‘Then I cannot have my wife feeling like a prisoner. I’ve not spent the last ten years dragging Rhastaan into the twenty-first century to let that happen.’
And yet you were prepared to go through with a traditionally arranged marriage, Aziza reflected. Once again it seemed that Nabil was a blend of enlightened and primitive. It was a heady combination, one that made her blood heat just to think of it.
The man who stood before her, black hair ruffled, in a loose white T-shirt worn with battered denim jeans, his long, tanned bare feet placed firmly on the ornately woven rug, could never be just ‘any man’. He stood so tall and proud, his dark head held arrogantly high, and there was the burn of knowledge in those obsidian eyes. Knowledge of who he was and why he was here. Knowledge of his position of power and honour. He wore the casual clothes as magnificently as if they’d been the richest ceremonial robes. He was a man born to be King and he needed none of the trappings of state to prove it.
‘You’ve certainly instituted some great changes,’ she said quietly.
‘Ones that were badly needed.’
Nabil’s nod of agreement was dark, sombre-faced. But then how could it be anything else when they were treading on a dangerous, rocky road here? Talking about the reforms that Nabil had implemented in Rhastaan since he had come to the throne meant recalling the rebellion in the country that had risen up against his father, and had still been bubbling underneath like lava just waiting to erupt from a volcano when Nabil had inherited the throne.
It had been his father’s entrenched attitudes that had created the mood of rebellion, and possibly had led to the fact that Nabil had had to inherit the crown unexpectedly early when the helicopter carrying his parents had crashed into a mountainside, killing them both. He had only been nineteen then.
Remembering how she had felt when she had been thrown into the public arena, she looked back at that nineteen-year-old—little more than a boy—with a sense of sympathy.
‘Had your father taught you how to be a king? Did he show you what was needed, talk about what you should do?’
‘He expected me to learn by example. To wait and watch.’
Nabil didn’t have to say anything more about the coldness and the distance he had felt from his father. It was there in the bleakness of his tone, the clouded focus of his eyes on to the distance.
‘I expect that he never thought that he would die so early and he believed I was too young—too immature—to take on the duties of the King.’
He pushed one hand roughly through his hair, leaving it wildly ruffled.
‘He was probably right about that then. I was hell-bent on fighting against my destiny if I possibly could. My father found me irresponsible and a most unsatisfactory son. You must know how that feels.’
Aziza nodded slowly, stunned that he had taken in so much of her story about being the ‘spare’.
‘But my father only neglected to prepare me for an important marriage—there wasn’t a country that I needed to learn how to rule.’
‘But, if I’d followed his example, then I believe civil war would have torn the country apart very soon after I came to the throne.’
‘You inherited a difficult and dangerous legacy. And you had no one to share it with.’
‘I thought I had.’ Nabil raked his hands through his hair once more, the gesture giving away the discomfort of his thoughts. ‘But that was not to be.’
It was that rebellion that had led to the assassination attempt. All these years later that rebellion was still reaching out its tentacles as it touched her life now. Because, without it, Nabil would have been married and a father a long time ago. Like Prince Karim and his beautiful Clementina, he and Sharmila would have been celebrating their tenth anniversary, with the young crown prince or princess coming close to celebrating their ninth birthday. Her heart ached in two separate ways just to think of it.
Because, if that had been so, where would she be? Not here in the mountain palace, with the King, her husband, newly risen from her bed. She would no doubt still be at home with her parents and sister, acting as Jamalia’s chaperone, enduring her father’s slights.
‘Perhaps...’ It was a struggle to get the words from a throat that was dry with nerves, but she had to say them. ‘Perhaps we could start again with that too. I know I haven’t had the right sort of training...’
‘Training isn’t everything,’ Nabil put in sharply. ‘My mother was brought up in the belief that one day she would be Queen. None of that made a blind bit of difference when she was expected to do any public duties. More often than not, she just didn’t turn up. You must have attended more official events in the last couple of weeks than she did in a year.’