Midnight in the Desert Collection. Оливия Гейтс
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Raja, however, remained conscious that he had no real grounds for complaint. His bride was already performing her duties as a future queen with considerable grace and good humour. Her naturally warm personality had great appeal. The Ashuri people liked her easy manner and chatty approach, not to mention her frankness in referring to the days when she had led the life of a young working woman.
Forewarned by a call of his impending unofficial visit, the orphanage director greeted him in the hall and took him straight to Ruby. Ruby was in the nursery with a little girl on her lap, painstakingly reading out a few brief words from a picture book in the basic Ashuri language, which she was working so hard to learn. A cluster of children sat on the floor round her feet.
‘The princess is a natural with children. It’s unfortunate that the child she is holding—Leyla—is becoming a little too attached to your wife,’ the older woman told him in a guarded undertone.
Raja got the message intended. He watched the little girl raise a hand to pat Ruby’s cheek and then beam adoringly up at her, her other hand clutching possessively at Ruby’s top. He watched Ruby look down at the child and realised that he had a problem that cut both ways, for his wife’s lovely face softened into a deeply affectionate smile. Raja would have been elated to receive such a smile but he never had. When Ruby saw him in the doorway, she leapt almost guiltily upright, arms locking protectively round the child in her arms. A staff member approached to take the little girl and Ruby handed her over, visibly troubled when the child began to sob in protest.
‘Raja …’ Ruby framed in a jerky, almost soundless whisper, for she was so astonished to see him standing there that her voice just deserted her.
Clad in the long off-white tunic called a thaub that he wore most days, Raja looked fantastically handsome, the smooth golden planes of his classic masculine features demarcated by the exotic set of his lustrous dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her tummy flipped like a teenager’s and she froze, feeling foolish and very much aware that she was hopelessly infatuated with her husband, which was one reason why she avoided his company as much as was humanly possible. He was like an ever-growing fever she was trying to starve into subjection in her bloodstream.
‘I had some news I wished to share with you,’ Raja imparted lightly. ‘Until Wajid mentioned it, I had no idea that this was where you were coming most evenings.’
‘I enjoy being with the children. There’s no formality here—it’s relaxing,’ she told him.
‘Mrs Baldwin said you’re fond of one particular child—’
‘Leyla … there’s just something about her that grabs my heart every time I see her,’ Ruby admitted, opting for honesty. ‘I really love spending time with her. She’s so sweet and smart.’
Installed in the limo he had arrived in, Ruby said, ‘What news wouldn’t wait until I got back to the palace?’
‘There have been arrests here and in Najar. The members of the royal households who shared our itinerary with the kidnappers have been identified and arrested, as have their supporters.’
Taken by surprise by that information, Ruby frowned and asked, ‘Who were they?’
‘An aide on my father’s staff and a private secretary from Wajid’s team here in the palace. Wajid is very ashamed of that link. Be tactful with him if he raises the subject. He is very much aware that the kidnapping could have ended tragically.’
‘But we were unhurt,’ Ruby hastened to remind him.
Her husband looked grave, his sensual mouth compressing. ‘Ruby … tempers run high with memories of the war still so fresh. Fighting could have broken out again. Our lives and those of others were put at risk. The mercenaries whom the perpetrators hired to act for them have fled the country and are unlikely to be apprehended but a prison sentence is inevitable for the citizens involved.’
‘I understand.’ The justice system was rigid and retribution fell swift and hard on those who broke the laws in their countries. Ruby was already learning to temper her opinions in the light of the society in which she now lived, but it still occasionally annoyed her to depend so much on Raja’s interpretation of events and personalities.
Just weeks earlier she had claimed that she intended to be as much involved as Raja in ruling Ashur and could only marvel at her innocence, for the longer she lived in the palace, the more she appreciated how much she still had to learn about the constantly squabbling local factions and the council of elderly men who stalled and argued more than they made decisions. Raja spent a good deal of his time soothing difficult people and in meetings with the Najari investors financing the rebuilding of Ashur. His duties seemed endless and he was working very long hours because he was also dealing with his duties as Regent of Najar from a distance. Unable to offer much in the way of support, Ruby felt guilty.
Indeed the longer she stayed in Ashur, the more confused and unsure of her own wishes Ruby was becoming. She was fully conscious that Raja had married her with the best of intentions and acted as he saw fit in an effort to turn their platonic marriage into a lasting relationship. He had played the hand he had been given without intending to hurt or humiliate her. He wanted her to stay married to him but to date he had put no pressure on her to do so and she respected him for that. Yet while he was bearing the blame for the dissension between them she knew that she had played a sizeable part in her own downfall by being so violently attracted to him. Her decision to surrender to that attraction had badly muddied the water and her thinking processes and encouraged her to want more from him than he was ever likely to give her. When she had specified and demanded a marriage of convenience, how could she blame him for her change of heart?
At the same time avoiding Raja and keeping to the other side of the bolster in the bed was beginning to feel a little childish. She was also living on her nerves because her period was currently overdue. She had told herself that her menstrual cycle could just be acting up. But in her heart of hearts she was terrified that her misfiring cycle combined with the new tenderness of her breasts meant that she had fallen pregnant. She had abandoned all restraint in the desert with Raja and it looked as though she might well be about to pay a price for that recklessness.
‘The little girl you were with,’ Raja commented quietly.
Instantly, Ruby tensed. ‘Leyla? What about her?’
‘Have you gone to the orphanage every evening?’
‘Have you a problem with that?’ Ruby countered defensively.
‘The child seems very attached to you. Is that wise?’ he prompted gently. ‘She will be hurt when you disappear from her life again.’
Annoyance hurtled up through Ruby and she closed her hands together very tightly to control her feelings. ‘I have no plans to disappear.’
Sensing her distress