The Mistress Bride

Awesome, mysterious, breathtakingly dramatic.

Two huge wooden gates cut into the wall swung inwards as they approached them. As tall as the wall itself, they were a commanding sight on their own, but when Evie realised that they guarded an entrance that was as deep as it was tall she began to understand what true awe was.

Inside was a vast courtyard, softly lit by concealed lighting that sparkled against fine sprinkles of water spouting from ornamental statues set within the exotic shrubs that grew in abundance on either side of the driveway. The entrance to the house was a flower-hung archway of pure white marble. Clear blue light was seeping out from beyond it, and as the car stopped by a pebbled area that covered the last ten feet or so to the entrance Evie saw a woman step out from beneath the archway.

She was beautiful, dark-haired and slender but exquisitely rounded, and was wearing a long dark red silk dress that shimmered as she moved.

'Ranya,' Raschid murmured softly, and climbed out of the car to stride quickly towards her, too eager to greet his sister to remember his usually impeccable manners.

It was therefore left to Asim, who had travelled in the front of the car with them, to open Evie's door and help her to alight. Despite the fact that the hour was so late, the air was hot and very humid, and redolent with the fragrance of gardenia, oleander and heavily scented jasmine-all overlaid by a seductive aroma of some exotic spice Evie couldn't quite capture. Music was playing somewhere that distinctly Arabian sound that was so evocative of her surroundings.

Strange, alien, yet so disturbingly seductive it made her toes tingle and her heart thump heavily in her chest. Or maybe those feelings had more to do with the way Raschid and Ranya were embracing each other with an affection that reminded her of herself and Julian.

And why should they not? she asked herself. They were brother and sister-true brother and sister, born to the same mother and the only children of a man who, on the distinction alone of being a rich Arab Prince, should have produced a hundred children to a hundred different wives.

Yet he had not. Crown Prince Hashim Al Kadah had only ever taken one wife. When she'd passed away while his children were still young, he hadn't bothered to replace her.

But then, she mused as she stood there by the car waiting to be remembered, if his wife had looked anything like his daughter Ranya, then it was perhaps understandable why the Crown Prince had never found another woman who could take his wife's place.

It was Ranya who noticed Evie standing there, but as she went to move around her brother with the intention of coming forward Raschid stopped her with a question. Pausing, Ranya answered him, and there followed a hurried discussion in soft-voiced Arabic that to Evie, witnessing their body language, verged on the heated. Then Ranya sighed, touched her brother's arm with what Evie read as a gesture of sympathy, before firmly stepping around him to walk towards Evie.

After witnessing the heat in their altercation, Evie wasn't quite sure how she should greet this new sister law of hers-with open warmth or defensive coolness? she pondered.

But the lovely creature made the decision easy. 'At last we meet.' Her embrace was both warm and welcoming, touching her lips to each of Evie's cheeks. 'I am Ranya, Raschid's beloved sister, in case he has never bothered to mention me,' she said with a teasing smile that literally stopped Evie's breath because it was so like the smile her brother could use on occasion. 'May I call you Evie, as Raschid does?' she requested while gently urging Evie into movement. The house waited; Evie wasn't at all sure, now that she had come this far, that she wanted to enter it. As she drew level with Raschid, she noticed his tension was back again. 'What now?' she whispered tautly.

He didn't answer; instead he reached for her hand then turned grimly to the archway. In silence they walked into his father's home, where the hot desert air instantly tempered to a delicious coolness.

Evie found herself standing in a vast reception hallway the likes of which she had only ever seen in history books. It was as big as a moderate theatre hall, with a high domed roof elaborately decorated with pale blue and gold mosaic tile work. The floor beneath her feet was white marble, the eggshell-blue painted walls broken by a dozen archways that led off into what she suspected was a maze of corridors. Above each arch, diamond-shaped grilles covered what Evie presumed were the Arabian equivalent of interior windows where people could look down unseen on the hallway beneath.

'This is lovely,' Evie breathed softly.

Other than giving a brief smile of acknowledgement, Raschid seemed barely to hear her; his hand touched her arm to indicate which corridor he wanted to take. And the further they went down that corridor, the tenser he became.

'Raschid, what is it?' she asked anxiously, very conscious of his sister walking with them.

This time he didn't even attempt to dissemble. Instead he stopped walking suddenly, turned to

take her by the shoulders then pushed her up against the corridor wall so he could stand right over her while his sister paused several delicate yards away.

'We have yet another ceremony to go through tonight,' he announced, sounding clipped and grim and beginning to look just a little jaded around the edges. 'Again, my father has arranged this. And again I find I am in no position to argue with his decree.'

'A marriage ceremony, you mean?' she asked.

'Of course.' He grimaced. 'What else? Do you think you are up to it?'

Like him, Evie didn't think she was being given very much choice in the matter. 'What do I have to do?' she asked heavily.

'Nothing but stand beside me and repeat the vows you will be asked to say in Arabic. And I pray to Allah that then we will be allowed to do what we came here to do and be private,' he sighed out sardonically.

'But you don't hold out much hope,' Evie dryly assumed from all of that.

'No,' he confessed. 'I do not.'

'Raschid-' Ranya's voice softly interrupted them. 'We really must go now.'

Another sigh, then his mouth clamped into a flat line of grim perseverance. 'Come,' he said, taking hold of Evie's hand again. 'Let's get it over with.'

Not the most diplomatic thing to say to his bride. But then, Evie mused as they began walking along that long corridor again, how many times did he have to marry this wretched bride before he could be allowed to feel married? They stopped at a door. Raschid seemed to need a moment to compose himself for what was to come next, and his fresh bout of tension became Evie's tension as, with a perceptible straightening of his broad shoulders, his fingers tightened around Evie's hand and his other hand reached out to open the door. What followed became lost in the realms of a dreamlike sense of unreality. The room was dark, lit only by wall-mounted candles that gave off too little light for her to see very much of what was around her. She was vaguely aware of people standing in the dimness, vaguely aware of their curious scrutiny as Raschid led her forward. The ceremony was short-shorter than she had expected. Beside her, Raschid quietly translated every word into English for her, before she was then required to repeat them in Arabic. And through it all she kept her body in touch with his body, needing to feel the security of his presence in this alien place with its alien service and its alien sounds and scents and language.