but here in private I will always speak—this is me. There will be no threat to my baby’s safety just to satisfy you, and there will be no condoms just because you cannot trust that you have been the only one. So,’ Felicity concluded in a voice that was shaky but somehow assured, ‘it looks like there will be no consummation.’
‘You do not leave here till our marriage is consummated.’
‘Then we’ll die in the desert,’ Felicity replied.
Karim just shrugged. ‘I have told you how it will be,’ Karim said, and then he climbed into bed and turned his back to her. ‘When you’re ready, you will come to me.’
MAYBE they would die in the desert.
As the days moved slowly on, it became clear that neither of them had any intention of changing their mind.
Absolutely she would not give in—would not sleep with a man who offended her.
And absolutely neither would Karim.
He took her out sometimes. This land that looked so barren and bare was, Karim explained, full of gifts if only you knew where to look.
He was right.
In the seemingly bare desert he showed her landmarks, canyons that moved maybe ten inches in a lifetime, and the simple, endless rule of a sun that rose and set and always offered direction.
There were oases too—a full day’s walk from each other. He took her once in his four-wheel drive, and they picnicked by one.
‘They prove the land is fertile,’ Karim said, stretching out on his back and staring up to the sky. ‘You just have to know how to treat it.’
There was a response there on her tongue, but to her credit she chose not to offer it. She was biding her time till the Karim she loved returned again.
Bedra was her only real outlet. They chatted as Bedra dressed Felicity, or did her hair. But Bedra was always covered in a black abaya. How Felicity wished she would take it off, so she could see her face when she spoke to her. One day she asked Bedra about it.
‘I do not wear it at home. There I can be myself,’ Bedra explained. ‘But here, at work…’
This upset Felicity—not a lot, but it niggled. For all their chatting, for Bedra it was work, and Felicity didn’t want it to be like that. Bedra’s husband, Aarif, tended to Karim, and sometimes when she was resting in the afternoon, while Karim wandered in the desert, she heard Bedra and Aarif laughing. She wanted it to be the same for her and Karim—because Aarif treated Bedra as if she were golden.
She asked Karim when he returned that day from the desert.
In a black robe and unshaven, he didn’t look very approachable, but still Felicity asked—although she didn’t much like the answer.
‘Of course he is nice to her,’ Karim said. ‘Why would he not be? She is a good woman, a nice lady.’ He frowned down at her. ‘Why would he not be nice to her?’
‘Well, you’re not exactly nice and communicative with me.’
‘Till our marriage is consummated you’re not my wife.’ Karim shrugged. ‘Anytime you’re ready, Felicity, you can find out how nice to my wife I can actually be.’
As the days ticked on occasionally they spoke, and sometimes even laughed, but both remained immutable on that point. And the more they spoke, the more he taught her of his people’s ways and he learned of hers, the more impossible it seemed to be.
‘Poor Hassan.’ She was lying on the cushions eating figs, which Felicity had found out she liked—not just liked, loved. Pregnancy cravings, along with morning sickness, were starting, and figs—sweet, juicy figs—were the only food she could keep down. There was a lot to stomach now, and her head reeled as Karim told her about his family and what was expected of them.
‘Why poor Hassan?’
‘To have to be King.’
‘He is honoured that he will serve his people. There can be no higher honour,’ Karim said sharply.
‘Then poor Jamal.’ She refused to be quiet, even though she knew she was angering him. ‘I don’t blame them for not wanting children.’ She shuddered a touch. ‘It would be horrendous.’
‘How dare you?’ Karim barked. ‘How dare you say our ways are horrendous? Their baby would be born to be King.’
‘Which to me—’ Felicity smiled ‘—would be horrendous. I’m just glad—infinitely grateful, in fact…’ she paused as she took another bite of her fig ‘…that when you concealed your identity—’
‘I did not.’
‘When you forgot to mention you were a royal prince, I’m just glad that your name didn’t happen to be Hassan.’ She shook her head at the horror of it all. ‘I could think of nothing worse. At least you get your freedom, get to follow your career…’ Felicity frowned at that very thought. ‘Why don’t you practise any more?’
‘It is not for me.’
‘But you did?’ Felicity pushed.
‘For a while.’ Karim shrugged. ‘Then I realised I could do better for my people by overseeing the commissioning of the new hospital and university.’
‘Do you miss it?’
He didn’t answer.
‘I mean, you’re a surgeon…’
‘Enough.’ Karim terminated the conversation.
‘I was just—’
‘Then don’t.’ Karim clipped. ‘When your husband says enough, when a royal prince says enough, you do not argue.’
‘Oh, but I do. As I have repeatedly said—I will respect your ways in public, but in my home, which this blessed tent is for now, my husband will give me trust and respect and conversation.’ She gave him a brittle smile. ‘We’re getting nowhere, I’d say.’
She slept in his bed, for the sake of the staff, but she would never give herself to him. The barrier he insisted on wearing was a barrier to her heart. Sometimes there was a fleeting glimpse of the man she had fallen in love with. Sometimes she would awaken in his arms, feel him wrapped around her, and wonder how she had got there, wonder for a moment what had taken place—yet sure that nothing had.
Safe.
Lying there one night, feeling him breathe, feeling his skin next to hers, she wondered how it could be. How, despite his vile accusations, despite his refusal to trust, despite everything, in the middle of the desert, deep in the dark with Karim, for the first time in her life she felt treasured and safe.
Karim
