From One Night to Desert Queen

by Pippa Roscoe

  His father stared at him intently and sighed deeply, as if not looking forward to what he was about to say. ‘We all knew that you cared for Samira and she for you.’

  ‘Cared?’ Khalif almost choked, anger gripping him almost instantly.

  ‘But we also knew that she wasn’t right for you,’ his father continued. ‘Us, Faizan and even Samira.’

  Khalif fisted the glass and clamped his jaw shut. He was furious. Not with his father but because he knew that his father was right.

  ‘You were the younger son, Khalif. The one protected from the lessons and the rigours of royal instruction. In hindsight, that was a mistake. I...’ Bakir seemed to struggle for words for the first time Khalif could remember. Finding his strength, he pressed on. ‘My father taught me nothing about ruling a country, for fear that I would try to usurp him. My learning curve was steep. I didn’t want...Faizan to have the same difficulties. I never thought—’

  Hafsa placed her hand on her husband’s and their fingers intertwined.

  Khalif put the glass down on the side table, reached forward and placed his hand over theirs, joining them in their grief but also their love. He was ready to hear whatever his father had to say.

  ‘I knew how much you wanted to be part of Faizan’s lessons, but I feared the distraction. So you were given every freedom in compensation. And while you didn’t want those freedoms, wouldn’t have chosen them for yourself, you did have them. You were spoilt by that freedom—wholly unintentionally.

  ‘No one challenged you, not even Samira. You had a special bond, no one can deny that, and we all loved her greatly. But she would have let you do anything, and you would have run roughshod over her all the while, never needing to do more, to be more, or better. You wouldn’t have been good for each other.’

  Khalif had braced for it and his father’s words still hurt. But he couldn’t deny the truth in them. All this time he had taunted Star for romanticism, but had he not done the same? Had he not fantasised the perfect, but mainly imagined, future with Samira? Had that not been the truest form of romanticism? All the while Star had questioned him, teased him about his preconceptions, challenged him to make better decisions, to follow his gut, encouraged him to make mistakes and learn from fixing them. And with that thought hope bloomed and his heart soared.

  ‘What is that look on your face?’

  ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake, Father.’

  ‘Then why do you look so happy?’

  ‘Because now I get to fix it,’ he said, the smile lifting his lips and his heart soaring for the first time that evening.

  ‘And how are you planning to do that?’

  ‘Romance books. I need romance books.’

  ‘I think he’s gone mad,’ his father said to his wife, looking deeply concerned. But his mother’s eyes were lit with sparkles that only reminded Khalif of Star.

  * * *

  Star plucked at a loose thread on the long end of the pashmina she wore, her eyes sore and finally dry. She had sandwiched the phone between her ear and shoulder to leave both hands free so she could tackle the frayed cotton.

  ‘I can be on a plane in two hours.’

  ‘Mum, you don’t drive, your bank account is pretty much empty, you hate carbon emissions more than you hate the Tories, and my plane leaves in three hours, so I’ll be back in England before you would even get here.’

  ‘Your sister said exactly the same thing,’ Mariam Soames grumbled.

  ‘It’s the thought that counts, Mum. Star sounded happy?’

  ‘Yes, she did. I’m looking forward to meeting this Chalendar. And I’m looking forward to having all my girls back in the same country and under the same roof. I don’t like the idea of Summer at that house all on her own.’

  Star marvelled that her mother had grown up in the sprawling, dilapidated Norfolk estate and insisted on calling it a ‘house’, despite the fact it had over thirty bedrooms. Star’s fingers left the cotton thread and lifted to the gold ropes of the chain at her neck.

  How she and her sisters had thought they would have been able to keep the search for the missing jewels from their mother a secret, she had no idea. It had hurt to reveal Elias’s manipulations to their mother, but when Skye had called them from France they’d known that it was time to tell Mariam everything. She had been as angry as much as Mariam Soames was capable of being angry with her daughters, which was about as long as it took to sigh.

  ‘I know what you girls are trying to do—’

  ‘We’re so nearly there, Mum,’ Star whispered, more of a plea than a promise. ‘Skye has the map of the secret passageways, I have the key—we just need to find them now.’

  ‘I know, Star. I just...’ There was a pause on the end of the line and Star imagined her mother shifting her shawl around her shoulders. ‘I’ve decided that I’m going to move in with Samantha for a bit.’

  ‘Really? I thought you might want to—’

  ‘Live with my just-beginning-to-find-their-feet, lovely and well-meaning daughters?’ Mariam replied and Star couldn’t help but smile at the laugh in her mother’s voice.

  The words just beginning to find their feet really struck Star. It was a little too close to what she’d hoped to achieve by coming to Duratra—to prove that she could stand on her own two feet—and Star felt as if she both had and hadn’t.

  ‘Samantha has known me for years. She’s perfectly capable of putting up with me for a little longer,’ Mariam said assuredly but without thought. A sob rose suddenly and shockingly in Star’s chest. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ her mother said.

  ‘I know,’ Star promised.

  ‘We are going to beat this.’

  ‘I know,’ Star replied, forcing a smile to her lips in the hope that it would be heard in her voice. ‘Actually... I was thinking about moving out of the flat and setting up somewhere on my own. Do you think that Skye would be okay with that? I mean—’ Star struggled to find the words to explain her sudden need to hold onto that bit of independence she’d discovered in Duratra ‘—with Summer away at uni most of the year...’

  Her mother sighed. ‘I think that Skye will worry but, with her engagement, it’s more than likely that she’ll be relocating to France. If it feels right for you, my love, then we will all support you one hundred per cent.’

  ‘I think it might scare me a little, but it’s something I would like very much. I love Skye and Summer but...they need to see that I am capable of being independent.’ Star sighed, all the pent-up emotion pouring from her chest in one breath. ‘Mum...’ she started, nervous as to the answer. ‘Do you think Kal was right? Have I been hiding?’

  ‘No, my love,’ said her mother, her voice warm and reassuring. ‘You haven’t hidden in romances. You’ve been learning. Learning what you like, what you want, and what you will and won’t put up with.

  ‘Romances don’t warp our expectations, they raise them. And there is nothing wrong with that. They show us that it is okay to put ourselves, our desires, at the forefront of our intentions. They show us not to be ashamed of our wants. Whether that want is emotional, practical or sexual, my love.’ While cringing at her mother using words like sexual, because that was never going to be okay, Star knew what she meant. ‘You should never have been made to feel ashamed or rejected. Not by your grandparents, nor your prince.’

  ‘He’s not my prince, Mum.’

  ‘They should be the ones who feel shame, Star,’ Mariam carried on as if Star hadn’t interrupted. ‘You reached out to make a connection with honesty, integrity, love and hope. They are lesser for turning you away. You are worthy of someone who reaches for you.’

  Star smiled at the old family joke and she couldn’t help the flood of memories overwhelming her. Khalif reaching to take her from his horse...the incredible gift of taking her to the desert, giving her a connection to Catherine that felt fated...making her
feel loved and wanted by her ancestors, even if he hadn’t been capable of it himself.

  She allowed herself to feel that love, for her heart to swell with it as she promised to call her mother the moment she touched down in England. But as she ended the call, clutching the double-chained necklace which she kept interlocked together, she forced herself to face reality.

  He had also left her alone without barely a thought and kept her hidden even when he knew he shouldn’t. He had pushed her away with cruel words because it was easier than fighting his demons. And he had made her feel just as unwanted as wanted. But, despite the hurt and pain she felt, she knew he had been right.

  He couldn’t have chosen her any more than Catherine could have chosen Hātem, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was a sense of wrongness about repeating the same decisions that had been made by their ancestors.

  She glanced at the departures board, frowning when she noticed that there was a delay sign against her flight that hadn’t been there two minutes ago. Everything in her wanted to go home, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that her home was no longer in England.

  Perhaps the desert sand had got into her blood somehow. She shook off the curious notion as she noticed a few heads turn towards the entrance of the airport. There was a rise and fall in murmurs, like the dip and swell of the sea and, while she tried to ignore it, more and more heads were turning and she began to hear audible gasps.

  A group turned into a crowd and nearly forty people were now gathered near the entrance, all focusing on one point and then parting like the waves to make way for...for...

  Oh, my...

  The first thing she saw was Khalif, his eyes blazing with purpose and something she dared not name. Then she saw the horse. Mavia, she recognised, decked out in a saddle that had more gold and jewels on it than Star had thought possible. What on earth was he doing here on a horse?

  The gold brocade bisht over his thawb was immaculate, and the keffiyeh around his head picked out the same gold tones, making him impossibly regal and almost too handsome for her to look at. Star focused on as many details as possible, trying to ignore the burst of hope that swelled in her heart.

  Mavia lifted her head as if to say hello and Star soon found herself within metres of the incredible animal and her rider. The crowd who had at first held up their phones to capture a picture of their Prince, soon began to lower them one by one, some being nudged by a neighbour, others of their own volition, and Star could have sworn that she’d seen Amin somewhere in the midst of it.

  Khalif swung ever so gracefully from Mavia and took two steps towards her before dropping to his knee, much to the gasped delight of the crowd.

  ‘Kha—’ Star clamped her mouth shut, took a moment and tried again. ‘Your Highness,’ she said—clearly unable to ignore the royal on bended knee right in front of her.

  Once again, she felt the familiar search of his eyes across her face, her body, as if trying to take her in all at once and it not being enough. At least that was what she felt she was doing to him. Searching, hoping...waiting.

  ‘Miss Soames,’ Khalif said, loudly enough for the entire crowd to hear, ‘I stepped down, trying not to look at you, as if you were a Star, yet I saw you, like a Star, without even looking.’

  The words were poetic and lovely, but familiar and—She frowned. Wait, was that Anna Karenina? If not in full, then near enough. She opened her mouth to ask, but he pressed on.

  ‘Because whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same...’ he insisted with a smile, as if confident she would recognise that as Brontë. ‘Because I assure you, I was asleep, until I fell in love.’

  Star couldn’t stop the roll of her eyes. ‘I refuse to believe that you read War and Peace in the last twenty-four hours, Khalif,’ she chided.

  ‘It might have been the crib notes version, but still... A very clever romance novel once said that “It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”’

  ‘Thackeray,’ she whispered, the goosebumps spreading from her toes to her shoulders.

  ‘“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”’

  She couldn’t smile—not yet. In spite of all the hope and all the love she felt in that moment, she needed more. ‘Pride and Prejudice? Really? Is that how you come to me? With the words of others on your tongue?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he replied, with no hurt or censure in his eyes, as if he’d expected her to challenge him. ‘That was just to get your attention.’

  ‘And you didn’t think the horse would be enough?’ she teased.

  The crowds laughed a little, reminding her that they had an audience.

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere a little more private?’ she whispered to him.

  ‘I am right where I need to be, Star Soames,’ he said, his voice loud, confident and carrying, causing tears to gather in her eyes. ‘And no. The horse was not enough,’ Khalif said, as if all joking was done and now he wanted her to know the sincerity of his words. Of his love.

  ‘I’m not completely sure that there will ever be enough ways for me to tell you how much I love you and why. But I’m going to try. You exploded into my life, dragging me by the arm and leading me to places I never expected.’

  She blushed at the memory of how she had first encountered the Prince of Duratra, not having a single clue that he had been anything other than another tourist.

  ‘You put your trust and faith in me from the first, though I had not earned such a gift. You experienced, in the harshest of ways, the constraints of royal life and bore them without question, without argument or censure. You taught me things I didn’t know I still needed to learn and helped me to rediscover the things I knew but had forgotten. And in return I made you doubt your dreams. I will not forgive myself for that. I made you feel unwanted, and I promise never to let you feel that again. I made you feel shame by hiding you away, but I was the one who should have felt shame for my actions. So now I vow to you, before the people of my country, that I will spend every day for the rest of my life being worthy of you—even if you choose not to do me the honour of becoming my wife.’

  Star looked down at him, bent at the knee on the floor of the airport, and still the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

  ‘What do you say?’ he asked, and the flash of uncertainty nearly broke her heart.

  ‘Well, I’m tempted to say that you should never ask someone to marry you in the negative, but that’s only really because you asked me to challenge you.’

  * * *

  A gasp of consternation that sounded very much like Amin caused Khalif to smile. He smiled because it was exactly how he’d hoped Star would reply, loving that she still surprised him and kept him pushing for more, for better. Her smile was a little wobbly, but her eyes were bright, clear and full of love he felt to his very soul.

  ‘Surely,’ she said, her voice carrying without effort, ‘my faith in my dreams would not have been that strong if it was shaken by one conversation? In as much as my sense of self would have to have been weak if I blamed you for making me feel unwanted or ashamed. And how could that be, when you were the one to show me that I have been looked for all my life, wanted and cared for by my family through centuries? When you were the one who has shown me that reality can be even more romantic and wonderful than fantasy?’

  She shook her head as if in wonder that he hadn’t, couldn’t see what she saw in him, her love for him. He got to his feet and reached for her, cupping her jaw in his hands, taking what felt like his first breath since the early hours of that morning as she rested her head against his palm.

  ‘Ask me again,’ Star whispered, her eyes locked with his, lit with love and a happiness that made his chest burn.

  ‘Will you, Star
Soames, be my wife, my love, my partner, my Queen?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said as a tear of happiness rolled down her cheek.

  ‘I love you so much,’ he whispered so that only she could hear.

  ‘Good,’ she replied, with a cheeky smile that made his heart soar. ‘Now, please, can you take me home?’

  ‘To England?’

  She shook her head and smiled, playing with the strands of the necklace. ‘No. To Alhafa...to the desert.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said, his heart full of love and peace.

  ‘After we have couriered the necklace to my sisters,’ Star said, with light sparkling in her eyes.

  ‘I know just the man to do it... Amin?’

  EPILOGUE

  STAR STOOD ON the balcony of the suite she shared with her husband at Alhafa, gazing out at the view of the desert she would never tire of.

  She could hear her husband in the shower, and the scent of eucalyptus oil was heavy on the steam escaping from the bathroom. She inhaled deeply, trying to catch it before it disappeared, loving the scent she always associated with her husband.

  She blinked away the jet lag from the time difference between Duratra and the Dordogne, smiling as images from Skye’s wedding to Benoit Chalendar filled her mind and heart. Her older sister had looked breathtakingly beautiful, the love she felt for her husband shining so bright it touched each and every guest. Their mother had cried through the entire ceremony, just as she had at Star’s wedding, stopping only for a short while to laugh at Summer’s daughter Catherine who, despite her mother’s intentions, absolutely stole the show. But only for a heartbeat. And none of the sisters would have had it any differently.

  The relief following her mother’s successful treatment had been both shocking and surprising in its intensity. Khalif had been there and supported her through an aftershock that she had not expected, as all the fear, the hurt and pain she had kept at bay during their search for the jewels had run free only after they had accomplished all they had set out to do. Khalif had held her, comforted her, reassured her, soothed her and loved her through it all.