More Precious than a Crown

‘It would.’

‘What else are you scared of? What else do you think you can’t discuss with me?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re sure?’

Honesty had never been on Trinity’s agenda. The way she had been brought up had been about smoothing over the bumps with lies, ignoring problems in the hope they would disappear, not sharing the scary, shameful parts.

It was time to change.

‘I love my family.’ She didn’t know how best to describe it. ‘They’ve lost their son, I don’t want them to feel that they’ve lost their daughter too. I can’t turn my back on them and I will go to family events.’

‘Of course,’ Zahid said, ‘so what is worrying you?’

‘You,’ Trinity admitted. ‘That you’ll cause a scene, say something...’

‘It is beyond unfair of your parents to expect you to see this man.’

Trinity looked at him and, yes, at times she was grateful for his excellent self-control and knew he was exerting it now.

‘I’d already decided that,’ Trinity admitted. ‘I was going to ring them and tell them that if they wanted me there today then he wasn’t to be.’

‘Was?’

‘I think we should just get through today and then I’ll...’ she screwed her eyes closed. ‘I don’t know what I want.’

‘Maybe you need to tell him face to face that you don’t want him around,’ Zahid said, for clearly she could not rely on her parents to defend her as parents should.

He looked at her as she spoke.

‘I don’t ever want to speak to him.’

‘Are you sure?’ Zahid said, ‘because I will deal with it if that is what you want.’

‘That’s not what I want.’ She looked back at a very pensive Zahid and, no, she could not put him through this for the rest of their lives, could not ask him to attend functions and stand idly by.

‘You don’t have to be drunk to take to the microphone,’ Zahid said.

‘I wasn’t drunk that night.’

He smiled in dispute.

‘A bit maybe,’ Trinity admitted.

‘Well, you don’t have to be to say what is on your mind.’

‘If I do say something...’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘I’d prefer you wait here at the hotel.’

Zahid shook his head.

‘In the car, then.’

‘No,’ Zahid said. ‘You are not facing this without me.’

‘So, on top of everything else, I have to worry about you losing your head...’

‘I won’t lose my head,’ Zahid said. ‘You have my word.’

If ever she was grateful for Zahid’s self-control it was today. It made Trinity strong when she questioned her own, it kept her calm enough to face what she had been unable to before.

Zahid dressed in an immaculate suit and Trinity had on her funeral clothes, but they were facing a difficult day together this time.

Zahid waved away his driver, for he could see she felt awkward enough, and he drove them himself. As he did, Trinity mind flitted to anything other than what lay ahead.

‘Poor Sameena...’ She turned in sudden anguish. ‘What will happen to the two countries?’

‘A war perhaps,’ Zahid said, then he stopped teasing her. ‘Had you not decided to escape you would have found out that Sameena and I had a very polite conversation.’

‘In the garden?’

Zahid nodded. ‘Soon Sameena will be Queen and she looks forward to happy relations between our countries, whatever my choice. It was a very discreet conversation but reading between the lines she was asking me not to choose her.’

‘She rejected you!’ Trinity beamed.

‘You’re going to get so much mileage out of that,’ Zahid sighed.

‘I am,’ Trinity said, and then stopped smiling, for Zahid was pulling up at the river that had been chosen for the occasion. It was a place the family had gone for drives to at times and where Donald had proposed to Yvette.

‘Ready?’ Zahid checked, and Trinity nodded.

‘You can do this.’

‘I don’t think Yvette knows...’

‘Well, let her find out,’ Zahid said. ‘Maybe some honesty will allow her to speak more openly about what she has been through. Her baby and ours are going to be cousins. Don’t you want them to be close?’

‘I do.’

‘Lies haven’t worked for a long time,’ Zahid said. ‘Maybe you could try the truth.’

‘You promise that you won’t—’

‘I will not lose my head.’

He took her hand and they walked over to the small gathering, but as he went to give her hand a squeeze to offer support her fingers slipped away from his grasp, just not in the way they had on that awful night all those years ago. Instead of reaching out in fear to Zahid, it was an assertive Trinity who walked towards the small crowd.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Trinity asked, pointing her finger at Clive. ‘Why on earth would you ask the man who attacked your seventeen-year-old daughter to be here on this day?’

‘Trinity!’ Dianne said. ‘Not now.’

‘When, then?’

‘Trinity,’ Dianne said in low tones as Gus tried to hush her, but finally Trinity refused to be hushed.

‘Why are we whispering?’ Trinity said. ‘I mean it, I want to remember my brother today. I want to think about Donald instead of remembering what this sleaze did to me that night.’ She looked at Clive and she saw not a strong, angry man but the pathetic, weak creep that he was. ‘I don’t ever want to see you again and if I do, I’ll be going to the police. And I don’t give a damn what it will do to my family, or to your reputation, because I know what you did to me and I’m more than prepared to say it in court.’

‘Come on, Clive.’ Elaine started to walk off. ‘She was always trouble,’ she shouted over her shoulder, ‘always making stuff up.’

‘For God’s sake, Trinity,’ Gus boomed, ‘it’s your brother’s...’

‘I just want to say one thing.’ Zahid’s deep voice was out of place with the shouting but even Trinity shivered at the sinister calm of his voice. ‘I promised Trinity that I would not lose my head today and I shall keep my word.’ He might be in Western clothes but he was a dangerous desert warrior and had she been on the end of his look that was aimed at Clive, Trinity would have run for her life. ‘If my gaze ever falls on you again then know I shall keep my word to Trinity and not lose my head, because I won’t need to. I will kill you in cold blood.’

‘He doesn’t mean it...’ Dianne’s smile was frantic but Zahid’s cool disdain met her now.

‘You can test the theory if you choose but, I tell you once, my people would expect nothing less from their future king.’

He watched every step that Clive took as he walked off and it was at the right moment that Trinity took his hand because the master of self-control was waning as Clive took one final look around. Trinity felt the zip of tension in Zahid, knew that at any second he’d change his mind and bolt after him, and perhaps Clive sensed it too for he ran the last of the distance to the car and Zahid turned and looked at Dianne.

‘I do mean it.’ He put his arm around Trinity and they walked down to the river.

It was nice to be able to focus on her brother today, nice to recall the good times with Zahid by her side, and it was actually, for the first time, nice to step into her home.

‘Why has Zahid asked to speak alone with your father?’ Dianne asked.

‘You’ll find out soon.’

‘Should I check if there’s champagne in the fridge?’

‘Zahid doesn’t drink,’ Trinity said, and then smiled at her mum. ‘And there’s always champagne in the fridge.’

‘I’m sorry, Trinity.’

From out of the blue they came—the words she’d never thought she’d hear.

‘Thank you.’

‘Can we start again?’ Dianne asked.

‘I think we have to.’

They did start again, right from square one, because after a quiet celebration where they shared the news that they would be married soon, it was not long before Trinity yawned and said she wanted to go to bed.

‘Perhaps set up...’ Dianne’s voice broke off.

‘Zahid will sleep with me,’ Trinity said, ‘or we can go back to the hotel.’

Zahid did not correct Trinity, for to hell with politeness, he would never set foot in the guest room.

He wished them goodnight and they headed to her single bed.

‘What did she say?’ Zahid smiled as they huddled in the darkness. ‘When you started laughing in the kitchen?’

‘It was wrong,’ Trinity blushed. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘You can.’

‘Okay.’ Trinity took a big breath. ‘Mum said that when your father dies, will she have a title?’

‘She wants a title?’

‘She’s wants to be the Queen Mother.’

He laughed.

It was rare, it was deep and it thrilled her right down to her bones, and there would be so much more of it, Trinity would make sure of that.

‘How could I have ever thought you boring?’ Trinity sighed.

‘Another thing you haven’t told me,’ Zahid said. ‘When did you think I was boring?’