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‘Perhaps we will discuss that tomorrow,’ Rashad fielded without batting a single lush black eyelash.
‘You do realise,’ Polly whispered, because that hard-eyed brunette she couldn’t quite warm to was seated only ten feet away, ‘that you are making me want to thump you again? I thought it might be my high temperature that caused my loss of temper yesterday but I can now see that it was merely you being you—’
A brilliant smile unexpectedly stole the grim aspect from his lean, dark, brooding features. ‘Me being me?’ he queried with perceptible amusement in a clear encouragement for her to expand on her feelings.
‘Horribly bossy. And I can see you’re used to people doing exactly as you say—’
‘Because I am the King,’ Rashad filled in helpfully.
‘But you’re not my King.’ Polly made that distinction with a slow sweet smile of mingled exasperation and reluctant amusement.
When he saw that smile, Rashad froze and leant back into his chair, squaring his shoulders while he wondered if she was flirting with him. Probably not, his brain told him. The British women he had been intimate with a few years earlier had used methods that were considerably more direct to attract and hold his attention.
‘But you are still my guest,’ Rashad retorted with lashings of cool. ‘And the Dharian rules of hospitality are strict. One should never make a guest uncomfortable—’
‘But you’re doing exactly that right now!’ Polly hissed at him in frustration.
His long brown fingers clenched taut round the cutlery. He tore his gaze from her lovely face, painfully aware that she made him very uncomfortable. With the discipline of years strengthening him, he studied his plate and he ate in complete silence.
‘In fact, you’re only making me want to stick a fork in you,’ Polly whispered across the table.
And that was it—Rashad lost that minor battle. A wholly inappropriate laugh broke from his lips when he failed to stifle his enjoyment. Polly studied him in surprise and then encountered the brunette’s chilling appraisal, which suggested that amusing the King could well be a capital offence.
‘We will talk again tomorrow,’ Rashad informed her quietly as they vacated the table they had shared.
Polly had to forcibly put a lid on her growing frustration with him. She was being too polite, she told herself. He had blocked her questions and refused to discuss the matter of the ring or tell her when she could leave. But did that really matter? After all, she was being treated like an honoured guest. Staying in the lap of luxury in a truly magical royal palace, another little inner voice chipped in gently, was scarcely a penance. It was a gift to be housed in such a gorgeous building, to be waited on hand and foot and to be wonderfully well fed. How could she possibly form a bad opinion of her host? It wasn’t as though she had been stashed in some primitive prison cell. Moreover she was being granted an intriguing glimpse of a very different and far more colourful lifestyle.
Satisfied by that more positive take on her unexpected stopover in a royal dwelling, Polly wandered off to enjoy all that the exotic palace had to offer. She ignored the troop of men, armed to the teeth, and the maid following close behind her, and roamed from the magnificent desert views available from the recently built rooftop terrace down through the state rooms, with their superb intricate brass-covered arched doors and elaborate interiors, right down to the kitchen, with its army of busy staff, who fell silent and froze in shock when she first appeared.
With the maid acting as an interpreter, Polly ended up seated in yet another shaded courtyard, being plied with chilled strawberry and honey tea and an array of fantastic little pastries. Somewhere about then she decided that she was having a truly wonderful holiday even if it was not advancing her an inch in her unlikely search to find out more about her father.
Possibly that had always been an unrealistic goal, she thought in disappointment. Too much time had passed. How did she even risk voicing the name she had been given when the poor man might not be her father at all and was probably long since married? She didn’t want to upset anyone and the mother she barely remembered had been sufficiently dysfunctional in her relationships even with her own family that she did not feel she could place much faith in Annabel Dixon’s judgement.
* * *
Later that afternoon a dialogue that would have very much shocked Polly was about to take place. Hakim had collected the DNA results and had received such a shock that he had passed much of the afternoon at prayer, wrestling with his guilt and with sentiments it was too late to express. Having unburdened himself, he had then received a shock almost as great when events that had taken place a quarter of a century earlier were clarified for him by an unexpected source. Sharing that information with his King was almost more than Hakim could bear but he did not have a choice.
‘Our guest is your granddaughter?’ Rashad repeated with incredulity. ‘How is that even possible, Hakim?’
The older man sighed heavily. ‘At the time my son Zahir died we were estranged. That has been a lifelong source of regret to me. I was aware that he was involved with the nanny but I also suspected her of having other male interests on the staff at the time. I knew that my son wished to marry her and he refused to listen to my objections. I urged him not to marry her—citing the example of my own parents, who married across the cultural divide—and my son took offence.’
Rashad was silent while his trusted adviser unburdened his troubled conscience. Zahir had been Hakim’s only child and that much more precious for that reason, and the day after the death of Rashad’s family Zahir had died heroically trying to defend the palace and its inhabitants from Arak’s squad of hired mercenaries.
‘And now you see the consequences of my miscalculation. I spoke to my son from my head instead of from my heart. He loved this woman and she was already pregnant. He would not have told me that,’ Hakim acknowledged hoarsely, his emotions roughening his usually steady voice. ‘When the nanny vanished after his death I never thought about her again...why would I have? But I have only now learnt that Zahir married her privately and secretly only the day before he died. May I humbly request some time off to go home and discuss this astounding discovery with my wife—?’
‘Of course,’ Rashad breathed tautly, struggling to absorb the apparent truth that Polly, in spite of her misleading colouring, actually carried Dharian blood in her veins. ‘But who does she resemble?’
‘My mother,’ Hakim confided tremulously. ‘That hair. I should have suspected it the instant I laid eyes on her. I must also ask you to put all matters pertaining to my grandchild and the current unrest in the streets in the hands of my two deputies, because I am no longer a suitably independent and disinterested third party—’
‘That I refuse to do,’ Rashad responded instantaneously. ‘I trust you as I trust no other man close to me.’
‘You do me great honour in saying so but I—’
‘Go home to your wife, Hakim,’ Rashad urged gently. ‘For today at least put family first and official duty second.’
Freed from the risk that Polly could be a half-sibling, Rashad smiled thoughtfully. Well, surprisingly, he was her King because although she did not know it her paternity granted her dual citizenship. He wished he could tell her that but it was her grandfather’s right to break such news, not his.
* * *
The following morning other concerns swiftly consumed him when one of Hakim’s aides brought the most popular newspaper in Dharia to him. The secret of Polly’s true name on her passport was a secret no longer and it was just the kind of nonsense liable to inflame the superstitious with fanciful ideas. A single king, a single woman named Zariyah after his great-grandmother, the return of the Hope of Dharia... Such coincidences were being interpreted as supernatural signposts of heavenly endorsement in the home of his birth.
Rashad heaved a sigh. It was little wonder that Polly’s birth name was now being chanted in the streets. He could not possibly let her leave the palace, for there was no chance of her enjoying an anonymous holiday after her passport photograph had been printed in the newspaper. Proving that the hysteria was generalised throughout every strata of Dharian society, the usually sensible editor had totally ignored all safety concerns when he put such information into the public domain.
And Rashad’s day only darkened in tenor when he was informed that an official from the British Embassy was currently waiting to be seen. The diplomatic incident that Hakim had feared was beginning to happen...
Polly was watching the local television station as she ate her breakfast and wishing she could speak the language. She had tried and failed to access a European television channel. But she did not need Arabic to recognise that the massed crowds in the streets of the capital city were on the edge of overexcited. She wished she could read the placards some of them carried and waved along with the Dharian national flag.
Having promised to phone Ellie again, she did so. Her sibling startled her by admitting that she had spoken to a man from the Foreign Office and that official enquiries were being made about her so-called arrest and imprisonment at the royal palace.
‘Oh, my goodness, Ellie!’ Polly fielded in consternation. ‘How could you do that? I’m having a really interesting time here—’
‘This ring business you’re involved in stinks to high heaven of some sort of a cover-up. I don’t think you have a clue what’s happening out there. As usual you’re just sailing along and letting people push you around—’
Polly let her sister state her case and finally agreed that it was time she returned to the holiday she had booked and that she would demand the right to leave the palace and return to Kashan. Before she could lose her nerve she used the palace switchboard and asked to be put through to the King, wryly amused by her own daring.
‘I have to speak to you,’ Polly declared boldly as soon as she heard his dark deep drawl. ‘And as I may shout, it would be better if we didn’t have an audience.’
At his end of the phone, Rashad almost groaned out loud for palace protocol stated that he should never ever be left alone with a member of the female sex. He knew it was to protect him from the slurs and scandals caused by his father’s debauchery but it was not easy to escape the tightly linked net of strict procedure.
‘Meet me on the roof terrace,’ he urged abruptly. ‘I hear you were there yesterday and it is shaded. I’ll join you as soon as I can.’
The strangest shred of compassion infiltrated Polly. It was clearly a no-no for him to meet up with her alone. When did the Dharian King ever get to be alone? She had seen the security team that followed him everywhere he went and she wondered what it was like to live in such a goldfish bowl where every word and every action was monitored.
Polly left her room and told the maid she wanted to walk alone. The three men guarding her room studied her in wonderment but when she moved off, she was not followed and relief spread through her because she felt really free for the first time within the royal walls with no one watching over her.
The shade on the roof terrace took what she believed to be a rather odd form. A giant tent had been set up at one corner. Within it opulent floor cushions surrounded a fire pit and there was an array of the implements she assumed were required to brew the traditional tea. Walking out of the bright sunshine, Polly sank down with relief on a cushion to enjoy the view. It was fifteen minutes before Rashad appeared through another entrance onto the terrace.
‘We are breaking rules,’ he told her with a sudden flashing smile of such charisma that her heart jumped inside her. ‘This is not allowed.’
‘Sometimes it’s fun to break rules,’ sensible Polly heard herself say dry-mouthed because for the first time Rashad was wearing traditional clothing, a muslin cloth bound by a gold rope hiding his black hair, a pristine white long buttoned robe replacing Western clothing. And that cloth merely accentuated his stunning dark eyes and arresting bone structure, so that breathing was barely an option for her as he sank with fluid animal grace down opposite her.
‘And sometimes there is a price to pay for breaking those rules,’ Rashad murmured with wry amusement. ‘Why did you want to speak to me?’
‘I want to leave the palace and start my holiday,’ Polly told him simply, even though she knew that somewhere down deep inside her she really didn’t want that at all. It was the rational thing to do, she reminded herself doggedly. She did not belong in a royal palace.
Rashad linked long brown fingers and flexed them. ‘I’m afraid I can’t agree to that.’
He even had beautiful hands, Polly was thinking abstractedly before she engaged with what he had actually said and it galvanised her into leaping upright in disbelief. ‘So, I am a prisoner here?’ She gasped in horror that her sister could have been correct in her far-fetched suspicions.
‘Do not lose your temper,’ Rashad urged levelly. ‘Allow me first to explain the situation we are all in—’
‘The only person in a situation here is me!’ Polly exclaimed angrily.
‘There is great unrest in Kashan. You would not be safe...you would be mobbed. While no one would wish to harm you in any way, excited crowds are very hard to control.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Sit down, listen and I will explain,’ Rashad instructed with quiet strength.
‘No, you can explain while I stay standing,’ Polly responded, determined not to give way on every point.
‘Very well.’ Rising as gracefully as he had sat down, Rashad stepped back out of the tent and strode over to the rail bounding the terrace. ‘A century ago—’
‘A century ago?’ Polly practically screeched at him, gripped by incredulity that that could possibly be the starting point of any acceptable explanation for her apparent loss of all freedom.
‘Close your mouth and sit down!’ Rashad raked back at her in sudden frustration, his dark deep voice startlingly like a whiplash in the silence. ‘If you refuse to listen, how can I speak and explain?’
Polly compressed her lips and sat down with a look of scornful reluctance on her heart-shaped face. ‘Well, if you’re going to shout about it—’
‘I must make you aware of the most powerful legend in Dharian history. A hundred years ago, my great-grandmother, Zariyah, came to Dharia with the fire-opal ring and gave it to my great-grandfather, who then married her. My people think it was love at first sight,’ Rashad advanced. ‘But in actuality it was an arranged marriage, which was very popular and which ushered in a long period of peace and prosperity for Dharia—’
‘That name,’ Polly whispered with an indeterminate frown. ‘Zariyah. That’s the name I was given at birth.’
‘The ring is also invested with enormous significance in the eyes of my people. The name on your passport was noticed. It may even be the reason why you were singled out for the drug screening process we have begun. You also brought the ring back to Dharia—’
‘Not to give to you!’ Polly objected vehemently.
‘You are much given to interruption,’ Rashad fired back at her rawly.
‘And you are much given to being quietly listened to.’
‘My country endured dark times for over twenty years. My people suffered greatly under the dictator, Arak,’ Rashad told her in a curt undertone. ‘They are very superstitious. Your appearance, your name and your possession of the ring has led to a hysterical outpouring of sentiment in the streets. At this moment in Kashan, people are waving signs bearing the name Zariyah because my great-grandmother was very much loved. If you left the palace, you would be mobbed and it would be extremely dangerous.’
Polly stared back at him with a dropped jaw. She could barely get her head around what he was trying to tell her. ‘You mean, the coincidence of me having that name and the ring is sufficient—?’
‘To cause all that excitement? Yes,’ Rashad confirmed heavily.
Polly stared numbly into the fire pit, genuinely bemused by what he had explained. People were demonstrating in the city and waving those placards on her behalf? It was beyond her comprehension and her lashes flickered over blue eyes widening in growing amazement.
‘But I don’t understand. What do they want from me?’ she queried numbly.
‘In a nutshell, they want you to marry their King,’ Rashad replied very drily. ‘A single monarch, a single woman with the name of a famous queen...in their eyes it’s a simple equation.’
‘They want me to marry you?’ Polly cried incredulously.
‘And everything about you plays into their fantasy conclusion,’ Rashad imparted with an edge of bitterness because the more he watched those crowds waving flags in the streets, the more his sense of duty warred with his brain. ‘You are very beautiful. What man would not wish to marry such a beauty? And while you could have followed some inappropriate career as a stripper or a lap dancer, which would admittedly have doused their enthusiasm somewhat—’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Polly exclaimed furiously, jumping upright again.
‘Instead you work in a homeless shelter helping the underprivileged,’ Rashad completed. ‘Yes, our media are every bit as given to spying as your own. You have been framed even in the newspapers as the perfect wife in the eyes of my people.’
Polly bolted out of the shade of the tent to stand by the rail in the golden sunshine, staring out at the lines of the shallow sand dunes gradually shifting into larger ones in the distance. ‘I’m mortified—’
‘I am trapped,’ Rashad traded without sympathy, raging at the fates that had created such a disturbing and difficult situation. When he was crowned he had sworn to do whatever it took to make the people of Dharia secure and happy and he had never once considered that sacrifice of freedom as a personal constraint. Only now when it came to the question of his marriage was he finally appreciating the true cost of that pledge. But it also gave him a great deal to think over, he acknowledged, studying Polly and wondering what it would be like to go with the flow of popular sentiment rather than sit it out and hope it eventually died a natural death.
‘Certainly not by me!’ Polly lashed back at him, one small hand lifting in emphasis off the rail.
Without warning Rashad caught her hand in his, studying the slender bones below the skin that was so pale against his bronzed colouring and the intricate tracing of blue veins at her inner wrist. As if under a compulsion, he bent his proud head and pressed his mouth to that soft, smooth, delicate skin.
Polly studied that down-bent head in complete shock while tiny little tendrils of prickling awareness traversed her entire body. That one little contact was so screamingly sensual she couldn’t believe it. She had had passionate kisses that left her cold as ice but the brush of Rashad’s mouth across her wrist made her nipples tighten almost painfully inside her bra and forced a surge of hot liquid heat to rise between her thighs in a manner that made her rigid with discomfort. She quivered, shaken, aroused, suddenly out of her depth with him in a way she had never been before. When that skilled mouth roved across her palm and shifted to enclose a single fingertip and suck it, her knees trembled and her legs almost gave way beneath her in response.
Mesmerised, Polly looked up into shimmering golden eyes alight with raw sexual hunger.
An urgent burst of Arabic sounded from somewhere behind them and she flinched in surprise while Rashad immediately dropped her hand.
Hakim was outraged by what he had seen. He had trusted his King. He had overlooked the reality that his King was a young man with all the appetites of a young man in the company of a beautiful young woman.
‘This meeting is most improper,’ Hakim informed his granddaughter unhappily. ‘But I do not blame you for it.’
Further exchanges took place over Polly’s head, which was bent because she was seriously embarrassed. After all, she had requested the private meeting and was guilty of disrespecting what appeared to be the cultural norms of Dharia. Rashad had only kissed her hand though, for goodness’ sake, she thought angrily, thoroughly disliking the old man who had intervened and who was contriving to behave as though he had interrupted a raw and shocking sex scene.
‘I am Hakim, Miss Dixon,’ the older man informed her gently as he led her off the terrace. ‘May I call you Polly? Or is it Zariyah?’
With difficulty, Polly recalled her manners. ‘No, my grandmother wouldn’t call me by my birth name. When I was old enough to understand it was my true name, she told me it was foreign and outlandish and she refused to use it, so she gave me the name Polly instead.’
‘That is a great pity but perhaps in time that could be remedied,’ Hakim remarked incomprehensibly above her head. ‘Would you be willing to talk to me? I have something of very great importance to tell you...’
CHAPTER FOUR (#u601743d7-3da5-5316-b4c3-1f7b3fd2f2ed)
HAKIM ESCORTED HER to a room that he described as his office but which more closely resembled an old library.
Polly sank down in a comfortable armchair but sat bolt upright again, eyes wide with astonishment, when Hakim informed her that he was her grandfather.
‘But how could you possibly know that?’ she whispered unevenly.
‘My mother...’ Hakim handed her a creased old photo of a smiling blonde woman. ‘My son, your father...’
Polly peered down in wonder at the photo of the attractive dark-eyed young man in the photograph. ‘Is his name Zahir Basara?’
Hakim gently corrected her pronunciation and regretfully informed her of her father’s death when the palace had been overrun twenty-odd years earlier. Tears stung Polly’s eyes as he broke that news while frankly admitting that he and his only child had been at odds at the time of his demise.
‘He wanted to marry your mother,’ he explained. ‘But I refused to support him. My own parents had a mixed marriage. My mother was the daughter of a Swedish missionary working here. Although my parents stayed together they were not happy. My prejudice blinded me towards the woman my son loved—’
‘I can understand that...but are you really sure that your son was my father? His is the name my mother left me with the ring, but—’
Tears dampened Polly’s cheeks as her emotions spilled over because she felt so horribly guilty for doubting that name now. How much had she let her grandmother’s bitterness colour her own attitude towards her mother? Annabel Dixon had not been lying, nor had she been unsure of who had fathered her first child. Her late mother had told her the truth.
‘There can be no doubt because we did a DNA test. A sample was taken from you by the doctor without your permission,’ Hakim confided gravely. ‘DNA samples of the dead were conserved after the coup that killed our King’s family and many others at the palace. I am very sorry that we ordered the test to be done without your awareness—’
