was he to blame? The thought appalled him.
Back at the palace a European-style meal was served. Tarif and Soraya joined the table in their high chairs and ate at speed before demanding the freedom of the floor, whereupon they made complete nuisances of themselves crawling below the table and tugging at shoelaces and trouser legs. Highly amused, Jaul hauled Tarif out from below the tablecloth and returned him to his nanny. Soraya was curled up sleepily on her mother’s lap, forcing Chrissie to dip into her dessert with one hand. Zaliha gave her a nod when it was time for her to go off and prepare for her second wedding. Passing Soraya to the nursemaid hovering expectantly behind her chair and closely followed by Lizzie, Chrissie left the table.
Zaliha introduced Chrissie to the crowd of older women waiting in the bedroom suite, which had been set aside for the wedding preparations. Every tribe had put forward a representative to help dress the Queen. Chrissie removed her wedding gown and entered the bathroom, an old-fashioned one with a giant, sunken tiled tub that had evidently escaped Jaul’s improvements. The water in the tub was awash with rose petals and some highly fragrant herbal concoction. A basin was brought to help in the washing of her hair.
‘It must be done five times,’ Zaliha explained in an undertone. ‘Nobody knows why but it has always been done this way.’
Lizzie grinned and parked herself down on the chair provided for her. ‘I’m going to enjoy every minute of watching this process,’ she forecast cheerfully. ‘It’s so wonderfully exotic.’
Chrissie bathed and lay back while her hair was soaked in scented oil and rinsed over and over again. She emerged from the bath swathed in a big towel and climbed straight onto a massage table, where she was expertly kneaded and moisturised while at the same time an artist drew swirling, elaborate henna patterns on the backs of her hands and on her feet. The painstaking care with which every strand of her hair and every inch of her skin were anointed with some special preparation was amazingly relaxing and at one stage she dozed off for a little while, only wakening when she was forced to do so by the woman trilling in the bedroom.
‘They chant for your good luck and fertility,’ Zaliha explained. ‘You’re already a step ahead there with twins...’
While her hair was dried into a shining white-blonde sheet of silk falling down her back, make-up was applied. Zaliha passed her a turquoise silk beaded top and matching long skirt while ethnic turquoise and silver jewellery was tumbled out from a big casket onto the dressing table and picked through. A headdress of beaten silver coins was attached to her brow.
‘You look like a Viking warrior princess,’ Lizzie whispered teasingly. ‘Jaul will love it.’
The whole regalia felt like fancy dress to Chrissie but she wore it with pride, knowing that the outfit she wore and the respect she was clearly demonstrating for Marwani traditions would please many people. Marwan was a rapidly changing society, keen to move forward into the modern technological world but afraid of losing its culture in the process. Professional photographs were taken with great care in the room next door and then she was led downstairs for the ceremony.
Jaul had been enjoying much more relaxed preparations, which consisted merely of a shower, a change of clothing and prayers with the imam before he joined the retinue of VIPs and personal staff awaiting him.
* * *
Jaul saw Chrissie the minute he entered the room. In Marwani costume, she was the very image of a perfect porcelain doll but a breathtakingly beautiful one. His body reacted more like an adolescent boy’s than an adult’s. Instantly he turned his head away again, blocking her out, willing back his vanquished control with the grim awareness that no woman had ever affected him the way she did. But then she was the only woman he had ever loved and nothing had ever hurt as much as the loss of her. He had closed off those emotions inside him, never to revisit them. Hadn’t that been the healthy response to that much pain?
‘Your wife is even more lovely in person than she is in photos, Your Majesty,’ the elderly sheikh by his side remarked, shooting him out of introspection into looking at Chrissie again. ‘You are a very fortunate man.’
Was it good fortune to have had her and lost her again? To have been forced to blackmail her with their children to win her back again? As his conscience bit into him Jaul thought not. He had put his children’s needs first, he reminded himself doggedly, ensuring that, unlike him who had lost his mother at birth, Tarif and Soraya would grow up with their mother loving and supporting them. But what if ultimately what he offered was not enough to keep Chrissie with him? A hollow expanded inside his chest at the prospect of losing her again. The answer was simple, he acknowledged grittily. He had to make very, very sure that Chrissie wanted to stay with him.
Chrissie’s gaze flashed round the room before arrowing back to identify Jaul. It was the first time she had seen him clad in traditional clothing. A gold-edged black cloak flowing back over his broad shoulders, Jaul wore beige linen with a pristine white buttoned undershirt, the pale colour amplifying his bronzed skin. A headdress bound with gold cord covered his black hair and mysteriously contrived to enhance the flawless cut of his spectacular bone structure, highlighting the spiky ebony lashes rimming his lustrous dark eyes and the clean, sculpted beauty of his wide, sensual lips. He looked both exotic and sleekly, darkly beautiful. She sucked in a steadying breath.
‘Jaul’s a bit like Cesare. It doesn’t matter what you dress him in,’ Lizzie whispered teasingly in her ear. ‘He will always look hot.’
The wedding ceremony was formal and brief. Their hands were ritually bound together and then released again. The more light-hearted aspect of their renewal of their vows at the British Embassy was replaced by a tone of gravity as prayers were chanted. A little intimidated by the solemnity of the occasion, Chrissie turned back to face Jaul, needing reassurance. He cupped her elbow, very much aware that their every move was still under scrutiny and that any public demonstration of intimacy would be unacceptable.
‘All done,’ he said quietly as if she were a child who had survived having a plaster ripped off a grazed knee.
Night had fallen while they were indoors. In the palace’s largest courtyard, braziers burned and colourful lights illuminated the palm trees and shrubs against the darkness. Jaul guided Chrissie to one of a pair of gilded thrones set centrally while all around them staff hurried back and forth with trays of lightly steaming food.
‘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
