by Liz Fielding
‘I know that you hoped to be totally private here, Rose, but I’m sure you understand that Princess Sabirah could not ignore your presence in her country.’
Lydia felt the colour drain from her face.
When Rose had asked her to do this it had all seemed so simple. Once she was out of the country there would be nothing to do but indulge herself in one of those perfectly selfish holidays that everyone dreamed about occasionally. The kind where you could read all day and all night if you wanted to. Swim. Take a walk on the beach. Do what you wanted without having to think about another person.
And, like Rose, do some serious thinking about the future.
She’d had ten good years as Rose’s lookalike and had no doubt that she could go on for ten more, but now she’d met Kal and the only person she wanted to be was herself.
No pretence.
No lies.
Not that she was kidding herself. She knew that if, in the unlikely event that he’d ever met her as ‘herself’, he wouldn’t have even noticed her.
Everything about him was the real deal, from his designer suit to the Rolex on his wrist-no knock-offs for this man. Including women.
The pain of that was a wake-up call far louder, the argument for reality more cogent than any that her boss at the supermarket could make, even using the in-store announcement system.
She had been coasting through her own life, putting all her energies into someone else’s, and she would never move on, meet someone who wanted her, the real Lydia Young, unless she started building a life of her own.
‘When?’ she asked, ungluing her tongue. ‘What time?’
Maybe she could throw a sickie, she thought a touch desperately, but instantly rejected the idea as she realised what kind of fuss that would cause. This wasn’t some anonymous hotel where you could take to your bed and no one would give a damn. And she wasn’t some anonymous tourist.
If Lady Rose took to her bed, panic would ensue, doctors would be summoned-probably by helicopter from the capital. And Kal or Dena, probably both, would call Lucy, the Duke of Oldfield and then the game would be up.
No, no, no…
She could do this. She had to do it.
‘Relax. She won’t be here for a day or two and she won’t stay long,’ Kal said, not looking at her, but concentrating on serving himself. ‘Just for coffee, cake. Dena will arrange everything,’ he added, that tiny muscle in his jaw tightening again.
What was that? Tension?
What was his problem?
‘Does she speak English? What will we talk about?’
‘I believe her English is excellent and I imagine she’ll want to talk about your work.’
‘Really?’ Lydia had a flash image of herself politely explaining the finer points of the checkout scanner to Her Highness over a cup of coffee and had to fight down a hysterical giggle as the world began to unravel around her.
‘Play nice,’ he said, ‘and you’ll get a generous donation for one of your good causes.’
Kal’s flippancy brought her crashing back to reality. This was not in the least bit funny and her expression must have warned him that she was no more amused by his remark than Rose, whose parents had been killed on a charity mission, would have been.
‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ he said immediately. ‘That was unforgivable.’ He shook his head and she realised that for some reason he was as on edge as she was. ‘I’m sure she’ll just want to talk about Lucy and her grandchildren. It’s a while since she’s seen them.’
As if that was better!
She’d assumed that being at Bab el Sama would be like staying in a hotel. Great service but everything at a distance. She hadn’t anticipated having to live with the pretence of being Rose in this way. This minute by minute deception.
She’d come dangerously, selfishly close to confessing everything to Kal before Dena had interrupted her but she could not, no matter how desperately she wanted to, break Rose’s confidence.
She had made this offer with a free heart and couldn’t, wouldn’t let her down just because that heart wanted to jump ship and fling itself at someone else.
‘I appear to have spoiled your appetite,’ Kal said, and she took a little heart from the fact that he didn’t seem particularly comfortable to hear of their unexpected visitor either.
‘I’m good,’ she said, picking up her fork and spearing a piece of chicken so succulent that, despite her dry mouth, she had no trouble swallowing it. ‘So tell me what, exactly, is your problem, Kal?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
EXACTLY? Kal took a piece of bread, tore it in two.
‘Why would you think I have a problem?’ he asked, playing for time in the face of Rose’s unexpected challenge.
‘There’s a muscle just by the corner of your mouth that you’d probably be wise to cover when you play poker,’ she replied.
She reached out and touched a spot just below the right hand corner of his mouth.
‘Just there.’
As their eyes locked, he kept perfectly still, knowing that if he moved an inch he would be tasting those long, slender fingers, sliding his tongue along the length of each one, and food would be the furthest thing from his mind. That the only thing he’d be eating would be her.
As if sensing the danger, she curled them back into her palm, let her hand drop.
‘Should I ever be tempted to gamble, I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said. Took a mouthful of bread before he blurted out the real reason he had been foisted on her by Lucy and she sent him packing.
Rose made no move to eat, but continued to regard him. ‘Well?’ she prompted, refusing to let the matter drop. ‘I recall that you mentioned your family were personae non gratae at court and presumably, as a royal residence, Bab el Sama is an extension of that. Will Princess Sabirah’s visit be awkward for you?’
The breath stopped in his throat. Not suspicion, concern. She was anxious for him…
‘This was originally the site of the Khatib tribe’s summer camp,’ he told her, not sure where exactly he was going with this, but wanting her to understand who, what he was. ‘The mountains provided not only water, grazing for the animals, but a fortress at their back in troubled times.’ He looked up at the barren peaks towering above them. ‘They are impassable.’
‘So is that a yes or a no?’ she asked, refusing to be diverted by history.
‘Good question.’
And the answer was that, far from awkward, Lucy was using court etiquette for his benefit, putting him in a place where his aunt could not, without causing offence to an honoured guest, ignore him.
In London, in her elegant drawing room, it had all seemed so simple. Before he’d met Rose. Now nothing was simple and if this had been for him alone he would have stepped back, taken himself out of the picture for the morning. But this was for his grandfather.
‘Maybe you’d better tell me what happened, Kal,’ she said when he didn’t offer an answer. ‘Just enough to stop me from putting my foot in it.’
‘Your foot?’
‘I’m sorry. You speak such perfect English that I forget that it isn’t your first language.’ She frowned. ‘I’m not even sure what your first language is. Arabic, French…?’
‘Take your pick,’ he said. ‘I grew up speaking both. And quickly added English when my father married for the second time. I know what “putting your foot in it” means. But, to answer your question, the court is wherever the Emir happens to be, so I’m safe enough unless he decides to accompany his wife.’
‘And if he does?’
He couldn’t get that lucky. Could he? Or was the Emir, like everyone else, fascinated by this English ‘Rose’ who’d been orphaned so tragically as a little girl. Who, from the age of sixteen, had taken up her parents’ cause, devoted her whole life to the charity they’d founded, adding dozens of other good causes over the years.
‘I’m wherever you happen to be, Rose. And you are an honoured guest in his country. Who knows,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘he
might be sufficiently charmed by you to acknowledge my existence.’
‘Whoa, whoa…’ She put down her fork, sat back. ‘Back up, buster. I need to know what I’m getting into here.’
‘“Back up, buster”?’ he repeated, startled out of his own concerns. ‘Where on earth did Lady Rose Napier pick up an expression like that?’
She blinked, appeared to gather herself, physically put the cool façade back in place. ‘I meet all kinds of people in my work,’ she said. Even her voice had changed slightly, had taken on a hint of steel, as if she was drawing back from him, and he recalled his earlier feeling that she was two separate people. The formal, untouchable, unreadable ‘Lady’. And this other woman whose voice was huskier, whose lush mouth was softer, whose eyes seemed to shine a brighter blue. Who used unexpectedly colloquial expressions.
The one he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off.
The selfish gene, the one he’d been fighting all his life, urged him to reach out, grasp her hand, stop that Rose from slipping away.
Instead, like her, he took a moment to gather himself, take a step back before, control restored, he said, ‘What happened is no secret. Google my family and you’ll find enough gossip to fill a book.’
‘I’d rather save that for when I’ve run out of fiction,’ she replied crisply. ‘The edited highlights will do.’
‘I wish it was fiction,’ he said. ‘My grandfather was hardly a credit to his family.’
He reached for a pitcher of water, offered it to her and, when she nodded, he filled both their glasses.
‘Kalil al-Khatib, my grandfather, was the oldest son of the Emir and, although a ruler is free to name his successor, no one ever doubted that it would be him.’
‘You have the same name as your grandfather?’ she asked.
‘It is the tradition. My first son will be named Zaki for my father.’ If he achieved recognition, a traditional marriage, a place in the society that had rejected his family.
‘That must become rather confusing.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if a man has two or three sons, won’t all their firstborn sons have the same name?’ Then, ‘Oh, wait. That’s why Dena calls you “bin Zaki”. That’s “son of”, isn’t it?’
He couldn’t stop the smile that betrayed his pleasure. She was so quick, so intelligent, eager to learn.
The curl of desire as, equally pleased with herself for ‘getting it’, she smiled back.
Then her forehead puckered in a frown as she quickly picked up on what else he’d told her. ‘But I don’t understand. Why do you call yourself al-Zaki and not al-Khatib?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he said, forcing himself to concentrate on that, rather than the curve of her cheek, the line of her neck. The hollows in her throat that were made for a man’s tongue.
‘I have all afternoon.’
He sought for a beginning, something that would make sense of tribal history, the harshness of the life, the need for a strong leader.
‘My grandfather was his father’s favourite. They both loved to ride, hunt in the desert with their falcons. They were, people said, more like twins than father and son. They were both utterly fearless, both much respected. Loved.’
He thought of Dena. She’d called herself his sister, but she was not related to him by blood. Had she loved him, too?
Then, realising that Rose was waiting, ‘He was everything that was required of a ruler in those simpler times.’
‘Everything?’
‘Strong enough to hold off his enemies, to protect the summer grazing, the oases. Keep his people and their stock safe.’
‘That would be before the oil?’
He nodded. ‘They were still the qualities admired, necessary even in a charismatic leader, but it is true that once the oil started flowing and money began to pour into the country, the role needed a greater vision. Something beyond the warrior, the great hunter, the trusted arbitrator. A man to take the international stage.’
‘And your grandfather couldn’t adapt?’
‘Oh, he adapted,’ Kal said wryly. ‘Just not in the right way. He was a big man with big appetites and wealth gave him the entire world in which to indulge them. He spent a fortune on a string of racehorses, enjoyed the gaming tables, never lacked some beauty to decorate his arm and, as the heir apparent to one of the new oil rich states, his excesses inevitably attracted media attention. None of it favourable.’
‘I bet that went down well at home,’ she said with a wry look and he caught again a glimpse of the inner Rose. The one she tried so hard to keep suppressed.
‘Like a lead balloon?’ he offered.
She laughed, then clapped her hand to her mouth.
‘That is the correct expression?’ he asked.
‘You know it is, Kal.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not funny.’
‘It all happened a long time ago. My grandfather has long since accepted that he has no one but himself to blame for what happened.’
‘So what did happen?’ she asked, concentrating on her food rather than looking at him, as if she understood how difficult this was for him. He, on the other hand, watched as she successfully negotiated a second forkful of rice and knew that he could sit here and watch her eat all day.
Instead, he followed her example, picking up a piece of fish, forcing himself to concentrate on the story.
‘In an attempt to remind Kalil of his duty,’ he went on, ‘encourage him to return home and settle down, his family arranged his marriage to the daughter of one of the most powerful tribal elders.’
‘Arranged?’ He caught the slightly disparaging lift of her eyebrows, the sideways glance.
‘It is how it is done, Rose. To be accepted as the husband of a precious daughter is to be honoured. And an alliance, ties of kinship between families, adds strength in times of trouble.’
‘Very useful when it comes to hanging on to land, I imagine. Especially when it lies over a vast oilfield. Does the girl get a say at all?’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘But who would refuse the man who was going to be Emir?’
‘Marriage binds tribal societies together, Rose. I’m not saying that ours is an infallible system, but everyone has a stake in the partnership succeeding. No one wants to match two young people who will be unhappy.’
‘Yours?’
She sounded sceptical. He could see why she might be. He was the second generation to be born and live his entire life in Europe. But at heart…
‘There’s no place for love?’
‘That would be the happy-ever-after fairy tale perpetrated by Hollywood?’ he responded irritably.
He’d hoped that she would understand. Then, remembering Lucy’s concern that she was being guided towards marriage not of her own choice, he realised that she probably did understand rather more than most. And found himself wondering just how much choice a girl really had in a society where being married to a powerful man was the ideal. When her family’s fortune might rise or fall on her decision.
‘Hollywood came rather late in the story, Kal. Ever heard of Shakespeare? “Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark…”’
She said the words with such passion, such belief, that a stab of longing pierced him and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Wanted to believe that out of an entire world it was possible for two people to find one another. Reach out and with the touch of a hand make a commitment that would last a lifetime.
Knowing it for nonsense, that anyone who believed in it was going to get hurt, he shook his head.
‘It’s the same story for the same gullible audience,’ he replied. That kind of attraction is no more than sexual chemistry. Powerful, undoubtedly, but short-lived. ‘I’ve lived with the aftermath of “love” all my life, Rose. The hurt, the disillusion. The confused
children.’
She reached out, laid her hand over his. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then, as swiftly she removed it. ‘I didn’t think.’
He shrugged. ‘I admit that my family is an extreme case,’ he said, but how could he ever put his trust in such here today, gone tomorrow feelings? He’d much rather leave the matter to wiser heads. ‘Not that it was a problem in my grandfather’s case. His response to the summons home for the formal betrothal was a front page appearance on every newspaper with his new bride, a glamorous British starlet who was, he swore, the love of his life.’
‘Ouch!’ she said. Then, her face softening, ‘But how romantic’
‘The romance was, without doubt, intense…’ ‘Like a rocket’, was the way his grandfather had described it. Hot, fast, spectacular and gone as quickly as the coloured stars faded from the sky. ‘But the reason for the swift marriage was rather more prosaic. She was pregnant.’
‘Oh.’
‘He knew his father would be angry, his chosen bride’s family outraged, but, universally popular and always a favourite, he was confident that the birth of a son would bring him forgiveness.’
‘I take it he was mistaken.’
‘When a favoured son falls from grace it’s a very long drop, Rose.’
‘So his father disinherited him.’
‘Not immediately. He was told his new bride was not welcome in Ramal Hamrah, but that when he was prepared to settle down he could come home. My grandfather wasn’t a man to abandon his bride and return like a dog with his tail between his legs.’
‘I like him for that.’
‘Everyone likes him, Rose. That was part of the problem.’
‘And you,’ she said gently. ‘You love him.’
‘He is my jaddi’l habeeb,’ he told her. ‘My beloved grandfather. While my own father was following in his father’s footsteps, Jaddi taught me to speak Arabic, the stories of my people. Their history.’
‘And he gave it all up for love.’
‘While his studious, dutiful younger brother soothed outraged sensibilities and rescued his father’s tattered pride by marrying the girl chosen for the heir. Within a year he had a son with blood that could be traced back a thousand years and was visibly putting all this new found wealth to work for his father’s people.’