Afterwards they lay there very quietly, and it was with a beat of something which felt like hope for the future that Jasmine agreed to Zuhal’s suggestion that they head back to the palace. With a sense of torpor, they dressed and drank some juice before going back outside, where the rested horses seemed infected by their laziness, making the return ride slow and leisurely.
Zuhal wasn’t quite sure at which point he noticed that something was different. Was it the barely perceptible flash from one of the palace windows, as if someone was looking out for them, which made his body grow tense? Or was it just the sight of three of his aides waiting for them in the stable yard—Adham among them, which was highly unusual?
There was an expression on his chief aide’s face which he’d never seen before—one he couldn’t quite decipher—and Zuhal’s heart gave a lurch of foreboding as he tried to work out exactly what was going on. But then he saw a rare smile break out on Adham’s face as he rushed forward to greet the Sheikh.
‘Your Royal Highness!’ exclaimed the aide, not even waiting until Zuhal had leapt from his horse. ‘I have wondrous news! Your brother is returned. The King is alive!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WHERE THE HELL have you been?’
Zuhal stared into the face of his brother—a brother he hardly recognised. Kamal’s face was gaunt, his eyes sunken, and his ragged clothes unlike any he would usually wear as royal regalia. He must have lost at least twenty pounds, and his black hair flowed down past his shoulders. Only his proud deportment betrayed the fact that this was no ordinary man who had been lost in the desert for months and months, but in fact a desert king.
‘Well?’ Zuhal’s demand rang out through the echoing Throne Room. The blonde gleam of Jasmine’s hair reminded him she was sitting in the window seat, but he barely noticed her—his only focus on the brother he had thought was dead. Utter relief at seeing his only sibling alive suddenly transformed itself into righteous anger. ‘Are you going to give me some kind of explanation about how you’ve just miraculously returned, after we’ve spent months sending search parties out for you?’
Kamal nodded, his gaunt expression becoming tight and tense, as if he had no desire to relive what had happened to him. ‘The sandstorm came down on us suddenly and my horse and I were lost—’
‘That much I know,’ Zuhal interrupted impatiently. ‘And if you’d bothered letting someone know where you were going then we could have found you.’
‘No. You could never have found me,’ said Kamal, his voice suddenly bleak. ‘For I was swallowed up in the most inaccessible part of the desert, heavily concussed, with my leg broken.’
‘Oh, my brother,’ said Zuhal, his voice suddenly trembling with an emotion he did not recognise.
‘Were it not for the nomadic tribe from the Harijia region who found me and took me in and helped me back to health, I would surely have died.’ Kamal looked down at his hands. ‘I lived in their tents as one of them for many months and they taught me much about the land I thought I knew. I liked living there.’ He lifted his gaze to his brother. ‘For a while I thought I wanted to stay. Maybe a part of me didn’t want to come back and continue to be King.’
There was a silence.
‘So what changed your mind?’ asked Zuhal slowly.
There was silence. ‘I heard you were getting married to the Englishwoman.’ Another pause. ‘And that she had a child.’
Noiselessly Jasmine rose to her feet and left the Throne Room, but nobody noticed her go. Of course they didn’t. Ever since they’d returned to the palace she’d felt invisible to the man she’d spent the afternoon having sex with and the reason for that was as plain as the nose on her face. The King had returned and her place here was now redundant.
* * *
An exhausted Kamal retired early and Jasmine spent that night in Zuhal’s bed, but his lovemaking—although satisfying—felt almost perfunctory and he resolutely refused to discuss the impact of the King’s return on their future. The following morning he had already left for his early ride when she woke and Jasmine was aware of a sharp sense of disappointment that he hadn’t taken her with him, as was usual. Had he only tolerated her accompanying him on his daily ride because he’d wanted her to marry him?
But now there was no longer any need for him to marry her, was there?
Jasmine found herself in a strange position. She felt alone and scared—more scared even than when she’d found herself pregnant. She didn’t want to put any more pressure on Zuhal but this sense of being in limbo wasn’t doing her any good. She needed to face up to the facts and calmly ask the Sheikh what he really wanted now that his brother had returned—perhaps when they were in bed, soft and satiated by sex. Perhaps when her arms were around his waist and he was nuzzling her neck in a way which made her shiver with something deeper than desire. Or would it be easier if they were face to face across a table, so that she wasn’t naked and vulnerable? So that she could calmly get up and leave and go and cry with dignity and in private…
Trying to work out the best way to approach such a delicate matter, she took Darius out for an afternoon stroll, planning to sit in the palace rose garden and sing him the soft lullabies he loved. Rainbow light arced through the spray of the ornate fountains, and the blousy blooms of perfumed flowers made her feel as if she’d tumbled into a kaleidoscopic fantasy-land as she walked through the spacious gardens. She was going to miss this beautiful place, she thought, with a sudden clench of her heart.
The air was soft and drowsy with the buzz of bees and Jasmine thought she heard the drift of voices coming from the interior of the rose garden. She wondered who it might be as her sandaled feet moved silently towards the sound, until the familiar velvety caress of her lover’s voice indicated he was deep in conversation with his brother.
She didn’t mean to eavesdrop. In fact, she was just about to turn away and go somewhere else in order to give them peace, when she heard her name mentioned. She told herself afterwards that it was only human nature to stand there for a moment or two. To want to know what was being said about her. She told herself it was a good thing she did listen—because otherwise, how would she have known the truth? Wouldn’t she just have carried on weaving impossible dreams about the future and hoping that one day Zuhal might learn to love her, if only a little?
‘Jazz?’ Zuhal’s voice was drawling. ‘What about her?’
‘Won’t she mind not being Queen—now that I’m back?’
‘It is not in her remit to mind.’
‘But she is a woman, Zuhal—and women are notoriously ambitious for their men.’
‘Not Jazz.’ There was a pause. ‘We don’t have that kind of relationship.’
‘What kind of relationship do you have, then?’