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Somehow she got through the ceremony, led into the responses, the words she needed to say, guided by the celebrant. She accepted the ring that Nabil pushed on to her finger and then turned, her hand on her husband’s arm, and made her way back down the room. There was a huge change in the atmosphere, in the attitude of everyone present. She was no longer even the chosen one but actually the Sheikh’s wife.
The greatest shock came when she saw her mother sweep into a low curtsey and her father—her father!—bow respectfully as she passed. It was then that it hit home to her that this marriage had changed so much for her personally as well as for the country.
She was no longer second to anyone—except of course Nabil, her husband. Her days of being the ‘other daughter’, the one who was usually kept in the background, were over. Most of all she no longer had to obey her father, subject everything she did to his scrutiny. She was free.
Or was she? She had put her life and her future—her body too—into the hands of the man who was walking beside her. That grip on her fingers was very firm, his skin warm and hard against her own. It made her shiver inside to feel it and the twist of nerves low down in her body forced her to think of what it might be like to have those hands on other more intimate parts of her body. She had blundered into this in a blind bewilderment, half-influenced by the yearning she had felt as a child, half-reaching for the freedom she thought this marriage would offer, clinging on to the knowledge that Nabil was a reformer, had taken an interest in improving the lives of women in his country. So different from her father’s oppressive and traditional views on women. But was that freedom possible at all or had she just exchanged one form of slavery for another?
She drifted through the feasting and celebrations that followed the wedding as if in some sort of delirium, a feeling that was only increased by being hidden behind the concealing curtain of her veils. If she wanted to eat, she would have to slip the food under those curtains in order to reach her mouth.
But the reality was that she couldn’t eat a thing, just pushed the rich, spicy food around on the gold surface of her plate, unable to think of swallowing a morsel. Beside her Nabil sat, his hand resting on the arms of his chair, his long body seeming relaxed in his seat. But this close to him she couldn’t be unaware of the way that those deep, dark eyes watched the room, noting every movement. The wary alertness bothered her.
‘Sire...’
Her voice, dry with apprehension, croaked slightly as the sound pulled his head round, black eyes seeming to sear through the concealing veil and on to her face.
‘My name is Nabil,’ he said softly enough but with an edge to his own name that brought her up sharp. Her eyes drawn to the sudden movement of one long, bronzed hand, she saw how those strong fingers had clenched over the gold fork that lay beside his plate. A plate that he had barely touched either. Suddenly she was stingingly aware of the fact that his given name was one so very few people had the right to use. In his position as the head of government, the ruler of Rhastaan, he was the Sheikh, the King, His Highness—but how few people could call him just Nabil.
And suddenly, from the mists of bitter memory, she had an unwanted recollection of the shocking scenes played out on the televisions sets of the country ten years before. In the deafening silence of the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Nabil, his own face marked with the blood of the glancing wound he had suffered, had bent over the fallen body of Sharmila, his pregnant Queen. As he’d lowered his head to hers, it had been possible to see how her lips had moved to silently form one word: Nabil.
‘N-Nabil...’ she tried hesitantly, wanting to reach out and touch her fingers to that hand so tightly clamped around his fork. But it seemed as if a force field of distance, of rejection, shimmered around him, and instead she clenched her own hands in her lap, fearful of shattering the atmosphere with a dangerous move.
Nabil made his fingers ease their hold on the fork he held. Now was not the time to think of how many years it had been since he had heard a woman—other than Clementina—use his name in that way. Nor to recognise how those damned veils muffled everything about her voice so that it could come from any female, old or young. It seemed so strange that the only image he had of the woman who was now his wife was the image of her as a girl that had pushed him into a decision that might just turn out to be as foolish and rash as the one that had made him take Sharmila as his first wife. But at least this decision had been made with his head, not the rush of desire and loneliness that had pushed him into Sharmila’s arms.
