‘A moment.’ She spoke with all the authority she could conjure, unlocking her door and stepping out. The sun beat down on her relentlessly, causing a bead of perspiration to break out on her brow. She wiped at it but continued to walk to the group. There were perhaps eighteen people. She was conscious of one of the palace guards stepping out of the car and following behind her—she resented his intrusion, and the suggestion that these people must be dangerous because they happened to be poor.
Fixing him with a cool stare, she turned back to the people at the gate and smiled. ‘It’s warm,’ she said to a woman in perhaps her early thirties, nursing an infant on her hip. The child looked at Johara with enormous brown eyes.
‘Very hot, yes.’
‘You need some lemonade from the markets,’ Johara said with a smile. The mother’s eyes widened but she shook her head almost instantly.
‘It’s not possible.’
‘Here.’ Johara reached into the folds of her linen dress, removing enough bank notes to pay rent for a month. She handed them to the mother, who shook her head.
‘Please, take it. Buy some food and drink.’ She gestured to the group behind her. ‘For all of you.’
‘But...it’s very generous...’
Johara’s heart turned over, and simultaneously she felt a blade of anger pierce her. How could Amir sit in his palace and allow this kind of poverty to exist on his doorstep? True, Taquul wasn’t perfect but this was so blatant! So heart-wrenching.
‘I insist.’ She leaned out and tousled the little boy’s hair. He didn’t react at first but then he giggled, so Johara did it again.
‘He likes you,’ the woman said wistfully. ‘It’s the first time he’s smiled in days.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ Johara murmured truthfully. ‘He has a beautiful smile.’
She turned to leave but before she’d gone three steps, the woman arrested her. ‘What is your name, miss?’
Johara paused, aware that it was a turning point. She’d come to this country to spread word of the alliance and reverse people’s opinions; now was as good a time to start as any.
‘Johara Qadir,’ she said without inflection—not anger, not cynicism, not apology.
A rippled murmur travelled the group but the woman spoke over it. ‘Thank you, Your Highness.’ And she bowed low, but with a smile on her face, so Johara was glad the people knew who she was.
The security guard followed her back to the car, and as he opened the door he said firmly, ‘You should not have done that, madam.’
Johara’s surprise was obvious. In Taquul, a servant would never speak to a guest in such a manner! ‘I beg your pardon, why exactly not?’
‘Because it is dangerous and the Sheikh gave your brother his word you would be safe here. That means he will want to control every aspect of your safety. If you display a tendency to make such poor decisions he’ll likely confine you to the palace.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Confine me...me...to the palace?’
The guard lifted his shoulders. ‘We should go. He will be waiting.’
Emotions flooded Johara’s body. He will be waiting. The idea of Amir waiting for her did unreasonable things to her pulse.
She slid into the car, waving at her newfound friend as the car drove through the palace gates, trying to work out why her nerves wouldn’t settle.
This wasn’t about him. He’d made it very clear that he regretted what had happened between them and she had no choice but to accept that, to feel as he did.
Johara held her breath, marvelling at all the many ways in which the palace differed from the photographs she’d seen. Oh, it was enormous and impossibly grand, she knew parts of it had been constructed in the fifth century—the old stone foundations and underground tunnels and caverns rumoured to run all the way to the mountains—but the rest had been completed in the sixteen hundreds; enormous white stone walls with gold details formed an impressive façade. The windows were arched, the roofs shaped to match with
colours of gold, turquoise and copper. Around the entire palace there was a moat of the most iridescent water, such a glorious pale blue it reminded her of the clearest seas of the Mediterranean.
She peered at it as they drove over the moat, then fixed her attention on the palace. The car stopped at a large golden door. Servants and guards stood to the ready and at the top of the stairs, him.
Amir.
His Majesty, Sheikh of Ishkana. Nerves fired through her but she refused to let them show, especially to the bossy security agent who’d told her she shouldn’t have stopped to speak to the poor people at the gate. Since when was compassion forbidden?
The security agent opened the door without meeting her eyes and she stepped from the car, conscious of everything in that moment. Her dress, her hair, the fact he was staring at her and that everyone was watching them. Conscious of the photographer who stood poised to take an official photograph that would be printed in all the newspapers in both countries and around the world the following morning.