last all the formal events were over and once more she was free to return to their suite where she sank down wearily into a chair and kicked off her elegant shoes.
‘You did well today.’
The voice from the door surprised her and she glanced up, startled. She had been so sure that today, with the official ceremonies complete, Nabil would be free to find his own space, and that he would decide to leave her alone, give himself the privacy neither of them had had over the past week.
‘I—thank you.’
Was he as tired as she was? As tired of the ceremonies and ritual, at least. His voice sounded flat enough for it, though he showed no sign of the sheer bone-aching fatigue that she had endured for the past couple of days. Nights with little sleep, the nerve-stretching tension of not being trusted, and every minute of the ceremony that she had no experience of would do that. For the past few nights she had pretended exhaustion as an excuse to crawl into the sanctuary of the bedroom and hide away. Tonight she took refuge in the same excuse.
‘I’ll leave you in peace...’
She was pushing herself to her feet when Nabil shook his head abruptly.
‘Stay where you are. I’ve brought this for you.’
Aziza stared in disbelief at the plate of food he held out to her. Small, tasty-looking delicacies and some fresh fruit. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy. But what mattered more was that he had thought to provide it—and that he was now delivering the snack to her in person, not at the hands of one of the hundreds of servants who lived only to perform such tasks for him.
‘Thank you.’ Her throat had closed up so tight that it was an effort to push the words from it, and when she had to take the fine china plate from him her hand shook so badly that she almost dropped it down on to her knees.
‘I noticed that you barely ate a crumb at the banquet. And, as you’ve disappeared into the bedroom every night before this, I thought I’d better make sure you eat before you did that. And I know I need this.’
He set down a jug of fresh mango juice on the table, adding two glasses and pouring some of the liquid into each of them. Aziza could only watch in silence as he tossed his headdress aside, shrugging off his outer robe, then gulped down a draft of the drink, the muscles under the tanned skin of his strong neck tightening with each swallow, before he dropped into a chair opposite her.
‘Eat,’ he commanded but there was an unexpected gentleness in his tone, not the autocratic snap she was used to.
The mango juice was needed first, her mouth too dry to eat anything. But once the glorious refreshment had been swallowed she found she really was ravenously hungry and the delicate pastries were a delight that practically melted on her tongue.
‘This is wonderful,’ she managed, but the quick glance up towards his face was a mistake, so that she dropped her gaze to her food again rather than let his laser sharp focus on her destroy the appetite she had just rediscovered. ‘And thank you for saying that I did well—I wanted to do my best.’
‘More than your best’ was the unexpected response, almost making her choke on a crumb of pastry. ‘I never knew you could speak so many languages.’
‘Oh, that.’ A small, slightly rueful bubble of laughter escaped her. ‘To be honest I didn’t do so very much except thank them in their own language, and at the very least wish them a safe journey home.’
‘They appreciated it—and so did I.’
‘Really?’ She risked a swift upward glance through her lashes, stunned to see that his steady regard was calm, almost thoughtful.
‘Why so surprised? Surely you can understand that everyone appreciates the courtesy of being spoken to in their own language?’
‘I was glad of a chance to try out my knowledge. I always loved studying languages. I begged my father to let me have extra lessons so that I could learn. He dismissed the idea of my going to university but he let me have conversational classes at home.’
That frown told her what he thought of her father’s decision.
‘Why not university? Did he think I brought in the new laws that meant women could attend universities—study for a degree—simply to have that ignored?’
‘He believed that I would be even harder to find a husband for if it was known that I was bookish.’
‘Your father is a fool.’
The bluntness of his retort made her blink in shock. Having endured so much mockery as she’d stumbled through her language lessons, her father’s frank disbelief that she would master one other tongue, let alone the three she could now manage, it brought a glow of pride to her heart to know that this at least had been appreciated.
‘He should be proud of you. I was proud of you tonight. And yesterday.’
‘You were?’
Aziza dropped the pastry she had picked up back down on to the plate uneaten. Her throat suddenly felt thick and clogged and she had no wish to choke on her food.
Nabil’s eyes met her shocked ones, still calm, but so intent that she felt they might burn deep into her soul.
‘I would have told you that last night but you vanished into your room so fast and, by the time I looked in on you, you were fast asleep.’
‘You looked in on me?’
It was a disturbing thought that he had caught her asleep and so vulnerable. She could only pray that nothing of her dreams, those wild desolate dreams into which she had tumbled when tiredness had finally ended her uneasy restlessness, had shown on her face.
‘I wanted to talk to you. And the maid needed your dress to clean.’
‘Oh, but I would have done that...’
Aziza’s protest died away as she saw the glance he slanted her. A mixture of reproof and disbelief. Fiery colour rushed into her face as she recalled just why her dress had needed cleaning. They had visited a children’s hospital and she hadn’t been able to resist getting close to the young patients.
‘I do know how to do it.’
‘And so does the maid. It’s her job.’
‘And mine is to be—what?’ When he didn’t answer, she tried another approach, hoping to get him to answer her. ‘I don’t know how to be a queen.’
And there she’d touched on the reason he had wanted to talk to her last night, Nabil acknowledged.
‘There was no one who could have done things any better.’
She’d had a natural, easy approach with everyone she met. The people she’d talked to had positively glowed in the warmth of her attention. And the children in the hospital they’d visited yesterday had made straight for her like needles drawn to a magnet. They had climbed all over her, pushed their hands into hers. Her elegant blue dress had come back smeared with sticky little fingerprints and a smattering of baby sick on one shoulder.
And she’d laughed at it! Laughed and gone back
