‘Get dressed.’ An urgent knocking sounded on the door. The noise was almost drowned out by the earsplitting whine of another jet flashing over the palace.
Rashad answered the door.
‘Please forgive the intrusion, Your Royal Highness,’ a senior manservant delivered anxiously, ‘but I have been asked to inform you that the Prime Minister is about to arrive. He most humbly requests an audience with you.’
Every scrap of colour in Rashad’s lean, strong face ebbed. He turned the colour of burnt ashes, because he could only think that something had happened to his father. For what other reason would the Prime Minister come to see him without having organised the visit in advance?
‘Rashad?’ Tilda pressed worriedly.
Rashad looked through her as if she had suddenly become invisible. At speed he donned his tie and jacket. ‘Do not on any account leave this room, or speak to anyone, until I return.’
CHAPTER SIX
RASHAD had only got as far as the landing when he recalled his mobile phone, which he had switched off, and he immediately put it on again. He cursed the selfish streak of recklessness that had caused him to ignore the phone’s demands barely thirty minutes earlier. Almost immediately, the ringtone sounded again and he answered it. Informed that his royal parent was waiting to speak to him, he was bewildered.
‘My son,’ King Hazar boomed on the line as if he were addressing a packed audience chamber, ‘I am overjoyed!’
‘You are in good health, my father?’ Rashad breathed in astonishment.
‘Of course.’
Rashad was still shaken by the fear that had seized him. ‘Then, why has the Prime Minister flown out to the desert to speak to me?’
‘The occasion of your marriage is of very great importance to us all.’
Rashad came to an abrupt halt at the head of the stone staircase. ‘My…marriage?’
‘Our people do not wish to be deprived of a state wedding.’
‘Who said that I was married, or even getting married?’ Rashad managed to ask in as level a voice as he could muster.
‘A journalist contacted your sister, Kalila, in London and showed her a photo taken at the airport. Kalila contacted me and e-mailed that picture of Tilda for us all to see. She is very beautiful and a magnificent surprise. I should have sat up and taken more notice the day I heard you were having the old palace refurbished!’
Rashad was thinking fast and realising that so many facts were already out in the family and public arena that he could not simply dismiss the story out of hand. He had been frankly appalled by the presence of the paparazzi at Heathrow-the rumours must have been flying around about his relationship with Tilda before he’d even got his jet off the ground in London! So much for discretion and privacy! He was even more taken aback by his father’s hearty enthusiasm at the news that his son had married a woman he had never met.
‘When you proclaimed that Tilda was your woman and required no visa, old Butrus almost had a heart attack until it dawned on him that you must already be married to her to make such an announcement. And, even had you not been-’ the king chuckled in the best of good humour ‘-according to the laws of our royal house once you declared Tilda yours before witnesses, it was a marriage by declaration. The statute that saved your grandfather’s skin was never repealed.’
Rashad found it necessary to lean back against the wall for support. A marriage by declaration-a law hastily trotted out to clean up the scandal after his licentious grandfather had run off with his grandmother with not the slightest intention of doing anything other than bedding her. It was still legal? He felt as if the bars of a cage were closing round him.
‘My father…’ Rashad breathed in deep.
‘As if you would bring any woman other than your intended bride into Bakhar!’ the older man quipped. ‘No man of honour would sully a woman’s reputation. I had only to hear Tilda’s name spoken and at once I knew she was your bride and that we had a wonderful celebration to arrange. Was she not the woman who gained your heart five years ago?’
As the king waxed lyrical on the subjects of true love and lifelong matrimonial happiness Rashad grew a great deal grimmer at his end of the phone. There might be sunlight beyond the window, but a giant dark cloud was now obscuring his appreciation of it. He had broken the rules only once and now he was to pay the price with his freedom. What insanity had seized him when he had taken the risk of bringing Tilda into Bakhar? It had been an act of utter recklessness and, in retrospect, he could not fathom what had driven him to the point of such incredible folly.
Rashad went downstairs to greet the Prime Minister and his entourage. He accepted hearty congratulations, elaborate greetings and compliments for his bride and the news that a two-day public holiday had already been declared at the end of the month to mark the occasion of his state wedding. He did not even pale when he was informed that formal announcements had been made on the state television and radio services and that bridal good wishes were pouring in from every corner of Bakhar.
It was a full hour before he was in a position to return to Tilda. He was still suffering all the outrage and disbelief of a male who had never put a foot wrong in his life, but now had made one fatal error. He had no doubt whatsoever that Tilda would be ecstatic at the news that she was not a concubine but a wife, and that at the very least they would have to stay married for a year.
Fully dressed, Tilda was pacing the floor. Sporadic outbreaks of gunfire and the extraordinary amount of air traffic had frightened her into wondering if the palace was under attack. When silence had fallen, she had finally succumbed to the most sickening fear that Rashad had not reappeared because he had been taken prisoner, wounded or killed. Her response to that suspicion was much more emotional than she would have liked to admit and had informed her that her hatred ran only skin deep. While it was perfectly all right to loathe Rashad when he was in front of her and enjoying full health, when she was assailed by a vision of him lying somewhere hurt and unattended she felt sick and wanted to rush to his aid. For that reason, she was on the very brink of disobeying orders and leaving the room when the door opened.
‘Where on earth have you been all this time?’ she shot at Rashad in instant fury at his reappearance, when it became immediately obvious that her fears had been nonsensical: not a strand of his luxuriant black hair was out of place and his superb tailored suit was immaculate. ‘I’ve been frantic with worry!’
‘Why?’ Rashad asked, ebony brows pleating.
‘The gunfire…your instructions…all those jets and helicopters flying in and round about!’ Tilda slung at him shakily.
‘There is no cause for alarm. Natural caution urged me to ask you to stay here. But the outbreak of excitement was a celebration and the result of a misapprehension.’ Rashad shrugged a broad shoulder with something less than his usual cool. ‘The misunderstanding is entirely my fault. The whole country thinks that I have brought you back to Bakhar as my wife.’