closed a dismayed hand over his arm and tugged him into one of the many cluttered reception rooms off the ground-floor hall of the palace. ‘You can’t mean that?’
Jaul frowned down at her, his stunning bone structure rigid. ‘Please try to understand, Chrissie. I have never heard any good of Lady Sophie, only that she is a terrible troublemaker and I have quite enough to deal with at the moment without encouraging that sort of personality into my life.’
Chrissie was disconcerted by the force and strength of his comprehensive rejection of his grandmother and his aunt and had to resist an urge to risk changing the subject by asking him what else he was struggling to deal with that was so onerous that he could not spare an elderly woman a fifteen-minute hearing even when she had come so far to see him.
‘You have to change your mind about this, Jaul.’
‘Although I have every respect for your opinion, I will stand firm on this,’ Jaul grated, temper licking along the edges of his roughened voice. ‘This is not your business.’
‘Lady Sophie is the twins’ great-grandmother and that makes her my business as well.’
Jaul shot her an impatient glittering golden glance and compressed his wide, shapely mouth as he took an impatient step closer to the door. ‘I refuse to discuss this any further. I have told you how I feel and why.’
‘I’ll go and see her in your stead.’
Jaul swung back lightning fast from the exit he had been making. ‘No, you will not. I forbid it.’
‘You forbid it?’ Chrissie repeated in an almost whispered undertone, wondering when and where her husband had developed the belief that he had the right to forbid her from doing anything.
‘Yes, I do,’ Jaul repeated grittily and he strode off.
Forbid away, my love, Chrissie thought ruefully, I’m afraid it won’t get you anywhere because it is no longer the sixteenth century when wives blindly obeyed husbandly dictates. As far as she was concerned, good manners alone demanded that Jaul meet with the two women when they had flown out to Marwan purely on his behalf. On the other hand she could quite understand his attitude when both his grandfather and his father had made his grandmother out to be such a horrible person. Before she could lose her nerve, however, she was determined to do what she believed was right and she asked Zaliha to track down Bandar and discover which hotel Jaul’s grandmother was staying in.
A couple of hours later, a well-dressed middle-aged woman introduced herself as Rose to Chrissie at the door of the hotel suite and thanked her warmly for coming in Jaul’s place. ‘As I said when you phoned, my mother is becoming increasingly frail and your willingness to meet her lifted her spirits.’
‘But I don’t know if I can do anything to break the family stalemate,’ Chrissie warned the older woman ruefully.
‘When my mother read about your marriage to Jaul in the newspaper, there was no stopping her,’ Rose confided. ‘She was convinced that her grandson’s marriage to a British woman would make a difference to her grandson’s attitude.’
A tiny old lady with a fluff of white hair and faded blue eyes sat in a high-backed armchair with a cane clasped between her gnarled hands. ‘I’m Sophie, your husband’s grandmother,’ she said simply.
Chrissie stretched out her hand. ‘I’m Chrissie.’
‘How much have you been told about me?’
‘The barest facts,’ Chrissie admitted. ‘Perhaps I should share my experience with Jaul’s family with you.’
Tea was served while Chrissie confided her own story, feeling that it was better to be honest and admit the difficulties she had had with Sophie’s late son, Lut.
At the end of Chrissie’s account, Sophie sighed. ‘It’s a sad thing to accept that even had I got to know my son as an adult I don’t think I would’ve liked him. Your husband’s grandfather Tarif twisted Lut against me. There was never any hope of my son listening to my side of the story. Indeed Lut accused me of being a liar but I am not a liar. I married Tarif when I was nineteen.’
‘You were only a teenager?’ Chrissie gasped, suddenly comprehending the outlandish décor of the London mansion. It had been furnished by a teenager working with an unlimited budget.
The old lady smiled. ‘Yes, but I considered myself to be very mature. What teenager does not? My family was very much against the marriage but I was head over heels in love and Tarif seemed so westernised and liberal. He swore that I would be his only wife and I believed that I had nothing else to worry about. Unfortunately, excellent English and European dress aren’t a sufficient guide to a man’s character.’
Chrissie simply listened.
‘I was already pregnant by the time we returned from our honeymoon to Marwan.’ Lady Sophie paused, her thoughts clearly back in the distant past. ‘That’s when everything changed. My husband suddenly became unavailable and we no longer shared a bedroom...’
‘Had you had an argument?’
‘No. I found out that my husband had a harem full of concubines.’
Chrissie’s eyes flew wide in shock. ‘Concubines?’
‘Tarif saw no reason why he should give up the lifestyle of his ancestors,’ the old lady told her quietly. ‘He could not understand why I could not accept his having other women because I was his wife and his queen and soon to deliver the royal heir. He considered my status the greatest honour and believed I should be content with it.’
‘Good grief,’ Chrissie mumbled with stricken sympathy, barely able to imagine the distress that nineteen-year-old girl must have endured when she found herself living alone and unsupported in such a situation. ‘What did you do?’
‘I begged him to give his other women up and he refused. He was a very stubborn man. For months we shared the same wing of the palace while living as strangers. I gave birth to Lut. Afterwards, Tarif urged me to accept him as he was. He argued that it was enough of a sacrifice that he had promised not to take another wife.’ Jaul’s grandmother pursed her lips. ‘Naturally I said no. A few weeks later my father died very suddenly and I flew home for the funeral. Tarif refused to let me take Lut with me. While I was away he phoned me and told me not to return to Marwan unless I had changed my mind about what I was willing to live with.’
‘Obviously you never had a choice,’ Chrissie commented quietly. ‘That was cruel.’
‘When I wouldn’t give way and return to Marwan on his terms, Tarif refused to let me see my son. I didn’t see Lut again until he was in his twenties and although he let me tell him my story, he wouldn’t accept it. Lut was an enormous prude. The very word concubine set him off in a rage and he harangued me, accusing me of telling foul lies to besmirch his father’s memory.’
Chrissie sighed. ‘I’ll discuss this with Jaul. He’s not remotely like his father.’
‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’ Lady Sophie prompted with a worried look on her face. ‘I can tell you that in terms of looks, Jaul is the living image of his grandfather and such sensitive issues as concubines are not discussed here where the King is omnipotent.’
Chrissie
