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‘They aren’t,’ he replied—two crisp words cutting off any further conversation.
Kate studied his profile—more stern than arrogant—and shivered inside. Perhaps there was still time to pull out of this arrangement. She could speak to Ibrahim and ask if she could work for two years—even three—instead of marrying this man, but she knew she couldn’t risk the happiness of the two people she loved best in all the world.
And yet if she was going to marry Fareed, shouldn’t she at least attempt to get to know him?
‘I’m sorry you were pulled away from your work. If I had known Ibrahim was going to interrupt your work to take care of me, I could have asked him to call me a cab.’
Fareed’s reply was a derisive snort.
‘Call a cab when he has a dozen vehicles at his disposal and probably twice as many drivers? I’m to take you to the palace where, no doubt, he’ll be happy to organise a car and a driver to be put at your disposal for however long you are here.’
He turned to study her as the traffic slowed.
‘It seems you have bewitched him.’
How to respond?
‘Nonsense! He’s asked me here as thanks for the bee episode and so I could see your country and perhaps work here for a while. I imagine, once I start work, I can live in at the hospital.’
Another snort.
Kate sighed.
If the man was like this when he thought her just a visitor, how much more awkward and dismissive would he be when he discovered she was to become his wife?
She should tell him—let him work it out with Ibrahim—but she had given her word she’d tell no one of the agreement. To all intents and purposes, she was coming here to work, full stop.
And as for seeing sights, so far all they’d seen was traffic. Was this Fareed’s way of disobeying his uncle’s orders? She’d have been better off being shown around by one of the camels wandering across the streets—the cause of the traffic chaos.
‘Are they sacred animals that they are allowed right of way?’ she asked, and Fareed, though he looked momentarily shocked that she had asked a question, did, finally, reply.
‘No, just animals with minds of their own! But they have been essential to the survival of my people for thousands of years, so no one would harm one. We will be out of this traffic soon.’
Kate turned her attention back to her surroundings.
Rows of small shops and businesses gave way to signs of development, boarded lots, some with massive cranes rising behind the fences, and beyond them the outlying residential area of a sparkling new city.
‘How exciting it must be to be able to build a city from scratch,’ Kate said. ‘To try to get it right from the beginning.’
For a moment she thought Fareed wouldn’t answer, but after a swift glance her way, he relented.
‘This city is my uncle’s dream. He had so many plans he needed teams of architects and engineers and builders to implement them. He drew the best from all over the world, told them what he wanted, then made sure he got it. He might appear a charming cosmopolitan man but he has the core of steel all our leaders had to keep the tribes alive in inhospitable places for thousands of years.’
Kate heard the words but also the love this man must feel for Ibrahim. Could a man who loved his uncle be all bad?
The vehicle left the city, the built and unbuilt bits of it, and swung onto a wide road that ran along the shoreline.
‘Oh!’
Kate barely breathed the word, so astonished was she by the wide stretch of golden sound reaching out to the deep blue of a placid sea. Squat palm trees lined the landward side of the road and beyond them, green parklands stretched to the foothills of craggy red-grey mountains.
The road curved gently around the shallow bay, coming to a point where rugged cliffs met the sea, and perched atop the cliffs, like something formed from the land itself, there was a multi-towered building.
The old fort?
‘How do you get to it?’ Kate asked, staring up now at the sheer cliffs.
‘There is a way from the inland side,’ Fareed explained. ‘And a secret way from the sea. Once it was a place of refuge for the fishermen who lived along the shore, but now it is deserted, except for the caretakers and some artisans who are restoring parts that have deteriorated.’
As they rounded the corner, Kate turned back to look again, marvelling at the beauty of the structure and wondering how on earth it had been built on such an impossible site.
But they were passing the fishing village now, the colourful boats tied up along the shore, and beyond the village high mud brick walls—
‘Another fort?’
‘The palace,’ Fareed replied.
She was here!
In Amberach!
With her bridegroom?
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1fa8d77f-ac35-50ca-8516-f90f7b282f8e)
THE PLANS FOR the wedding were completely out of Kate’s hands, and there were brief moments when she allowed herself to relax and enjoy her new surroundings, but the strain of deceiving her mother lived with her night and day.
Too afraid her mother would hear the anxiety in her voice, or that even talking to her mother—lying the way she was—would make her break down, Kate had used the time difference between the countries as an excuse to communicate through emails.
The pain of the deception stayed with her as she settled in the palace, in her own suite of rooms in the enormous, rambling, maze of a place.
In reality she’d had little time for worry or self-pity, with various female members of Ibrahim’s family fluttering around her, helping her settle in, filling her so-called ‘dressing-room’ with garments and gowns she was sure she’d never wear, underwear so fine it looked as if it would fall apart if she breathed and nightgowns that made her blush.
In the bathroom she’d found perfumes, soaps, creams and various unguents she’d only sniffed at, filling an entire wall of shelves, while another cabinet carried an array of make-up from the top French cosmetic manufacturers.
The day before the wedding, she was escorted to a large reception area. It was magnificent, the floors covered in silk carpets woven in dazzling jewel colours, the walls carved with fanciful trees and flowers and painted, again in brilliant colour. Arched windows along one side of the room must look out into the big courtyard that Kate had been too timid to explore.
She only knew it was laid out in patterns similar to the carpets, with a fountain in the centre and trees and bushes cut into fantastic shapes. Not that she could see it now, for filmy silk curtains covered the windows, billowing slightly in the breeze.
Following her escorts, she was led to the far end of the room and seated on a low divan in the middle of a kind of dais, so she was raised above anyone coming into the room. Women began arriving—women she’d never met, although all of them appeared very excited to be meeting her. And all of them were beautifully dressed in designer fashions once they’d removed the black abayas that had covered their gowns.
They cooed and oohed and touched her clothes—a beautiful silk gown in palest lemon—and her hair—in its usual unruly plait down her back, and cooed and oohed again.
Several younger girls appeared, giggling and carrying pots of what looked like paste.
‘This is your henna party,’ one of them, who introduced herself as Farida, told her. ‘We are to be your attendants today and tomorrow. We are cousins of Fareed. This is Suley and this is Mai.’
They set down the pots they carried, and beckoned an older woman towards them.
‘Hayla is the best henna artist in the country. She will do a beautiful job. Your skin is so pale, the henna patterns will look stunning.’
Henna?
Artist?
Patterns?
Kate longed to ask for details but the girls were chattering excitedly amongst themselves and more and more women were arriving, introducing themselves and touching her, as if checking she was real.
The three handmaidens cleared everyone away, and the artist knelt in front of Kate, taking one of her feet in her hands and turning it this way and that.
She opened the lid on one of the pots and Kate realised what was happening. She’d seen pictures of women with their hands and feet decorated with the dark red-brown colour—henna.
Fascinated in spite of herself, she watched as a lacy pattern of vines and leaves began to show up on her foot. Thick heavy lines, although, as Farida explained, the thickness was there to dye the pattern into the skin and would later be washed away.
‘But you must be very still,’ Mai warned.
So Kate sat, looking out at the partying women, all eating now, maids circling the room with great platters of food.
And Fareed?
What would he be doing?
She pictured his face, trying to wipe off the disdain. He was certainly a handsome man, and well built—something she’d realised as she’d struggled to get him to relax after the bee sting.
But how the hell was he going to react when he realised who Ibrahim had chosen for his wife?
Fareed stalked through the hospital, his usual pleasure in the place he had created deadened by the dread of what was to occur tomorrow. The marrying part was all right—he’d known he had to marry, and soon—but he knew his uncle well enough to know the old man was plotting something—something Fareed guessed he would not enjoy.
He’d slept in his apartment at the palace the previous night, hoping to pick up some gossip about what lay ahead, but even his most devoted of servants were tightlipped. Either that, or they, too, had been kept in the dark. He might as well return to his apartment here at the hospital tonight—one last night of freedom.
How bad could it be? he asked himself as he continued his patrol of the reception area, glaring at anyone unfortunate enough to cross his tracks. Apart from sleeping with the woman from time to time in order to produce some heirs, he need have nothing to do with her. Once the wedding month—which was, in fact, forty days—was over, she’d have her own apartment in the women’s part of the palace and he need never see her, except in bed.
With the lights out!
He shuddered at the thought of having sex because it was his duty, not because he was attracted to a woman. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to perform?
He slammed a hand against his head and was glad when his pager called him to the emergency room, so he could concentrate on work to escape the wild imaginings running through his brain.
At least thinking about the wedding was distracting him from thinking about the woman who was supposed to be coming to work at the hospital—the woman with the flaming hair, at one with the horse she rode so expertly.
He knew she was staying at the palace, but as yet there’d been no mention of when she might deign to start work. He should probably have asked either her or Ibrahim but, as far as he was concerned, getting over the wedding was enough to be worrying about without having to consider a woman who, for reasons beyond his understanding, he found profoundly disturbing.
In fact, the longer she stayed away from the hospital, the happier he’d be.
Sitting still was hard, although Kate was fed tidbits by her new-found friends. Little morsels of delicious food, sips of brightly coloured fruit juices. And below her the party swirled, while beautiful women, tall and short, imperious looking or gently feminine, all clad in glorious gowns, came up onto the dais to check on the progress of the henna and to admire the patterns, most of them still touching her hair as they passed by.
‘Are redheads so rare in Amberach,’ she asked the girls, and they giggled behind their hands.
‘Yes, but they say your colouring reminds them of Fareed’s mother,’ Mai added. ‘Apparently, she, too, had red hair, though none of us ever saw her.’
Uh-oh! Kate thought as things began to click into place. Was this why Ibrahim had chosen her? Was Fareed’s mother one of the ghosts he carried in his head? And, if so, what was she, Kate, supposed to do about it?
Icy dread crept through her veins. The moment he realised just who his bride was, Fareed would know just how badly Ibrahim had treated him—had tricked him.
And her!
She needed to know more about Fareed’s family—his parents—and what had happened to them, but even after such a short stay in Amberach, she knew she couldn’t ask. Questions about families were taboo.
Although she could ask Ibrahim!
With two feet and one hand painted?
No, she couldn’t stop this process now, but she needed to speak to Ibrahim—to demand to know if he’d chosen her because she bore some curious resemblance to Fareed’s mother.
She’d tell him …
What?
That she couldn’t be part of a plan to deliberately hurt Fareed?
That she couldn’t go through with the wedding?
And tell her mother and Billy what, when she returned home and Tippy was sent to another trainer?
She breathed deeply, hoping to calm her racing thoughts, but the coldness remained in her body, although in her heart she felt a spark of pity for the man she was pledged to marry.
The morning of the wedding arrived. Kate woke and stared in fascination at the intricate patterns decorating her hands and feet. The henna paste had been put on thickly and allowed to stay there for many hours before being washed off to leave the delicate pattern behind it.
The women she couldn’t help thinking of as her handmaidens appeared in a welter of excitement, each bearing articles of clothing that appeared to be made out of spun gold. They shouted orders at the two servants, Mariam and Layla, who would appear from nowhere whenever Kate came to her room or woke from sleep.
‘Cloth of gold out of one of the treasure chests, no doubt,’ Kate muttered at Mariam, whom, she knew, spoke no English. Mariam was trying to remove Kate’s pyjamas—old favourites she’d brought from home and refused to be parted from.
Dodging the ministrations of her helper, she grabbed Layla, whom she knew did speak English, and told her she would dress herself.
‘But you must bathe, and be made up, and properly dressed from the skin out, for he will want to unwrap you like a precious parcel.’
The excitement in Layla’s voice suggested this was the most momentous moment in a woman’s life.
There’ll be no unwrapping of this parcel, Kate told herself, although this time silently because making a mockery of the wedding in front of these women would be unkind, and probably go against her part of the bargain.
She and Fareed would sort out what happened after the wedding, and whatever they decided would be their business. And in spite of her nerves, she was fairly certain she could reach some arrangement with him—after all, she was probably the last woman on earth he’d want to marry. This was not an affair of the heart but a business arrangement and she could—she would—make it work.
So she went along with being bathed in water with rose petals floating in it, in being massaged with cream that made her skin feel like silk and being dressed in golden knickers and a golden bra, a long golden underskirt and a huge, all-encompassing golden gown on top of it all.
As if this was not enough, a golden shawl was draped across her hair, and a fine gold veil drawn down across her face.
At least she thought it was her face, although it, too, had been painted, her eyes outlined in thick, dark kohl, her eyebrows extended, so from behind the veil all that could be seen were dark, mysterious eyes.
