A Royal Bride at the Sheikh s Command Read online

  A door was opening, a man coming towards her, although because of the lack of proper lighting she didn’t realise that it was the King’s Chief Minister until he reached her.

  ‘Why all the urgency and secrecy? What on earth is going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘Come this way. I’ll explain everything to you as I escort you to your apartment.’

  Natalia, who had been on the point of walking into the palace, stopped and turned to look at him.

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Since you are about to be proclaimed as the official fiancée of King Giorgio’s successor, it is only fitting that you should have your own apartments within the palace.’

  ‘But I have my own home…’

  ‘That is no longer suitable. Countess Ficino has been appointed as your personal lady-in-waiting. She will be responsible for the day-to-day organisation of your diary, and all matters relating to your wardrobe and your official duties. She will also be on hand to instruct you in matters of royal protocol.

  ‘It is a pity that His Highness Prince Kadir has chosen to arrive ahead of schedule.’

  ‘Prince Kadir is here? But I thought…’

  ‘Exactly. However, it seems His Highness was so eager to make the acquaintance of his father and fulfil the promise he made to his mother on her deathbed that he gave into the impulse to arrive early.’

  At any other time the stiff disapproval in the Chief Minister’s voice would have amused her. The whole court operated under a routine so regimented and rigid that it was centuries out of date. Any hint of spontaneity was not merely discouraged, but actively stifled, and the prince would very quickly have been made aware of his crime in deviating from the agreed arrangements. Right now, though, she felt too irritated by the way her own life had suddenly been taken over to feel amused.

  ‘The king fears that it will not be possible to keep his son’s presence confidential for very long and for that reason he has brought forward both the official announcement of their relationship and of your betrothal.

  ‘The palace’s press officer has already alerted the media to the fact that a very important announcement is about to be made. That is one of the reasons why you were brought into the palace in the way that you were. Men are already working in the courtyard square in front of the palace decorating it ahead of tomorrow’s speech from the king to present Prince Kadir to the people.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  The Chief Minister paused to direct her down a long corridor hung with gloomy portraits of past Nirolian heads of state. At the end a flight of marble stairs swept coldly upwards. At the top of them Natalia could see the familiar figure of the elderly countess waiting for her, her hands folded in front of her.

  Natalia’s brain was pulsing with questions but she knew there was no point in expecting answers from the elderly courtiers now flanking her. They were too steeped in the traditions of their roles to unbend enough to tell her for instance just what her husband-to-be looked like, and what kind of nature he might have.

  Not that it sounded as though she was going to have to wait very long to find out herself, she admitted as she was handed over into the ‘care’ of the countess, who then escorted her up another flight of stairs and down another corridor to a pair of double doors.

  ‘You will present yourself in the Royal Chamber tomorrow morning at eleven a.m. exactly. From there you witness the king making his official introduction of Prince Kadir to the people of Niroli from the salon adjoining the balcony. You will then wait fifteen minutes exactly before joining them on the balcony, where you will be introduced to Prince Kadir, and where you will both receive the king’s royal blessing on your betrothal and forthcoming marriage.’ She pushed open the doors to the ‘apartment’ inviting Natalia into the large salon that lay beyond them. Natalia’s heart sank as she surveyed the heavy old-fashioned décor of the room. Three young women were standing with bowed heads, each of them dipping a curtsey in turn as the countess introduced them as her personal maids.

  Natalia was used to managing her own staff, and she greeted each girl warmly in turn, asking them for their Christian names. She could see that the countess did not approve of this informality but she ignored her disapproval. It was high time that the fresh air of modern life blew away some of the restrictions of court life.

  ‘It is late, and you will of course wish to sleep ready for tomorrow, but first, it is my duty to tell you that the king has provided you with a new wardrobe to suit your new role, and I have given instructions to your maids as to which outfit you are to wear tomorrow for the official announcement of your betrothal.

  ‘Additionally, I shall come to you just prior to you making your way to the Royal Chamber to ensure that everything is in order. I should warn you that whilst you are on the balcony the king intends to bestow on you some of the royal jewels that belonged to Queen Sophia. You will of course wear them as well during the formal reception that will follow the balcony announcements, but they are to be returned to me afterwards so that they may be put safely under lock and key.’

  A new wardrobe; royal jewels. She should have anticipated something like this, but somehow she had not done so, Natalia admitted. It all seemed so outdated and ridiculous. She had seen the jewels worn by the king’s second wife and she shuddered with horror at the thought of having to be weighed down with anything similar. It went against everything she believed in about the duty to help those less fortunate than herself to allow herself to be used as a display for so much wealth. It was one of her dreams that in time she might be able to influence her husband enough to persuade him to share at least some of the Nirolian royal family’s fabled wealth with, not just Niroli’s people, but all those people throughout the world who were in need. A charity to explore ways to develop better health care for everyone was just one of the things she would like to establish. It was things such as this that would be her reward for becoming Queen, not rows of diamond necklaces.

  ‘I shall leave you now to prepare yourself for the morning.’

  The countess made it sound as though she were about to go to the guillotine, Natalia decided ruefully, and perhaps in some ways she was. After all, her marriage to Prince Kadir would mark a very sharp slicing-off point between her old life and her new and it would certainly sever her from the sexual freedoms that belonged to a modern-day single woman. Why was she thinking that now? Not because of last night, Natalia hoped.

  ‘If there is anything you should wish for,’ the countess was saying, ‘something to eat, a book to read perhaps, then one of your personal maids will be on hand to bring them to you.’

  To bring them to her? What was wrong with her nipping out into the city and getting them herself? Natalia wondered independently as she thanked the countess and waited for her to leave. After all, for now at least she was still merely Natalia Carini and as such free surely to enjoy the anonymity of being just that.

  The three anxious-looking young maids looked as relieved to be dismissed as she was to dismiss then, she thought wryly ten minutes after they had gone and she had her new apartment to herself.

  Who had used these rooms last? she wondered. Although the beautiful inlaid wooden furniture was polished and dust-free and every surface sparkled under the huge chandeliers, the salon still had an air of disuse and melancholy about it. Huge swathes of silk brocade covered the windows blotting out the light, and the same fabric had been used to cover the baroque-style gilded chairs and sofas scattered around the room. The colour of the fabric at least she could admire, since its sea-green-blue colour, under the light of the chandeliers, was only a few shades lighter than the colour of her own eyes. Natalia suspected it would originally have been chosen to reflect the colour of the sea, which this side of the palace would look out over.

  A carpet replicated the intricate plasterwork design on the ceiling. A huge gilt-framed mirror hung above the fireplace reflecting the elegant proportions of the room with its matching pairs of double doors at either side of the opposite w
all. One pair as she already knew led into the corridor, the other pair must therefore take her towards her bedroom.

  Beautiful though this room was, it was quite simply not ‘her’. She liked modern, pared-down décor, and simple natural fibres. She was fussy about what she bought, choosing only ‘green’ products, and just as fussy about sourcing them to make sure that the workers who produced them had not been exploited.

  The small anteroom into which she had walked had another pair of double doors in it which as she had expected opened into her bedroom.

  Her heart sank the minute she stepped into it. The décor echoed, indeed complemented, that in the salon. A huge ornate French rococo-style bed was draped and swathed in the same silk, two further sets of double doors opened off it, both of them open. Through one lay a large bathroom with an enormous claw-footed bath, whilst the other pair led into a large wardrobed dressing room, which, as Natalia discovered when she walked into it, also had a door leading into the bathroom.

  Someone had already opened and unpacked the suitcase she had brought with her from Venice. Behind these wardrobe doors lay the new clothes the king was providing her with for her new role. Trying to quell the horrible sinking sensation invading her stomach, she took a deep breath and opened the first pair of wardrobe doors. And then closed them again after one appalled look at the row of stiff satin evening ‘gowns’ and formally tailored silk suits—clothes far more suited surely to Queen Eva then they ever would be to her. Puce, jade-green, peacock-blue were not colours she favoured or that suited her, just as stiff tailoring was not her style. She thought longingly and rather angrily of her own clothes, soft, unstructured clothes in natural fabrics and colours that flowed round her body instead of constricting it.

  She couldn’t offend the king by refusing to wear what amounted to a gift from him, although she had no doubt that these garments had been chosen more with the dignity and image of the crown in mind than her feelings.

  Those couture clothes with their intricate stitching and beading surely epitomised everything that she so passionately wanted to see changed about the monarchy and its relationship with the people of Niroli. In these modern times true respect surely came from having a monarchy that could be truly respected for the way the members of it lived their lives and cared for their people rather than being feared and admired for the power of their wealth and status.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘MY SON…’ King Giorgio murmured emotionally as he reached out to place his hand over Kadir’s and shook his head in wonderment.

  ‘Even now I still cannot believe it. It is like a miracle…’ His expression changed, becoming harsh and stern. ‘Your mother had no right to conceal your existence from me. But then that is women for you—enchanting creatures though they can be, they are not to be trusted to think or behave logically. It is a poor apology for a man, in my opinion, who allows a woman to rule him. But you, I can see, are not such a man, Kadir.’

  Kadir could see the old king’s emotions threatening to overwhelm him as he blinked and shook his head.

  ‘To think that all this time when I had begun to despair of ever finding someone of my blood who was fit to rule Niroli after me, you should be there, the best and most suitable of all. My son…my son,’ he repeated, clasping Kadir’s arm firmly.

  ‘Your mother did us both a great disservice in not revealing your true paternity earlier.’

  His father’s angry bitterness reflected his own feelings, Kadir admitted. In that as in so many other things—he was quickly coming to discover that he and the man who had fathered him were very alike. However, from the moment he had arrived at the palace, ahead of schedule, and not because of anything whatsoever to do with the woman who had so enflamed his desire in Venice, he had fought against picturing his mother here, a young virgin on her way to her marriage succumbing to the experienced sensual charm of the island’s powerful King. These were not the mental images of his mother he wished to have, and so, like his unwanted memories of Venice, Kadir firmly refused to allow them space inside his head.

  ‘Your mother would have deprived you of a truly great future if she had not acknowledged your true paternity,’ the king was boasting.

  ‘There are those who consider that becoming Ruler of Hadiya is a great future,’ Kadir pointed out.

  ‘Hadiya…’ The king gave a dismissive shrug. ‘How can ruling a few square kilometres of desert compare with ruling Niroli?’

  ‘It is what lies beneath Hadiya’s desert that gives it its wealth,’ Kadir told him dryly. ‘And there are many so-called rich Western nations who would sacrifice their pretty views for Hadiya’s sands—and its oil.’

  Kadir could tell that the king didn’t like what he was saying, but he had no intention of allowing his newfound father to bully him. The late sheikh, his father, had been a powerful and autocratic ruler and one who commanded and indeed demanded obedience from all around him. Whilst his younger brother had accepted this easily and good-naturedly, Kadir had always fought against it and fought too to establish his own independence of spirit and outlook. He was not about to allow another autocrat to think he could rule him now at this stage of his life, even if that autocrat was his father, and, despite all his efforts to conceal it, growing tired and vulnerable.

  ‘Here on Niroli when its crown is placed on your head you will be inheriting more than mere wealth,’ the old king told him. ‘You will be inheriting your true birthright.’

  At forty he was surely old enough not to be swayed by such blatant emotional manipulation, Kadir told himself wryly, but there was a suspicious sheen of moisture in his father’s eyes and a small tremor in his voice that threatened to undermine his own cynicism. Despite the king’s outer shell of arrogance and disdain and his apparent lack of regard for those he considered to be of lower status than himself, especially the female sex, there was hidden within him some emotional vulnerability. Kadir was not easily swayed by the emotions of others, though. He had spent too many years concealing and even denying his own emotions to feel sympathy with emotional vulnerability in others. The truth was that he had spent far too long learning to protect himself by remaining ‘apart’ from society to abandon that defence system now.

  It was in King Giorgio’s interests, after all, to make him feel welcome and wanted. That did not mean the older man really felt like a father towards him. For the same reason Kadir did not allow himself to believe now that simply because King Giorgio was his natural father that meant that the people of Niroli would accept him with the same emotional delight as the king. Or that he himself would be able to feel the same sense of commitment and belonging that his father felt for his country. After all, he had not grown up here; as yet he felt no sense of kinship with it or with those who had.

  What he did have, though, was the strong belief that here on Niroli he could put into practice the skills of government and diplomacy and leadership in his own way. His hope was that Niroli would give him the opportunity to stretch himself politically in the mainstream of the world arena in all the ways that Hadiya never could. And that in doing so he would find the inner peace and sense of himself that had previously always eluded him.

  ‘Our people are already gathering in the square, crowding into it now according to the Chief Minister. They will welcome you, Kadir, because I, their King, am welcoming you, just as they will recognise you as their future King. All the more so, of course, when they learn that you are to marry Natalia Carini. I personally have chosen her to be your bride. She comes from an old Nirolian family, much respected on the island. Natalia lives and breathes Niroli; she will teach you all that you will need to know about the ways of the people. She is close to them and understands them.’

  The picture his father was painting of his bride-to-be was not exactly one to stir a man to desire, Kadir thought cynically. Not that it mattered whether or not he desired her, just so long as he fathered a son on her. Those were the rules of the game as he had grown up knowing it to be played and it did n
ot concern him that he might not find Natalia Carini physically attractive. That was what a man who had to make a dynastic marriage accepted. He did, however, think it ominous that this father had not made any attempt to introduce them to one another prior to the imminent public announcement of their betrothal.

  ‘I do not know how much time I may have left and for that reason, if no other, I have decided that your marriage to Natalia will take place in ten days’ time,’ the king told him. ‘The arrangements for it are already in hand.’

  Kadir frowned. He might have grown up in a royal household and indeed expected to succeed to its throne, but he was still not used to having such an important part of his life arranged for him in this autocratic manner, without being consulted beforehand. In Hadiya he would have had his own choice of bride, and not had one forced upon him.

  ‘Won’t the people find it somewhat suspicious that we rush into such a swift union?’

  ‘If by suspicious you mean they might think you have already got her with child, then surely that would be all to the good. I know my people. There is nothing that will make them embrace you as their future King more eagerly than the birth of your son to a Nirolian wife.’

  First marriage and now fatherhood, Kadir frowned.