‘Why don’t you let me do it my way for a few weeks? If you really don’t like how your children are coming along, you can send me home.’
Malik opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. She’d outmanoeuvred him. He was a skilled negotiator, always able to smooth things over with neighbouring countries or warring tribes, but he’d just been outmanoeuvred by a governess. He couldn’t argue with her logic—if he didn’t like how she did things he could always just send her home in a few weeks and employ someone more suitable.
He glanced at her again—maybe someone a little less distracting, with that grey hair, stern visage and the scattered warts he had been expecting. Maybe someone who didn’t smile quite so much.
‘Enough,’ Rachel proclaimed.
Three sets of dark eyes looked at her with surprise. It was eleven in the morning and they still had another hour of lessons to go until they broke for lunch.
‘I think we need a change of scenery,’ she declared.
None of the children moved. Insistently Rachel stood up and gathered one or two things from her desk. She needed fresh air and she needed to see some proper daylight. The palace was magnificent, there was no denying it; cool whitewashed rooms were never far away from bubbling fountains or beautiful mosaics, but the schoolroom had something to be desired. It was plain and boring, there was no way of getting round it. Rachel supposed the Sheikh or one of his aides had thought it best to keep the room as dull as possible so as not to distract the children from their studies. The result was a room Rachel was dying to get out of after just two hours.
‘Come, children, we will finish our lessons outside.’
She had reached the door before anyone moved, but as she stepped outside into the bright sunlight she heard the scraping of the wooden chairs against the floor.
Rachel made a beeline for a shaded area, arranged her skirts around her, and sat down. The children followed awkwardly and stood looking down at her.
‘Now to finish off the morning we are going to work on developing your imaginations.’
One of the toughest things Rachel was finding was tailoring her lessons to three children of different ages and abilities. Aahil was intelligent and probably the most confident of the three when it came to answering her questions. Little Hakim was still so very young, but Rachel could see that under his shy exterior he had a quick mind. Ameera had refused to answer any of Rachel’s questions, instead preferring to scuff her feet along the floor and sigh loudly whenever Rachel spoke.
‘Between us we are going to tell a story,’ Rachel explained. ‘I will go first, set the scene and introduce a character or two. Then we will all take it in turns to add to the story.’
It was a game Rachel had played many times with her school friends on cold, wet, winter afternoons. For a moment Rachel pictured herself back at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies and felt a pang of homesickness. She wondered how Joanna was faring in Hertfordshire. Of all her friends Rachel was most concerned for quiet, kind Joanna. Found abandoned on the steps of the school when just a baby, Joanna had never had a family, never known who her parents were. Rachel’s friend wanted so much to belong somewhere and had been excited about the prospect of becoming part of the family she was being employed by, but Rachel just hoped they treated her kindly and not like a servant. Joanna had so much love and warmth to give, she deserved happiness.
Pulling herself back to the present before Aahil could protest this wasn’t educational enough or Ameera could vocalise whatever criticism was making its way from her brain to her lips, Rachel began the story.
‘Once 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