From somewhere deep a memory stirred in his mind, surfaced and was then gone again. Had he seen her before—and if so when?
But the woman—a young woman—was speaking again, her words bringing his attention back to the present.
‘Forgive me, Your Highness. I didn’t know that anyone else was out here. I thought no one would notice me.’
Aziza’s voice trembled in her own ears. She should have known that she could be caught out here, like this, away from the celebrations in the main hall. She also knew that Sheikh Nabil was a hard, demanding man, totally focused on security within his palace. Who could blame him after what had happened? But the noise and the heat of the anniversary party had all been rather too much for her. That and watching her older sister Jamalia flirt outrageously—or as outrageously as she dared in front of their parents—with every eligible young man who was present.
She had had to get away from the party, away from playing second fiddle to Jamalia. Away from her father’s constant scrutiny of his second daughter, the one who might as well be a servant because of the way he expected her to keep in the background. She was supposed to stay there and act as chaperone. Of course Jamalia didn’t want her there; and to tell the truth Aziza had wanted to be anywhere but with her sister. She hadn’t even wanted to come to this party in the first place. But her father had insisted. Everyone who was anyone would be at the celebration, and their absence would most definitely be noticed if they weren’t.
‘Not mine,’ Aziza had muttered under her breath but her mother’s glare in her direction had made her think more than twice about saying the words aloud. So she had swallowed down her protest, had dressed herself in the deep pink silk gown that had been provided and had followed in her parents’ footsteps into the golden palace for the evening.
Jamalia of course had thought that her reluctance was only because her sister didn’t want to act as chaperone. That and the fact that Aziza was always ill at ease with the young men who flocked to her side. But there was more to it than that.
And now the real reason why she had been so unwilling to come tonight was standing right before her, tall and powerful, the scent of his skin swirling round her, his dark head blotting out the light of the moon so that she was totally in his shadow.
It was a place she was used to, she acknowledged privately. She had always been in Nabil’s shadow, always trailing after him from the moment when, as a lordly twelve-year-old on a visit to her parents’ home, he had flung himself from the saddle of a horse that had seemed skyscraper high to her diminutive five-year-old status and tossed the reins in the direction of a groom.
‘Who are you?’
The question, hard and sharp, was exactly the same one that Nabil had demanded of her all those years before so that for the moment she didn’t recognise the fact that it had come from Nabil and not from her memories. It was only when she saw his mouth clamp tight together in the darkness of the rich beard he now sported that she realised he had asked her now and not then.
‘Just a maid.’
She looked the part well enough, she reflected. The pink gown wasn’t new, of course, but one handed down from Jamalia. ‘It will do for Zia,’ her father had said. Because Aziza wasn’t the one being paraded in front of the Sheikh in the hope of an advantageous marriage, as her sister was.
‘I—I am with Jamalia, sire.’
Instinct made her spread her skirts, sweeping into a low and careful curtsey. She hoped that the obeisance she showed him might ease the tension she could feel coming in waves from the tall, powerful man before her. Her mother had worried that she would stumble into some awkward situation if she went off on her own, and right now it seemed that Naddiya had been right. But the truth was that this situation was not of the politicking and plotting that her parents were obsessed with and much more on a personal level.
‘Your name?’
‘Zia, sire.’
Some instinct made her give the nickname everyone in her family used. At least that way he might not associate her directly with her parents and their political manoeuvrings. It was impossible to avoid the sting of wry reflection at the thought of just why her given name had been shortened to this form.
‘Aziza, hmm?’ her father had said. ‘A name that means “the beautiful one” for someone so small and plain? I think not. Let’s face it, our second daughter could never be the beautiful one when compared with her sister.’ He had shortened her name to Zia and it had stuck.