When the time came he would tell them and they would walk away with wealth beyond their means.
What more could they want?
One week ago, Taraq
‘Why should I let you take your sister’s place for this marriage?’ asked the King.
Aaliyah Binte Rashad Mansour did her best to stay calm, but she was gritty-eyed from lack of sleep after the frantic journey she’d just taken from England back to her desert home in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula, after an hysterical phone call from her beloved younger half-sister Samara.
‘Because I’m your eldest daughter. Samara is only nineteen.’
And she was in love with the son of the King’s chief aide.
Liyah’s father said nothing more for a moment, and she pressed on while she had a chance. ‘Samara hasn’t even met this man you want her to marry. Clearly they’re strangers. What does it matter if it’s me and not her?’
Her sister had told her, ‘He just wants a wife. He doesn’t care who that is, as long as it’s someone from this family.’
Her father made an indistinct sound. He wasn’t a very tall man. Liyah was almost taller, at five foot ten. She’d always felt that he disapproved of her less than delicate proportions. Among the myriad other things that she’d never understood.
Her mother had been his first wife, and she had died when Liyah was a toddler. Liyah had only the vaguest memories of being rocked, and a lullaby being sung, but she’d long since convinced herself that was just a weak fantasy to make up for the fact that when her father had married again and had his other children, Liyah had been effectively sidelined and forgotten about. Neglected.
The only family member Liyah had ever allowed close was Samara who, since she was tiny, had followed Liyah around like a faithful shadow, crashing through all of Liyah’s barriers.
As soon as she’d known Samara was in distress, and why, Liyah hadn’t thought twice about coming home and offering herself in her sister’s place. But now that she was here in front of her father a sense of panic gripped her.
‘Who is he, anyway? And why is he happy to marry a woman he doesn’t even know? I thought we’d moved on from arranged marriages.’
‘Don’t be naive, Aaliyah. The best marriages are still primarily the ones that are arranged for the benefit of two parties—in this instance two neighbouring kingdoms that have a long history of enmity.’
‘But it’s been years since anything—’
Her father interrupted. ‘He’s the cousin of the King of Al-Murja and he’s honouring a decades-old diplomatic agreement by marrying into this family and providing a dowry. His mother was meant to marry your uncle, but she took off to Europe and married an Italian playboy instead, giving him her dowry. That marriage fell apart and she came home in disgrace with a baby son. She died when he was still young and his father brought him up.’
That story rang a few vague bells in Liyah’s head. But her father had stopped pacing and now looked at her. There was a gleam in his dark eyes—very unlike Liyah’s green ones.
‘His mother ran off to Europe just as you did. Clearly you share her rebellious spirit, Aaliyah.’
Indignation made Liyah’s spine tense. ‘It’s hardly rebellious to want to—’
Her father held up a hand, cutting her off again. ‘No, I think this will work very well, actually. Sheikh Sharif Bin Noor Al Nazar controls a vast luxury conglomerate in Europe. He will not stand for a rebellious wife. He is just what you need to learn some control, Aaliyah. To learn respect.’
A million things bubbled in Liyah’s blood, chief of which were a very familiar hurt and the need to defend herself, but she forced herself to swallow it all down and ask, ‘So does this mean that you’ll let me take Samara’s place?’
Her father looked at her for a long moment. There wasn’t a hint of warmth or approval in his eyes. Just the cool disdain that had become so familiar. Then he said, ‘Yes, you will be the one to marry Sheikh Sharif Bin Noor Al Nazar. And you will use this as an opportunity to redeem yourself in the eyes of this family.’
Liyah’s relief was tempered with panic at what she’d just done, but she couldn’t back out now. Not when Samara’s happiness was at stake. She would do anything for her sister.
Her father was turning away from her, clearly done with the conversation, and shock that he could dismiss her so easily after all but handing her over to a complete stranger for the rest of her life made Liyah blurt out, ‘Why do you care for me so little, Father?’
He stopped. He faced her again, and for the first time in her life Liyah saw something flicker to life in his eyes. Incredibly. It was only after he spoke that she realised what it was: acute pain.
He said, ‘Because your mother was the only woman I loved and you look exactly like her. So every day that you’re alive and she isn’t is a reminder of what I have lost.’
Yesterday
Sharif saw the falcon first. A peregrine falcon. Mature. He guessed at least ten years old. Magnificent. Feathers reflecting golden tints in the dying rays of the sun. Its grace and seemingly lazy circles in the air didn’t fool Sharif. It was looking for prey and would swoop and kill within a split second.
He was about to find his binoculars to have a closer look when he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves. One horse.