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‘I will serve you,’ Jaul declared, waving away the servant eager to wait on them with a determined hand and approaching a laden table to lift a plate.
He was deep in thought. The wedding staged here in the home of his ancestors had touched him deeply. Chrissie was his wife and it was his duty to protect her, a duty he had failed in when he had first married her. While the accident had not been his fault and he could not have avoided it, he knew he had let her down. A man who took on the responsibility of a wife should always make provision for his wife’s safety and security in the event of a tragedy, he reasoned guiltily. He had been young and irresponsible and thoughtless and she had paid the price for his arrogance. But he would ensure that she had no further cause to regret their marriage.
Chrissie was painfully aware of their guests watching as Jaul served her with food.
‘In seeing to your needs before his own, the King shows you great honour,’ Zaliha explained as a maid served them with glasses of juice.
The music began. Dancers put on an exhibition of acrobatic athleticism. Poetry was recited. Good wishes were tendered. A comedian performed a skit but, even with Jaul’s translation, Chrissie didn’t get the jokes. Cameras gleamed and whirred in the bright lights, quietly recording everything. As the night air grew chillier and gooseflesh prickled below the sleeves of Chrissie’s light top, Jaul raised her up and dropped his cloak round her slim shoulders. ‘It is time for us to leave.’
A convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles awaited them outside. Chrissie climbed into the lead vehicle and watched as Jaul’s bodyguards divided to fill the vehicles behind. Her brow indented. ‘What happened to your old bodyguards?’
And she knew the instant she saw the pallor leach away his natural colour and his haunted eyes met hers that she need not have asked. ‘The accident?’ she whispered in distress, involuntarily recalling Hakim, the tall, thin, serious one and his younger brother, Altair, who had always had a smile on his face.
Jaul nodded in silent acknowledgement and regret.
Chrissie reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said frankly, painfully aware that Jaul had grown up with the two brothers.
The convoy rocked noisily along a rough track into the desert. Chrissie almost tumbled off the seat several times until Jaul secured her with a protective arm. ‘Have we far to go?’ she asked, certain her teeth were going to rattle right out of her head with the jolts and bumps.
‘We are almost there. We pitched the camp closer than usual to the palace.’
Jaul stepped out into the dense shadow cast by a huge tent while lights flared both outside it and within it. ‘We will have every comfort here,’ he assured her, helping her out. ‘The twins will join us tomorrow. It would not have made sense to disrupt their sleep.’
The tent was in no shape or form what she had expected. For a start it was much more spacious than she had foreseen and partitioned off into different sections. The seating area was in the front portion and clearly for entertaining. The walls were hung with bead and wool work while the floor was covered with an exquisite rug and fur and silk throws and elaborate soft cushions provided an opulent accent to the seating. ‘Wow...this is not camping as I imagined it.’
‘We’re not camping. Are you hungry?’ Jaul enquired, thrusting open a door hidden by a hanging.
‘No, I’m absolutely stuffed,’ Chrissie admitted, following him into a bedroom even more magnificently decorated than the entertainment area. ‘No stinting on comforts here...’
‘But we will have to share a bathroom,’ Jaul confided, casting open another concealed door to let her see the facilities. ‘We will be as comfortable here as we would be at the palace. For generations my forebears have visited the desert in spring and late summer to meet with the tribal elders.’
Glancing in a mirror, Chrissie removed the coin headdress because, like the rest of the handmade antique jewellery she wore, it was very heavy. Stilling behind her in silence, Jaul undid the clasp of the necklace she wore without being asked and she caught it as it slid down and settled it on the mirror tray before pushing back her hair to detach the earrings.
