Her heart faltered when he looked down at her and then she saw Saif in his eyes. ‘I think I get that,’ he said.
‘Can we talk?’ she whispered, hardly daring to believe what was happening.
‘We can talk,’ Ra’id confirmed, and, finding her hand with his, he linked their fingers together and, turning, they slowly walked together back to the tent.
He dismissed the servants so he and Antonia could be together.
‘It will cost you nothing,’ she told him earnestly, fixing her gaze on his. ‘No jewels, no land grants, nothing except you and me together, forging a future.’
He heard the question in her voice, and it was a question he couldn’t wait to answer. Drawing her to him, he kissed her gently on the brow. ‘Your wish is my command,’ he murmured.
He had dreams too, and his dream had grown to encompass the two of them standing together—but not too close for, in the words of the poet, even the pillars of the temple stood apart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE VALUE of a hug could not be overestimated, Antonia realised as Ra’id held her close. Sometimes she needed a hug more than anything, and it turned out that Ra’id was really good at that too. They were talking now and he was listening, really listening; she was back with the man she loved, the man she had known as Saif. She had changed into a casual robe and was reclining on the cushions with Ra’id, staring out across the ocean of sand through the silken curtain that covered the entrance to his pavilion. ‘I could never live as my mother lived.’
‘You won’t have to. And, before you accuse me of fiendish plots and insurmountable character-flaws, let me reassure you that I do understand love. I also understand that love takes many forms and that sometimes fate doesn’t allow enough time for love to be proven.’
‘You’re not defending your father, I hope?’
‘He gave your mother land. People show their love in different ways, Antonia, and though I think my father loved himself best of all I also think he finally discovered a conscience.’
‘But he abandoned his son, Razi, for reasons of self-interest.’
‘I can’t argue with you on that point, but neither can I continue to believe that your mother didn’t care for you.’
‘What?’ Antonia turned to him in surprise.
‘She must have done.’
‘Or wanted to cause the maximum upheaval in Sinnebar as some sort of revenge.’
‘Isn’t it time to give her the benefit of the doubt?’
‘I never thought I’d hear you defending her.’ This was the pivotal moment, Antonia felt, when Ra’id would make sense of her past as she was beginning to understand his.
‘Helena must have known her life in Sinnebar would end some day.’
‘And in such a terrible way—locked up, incarcerated, forgotten. No wonder she bolted into the arms of my father.’
Ra’id nodded ‘Your mother escaped, as she saw it. And went on to make your father very happy, I believe. And when your mother wrote her will she wanted to be sure her children had something significant to remember her by.’
‘Her land in Sinnebar? But in leaving it to her children she must have known how much trouble that would cause.’
‘In Sinnebar when a parent dies their property is divided equally between their surviving children, so Helena had no choice in the matter. And, maybe, the country meant more to Helena than we know. She had that friendship with her maidservant, remember? Maybe Helena was just starting to grow up when my father decided he was tired of her.’
‘I can’t believe you’re taking her side,’ Antonia said, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
‘Why should you find it so hard to believe? You’re Helena’s daughter. I have to believe there was some good in her—unexplored possibilities.’
They remained quiet for a while, and then she said softly, ‘Thank you, Ra’id. I understand now why you wanted to be with me when I read that page from my mother’s diary.’ But she was thanking Ra’id for more than that, Antonia realised; she was thanking him for his ability to see through the muddle of the past to a place from where they could both move forward.
‘Don’t forget this when you put that page away safely, will you?’
Antonia gasped when she saw the necklace Ra’id was holding out to her. ‘Where did you find that?’
‘It dropped into my hand,’ he said, tongue in cheek.
She blushed. ‘I hope you don’t think…’
‘That you stole it?’ With a wry smile, he shook his head and then handed her the slender chain with the diamond-studded heart dangling from it. ‘This has always belonged to you, along with the rest of your mother’s possessions. I can only apologise that, like anything else that was left behind, it wasn’t found earlier and sent to you in Rome.’
‘I’m rather glad it wasn’t,’ Antonia admitted, knowing this was a much better way to receive it. ‘And you’ve mended it!’ she exclaimed.
Reaching behind her neck as Ra’id fastened the clasp for her, she rested her hand on his. ‘Do you think your father gave this to my mother?’
‘Who knows? And does it matter?’ he said. ‘All that matters is that you have it now. I believe your mother would have wanted that.’
‘You really are turning into a romantic.’
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Ra’id cautioned. ‘A few romantic minutes a day are the most I can manage.’
‘So, not long enough—’ She had been about to say ‘for a wedding’, and only just managed to stop herself in time.
But Ra’id would not be distracted. ‘Not long enough for what?’ he said. ‘What were you about to say to me, Antonia?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, but her blazing cheeks gave her away. ‘Do I expect too much?’
Antonia’s face was as serious as he had ever seen it; this was the closest they had ever been, and she needed him to be absolutely honest with her. ‘You’ve certainly tested me to the limits of my endurance.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do,’ he said, his lips tugging in a smile. ‘Why don’t you test me again?’ he suggested. And this time she knew exactly what he meant.
It was much later when he caused her to cry out again, and this time with surprise. ‘Sorry,’ he mocked gently, removing the velvet box from her hand before she had a chance to open it. ‘I forgot you don’t like surprises.’
‘Just a minute,’ she admonished him, sitting bolt-upright, naked and beautiful. ‘Like you said about love, surprises come in many forms—and some of them aren’t so bad.’
‘Well, if you’re sure?’ he said, pressing his lips down in a pretence of doubt as he opened the catch on the velvet box to reveal the magnificent royal-blue sapphire surrounded by blue-white diamonds he had picked out in the hope that Antonia would wear it on her wedding finger.
‘Are you suggesting a partnership?’ she said, narrowing her eyes.
‘I was rather thinking a marriage. Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘No, it isn’t the same thing at all,’ she assured him with all the defiance in her voice that he loved.
‘A marriage and a partnership, then?’ he amended.
‘If I can have both…’ She appeared to think about it.
‘If I can have you standing beside me, you can have anything,’ Ra’id said.
‘In that case…’
‘I love you,’ he said simply as she threw herself into his arms. ‘I love you and I want to marry you, Antonia. Unfortunately that means you will have to be a queen, and for that I apologise. I know you, above all people, understand what is involved in loving a country and its people as I do.’
‘And I love its king,’ she assured him. ‘But, most of all, I love you…Saif, Ra’id, Sword of Vengeance—whoever you are.’ And then she laughed and warned him, ‘You’d better not use that sword on anyone else, or you’re in serious trouble.’
‘Grow up,’ he said, tumbling her onto the cushion
s.
‘In that respect? Never,’ she promised him defiantly.
Then he kissed her with all the passion with which only Ra’id was capable, and in a way that convinced Antonia she’d found not her lover, or even her husband, but her soul mate; there could be no other. Ra’id had kissed the last of her fears away until she was triumphant and strong. There was only one thing missing, Antonia realised as Ra’id pulled away.
But then he did that too.
‘Antonia Ruggiero,’ he whispered, kneeling in front of her with his head bowed. ‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
‘Yes…Oh, yes!’ she exclaimed.
‘Will you be my queen, the mother of my children, and will you work at my side for the good of Sinnebar?’ Ra’id demanded, lifting his proud, formidably handsome face to stare her in the eyes. ‘Because I love you—and will always love you.’
‘I will,’ she said fearlessly. ‘I will.’
Moving to embrace her, Ra’id cupped her face in his hands. ‘If you look with your heart, you will find as I did that the most important things in life aren’t land or possessions, they’re invisible.’
‘As long as I’m not invisible.’
‘You, Antonia?’ Ra’id’s expression changed from irony to sincerity. ‘You could never be ignored—you’d make sure of that. But please be serious for a moment. I’m saying I love you, and I’ll take a lifetime to prove it to you if I have to. And, as for the land, it will always be yours—’
‘Or I could give it to the people of Sinnebar,’ she interrupted him, which felt right to her.
A faint smile tugged at Ra’id’s firm mouth. ‘Now do you see why I love you?’ he said, and, taking the fabulous sapphire ring out of its velvet nest, he placed it on Antonia’s wedding finger.
EPILOGUE
SHE couldn’t have everything her own way.
Which wasn’t such a bad thing, Antonia conceded, staring at her wedding dress twinkling in the faint, pink light before dawn. Ra’id had insisted that their people required their queen to look like a queen, and that Antonia could have her wedding dress adapted at some later stage and wear it again if she felt bad about the extravagance.
It was a dream of a dress, Antonia reflected, holding back the folds of the lavish bridal-pavilion where she had spent the night. She had tumbled out of bed in time to see Ra’id leave the encampment. He had galloped away on his fierce black stallion, with his younger brother Razi at his side, their very masculine silhouettes framed against a brightening sky as they rode across the brow of the dune. They were two unimaginably powerful men like heroes of old, leaning low over the necks of their straining horses as they raced away, no doubt to enjoy an early-morning swim in some lush, green oasis.
The wedding gown the tribeswomen had created for their queen was an exquisite column of a dress in heavy ivory silk, embroidered for this occasion in gold thread by specialist craftswomen who lived deep in the interior of Sinnebar. It managed to be both demure and sexy, with long sleeves to preserve Antonia’s modesty, but body-skimming to hint at what lay beneath. She hoped Ra’id would take the hint, as they hadn’t made love since their last night in the desert. Far from dulling her sexual urges, pregnancy had only made her hungrier for him, a fact she was sure he knew, but which he cruelly refused to take action on. The thought that this would be their wedding night made desire cry deep inside her, and it was a voice she was determined he would hear.
The sexual tension between them had become unbearable, Antonia realised as she walked deeper into the luxurious womb-like interior of her tent. The bridal pavilion was decorated in many shades of crimson, fuchsia and rose-pink silk, and was a delicately scented sanctuary where she was supposed to be resting before the rigours of their week-long marriage ceremony. But wanting Ra’id made rest impossible. It felt as if they were starting over from the moment they had met. Her body yearned for him so shamelessly, only now it was worse, because now she knew what she was missing.
The wedding ceremony was to be at dawn and already a tented city had grown up on the ivory-sugar sand. Lights glinted as far as the eye could see, as Ra’id’s subjects had gathered from every corner of the kingdom to see him wed the girl who had laboured night and day at their side to prepare the renovated fort for the first of the children it would house. Antonia had wanted to name the centre after her mother, but the people had ruled that they would name it after her. Ra’id had compromised when he’d opened the Queen Antonia Children’s Centre, adding a small plaque signed by Antonia in memory of Helena Ruggiero that said quite simply: She looked into the future and believed.
That plaque was the best gift Ra’id could ever have given her, Antonia reflected, gazing at the casket of fabulous jewels he had given her the previous evening. She smiled, remembering him commanding her not to take them off during their wedding ceremony, as she had removed her jewels once before. ‘Our people must see you,’ Ra’id had insisted, when she protested at the size and quantity of the sparking diamonds.
‘They’ll hardly miss me wearing these,’ she had replied, touching the glittering stones he had fastened around her neck. ‘They must be worth a king’s ransom.’
‘No—a sheikh’s,’ he had told her dryly. ‘You may consider me your hostage for life.’
She would, Antonia thought, hugging herself in anticipation.
She turned at the sound of footsteps. The women had come for her, she noticed, her excitement mounting as they slipped silently into the pavilion. She still couldn’t believe they had come to dress their queen.
They bathed her, prepared her, scented her and polished her, until her skin glowed and her body yearned for the touch of Ra’id—her lover, her soul mate, her king. They laced the diamonds in her hair and arranged her filmy, ivory-coloured veil beneath them—the veil that Ra’id would remove in their wedding tent prior to…
The sound of the nafir, the horn with a single true note, was a fortunate disruption to Antonia’s progressively sensual thoughts. There were people to greet, and a ceremony to undergo with grace and dignity, before the longed-for moment when she could be alone with Ra’id.
And when that moment came she trembled like a virgin. Or, at least, that was how she felt as Ra’id removed her veil with a teasing lack of speed. She felt like a virgin waiting to be kissed by her lover for the very first time. But when Ra’id kissed her brow, and then the swell of her belly where their baby lay safe and loved, she knew this was going to be better and far deeper than anything she had experienced before.
‘Our child,’ he murmured, sharing her sense of wonder.
‘Our family,’ she answered, quivering with enough expectation to found a dynasty as Ra’id’s lips brushed her mouth. That kiss was all the more arousing for his lack of haste or pressure, she realised, shivering with frustration beneath Ra’id’s tantalisingly light touch.
‘We have all the time in the world,’ he murmured, teasing her as he always did.
‘Don’t make me wait that long,’ Antonia protested, while Ra’id laughed. And, falling back on the bed, he drew her on top of him. ‘Tiger woman.’
‘Meets rampant lion?’ she suggested, tracing the lines of the tattoo on Ra’id’s chest.
‘An interesting coupling,’ he agreed.
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ Antonia suggested, slipping out of her fabulous robe.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6438-4
MASTER OF THE DESERT
First North American Publication 2010.
Copyright © 2010 by Susan Stephens.
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