A Whisper of Disgrace

As two royal princes of a fabulously rich desert kingdom, the two men should have been close but an accident of birth meant that they had grown up living two very different lives. Hazail was the older, the heir to the throne, and the defining factor of his life had always been that he would one day inherit the crown. It had been Hazail’s destiny which had occupied most of their father’s time as he had tutored his elder son in the art of ruling a powerful desert kingdom.

Kulal had simply been the ‘spare’—the extra boy child born as an insurance policy to ensure the line of succession. He had been brought up by a series of amahs—female servants who had adored him but had lacked the strength to discipline the strong-minded little boy. Consequently, he had been given freedom—perhaps a little too much freedom for so strong and so wilful a character. But that had never compensated for the heavy weight which had hung over him since his mother had died—a shocking death which had sent the country spiralling into deep mourning. And Kulal had been marked out by that terrible loss, for she had died saving his life. Deep down he knew that was the reason why his father and his brother had always been so distant towards him. He knew that subconsciously they blamed him for the queen’s untimely end, even if logic told them that it was nothing but the cruel intervention of fate. Of two people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Perhaps it had been to make up for their emotional distance that they had tended to overlook Kulal’s misdemeanours. But it seemed that they were not being overlooked this time. Hazail was pacing the floor like an expectant father, before turning back to his younger brother, still with that exasperated expression on his face.

‘She wasn’t a pole dancer,’ Kulal protested as he picked up a golden goblet and swirled the pomegranate juice it contained.

‘No?’ Hazail looked at him. ‘It is fiction, then, that she was seen writhing around in a nightclub, showing much of her underwear in the process? That is simply a figment of my informant’s imagination, is it?’

‘Which informant?’ Kulal demanded, trying to dampen down the vivid image of Rosa’s curvaceous body as it had twisted itself around the pole. Or the fact that his brother’s damned servant had interrupted him just as he had started to seduce her!

‘That is surely beside the point,’ answered Hazail coolly. ‘Unless you’re denying that you took this exhibitionist back to your hotel with you?’

Kulal shrugged. ‘No, I am not denying it.’

‘She seems a little outré even for your extravagant tastes, Kulal.’

‘I know.’ Kulal met the question in his brother’s eyes with a faintly bemused shrug, because he couldn’t have begun to describe the sensation which had washed over him when he’d watched Rosa walk into the nightclub that night. Lust didn’t begin to cover the hunger he’d felt when he’d seen her. There had been something in her eyes—a look which had seemed so at odds with the provocative curves of her body and which had called out to something inside him. He had noticed the defiant way she’d lifted the champagne bottle to her mouth and the small rush of foam which had trickled erotically over her lips. And then she had begun to dance… .

Kulal felt desire shiver over his skin as he remembered that dance. It had been an invitation to sex. The most blatant and beautiful invitation he had ever witnessed and he had simply been unable to resist it. He had walked towards her like a man on autopilot, with his heart thundering and his body on fire. ‘But she is very beautiful,’ he said simply.

‘There are a lot of beautiful women in the world, as well you know,’ came Hazail’s dry rejoinder. ‘Surely you could have found someone a little more suitable to have sex with?’

Kulal wanted to protest that they hadn’t actually had sex, but his fiercely masculine pride would not allow him to make such a disclosure, especially not to his brother. ‘I’m not really clear about why there has been a big drama about it, Hazail?’ he drawled. ‘Why the sudden interest in my sex life?’

‘Because you are engaged to be married—in case it had slipped your mind. And therefore it is inadvisable for you to behave like a rutting stag!’

Kulal thought of his serious-faced fiancée—a blue-blooded princess who hailed from the neighbouring country of Buheiraat. He thought about the matter-of-fact way the two of them had sat down to work out an agreement for their forthcoming nuptials. He thought about her complete lack of passion and compared her to the fiery and responsive Rosa, and his heart sank.