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‘Oh, but I would have done that...’
Aziza’s protest died away as she saw the glance he slanted her. A mixture of reproof and disbelief. Fiery colour rushed into her face as she recalled just why her dress had needed cleaning. They had visited a children’s hospital and she hadn’t been able to resist getting close to the young patients.
‘I do know how to do it.’
‘And so does the maid. It’s her job.’
‘And mine is to be—what?’ When he didn’t answer, she tried another approach, hoping to get him to answer her. ‘I don’t know how to be a queen.’
And there she’d touched on the reason he had wanted to talk to her last night, Nabil acknowledged.
‘There was no one who could have done things any better.’
She’d had a natural, easy approach with everyone she met. The people she’d talked to had positively glowed in the warmth of her attention. And the children in the hospital they’d visited yesterday had made straight for her like needles drawn to a magnet. They had climbed all over her, pushed their hands into hers. Her elegant blue dress had come back smeared with sticky little fingerprints and a smattering of baby sick on one shoulder.
And she’d laughed at it! Laughed and gone back for more.
‘I saw you before each event; you were nervous...’
‘Terrified,’ Aziza slipped in jerkily. ‘I was never trained to be a potential queen—or married to anyone important. Not like Jamalia. So I tried to imagine what your mother would do—she was so elegant...’
Nabil hastily caught back the cynical laugh that almost escaped him. But he’d obviously not been quick enough to hide his response as it drew Aziza’s eyes, wide with shock, to his face.
‘You obviously didn’t know my mother. She expected to be given attention—not to give it to others. And she would have hated to have children mess up her clothes. She would have made sure to keep a careful distance.’
‘But surely with you—with her son?’
This time he wasn’t so successful at hiding his cynicism.
‘As I said, you didn’t know my mother. Oh, she had style, elegance—she definitely looked good on the stamps. The person who most reminds me of her is your sister.’
‘And that’s not a good thing?’
Her eyes were like molten gold, fixed on his face. He couldn’t look away.
‘My mother wanted to be Queen much more than she ever wanted to be a mother. Once I arrived, she’d done her duty to the crown. One heir to the throne—check! Mission accomplished. With me safely under the care of my nurse she could go back to enjoying being the foremost lady in the land.’
‘Enjoying it?’ Aziza gave a small shudder. ‘Is it possible to enjoy being the focus of every eye? Knowing that people are watching your every move?’
She looked so horrified that he wanted to wipe that distress from her face. If she had felt so disturbed by the past few days then she hadn’t shown it when they were in public. After just a few short minutes he had known that he could leave her to cope, to talk to people whatever their age or status, though he had been aware of the way that every now and then she had glanced at him for support, encouragement.
‘It’s possible to grow accustomed to it at least. Believe me, Zia, it won’t always be this bad.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ Aziza couldn’t hold back. She hated hearing that version of her name on his lips.
‘Don’t call you—what?’ A dark frown pulled his black brows together. ‘Zia?’
The sudden inclination of his head showed how he had caught the small flinch that was her reaction.
‘It’s how you introduced yourself to me.’
‘When I didn’t want you to know who I was.’
He was too aware, too sharp. She knew that when she saw his eyes narrow swiftly. And his response only confirmed it.
‘So you don’t want me to know Zia—but who is Aziza? Your father’s daughter.’
‘My father’s second daughter.’
She’d intrigued him now. She saw the change in his expression, the tightening of the bronzed skin over the high, fierce cheekbones, then suddenly he was leaning forward with his arms resting along his thighs, hands clasped on his knees.
‘Go on. Aziza, I said, go on,’ he repeated when she hesitated and the note of command that came so naturally to him left her in no doubt that if she did not obey then the consequences would not be pretty.
