upon a time there was an old woman who lived in a small cottage in the woods.’ She turned to Hakim and smiled gently at him. ‘Why don’t you add something next, Hakim?’
The young Prince frowned and started to chew on his thumb.
‘You can add anything you like,’ Rachel said encouragingly.
‘She had a pet,’ Hakim said after a minute or two.
‘What kind of pet?’ Rachel asked.
‘A pet dragon.’
Ameera snorted. Rachel ignored her for a second and focused on Hakim.
‘That’s very good, Hakim. Once upon a time there was an old woman who lived in a small cottage in the woods. She had a pet dragon.’
Rachel was delighted when Hakim gave her a small, shy smile. She’d have to remember he liked dragons, work it into one of their lessons soon.
‘Ameera, it’s your turn next.’
Rachel watched as the young girl’s lips moved, but no sound came out. After a few seconds she spoke, a sly smile crossing her face.
‘The old woman liked to eat children for breakfast,’ she said. ‘And her name was Miss Talbot.’
Ameera sat back triumphantly, crossed her arms across her chest and levelled a challenging stare at Rachel. Rachel held her gaze. She had heard titbits of conversation from some of the servants about Ameera’s behaviour with her previous tutors. The young girl had been rude, naughty and sometimes downright mean, but despite her previous shenanigans, Rachel knew she was still just a child. A child acting up most likely because of the loss of her mother.
Rachel hadn’t spent years at a boarding school with lots of other girls not to learn how to deal with difficult characters. Ameera might be a little terror, but she was no match for Rachel.
Without changing the tone of her voice Rachel repeated the story so far. ‘Once upon a time there was an old woman who lived in a small cottage in the woods. She had a pet dragon. The old woman liked to eat children for breakfast and her name was Miss Talbot.’
Serenely Rachel turned to Aahil and motioned for him to continue the story. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ameera’s face fall.
Aahil was quiet for a moment whilst he observed the interaction between his sister and his governess, then he realised what Rachel was doing and started to speak.
‘One day a brave prince was riding through the forest and he stopped outside the old woman’s cottage.’
Rachel turned to Hakim.
‘And he saw the pet dragon.’
She smiled encouragingly, then motioned for Ameera to carry on.
‘He killed Miss Talbot with his sharp pointy sword. The end,’ Ameera said firmly.
Rachel clapped her hands together.
‘What a wonderful story. We had an evil villain, a brave prince, a happy ending, and of course a dragon—everything a good story needs.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Ameera asked, no longer able to contain herself.
‘Yes, Ameera, I did.’
The young girl looked as if she were about to say something else when a shadow fell over them. Rachel looked behind her to see the Sheikh standing over them. She shivered slightly, telling herself it was because he was blocking out the sunlight and not because his dark eyes held hers for just a moment longer than was necessary.
‘How are your lessons going, children?’ he asked.
‘We’ve been making up a story,’ Hakim said, his face shining with pleasure.
Rachel saw the Sheikh’s surprised look as his youngest son spoke without prompting and felt a stab of pride. Just a few more days and most of Hakim’s shyness would be a thing of the past.
‘It had a dragon in it.’
The Sheikh frowned. In the two weeks since Rachel had arrived at the palace she had barely seen him. Apart from the rather surreal meal on the rooftop he had been busy with state business. Sometimes she would glimpse him talking quietly with some advisor or discussing something animatedly with Wahid, but he had not approached her since their dinner together.
Not that she expected him to want to talk to her, of course, but seeing as she spent most of her day with his children, she was pretty sure he hadn’t spoken to them either.
Rachel didn’t profess to be an expert on how royalty normally interacted with their children, but she had experienced first-hand the heartbreak indifference from a parent to a child could bring. Her parents had always been kind towards her, they’d never beaten her, or even told her off. She had been well clothed, decently fed and well educated. All in all she’d had more than many children could expect. What she hadn’t received was their attention. They’d always been more interested in each other than in her. Sometimes they hadn’t even noticed when she had entered the room. As a child she’d craved their attention, their approval, and when they didn’t do anything more than glance at the picture she’d painted or smile distantly when a governess paraded her in front of them on a Sunday, it had hurt more than if they’d slapped her face.
She wouldn’t let the same happen to these children. She could tell the Sheikh loved them, she could see it in his eyes, but he just didn’t know how to act around them. No doubt he had been brought up to focus fully on running his kingdom and didn’t know how to engage properly with the three young children who loved him so much.
‘A dragon,’ the Sheikh said.
Hakim nodded. ‘A pet dragon.’
‘I’m not sure...’ the Sheikh started to say.
‘Doesn’t Hakim have a wonderful imagination?’ Rachel said lightly.
The Sheikh stopped speaking and nodded, smiling down at his son.
‘Really wonderful.’
Rachel watched as father ruffled his son’s hair and Hakim smiled shyly.
‘Miss Talbot was in it,’ Ameera said, stepping forward between Rachel and the Sheikh. ‘She was the villain. I made sure she was stabbed with a really sharp sword.’
Rachel knew she was just doing it for attention so she smiled serenely and inspected her nails. She hoped the Sheikh would similarly ignore his daughter’s provocation and Ameera would soon realise nothing was to be gained from this sort of behaviour.
‘Ameera,’ he said sharply, ‘apologise at once.’
Ameera crossed her arms mutinously.
‘No.’
‘Apologise to Miss Talbot.’
‘No.’
Rachel closed her eyes briefly and steeled herself for the disaster this was about to become.
‘Ameera,
