‘Thank you,’ Rashid acknowledged. ‘And I have a friend who had to lead his country unexpectedly. I would like to seek his advice.’
‘You refer to Sheikh Zoltan, the King of Al-Jirad.’
‘Yes. You know him?’
‘But of course. Al-Jirad and Qajaran have been friends since ancient times. He would be most welcome here. It would further cement the bonds between our two countries.’
Rashid seemed to relax then, taking a deep breath and lifting his hand in acknowledgment as they passed the cheering onlookers. He looked the other way and caught Tora watching him as his gaze drifted past hers. His eyes immediately snapped back. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head, for the first time feeling a little sorry for this man, who appeared to have been thrust into a world not of his making. Nothing she could tell him or that he would want to hear at any rate.
* * *
The limousine slowed as it waited for a set of high metal gates, sculpted to look like twin peacocks, to be opened. ‘I have taken the liberty of installing you in the Old Palace,’ Kareem said as they started along a long palm-lined driveway. ‘Emir Malik built six new palaces during his reign, all of which are more modern, and you are more than welcome to make one of the others your base, but, for your comfort and the sake of tradition, I feel the Old Palace will be more suitable.’
Tora swallowed as she caught glimpses of a building out of her window through the garden of palms and greenery, the curve of a domed roof here, a peep of a decorative window arch there, snippets that held the promise of fantasy.
But of course, they would be heading for a palace. Where else would an Emir live?
And then the palms parted and the car rolled slowly past a fountain that was the size of a small lake, featuring stallions made of gleaming marble and standing tall on their hind legs, their manes alive to an unfelt breeze as they pranced in the tumbling water that sparkled like jewels in the sun.
But while the fountain was spectacular, it was a mere accessory to the palace. Tora took one look and knew she’d left her old world behind and stepped into the pages of a fairy tale. Surely it was the most beautiful building she’d ever seen, with decorative arches and rows of columns and a golden dome adorning the roof, and the whole effect was as romantic as it was impressive.
The limousine rolled to a stop under a colonnaded entrance shaded from the weather and before a flight of stairs where a dozen uniformed men, wearing the colours of the flags she’d seen waved in the streets, stood waiting.
‘Welcome home, Excellency, Sheikha,’ Kareem said with a nod as one of the guards stepped forward to open the door.
Sheikha? Tora swallowed as she unfastened Atiyah’s capsule and prepared to enter this strange new world. But of course, she supposed, she must be a sheikha if she was married to a sheikh.
And then she caught a glance of Rashid’s grimly set jaw. She was married to this man. As good as shackled to the sheikh. A fairy tale? And suddenly Tora wasn’t so sure.
* * *
‘If you please, Sheikha Victoria,’ Kareem said with a bow as he gestured her to enter, ‘this is your suite.’
Tora was reeling. She’d thought the outside of the palace was breathtaking, but then she’d stepped inside into air scented with jasmine and musk and known she was in some kind of fantasy land. Walls were decorated in gilt and mosaic, chairs and tables inlaid with mother of pearl. It was a feast for the eyes, and everywhere she looked another work of art demanded her attention. It was all she could do not to gape.
It was all she could do not to run. Still dressed in her serviceable, travel-weary uniform while everything around her was exotic and beautiful, she had never felt more out of place.
And now Kareem was showing them a suite that would swallow up her entire house in Sydney and still leave enough room to live in, and that was without taking into account the terrace overlooking the pool and garden outside her windows where the now setting sun was bathing everything including a row of mountains far in the distance in a ruby glow. It was utterly magical, and that was only the outside.
The bedroom itself was enormous, hosting a magnificent gilt four-poster bed, and there was a room prepared for Atiyah along with another room for Yousra, a local girl who’d been assigned to be her nursery maid, and the main bathroom had a bath that put some of the lap pools at home to shame.
Her suite. All hers. Which meant that Rashid would be sleeping elsewhere, and for the first time since arriving Tora started to relax. If she wanted to avoid Rashid, she need never leave the safety of her room.