Yet who was she? Caught between two worlds, two lives, two dreams. Duty. Desire. It had only been in Aarif’s arms, under his caress, that she’d felt whole. One. With him.
Juhanah knocked on the door. ‘All right, ya daanaya?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she called. Her nurse’s maternal worrying was sweet, yet it also made Kalila feel guilty. She didn’t deserve Juhanah’s concern. What would her nurse say if she told her…?
Kalila closed her eyes. She wouldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell anyone. And yet Aarif would tell someone. He’d said as much. He would tell his brother.
What had she been expecting to happen? she wondered. Had she thought Aarif would tell her he loved her, that everything had changed? Had she actually believed, even for a moment, that an hour or two of passion changed everything? Anything?
Yet it had seemed so much more than that. When she’d held him in her arms, felt his heart beating against hers, felt that they were one…
That was what she wanted, she realised. That was why her heart and mind resisted marriage to Calista’s king. She wanted love, and for a few moments it had felt as if she’d found it with Aarif.
You’re thinking you’ve fallen in love with me. His words that morning mocked her. How could she believe it was love when she barely knew him? And what she knew, she wasn’t entirely sure she liked.
He was hard, unrelenting, grim-faced, determined. Yet she’d seen flickers of humour, tenderness, need.
No, she didn’t love him, Kalila knew. Yet she wondered if she could.
She also wondered about the dream that had tormented him so, what horrible memory still held him in its grip. Understanding that memory, Kalila felt, would be a key to understanding Aarif.
Yet how could she understand him when he would spend the next few weeks avoiding her at all costs? And, she reminded herself bleakly, when she was still engaged to his brother?
The water had grown cold and Kalila soaped herself quickly, her hands suddenly stilling on her flat belly. Yet another repercussion of those few moments with Aarif occurred to her with icy shock.
Pregnancy. A baby.
Aarif’s child.
Yet even as her lips curved in a helpless smile at that thought, her mind recognised the disastrous consequences of such a possibility. A royal bastard, conceived before she’d even been married.
Of course, Kalila knew, Zakari could think the baby was his, conceived on their still-to-be wedding night, but if Aarif told him—
She closed her eyes again. This was such a mess. A mess, a mistake, and she had no idea how to fix it or where to begin. She thrust the thoughts away, all of them, to untangle later. It was too much to deal with now, and Kalila had a feeling it would always be too much.
The bath had made her sleepy, and when Kalila emerged from the bathroom swathed in a robe and saw the wide, comfortable bed with the duvet turned down, it seemed only natural to slip between the crisp, clean sheets and let herself be lulled to sleep by the lazy whirring of the ceiling fan. The last sound she heard was the gentle click of the door as Juhanah let herself out.
When she awoke to the sound of a knock on the door, the sun was low in the sky, the room cast in shadow, the air sultry and still. Kalila pushed the hair out of her eyes and called, ‘Juhanah?’
‘Yes, Princess,’ Juhanah replied, and entered. Kalila watched her nurse bustle around the room, a fixed smile on her face, yet something had clearly ruffled her.
Kalila sat up in bed. ‘What time is it?’
‘Past five o’clock,’ Juhanah replied.
‘When are we to dine?’
Juhanah pursed her lips briefly before replying, ‘Prince Aarif has suggested we eat privately tonight, here in your rooms. He said the journey will have fatigued you too much to bear a formal meal.’
Kalila’s lips twitched at Juhanah’s barely disguised expression of outrage at this perceived slight. ‘How very thoughtful of him,’ she said dryly, knowing full well why Aarif would issue such a suggestion.
‘Indeed,’ Juhanah agreed huffily, ‘although hardly a fitting reception for a royal princess!’
Kalila shrugged. ‘I don’t—’
‘Of course you don’t mind,’ Juhanah cut her off, clearly too outraged to let her complaints go unspoken. ‘You are young and easily pleased. But I do not know what to think of a palace that is shut up like a box with no one inside, no one to greet you but a lowly servant—’
‘Actually, he looked quite important—’
‘Pfft!’ Juhanah made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘It is not right.’
‘You must remember there has been a great deal of upheaval in the royal family,’ Kalila replied, the words as much a reminder to herself as to Juhanah. ‘With King Aegeus of Aristo dying, and the rumours of the missing diamond—’
‘And is that where they all are? On a wild goose chase for some jewel?’ Hands on hips, Juhanah looked thoroughly disgruntled, and Kalila found herself smiling, her heart suddenly, surprisingly light.
She rose to embrace her nurse, who returned the hug with some surprise. Kalila had never been an overly affectionate child, yet now she felt a rush of gratitude, a need for touch. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Juhanah,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I could bear this all alone.’
Juhanah patted her head, stroking the tangled curls. ‘And you shouldn’t have to. I shall stay in Calista as long as you want me, ya daanaya.’
‘Thank you,’ Kalila whispered, and felt a sudden wave of homesickness, followed by the sting of unexpected tears. She choked them both back down and moved away. ‘Even if we’re dining right here, I should dress,’ she said, and opened the bureau where Juhanah had already put away her clothes.
A short while later a servant wheeled in a domed trolley with a three-course meal set on porcelain plates. Even if most of the royal family was not in residence, the cook clearly was and after twenty-four hours of riding rations Kalila was grateful for the rich offerings: sweet peppers stuffed with lamb, a tangine of chickpeas and tomatoes, and semolina cakes made with dates and cinnamon.
After the meal had been cleared away, Kalila told Juhanah she was sleepy again and the nurse retired to her own room.
Yet sleep, for now, eluded her. Outside her window the moon hung like a silver sickle in the sky, and the gardens beckoned, fragrant and cool. Kalila thought of stealing out there, wandering along the winding stone paths, but she decided against it. The garden could be explored in the light of day.
Yet she refused to be shut up in her room like a prisoner. Aarif might prefer it, but at this point Kalila was not inclined to make things easier for him.
She checked her appearance in the wide mirror and then softly so as not to disturb—or alert—Juhanah in the next room, she opened the door and tiptoed down the hall.
The palace was quiet, deserted. Kalila remembered Juhanah’s words about it being ‘shut up like a box’ and thought now that was an apt description. Where was everyone? Aarif had brothers and sisters; were they all searching for treasure? Had she really been left alone for nearly two weeks to await her errant groom?
Kalila sighed, then shrugged. She didn’t mind being alone. In fact, considering everything that had happened, she actually preferred it.
Yet right now, in the darkness and the quiet, she felt just a little bit lonely.
She tiptoed gingerly down the main staircase into the front foyer. Even down here everything was quiet and dark. She peeked in a few ornate reception rooms; they all looked formal, unwelcoming. For receiving dignitaries, not for living.
She wandered down another corridor, towards the back of the palace, where the private quarters were more likely to be. It wasn’t until she saw the spill of lamplight from a half-open door that she admitted to herself she hadn’t just been exploring; she’d been looking for Aarif.
And as she peeked round the door she saw she had found him.
He sat in a comfortable, silk-patterned chair, his spectacles perched on his nose, his head bent over a book.
She took a step into the room, but Aarif was too engrossed in whatever he was reading to notice. What weighty tome was he perusing now? Kalila wondered with a wry smile. The current market prices for diamonds? Some boring business text? It wasn’t until she was only a few feet from him that he saw her, and by then she’d read the title of his book, a bubble of laughter rising in her throat and spilling out before she had a chance to suppress it.
‘Agatha Christie?’
Aarif closed the book, a look of guilty irritation flashing across his face. ‘Occasionally I enjoy a respite from the cares of work,’ he said stiffly. ‘And fiction provides it.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Kalila agreed, smiling. The fact that he read light mysteries made him seem more human, more real. Warm. ‘I like Agatha Christie too. Tell me, do you prefer Poirot or Miss Marple?’
A smile flickered and died, but even that tiny gesture gave Kalila some hope. Hope of what—? She wouldn’t answer that question, but she knew she was glad for whatever link had been forged between them.
‘Poirot, of course,’ Aarif said. Again the smile, like sunlight breaking through the shadows. He paused. ‘And you?’
‘Poirot. I always thought Miss Marple a bit stuffy.’
He chuckled, little more than a breath of sound, and then the smiles died on both of their faces as the silence between them stretched into tension, memories. Aarif glanced away.