As they rounded the corner, Kate turned back to look again, marvelling at the beauty of the structure and wondering how on earth it had been built on such an impossible site.
But they were passing the fishing village now, the colourful boats tied up along the shore, and beyond the village high mud brick walls—
‘Another fort?’
‘The palace,’ Fareed replied.
She was here!
In Amberach!
With her bridegroom?
THE PLANS FOR the wedding were completely out of Kate’s hands, and there were brief moments when she allowed herself to relax and enjoy her new surroundings, but the strain of deceiving her mother lived with her night and day.
Too afraid her mother would hear the anxiety in her voice, or that even talking to her mother—lying the way she was—would make her break down, Kate had used the time difference between the countries as an excuse to communicate through emails.
The pain of the deception stayed with her as she settled in the palace, in her own suite of rooms in the enormous, rambling, maze of a place.
In reality she’d had little time for worry or self-pity, with various female members of Ibrahim’s family fluttering around her, helping her settle in, filling her so-called ‘dressing-room’ with garments and gowns she was sure she’d never wear, underwear so fine it looked as if it would fall apart if she breathed and nightgowns that made her blush.
In the bathroom she’d found perfumes, soaps, creams and various unguents she’d only sniffed at, filling an entire wall of shelves, while another cabinet carried an array of make-up from the top French cosmetic manufacturers.
The day before the wedding, she was escorted to a large reception area. It was magnificent, the floors covered in silk carpets woven in dazzling jewel colours, the walls carved with fanciful trees and flowers and painted, again in brilliant colour. Arched windows along one side of the room must look out into the big courtyard that Kate had been too timid to explore.
She only knew it was laid out in patterns similar to the carpets, with a fountain in the centre and trees and bushes cut into fantastic shapes. Not that she could see it now, for filmy silk curtains covered the windows, billowing slightly in the breeze.
Following her escorts, she was led to the far end of the room and seated on a low divan in the middle of a kind of dais, so she was raised above anyone coming into the room. Women began arriving—women she’d never met, although all of them appeared very excited to be meeting her. And all of them were beautifully dressed in designer fashions once they’d removed the black abayas that had covered their gowns.
They cooed and oohed and touched her clothes—a beautiful silk gown in palest lemon—and her hair—in its usual unruly plait down her back, and cooed and oohed again.
Several younger girls appeared, giggling and carrying pots of what looked like paste.
‘This is your henna party,’ one of them, who introduced herself as Farida, told her. ‘We are to be your attendants today and tomorrow. We are cousins of Fareed. This is Suley and this is Mai.’
They set down the pots they carried, and beckoned an older woman towards them.
‘Hayla is the best henna artist in the country. She will do a beautiful job. Your skin is so pale, the henna patterns will look stunning.’
Henna?
Artist?
Patterns?
Kate longed to ask for details but the girls were chattering excitedly amongst themselves and more and more women were arriving, introducing themselves and touching her, as if checking she was real.
The three handmaidens cleared everyone away, and the artist knelt in front of Kate, taking one of her feet in her hands and turning it this way and that.
She opened the lid on one of the pots and Kate realised what was happening. She’d seen pictures of women with their hands and feet decorated with the dark red-brown colour—henna.
Fascinated in spite of herself, she watched as a lacy pattern of vines and leaves began to show up on her foot. Thick heavy lines, although, as Farida explained, the thickness was there to dye the pattern into the skin and would later be washed away.
‘But you must be very still,’ Mai warned.
So Kate sat, looking out at the partying women, all eating now, maids circling the room with great platters of food.
And Fareed?
What would he be doing?
She pictured his face, trying to wipe off the disdain. He was certainly a handsome man, and well built—something she’d realised as she’d struggled to get him to relax after the bee sting.
But how the hell was he going to react when he realised who Ibrahim had chosen for his wife?
Fareed stalked through the hospital, his usual pleasure in the place he had created deadened by the dread of what was to occur tomorrow. The marrying part was all right—he’d known he had to marry, and soon—but he knew his uncle well enough to know the old man was plotting something—something Fareed guessed he would not enjoy.
He’d slept in his apartment at the palace the previous night, hoping to pick up some gossip about what lay ahead, but even his most devoted of servants were tightlipped. Either that, or they, too, had been kept in the dark. He might as well return to his apartment here at the hospital tonight—one last night of freedom.
How bad could it be? he asked himself as he continued his patrol of the reception area, glaring at anyone unfortunate enough to cross his tracks. Apart from sleeping with the woman from time to time in order to produce some heirs, he need have nothing to do with her. Once the wedding month—which was, in fact, forty days—was over, she’d have her own apartment in the women’s part of the palace and he need never see her, except in bed.
With the lights out!
He shuddered at the thought of having sex because it was his duty, not because he was attracted to a woman. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to perform?
He slammed a hand against his head and was glad when his pager called him to the emergency room, so he could concentrate on work to escape the wild imaginings running through his brain.
At least thinking about the wedding was distracting him from thinking about the woman who was supposed to be coming to work at the hospital—the woman with the flaming hair, at one with the horse she rode so expertly.
He knew she was staying at the palace, but as yet there’d been no mention of when she might deign to start work. He should probably have asked either her or Ibrahim but, as far as he was concerned, getting over the wedding was enough to be worrying about without having to consider a woman who, for reasons beyond his understanding, he found profoundly disturbing.
In
