The Fierce and Tender Sheikh (11 page)

“O
h, Shakira! Aren't you staggering! Kamila, you've out-done yourself this time!” Noor cried.

The designer smiled and tweaked a fold.

Shakira was too stunned to speak. She just kept staring and staring at the vision in the mirror.

The ruby-red harem pants were of diaphanous silk, laced with intricate embroidery, and studded with pearls and rubies. Waist and ankles were both belted with a wide, primitive band of thickly clustered gemstones in shades of red entwined with gold thread; a matching bracelet snugly encircled one slender, graceful wrist.

Above, a silk spaghetti-strap bodice left her arms and shoulders bare. From its waist a long skirt fell in layers of gauzy ruby-coloured silk open at the front from the hem to just above her navel. A neat triangle of bare flesh was revealed between the jewelled belt of the harem trousers and the bodice. Even standing still, the silky skirt seemed to billow around her. On her feet, the delicate ruby-and-diamanté straps crossing each instep were more jewellery than sandal.

A swarm of helpers buzzed around her, tweaking and adjusting, but Shakira scarcely noticed their ministrations.

She was glowing with the aftermath of a day of manicure, pedicure, massage and facial. The makeup artist had done wonderful things for her already large eyes, making them smoky and mysterious; her full mouth was glossed with only a hint of colour; her nails were French polished, her toenails ruby-red. Her hair was a mass of glossy curls swept back from her forehead and down the back of her neck to reveal the high, proud al Jawadi cheekbones and well-shaped ears. Ruby-and-diamond ear studs in a primitive cluster caught a mountain of light every time she breathed.

A single curl fell over her forehead.

“You look like a—oh, I don't know who you look like!” Noor exclaimed, as words failed her. “Like yourself, I think.
Like the woman you were always meant to be. You're going to knock him flat!”

“Who?”

In the mirror, Jalia and Noor exchanged a slightly alarmed glance.

“Everybody!”

“Who has come?” Shakira asked nervously. “Are the—my family here?”

The two cousins laughed delightedly. “Darling, of course they are! Who would miss this? I heard that people were practically killing for an invitation, but of course everyone with the least excuse to be called family got one, and if you think anyone would—they're all here, Shakira,” Noor assured her earnestly. “Of course they are.”

One was missing, but Shakira kept that thought to herself. It was not fair to her family to continually regret her brother's absence.

“Prince Omar and Crown Prince Kavian and their wives you know about already.” Jalia was listing on her fingers. “A handful of international celebrities who were active in Bagestani Drought Relief. Every single one accepted. The media are out in force. The paparazzi are thick as thieves around the main gate.”

Noor looked at her watch. “It's time.”

 

Guards in fabulous dress uniform saluted as she passed through the massive arched doorway onto the huge domed
talar
that overlooked the entire length of the Great Court.

Shakira had previously seen the Great Court only in daylight. Now she stood gazing out over the vista in stunned wonder. Never in her life, never in her richest dreams, had she conjured up a vision of such magnificence.

In the centre of the courtyard, four square pools, each with a fountain playing in the centre, were surrounded with flaming torches that caused the tumbling water to shimmer like an endless stream of diamonds. On three sides, the columns
of cloisters and balconies were also lighted by paired torches. Stepped water channels looked like ribbons of silver and gold threading between the lush trees and thickly flowered shrubs.

The ceiling and columns of the
talar,
studded with mirrored mosaic embedded in old gold and glimmering with torchlight, gave the place the enchantment of a fairy castle. At the far end of the courtyard the dome was dark and shadowy. Beyond it, the golden dome of the mosque shimmered. Above, moon and stars in the lush, purple-black sky contributed their lustre and magic.

The courtyard was jammed with a crowd of people dressed in rich colours, lavishly embroidered with gold, whose jewels glowed and sparkled, indiscriminately reflecting torchlight and starlight, as the crowd flowed in channels like the water.

Shakira entered in the wake of the Sultan and Sultana, and awareness seemed to whisper through the crowd, so that, one by one, and then in clusters and whole groups, they turned to stare as she gazed, all unconsciously, at the dreamscape.

A collective gasp of delighted approval breathed through them. So this was the boy princess, the lost child!

She was completely unexpected: the most beautiful of urchins. A particularly beguiling page stepped straight from the
Nights,
staring at them like Aladdin's first visit to the cave of treasure.

When she came to herself again, the Sultan and Sultana had gone down into the court, and she was alone on the platform, and the object of everyone's focused attention. Shakira blinked. Then her wide, startled smile enchanted even further, and the air suddenly resounded with a sudden, spontaneous outburst of applause and cheering.

“Brava, Princess!”

She breathed to steady herself as her eyes searched the uplifted faces for those she knew and loved.

The Sultan was tall and handsome in a red silk jacket with ropes of pearls over his chest and a long swath of gold cloth over one shoulder, a proud smile softening his stern face. Be
side him Dana, her hair piled in an intricate chignon braided with a diamond-and-gold rope, wearing an elegantly simple white
shalwar kamees,
gold sandals and a gold scarf, was also smiling warmly at her.

Her grandmother Suhaila, in emerald-green and gold, stood proud and confident beside that tall imposing couple, like the star she was. Her eyes were black jewels flashing approval.

The rest of the family were mingled with the crowd. Shakira's eyes roved the faces. Noor and Jalia beside their handsome, dark-eyed fiancés, Noor's brothers, the Sultan's sisters, and all the others she had met over the past months—cousins, aunts, uncles, and more remote connections. All family. For so many years she had been alone. Now her family numbered in the dozens, and in their faces she saw that they were proud of her, and her heart swelled and was filled with sweetness as she gazed at them, and felt a part of that larger whole. Felt how she belonged.

She started down the steps then, the silk skirt of her costume rippling around her as a sudden soft breeze whispered up the steps just for this moment, for her. Her eyes kept moving, searching for one more face.

He was standing by himself beside a shooting fountain, handsome in a midnight-dark silk jacket draped with pearls and gold, his black hair glinting in the light that painted a thousand curls.

Sharif was not smiling. His eyes were a reflection of the night sky, his jaw was tight, and he was staring at her as if he knew he'd been shot and was waiting to feel the pain.

All unconsciously, the Princess smiled and reached out a hand towards him, and he was powerless to resist the unspoken, unconscious request. Ignoring court protocol, the Cup Companion stepped forward to help the Princess down the steps to the courtyard.

Around them the whispers started.

He's the man who rescued her. Without him she wouldn't be here.

Is it going to be a match?

Just look at her face!

Look at his.

She stood looking up at him in the semidarkness, deaf to everything, while torchlight flickered around her, an elfin creature. He might have been dreaming. He had looked at the photo of the child and dedicated himself to finding her and knowing what kind of woman she had become. He had not understood then that he had fallen in love with the woman she would be. That was why he had had to find her.

He smiled, though he didn't feel like smiling. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and swear to cherish and protect her forever. The thought made him realize that he was still holding her hand, but he could not let it go.

Her own mouth curved, her eyes reflecting the flickering torchlight, as if he had rubbed a magic lamp and wished.

“Well?” she said, offering herself with that touching lack of feminine guile that marked all she did.

Her big, dark eyes still dominated her face, and the intensity of her character was imprinted there, and he saw that it would never fade. Shakira would always care deeply.

The full mouth was made for passion, but it was too soon to tell her so, too soon to teach her mouth the ways of love. Her flesh, firm with health, glowed in the warm light, the skin of her thighs shimmering as tantalizingly through the sheer silk of the harem pants as did the pearls and rubies of the embroidery.

He clenched his jaw for a moment, struggling to keep the intensity of feeling from his eyes.

“Very well, Princess,” he approved softly, and torchlight also glinted in his eyes. “Very, very well. But aren't you meant to be meeting Prince Omar?”

“Yes, in a moment. But I wanted to show you first. They will understand,” she said, blithely dismissing protocol with the flick of a hand. “It's a big change from the boy you nearly ran down on the road, isn't it?”

“But although Shakira is a very beautiful woman, I think I still see traces of Hani deep in her eyes.”

She caught her breath. “Beautiful?”

His eyes went dark, and he struggled with himself. “Don't you have a mirror?” he asked roughly. The impact of her suddenly-revealed femininity, combined with her own complete unconsciousness of its power, dragged at his self-control.

“That isn't the same as hearing you say it,” she confided.

Behind her he saw, almost with relief, the smiling Sultana bearing down on them, and he lifted the still-slender hand and bent to drop a kiss on it as they parted.

 

The kiss burned her skin for long after she left him. As if she had been shocked with a jolt of electricity, and the nerves of her arm—her whole body—were constantly remembering it.

The Sultana had decreed an informal reception, so that rather than being in a receiving line, Shakira was introduced to people easily as she and her grandmother, Ash and Dana moved through the crowd. Several times as she was led from group to group and introduced, she looked back, trying to find Sharif, to try to read from his face what he had meant by the kiss, but he was lost in the crowd.

She was introduced to Crown Prince Kavian of Parvan, Shahbanu Alinor, and their eldest son, Prince Roshan, along with Prince Omar of Central Barakat and his wife, Princess Jana. In the days when all the al Jawadis had lived in disguise, Ashraf had been Omar's most trusted Cup Companion. He had even followed him into battle when the Prince had taken a company of Cup Companions to fight on Kavian's side after the Kaljuk invasion of Parvan led to the terrible war.

Shakira knew all about that.

“Your country gave us asylum,” she told Kavian. “My stepmother was always so grateful. She was very frightened when we had nowhere to go except Bagestan. But at the last minute Parvan accepted us.”

“I am sorry we could not take better care of you,” said Kavian. They all saw her face change, remembering, and the subject was quickly changed.

Of course everyone at the party, family or not, wanted to meet the lost princess, and after an hour or two, Shakira began visibly to wilt.

“It must be hard for you to be in such a large crowd,” someone offered sympathetically.

“It is a much more pleasant crowd than the goat molesters you find around a water delivery truck, trampling the women and children who are waiting for something to drink,” Shakira said trenchantly. She still did not like any suggestion implying weakness on her part.

“Oh! Ah…yes, I imagine so!”

With a smile Dana turned to Suhaila and said softly, “I think we might start now.”

The singer lifted her hands in agreement, and a few minutes later ascended to the
talar
. The band of
tar
and
zitar
,
nay
and
santur
, the traditional instruments of Suha's backing group, played a stirring introduction of the familiar notes, and in her clear, haunting voice, Suha sang the first electrifying notes of
Aina al Warda
.

He came and found her then, for she was the Rose to him and he could not resist. They walked in the gardens, saying little.

A gust of wind caught the spray of a fountain and blew it over them, bringing with it the scent of roses, and Shakira stopped and lifted her face to the spray.

“Oh!” she cried, and was still for a long moment, her eyes shut. Then she turned to him, saying softly, “Do you remem
ber I told you about my parents' garden, and the spray of water in my face?”

“I remember,” Sharif said, his voice deep with feeling because her mouth trembled between grief and joy.