by Liz Fielding
‘And yet you still believe in love?’
‘I’ve seen it, Kal. My parents were in love. They lit up around each other and my mother still has a dreamy look whenever she talks about my dad. I won’t settle for less than that.’ She looked at him. ‘I hope that Rose won’t either. That this week away from everyone, being anonymous, will help her decide. Will you let her have that?’
‘She’s safe?’ Kal asked, reserving judgement.
‘She’s been wrapped in cotton wool all her life. I’ve loaned her my car and right now she’s as safe as any anonymous woman taking a few days to do something as simple as shopping without ending up like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, or appearing on the front page of next day’s newspaper eating a hot dog.’
‘So what was the panic this morning?’
‘I think someone must have said something that panicked her. She’s not as used to people commenting on the fact that she looks like Lady Rose as I am.’ She used her free hand to make little quotes, put on a quavery voice. ‘“Has anyone ever told you you look a bit like Lady Rose, dear?”’
Kal smiled, but wondered what it must be like to always be told you look like someone else. Whether she sometimes longed for someone to say that Lady Rose looked like her.
‘I’ll bet that gets old. How do you cope?’
‘It depends. If some old biddy whispers it to me in the supermarket, I whisper back that I really am Lady Rose and I’m doing undercover research into working conditions. Warn her not to tell a soul, that she’s spotted me. Then wait to see how long it takes before she points me out to someone.’
‘That’s really bad.’
‘You said it, Kal. I’m no angel.’
And for a moment he thought only about the touch of her lips beneath his fingers, the taste of them beneath his mouth. Then forced himself to remember that she had deceived him. Put his own mission in jeopardy. If the Emir, the Princess ever discovered the truth…
‘Sometimes I do a flustered “good heavens, do you really think so, no one has ever said that before” routine,’ she said, distracting him with the whole surprised expression, fluttery hand to chest routine.
‘I like that one,’ he said, which brought that light-up-the-day smile bubbling to her face.
‘My favourite is the one where I put on a slightly puzzled smile…’ she did a perfect version of the world famous luminous smile that was about a hundred watts less bright than her natural one ‘…and say “Only a bit?” and wait for the penny to drop.’
‘You’re a bit of a clown on the quiet, aren’t you, Lydia Young?’
‘Quiet?’ she repeated.
He’d caught glimpses of this lively woman beneath the Rose mantle, but in full flood she was irresistible. Now that she’d stepped out of the shadows, was wholly herself, he knew that it was the lippy woman desperate to break out of the restraints of being Lady Rose that he desired, liked more and more. Her laughter lit him up, her smile warmed him. Even when he was furious with her he wanted to kiss her, wrap her up in his arms and keep her safe, love her…
‘Maybe that wasn’t the most appropriate word,’ he said quickly. ‘Did you never consider a career as an actress?’
‘No.’
One minute they were laughing, the next they weren’t.
‘No more,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this any more, Kal. I shouldn’t be here. Rose shouldn’t be hiding and I shouldn’t be living a pretend life.’
‘No.’ Then, ‘You’ve stopped shivering.’
‘Nothing like tea for shock,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry if I frightened you.’
‘Only for about a millisecond. Then I knew it was you.’
‘I was angry,’ he said.
Lydia swallowed, nodded. Of course he was angry. He’d been charged with protecting her-protecting Rose-and she had sneaked off the minute his back was turned.
‘You had every right,’ she said. ‘But you stuck around to look out for me, even when you knew I wasn’t Rose.’
Long after her momentary fear had been forgotten, she’d still feel his strong, protective arm as he’d held her against him. She recalled the warm scent of his skin.
She wouldn’t need a shell or anything else to remember that. Remember him.
‘So,’ she said, sensing the weight of unspoken words between them and, recalling his earlier tension, she repeated the question she’d asked him then, ‘what’s your problem, Kal? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Not just lovely, not just cool under pressure and a loyal friend, but smart, too,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘You’re right, of course. I have a confession to make.’
‘You got me at lovely,’ she said. Then, because when a man needed to confess, it was never going to be good news, she summoned up all the flippancy at her command and said, ‘Don’t tell me. You’re married.’
No one would have guessed that, in the time it took him to answer, her heart had skipped a beat. Two. Maybe he was right. She should take up acting.
‘No, Lydia, I’m not married.’
‘Engaged?’ This time the pause was longer, but he shook his head.
‘That wasn’t totally convincing,’ she said.
‘I am not in a relationship of any kind.’
Better, but there was something he wasn’t telling her. Maybe if she shut up and let him get on with his ‘confession’ in his own way it would all become clear.
It took another half a dozen heartbeats before he said, ‘I want you to understand that Lucy was truly concerned for Rose. Her grandfather tried to talk her into withdrawing the invitation, said there had been a threat of some kind.’
‘A threat? What kind of threat?’ she asked, alarmed.
‘Lucy was certain there was nothing, that it was just a ploy to keep her under his control, but she had to do something to pacify the Duke so she told him that the Emir’s nephew would be in charge of his granddaughter’s security.’
‘That would be you. And he was happy with that?’
‘No, but he couldn’t object without offending the Emir.’
‘And what about the Emir? Wasn’t Lucy afraid of offending her father-in-law?’
‘She saved Hanif. She can get away with things that no one else would dare to. Even be my friend. My grandfather is dying, Lydia. He lives only to return to Ramal Hamrah to die in the house where he was born.’
Her hand found his and she squeezed it, knowing how much he loved the old man.
‘Lucy knew that Princess Sabirah would want to pay her respects to Rose and she seized the chance to put me where I could make a personal appeal to her, beg her to intercede with her husband.’
‘And?’
‘That first. Above everything…’
‘But, once he has been allowed home, you hope the rest will follow. That you can become a Khatib again. With everything that entails.’ His name, his title…
‘It is as if I have been cut off from half my life. I have the language, I have property here, can study the culture, the history, but without my family…’
The metaphorical clock struck twelve. Time for the coach to turn back into a pumpkin, for Cinderella to go back to the checkout and check out the alternatives to getting a cat. Maybe a rabbit or a guinea pig, she thought. Or half a dozen white mice. Just in case the fairy godmother ever dropped in again.
‘Not just your name, your title, but you want the ultimate prize of an arranged marriage to one of the precious daughters of a powerful Ramal Hamrahn family.’
His silence was all the answer she needed.
‘That was why you stopped.’ She swallowed. ‘Would not make love with me.’
‘Honour would not allow it,’ he agreed.
Honour. What a rare word, but this man who’d been raised in the west was steeped in the culture that had excluded him.
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. The kitchen telegraph would be humming to news of an affair before they disturbed the sheets. Princess Sabirah would suddenly find herself too bus
y to call and all Kal’s hopes and dreams would fly right out of the window. ‘Good call.’
Lydia stood up, pushed open one of the shutters, looked out over the garden, needing a little space to recover, put the smile back on.
‘I’m glad that we were able to be honest with one another, Kal.’
Honest.
This was honest?
This was honour?
Lydia was pretending to be someone she was not, while he was about to collude with her deception, not just of the world’s press but the Emir of Ramal Hamrah.
She turned to him.
‘Will you take me to the souk tomorrow? I’d like to buy a gift for my mother.’
The request was simple enough, but that wasn’t the question she was asking. They both knew it and when, after the briefest pause, he responded in the affirmative with a slight but formal bow, he was confirming that there would be a tomorrow for ‘Lady Rose’ at Bab el Sama.
What choice did he have?
He had been prepared to be patient, wait for those precious things he wanted for himself, no matter how long it took. But for his grandfather time was running out, leaving him with no choice but to seize the chance Lucy had given him.
She wasn’t sure that honour had much to do with it, but love was there in abundance.
‘You should believe in love, Kal,’ she said. ‘You are living proof of its existence. Your love of your family shines through when you talk of them. You yearn with all your heart for this country, for everything that you have lost here and yet you would risk it all on this chance to bring your grandfather home. That’s love at its finest. Unselfish, pure, the real thing.’
‘I am asking a great deal of you, Lydia. I would understand if you said you could not go through with it.’
‘We both have debts, Kal, and to pay them we need each other.’ Then, ‘You’ll excuse me if I ask you to leave now? I need to change.’
Kal watched her wrap herself in the figurative mantel of Lady Rose Napier. Stand a little taller, inject the crispness back into her voice as she distanced herself from him. And where he had been warmed by her smile, her presence, a touch as she’d reached out without thinking, there was now an icy chill.
‘Will you come to the stables in the morning?’ he asked.
He saw her neck move as she swallowed, glimpsed a momentary longing for the closeness that would give them as he lifted her to the saddle, fitted her feet in the stirrups, placed her hands just so on the reins.
Then she shook her head just once and said, ‘Lady Rose is afraid of horses.’
‘And Lydia?’
‘It’s safer to stick to Rose, don’t you think?’
He wasn’t thinking. That was the problem. He’d set out on a quest that he’d believed nothing in the world could distract him from. How wrong could one man be?
He leaned forward, kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll send Yatimah to you.’
When Yatimah arrived, Lydia was filling the huge sunken bath.
‘Sitti!’ she declared. ‘I must do that for you.’ Then, ‘Bin Zaki says that you are going to the souk tomorrow. I will bring you an abbayah to keep the dust from your clothes,’ she said as she ladled something into the bath that foamed magically, filling the air with an exotic, spicy fragrance. ‘Would you like me to wash your hair?’
‘Not tonight. I’m really tired so I’ll just take a bath and then go to bed.’
She closed the bathroom door, locked it. Leaned back against it. Lifted her hand to her cheek.
Flash, bang, wallop…
Kal walked along the shore that she had walked, but went much further before sitting on a rock and calling his grandfather in London. He didn’t ask how he was feeling. He knew he would be in pain because he refused to slide into the morphine induced coma that would lead to death.
Instead, he described the scene before him. The lights along the far shore, the boats riding on the water, the moon rising, dripping, from the ocean so that he could, in his heart, be here with him.
He called his mother, who’d complained of a cold the last time they’d spoken, listened to her news, her happiness at becoming a grandmother again. She demanded to know when he was going to settle down and add to her joy.
Talked to a brother who was struggling at university. Made a promise to go and see him soon.
This was what Lydia called love, he thought. Joint memories that needed only a word to bubble to the surface. Shared connections, history. To know that you could reach out and there would be a hand waiting.
Without that, how would you ever know how to see beyond the fireworks and make a marriage?
How could you ever know for sure?
He was still holding the phone and he scrolled through his contact list until he found ‘Rose’.
‘Kal?’
Was that it? When just the sound of her voice made your heart sing?
‘Where are you, Kal?’
‘On the beach, watching the moon rise. I called my grandfather so that he could share it.’
‘And now you’re sharing it with me?’ she asked, still distant, still ‘Rose’.
‘I’m making a memory, Lydia.’ One that, for the rest of their lives, whenever either of them looked at the rising moon would bring back this moment. ‘Go onto your balcony and you will see it rise above the trees.’
He heard her move. A door opening. A tiny breath that was not quite a gasp, not quite a sigh. ‘It’s there,’ she said. ‘I can just see the top of it.’
‘Be patient…’
Was it when you could sit miles apart watching the same spectacle and words weren’t necessary?
‘Thank you, Kal,’ she said, minutes later when it was high enough to have cleared the trees around Bab el Sama. Her voice softer. Pure Lydia.
‘Afwan ya habibati, hada mussdur sa’adati,’ he replied. Then, when she’d broken the connection, ‘It is the source of my pleasure, beloved.’
Lydia stood on the terrace at dawn, sipping the orange juice that Dena had brought her, staying to watch Kal ride along the beach.
‘He is faster this morning,’ Dena said enigmatically. ‘The demons must be getting closer.’
‘Yes,’ she replied without thinking. ‘They are.’
She’d scarcely slept-at this rate she would soon look exactly like Rose-and had watched the sky grow light, barely able to stop herself from going to the stables, just to be near him.
‘Come, sitti, I will prepare you.’
Two hours later, resolved to keep her distance and wearing a feather-light black silk wrap, she and Kal crossed the creek to visit the souk.
It started well enough. They’d kept a clear foot between them and the conversation safely on topics such as the weather, Arabic vocabulary, followed by a whole lot of incoherent babbling as she’d seen the amazing array of colourful spices that came in dustbin-sized containers instead of tiny little glass jars.
Neither of them had mentioned the full moon they’d watched rising from the far ends of Bab el Sama. Apart and yet more intensely together than if they had been in each other’s arms.
‘Would you like the full tour?’ he asked, ‘or shall we go straight for the good stuff?’
She gave him a ‘Lady Rose’ look and said, ‘The full tour. I want to see everything.’
Maybe that was the wrong answer. The area where the blacksmiths worked was noisy, hot and sparks flew everywhere. There were tinsmiths hammering away too and carpenters repairing furniture.
Once they turned into an area where tailors were waiting to run her up a dress in an hour or two things improved. There were tiny shops containing all kinds of strange and wonderful foods that weren’t on the shelves of the supermarket that was her second home. She tasted Turkish delight flavoured with cardamom, a glass of tea from a man wandering about with an urn, little sticky cakes from a stall.
It was a different world and she sucked up every experience, her guard dropping long before they reached the stalls piled high with gorgeous silks.
Once there, she realised that she was not alone in wearing western clothes beneath the abbayyeh. There were plenty of woman who, when they leaned forward to look at the goods on display, revealed business suits, trousers, simple dresses beneath them. And although her pale hair and blue eyes made her an obvious foreigner, no one took much notice.
‘They’re used to Lucy and her friends,’ Kal said. ‘And another cousin, Zahir, is married to an English woman, too. A redhead in his case.’
‘I read about it,’ she said. ‘It caused quite a sensation but I had no idea he was your cousin. Do you know him?’
‘Our paths have crossed,’ he said. ‘We’re in the same business.’ He shrugged. ‘My planes carry freight. His carry passengers.’
‘Air freight? When you said you’d hadn’t quite broken the habit of acquiring planes, you weren’t joking, were you?’
‘I ran out of room, so I had to keep some of them in the air,’ he said. Joking, obviously. He had to be joking. ‘Have you decided what you want?’ he asked.
‘It’s impossible, but I’ve narrowed it down to three,’ she said.
‘I thought you were looking at this one?’ He lifted the edge of a rich, heavy cream silk that would be perfect for a wedding dress.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said, ‘but I have no use for it.’
‘Why do you have to have a use for something?’ With a gesture that took in all four fabrics, he spoke briefly to the stallholder. Moved on.
‘Kal,’ she protested. ‘I haven’t paid. I haven’t told him how much I want. And what about my parcels?’
‘He’ll deliver them. And Dena will settle with him. Unless you want to haggle?’
Giving it up as a lost cause, she said, ‘No, thanks. I’d rather hear more about this air freight business of yours. Does it have a name?’
‘Kalzak Air Services.’
‘Kalzak? That’s your company?’ Even she’d heard of them. Everybody had heard of them. ‘I…um…hadn’t made the connection. It’s not exactly a hobby, then?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘It’s not a hobby. But I wasn’t interested in the family business.’