He wanted to be with his sister in the only way he could.
She couldn’t tell this to Trella or one of her brothers. It was Kasim’s secret. Jamal’s life.
I am a sucker, she thought. Trella would have a far better sense of self-protection. Kasim didn’t even want her there. She would be an embarrassment. He might even throw her out.
But Jamal looked so disconsolate. And Hasna missed her brother so much. It would mean the world to her to have this…
She closed her eyes, defeated. “I’ll go. I’ll go to Zhamair and give this to Kasim.”
THERE HAD BEEN many times over the years that Kasim wondered how his father could be such a pitiless, dictatorial bastard. These days, he understood the liberation in such an attitude as he adopted the same demeanor, contemptuous of those around him for being ruled by their emotions. What did the desires of others’ egos and libidos and hearts matter when his own had to be ignored? Everyone made sacrifices.
Don’t think of her.
Were it not for his sister marrying in two days, he would ride into the desert and take some much needed time to regroup. Instead, he was part of a ceaseless revolving door of relatives and dignitaries. One branch of the royal family had no sooner arrived and joined him and his parents for coffee, when a foreign dignitary was in the next room awaiting a chance to express felicitations.
This morning the parade had begun with an ambush. The king had introduced him to the father of the woman he thought would make a fine queen someday—when she grew up. Did his father seriously expect him to marry a child of barely eighteen?
To his prospective father-in-law’s credit, a concern for the age difference was expressed. Kasim smoothly stated he could wait until she completed her degree if that was preferred. It would serve the kingdom better if the future queen was well educated.
The king had correctly interpreted it as an effort to put things off and took him to task the minute they were alone.
“Did you give me your word or not?”
“I cleared the field for her, didn’t I?” Kasim replied in a similar snarl. A glance over the guest list a few days ago had shown that Angelique had sent her regrets. “Surely we can get one wedding over with before we host the next?”
Sadiq’s family were announced, cutting short the clash. Kasim sat down with Sadiq and their fathers to sign off on the marriage contracts, then they joined the queen and Sadiq’s mother.
“Hasna isn’t here?” Sadiq said, morose as he glanced around the room.
“The gown has arrived,” the queen said with a nettled look toward the king. “Fatina has been pestering to see it. Such a nuisance when Hasna has guests. What if she ruins it?”
“The girls will not let that happen,” Sadiq’s mother soothed. “They have been ever so careful this week, watching the unpacking of Hasna’s wardrobe.”
“The Sauveterres were staying with you?” the queen asked in her most benign yet shrewd tone.
“Oh, yes,” Sadiq’s mother said with a smile of pleasure. “The men went into the desert for what the Westerners call…a stag? Is that correct, Sadiq? I had a nice visit with their mother. We are all friends for many years.”
“And they all came with you here?” the king asked, gaze swinging like a scythe to Kasim. “Both girls?”
“Yes, Trella was the one we worried wouldn’t make it, but then Angelique came down with the flu. She recovered, though, and…” Sadiq’s mother lost some of her warm cheer as she sensed the growing tension. “Is there a problem?” She touched the draped folds of her hijab where it covered her throat. “I know we said she was not coming, but she shares a room with her sister so I didn’t think it would be an imposition when she made it after all?”
“It’s no problem,” Kasim said firmly, aiming it at his father.
Get rid of her, he read in the flick of his father’s imperious glance.
* * *
If she had left things as they’d been in Paris, Kasim brooded as he strode down the marbled hall of the palace, he would be resentful, but not furious.
This. This was unacceptable. Now he would be in for it with his father. Threats would be made. His uncle and several cousins were coming to the wedding. Tensions were high. Impulsive autocratic decisions could easily be made in a fit of temper.
Not only was he now courting that disastrous possibility, thanks to Angelique coming here against his orders, but he was raw all over again. Her rejection stung afresh and his intense feeling of being hemmed in by impossible circumstances was renewed.
He had resigned himself to never seeing her again, damn her! Now she was in his home.
He started to ask a passing servant which suite the Sauveterres had been given, but glimpsed a face he knew down near the end of the hall, standing outside the door to his sister’s apartment.
His heart rate spiked as he approached the guard.
“Charles,” he said, ears ringing. Angelique was behind this door.
“Your Highness.”
Kasim knocked.
Female laughter cut off and his youngest half sister cracked the door to peer out at him. Her smile beamed as she recognized him.
“Kasim!”
“Is Hasna dressed? May I come in?” He fought for a level tone. Distempered as he was, he would never take out his bad mood on a six-year-old.
There was a murmur of female voices, then Hasna called, “Yes, come in.”
He entered, picking up his baby sister as he did, kissing her cheek and using her small frame to cushion the rush of emotion that accosted him as he anticipated seeing Angelique.
Hasna’s suite was half the size of his, yet still one of the most opulent in the palace, decorated in peacock blues and silver, with high ceilings and the same sort of delicate curlicue furniture his mother favored.
She was in her lounge and stood on something because she was a foot taller than normal. He couldn’t see what it was because her wedding gown was belled over it, flaring a meter in each direction. A filmy veil was draped over her dark hair and all of it was covered in more seed pearls than there were in the ocean.
Fatina rose from her chair and came to kiss his hand, tsking as her older daughter charged at him, arms raised in a demand to be lifted and hugged.
Kasim concentrated on setting down his one sister and lifting the eight-year-old so she could squeeze his neck with her skinny little arms and press her lips to his cheek.
“You’re growing too fast,” he told her. “You’ll be wearing one of these soon and then who
