She might keep pace for a while, a few years, but what then? What about when Sam was older? When he didn’t need his mummy to come along for hugs and hand holding? She’d be left alone in London, hanging on, desperate, useless. Unless she married Khaled and stayed fully, firmly in Sam’s life.
After a long moment when both of them were lost in their own silent, separate miseries, she asked, ‘Just how…convenient would this marriage be?’
‘Not that convenient,’ Khaled replied, glancing at her sharply. ‘Surely you don’t want to be celibate for the rest of your life—especially considering what has been between us?’
The rest of her life; that was what they were talking about. Lucy swallowed. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Good. Because I certainly do not. I have been celibate long enough.’
‘How long?’ she asked, genuinely curious, and he shot her a quick, sardonic smile.
‘Long enough. There are not many opportunities in Biryal, even if I wished to take them. So.’ He turned to face her, his voice brisk, his face half-shrouded in darkness, although she could still see that his eyes burned. ‘Will you marry me?’
It was hardly how she’d imagined a proposal, a marriage, yet Lucy knew there was only one answer to give. Her heart twisting, breaking, she gave it through numb lips: ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
THE admission seemed to surprise both of them. Khaled stilled, his gaze intent on hers.
‘Do you mean it?’ he asked in a low voice, and Lucy swallowed, still blinking back tears. ‘Yes, I do. For Sam’s sake.’
Khaled pulled back, his expression closing, folding in on itself. ‘Of course.’
Lucy looked away, feeling as if she’d disappointed Khaled, disappointed herself. Yet Khaled had never even told her he loved her! Perhaps he wanted her as an adoring limpet once more and that was all. Perhaps this would be a marriage of convenience for him, and happily so. Questions and doubts raced through her mind, making her almost dizzy with fear.
Something rustled in the trees behind them—a bird or a small animal—and the wind that blew over them had no last warmth from the setting sun. It was night, and it was cold.
‘Well, then.’ Khaled’s eyes had darkened and he gave an impatient little shrug as he rose stiffly from the blanket. ‘It is late. We should return to the palace.’ His voice was cool, his face averted.
Lucy nodded, and they set about gathering the discarded plates and glasses, returning the food to the picnic basket and folding the blanket. Mindless tasks that kept both of them from facing what had just happened, or needing to talk about it.
What had she done?
It was a question borne of panic, of fear. For a moment Lucy considered telling Khaled that she wouldn’t marry him, that she couldn’t. Yet the words wouldn’t come. They crowded thickly on her tongue, and she choked them back helplessly. For Sam’s sake.
They walked back in silence through the darkness, the only sound the crunch of dirt under their feet, and the chattering of a bird high in a Dragon’s Blood tree.
Wordlessly Khaled opened the passenger door of the Jeep, and Lucy slid inside.
It seemed as if all of Biryal was quiet and dark, was empty. Lahji’s lights glimmered on the horizon, tiny and seemingly insignificant against the vast darkness of both island and ocean. Lucy tried to imagine spending her life here, but couldn’t.
Khaled’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel and his jaw was tight. Although he didn’t speak, Lucy knew he was angry. Annoyed, at least. At her. She’d let him down, and the realisation made her feel angry right back. What right did he have to ask her if she loved him, when he’d never declared himself? He hadn’t been that vulnerable after all, had he?
Back at the palace, Khaled dropped her off in the courtyard before returning the Jeep to its garage. Lucy knew he didn’t need to perform the mundane task; there was an army of servants waiting to do his bidding.
He just wanted to be away from her, she supposed.
Or perhaps he regretted the marriage proposal, her acceptance?
The thought jolted her; it frightened her. It was the thought that her mind had been skittering away from for so long.
What if he walks away from me…again?
She might not have told him she loved him, but Lucy had a fearful feeling that her heart might break all the same.
Pushing the thought away, she returned to her room to dismiss the nurse and check on Sam, who was fast asleep. She prowled the suite of rooms restlessly, wondering if Khaled would come and find her, wondering if she wanted him to.
He didn’t.
She dressed for bed, brushed her teeth and washed her face, yet sleep had never felt so far away. Questions tangled and cascaded through her anxious mind, questions and doubts. Fears.
After a moment of indecision where she hovered on the threshold of her bedroom, Lucy muttered under her breath and then stalked from her bedroom out into the corridor.
She was going to find Khaled.
It wasn’t easy. Lucy had begun to familiarise herself with the palace, but its endless corridors still defeated her. Everything was eerily silent, lost in shadows. She felt like she might stumble upon Bluebeard’s skeletal cache at any moment, as she’d joked when she’d first laid eyes on this place.
She didn’t hear the bare feet padding softly behind her, so that when a hand closed around her elbow she nearly screamed. A breath of terrified sound escaped her and she whirled around, knocking the hand away.
A servant stood there, dressed in a plain cotton thobe and turban, holding his hands up in a gesture of apologetic self-defence.
‘So sorry, mistress. I only wonder if I can help you.’ The man smiled rather toothlessly, and Lucy’s heart rate began to slow.
‘You scared me. I’m sorry; I think I frightened you as well.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I’m looking for Prince Khaled.’
The servant gave a regretful little shake of his head. ‘He has retired for the night.’
Just those innocuous words caused Lucy to picture a host of images: Khaled lying in bed covered in nothing but a sheet, slung low on his hips, as she’d seen him before, as she remembered him.
‘Still,’ she said firmly, pushing those images away, ‘I’d like to see him.’
The servant looked both shocked and doubtful, and Lucy met his gaze directly. ‘I have important business to discuss with him.’
After a moment the man lifted one shoulder in a little shrug, as if to say what is it to me what the foreign woman does? Then he turned around silently so Lucy had no choice but to follow.
He led her to the back of the palace, past her own bedroom, where she quickly checked to see that Sam still safely slept, to another suite of rooms. Khaled’s.
He knocked softly on the door, shrugging again, and padded softly back down the hall. Lucy pushed the door open with her fingertips; warm, yellow lamplight spilled from inside onto the hall floor.
‘Yes? Yusef?’ Khaled’s voice, low and sure, seemed to vibrate through Lucy’s bones. Why was she so nervous? She opened the door further and stepped inside.
‘Hello, Khaled.’
He looked up, his eyes widening in surprise, his mouth thinning in—disapproval?