His Queen by Desert Decree

Azrael was shouting where he could be heard, Molly registered in disbelief. Azrael, who was very courteous, well-disciplined and always conscious of listening ears. It freaked Molly out. Thoroughly disconcerted by his uncharacteristic behaviour, Molly fled up the stairs as though all the hounds of hell were on her tail. What did he mean that her grandfather didn’t exist? How could he make such an insane allegation?

‘I will bring coffee to the salon, Your Majesty,’ Haifa assured her at the top of the stairs.

‘Not now, thank you,’ Molly muttered, nervously conscious that Azrael was thundering up the stairs behind her and hastening on down the corridor.

Behind her she heard him rap out a staccato instruction to the housekeeper and she kept on moving, finally darting into the reception room at the foot of the corridor that opened out onto a charming rooftop garden. The French windows stood wide on the sunlight and, mindful of Azrael’s mood, Molly hastily slammed them shut.

‘You will explain

yourself right now!’ Azrael launched at her wrathfully, lodging in the doorway like an immovable rock.

Molly flipped round, her slight body whip taut with tension. The unvarnished anger he could not hide disturbed her because she could not understand what could possibly have changed between them while they had been apart. ‘How can I explain myself when I don’t understand what you’re talking about?’

‘Of course you know what I’m talking about!’ Azrael thundered back at her with conviction.

‘Do I?’ Molly’s own temper was finally beginning to rouse in the face of his seething animosity. And the shock of such a welcome when she had naïvely hoped for a much warmer reception was affecting her outlook as well. She was learning that she didn’t know Azrael as well as she had fondly believed and she wasn’t enjoying what she was discovering. She was even reconsidering what she had read about Princess Nasira and wondering just how much she could trust Azrael. That was a serious question that went right to the heart of their relationship.

‘Do I have to spell out what you have done in words of a single syllable?’ Azrael demanded.

‘Yes,’ Molly traded sharply. ‘How could you possibly say that my grandfather doesn’t exist when I visited him every day I was in London?’

‘Your background was exhaustively researched by the British press and I read the article,’ Azrael informed her. ‘Certain facts about your family tree emerged. You don’t have a living grandfather—’

‘Maurice may be a little confused but I can assure you that he is very much alive and kicking!’ Molly slammed back at him in bemusement.

‘Both your grandfathers are dead, the first before you were born, the second when you were a child,’ Azrael enumerated grimly. ‘So, you lied to me!’

‘No, I didn’t... I have never lied to you!’ Molly flung back at him full volume as the first glimmerings of his misapprehension began to connect the dots for her. ‘And to accuse me of making up a story that I had a grandfather in a care home... I mean, why on earth would I do that?’

‘To engage my sympathies as a means of extracting money from me!’ Azrael gritted in disgust. ‘You should be ashamed—’

‘No, you should be ashamed of your nasty, suspicious mind!’ Molly shouted back at him furiously. ‘I don’t need or want your wretched money and I didn’t ask you for any of it either! How dare you accuse me of being a lying gold-digger?’

‘Those are your words,’ Azrael deflected, calming now that he had vented his angry disillusionment but decidedly confused by her reaction. ‘Not mine.’

Molly dealt him a look of supreme scorn. ‘I can read between the lines, Azrael. I’m not stupid and if this is what you really think of me, it makes me wonder what else you have hidden from me—’

‘I have hidden nothing from you—’

‘One word.’ Molly tossed her coppery head back, ringlets streaming back from her hotly flushed face.

‘What word?’ Azrael queried, feeling increasingly lost in the dialogue and unable to understand how that had happened when he was in the right and she was in the wrong.

‘Nasira,’ Molly framed with dark satisfaction. ‘Now, are you planning to continue blocking the doorway? Or may I leave the room, Your Majesty?’

Azrael frowned. ‘What has Nasira to do with us?’

It wasn’t the guilty reaction Molly had been looking for, indeed even expecting after the argument they had had. ‘You have secrets too,’ she condemned.

‘Not about her,’ Azrael breathed in bewilderment. ‘Only about things you wouldn’t want to know about—’

Molly planted a small hand directly in the centre of his hard muscular chest. ‘Move!’ she told him.

‘Why? Where are you going?’

‘That’s none of your business—’

‘Everything you do is my business...you’re my wife,’ Azrael reminded her without hesitation.