time and patience to respond to his commands.
Except he was in gross negative supply of either today. His marriage ceremony was scheduled to commence in less than two hours.
Zufar leaned down and extended his hand further. ‘Stand up,’ he instructed, firming his voice.
She placed her hand in his, scrambled upright, and immediately gasped and dropped his hand as if she’d been scalded.
He ignored her reaction, his gaze moving over her, confirming that the drabness indeed extended from the top of the dishevelled tufts of dark hair peeking out of her beige scarf to the soles of her feet.
Except, she wasn’t a girl as he’d initially surmised.
She was long past adolescence, if the pronounced swell of her chest and the hint of curves beneath the clothes were any indication. She came up to his chin in her flat, tasteless shoes, her covered arms slender and her jaw holding a delicate strength.
His eyes were drawn to her chest again. It was just her agitated breathing that was snagging his attention. Nothing else. He stepped back, folded his hands behind his back and assumed a gesture of ease that never failed to work on his horses.
‘What is your name?’ he asked again in a lower voice.
Her gaze dropped to the ground and she mumbled.
‘Speak up,’ he said.
Her chin jerked up a little, but her gaze remained, once again, on the tips of his shoes.
‘Niesha Zalwani, Your Highness,’ she repeated.
Her voice was soft, smoky and lyrical, if a little too timid for his dwindling patience. But at least he was getting somewhere. He had a name.
‘What is your role here?’
‘I—I’m... I was a chambermaid until last week, when I was added to Miss Amira’s personal staff.’
‘Look at me when I’m addressing you,’ Zufar drawled. It took an interminable age for her head to rise once more. But eventually, her gaze met his, then promptly flitted down to rest on his nose. Zufar prayed for strength and continued, ‘Where’s your mistress?’
Immediately her lower lip wobbled, her wide eyes grew haunted and her breathing turned agitated again. Zufar forced himself not to stare at the soft globes of her breasts or the pale creaminess of her throat as she trembled before him.
‘She...she’s gone, Your Highness.’
Zufar’s fist threatened to ball again. Resisting the urge was difficult. ‘Gone where?’ he managed through clenched teeth.
‘I don’t know, Your Highness.’
‘Very well. Let us try another way. Did she leave alone?’
Another frenzied twisting of her fingers, and then she cleared her throat. ‘No, Your Highness. She...she left with a man.’
A detached, icy sensation stroked his nape. ‘A man? What man?’ he asked softly.
‘He did not tell me his name, Your Highness.’
‘But you are certain she has been taken against her will by an unknown male?’ he pressed.
The woman before him bit her lip, drawing his attention to the plump, reddened curve of her mouth as she nodded. ‘Yes...well...’ Her distress grew.
‘Tell me what you know,’ he insisted.
‘I may be wrong, Your Highness, but she didn’t seem...unwilling.’
The possibility that he’d been jilted arrived with ice-cold anger. Except, curiously, Zufar wasn’t enraged on his own behalf. Rather, the impending disappointment for his people, the chaos for his kingdom, was what caused his fists to clench behind his back.
‘Did she say anything? Did he say anything to make you think this?’
‘It—it all happened very quickly, Your Highness. But...’ Her hand disappeared into the folds of her skirt and emerged with a folded piece of paper. ‘He...he instructed me to give this to Princess Galila to hand to you.’ She held out the piece of paper, her slender fingers trembling.
Zufar took it from her, his insides frozen as he unfolded the sheet he recognised as a torn piece of his own royal stationery.
He read the message once. Then again.
With a thick curse, he crumpled the heavy, embossed paper between his fingers, his fist clenched tight until it shook with the force of his emotions. The red haze of fury returned, deeper, steeping his lethal mood as he crossed to the window and pressed his fist against the wide pane.
Before him, the palace grounds sprawled in sun-dappled splendour. Beyond the windows, the muted buzzing of an expectant crowd rolled over the horizon. Excited citizens and eager tourists who’d flown in especially for this occasion were anticipating a fairy-tale royal wedding of their King to his chosen Queen. The whole kingdom had been gripped in wedding fever for months.
Only to have his heathen bastard of a half-brother claim in writing that he’d seduced and stolen his betrothed!
In another life, perhaps, that tiny sliver of emotion piercing through his fury could’ve been called relief from yet another responsibility. But Zufar gave it absolutely no room whatsoever, because he now faced a monumental problem. Aside from the humiliation of announcing that he was no longer in possession of his fiancée, this arrangement had held great economic advantages for Khalia.
He needed to find Amira. Confirm for himself that his half-brother’s claim was the truth.
But how could he, when he had no idea where he’d gone? The dossier he’d collated on Adir when he’d first made his unforgettable appearance at his mother’s funeral had revealed he had no fixed abode, or, if he did, he’d kept it very well hidden.
Even if Zufar knew his whereabouts, he had no time to go chasing after him. He acknowledged with a bitter laugh how well timed Adir’s revenge had been. His half-brother knew that doing this now would cause the most humiliation. The most uproar.
Zufar wasn’t about to hand him that victory. Not in this lifetime.
He whirled to face the young chambermaid. ‘When did they leave?’
Her throat worked again. But this time she wasn’t silent for very long. ‘I brought her tea, and left her alone for just ten minutes.’ Her voice was wracked with nerves and anguish. She began to wring her hands again. ‘I had gone to get the royal jewellery when I heard the commotion.’
‘So you saw them leave together?’
Her head moved in a shaky nod. ‘Yes.’
‘And you’re sure he didn’t harm her?’ Zufar demanded.
‘She—she didn’t appear in distress, Your Highness. She seemed...willing.’
The tightness in his chest eased a tiny fraction. ‘How did they leave?’
