More Precious than a Crown

Layla rolled her eyes. ‘Ah, but I bet you take looks into consideration when you are choosing your lovers.’

‘Layla!’ Zahid warned, but she would not quiet.

‘Why don’t women get to go overseas? Why were you allowed to leave Ishla for your education?’

‘You know why, Layla.’

‘Well, it’s not fair. At least you have had some fun before you choose your bride. Father is speaking about the Fayeds again. I don’t want Hassain to be my first love.’ She pulled a face and Zahid suppressed a smile. He wanted to tell his sister that when he was king he would change things, but that conversation was too dangerous to have just yet.

‘I want to know what it is to fall in love.’ Layla pouted.

Zahid could think of nothing worse than a mind dizzied by emotion. He truly could not stand the thought of a life lived in love.

Yes, there was a year of her life that Layla didn’t know about.

The first year.

He looked at his sister who lived with her head in the clouds, yet he cared for her so. He could still remember her screaming in the crib, could still recall their father’s repeated rejection of his second born, who he had blamed for his wife’s death.

No, Layla must never know.

‘Layla, the palace will be busy preparing for my wedding. You do not have to worry for a while.’

‘But I do worry,’ Layla said. ‘Zahid, can I come to England with you? I would love to see the sights, and to go to a real English wedding...’

‘Layla, you know that you cannot travel until you are married.’

‘No,’ Layla corrected him, ‘the rule is that I cannot travel unless I am escorted by a family member. If you took me...’

‘I am not taking you to England with me,’ Zahid said. He would already have his work cut out with the Fosters and their debauched ways, let alone adding Layla to the mix. Zahid rolled his eyes. There was no doubt in his mind that his best-man duties would involve policing Trinity.

Once he had agreed to attend the wedding, Zahid had looked her up and his face had hardened as he had read on and flicked through images. Having completed school, or rather, as Zahid knew from Donald, a stint in rehab, Trinity had, it would seem, jumped straight off the wagon. There were several pieces about how she loved to party, combined with several images of her falling out of nightclubs. Things had gone quiet in recent years, though. She was now living in California and only came home on occasion, such as for the wedding of her brother.

His curiosity about Trinity surprised even Zahid. He could barely remember most of the women he had dated, yet the one kiss that he and Trinity had shared still remained clear in his mind, so much so that it took a moment to drag his mind back to the conversation.

‘Can I come on your honeymoon, then?’ Layla persisted.

‘I will hopefully be busy on my honeymoon,’ Zahid said.

‘Not the desert part.’ Layla laughed. ‘After. When you travel overseas, can I at least come with you then?’

It was not such a strange request—sisters often travelled as companionship for the new bride.

‘You might not like the bride I choose,’ Zahid pointed out.

‘You might not like the bride you choose.’ Layla smiled. ‘So I will entertain her so that you do not have to worry about such things as shopping and lunch.’

‘We shall see.’

‘Promise me that you will take me, Zahid,’ Layla said. ‘I need something to look forward to.’

‘You are up to something?’

‘No,’ Layla said. ‘I am just bored and I want something to dream about, something to look forward to.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘I need to go and meet my students.’

‘Then go,’ Zahid said, but Layla would not move till she got her way.

‘How can I teach my students about the world when I have never even left Ishla?’

Zahid accepted that she made a good point. ‘Very well, you can travel overseas with us when I take my bride on honeymoon.’

It was no big deal to Zahid.

Romance was not part of the equation in any marriage that he had in mind and that was the reason he said yes.

CHAPTER TWO

AN ASH CLOUD, perchance? Trinity’s heart lurched in hope when she saw that her flight was delayed.

A really, really big ash cloud that would ground aviation for days.

Or maybe the baggage handlers could go on strike.

LAX had been busy, busy and JFK was much the same. Trinity knew she had been cutting it almost impossibly fine to get back in time for her brother’s wedding and now that her flight had been delayed there was a very real prospect that the bridesmaid wouldn’t make it to the church on time.

Had she been willing that ash cloud to appear perhaps?

Of course she had.

Just a nice natural disaster where no one got hurt and one where it could be explained in the speeches that, though Trinity had done everything she possibly could to get there...

Boarding.

Trinity watched as the sign flicked over and dragged herself to the back of the line. Even as she took her seat on the aircraft she was hoping for a black miracle.

A flock of seagulls perhaps?

Yes, an aborted take-off seemed preferable to facing her family, or rather her aunt and her husband.

When Donald had called Trinity to tell her that he was marrying Yvette, though she had given her congratulations and said that, of course, she’d be thrilled to be there, inside her stomach had churned.

On concluding the call, Trinity had actually dashed to the toilet to be sick.

She felt sick now.

A harried mother and baby took the seat next to her.

Why, oh, why, hadn’t she used the money her father had given her to buy a business-class seat, Trinity thought as the baby told her with his big blue eyes that he was going to do everything in his power to scream all the way to Heathrow.

The take-off was impeccable, not a seagull to be found!

Then the captain came on and said that he would do his level best to make up lost time.

Trinity wished she could do the same—that she could push a few buttons and ride a tail wind if it meant that she could erase lost years. An ancient art history degree that she’d somehow obtained, as she’d struggled merely to operate, lay unused. Clubs, bars, dancing had been but a temporary escape from her pain and grief. California healing had beckoned, but neither reiki, nor chakra cleansing, nor the roar of the vast Pacific could replace what had been lost.

Her latest attempt to cure her repulsion to anything that hinted on sexual had been positive-reinforcement-based training.

Ha-ha.

Two thousand dollars later and several pounds heavier, Trinity had decided that no amount of chocolate or affirmations were going to cure her particular problem.

She loved herself?

Most of the time, yes.

She’d just prefer not to be touched.

The meals were served and Trinity just picked at hers and refused wine. Despite what the newspapers said, she really only drank at family things.

Which it soon would be.

No.

As the cabin lights were dimmed Trinity tried to doze but Harry, as it turned out the baby was called, had decided now that he liked her. He kept patting her cheeks with his little fat hands.

‘Sorry,’ his mum kept saying.

‘It’s not a problem.’

Trinity tried to doze some more.

It didn’t work.

The only consolation to attending the wedding was that she had just found out that, though at first he had declined, Zahid was going to be the best man.

She hadn’t seen him since that night ten years ago and Trinity wondered what he would be like now, if he even remembered that kiss in the woods.

If he’d ever given her a thought since then.

Trinity closed her eyes and briefly returned to the rapture of being in his arms and the bliss of his kiss, but her eyes suddenly snapped open for she could not even escape to the sanctuary of them without recalling what had happened later that night and in the months that had followed.

There was so much adrenaline in her legs that Trinity tried walking around the sleepy cabin, dreading what she must face later today. How she’d hoped her mother would tell her that Clive and Elaine hadn’t been invited, how she wished her father, or even her brother, would step in.

No one ever had.

Skeletons belonged in the closet. Dirty laundry belonged in a basket.

Clive was more prominent than her father.

Nothing could be gained by speaking out. It was easier to simply smile for the cameras.

It wasn’t, though.

All too soon the scent of breakfast came from the galley and, opening the shutter, she saw dawn.

The wedding day was here.

Trinity returned to her seat, where Harry was shrieking. ‘Would you mind?’ his mum asked. ‘I have to go to the restroom.’

‘Of course.’

Trinity held Harry, who stood on her thighs with his knees buckling as he screamed and screamed. ‘Go, Harry!’ Trinity smiled. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be as uninhibited as Harry, to simply scream out your pain and not care a jot what others thought?

She didn’t get to hold babies much. All her family was in the UK and none of her friends in LA had babies yet.

The sting of tears in her own eyes was terribly unwelcome and Trinity swallowed them back, telling herself she was being ridiculous. There was no comparison, Trinity told herself as she looked at Harry.

He was all big and chunky and wriggling.

Whereas she had been so tiny and so very still.

The sob that escaped Trinity’s lips came from somewhere so deep and buried that even Harry stopped his tirade.