CHAPTER SIX
HE’DDISMISSEDHER. Left her to prepare on her own for a situation she’d never dreamt she’d be in. Three days to turn herself into a queen. One week until she became a wife.
She wasn’t ready. How could she be? She was Charlotte Hegarty, survivor of addict parents. The daughter of alcoholics. What right did she have to these things now being offered to her?
She closed her eyes.
She would not fail.
Her dad had been wrong.
‘Shukran.’
‘Hasan jidana.’
Selma, her personal assistant, smiled. ‘Very good, Your Royal Highness.’
Charlotte wriggled in a little celebration dance and pressed her toes into the bedspread.
‘Charlotte,’ she corrected for the umpteenth time. She wasn’t royal yet. She was a royal-in-waiting until tomorrow, and even then... Your Royal Highness?
‘You cannot learn a language with many nuances in a few days,’ said Selma.
Charlotte crossed her legs. ‘I know.’
‘In time, you will learn,’ Selma soothed her impatient student. ‘The palace will provide a tutor—’
‘A tutor can’t teach me what you can before the announcement.’
‘Of course it is your choice, but the brain is much like a sandwich.’ Selma pressed her palms together as she sat on the edge of the bed ‘Too many ingredients and the filling spills out.’ She clapped. ‘Splodge.’
Charlotte laughed. Hard. And then covered her mouth with her hand.
‘It won’t be funny when you can’t remember anything because you’ve tried to digest too much and your stomach is still full and yet you must eat more sandwiches.’
‘Are you hungry, Selma?’ she asked, displacing her hand from her mouth. ‘All your analogies are about food. You should have eaten with me. There was way too much food for just one person!’
‘I’m always hungry—and you are always hungry for knowledge, yes?’ Brown eyes twinkled beneath dark arched brows. ‘Because you eat very little and ask many questions?’
‘Nerves,’ she confessed easily. ‘It seems important to know as much as I can about my new home, and you’ve been an excellent teacher.’
‘The best way to gain new knowledge is to let it sit with you.’ She pointed to the mountain of plump pillows at Charlotte’s back. ‘Sleep, and let your subconscious do the hard work.’
‘I don’t think I’ll sleep.’
She hadn’t slept well since she’d arrived, and the thought of tomorrow’s schedule wound her up too tightly to sleep now. Her eyes wandered longingly to the box of supplies she’d been gifted, which was sitting beside the low-slung sofa on the far side of the room. Her fingers itched to pull the paper free, to take the pencils from the packs and escape into herself.
Art. It was right there. Waiting for her to claim it. As it had been every night since her arrival. The one thing that made her her. She pushed down the longing because only later, when she was alone, would she continue to rediscover that part of herself.
‘But you must rest.’ She pulled her gaze back to Selma. ‘Go.’ She shooed her off the bed with the back of her hand. ‘I’m so sorry... I didn’t think...’ She paused.
Selma had offered her something achingly close to friendship. She knew the dynamics were all wrong, but somehow it worked. A friend. Maybe soon a confidante? Her heart bloomed. She’d had no one to share her secrets with. No one since Akeem. But the moment Selma had introduced herself they’d hit it off.
‘It’s been so nice,’Charlotte continued.‘Thank you for making it nice, Selma.’
These last three days she hadn’t been alone. Her days had been full, but her nights...
Akeem hadn’t returned.
‘You won’t thank me tomorrow, after the stylist has plucked you within an inch of your life—’
‘Like a chicken?’
Selma wrinkled her nose. ‘And told a gazillion facts you’ll never remember about Taliedaa by Kadar. He never knows where to begin or where to end. But he is passionate about his records, and continues to preserve the legacy of our young sovereign state. He’s overjoyed that you are such an eager student, but tomorrow I will rein him in.’
‘No, please don’t.’
‘There is too much to do for his lesson to go over its allotted time.’
‘It’s been fascinating, meeting with him every day over breakfast—he obviously loves this place.’
‘He does.’ Selma flushed. ‘Very much.’
‘And you?’
‘I love him—but don’t tell him.’ She smiled, but the corners of her lips pointed down. ‘He wouldn’t know where to store that insignificant fact in his history books.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t have to be history?’ Charlotte said—because hadn’t her past very much become her present? If she could have a second chance, couldn’t anyone?
Is that how you see this? As a second chance with Akeem?
Selma was shaking her head, and Charlotte ignored the punch of the question she’d asked herself.
She concentrated on the woman on her bed. ‘Have you and Kadar known each other long?’
Selma coughed and rose, clearly not wanting to talk about Kadar further. ‘Would you like me to help you settle down?’
‘No, I’ll manage.’
No one had ever offered to tuck her in before. Selma offered every night. Maybe she could ask her to check under the bed... Her stomach pulled. She didn’t have to ask. She knew what would be under there. Her fears. But she wouldn’t be afraid. She would let them go, as Akeem had told her.
‘Sleep?’ Selma suggested. ‘Tomorrow will be—’