Sheikh's Mail-Order Bride (20 page)

She found Kadar seated on the sands nearest the port. It was obvious that he too had been up all night. Her heart ached when she saw him. Hearts did really ache, who would have thought it? And arms ached too, when they were prevented from throwing themselves around a beloved, and lips too, when they were not permitted to say that they would make everything better. ‘I was worried,' she said. ‘I am sorry, I know if you'd wanted to talk to me you would have found me, but—should I leave you to your musings?'

He shook his head, patting the sand beside him. ‘I have grown weary of solitary contemplation. Your presence is most welcome.'

Thoroughly relieved, for she wasn't at all certain she'd have been able to leave him, Constance tied her horse up alongside Kadar's and joined him on the sand.

He picked up a stone and held it out for her inspection. ‘Flint,' he said, ‘and perfectly flat, see? Ideal for skimming, something Butrus could always do with much more skill than I. I'd forgotten.' He threw the stone, smiling faintly when it sank after four skips. ‘Butrus would have managed six or seven. He did twelve once. A record neither of us ever surpassed. Here, try.'

He handed Constance a stone, showing her how to hold it. ‘Two,' she said, ‘pathetic.'

‘Try again.'

This time Kadar guided her arm, and the stone skipped three times, earning her another faint smile before he returned his gaze to the sea, or, more likely from the distant look in his eyes, towards the past, seemingly unaware of her presence at his side. Constance bit her lip, determined not to resist the urge to fire a barrage of questions at him.

After what felt like an eternity, he turned back to face her. ‘Butrus was genuinely delighted when I came back to Murimon. So full of
joie de vivre
, so pleased to have me home, looking forward so much to his future with his new princess and hopefully, at some point, a son and heir. Thank the stars he had never, ever had any idea of the feelings which existed between Zeinab and I. Or rather,' he added with a grimace, ‘the feelings I thought existed.'

For once, he made no effort to hide his emotions. There was sorrow in his eyes, and regret, but overall, what Constance discerned was something more akin to shock. Her heart in her mouth for fear she would say the wrong thing and cause his defences to reform, she instead squeezed his hand tightly.

Kadar picked up another stone and threw it. Four hops. Another. Six this time. ‘Your questions served to make me doubt my previous certainty,' he said. ‘When I saw Abdul-Majid yesterday I was prepared to hear a slightly different version of events. But what he told me—well, I will tell you exactly what he told me.'

Constance listened as he recounted the conversation, alternating between outrage and pity and sorrow, and fighting with all her might to keep every emotion from her face. ‘Oh, Kadar, I am not surprised you needed to be on your own,' she said when he finished, ‘you must feel as if your world has been turned upside down.'

‘You'd think I would, wouldn't you, but the strange thing is that I feel as if it's actually been put to rights,' he replied with an odd little laugh. ‘I deeply regret the time I could have spent with Butrus, I regret the seven almost silent years of my self-imposed exile, but very little else.'

‘Because you didn't waste those years?' she hazarded.

He kissed her hand. His mouth was cold on her skin. ‘Clever Constance. Yes, because they made me who I am now, and because they also prepared me for the challenges of being the type of prince I want to be. But that is not to say that I think Abdul-Majid did me a favour.'

‘Far from it,' she said indignantly. ‘It is one thing to understand his motives, quite another to endorse them.'

‘Constant Constance.' Kadar threw another stone, not skimming it, but hurling it as far out into the waves as he could. ‘I can always rely on you to be on my side.'

‘You know you can, Kadar.'
Even though she could not be by his side for much longer.
Her love for him was so huge she felt as if she could hardly contain it, and for the briefest of moments she made no attempt to, allowing her feelings to show in her eyes as she reached over to smooth his rebellious hair from his brow. ‘You know you can,' she repeated softly.

‘Yes.'

Kadar leaned towards her. He touched her cheek. Her lips parted for his kiss, but at the last moment he pulled back, picking up yet another stone from the pile he had amassed by his side. ‘The most surprising thing I learned,' he said, his tone bright but brittle, ‘is that Abdul-Majid is, as he claimed, a father first and foremost. A very loving father, though I am not sure that he understood his daughter as well as he thinks. Zeinab could easily have told Abdul-Majid what he wanted to hear, just as she told me what I wanted to hear, and no doubt her husband too.'

This latest stone followed the other into the sea, and Kadar let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Am I being unfair?' He did not wait for an answer. ‘Were my own motives really as pure as I thought them? I loved her, or I believed it was love, but how much of that attraction was the illicit thrill of the forbidden?' His gaze had returned to the sea and inwards. ‘Were my feelings for Zeinab a figment of my youthful imagination, built on sand with no firm foundation?'

His tone was questioning, as if he were debating some legal matter rather than one of the heart. ‘What on earth did Abdul-Majid say to lead you to that conclusion?' Constance asked.

‘Nothing at all. If you must know it is you who has led me to that conclusion,' he answered, turning around to face her. ‘You see, I had no difficulty in restraining my passion for Zeinab and yet I have enormous difficulty in restraining my passion for you.'

Her heart began to thump very hard. What was she to make of this startling revelation? Dear heavens, what she mustn't do was make too much of it. For her, passion was an expression of love, but for Kadar—no, she must not make too much of it. ‘Passion is not love,' she said, somewhat disingenuously, for she longed to be contradicted.

‘No, it is not,' Kadar said, unwittingly twisting a dagger into her poor heart. He lobbed yet another stone, this time half-heartedly. It landed with a plop in the shallows. ‘Enough,' he said, getting to his feet. ‘I have wasted a whole night on speculation. To continue would not only be pointless but destructive too. Zeinab has gone, and with her the opportunity to know with any certainty.'

He held out his hand to help her up. ‘In my heart I am relieved Abdul-Majid intervened as he did. It gave me the impetus I needed to leave Murimon, to broaden my horizons. To make me the man I am today, as I said. In the end, Butrus remained blissfully ignorant and Zeinab—well, I can only hope that she was content with her decision. My story is not tragic, Constance. The true tragedy lies in the untimely deaths of both my brother and his wife. But those too are in the past, and their version of my story lies buried with them. What matters to me now is to deal with the consequences, and to take charge of my future.'

The relief was overwhelming, though her joy must be bittersweet, for Kadar's beginning must mark their ending. ‘I am so glad. I want you to be happy,' Constance said, the words heartfelt. ‘It is all I want, but I was so afraid that I was wrong, that...'

He touched her cheek. ‘You were right. I can finally be free of the past and look forward to whatever the future holds for me. Clever Constance.'

‘Considerably relieved Constance,' she said with a weak smile.

‘Captivating Constance.' Kadar slid his arm around her waist, pulling him towards him, his expression lightening. ‘Now we have both, in our own ways, found freedom, I think a celebration of this momentous event is warranted.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘A short hiatus,' Kadar said with a smile that was unmistakably sinful. ‘A break with the past, a suspension of time before we embrace our respective futures.'

‘We cannot suspend time,' Constance said, trying and failing not to be beguiled.

‘We can suspend reality,' Kadar said, tightening his hold on her. ‘Or at least escape from it. What do you think?'

Her face was heating with what she was thinking. ‘I think that it would be unwise,' Constance said, because it was what she ought to say. ‘We have been at such pains to avoid speculation, to respect the proprieties, why now, when my time here is coming to an end...'

‘Precisely because your time here is coming to an end, as is my betrothal. Because I have the rest of my life to behave with propriety, but I have very little time left with you to behave with abandon.'

‘Abandon.' A shiver of delight ran up her spine. ‘I would very much like to behave with abandon,' Constance said. And there was so very little time left to do so. Such a heartbreakingly tiny amount of time. But that was better than none. ‘If you are certain it is not unwise, that we will not give in to temptation?'

‘I am sure it is very unwise, and I make no such promise.'

‘Then let us be unwise,' she said fervently.

‘Then so it shall be. A hiatus,' Kadar said. And finally, he kissed her.

* * *

The next morning, Constance, perched on one of the wooden bollards used for securing the various craft to the quayside, watched on as Kadar readied their dhow to set sail.

He seemed unburdened, after yesterday's astonishing confessional on the beach. She would not have dreamed such intimate revelations possible from the man she had first encountered, whose every feeling had been guarded, whose every word was considered. And to have entrusted her with such deeply personal thoughts, such—such painful thoughts. She was beyond honoured. She could have no more doubts that he would find happiness in his future now, and that knowledge must bolster her resolve to leave Murimon in pursuit of her own happiness. She was under no illusions. Kadar's road to freedom and her own would never converge. Tempting as it was to postpone her own journey, every day she spent in his company increased her love for him, and increased the heartache she would suffer when she left him. She had to leave while she still had the will and resolve to do so.

This fact lurked like a tempest on the horizon. But today the sky was a perfect blue and the water was a sparkling turquoise and Kadar was smiling up at her from the dhow, his bone-melting smile, and her bones and her heart were duly melted. A hiatus. Yes, she intended to enjoy her hiatus to the full.

‘Ready?' he called, and she got to her feet.

Kadar was dressed in plain white cotton trousers and tunic. His feet were bare. Constance removed her own slippers, casting them down ahead of her into the boat. His eyes were more green than grey today, taking their colour from the sea, she thought fancifully as she took his hand and clambered down from the jetty into the dhow. She was also dressed simply, apricot pantaloons and camisole, a darker orange overdress trimmed with apricot braid, her hair tied back with a matching ribbon, though she doubted it would remain confined for long, once they set sail.

This dhow was painted white, trimmed with blue and yellow, low in the water at the aft, rising in a sleek curve to the pointed prow. The white triangular sail which sat at an angle on the central mast was already set, though the sailcloth was not yet filled by the wind. Though the boat was diminutive compared to some of the other commercial craft moored in the harbour, now she was on board, Constance could see it was considerably bigger than the little boat they had sailed to the swimming beach in.

‘Won't you need help to sail this?' she asked.

‘I have all the help I need,' Kadar replied, laughing when she looked around her, as if there was another crew member lurking somewhere. ‘You did say that you wanted to learn, didn't you?'

Her heart gave a little skip of excitement. ‘I'd love to learn,' Constance said, eyeing the sail, which seemed much bigger now she was standing next to it. ‘But why this dhow? Wouldn't it be easier for me to learn in something smaller?'

‘The other boat is only really suitable for sailing close to the coast,' Kadar replied.

It took her a moment to understand his meaning, and when she did, she dropped onto the narrow seat, her stomach fluttering with apprehension. ‘We're going out to sea.'

‘Not if you don't want to, Constance.' Kadar sat down opposite her. ‘You told me that learning to swim would overcome your fear of drowning, but I thought you'd like to prove it to yourself before you sail away to the ends of the earth as you said you wished to do.'

She smiled faintly at the memory. ‘Only because you couldn't give me a ladder to reach the stars.'

‘If I could I would, I promise you, but even princes have their limitations. I can promise you a night lying on the beach with the waves murmuring and the stars sparkling overhead, just as you wished for,' Kadar said. ‘If you think you can brave the voyage?'

A trial run for the longer sea voyage to come. His thoughtfulness brought a lump to her throat, but at the same time she felt as if her heart was being squeezed at this evidence that he accepted her departure was both inevitable and imminent. He was now free to embrace his own future. Which, after all, is what she wanted for him, even though that future did not include her. She knew that. Yes, she knew that perfectly well.

‘Constance? It is too much. I'm sorry...'

‘No.' She would not permit such thoughts to blight this day, and she would make very sure that Kadar was not even aware of her having thought them. Having vanquished the ghosts of his lost love, she had no desire to burden him with the guilt of failing to return hers. ‘No,' she repeated firmly, rising from the narrow bench. ‘I want to learn to sail, and I want to face down my fears.'

‘You're sure?'

‘I'm certain,' she said with a great deal more confidence than she felt.

‘Courageous Constance,' Kadar said, kissing her hand.