screwed her eyes closed and pressed her lips together because she wanted to say how sorry she was yet Zahir had told her not to apologise.
‘Thank you for the care you have given to me,’ Leila said.
Adele’s cheeks were on fire and still she could not bring herself to meet the Queen’s eyes.
‘I am going to miss our lovely walk and talks,’ Leila said.
‘So am I,’ Adele said. Oh, how she would!
‘I have a small gift for you,’ Leila told her, and her voice was a little shaky but she remained dignified as she handed Adele an intricately engraved wooden box. ‘Please open it.’
‘I don’t think I deserve a gift,’ Adele said.
‘You do.’
‘No,’ Adele said, ‘I don’t.’
‘How could I be cross with you for loving my son?’ Leila whispered, and then spoke in a clearer tone. ‘Please accept my gift.’
Adele opened the box and was dazzled. A stunning sapphire that was beyond anything she had ever seen, let alone touched, was being given to her.
‘It comes from the palace wall, from the same guest room where you stayed,’ Leila explained. ‘In a few weeks’ time a ceremony will take place and the hole where your stone was will be filled with a diamond. One day, generations from now, the qasr, I mean the palace, will live up to its original name. The only requirement to accept this gift is discretion. We don’t need the world to know or understand our ways. Adele, please accept it and I trust you to keep the spirit in which it was given.’
‘I shall,’ Adele said. ‘Thank you.’
It was agony to get in the car.
Adele didn’t want to go home, she simply didn’t want to ever leave, but she climbed in and Zahir was silent as he drove off. He looked down at the box she held in her hands.
‘You understand what the gift means?’
‘I do.’ Adele nodded. ‘What happens in the palace stays in the palace.’
Zahir gave a small smile at her interpretation and nodded. ‘Pretty much.’
Through dusty ancient streets he navigated the vehicle and she looked at the glittering city skyline that was so modern in comparison with the villages she had seen from the sky. And she remembered the comments she had read about Mamlakat Almas and the suggestion that it was best not to get sick here.
‘I don’t know how long I shall be,’ Zahir said, ‘but know this isn’t the end.’
And she looked out of the car and at a city that needed a hospital and a modern health care system to be implemented. Zahir had a fight on his hands to do that.
‘It has to be the end.’
‘I know you don’t share my faith but I have asked for a solution.’
‘There isn’t one.’
She would not cry when she said goodbye.
And she didn’t.
‘Can I ask that you don’t call me?’ Adele said.
‘I need to know that you get home okay.’
‘Well, turn on the news tonight and if there haven’t been any plane crashes, you can assume that I did.’
‘I will be back in London at some point.’
‘And very possibly married.’
‘No.’
‘Zahir, you know there are going to be repercussions. This country needs to change and your father will use anything he has at his disposal and so will you...’
Would he?
Could he turn his back on Adele and take a wife if it meant better care for his people?
‘I shall address things with my father.’
‘Why?’ Adele said. ‘I can’t come here. I’m not leaving my mother.’ And it wasn’t just that. ‘After this morning I could never face your parents again.’
It was impossible, and safer to end it.
‘I’ve had the most wonderful time of my life,’ Adele said.
‘I’ll see you in London.’
‘I shan’t be your mistress, Zahir.’
‘Liar.’ He smiled. ‘I might have to reinstate the harem and keep you there.’
How could he make her smile even now?
Yet he did.
There could be no kiss or embrace for they were in public and so she walked off and went straight through customs and she did not turn around.
And still she did not cry.
Not on the plane because it would be so loud that they would have had to divert to the nearest airport as she wailed.
And not even when she landed.
To terrible news.
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