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She was in her twenties now, but beneath all her bravado there were traces of that lonely little girl with the heartbreaking air of vulnerability he remembered from that winter...the second and only other time they’d met.
She’d been thirteen—one year younger than his sisters were now and far too young to lose her mother.
Once a feted actress, Niamh had been thirty-three when she’d succumbed to her alcohol addiction. The more romantic version was that it had been the weariness of a broken heart that simply wouldn’t heal. Lily’s father—dead over a decade by then—had, they said, been mourned to distraction by his beautiful widow.
Lord Rupert Hastings had been a world class eventer, but when a terrible fall had left his spine fused with pins and metal plates he’d been told to retire, or risk death. He’d ignored all pleas to quit, even those of his wife, who had begged him on behalf of their young daughter.
The inevitable had happened.
Niamh’s second marriage, so soon after the accident that had ended her first, had been a disaster.
Widower Edward Marchant, who’d inherited his wealth from Nate’s mother, had thought he’d married the perfect trophy wife. A famous actress with the added cachet of a connection to a titled family. Once he’d discovered she’d been disowned by her former in-laws and was little more than a heartbroken creature, he’d neglected her, leaving her to seek solace, then oblivion, in a vodka bottle.
When Niamh had died so suddenly Nate, abroad and unable to get home in time, had begged Khaled to go to Lily on his behalf.
‘You know she and my father aren’t close, and she still talks about you all the time. You’re in England at the moment. Be her big brother for a few hours?’
Khaled had remembered the little girl with the kind heart and sunny smile. In all conscience he’d known he couldn’t leave her alone on such a day.
His people had worked miracles, carving a few hours from his packed schedule, but even they hadn’t conjured up enough time for him to attend the funeral itself. For which, to his lasting shame, he’d been grateful.
It would have been too vivid a reminder of a similar day, six years previously.
The day they’d buried Faisal...
In the cabin, Lily stirred in her sleep. The dim light caught in her hair, a wave of red-gold against the white of the pillow.
His work forgotten, Khaled recalled the girl he’d found that day in her stepfather’s house. Alone. Ignored by everyone at the wake. Hiding in a cloakroom, her face buried in the line of coats.
She’d jerked upright when the door had opened. Someone had tried to smarten her up in a neat black coat, and to tame that riot of auburn hair by squashing a black beret firmly on her head. It had only made her look paler. More out of place. More lost.
His heart had gone out to her.
She’d blinked at him in confusion, then flung herself at his chest, sobbing as if her heart were breaking. He’d pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, murmuring soft words in Arabic—words she wouldn’t understand, and yet they’d seemed to soothe her as the racking sobs had subsided.
Later, they’d sat together in her mother’s neglected rose garden and he’d asked her where she’d go now.
She’d looked up at him, puzzled. ‘I’ll stay here, of course.’
Her stepfather had become her legal guardian. Her mother had even changed Lily’s surname when she’d married him. If Edward Marchant had been hoping her father’s aristocratic family would claim her he was to be disappointed.
They’d cut all ties when their younger son Rupert had, in their opinion, married beneath him. They were an ancient family, and proud—too proud to accept a mere actress as their daughter-in-law, however celebrated. And at their head was the most intransigent of them all, the Duke, who had steadfastly refused to recognise his own grandchild.
‘The only one who’s ever pleased to see me is Nate,’ she’d told him. ‘He’s my family now.’
‘But who will look after you?’ he’d asked. ‘Nate’s hardly ever home.’
‘I’ll look after myself. Like I’ve always done,’ she’d said, adding hurriedly, when she saw his shocked expression, ‘And there’s Mrs Stone.’
He’d remembered the housekeeper from his last visit. Sour-faced and ill-tempered. Hardly the embodiment of maternal tenderness.
‘I’ll have clean clothes. I’ll be fed. She’ll get me to school on time.’
There’d been a dismissive shrug, as if to say that was enough.
Enough? For a parentless child?
It had been a dire prospect, and when he’d left that day he’d wanted to scoop her up and take her with him.
