Kamal whipped about and their eyes locked for a long moment.
“No,” Arabella said, moving closer to him. “If we die, it will be together.”
To her absolute astonishment, the man shouted again, and it was her name that rang out.
“Arabella!”
Her dagger clattered to the ground. “Adam. Kamal, it’s my brother, Adam.”
She ran forward before Kamal could stop her. The three men pulled their steaming horses to a halt, whipping up clouds of dust. Adam leapt from his horse and caught her to him.
“My God. Are you all right?” Arabella was laughing and hugging him, oblivious of the men who stood stock-still about them.
“Oh yes, Adam, I am fine. How are you here? Come, you must meet Kamal.”
Adam pulled off his kufiyah, stared down at his beautiful sister, and threw back his head in deep laughter. “You amaze me, Bella. I should have known that you would be anything but dead or abused.”
Kamal looked at the handsome black-haired man who was Arabella’s brother. He knows her as well as I do, he thought, and he understands her. Slowly he walked toward them.
“Kamal.”
He stopped abruptly, and turned very slowly toward the man astride a huge black stallion. He felt gooseflesh rise on his arms.
The man gracefully dismounted and stood a moment watching him.
“Have you no greeting for your brother?” Hamil slowly pulled off his kufiyah, his eyes on his brother’s face.
Arabella turned in Adam’s arms to watch the two men staring at each other. “His half-brother Hamil?” she whispered.
“Aye,” Adam said. “He is my friend.”
Slowly, the shock fading from Kamal’s mind, he smiled at his half-brother and said, “You have a son. Now he is no longer my heir.”
Hamil had pictured this meeting many times in his mind. Kamal’s first words dissolved his final niggling doubts. He gave a great shout and held out his arms. The brothers embraced, slapping each other on the back, talking at the same time.
They fell apart and studied each other.
“I see that death has painted your hair with a
streak of silver, Hamil. I imagine it was not my prayers that saved you, but rather your own stubbornness.”
“And you, brother—have you bankrupted my coffers?”
“You have returned just in time to prevent me from doing so.”
“Lella. She is well?”
“Well, but terribly sad. Your son is beautiful, Hamil.”
“Life,” Hamil said, “is very odd. You see, I have brought the woman’s brother to take her off your hands. He assured me that no man could intimidate her. She is a hellion and too proud to be but a woman.”
“That,” Kamal said, turning to smile at Arabella, “is true. Come, my brother, and pay attention to my future wife.”
“Wife. By God, little brother, you have the woman eating out of your hands in a mere week?”
Arabella, hearing Hamil’s words, smiled. “Adam,” she said, “what did you tell Hamil?”
“Only the truth, Bella, only the truth. What is this Kamal said about a wife?”