Monarch of the Sands (19 page)

Sapphire light gleamed from her eyes and Zahid found himself lost for words as their gazes clashed. He realised that he could growl at her. He could pull her into his arms and kiss away that fierce look on her face. He could promise her a king’s ransom in the truest sense of the world.

But some bone-deep instinct told him that none of these would work, not in the long run—because Frankie was not a woman to be bargained with or bought, or seduced into his way of thinking. He wanted her in every sense, he realised—but most of all he wanted her to come to him
of her own free will
.

He said the words which once would have sounded like an admission of weakness. ‘I’ve missed you.’

I’ve missed you, too. I’ve missed you more than I
thought it was ever possible to miss someone.
But acknowledging that wasn’t going to change anything, was it? He was still unable to offer her any kind of future. Forcing herself to ignore the plaintive tug of her heart, Frankie shrugged.

His face darkened when she made no response and so, reluctantly, he was forced to elaborate—his words a growled statement. ‘And I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.’

Still she said nothing, nor gave any indication that she liked what he said—and suddenly Zahid realised the true meaning of the word courage. In his youth, during a spell in the Khayarzahian army he had fought bloody battles and known real hunger. He had slept beneath the stars in the most inhospitable parts of the desert, untroubled by the threat of the scorpions and snakes nearby. His physical daring was admired and feared in equal measures by his compatriots, and it was said that there was no more intrepid rider than Zahid Al Hakam.

But did he have the kind of courage to tell this woman what lay almost buried at the bottom of his heart? An admission which would make her realise the immense power she had over him?

‘I told you that I loved you, Francesca,’ he said. ‘But that I couldn’t marry you. And I guess I thought that I would get over it. You know, like a head-cold, or a broken leg. But the truth is that I haven’t. If anything the feeling is worse—’

‘Worse?’

Had that been the wrong word? he wondered dazedly. Had he implied that it was somehow a
bad
feeling, this love he felt for her? But it
was
a bad feeling, he recognised.
A negative and destructive one—if this love was not allowed the room and the right to grow and mature.

‘My life is empty without you,’ he admitted. ‘I gave you up because I wanted to fulfil all the demands made of me by my country. But I now know I cannot rule without the woman I love beside me. And that is the truth.’

That did get a reaction. Francesca shook her head and bit down on her lips, like someone who had just witnessed something distressing.

‘Please don’t, Zahid,’ she whispered, her voice now perilously close to tears, despite her determination not to break down in front of him. ‘That’s not the point. You
may
love me—as you must know that I love you—and that’s rather wonderful. Because love is. But it doesn’t actually
change
anything, does it? And I can’t be your wife because I’m not Khayarzah born—’

‘I will have the law changed,’ he said arrogantly. ‘For I am the king and I can.’

She carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted her. ‘And I certainly can’t contemplate sharing you with three other wives—’

‘But you will be my
only
wife!’ he declared savagely. ‘For I have decided to renounce all my rights to take any others—this is what I have come here today to tell you! I will not rest until you are my wife.
My only wife.
’

Frankie could see what that statement had cost him, just as she could see the passion which had animated his dark and hawklike features. And even though her heart swelled up with an overwhelming wave of love and longing, she forced herself not to be swayed by his emotional declaration. Because short-term gain would inevitably produce long-term pain.

‘It won’t work.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not enough, my darling,’ she said, her voice soft and trembling with emotion.

His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean, it’s not enough?’

She swallowed. ‘I can’t … I can’t live in a country where I’m not even allowed to drive or women are discouraged from going to university.’

There was a long and disbelieving silence. ‘You come to me with no dowry—and I accept that without a murmur,’ he declared. ‘I renounce my rights to other women and tell you that you will be my only love—and
still
it is not enough? You are now asking me to change yet more laws of my land before you will consent to be my bride?’

She shook her head. ‘Of course I’m not. This isn’t some kind of bidding war we’re engaged in! I’m not asking you or telling you to do anything—just explaining what I must be true to. And I must be true to myself. You’ve made me grow as a woman and as a person, Zahid. I am no longer the innocent and naïve person who was duped by Simon. And while I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart—it is also something of a double-edged sword.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Because I can’t now take a step backwards. I can’t do something which I think is fundamentally unsound—and I can’t live in a country where women are second-class citizens—no matter how much I love the man who leads that country.’

Silence hung heavily in the air as Zahid said nothing—for her words were too important to be answered without him giving them careful consideration. He
turned and walked over to the French windows which overlooked the big garden which had so fascinated him during his growing up. Such a green and lush oasis it had always seemed to the boy from the desert. But there was no green today. Everything looked black and white. The frost was thick and the bare branches of the big trees looked as if they had been daubed in bleached and glittering brush strokes.

He sighed. Surely everything
was
black and white—in more ways than one? Francesca had had the temerity to tell him what he knew was frequently on the minds of many—sentiments which had been growing stronger over the years. For hadn’t he read the outraged leader pages in western newspapers—and once, in New York, come face to face with some banner-waving women who had been demanding equal rights for women?

Was he not guilty of hypocrisy—taking western lovers as and when it suited him, while keeping the females of Khayarzah shackled in the past? Yet there was a solution. And Francesca had made him see that such a solution would be possible. It would be difficult to change, and painful, too—but change was part of life and to try to stop that was as futile as King Canute trying to turn back the tide.

And did he have a choice? Could he bear the thought of going through his own life without his strong and sapphire-eyed Francesca beside him? The woman who had shown him what it meant to love?

He turned to face her. ‘The legislation cannot be changed overnight,’ he warned.

She heard the promise in his voice and knew that she had to meet it halfway. ‘But I know that you wouldn’t drag your feet, just for the sake of it.’

Zahid smiled. There! She had done it again. By voicing her confidence and her trust in him, she had made it morally impossible for him to do anything but obey her!

‘I will drag my feet on nothing,’ he growled. ‘Especially not this.’ And he strode across the room and pulled her into his arms, his eyes blazing as he looked down at her. ‘I love you, Francesca O’Hara—you and only you, for the rest of my life. You are the only woman I have ever truly wanted and ever shall want. You have captured my heart and my soul and my body—and I am asking you once again, will you marry me?’

‘Oh, yes, my darling,’ she said softly, her fingertips moving to trace the outline of his sensual mouth. ‘Yes and yes, and a thousand times yes.’

For a moment Zahid just enjoyed the unfamiliar sensation of pure contentment and the sudden warmth which flooded through his veins until his heart felt as if it were on fire. Remember this moment, he told himself fiercely. Remember it for as long as you draw breath. He brushed aside the dark lock of hair which had fallen over her cheek and, lowering his head, he began to kiss her.

I
T WASN’T,
as Zahid remarked to Francesca on their wedding night, the most straightforward of unions. For the sheikh and his English bride began their married life with more challenges than most newly-wed couples had to contend with. But they had always known it would be that way.

First, there was the challenge of getting his country to accept a western wife who was also a commoner, rather than someone of noble blood who had been born and reared there. But here Frankie was at a definite advantage. Her late father had been known and adored by the people of Khayarzah—and her own obvious love of the culture shone through in all she did and said.

She charmed them by adopting a traditional Khayarzahian wedding gown for the emotional ceremony which took place over four days. And then proceeded to amaze them by saying her vows in flawless Khayarzahian—the product of her hard and ongoing work on the tricky language, for she was determined to be fluent one day. But mostly she was accepted because the people saw how deeply their king loved her. As she loved him. It was as clear as the night-time moon, they said.

So they named her Queen Anwar, which meant ‘rays of light’. And the single wedding day photo which was issued to the world’s media showed the two of them gazing rapt into each other’s eyes, as if nothing outside that moment existed for either of them.

The second challenge was getting such a traditional male-led society to accept that changes were needed and that they
were
going to be made. The move to allowing women to drive and to attend universities didn’t happen overnight, but it
did
happen, albeit very slowly. It came too late for Fayruz to go to college in her own country—but Frankie felt a fierce determination that the bright young girl should fulfil her intellectual potential. Thus, with her husband’s blessing, the new queen sponsored her former servant to attend Cambridge University, where she excelled in both her degree subject of Middle Eastern politics, and on her college swimming team.

The final challenge was Frankie’s alone. It meant saying goodbye to a way of life she had always known in England—and embracing a brand-new one in a desert land which was radically different. But that was no hardship for her, not even for a single second. Her father had taught her how to love Khayarzah, and she had loved Zahid from the very first moment she had known him. She would have walked to the ends of the earth for him.

In fact, she would do anything to make her beloved husband happy—and when he confided that he was worried about Tariq and the life he was leading, Frankie suggested inviting his brother to Khayarzah for an
extended stay. Whether or not that would happen, who could say? Because Frankie knew that the future was like a handful of pebbles dropped to the ground—you never knew where they were going to fall.

Her only disappointment was in never seeing one of the fabled leopards, which her father had told her so much about—although she lived in hope. And Zahid regularly took her for a picnic in the lush foothills of the eastern heights, just in case. The place where they’d had their furious row—where their future had seemed so bleak and hopeless—had become their own, special place.

It was there that she told him that she was pregnant. And where one day—a month before she gave birth to their beautiful black-haired twins—he withdrew a slim leather box and handed it to her.

‘What’s this?’ she questioned, with a smile.

‘Why not open it and see?’

The chain was fine and gold and from it hung a glittering, stream-lined charm. A sleek animal, captured in mid-leap, its elegant body studded with diamonds and onyx—its eyes two rare and gleaming emeralds.

‘Why, it’s a leopard,’ she said slowly as she held it up to the light and looked up at him with shining eyes.

Zahid’s smile was tender as he took it from her and put it around her neck, fastening the clasp and then touching his lips to her neck in a lingering kiss. He moved round to pull her into his arms as the fertile swell of her belly pressed against him.

‘Indeed it is. It’s a way of saying that if reality doesn’t always give you what you want, sweet Francesca—then
you must reach out and create your own. Just as we have done.’

It was also, he knew, yet another way of telling her how much he loved her.