Date with a Surgeon Prince

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Of course,’ Tasnim told her, giving her another awkward hug. ‘Not only will I have the fun of getting clothes for you—and spending lots and lots of Ghazi’s money—but every one of my sisters will be green with jealousy that you’re here and not with them.’

  She clapped her hands.

  ‘Oh, it will be delicious!’

  ‘But I wouldn’t want your sisters—’ Marni began.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Gaz told her, resting his hand on her shoulder. ‘They play these games of one-upmanship all the time, my sisters, but they still all love each other. Just wait, they’ll be vying with each other to give you the best gifts, take you to the best silk shops, the best seamstresses.’

  Marni closed her eyes as she realised this whole betrothal thing had spun right out of control and taken on a life of its own. She turned to Gaz so his hand fell off her shoulder, which did make it slightly easier to think.

  ‘I can’t take gifts,’ she said, which was as close as she could get to protesting in front of Tasnim. ‘It wouldn’t be right!’

  ‘Of course it’s right,’ Tasnim argued. ‘You’re his betrothed.’

  But it’s pretend! Marni wanted to yell, and as she couldn’t, she made do with a glare at the man who’d got her into this situation.

  Well, it had been partly her fault…

  Perhaps mostly her fault…

  ‘She’s exhausted,’ she heard Gaz say. ‘What she needs is food, a bath and bed, and no teasing her for explanations or gossip or any chat at all!’

  ‘Yes, Master,’ Tasnim teased, ‘but don’t think I’m going to turn round while you kiss her goodbye. We’ve all been waiting far too long for you to fall for someone.’

  He hasn’t fallen for me, it’s all pretence, Marni wanted to say, but didn’t because even thinking about it made her feel a little sad and, anyway, Gaz was obviously giving his sister a piece of his mind, so stern did his words sound. Then, with one last touch on Marni’s shoulder, he stalked away.

  ‘Come,’ Tasnim said. ‘I won’t tease you.’

  She took Marni’s hand and led her through a bewildering maze of corridors, across carpets with glowing jewel colours, through arches with decorative plaster picked out in gold and set with precious stones. The rooms she’d seen in the palace had been plain, though there, too, the carpets had been beautiful, but this was like some fantasy out of an old-fashioned book and, tired as she was, it took on a dream-like quality.

  ‘Here!’ Tasnim finally said, going ahead of Marni into a room the size of her entire hospital flat. A huge four-poster bed, hung with dark blue silk curtains, dominated one end of the room while the inner walls were lined with a paler blue silk, padded somehow and indented with buttons of the same colour.

  ‘The bathroom is through that door and a dressing room through the one next to it. You’ll find plenty of clothes in the dressing room because we like our guests to feel comfortable and sometimes they may not have brought clothing that will fit special occasions.’

  She flung open a door into what looked like a very expensive boutique. A long rack down one side held clothes ranging from ballgowns to tailored shirts and skirts, while further down were jeans and slacks and even, she rather thought, some long shorts.

  The other side of the room had shelves of shoeboxes and drawers containing exotic-looking underwear, still in its original packaging, and beyond the drawers long, filmy nightdresses.

  For the harem—no, seraglio—belly dancers? was Marni’s immediate thought. Wasn’t this proof they still existed?

  ‘Not that you need any fancy clothes here,’ Tasnim was saying. ‘Wear whatever you like. Now I’m pregnant, I do cover up with an abaya if I go into the city, but I always worked in Western clothes.’

  Marni wanted to ask what work she did, to find out more about this lively, fascinating young woman, but tiredness had fallen on her like a great weight.

  ‘Have a bath and go to bed, Tasnim ordered. ‘I’ll have a light meal sent up to you—just eat what you want. Tomorrow we’ll talk.

  ‘Thank you,’ Marni said. ‘I am tired.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE’D ENTERED A world of fantasy, Marni realised when she woke in the luxuriously soft four-poster bed to find a young woman sitting cross-legged by the door, obviously waiting for the visitor to open her eyes.

  ‘Good morning, I hope you slept well,’ the young woman said, rising to her feet with elegant smoothness. ‘I am Shara and I am to look after you. I shall bring you whatever you wish—some tea or coffee to begin with perhaps, then you must tell me what you wish for breakfast. Ms Tasnim sleeps late and has her breakfast in bed.’

  ‘A cup of tea would be wonderful,’ Marni told her. ‘English tea if you have it. I can drink mint tea later in the day but need the tea I’m used to to wake me up.’

  The girl smiled and disappeared, her bare feet making no sound on the marble floor, although Marni fancied she could hear the swish of the soft material of the girl’s long trousers and the long tunic she wore over them.

  Marni had a quick shower and, aware of her appointment with Jawa at the hospital, dressed in one of the pairs of loose trousers she’d brought from home, adding a tunic in her favourite deep blue-green colour.

  ‘You dress like us?’ Shara commented when she returned with the tea.

  ‘I decided before I left home that if I was going out in public it would be polite to follow the local customs,’ Marni told her. ‘In my flat, and possibly while I’m staying here, inside the house, I might pull on my jeans.’

  ‘I am the opposite, I wear jeans outside,’ Shara said. ‘This is just a uniform for work.’

  Marni sipped at her tea, wanting to know more—about Shara, about Ablezia, about—

  ‘You speak such good English,’ she said. ‘Did you learn it at school?’

  ‘At school and at college too, and I listen to recordings at home as well. I am training to work in hotels, you see. We are building many hotels now in our country and they will all need staff. One day, I would like to manage one, but first I must learn the basics of housekeeping, then I must learn how to run a kitchen, not to cook but to understand what goes on, then—oh, there is so much to learn.’

  She flashed a bright smile at Marni, who smiled back as she said, ‘You’ll go far, I’m sure.’

  ‘Not if I don’t get a breakfast order from you,’ Shara said, still smiling. ‘The chef will have my head. What would you like?’

  What would she like?

  ‘What do you have for breakfast?’ she asked.

  ‘You would like to try a local breakfast?’ Shara asked, obviously delighted.

  ‘As long as it doesn’t take too long to prepare. I have to be at the hospital at ten.’

  Shara disappeared, returning with a round brass tray on which nestled six small bowls. In the middle of the tray round flatbread was folded into cones, the whole thing like some wonderful display made for a picture in a food magazine.

  ‘Here,’ Shara said, as she set it on the small table by an arched window. She pulled a plate out from under the bread and a napkin from beneath that again, and waited for Marni to sit. She then pointed to each dish in turn.

  ‘This is labneh, our cheese, a bit tangy but soft, and dahl, you know dahl from lentils, and these are eggs mixed up and cooked with spices, some olives, some hummus, and here is honey, and jam, apricot, I think, and halwa—you know the sweet halwa?’

  ‘It looks fantastic but I can’t possibly eat it all,’ Marni protested, and Shara laughed.

  ‘You just eat a little of whatever you want. you use the bread to scoop it up or there is cutlery on the plate if you prefer to use that. Now, we would drink tea but tea you have had, so perhaps coffee?’

  Marni agreed that she’d like coffee and as Shara disappeared once more, Marni began to eat, scooping bits of one dish, then another, trying them alone, then together, settling on the spicy eggs and labneh as her main choices and eating far more than she normally would for breakfas
t.

  Coffee and dates finished the meal, and as she was thanking Shara, Tasnim burst into the room.

  ‘I’ve come to make plans,’ she announced, but before she could continue Marni explained she was meeting Jawa—and soon.

  ‘Oh!’ Tasnim was deflated but not for long. ‘That is good. I send you with a driver in the car to the hospital and when you are finished with your friend he will bring you to the Plaza Hotel. The shops there are discreet and we can enjoy shopping without a crowd.’

  ‘The Plaza?’ Marni echoed faintly, thinking of the enormous, palace-like hotel she’d seen but had never visited.

  ‘Definitely the Plaza, it is the only place,’ Tasnim insisted, before whirling out of the room to make arrangements for a driver.

  ‘You will like the Plaza,’ Shara said, her voice so full of awe Marni felt even more uncertain.

  ‘Have you been there?’ she asked the girl.

  ‘Oh, no, but I hear it is very beautiful and the boutiques there—well, they are for the very rich.’

  Which you obviously are not. Marni felt she could hear Shara’s thoughts. She’d know that from unpacking her suitcase.

  Marni ignored the questions she’d heard in Shara’s voice. She grabbed a scarf to wrap around her hair, found her handbag, then asked Shara to take her to wherever the driver would be waiting with the car.

  ‘I daren’t walk out of the room for fear of getting lost,’ she told the girl, who smiled but was still treating her with more reserve than she had originally.

  Treating her like someone who shopped at the Plaza!

  Hell’s teeth, Marni thought. Does money really change things so much?

  She was early when she arrived at the hospital, so her feet took her automatically to Safi’s room. The little boy was sleeping, but she’d barely registered that when her body told her who else was visiting him, although the second person had been in the bathroom, washing his hands, as she’d come in.

  He was in full prince gear, so—pathetically—her breath caught in her lungs and her heart stopped beating.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Gaz—no, he was definitely Ghazi—said, crossing the room towards her and taking her hands. ‘You slept well? Tasnim is looking after you?’

  He raised her hands to his lips and kissed each knuckle in turn, making it impossible for her to answer him.

  Soft footsteps in the corridor made him release her hands and step back, but the look in his eyes was enough to bring all the embers of desire back to ferocious life.

  Why wasn’t he just Gaz?

  ‘How is Safi?’ Marni asked, in an attempt to dampen the heat.

  ‘He is well, his temperature is down and his sleep is peaceful,’ he replied, then he lifted one of her hands, dropped a kiss on the palm and left the room, muttering to himself.

  It had to be the stupidest idea he’d ever had, he decided as he marched away from Safi’s room. Here was a woman he desired more than he’d ever desired a woman before and he’d put her off limits by becoming betrothed to her.

  And all to avoid the women his sisters were throwing at him!

  But could he have accepted any of them, feeling as he did about Marni?

  And how did he feel about Marni?

  He desired her but was that it? Would an affair have satisfied that desire? Could they have shared some mutual pleasure and enjoyment then parted?

  He wasn’t too sure about that.

  There was something about the woman. She was different, and not only in race but in…

  Personality?

  Guts?

  It had taken guts to approach him yesterday, not knowing who he was or what might occur, but she’d done it for her grandfather…

  He needed to know her better. He’d go back to Safi’s room now.

  ‘Sir!’

  One of the junior doctors had caught up with him and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Had he called to him more than once?

  ‘Your driver, sir, he has a message for you.’

  Back to reality! Gaz strode towards the front entrance, aware his driver would only have sent for him if he was already late for the next thing on his interminable schedule.

  Marni held the kiss in her hand as she made her way to the canteen. She felt slightly foolish. The kiss meant nothing so why hold onto it?

  Did she want it to mean something?

  Want it to mean love?

  She shook her head at her thoughts and smiled sadly. Six times so far her mother had married for ‘love’ so, not unnaturally, Marni had a slightly skewed view of it.

  The advent of lust into her life had really confused things, she decided as she dawdled down the corridor. Caught up in its snare, couldn’t one mistake it for love?

  Want it to be love?

  Was that what had happened with her mother?

  Again and again and…

  She sighed, and put the problem out of her mind. Right now she had to get her head straight and work out exactly what she was going to say to Jawa.

  Jawa!

  Jawa meant passion or love—Marni had looked it up when she’d learned that most names had meanings. Ghazi—of course she’d looked it up as well—meant conqueror.

  Hmmm!

  Jawa was waiting in the canteen, two cups of coffee and a plate of sweet pastries on the table in front of her. Marni slipped into a chair opposite so she could look into her friend’s face as she spoke.

  The politeness of morning greetings and thanks for the coffee held off the revelations for a few minutes but finally she had to tackle the subject she’d come to discuss.

  ‘You know I’ve mentioned Pop, my grandfather,’ she began, then stalled.

  ‘Your grandfather?’ Jawa prompted.

  ‘It’s complicated, but I didn’t know when I met him in Theatre that Gaz was Ghazi, your prince. The thing is, Pop had known him and his father when he was a boy—when Ghazi was a boy—and Pop wanted me to say hello to him while I was here, which was why I borrowed your abaya and went to the palace yesterday, and now we’re kind of engaged to help him out with his sisters who keep finding women for him to marry.’

  Jawa’s eyes had grown rounder and rounder as Marni’s disjointed explanation had stumbled from her lips.

  ‘You’re engaged to Prince Ghazi?’ Jawa whispered, her voice ripe with disbelief.

  ‘Only pretend—for his sisters,’ Marni said desperately, but she rather thought that message wasn’t getting through. ‘And we’re keeping it quiet but I’ve moved in to live with his pregnant sister, for security he says.’

  It wasn’t making much sense to Marni so she had no idea what Jawa might be making of it.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t know what his people—people like you—will think about it, because he should probably be marrying with better breeding stock for his camels.’

  Drained now of words, Marni stared hopefully at Jawa, who seemed to have gone into some kind of fugue, although she did manage a faint echo.

  ‘Camels?’

  ‘So what do you think?’ Marni eventually demanded, the silence adding to the tension already built up inside her.

  ‘About the camels?’ Jawa said faintly.

  ‘No, not the camels, although apparently his camels are very important to him, but about me being engaged to him—betrothed?’

  Jawa shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know what to think but if it’s been arranged—your grandfather and his father—then that’s how things should be. I know more of our people are marrying for love these days but arranged marriages have worked for centuries.’

  ‘I’m not marrying him,’ Marni told her. ‘It’s a pretend betrothal—because of his sisters—just while he sorts out his job—and then…’

  ‘And then?’ Jawa probed.

  Marni shrugged.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘It’s really all just too stupid for words, but I felt I should tell you because you’ve been so good to me. I’d like to keep working but we don’t seem to have talked too
much about that. Tasnim—that’s his sister—seems to think clothes are more important.’

  ‘Oh, clothes will be very important,’ Jawa said, then she smiled and took Marni’s hand.

  ‘I only know him when he’s Gaz, of course, as a colleague. He is much respected and admired. From the time he started work here, he has never made anything of his links with the ruling family and no one ever treated him any differently because of who he is. I don’t think he expected to take over from his uncle, but he will do his duty well.’

  Of course he will, Marni thought, feeling slightly let down, although she wasn’t sure what she’d expected of this conversation.

  Congratulations?

  Certainly not!

  Reassurance?

  Of course!

  ‘It’s the pretence that bothers me,’ she said. ‘Will people—the local people—be upset when it ends?’

  Jawa thought for a moment then turned Marni’s hand in hers.

  ‘I do not think so. They will accept his decision, whatever it is. Those who thought it was a bad idea to marry a foreigner will say at last he’s come to his senses, and those who liked the idea will think, ah, that’s the trouble with love because they will have been sure it was a love match.’

  A love match?

  For some reason, far from reassuring her, the words sent a wave of melancholy washing over Marni and she took back her hand—it wasn’t the one with the kiss in it—and sighed.

  Love, of course, was the other reason she had the virginity problem—her mother’s version of love…

  The Plaza Hotel was surely bigger than the palace!

  That was Marni’s first thought on seeing it as they drove up a long drive to an immense building spread across the top of a slight rise.

  And far more opulent, she realised as she entered the enormous lobby so gilded and arched and carpeted it looked more like a posh showroom of some kind than a hotel.

  Tasnim was waiting, perched on a chair beside a lounge setting.

  ‘Would you believe they don’t have ordinary chairs like this in the lobby?’ she demanded, when she’d greeted Marni with a kiss on the cheek. ‘I had to ask someone to find one for me. There’s no way I could have stood up from one of those low, soft sofas without making a total fool of myself.’