Naive and sweet she might be, Zakari thought, but there was much more to her than just that. There was this intelligence in her eyes, this stubbornness within her, that over the days had entranced him—and never more so than now. Though she remained eternally polite, still she wouldn’t relent, refused to play the court jester just to amuse him. What was more, Zakari realised, after yet another monotone answer, Effie wouldn’t reveal anything more of herself if he did not grace her with the same.
Without a word she demanded from him something he rarely bestowed.
Real conversation.
‘You would make an excellent chess player…’ The edge of his mouth lifted into a smile at another monotone, polite answer as she forced him to ponder his next move. Zakari wondered whether opening up would box him in, or somehow release him.
‘I doubt it.’ Effie smiled softly. ‘I don’t play games.’
After the longest hesitation, weighing up her kind, sympathetic face through narrow, mistrusting eyes, Zakari chose the latter.
‘Every day I think of him.’ It was Zakari who broke the endless strained silence. He had never admitted such things—even to himself—could hear the unchecked words coming from his usually guarded lips, only he did nothing to halt them. ‘Still now, in my heart of hearts, I cannot accept that he is dead.’
‘So you cannot grieve…’ Hearing his pain on instinct, she touched him, her hand reaching for his forearm, but the moment contact was made she realised the inappropriateness, pulled her hand back and bunched it into a fist, yet she could feel the tingle in her fingers.
Zakari, in turn, was struggling. He had let her glimpse his pain, had shared enough that surely now she should continue, now she should talk, so that he might relax. Yet that brush on his arm, that mere hint of contact, had brought rare comfort. His black eyes pondered hers, acknowledging that lonely raw piece of his soul had, for just a fleeting second perhaps, been understood.
He had never grieved.
Had never been allowed to grieve.
A prince who would one day be king could not cry.
Anya had grieved. For a second his mind flashed back to Anya, sobbing on the bed. How he had wanted to weep with her, yet he had been sixteen—a king in training. As he stared at Effie, her sapphire eyes pooling with tears, his left shoulder tightened and he could feel again his father’s hand placed there.
‘Stay strong!’ His father, Sheikh Ashraf, had squeezed his son’s shoulder, when Zakari had wanted to be held. ‘It is not for us to demand answers.’
He had never questioned it, yet under her gentle presence he questioned it now.
‘Can I ask what happened?’
Her voice was as soft as his growling response. ‘You know what happened.’
‘I know what I read,’ Effie countered, ‘I know what I heard, but I don’t know.’
‘You know what you need to.’
‘It might help to talk.’
‘How?’ he asked, and Effie realised he truly didn’t know. Here before her was a man whose feelings had never come into things—who had been raised to act, rather than to feel.
‘It just might.’ She could have wept; not for his brother, but for the flicker of confusion in those guarded eyes. She could almost feel him relent and then recoil with every second that passed. What came so easily to her was unfathomable to him.
And then he gave her the sweetest gift of all. Sheikh King Zakari Al’Farisi, with painful words, invited her into his world and, Effie realised, she would love him for ever for it.
‘Emir, my brother, was sick, he had the flu…’ His strong voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper as he continued. ‘I never played with the younger children. I was raised to be king—it was not my place to do childish things…
‘Aarif and Kaliq, the twins, were creeping off to build a raft… They were teenage boys, they should have known better, but they were silly, planning this adventure that they would build a raft and sail out on it to sea. Zafir found out about their plans…’ His voice caught for a moment, but she calmly sat, just waited till he was ready to continue. ‘He begged to go with them. They lost control; they were swept to sea…’
She had heard bits about the tragedy that had happened when Effie was just four years old. She had seen for herself the scar on Prince Aarif’s face where he had been shot, and had read bits about it in the library, but hearing it from the King himself, from the brother who had lost so much, had the tears spilling from Effie’s eyes.
‘They were captured by diamond smugglers. Zafir was a proud little thing—he shouted to them who his father was. Of course, as soon as the smugglers realised just who it was they had captured they became greedy. They bound their wrists with ropes; Aarif and Kaliq still have the scars of the ropes that cut in as the smugglers debated the ransom they would demand…
‘On Calista, the palace was frantic. I remember the search going out, the helicopters and boats…’ Zakari shook his head. ‘It was Zafir that got free, he untied his elder brothers and they ran to the raft and set off. They almost got away, but they were spotted. Aarif was shot in the face; you can see the scars he bears…’
Effie nodded solemnly.
‘They are nothing to his pain inside.
‘Aarif fell into the sea; of course Kaliq jumped in to save his twin—they tried to get to the raft, but the sea pulled it away, with Zafir still on it. The smugglers recaptured the twins, beat them again and again…my father paid the ransom for his two sons…but Zafir…’ He couldn’t continue, so Effie did it for him.
‘He has never been heard of since.’
‘Had he lived, he would be turning twenty-seven this very week. Zafir would be a man.’
‘Maybe he is alive…’ Effie offered, but Zakari closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘My heart says that he is, my head tells me he is dead, that I must now let him rest, yet at my very core I cannot.’ He shook his head now—never had he revealed so much and it had utterly depleted him. Her comfort, the empathy in her eyes, seemed to be invading him now. ‘I will retire now.’
Without another word he did just that, leaving Effie sitting blinking for a moment, before forcing herself to stand, to plump up the cushions and tidy the area ready for the morning. She laid the table for breakfast, then headed to her area, undressed and slipped into bed.
Effie had to force herself to do her duties and then to remain in bed, because with every step, with every movement, with every thought, she was resisting the urge to go to him, to curl up like a kitten on the bed beside him, to offer him some warmth, to hear that deep liquid voice pour into her ears.
To share this night, not with a king, but with the man Zakari.
Concentrate!
Zakari was having trouble doing just that! The sun was high in the clear blue sky, his shadow invisible at his feet—feet that, even though it was only midday, kept willing him to return to her.
At first her chatter had irritated him. Her anxious face peering around the tent each evening as she awaited his return had gnawed at him. Her clumsy ways as she prepared his bath, her tall tales of her mother’s time in the Aristo palace had, at first, irritated him. The way Effie described her mother, she sounded more like a princess than a mere maid.
Yes, at first it had irked him.
And yet, now…
He had come to look forward to it.
The day dragged on endlessly. It was still hours from sunset, and, though he tried to focus on the problems of the islands, his mind wandered. No matter how much he tried to clear his thoughts it was either his brother’s image that danced before his eyes, or it was her face that drifted into focus… Her scent that seemed to lead him back long before sunset.
‘You’re early!’
Christobel would have been lying on a low sofa, reading trashy magazines, drinking wine, Zakari thought…yet here was Effie, rehanging the coloured drapes around the low cushions on the floor.
‘I’m sorry you had to see the place like this, Your Highness.’
‘Carry on.’
‘I just took them outside to freshen them up,’ Effie explained.
‘It is no problem.’ He was frowning slightly, but not because she was working. There was something different about her, something he couldn’t quite place. She was on a small ladder and Zakari watched with more than idle interest as she stretched, her dress lifting, showing creamy, smooth white thighs, and Zakari felt his throat tighten a touch, could see the strain of the fabric over her large breasts, the curve of her round bottom as he stretched out on the cushions.
‘So, how was your day?’ She gave a little laugh as she hung the final drape. ‘Not that it’s any of my business.’
‘It was…’ Zakari pondered for a moment ‘…less than productive.’
‘Oh!’
Her cheeks were pink from exertion, those blue eyes bluer somehow, like two glittering jewels, and her mouth soft and pretty.
How, Zakari thought to himself, could he not have seen her beauty?
And then Zakari felt his heart still for a fraction. As she stretched to arrange the drape Christobel’s ill-fitting dress allowed a revealing glimpse of Effie’s smooth underarms. His eyes once again ran down her legs seeing again the smooth skin there, the sheen of moisturiser now clearly evident. Only now he realised she had been playing with Christobel’s things.