AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Why would my mother have such a precious diamond?’ Effie reasoned. ‘She was a palace maid…’ He watched the soft smile slip from her lips, a smudge of a frown darken her pretty features. ‘My mother wasn’t a thief.’
‘A thief could not take this. These are royal jewels, guarded, accessible only to the highest members of the family.’
‘Then how?’ Effie blinked.
‘Your mother,’ Zakari said slowly, ‘was King Aegeus’s mistress.’
‘My mother?’ Effie shook her head at the impossibility. ‘Zakari, that is impossible. How could you even think it?’
‘The pool at Kionia…’ Zakari interrupted.
‘What about it?’
‘Queen Tia commissioned it.’ Zakari’s voice was so deep and low, hoarse almost, that she had to strain her ears to hear it. ‘The year Princess Elissa was born—long after your mother worked there.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything…’ She didn’t want to get it, didn’t want to understand what he was trying to explain to her. Instead Effie wanted to go back to bed where it was warm, wanted her king, her man to make love to her as he had last night, wanted him to love her as she had been so sure he had.
‘For your mother to have seen it, for your mother to even know about it…’ Zakari pushed, but Effie was refusing to hear him.
‘Maybe she went back…’ Effie attempted. ‘Perhaps she did some casual work…’
‘There are no casual staff at Kionia.’
‘Maybe she just read about it,’ Effie begged. ‘Heard about it from someone…’
‘Your mother was Aegeus’s lover…’ His lips sneered around the name—the man he hated most in the world. ‘He gave her many jewels, some of which she sold over the years. I have returned them to their rightful place, but the only one she kept was the Stefani stone. He set her up in the cottage—palace maids don’t buy cottages. Aegeus was the one who kept her.’
‘No.’ Still she denied it. ‘Not my mother and Aegeus!’
‘Yes Aegeus…’ Zakari spat—he wasn’t finding this easy, his anger at himself and at Aegeus turning on her. ‘Your name!’ he flared. ‘Your real name is Stefania. You cannot deny what is on your birth certificate—you were named after the jewel he gave to her. Your mother was his whore—’
‘My mother was no whore…’ She slapped his cheek, then when it didn’t help she slapped it again. ‘If she is a whore, then what does that make me?’
‘You are my wife.’
‘I wasn’t when we first slept together.’
‘You are my wife now.’
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Because you love me, because you want me…or because of this…’ She saw it then—the change she had seen, the breath that had caught in his throat when she had dressed for him, the wonder in his eyes hadn’t been for her, hadn’t been at her beauty, but at the power he had glimpsed.
‘You, Zakari, are the whore.’ She ripped off the necklace and hurled it at him. ‘You are the one who slept with me for gain! Well, take it!’
It hurt like hell to take off her mother’s jewel, but it was also impossible to keep. It was a thing—a possession, not hers to hold on to, just as she was a possession, a thing, a means to an end.
‘Where are you going?’ As Effie ran inside the suite he watched as she rapidly dressed.
‘Home.’
‘Home? Your home is here with me. You are my wife…’ He grabbed her wrist and furiously she tried to shake him off, only she couldn’t. Her unshod foot was her only method of attack and she kicked him in the shin, hurting herself more than him no doubt, but the shock was enough for Zakari to loosen his grip.
Not the shock of any pain she had inflicted.
More the anger in her.
The hurt.
And strangest of all…more than a flicker of guilt.
Well, what did she expect? Zakari reasoned, pacing the bedroom after she had gone. Kings didn’t fall in love with maids. She should be pleased; in time she would be pleased… She had status now, a title, she had more than she could ever have dreamed of in her meagre existence.
Picking up the phone, he summoned Hassan to his suite, handing over the treasure and telling him to break the news to the Aristo palace and also to the press that the diamond was now his.
That Christos’s Legacy was about to be fulfilled!
‘Your Highness!’ Hassan held the jewel in his palm more tenderly than if it were a child. ‘You have waited for this moment for so long.’
‘Where is Sheikha Stefania?’ Zakari asked.
‘She asked to be taken to her mother’s home.’ Hassan gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘She will calm down, she will return soon…’
Only Zakari wasn’t so sure. When he had signed the marriage documents he had expected hurt, anger even, when he eventually told her the news. But the woman who piece by piece had revealed herself last night was a woman he hadn’t bargained on. She had blossomed before his eyes and under the guise of his love she had flourished, and this morning he had watched her heart shatter.
‘I want a car placed outside the house,’ Zakari instructed. ‘The guard is to make sure she is not disturbed and that she does not speak with the press. When she is ready to return to the palace he will bring her to me.’
The news that Zakari had the stone ripped through the kingdoms of Aristo and Calista. Even Zakari was slightly taken aback by the fallout as he watched the breaking news on television. Regular programming had been suspended and on every channel it was the only subject on people’s minds. There was wailing in the streets of Aristo, while the Calistan people, rather than celebrating, were to Zakari’s surprise rather stunned and subdued. The Aristan royals had offered no comment but senior aides had already been despatched to Calista and were demanding to sight the stone and prove its authenticity. Second, third, fourth editions of the newspapers were being released, the later editions hazarding rapid guesses at what would happen now—how the transition of power might take place and the daunting tasks that lay ahead.
Only the Calistan royals, it seemed, were in the mood for celebration.
Zakari, naturally the head of the table, joined by his brothers and sisters and Aarif’s and Kaliq’s wives. Effie was noticeable only by her absence.
‘She will soon come to accept it,’ Aarif said.
‘Of course she will,’ Kalila agreed with her husband. ‘She has royal blood in her, after all.’
Zakari’s lips were suddenly dry. Reaching for his drink, he sipped the juice, but it did nothing to quench his thirst, and he gestured impatiently for his water to be replenished before taking a long sip, only it did nothing to refresh him either.
The bastard of Aegeus she might be, but there was more royal blood in Effie’s veins than his own and he had witnessed it first-hand that very morning—that fire, pride and indefinable strength that marked her out as being royal. It was the very thing that Zakari had worked hard to master from scratch, but Effie had been born to it.
‘Would you like me to talk to her?’ Eleni, Kaliq’s new wife, offered. She had been a lowly stable girl herself before Kaliq had swept her off her feet and knew some of how Effie must be feeling. ‘I know how hard it is to adjust. Maybe if she had a friend…’
‘I will talk to her!’ Zakari rejected Eleni’s offer with a terse response. ‘Tomorrow she will return to the palace.’
Eleni still hadn’t quite mastered the basics of dining with a king and her pursed lips and slight eye-roll let everyone at the table know what she thought. The only saving grace, Kaliq told her later, trying himself not to laugh at his fiery wife’s ways, was that Zakari had been too distracted to notice.
Lying in bed that night Zakari missed Effie.
Not just the lovemaking, but the ease, the laughter, the comfort she brought to the room.
Tomorrow he would get her; Zakari’s mind was made up.
Tomorrow he would tell her to stop this nonsense and to take her rightful place by his side.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HER mother’s things, her mother’s home, her home, had always brought her comfort.
But not today.
Wandering amongst familiar things, Effie longed for the ignorance of yesterday.
She stared into her mother’s empty jewel box, remembering as a child how she’d tried on her pretty things—the necklaces she’d draped around her neck, the rings she’d placed on her little fat fingers.
Royal jewels! Effie cringed now at the innocent memory. She had been playing with royal jewels—jewels her mother had sold over the years in an effort to support them.
Every part of her felt tainted.
What a fool. Effie sat on the threadbare sofa and huddled into the corner and stared at the rich oil paintings and books that lined the walls. What a fool she had been to never question her mother, what a blind stupid fool to believe that her mother could have supported them both on a palace maid’s savings.
From where she sat she could see the expensive cream car parked on the dust road, the tinted windows shielding the occupant, but occasionally the window wound down and a cigarette was flicked out, revealing a burly occupant wearing dark glasses who made Effie shiver.
