and told himself once more that it was for the best, but still he felt unaccountably guilty.
‘Thank your father for most graciously giving up his time,’ Cassie said to Linah, ‘for if you do not, he will think his presence unnecessary, and will not come again.’
‘Oh, no, Baba, I would not like you to think that. Please will you come again tomorrow?’
‘Affairs of state permitting. Fakir will show you how to rub down your pony,’ Jamil said, nodding at his head groom. ‘You must learn to take care of your horse if you are to become a real horsewoman.’ When Cassie made to dismount in order to help, however, he shook his head. ‘That mare of yours is still fresh, we’ll go for a gallop before the sun is too high.’
Surprised and delighted at the opportunity to put such a beautiful animal through its paces, Cassie waited only until they were back out of the city gates to release her hold. The grey mare needed no urging, flying across the sand with Jamil, mounted on a magnificent black stallion, in hot pursuit.
They rode together again the following day, after Linah’s lesson, and the next and the next. Away from the confines of the palace, Jamil was a different person. Not just more at ease in the wide, untrammelled space of his desert, but more approachable, too. They found they shared a passion for the natural world, and Cassie’s obvious enthusiasm for the harshly vibrant beauty of the desert, so different from the soft green landscape of England, encouraged Jamil into increasingly ambitious expeditions in search of rare plants or obscure species. The time flew by with a speed that surprised them both. Several times Jamil had returned to the palace to find Halim in a lather of worry at his having kept some merchant or visiting dignitary waiting.
Halim did not approve of his prince taking time out from his formal schedule, not even if he did return looking refreshed. Especially, Halim did not approve of Jamil spending that time in the company of his daughter’s English governess, though he was far too circumspect to give voice to such thoughts. People were talking. Such talk would end when Prince Jamil’s betrothal to the Princess Adira was made public, so Halim devoted his energy to the arrangements for the ceremony. If they were watertight, this time the prince could not escape them. He would be wed and then life for Halim, and the whole of Daar-el-Abbah, would continue as it had always done.
Cassie woke every morning looking forward to the coming day. Gone was her homesickness, banished were her doubts. Linah flourished under the combined regime of physical and mental exercise, her natural intelligence and surprisingly wry sense of humour were beginning to emerge. While she still shied away from any physical signs of affection, she had twice now allowed herself to be cuddled when waking from a nightmare, and once slipped her little hand into Cassie’s on the journey to the stables. The tantrums had abated dramatically. The sulks were not gone, but had become rare. Her behaviour was improving, definitely improving with every passing day.
Though she was not aware of it, for she rarely bothered these days with her looking glass, Cassie, too, was improving every day. Her skin glowed with vitality, tinged with the sun, rosy with health. Her eyes sparkled, the azure of a summer sea with the sun glinting upon it. She walked with a lighter step. She hummed to herself when sitting sewing in the shade of the lemon tree. She was happy.
She was happy because she was making a difference to Linah. She was happy because she was doing something positive. She was happy because Jamil was pleased with her efforts. She was happy because in Jamil, the man she had come to know, if not yet fully understand, she felt she had found that rare thing—a true friend. The thought made her smile, for Jamil would have scorned it—had he not said that he did not want or need friends? But that made her smile all the more. Of course they were friends. What else could it be, this empathy that had grown up between them, the ease with which they talked, disputed, laughed, the way sometimes they did not even need to do that, content merely to be in each other’s company?
‘Friends.’ She said the word aloud, as if tasting it, and again, this time more assertively. They could not be anything else. She did not wish it. He did not think of it. At least …
Sometimes, when they were alone in the desert, she caught him looking at her. Sometimes, she looked at him just like that, she suspected. Hungrily. Imagining. Trying not to imagine. Remembering. Trying not to remember. When their hands met accidentally, something akin to a shock surged through her, making her awkward, aware of something not right, something too right. She thought about that kiss in those moments. His lips on hers. His arms around her. She thought about it, then she banished it.
She banished it now, forcing her mind to focus on her one other concern. Though she and Jamil might be friends, Jamil and Linah were not. Though his attitude towards his daughter had softened, and he showed a real interest in her progress, Jamil seemed to be incapable of showing her any sign of affection. He spoke to his daughter as to an adult. He was a perfectionist, and there was nothing at all wrong with that, save that he praised so rarely and criticised so frequently. Could he not see that the child worshipped the ground he walked on? That one sign of affection would make an enormous difference to her confidence? Tough as his own upbringing must have been, from the very little he had let fall about it, surely there must have been some tender moments for him to recall?
Casting aside her sewing, a sampler she had been making for Linah, Cassie got to her feet. It was mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, when everyone took respite in the cool of their rooms, but she was restless. The Scheherazade courtyard was eerily quiet. Looking for a distraction, she remembered that Linah had once mentioned gardens on the eastern side of the palace, old gardens gone to ruin. The idea of a secret wilderness, a neglected and forgotten hideaway, appealed strongly to the romantic side of Cassie’s nature. Opening the huge door that led to the corridor, nodding in a friendly way to the guards, she set off in search of it.
***
Jamil could not concentrate on the papers before him. The complicated series of commercial transactions began with the trading of Daar-el-Abbah’s diamonds upon the lucrative Dutch market and ended with the import of some of the new spinning equipment from the British cotton mills. Bills of lading, interest calculations, net costs, gross costs, profit and conversions from one currency to another danced before his eyes. The end result was positive. It always was.
Jamil rolled his shoulders in an attempt to ease the tension there. This morning he and Cassie had ridden out to a nearby oasis with Linah, his daughter permitted for the first time to handle her pony without the leading string. She’d done well, sitting straight-backed and riding light-handed, in an excellent imitation of her teacher. He’d been proud of her, but though he formed the words of praise, he could not speak them. Cassie had been unable to hide her disappointment; he saw it in the downturn of her mouth, in the tiny frown instantly smoothed between her fair brows.
Jamil cursed softly under his breath. He would not let this woman’s disapproval dictate his actions. He had learned the hard way just how important it was not to let anyone know what he was feeling—that he even had feelings—for feelings could be exploited. They were a weakness. For her own good, Linah should be taught the same lesson.
But, increasingly, he found it hard not to show just the sort of weakness his father had been so keen to eradicate. It had been easier, when Linah was not so often in his company. Now, with his daughter’s endearing personality imprinting itself upon him every day, thanks to Cassie, it was proving difficult to maintain the barriers that had been so hard built. Sometimes he felt as if Cassie was determined to remove them brick by brick.
