arms, kissing her brow as he wrapped a wisp of fabric around her head. ‘It’s my shawl!’ she exclaimed, recognising it.
‘AnA’Qabani wedding shawl.’ Raffa’s darkly handsome face creased in a grin. ‘Some might say it was fate that made me choose to donate it to the auction, and you to bid for it and win.’
‘And some might say it isn’t fair to tease me,’ Casey said sensibly, drawing herself into a sitting position, keeping the lovely shawl in place around her shoulders.
‘I love you, Casey Michaels,’ Raffa murmured, helping her to adjust the folds of filament-fine fabric.
‘You shouldn’t say that.’
Raffa’s brow creased. ‘And why not?’
‘You’ve already admitted this is just a ploy to keep me here in A’Qaban.’
‘I don’t deny it.’
‘And saying I love you comes so easily to you. And please,’ she said, throwing up her hands, ‘don’t tell me that years of experience have made it easy.’
‘I’m not teasing you now. I’m serious.’
‘Serious about my being funny and something of a novelty in your high-tone world?’
‘That’s not fair, Casey.’ He cut across her. ‘I think you’re caring and clever, and a whole host of things that don’t make me laugh.’
‘I make you angry and impatient?’ she suggested dryly.
‘Never,’ he said fiercely. ‘And please don’t make fun of this. I’m being serious.’ Cupping her face in his hands, he asked in a fierce whisper, ‘Why can’t I love you for yourself?’
‘Because there’s not that much to love? Because your definition of love and my definition are worlds apart?’
‘Why can’t you believe you’re worth loving, Casey?’
‘Average loving between two people I can buy into; family loving I can buy into. Loving a friend—I understand that too. But you’re a—’
‘A king?’ Raffa threw back his head and laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I’m a man,’ he said. ‘A man who loves a woman. I’m a man who wants one particular woman and can think of no other woman at his side. I want you to have my babies—lots of them. And I want you to help me with the development and growth of my country. And as for love—I want you to have it all.’
‘And you haven’t mistaken me for someone else?’
‘If you don’t want to stay—’
‘You’ll let me go?’ she said, confident he was asking her to give him the easy way out.
‘No,’ he argued. ‘I’ll make you my captive virgin of the desert.’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘But not too late to smile, to hope—and, yes, even to dream.’
‘You can’t see what I’m thinking behind my veil,’ Casey said confidently, drawing the fabric over her face.
‘Ah, but you’d be surprised at just how much your eyes can tell me.’
‘The secret language of the veil,’ she murmured.
‘What?’
‘The secret language of the veil,’ Casey repeated. ‘I speak it and you understand.’
‘Like a true A’Qabani,’ Raffa agreed, lips tugging in wry amusement as he took the veil and moved it away. ‘But I prefer to look at your face, Casey Michaels. Because this is the face of the woman who’s going to stand at my side as my equal, and never, ever doubt herself again.’
THEY chose a Bedouin ceremony. Or had the Bedouin chosen it for them? Casey wondered, stealing a glance through the heavy curtain over her bridal tent. It hardly mattered; she felt happy here—as if she belonged.
The women whose task it was to dress her were already gathering in small excited groups, adding to her own almost unbearable sense of anticipation. Her parents had been over in the country for a week and loved everything about the desert kingdom. They were already planning to seek instruction at the hands of the women who understood the seductive techniques of the silken veil.
The famed Bedouin hospitality and cultural heritage, together with the A’Qabani traditions of music, dance and art, had quickly won over all Casey’s friends and family, and if her parents found the thought of their daughter becoming a queen bewildering, they hid it well.
But who could resist Raffa? Casey wondered, watching him lead some of his men off to the desert on horseback at a gallop. He had been doing this for the past week—no doubt to work off some of his surplus energy. As tradition demanded he had been forced to keep away from her during this time. And if he was finding it hard, she was going mad for him, Casey thought dry-mouthed, pulling back from her vantage point.
Fortunately the women arrived at that moment to distract her. They were going to decorate her hands and feet with intricate swirls of henna, and she had made hot sweet mint tea and gahwa, the intensely aromatic A’Qabani coffee, to welcome them. This Laylat al Henna ceremony was their gift to her of beauty, luck and health, and while they gathered in the privacy of her pavilion, like so many vivid butterflies, Casey found herself hoping some of their natural grace would rub off. She needed all the henna she could get, Casey concluded as the women got to work.
Musicians outside the tent provided a rhythmic background for these activities, playing an upbeat riff on the dalouka, a big drum, and on the one-stringed rababa violin. Some of the men must be dancing too, Casey realised, hearing their guttural shouts and the crack of whips as they stamped their feet on the hard, hot earth. There had been a riot of music and colourful dancing pretty much non-stop in the Bedouin encampment since Raffa had finally persuaded her that he was actually proposing she do more than stay in the country to work. There were banners and pennants everywhere, and even the horses boasted jostling tassels and silver bells on their saddle cloths, along with yet more silver in the form of coins on their gleaming leather bridles and brow bands.
And the bride? She had been bathed in scented water and massaged with sweet-smelling unguents during the traditional Al Aadaa, while the women teased Raffa until he agreed to pay, as tradition demanded, for their decorating his bride. And now this…
Casey examined her henna-decorated hands and feet in awe. ‘I have never seen anything more beautiful. You’re amazing,’ she exclaimed.
‘Don’t commit yourself to that statement until you have seen this,’ one of the young women told her.
‘What is it?’
‘The gifts that have arrived from your husband…’
Casey opened the
