where does it hurt?”
“In my heart,” she said sadly.
“My grandmother told me about Widad,” he said, sitting on the bed and taking her hand in both of his.
Linnea bit her lip. “I’m sure our changeling Yasmin is her child,” she said hopelessly. “Widad knows nothing about my daughter. I fear—” She swallowed and, with obvious effort, fought back tears. “What about Basheem?” she asked. “Were you able to talk to him?”
The desperate plea in her eyes stabbed like a knife into Talal’s heart. “Basheem is in a coma,” he told her. Which was the truth, if not all of it.
She sighed, but he sensed she was relieved to have a shred of hope to cling to. “I asked one of the doctors about your feet,” he told her. “He said we should soak them in warm saltwater today, then leave the wounds open to the air. He suggested you keep off them as much as possible.”
“My feet aren’t that bad,” she protested. “They’re already healing. I have no intention of lying around.”
“Not even with me?” he teased, hoping to distract her, at least for a while, from what they both had to face.
Someone tapped on the door before she could answer and he gave permission to enter, aware it must be the food he’d ordered. A female servant wheeled in a cart and, under Talal’s direction, pushed a table over to the bed and set out the food.
Once the servant was gone, Linnea shook her head. “I don’t know why there isn’t a clock in this room,” she complained. “The palace seems to have practically no clocks anywhere. When I forget to wear my watch, I never know what time it is.”
“Time doesn’t matter in Kholi. We have a saying that translates to same-same, meaning that it’s all the same whether things get done today or tomorrow or next week.”
She rolled her eyes, slid from the bed, wincing when her feet touched the floor, and limped toward the bathroom. He stifled an impulse to scoop her up and carry her. Best to allow her a little independence—she was one determined woman.
While she was gone, he disrobed and sat back down on the bed. When she returned she was wearing a loose, translucent white robe. Though the silk didn’t cling to her curves, the thin fabric hinted at what couldn’t quite be seen. His groin tightened and he reached for her. She melted into his arms, clinging to him.
He stroked her back, keeping his desire tamped down, aching for her but aware she needed comforting. Whatever she wanted, he meant to try to give her.
Linnea sighed, relaxing against Talal’s warmth, relishing the feel of his soothing hand. Here in his embrace she could put away her fears for a time and be safe. While he caressed her, he slipped the robe from her arms and off. A thrill shot through her as her bare breasts pressed against his naked chest. A longing to become a part of him infused her. Nothing mattered, only Talal. Always Talal, no other.
He eased them both down onto the bed and pulled her on top of him, holding her there while he touched her in all the right places. She pressed her lips to his, losing herself in their kiss.
She wanted, she needed to feel him fill her but he held off, his intimate caresses driving her up and up. When she could bear the waiting no longer, she raised herself and took him inside, almost immediately feeling the incomparable throbbing of completion.
With a growl, not releasing her, he rolled her over onto her back and thrust deeply, again and again until she gasped for breath, crying his name over and over as the waves of pleasure crested.
His shudder of release throbbed through her, increasing her own pleasure, making her believe they were truly one.
Afterward, while still holding her next to him, he fell asleep. She eased away far enough to look at him, resisting her urge to trace his profile with her finger—the proud angle of his nose, the enticing curve of his lips, then over the no-nonsense chin with its incipient cleft.
She loved the way he looked, loved his firm body, his strength, the tenderness he was capable of. She loved him. Linnea caught her breath. Even if she did, what about the dichotomy separating them? Kholi was his country—he wouldn’t be likely to give it up—while she already knew she could never live here.
To hell with that problem, she decided, and snuggled against him again, closing her eyes. They were together and that’s what mattered right now. She didn’t want to think about anything else.
Talal woke, finding himself pleasurably entwined with Linnea, who still slept. How beautiful she was, her body made for pleasure and her personality lending character to what might otherwise have been merely a pretty face. Deep within him, he knew he’d never want any other woman. He’d need her with him forever. Somehow he had to find a way for this marriage of theirs to last.
The burden he carried troubled him. Would he lose her when he admitted the truth? After the ritual sword dance tomorrow, he must, he decided, take her from the palace, must bring her home, to the house he’d had built after the death of his first wife, the house he’d never brought a woman to. Linnea would be the first, the only woman he’d ever bring home.
There, on the edge of the desert, they would find a way to face the future together. They had to, he couldn’t bear to lose her.
Chapter Fifteen
Linnea watched while Grandmother Noorah looked at the packed luggage. Nodding in satisfaction, she ordered the hovering servant to see it was taken to the proper place. She gestured at Linnea, already wearing the long-sleeved silk jacket, to pull the white silk scarf over her head, then opened the door to the main part of the palace.
In the corridor, the grand-nephew, young Ameen, waited in his palace guard uniform to escort them to the expanse of lawn in the front of the palace where, Linnea knew, the princes, Talal among them, were to gather.
Ameen led them not to the open pavilion where the other palace women were sequestered, but to where the palace guard ringed a wooden platform under the shade of a huge date palm. The uniformed men opened rank to allow the women to pass inside the ring. Before leaving them, Ameen assisted Grandmother Noorah onto the platform where the king’s wife waited with one of her grandsons, a boy in his early teens. Linnea followed.
Wajeeh greeted them graciously. Before they had time to do more than exchange pleasantries with the king’s wife, the white-clad princes marched onto the lawn in front of the platform. The palace guard then rearranged their ranks so the view from the platform was not obscured. Two of the guards peeled away to join the four guards escorting the king from the palace to the platform. As he joined them he greeted Linnea and Grandmother Noorah and gave his wife’s arm an affectionate pat. After ordering his grandson to stand straighter, he faced ahead, his gaze on the princes.
As one they shouted and raised their swords. A hand drum rat-a-tatted and the princes began to chant, their voices rising and falling as, with a peculiar gait that resembled a dance—Linnea was reminded of Native American war dances—they formed circles within circles. At varying intervals they waved their raised swords and shouted, every face turned toward King Hakeem.
She’d picked out Talal from the other princes in their robes and headdresses but lost track of him in the concentric circles that kept forming and reforming. Stirred by the spectacle, she imagined Bedouin men performing this ritual over the years to show their loyalty to their tribal leader, for surely this sword dance had ancient roots.
After a time, the chanting ceased. With a final shout, the men waved their swords once more. The drum stopped, swords were sheathed and the princes marched away.
She’d expected to return to the palace with Grandmother Noorah, escorted by Ameen, but when King Hakeem stepped to her side, she realized she wa
s to be honored by his escort. The two of them were flanked by four of his guards. Instead of heading for the palace, though, he led her toward the drive where she saw a limo waiting.
Talal approached. The king hugged him, kissing him on both cheeks in the ritual Kholi greeting or farewell. He turned to Linnea, raised her hand and bowed over it.
“Try to be a dutiful wife to this man I treasure above all others for his loyalty,” he said to her.
Escorted by his guards, he turned back toward the platform. She stood staring after him until Talal took her arm and urged her gently but firmly into the rear seat of the limo.
“Wait,” she protested. “I haven’t said goodbye to anyone, not even your grandmother. I didn’t think we—” He slid in next to her and shut the door, leaving her sputtering, effectively ending any protest.
The driver put the limo into gear and sped off.
Linnea gazed from the helicopter at the land they were passing over. They’d left Akrim with its sparsely forested mountains behind—if forested was the right word. The few trees she’d seen were stunted and the growth resembled what she’d seen in the Nevada high desert—sagebrush-like.
She was glad to be leaving the ruined white buildings and towers of the ancient Turks behind, but she would miss Grandmother Noorah. Sahar, too. Between them, the king and Talal had given her no time to make a proper farewell, which she resented.
When she’d asked why such a hurry, Talal’s reply had been curt. “King Hakeem fears for your safety.”
She’d asked why but he hadn’t told her. Certainly Basheem was no threat to anyone, lying comatose, under guard, in the hospital. Did they suspect he had cohorts? She’d realized, though, if the get-out-of-town-in-a-hurry order came from King Hakeem, there was no point in being miffed at Talal.
“The desert begins,” Talal said, pointing to an expanse of tannish brown just ahead. “See how the wind sculpts the dunes.”
She noticed ridges in the brown, but from the copter nothing looked impressive.