White Moon Black Sea (35 page)

The princess rose and went to a table in the middle of the room. She adjusted a long-stemmed rose that was out of place and offended her eye, one of five dozen white ones in a rock-crystal vase with an ormolu rim and elegant feet. The gesture gave Rashid a moment to recover. She returned to Rashid and sat down.

“Eirene, there has to have been
something
that forced her to make that decision to leave me. My heart tells me you know what it is.”

“Your heart tells you right.”

Rashid closed his eyes in relief. The Princess Eirene studied his handsome face, his sensual lips. There had not been many men in her life, even among those she had met casually, who had such unbridled love of the erotic that it showed physically on them like a second skin, rousing the dormant sexuality in those they encountered. Rashid had it. He opened his eyes, and she smiled at him and said, “Not something, Rashid. Someone.”

That seemed to shock Rashid. She clapped her hands and Hyacinth answered her command. She crooked her finger and signaled for him to lean down so that she could whisper to him. He left the room. Then she turned back to Rashid.

“A few days ago, a woman came to see me. A Scottish woman. She brought me a note. It seems the woman had instructions from Humayun that if she, a Miss Stirling, did not see or hear from Humayun for a period of one month, she was to come at once to me with the note.”

“Who is this Miss Stirling?”

“I’ll explain about her in a moment. The note introduced me to Miss Stirling. It further entrusted me to tell you that, whatever happens, you are to have everything that belonged to Humayun, to do with as you see fit. She trusted you implicitly. There was something else. A note for you.”

The princess reached into an inlaid mother-of-pearl box on the table and withdrew an envelope and handed it to Rashid. He recognized Humayun’s handwriting and the lavender ink she always used. The princess handed him a letter opener. He was about to slide it through the lip of the envelope when there was a knock at the door. It opened, and a woman walked in. He could only assume she was Miss Stirling. She held in one arm a sleeping baby dressed in white cotton and lace. With her other hand she held the hand of a little boy, so handsome as to be beautiful, dressed in a sailor’s suit with short pants, and trailing on a long string a wooden Donald Duck on wheels.

Rashid gasped as he looked at the little boy.

“There are your someones, Rashid. Humayun ultimately
could not choose between the fathers of her children. She tried to choose and knew at once that she had made a mistake.”

Rashid and the Princess Eirene spent some time with the children. Moses’ son’s name was Aaron. He was only a few weeks old, a beautiful and happy dusky-skinned image of his father.

“I never even guessed,” said Rashid after Miss Stirling had taken them away. “How did she do it, manage it, I mean, without my knowing about it?”

“The first time, with me, when we were supposedly on a cruise. The second time, when you gave her a four-month holiday while you were away with Tana Dabra. The first time was planned. The second was lucky timing.”

“Why didn’t she tell me I had a son? A handsome and clever son. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Humayun knew that a son was not part of the life you lived together. She feared it might displease you and change things between you. She had planned to tell you when he was older, and she thought you would want him in your life.”

The door opened and little Rashid ran back into the room to ask, very politely, if he could sit with his father. One hour later Rashid had fallen in love with his son.

From the Princess Eirene’s
yali
Rashid made his phone call to Moses. He asked to see him. It was seven in the evening when he arrived. The other guests were due at half past eight. That gave the men a chance to talk.

They said surprisingly little to each other. But such restraint itself helped to bury the hurt they might have felt toward each other in the loss of their beloved Humayun. It was Rashid who gave Moses his son.

Placing him in Moses’ arms, he said, “I would like to keep him as my own, if you should not want him. But I know that’s impossible. What man does not want the son of a woman he loved as much as you did Humayun?”

When Tana Dabra arrived, Rashid went out to meet her. They walked through the lovely gardens and he told her what had happened. The princess watched them from the
window, called for Nany Stirling, and sent her out to Rashid and Tana Dabra with his little boy. Mirella and Adam already knew what was happening at the
yali
before they arrived. The princess had confided in them because, as she said, “Your lives are indissolubly linked by a deep and lasting friendship.”

It was not often that anyone realized how powerful a woman the Princess Eirene was. So subtle and persuasive, seductive and wise, she rarely showed her strength. But only a few minutes before they were to go into the yellow dining room for dinner, Joshua and Zahra, Adam’s eldest children from his first wife arrived, having flown in from New York for this dinner. They felt, even as they forgathered as a family, Princess Eirene’s matriarchal force. Maybe she would watch over them still, the Corey and the Lala Mustapha, and even the Moses Jefferson family.

When they teased her about this, she answered them well. “Family. Family indeed. I think you should ask yourselves when a family stops being a mere family and becomes a dynasty. We dine tonight together in my house to celebrate three dynasties — the Coreys, the Lala Mustaphas, and that of Moses which is now beginning. And let us not forget the most ancient of all, the Oujie dynasty. That after all, has brought us all together. We may never be any closer than we are tonight. And may we never be any further apart. But you are rich and powerful families, young for dynasties. Who knows where you will go, what you will do, how you will make your marks in this world. For me, I have my own vision of you all as the kind of people who make kings and princes, presidents and premiers, scholars, discoverers, and industrialists. Your money and power can shape the world. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let us gather at my table and celebrate life!”

A dozen times during the sumptuous dinner served that evening, Mirella marveled at the dazzling array of people and jewels and magnificent gowns, the bursting of life and gaiety all around her. This was her life now, her family. She was a part of two dynasties, and she loved every glittering minute of it. Not once but many times she saw Rashid look her way. She recognized the desire in his eyes
for her. Her heart raced to think a part of him was hers too. And Adam, this extraordinary man who knew that to share her was to hold her forever.

After dinner Mirella, her husband, and her lover gravitated toward the window overlooking the Bosporus. They were mesmerized by the white moon dancing lightly on the black sea. Mirella slid her arm through Rashid’s. She pulled Adam closer to her and passed her arm through his. Thus linked, both men looked at Mirella. Passion, erotic yearnings, untainted love was throbbing within her for them. She caught the selfsame feelings issuing from them.

She whispered in a soft and sensuous voice, “Let me be the one to say it just once. I shall break the rule this one time, then never again. What I have with you both is stronger than life itself: an endless love.”