His Queen by Desert Decree(2)

Winterwood was a very good residential home where Maurice had received the very best of care for the past two years. Unfortunately it cost a lot of money to keep her grandfather there but Molly was very conscious that it was in the old man’s best interests to keep him in familiar surroundings. A sudden change of accommodation and new faces would plunge him into severe confusion. For that reason, Molly had done everything she could to ensure that Maurice could continue to stay at Winterwood but, as she sat there holding his frail hand, she was anxiously aware that the proceeds from the sale of her mother’s last piece of jewellery were almost used up. Sadly, even working night and day, she couldn’t make enough cash to both live and support the top-up fees due to the care home every month.

Something would come up, she told herself optimistically, because agonising over the possibility that something might not was unproductive and Molly was a very practical young woman. As it was, Molly currently had three jobs.

During the day she worked as a waitress. At least two evenings a week she worked a cleaning shift at an office block for Jan, the friend who owned the cleaning business. And last but definitely not least, on weekends Molly was giving English lessons to an Arab prince at the Djalian Embassy, lessons for which she was being paid far more than all the rest of her work combined. Maybe she would suggest an extra lesson, she reasoned, but she winced at the prospect of exposing herself to spending more time with Tahir.

Although, at the same time, she reckoned she needed to be fair to Prince Tahir because he wasn’t harassing her. When she had told him that the flowers and the gifts he was sending her were inappropriate and unwelcome he had stopped. He had also accepted the return of the gifts and apologised profusely. He had never tried to touch her either, but his flirtatious manner and the way he studied her still unnerved her a little and it had been a relief when he’d acceded to her request that one of the embassy staff sit in on their sessions with them.

Of course, Molly would have been the first to admit that she had very little experience with men and was probably judging the young Prince too harshly. She had had to drop out of her first year on a university business course to come home and look after her grandfather and, during the subsequent four years, life as regards dating, aside of one forgettable boyfriend, had pretty much passed her by. Even so, during that period she had still contrived to pass her Teaching English as a Foreign Language qualification. Nevertheless she had no regrets about the sacrifices she had made for her grandfather because she was painfully aware that, during one of the unhappiest periods of her own life, Maurice had come to her rescue and had disrupted his peaceful retirement to take care of her.

Molly’s mother had died when she was four and a few years later her father had remarried. His second wife had resented the very existence of her predecessor’s daughter. With her father refusing to intervene to protect her from his wife’s abuse, Molly’s position in their household had gradually become untenable. Molly had gone to her maternal grandfather for support and he had given her a home. When her father had died, his entire estate had gone to her stepmother. That her mother’s jewellery had become hers when she was still a child was only because her mother had specified that in her will.

As always at the Djalian Embassy that same afternoon, Molly marvelled at how charmingly old-fashioned it was. She gave her lessons in a formal dining room, separated from Prince Tahir by the reassuring width of a banqueting table. The door stayed open, her female chaperone seated in the hallway just outside. Directly within Molly’s view hung a portrait of an eye-catching man. Mr Gorgeous, Molly had labelled him, because he had features that could have given any male supermodel a run for his money. She didn’t want to think about how often Mr Gorgeous had popped up in her dreams. She supposed that what lay in her subconscious and popped up overnight was fairly similar to what many single women dreamt about if they were a little lonely and wondering when their life would finally take off and give them something more exciting to think about.

A bowing, scraping servant brought in the usual tray of coffee and Molly politely averted her eyes from the display. Clearly the young man opposite her was treated something like a deity by the embassy staff. Such effusive servility made her uncomfortable but she accepted that there were bound to be cultural differences in their lifestyles. Being a royal in Djalia was clearly a licence to inspire awe and admiration, even if Tahir was a royal from another country.

The Prince was tall enough to tower over her and she had never managed to discover exactly how old he was, stopping asking only because persistence had begun to seem impolite. However, he looked to be in his early twenties. She reckoned that some women would consider him handsome because he was built like a rugby player and had the jaw to go with it, but his lack of maturity made him unappealing to her.