Читать книгу Born Royal - ALEXANDRA SELLERS - Страница 13

“The course of true love not running quite smoothly?” Nadia asked Rashid over dinner that night. Brother and sister were alone in the palace in Tamir. Everyone else was at one or another function tonight, except for their brother Hassan, who was miles away in the oil fields as usual. They were sitting at a little table on the East Terrace, overlooking the gorge. In the velvety darkness the sea rushed and shushed against the rocks.

Rashid leaned back in his chair. “Why do you say so?” he hedged. They were speaking English so that the serving staff would not understand.

His sister smiled mockingly. “Because Nargis told me. And before you ask, Nargis looks after my wardrobe. The staff is buzzing with the news that you are being uncharacteristically rude and withdrawn today. Everyone knows you went to Montebello to talk to Julia earlier.”

“Do they? Damn it!”

“So there’s speculation about whether it’s because Princess Julia has accepted you, in which case you’re regretting the loss of your playboy lifestyle, or rejected you, in which case your heart is broken. Naturally everyone prefers to believe the intensely romantic version. Care to comment?”

“Damn it to hell.”

“I believe it’s nothing more than a bad headache,” Nadia said with a grin, “but then I’m your sister and I know it’s a rare woman who makes you snarly.”

“She is a rare woman,” he couldn’t stop himself saying, and watched Nadia’s eyebrows go up.

“Ah! And am I to infer from this that she has rejected your proposal?”

He was aware of mounting irritation. “Yes, she has! I can’t figure her out!” He glared at his sister as if she were part of this mystery. “Why would she turn me down? She’s pregnant and the press have been on her like wolves! Why won’t she see that—”

He stopped because Nadia was laughing. “Haven’t you ever before met with a woman who turned you down, Rashid?”

“I’ve never proposed to a woman before,” he said shortly.

“You didn’t propose to Julia, the way I hear it.”

“What do you mean? I proposed very publicly!”

Nadia shook her head. “There’s a difference, big brother, between asking a woman to marry you and telling the world that she’s going to marry you and then expecting her to agree.”

He looked at her, indignant. “You’re the one who advised me to rush my fences.”

“With Father, not with Julia! Can’t you see how arrogant it is to assume that a woman will jump at the chance to marry you? And a beautiful princess, too! Why on earth didn’t you talk to Julia first?”

“You know what the speculation was like! What was so wrong? I realized what Julia had been going through for the past few months and wanted to put an end to it.”

“Knight in shining armour, huh?”

Rashid moved his shoulders, reminded of Julia’s Don’t try riding into my life on your white horse. “Look,” he said forcefully, as if somehow he were justifying himself to Julia, “if I delayed, someone was going to put words in my mouth! I didn’t want Julia reading that I was surprised to hear I’d been named the father of her child, or considering my options, or something like that. What would be worse, do you think? To get a proposal after someone has spent time considering whether he’s really the father of your child, or—”

“Pax!” His sister lifted her hands and laughed. “This is Nadia here, not Julia, notice?”

He subsided with a clenched jaw.

“I couldn’t make her see it.”

“A new experience, I take it. I think I’m going to like Julia. When I remember all the women who have cried on my shoulder trying to solve the mystery of how to reach your feelings, it does my heart good.”

Rashid frowned. “This has nothing to do with my feelings. I’m trying to do what’s right for all concerned!”

“Noble. Sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure. What do you mean?”

“Well, there is a certain question of how she got pregnant in the first place.”

Rashid grunted. “It was nothing but a kind of—insanity.”

“At your age,” Nadia agreed in cheerful incredulity. “I see.”

“And however it happened, it’s done. What I have to think about now is what I’m going to do in the future. Julia is going to issue a statement denying the engagement tomorrow, I think.” Rashid irritably waved away the waiter who was trying to pour him more coffee. “I’ve got to prevent that.”

Nadia opened her eyes at him in mute reproach and, pointedly gracious, said to the waiter in Arabic, “Yes, thank you, Iqbal, I will have some more coffee.

“And how are you going to do that?” she asked, when Iqbal had retreated.

“I have to swear you to secrecy, Nadia.”

“All right.”

“I’ve got to get her alone. I think she’d see sense if she didn’t have that coterie of Kamal-haters around her.”

Nadia’s eyebrows went up. “And?”

Rashid rubbed his chin and stared out into the darkness. For a moment they listened to the sound of the waterfall.

“I’m going to have to kidnap her.”

It was when Lucas’s plane went missing, oddly, that Julia woke up at last. Perhaps because she suddenly saw how precious life was. And she had given away a whole year of hers.

No one knew whether Lucas would be found alive or dead. All they had was hope. Julia had returned to the family emotionally to share that hope with her sisters and her parents, and keep it alive.

She had learned a lot during her year of self-exile. She felt she had come a long, long distance from the repressed, self-doubting perfectionist she had become in order to cope with Luigi’s rejection.

Mariel de Vouvray had been her friend since the two girls had attended private school in Switzerland together. When Mariel’s wedding invitation had arrived, she had turned it down, like every other invitation she received during that year of darkness.

But as the day grew closer, Julia began to change her mind. She and Mariel had been very close for a while, and it was only physical distance that had changed that. She wanted to see Mariel married to her prince. Haroun al Jawadi was a man Julia didn’t know, brother of the new Sultan of Bagestan.

Mariel had said on her invitation that the wedding was going to be “as private and personal as we can make it. We emphatically are not selling the story to Hello! magazine. So you won’t be on show—we hope!—if you come.”

She knew that a last-minute acceptance would cause logistical problems. The high-profile wedding guests were staying overnight in the château where the wedding was being held, as Julia had been invited to do. She didn’t want to put Mariel to the trouble of a reshuffle. She also knew that if word got out that Princess Julia was making her first public appearance at the wedding after a year’s exile it would boot up the media interest in the wedding.

She decided to go incognito. She travelled on her private passport and put up in a tiny family hotel where, if she was recognized, at least no one made a fuss.

The ceremony itself would take place in the beautiful old chapel attached to the château. Julia slipped into the church with a group of non-celebrity arrivals. No photographer recognized her in the ankle-length dark blue coat and low-brimmed hat. For good measure she had pulled her white silk scarf up over her chin.

Inside, she sat on the bride’s side of the church, tucking herself beside a pillar where she couldn’t be seen from most of the church. She couldn’t see, either, and she didn’t look around for people she knew.

So she didn’t realize until the ceremony was almost over that one of the guests was Rashid Kamal.

“We need to talk,” Rashid’s voice said firmly in her ear. Julia twitched nervously, feeling hunted. She shifted the receiver to her other hand.

“Do we? Why?” She had had a mostly sleepless night last night, and she wasn’t ready for this.

She could almost hear him gritting his teeth. “Because you are pregnant with my child and I want to marry you. And we need a reasoned discussion of the choices before you go public with a denial of our engagement.”

Julia was silent.

“You haven’t already done it, have you?”

“No.” Coward that she was. She should have picked up the phone when the mood was on her and called the newspaper reporter most loyal to her. She had told herself that she needed breathing space before stirring up yet another round of speculation. “Not yet.”

“No, of course not,” he reminded himself. “Someone would have called me for a comment immediately if you had.”

“And what would you have said?” She did not want a war with Rashid to be fought in the media. But she did not forget that he was the one who had put her in this position.

“What could I say? That I regretted your decision. And I do, Julia. But I don’t believe that decision is final, or should be.”

“It is!” she cried, almost panicking. “Totally final! I’m going to do it today!”

Damn it, did he always have to handle her wrong?

“Look,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I’d like us to talk. Before you do that.”

She sighed uneasily, not sure why she didn’t feel safe talking to him. He had such charisma. Suppose he convinced her to marry him against her better judgement? Once was enough.

“All right, go ahead,” she said, suddenly wishing she had Christina here to support her through this.

She heard him expel an exasperated breath. “Not over the phone, damn it, Julia! I need to see you face-to-face. And away from the palace somewhere.”

Panic threatened in her stomach. The baby did a somersault. “Where? We’ll be chased wherever we go.”

He said dryly, “I think I can promise to get us to a venue where there will be no journalists.”

“I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“How about the fact that at the moment a Sebastiani child is the only direct descendant of the Kamal ruling house in the next generation and my father’s people will want to know whether he’s to be in line for the throne?” Rashid said impatiently. “Do you feel that question could be important enough to discuss?”

The panic rushed up to grip her throat. Might the old man name her son a prince of Tamir? She supposed he had the right to confer the status of prince on his illegitimate grandson, if he wished. She was pretty sure that in the dim and distant past of Tamir, Rashid himself had a bloodline that dated back to a favourite concubine.

What kind of chaos would it cause in her life, to be raising the child destined, however briefly, for the throne of another nation? An enemy nation. And what suffering was in store when Rashid married and had a legitimate son, as he surely would, and her son was displaced as heir?

“He can’t do that!” she cried. Rashid was right. They had to talk. “All right, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to agree not to issue any statement until we’ve talked.”

Her nerves tightened. “Twenty-four hours,” she said.

She heard him breathe. “That’s not much time.”

“Twenty-four hours,” she repeated.

“Twenty-four hours it is. If you can convince your father not to have my helicopter shot down on arrival,” Rashid said with mordant humour, “I’ll pick you up in an hour. Pack a swimsuit.”

It was a beautiful ceremony. Mariel was stunning, with an unusual and artistic scrunch of white veil and flowers framing her head, and a gorgeous silk brocade dress styled with a medieval flavour that exactly suited the chapel. Haroun al Jawadi looked proud and handsome, and every time he gazed down at his bride a shiver of delight went through the congregation.

She wasn’t sure how Rashid Kamal had drawn her eye. When the congregation was kneeling, Julia was no longer hidden by her pillar. A baby started to babble, and her gaze automatically flicked towards the groom’s side of the church.

A man’s black hair was burnished by the winter sunlight streaming in through a stained-glass window. She watched with a smile of absent pleasure before she suddenly recognized the shape of his brow and chin.

Then she pressed her lips together and resolutely bowed her head, feeling as if someone had just walked over her grave. It wasn’t the first time they’d been at the same function, but always before it had been at large, formal gatherings. She’d never been invited to such an intimate gathering with him before. There probably weren’t a hundred people here.

She had no one to blame but herself. If she had accepted the invitation in the normal way, of course Mariel would have forewarned her. And if she had thought for even a moment, she might have guessed that the Crown Prince of Tamir might number among the friends of the groom. For a few moments Julia considered slipping away immediately after the ceremony, but she didn’t want to go without even saying hello.

“Julia! Oh, thank you for coming after all! How wonderful to see you!” Mariel cried with delighted surprise when, in the château later, Julia came over to give her friend a hug. “I’m so glad! It must mean you’re feeling better.”

Then her eyes widened at a thought. “Oh, my goodness!” she said faintly.

Julia laughed. “It’s all right, I’ve seen him.”

“He’s one of Harry’s best friends,” Mariel confided in a low voice. “I was going to warn you if you accepted.”

“I’m keeping out of his way. We’ve done this kind of thing before, after all.”

“Maybe he won’t even recognize you! You look so different, Julia! Have you changed your style completely?”

“Do you like it?”

“Absolutely! You look—softer. You’re way too thin, but—there’s a glow that wasn’t there before. And I love your hair! Is it metaphorical? Are you letting your hair down at last?”

Julia enjoyed herself at the party that followed, and it was easy to avoid Rashid Kamal. People recognized her, but there were quite a few celebrity and royal faces in the room. No stranger paid her particular attention until a gorgeous redhead she vaguely recognized stopped beside her.

“I was just wondering if you’d heard any more news,” she said apologetically, when the two women had exchanged greetings. Astrid had dated Lucas for a while a couple of years ago.

“There’s nothing,” Julia said sadly. “We’re just waiting.”

“But it was definitely his plane?”

Julia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The piece of wreckage they found yesterday. Are they definite that—” Astrid broke off in horror when she saw Julia’s face. “My God, haven’t you heard?”

Julia clutched at her. “They—they found the wreckage? Lucas? Did they find—” she gasped breathlessly.

“Oh, hell! I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you! But I don’t—the newscast I heard just said a piece of wreckage had been found and they thought—”

Julia was already groping in her bag for her phone. “I left home yesterday.” And last night had been spent in the tiny, old-fashioned hotel with no TV in the room. Her mother had said nothing last night when she phoned. “Excuse me, I’ve got to go and phone!”

She dashed out the nearest door, into a hallway. But there were people strolling up and down, and she took the nearest stairwell up. She came out in a shadowed, darkly wainscotted hall, with doors along one side and arched windows on the other. Looking for a place to hide, Julia ran to a corner at the far end that was partly protected by a carved panel, and huddled in the darkness, dialing home.

It was the private line, and her mother answered. “Mama? It’s Julia!” she breathed.

“Hello, darling. Having a good time? Where are you?”

“At the château. Mama, someone just told me—”

“Oh, Julia,” said her mother, and those words were enough. Her hopes that it could be a mistake died. She sobbed a breath.

“It’s true, then?”

“Yes, we heard late last night.” Her mother’s voice held the memory of tears. “After you called. I didn’t—I didn’t want you to be alone with the news, so I didn’t call back. I suppose it was foolish to hope you wouldn’t hear before you got home. I’m sorry, darling. I wanted you to have a good time at your friend’s wedding. You’ve had so little enjoyment lately.”

“I don’t know any details, Mama. Just that they’ve…” She swallowed, her throat aching with unshed tears. “Is it true they’ve found the plane?” Julia asked.

Her mother’s voice trembled. “A piece of the wreckage. They’re pretty sure—” she swallowed and continued in a calmer voice “—pretty sure it’s Lucas’s plane.”

“Was there any sign of—of Lucas?”

“No. At the moment they seem to think the plane broke up in the air. Julia, the worst of it is, they—the authorities there have called off the air search.”

It was like hearing her own death warrant.

“No!” she protested, and the unshed tears burst from her in a flood. “Noooo! Oh, Lucas!”

“Anna’s very distressed. Your father is insisting that some sort of search should continue, but—well, at this distance it’s hard to know exactly what’s…what’s…oh, Julia,” she wailed helplessly. “What are we going to do?”

“Going off with Rashid Kamal?” her father repeated, his voice rough with incredulity. “Why? Where?”

Anna was staring at her sister with a wild surmise. Only the queen went on calmly drinking her coffee.

Julia bit her lip. She might have known she’d run into flak on this. It wasn’t anything she liked, either, but it had to be done. She wished her father would accept it without a lot of argument. Argument just made her more jittery.

“I am not going off with him, Papa. We are simply going somewhere we can talk for a few hours over lunch.”

“Where?” he repeated grimly.

“I don’t know. Somewhere we can be reasonably alone, I imagine. I’ve left it to him.”

“You’ve lost your bearings, Julia!” He looked at his wife for support.

They were sitting in the small breakfast room over a late Saturday breakfast. Anna was now hiding a smile. She flicked Julia a conspiratorial, admiring look and picked up her cup. Julia wanted to cry, I am not sneaking off to a lovers’ assignation!

The queen remained silent, and her father returned to the attack. “I forbid you to go anywhere with a Kamal! Have you forgotten your brother’s fate?”

“Papa, you have surely accepted by now that it wasn’t the Kamals who did that. If anyone, it was the Brothers of Darkness. And who has done most lately to spike their guns?”

Her father subsided a little. “That still doesn’t make it safe for you—”

“Look,” Julia interrupted. “I don’t like it any better than you do. But like it or not, Rashid Kamal is the father of my child. And at the moment, according to him, his father is contemplating naming my son as his heir. Whether that’s an empty threat or not, it just points up the fact that there are things we have to discuss. And since I don’t want those things leaked to the media, we are going somewhere alone, and I will not be taking a bodyguard.”

She won the argument. But by the end she was so worn out with pretending to trust Rashid Kamal that she was sweating with nerves.

The helicopter beat the air as it slowly settled onto the grass, whipping Julia’s long hair and the full skirt of her soft yellow dress. She put a hand up to hold her hat. Rashid watched the way her dress clung to her stomach, looking for the signs that a child was growing there.

When he cut the rotor, she came across the lawn towards him and leaned in the passenger door, peering towards the seats in the back of the helicopter. Rashid pulled his mouthpiece away from his chin so she could recognize him.

“Hello!” he cried over the engine noise.

Julia did a double take. She hadn’t been expecting him to be piloting the helicopter himself, and a fresh wave of nervous energy swept her.

“Hello!” Her voice held the sound of her determination to keep this pleasant. She had a deep, primitive urge to turn and flee.

“Can you climb in?” He spoke so matter-of-factly that her fears were momentarily calmed. He’s a Kamal, she told herself. That doesn’t mean he’s going to murder me in cold blood.

He leaned across to offer her a hand, but she clambered in without his help. He frowned to himself without knowing why. Something to do with wanting to be needed. Especially because she was pregnant.

With his son.

He helped her strap herself in, however, and gestured towards a headset in front of her. Julia took off her straw hat and slipped the headset over her ears. A moment later the chopper lifted smoothly off under his guidance, and they were airborne.

“Did you bring a bathing suit?” Rashid’s voice said in her headset.

It felt too intimate to have his voice inside her head like this. It reminded her of the last time she had heard him so close. Then he had not needed the assistance of a headset to give the impression of closeness; his voice had sounded close because his mouth was against her hair.

Beautiful, he had murmured. You are so beautiful….

Julia’s cheeks burned with the memory. “I did,” she said, hefting her drawstring bag as evidence without meeting his eyes. She dropped the bag between her feet and turned to look out. He had taken them out over the water and was heading north.

So the private place he had in mind was not on any of the Tamir Islands. She had wondered if he meant to take her to his horse farm on Siraj.

“Are we going to a yacht?” she wondered, half to herself, forgetting that her headset, too, had a microphone.

“No, an island.”

“An island? Rashid, I don’t have a passport with me!”

He laughed. “Stop worrying, Julia.” Again his voice was intimate and seductive in her ears. “Your seat reclines. Lie back and relax.”

In the cocoon of the helicopter with him, she felt strangely detached from the normal world. If she had not known Rashid was a Kamal, she would have felt an instinctive trust of him.

There was nothing she could do about this situation except start screaming to be taken home. Or go along with it.

She was tired after her sleepless night, and she would do better in the coming discussion if she caught some sleep now. With a resigned shrug, Julia found the mechanism, reclined her seat, and, with the sun bright above them, and sparkling almost painfully from the deep blue of the Mediterranean below, closed her eyes and let herself drowse. The memory was never far away….