The older man was sitting with lowered head and closed eyes, his lips moving as though he was praying.
‘He is not answering his cell phone,’ he revealed.
Elinor stopped breathing. Jasim had boasted that there was not a corner of Quaram that did not enjoy good network coverage and she knew he never went anywhere without his phone. She stared into space while the seconds ticked by and she prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life before. Now when she had found such happiness with Jasim, she could not bear to imagine life without him. She heard the buzz of voices beyond the doors and realised that word of the accident was spreading inexorably through the palace; a crowd of people was gathering in the hall. The voices grew louder until she heard the slap of running feet against the marble floor. One of the doors opened with noisy abruptness.
Two of the King’s aides erupted into the room closely followed by a couple of Jasim’s. They raced down the room and burst into animated speech. Elinor had not a clue what they were saying but was convinced they could not be delivering bad news with so much animation and excitement.
‘Jasim has been located,’ his father announced grittily, reaching out to grip her hand in a supportive move. ‘He is well.’
‘How…well?’ Elinor demanded helplessly.
‘Scratches, bruises, but he is whole in limb and he will soon be here with us,’ the King proclaimed tremulously, waving both hands in urgent dismissal of his hovering aides, who were staring at him and then swiftly averting their eyes from their elderly ruler.
Elinor turned worried eyes to Jasim’s father. Unashamed tears of relief were streaming down the older man’s face. He looked at her with anguished eyes of regret. ‘He was always good and worthy of praise and I ignored him.’
‘It’s not too late to change that,’ she murmured feelingly. ‘It’s never too late.’
They sat there together in a surprisingly companionable silence while they waited for Jasim’s return. A curious calm had descended over Elinor. She was thinking that she too would have had regrets had Jasim been taken from her without warning. He might have died without knowing that she loved him and that awareness distressed her.
The palace guard in the grounds discharged their guns in long noisy bursts to announce Jasim’s return. The King hurried down the long room to the doors to await his son. Elinor had already decided to leave the two men alone to talk, but she needed to see Jasim in the flesh to fully believe that he was safe and unharmed. He strode in, black hair tousled and dusty, the sleeve of his shirt missing and a bandage on his arm.
‘I thought you weren’t hurt!’ she exclaimed in dismay.
‘It’s only a scratch,’ he barked, an expression of shock and incredulity crossing his lean dark features as his father suddenly wrapped both arms round him and enveloped him in a hearty emot
ional hug.
Although it hurt Elinor to walk away when she too longed for that physical contact to vent her relief from intense fear and concern, she slipped out of the door behind Jasim and left him in peace with his father while she headed back to their corner of the palace. She still felt dizzy and physically weak at the merciful reprieve from her worst possible fears. Jasim had become as precious to her as Sami and she was still in shock from the fright she had had. Ruefully conscious that stress and heat had left her clothing sticking to her damp skin, she went straight upstairs for a quick shower.
She was wearing only a bra and pants when she heard Jasim return. Snatching up her wrap, she pulled it on and hurriedly knotted the sash before leaving the room to greet him.
‘I’m sorry I was so long,’ he groaned, ‘But my father had a great deal to say to me—’
‘I thought he might,’ Elinor confided, hauling him closer with two possessive hands, drinking in the familiar musky scent of his skin and the rich honeyed aroma of the frankincense smoke that the staff were always wafting ritually over him. ‘He was very upset. That’s why I left you alone.’
‘I am married to an angel of tact and intelligence,’ Jasim drawled softly, holding her back from him to gaze down at her flushed and anxious face with unashamed appreciation.
‘What happened to your cell phone this afternoon?’
‘I was in such a frantic hurry to follow you back to Muscar that I left my phone behind at the villa.’
Elinor frowned. ‘Why were you in such a hurry?’
‘I knew I had to offer you a grovelling apology for ever having believed that you would lie to me.’
Her brows pleated. ‘What are you talking about?’
Jasim dropped an arm round her slim shoulders and walked her into the bedroom. He dug into his shirt pocket and removed a photo and a sheet of paper. He gave her the photo first. ‘I believe that this woman may be your mother, Rose.’
Elinor stared down in surprise at the photograph, which she had never seen before. It depicted her late mother with a much younger and slimmer Prince Murad, both of them clad in evening dress. ‘Yes, it is. Where did you get it from?’
‘It fell out of a copy of the Koran that Murad cherished…along with this letter.’ He passed her the letter.
It was a letter written by her mother to Murad, telling him gently that they had to get on with their lives since they could not be together and that staying in contact would only make that more difficult. ‘It’s very sad,’ Elinor whispered.
‘Murad must have loved her very much to keep the photo and the letter for so many years. When I saw the date I understood why my brother did not ask for his father’s permission to marry your mother. It was the same year that my mother deserted my father and clearly Murad saw no point in requesting the King’s blessing for his marriage with a foreigner. My father was so bitter over what he saw as his own mistake that he would have refused. I’m afraid that if my brother told your mother that he was threatened with disinheritance, he was lying.’
Elinor was shaking her head in rueful comprehension. ‘It’s awful how something one person does can affect so many other lives in different ways.’