like a butterfly pinned onto a piece of cardboard. ‘I don’t want to know!’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t want that kind of pressure spoiling the pregnancy in any way. I don’t want you being pleased if it’s a boy and your brother being pleased if it’s a girl, so that I’ll end up feeling tugged both ways. I want the surprise of not knowing. Otherwise it will be like knowing what all your Christmas presents are before you actually get around to unwrapping them.’
For a moment, he smiled. ‘I’m afraid we don’t celebrate Christmas in Kashamak,’ he offered drily.
‘Well, your birthday presents, then.’
‘I wouldn’t really know about that either.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re not trying to tell me you never had any birthday presents?’
‘So what if I didn’t?’ He shrugged. ‘My father was too busy for that kind of thing. Sometimes he remembered, sometimes not. It wasn’t important.’
Ella’s heart gave a funny little flip. Of course it was important, especially to a child. It was the one day a year when you could guarantee that all the attention would be focused on you. You got the feeling that you were loved and cared for. Even when money was at its tightest her mother had always managed to pull together some sort of celebration. And it couldn’t have been easy for her, she realised suddenly. Not easy at all.
‘And what about your mother, didn’t she want a birthday cake for her little boy?’
Silently, he cursed her overemotional use of language. Was that deliberate? Was she trying to get under his skin, in the way that women always did? ‘My mother wasn’t around,’ he clipped out.
‘What happened to her?’ Ella’s voice softened. ‘You never mention her, Hassan. Did she … did she die?’
The knuckles of his fists gleamed white as Hassan clenched his hands over his silk-clad thighs. ‘No, she didn’t die—at least, not then. She left us to find a different kind of life, and I don’t particularly want to talk about it. Especially not now at such a significant moment. Look, here are my advisers and staff come out to greet us. Prepare yourself, Ella, for I am sure you know how important first impressions are.’
Hearing the finality in his voice as he halted the discussion about his childhood, Ella straightened her golden veil with trembling fingers. She certainly remembered her first impression of him. How his dark and proudly arrogant beauty had seemed to call out to something deep inside her. How for one blissful night she thought she’d found it, only to have it swept away by his callous desertion of her. Had that been just an illusion? she wondered. And had she been guilty of imagining a special bond where none existed, as a way of justifying her own wanton behaviour?
The powerful car drew to a halt and her memories melted away in the presence of a practical dilemma. Because how on earth did you prepare yourself to face people as their brand-new queen?
‘Do they know I’m pregnant?’ she asked.
At this he gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Of course not, though it is fairly obvious to all but the most careless observer. But you need not concern yourself with that, Ella. Don’t you know what they say about royalty? Never complain and never explain. There will be no need for any kind of announcement. Many of my people will not realise the good news until a child is presented to them, for you will largely be hidden from view.’
Hidden from view?
What the hell did that mean?
His words sent feelings of alarm skittering over her skin but there wasn’t time to demand further explanation because the door to the car was being opened and a warm blast of fragrant air hit her. Ella exited the car as gracefully as she could—not an easy move, given that her beautiful gown was so jewel-encrusted that it weighed a ton.
Slowly, she walked along two lines of assembled people, where the advisers were exclusively male and wore subdued versions of Hassan’s robes. The only women present were servants and they lowered their eyes deferentially as she walked along the line, shyly uttering the Kashamak greeting she’d been practising for days.
There was so much to take in. High ceilings and marble floors, the glimmer of gold and the glitter of crystal. Was this how her sister Allegra had felt when she’d first arrived in Alex’s royal palace? Blown away by the sense of history and tradition? And the wealth, of course. Only this was the real thing. Not the kind she’d known when she was growing up, when one minute they’d all be driving around in a gold limousine and the next hiding from the bailiffs.
This was rock-solid wealth. Enduring and sustaining. Money like this could totally influence your thinking and behaviour. And yet, this was their child’s heritage, she realised. All this splendour and beauty was his or hers by birth—and she did not have the right to deny their baby that.
‘Clearly you approve?’ Hassan had watched with interest the movement of her ice-blue eyes as they quickly assessed her surroundings. Was she silently adding up his worth and realising that never again would she want for money?
‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’
Briefly, he found himself wondering whether he should have taken his lawyer’s advice and made her sign a prenuptial agreement. But something about that action had made him baulk. It had seemed inherently wrong to ask that of the mother of his child. No matter how outrageous her demands for any divorce settlement, he could easily afford it. And a woman who was satisfied with her pay-out would be less likely to cause trouble in the future….
‘So … you must be tired after the long journey,’ he said. ‘Would you like to see your quarters?’
‘My … quarters?’ Ella’s smile was uncertain. ‘Um, you’ve left the army now, Hassan.’
‘Forgive me.’ His answering smile concealed a faint confusion, an unknown feeling of being out of his depth. Who cared what he called it, the detail was surely insignificant? Usually, he would have gone straight off to long meetings with aides and ministers, followed by a hard ride on one of his horses. But now the comforting familiarity of his routine had been broken by a woman with rose-pink lips and ice-blue eyes.
His wife.
If it was anyone else, he would have assigned a servant to show her around. But because it was Ella and she was pregnant and therefore vulnerable, he found himself in the unheard-of position of being her guide. And for the first time in his life, he felt out of his depth. ‘I will show you to your suite of rooms. Does that sound better?’
‘My suite?’ She looked at him in surprise. For weeks, she’d been psyching herself up for married life. She’d vacillated between wondering if she was crazy to go through with it, or whether it was the only sane choice. But once she’d decided to marry Hassan, one comforting thought had remained to sustain her. At least sex with her new husband was guaranteed to be amazing. He’d shown her that she could experience pleasure in his arms, and the truth was that she couldn’t wait to sample it again. She edged him a tentative smile. ‘But surely we’ll be sharing a suite, as a married couple?’
Hassan shook his head, wiping out the tempting thoughts provoked by the soft curve of her lips. ‘It is not the tradition, no, not here. It dates back from the days when a monarch always had to be ready to go to war and did not want to disturb his wife if he left for battle in the middle of the night. So his isolation
