Читать книгу Red-Hot Desert Docs - Carol Marinelli, Amalie Berlin - Страница 20

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FOR LEILA THE hope that a weekend break might help her marriage soon faded.

And being away from home had been more tiring than she had anticipated.

In the morning, unable to face another day and night smiling and being gracious, she asked Fatiq to make their excuses and to fly them home.

‘That is impolite,’ Fatiq told her.

‘I don’t care,’ she said.

Leila was through with being polite.

Fatiq had strode into the palace, not best pleased.

‘Inform Zahir that I am back.’

And Bashir knew, because whispers had swirled through the palace, that Zahir was not here and neither was Adele.

Neither was the pilot who had taken them into the desert yesterday afternoon.

‘I believe that Zahir is out,’ Bashir said.

‘Where is he?’ Fatiq demanded.

Bashir did not answer.

Leila certainly did not need to know where their son was—he was a man after all.

‘I am going to have some tea and then lie down,’ she said. ‘Bashir, would you have Samina disturb Adele and ask her to come and see me.’

Leila had the most terrible headache and it had been a strained time away with Fatiq.

‘Of course,’ Bashir said.

Oh, they delayed and played for time, and by the time the Queen had taken some morning tea and was slowly climbing the stairs, Samina came to her with the answer.

‘Your Highness, Adele is not in her wing.’

‘Where is...?’

And the Queen stopped herself from asking the question when she saw the conflict in Samina’s eyes.

‘Actually, don’t trouble Adele.’ She knew. ‘I gave her the weekend off.’

‘Where is the nurse?’ Fatiq was coming up the stairs behind his wife.

‘She likes to walk on the beach,’ Bashir said.

Poor Bashir did his best too.

But the King was no fool. He climbed the stairs right up to the turret and looked out at the splendid view and then came back down.

‘Where is the Crown Prince?’ Fatiq asked. ‘He needs to be informed that I am back.’

Bashir was sweating and Samina’s eyes were wide as he answered the King.

‘I believe that Zahir has gone to the desert abode.’

‘Fetch Queen Leila’s nurse,’ the King said in a voice that had even the little hummingbird hovering at the fountain falter.

Oh, Leila would not be getting her lie-down!

‘You are dismissed for now,’ she said to Bashir, rather than have him answer that Adele too was at the desert abode, and she followed her husband back down and into his office.

‘He took her to the desert!’ an enraged Fatiq said to his wife as soon as they were alone.

‘Adele always said that she wanted to see it. Perhaps he is giving her a tour. There might have been a sandstorm.’

The King gave a derisive snort, which told Leila what he thought of that. ‘The palace staff are embarrassed. Thanks to your nurse—’

‘My nurse,’ Leila interrupted, ‘saved me from embarrassment.’

She was angry too but she was also conflicted.

Zahir always kept to the rules.

Now, were it Dakan who was home she might have been better prepared for such goings-on.

But Zahir?

A short while later there was the sound of the helicopter and they stood at the window and watched it descend.

Leila watched the helicopter land on the lawn and saw Zahir and Adele disembark.

They were relaxed and laughing and there had been no sandstorm, neither had this been an innocent tour.

They were lovers, she could see that it was so, and so too could Fatiq.

And then Zahir must have seen the royal jet for he stilled and put a protective arm around Adele.

The King sucked in his breath at the public display of affection.

Leila watched as Adele startled and turned as if to run.

‘My parents are here,’ Zahir told her.

‘They can’t find out.’

He looked up at the office window.

They already have.’ He took charge immediately. ‘Come. We will go in by my private entrance and I shall take you this morning to the airport myself. You don’t have to face them.’

Adele had never even set foot in his wing.

And now she sat on his bed with her head in her hands and she felt mortified.

‘Can you say we got stranded, or that we slept apart...?’

‘I’m not going to lie, Adele,’ Zahir said. ‘My only regret about what went on is that it now makes things difficult for you.’

‘And impossible for us,’ she said.

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Somehow I don’t think there’s going to be a solution here,’ she said, and it was a jibe at the faith he had that things would turn around.

But he remained calm.

‘Adele, it is better they know. Not yet, of course, but in the long run it is better than doing and saying nothing and marrying a neighbouring princess simply to appease him. I am not going to apologise for last night.’

His only regret was that Adele would be embarrassed and he would now do his best to handle that.

He left her on his bed and walked down the stairs towards his father’s office. He nodded to Samina, who was crying, and he gave a small nod to Bashir. He knew they would have done their best to cover for him and Adele.

One of the guards gave him a small grim smile of quiet support as he opened the door and admitted Zahir to face a very angry king and a rather strained queen.

Zahir returned the guard’s smile.

And then he stepped in and took charge.

‘We shall speak later,’ Zahir informed them by way of greeting. ‘Right now I am going to take Adele to the airport. Clearly it will be uncomfortable for her to remain here.’

‘You don’t even try to hide it,’ the King shouted in exasperation. ‘You don’t even attempt to come up with a polite excuse!’

Zahir’s response was calm. ‘I refuse to hide any more that I have feelings for Adele. I have been doing just that for the past year and it has got me nowhere. I have driven past her, drenched in a storm at a bus stop, and told myself I was right to do that, that it was essential to keep my emotions in check. I have ignored her, I have tried to remove myself from her and I refuse to do so any more.’

‘You have free rein in England,’ the King retorted angrily. ‘And I know full well that you and Dakan use every inch of it. You know not to bring those ways here.’ He looked at Leila and of course he now made it her fault. ‘Now, if there were still a harem none of this would have happened...’

‘This isn’t about sex!’ Zahir said.

And Leila blinked in confusion, not at what Zahir had just said but at his words before.

‘Zahir, I don’t understand,’ she admitted. ‘Why did you drive past her when she was drenched from a storm? I taught you better than that.’

He did not answer and Leila’s heart broke for her son as she realised the reason was a love that could never be.

Never, because she looked at Fatiq and he had become a stranger.

‘We shall leave by my private exit,’ Zahir said to his father. ‘There is no need for Adele to receive your disdain.’

He walked out.

‘I expected better from Zahir,’ Fatiq said.

‘Why?’ Leila retorted. ‘He is his father’s son. Remember how you used Bashir’s ladder to come to me after the selection ceremony because you could not wait for the wedding night?’

The King said nothing.

‘We had the biggest premature baby that this kingdom has ever seen,’ Leila now shouted. ‘Zahir’s shoulders nearly killed me and we had to smile and pretend he was small.’

‘At least we were betrothed.’

‘Barely,’ Leila snarled.

It had been the night of the selection ceremony that they had first made love and she had told him that night that if he wanted her then the harem was to be gone.

Fatiq had readily agreed.

They had known on sight they were in love, Leila thought.

Look at them now.

Oh, she ached for her son and Adele.

And she ached for herself and her husband too.

* * *

Zahir spoke with Samina and told her to pack Adele’s things and then to arrange to have them put in his car. He told Bashir to move Adele’s flight forward by a day.

Then he headed to his suite.

‘Should I go down and apologise?’ Adele asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’

‘I’m her nurse!’

‘Adele, we didn’t exactly do it in a cupboard while she was breathing with the aid of a ventilator.’

That made her smile.

‘No,’ she admitted.

‘You were on holiday by then and she was away in another country, trying to sort out the disaster of her own relationship while I was working on mine.’

And he acknowledged then to Adele that he knew the trouble his parents’ marriage was in.

‘He’s so stubborn, so set in his ways...’

‘You’re not,’ Adele said. She had thought Zahir was at first, but she had seen how open he was to discussion and change and how calm he was under pressure and she loved him so very much.

‘I don’t know how to help them,’ Zahir said. ‘Every time I bring up change he gets angrier...’

‘Maybe he’s scared to be proved wrong.’

Zahir dismissed that.

‘He’s not scared of anything. Come on,’ he said. ‘We shall leave by my private exit.’

Except it was not so easy to leave quietly.

Samina came and informed Zahir that the Queen had requested that the car be bought to the main entrance and that the Queen wished to bid farewell to Adele herself.

‘Don’t apologise,’ Zahir told Adele again. ‘Not just because you have done nothing wrong but because it would acknowledge that something occurred.’

He saw her frown.

And now he smiled.

‘Just wish her well.’

Oh, Adele did.

She loved Leila very much; she was so much more than a patient to her.

If ever there was a walk of shame, though, this was one, Adele thought as she went down the palace steps with Zahir by her side.

The King was nowhere to be seen but a strained-looking Leila stood at the bottom of the stairs to say goodbye to her guest.

She was supposed to have helped her to feel better; instead, Adele could see the tension in her features and she could not meet her eyes.

‘Zahir,’ Leila said, ‘perhaps you could wait for Adele in the car.’

Adele screwed her eyes closed and pressed her lips together because she wanted to say how sorry she was yet Zahir had told her not to apologise.

‘Thank you for the care you have given to me,’ Leila said.

Adele’s cheeks were on fire and still she could not bring herself to meet the Queen’s eyes.

‘I am going to miss our lovely walk and talks,’ Leila said.

‘So am I,’ Adele said. Oh, how she would!

‘I have a small gift for you,’ Leila told her, and her voice was a little shaky but she remained dignified as she handed Adele an intricately engraved wooden box. ‘Please open it.’

‘I don’t think I deserve a gift,’ Adele said.

‘You do.’

‘No,’ Adele said, ‘I don’t.’

‘How could I be cross with you for loving my son?’ Leila whispered, and then spoke in a clearer tone. ‘Please accept my gift.’

Adele opened the box and was dazzled. A stunning sapphire that was beyond anything she had ever seen, let alone touched, was being given to her.

‘It comes from the palace wall, from the same guest room where you stayed,’ Leila explained. ‘In a few weeks’ time a ceremony will take place and the hole where your stone was will be filled with a diamond. One day, generations from now, the qasr, I mean the palace, will live up to its original name. The only requirement to accept this gift is discretion. We don’t need the world to know or understand our ways. Adele, please accept it and I trust you to keep the spirit in which it was given.’

‘I shall,’ Adele said. ‘Thank you.’

It was agony to get in the car.

Adele didn’t want to go home, she simply didn’t want to ever leave, but she climbed in and Zahir was silent as he drove off. He looked down at the box she held in her hands.

‘You understand what the gift means?’

‘I do.’ Adele nodded. ‘What happens in the palace stays in the palace.’

Zahir gave a small smile at her interpretation and nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

Through dusty ancient streets he navigated the vehicle and she looked at the glittering city skyline that was so modern in comparison with the villages she had seen from the sky. And she remembered the comments she had read about Mamlakat Almas and the suggestion that it was best not to get sick here.

‘I don’t know how long I shall be,’ Zahir said, ‘but know this isn’t the end.’

And she looked out of the car and at a city that needed a hospital and a modern health care system to be implemented. Zahir had a fight on his hands to do that.

‘It has to be the end.’

‘I know you don’t share my faith but I have asked for a solution.’

‘There isn’t one.’

She would not cry when she said goodbye.

And she didn’t.

‘Can I ask that you don’t call me?’ Adele said.

‘I need to know that you get home okay.’

‘Well, turn on the news tonight and if there haven’t been any plane crashes, you can assume that I did.’

‘I will be back in London at some point.’

‘And very possibly married.’

‘No.’

‘Zahir, you know there are going to be repercussions. This country needs to change and your father will use anything he has at his disposal and so will you...’

Would he?

Could he turn his back on Adele and take a wife if it meant better care for his people?

‘I shall address things with my father.’

‘Why?’ Adele said. ‘I can’t come here. I’m not leaving my mother.’ And it wasn’t just that. ‘After this morning I could never face your parents again.’

It was impossible, and safer to end it.

‘I’ve had the most wonderful time of my life,’ Adele said.

‘I’ll see you in London.’

‘I shan’t be your mistress, Zahir.’

‘Liar.’ He smiled. ‘I might have to reinstate the harem and keep you there.’

How could he make her smile even now?

Yet he did.

There could be no kiss or embrace for they were in public and so she walked off and went straight through customs and she did not turn around.

And still she did not cry.

Not on the plane because it would be so loud that they would have had to divert to the nearest airport as she wailed.

And not even when she landed.

To terrible news.