‘You’re strong,’ she said behind him. ‘You’re intelligent and just and a good man, and you want to do the best for the people of Qajaran. They are lucky to have you.’
He heaved in air, and his words, when they came, might have been blasted raw by the desert sands and the hot wind. ‘I was not brought up for this.’
‘But it’s in your blood. Your father—’
‘How is finding you’re suddenly responsible for the welfare and futures of millions of people in your blood?’
‘You can do this, Rashid,’ she said, more sternly than she’d planned. ‘You would not be here if you did not believe that. Nobody who knows you, nobody here in this palace does not believe that.’
‘How can you—someone who I have known for the tiniest fraction of my life—say that?’
‘Because I have seen how hard you work. I have seen that a weaker man would walk away and that a greedy man would stay even if the task was beyond him. You are not like that. You can do this, and you will prevail and you will be a good Emir.’
Kareem interrupted them with a knock on the door. ‘Excellency, Sheikha, if you are ready?’
She glanced at him one more time before nodding and saying she would check on Yousra and Atiyah, and had turned to go when he caught her hand before she could disappear. ‘Thank you for those words. They mean more than you know.’ He squeezed her hand tightly in his before he let her go. ‘I just hope you are right.’
She smiled up at him in a way that warmed him from the inside out in a way the sun had never done. ‘I know I am,’ she said, and her words and her warmth gave him the courage to believe it.
* * *
It was exhausting but it was exciting, too. Tora sat alongside Rashid on a sofa under the shade of a tent that had been set up on a dais before a huge square that was full of the longest tables she had ever seen. They had breakfasted with the foreign dignitaries at the palace and now it was the turn of the people to meet their soon-to-be Emir before they returned to the palace for the coronation proper. Bright banners in the Qajarese colours fluttered in the air, competing with the cheerful holiday colours worn by the women and even some of the men. There was a party atmosphere as the feasting got under way, musicians and dancers providing the entertainment, and the sound of laughter was everywhere.
And not even the knowledge that theirs was a marriage of convenience, and that soon she would be heading home and no longer the sheikha, could not diminish her delight in being part of the proceedings. For now, legally at least, she was the sheikha and she would do the best job she could, even if her stomach was a mass of butterflies. But this wasn’t about her, it was about Rashid, and the coronation of a new Emir, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and she was going to lap up every single moment of it.
And then a young girl climbed from her seat and approached the dais, in her hands a posy of flowers, her eyes wide and a little in awe as she stood waiting at the steps. Kareem leaned low over Tora’s shoulder. ‘She has flowers to welcome the new sheikha, if you so wish.’
‘For me?’ Today was supposed to be all about Rashid, she had thought. But still she smiled and held out her hand to urge her up and the little girl smiled back and climbed the stairs and bowed before handing over the flowers and uttering something in Qajarese.
‘What did she say?’
Kareem leaned low again. ‘She wished you many sons and daughters.’
‘Oh,’ Tora said, suddenly embarrassed, before adding thank you in Qajarese, one of the few words that she’d learned, feeling guilty because now she wasn’t just observing the proceedings; she was a participant in them.
There were more children after that, and more blessings and more flowers, until their table was transformed into a sea of flowers, and Tora smiled at all comers, girl or boy, and their faces lit up when she thanked them.
She glanced across at Rashid at one stage and felt a sizzle down her spine when she found him watching her, his gaze thoughtful and filled with something that almost looked like respect.
* * *
Rashid watched her accept another bunch of flowers, touching her fingers to the child’s face as she thanked her, and the girl skipped back to where her family were sitting, almost luminescent with delight. Tora was a stranger to this pomp and ceremony as much as he was, an observer caught up in a world not her own, but you wouldn’t know it.
She was a natural with the children just as she was a constant for him, always at his side, looking calm and serene and so beautiful that his heart ached. And it was hot and there were hours to go before they could escape, and she so easily could have resented having to take part in the ceremony at all when she was no real wife of his, but she made it look easy.