Elinor was almost asleep, a dreamy smile on her lips. ‘Some day, I might take you up on that,’ she whispered.
Almost three years later, Elinor entered the nursery at Woodrow Court wearing a beautiful green satin evening gown and a magnificent set of emerald and diamond jewellery that glittered fierily below the lights.
Sami was tucked up in bed clutching a toy racing car. His sister, Mariyah, a dark-eyed toddler with her mother’s ready smile, was fast asleep, and the newest addition to the family, Tarif, at four months old, was mesmerised watching the cot mobile above him with big drowsy eyes as it turned and played a lullaby. He was a laid-back good-natured baby who only cried when he was hungry. She was the mother of three children, Elinor reflected in bemusement, still amazed by the speed with which her life had changed and flourished. Mariyah, if truth be known, had not been planned, but the pregnancy had been easy and the delivery quick and Elinor had decided she would like her third child to be born within the same age range as the other two.
It was their fourth wedding anniversary and Elinor was content to look back on the three wonderful years she had shared with Jasim. They were rarely apart for, as his father’s heir, Jasim travelled a great deal less. King Akil had outlived all the gloomy forecasts and, although he was by no means a well man, he had regained his appetite and a little weight and was certainly looking a good deal better. Jasim and his father often worked together now and had grown a great deal closer and that improved relationship had brought Jasim peace after his turbulent, unhappy childhood.
Elinor too led a very busy life. She had been asked to open the new hotel and leisure complex in Muscar. Soon afterwards she had agreed to help raise funds for a charity for premature babies, an interest that had led to countless hospital visits and other requests for her support. When Jasim was so much in demand she felt it was important that she had her own concerns and, between those and her desire to spend as much time as possible with her children while they were still so young, her daily schedule was pretty packed. Whenever she was in England she met up with Alissa and Lindy and she loved escaping the pomp and ceremony of life in Quaram to be treated just as a friend.
How had she dealt with Laila? Elinor’s eyes sparkled at the recollection. She had leant on Jasim to issue invitations to palace functions to every eligible man he knew and, before very long, romance had worked its magic and Laila had been married and swept off to Oman by a very rich and besotted sheikh. Elinor got on very well with Laila’s mother, Mouna, who looked on her as an extra daughter and adored the children.
Elinor had seen very little of her father in recent years but that was only what she had expected. Ernest Tempest had little interest in his grandchildren, and once he had satisfied his curiosity about the ancient history of Quaram further visits had had little appeal for the older man. Elinor believed she had already received more warm appreciation and encouragement from Jasim’s father than she had ever received from her own.
At the King’s instigation, the old rambling palace in the desert outside the city had been renovated from top to bottom and the royal household had moved back there. Murad’s monstrous noisy marble palace was now being used by the government as a conference centre, a parliamentary building and a museum. Yaminah had remarried and become stepmother to several children with her second husband. She had attended Jasim’s birthday party the previous year. Elinor had enjoyed seeing Zahrah again and Yaminah had been scrupulously polite and pleasant as though all her wild suspicions had been laid in the grave with her first husband.
‘What a picture you make,’ Jasim breathed from the doorway.
In a whirl of fabric as her glamorous gown spun out round her, Elinor sped over to him. ‘I thought you were going to be late—’
‘For my anniversary dinner with my beautiful wife? Never!’ Jasim teased, dark golden eyes smouldering with sensual appreciation over her before he curved an arm round her and walked round the nursery, bending down to say goodnight to Sami, laughing at the way Mariyah was curled up in one corner of her cot and smiling down at Tarif. ‘But before we eat, I have something to show you. Unfortunately you’re rather overdressed for our destination.’
‘Shall I change?’ Elinor asked.
‘No, you look fabulous and I want to feast my eyes on you.’
‘The emeralds are way over the top,’ she sighed, her fingertips brushing the superb necklace.
‘That was my father’s gift,’ he reminded her. ‘And he doesn’t do cheap or ordinary.’
She giggled like mad when he carried her out of the house and stashed her in the Range Rover parked out front. ‘Where on earth are we going?’
Jasim turned the car in the direction of the stables and she sat up straight, her level of interest growing, for the year before Jasim had given her a superb mare and she was a good deal more interested in horse flesh than she was in jewellery.
He helped her out and guided her over to the stables while she gathered her skirt up in one hand to stop it trailing. ‘I have a surprise for you.’
‘If it’s got four legs, I’ll love you for ever…well, I’ll love you for ever whatever you do but more particularly if it’s a live present.’
‘Hush, habibti,’ Jasim urged. ‘She’s been a little neglected and she’s rather nervous, so the staff haven’t subjected her to a decent grooming as yet.’
‘Who?’ Elinor was now nestling under his arm like a purring cat, for whenever he called her habibti, which meant ‘beloved’, she just melted inside.
A shaggy greyish-white head poked anxiously out over the stable door. The elderly animal in no way resembled the pedigree, perfectly groomed horses that usually occupied the boxes. Elinor stared at the homely mare with huge rounded eyes. ‘Starlight?’ she whispered in disbelief, her voice cracking with emotion. She moved closer. ‘My word, you’ve found Starlight for me! Is it any wonder that you’re the love of my life?’
Jasim stood back watching while she petted the horse she had adored as a teenager and which her father had sold. He told her something of the mare’s history since then and her eyes glistened with tears. After she had coaxed Starlight into trusting her again, she turned back to Jasim and flung herself at him in a passion of gratitude, hugging and kissing him with abandon.
‘You really are wonderful,’ she told him with shining eyes.
‘You’re the wonder in my life, habibti. I have you and I have three beautiful children, and I feel as though you have given me the whole world,’ Jasim murmured huskily, studying her with quiet adoration.
Happiness bubbled up inside Elinor. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘And every day I’m with you, I love you a little more.’