‘It’s a long story.’
‘We have plenty of time, Zayed,’ she said softly.
He took her point. They were alone in their suite—some might say trapped. There was no vast palace at his disposal to escape to. No nearby stallion quickly saddled up for the man who longed to pound away his emotions with a hard ride across the desert sands.
He moved restlessly, his robes whispering against his skin as he walked towards the windows overlooking the embassy gardens, where the manicured lawns were bathed in golden sunlight and in the distance he could hear one of the embassy dogs barking. She was right. There was plenty of time. Almost too much.
‘You know that my mother died when I was seven?’
Her face serious, she nodded. ‘She was involved in a riding accident, wasn’t she?’
A strange laugh was torn from his throat. ‘You could say that. Some of the facts you will know—others you won’t. Because much of what really happened is not documented in the record books.’
‘Why not?’ She sounded aghast and he could tell that for someone like her—who’d spent a whole life painfully constructing historical accuracy—to hide the truth away would be the worst kind of crime. But this was nothing to do with her work. This was strictly personal.
He sighed and shot her a warning look. ‘If I tell you, you’re not going anywhere with this information, Jane. I’m telling you as my wife and not as an historian—do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘I understand.’
He pulled in a deep breath. ‘You know that my mother was promised to the King of Mazbalah?’
She nodded and he could see the interest sparking from her eyes. ‘Yes. I knew that.’
‘They’d been betrothed since they were children in what was seen as a political unification of two powerful dynasties. Both families wanted it—some might say pushed for it. It was an eagerly anticipated union and the celebrations were planned to set the desert world alight, but just before the wedding she met my father at an official function and they...’ The words were drawn reluctantly from his lips, because he hated saying them. Hated acknowledging their power. For they represented the thing which most people craved for—the thing which had the ability to wreak so much havoc in its wake. His mouth twisted. ‘They fell in love. Even though my mother’s father despised the Kafalahian line and was eager for her to marry into the Al Haadi family, that did not deter them. They acted impetuously—some might say rashly. On the very morning of her intended wedding, my parents eloped.’
‘This much I knew,’ said Jane quietly. ‘But I thought her jilted fiancé gave the pair his blessing?’
‘Initially, he did. It was described by the courtiers as a magnanimous gesture in the light of the seemingly inevitable, but ultimately it was to save face in what must have been a monumental humiliation.’
His voice tailed off as dark pain speared through him and he could see the concern on her pale features. He wanted to snarl at her that he wasn?
?t going to answer any more of her damned questions but at the same time he wanted to kiss her—as if a punishing and passionate kiss would have the power to wash away these bitter memories. He’d never even kissed her, he found himself thinking. What an idiot he was. Why the hell hadn’t he done that instead of stepping back into a past he’d tried to leave behind a long time ago? Distracted her with ripples of pleasure instead of capturing her clever mind with facts. But he was in too deep to stop now. It was as if he’d removed the cork from a bottle which had been fermenting for decades—to discover that the wine inside was unbearably acrid as it bubbled over to escape.
‘Despite being ostracised by her parents, my mother was soon accepted by the Kafalahian people who grew to love her, and for seven years we lived as a normal family,’ he continued. ‘Even if it was a royal one. My parents’ only sadness was that the large brood of children they longed for never happened and I remained an only child.’
‘So were you lonely?’ she questioned.
He jerked his head back, unprepared for a question nobody had ever asked him before. Yes, he had been lonely, even though there had been countless distractions for the much-loved son of the royal couple—with horses and toys and the offspring of the local high born to play with whenever he wished. But he had felt excluded from the powerful circle of his parents’ passion. Their love for each other had burned so fiercely that sometimes it had made you want to screw your eyes up against that bright light. His mouth hardened. And hadn’t the strength of that passion made him wary of such love, hating its all-consuming power and the way it razed away everything in its path?
‘Sometimes,’ he said, in as honest an admission as he’d ever made.
‘Go on,’ she said quietly.
He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘When I was seven, my father had to go away to Maraban on business—so my mother took me to one of our houses high in the mountains, in the western reaches of Kafalah. I remember it as being a perfect holiday, because it was a spectacular springtime, when for once the wildflowers were all in bloom. In the mornings she used to take me fishing in one of the mountain streams and we would picnic there afterwards. It was such a quiet and peaceful place that we required less than the usual quota of bodyguards. Or so we thought.’ His mouth hardened as his words tailed away and he found himself lost in the painful landscape of what had happened, wondering if they’d been naïve to have considered themselves so safe.
‘Zayed?’ she prompted cautiously.
He forced himself to continue because he had given his word that he would answer her question, but it was more than that. Suddenly he found himself wanting to expose the poison and the guilt to her and, yes, the shame. The bitter shame which would never leave him. Would Jane despise him for what he had done as much as he despised himself?
‘The jilted king came for my mother. His anger brewing and brewing, he had been biding his time for the perfect moment to take her back and now he had found it. She saw him from a distance riding up the mountain towards us and I saw fear in her face. Fear like I’d never seen before. She called for the bodyguards, but none came. Her fingers dug into my arms as she whispered into my ear and told me I must hide away and not make a sound. That I must be as quiet as if my life depended on it. I will never forget the way her voice sounded, or the urgency with which she spoke. And because I loved my mother and because I was too young to know any better, I did exactly as she said. I folded myself into the dark crevice of a cave and waited.’
He clenched his hands into fists, staring down at their white-knuckled definition as if they belonged to someone else. ‘And they came for her,’ he continued hoarsely. ‘I heard the vicious curses they made as they took her away but she made no sound. She went willingly to her fate. And it was long after I heard the last of the horses’ hooves thundering back down the mountain path that I ran out to search for the guards.’
His voice tailed off as he felt the powerful punch of pain to his chest.
‘Zayed?’ she said, again.
‘I found them mutilated,’ he said, his voice shaking with helpless rage. ‘Still alive but with their legs broken so they couldn’t mount a chase. There were no mobile phones then, of course. We had no instant means of communication. We were essentially helpless on the mountainside.’