Oh, he played the part of attentive husband to perfection. He fussed around and made sure she was comfortable, sometimes causing the servants to smile as he positioned a cushion behind her back, like some over-zealous nursemaid. Sometimes he even did cute things, like picking her the sweetest pomegranate from the bowl and having the chef prepare it just the way she liked it. And things like that got to her every time.
But somehow it all felt like some sort of displacement therapy. She still felt as if he was pushing her away from him. She fixed him with a steady look. ‘I need to get my teeth into something.’
He put the paper down and gave her his undivided attention. ‘By doing what, exactly?’
‘I want to paint you, Hassan.’
He slanted her a reflective look. ‘Run that past me again?’
She took a deep breath, her well-rehearsed words coming out in a rush. ‘In London, you promised that I could paint out here if I wanted—and I do. When … when the baby arrives …’ She met his eyes, acutely aware of his sudden watchfulness. ‘Well, I certainly won’t have time to paint then, will I? So I’d like to do it now, while I can.’
Hassan drummed his fingers against the table, but could see instantly that her idea had merit. His aversion to sitting still was legendary. So wouldn’t his people be pleased to have a new portrait of him, as well as giving her something to do?
‘I suppose it’s a possibility,’ he conceded slowly. ‘As long as you’re aware that my schedule is packed and my time is very precious. I can’t sit for hours on end.’
‘I know that. I’m not expecting you to. Please, Hassan?’ Ella made no attempt to hide her eagerness because she wanted this. She didn’t care how snatched their sessions were; she needed to do something other than wait. To focus on something other than the baby and her uncertain future, and the sense that her feelings for Hassan were growing stronger than she’d ever intended them to be.
Was that what happened when a man made love to you every night, so beautifully that sometimes it was as much as she could do to prevent tears of joy spilling from her eyes afterwards? Was nature a cunning as well as a random mistress, making a woman form a strong attachment to the man whose child she carried, no matter how emotionally distant that man was?
Well, painters always learned masses about their sitters during portrait sessions—everyone knew that. Maybe this was the only way to get through to him and to find out what really made him tick.
She looked at him enquiringly. ‘So can I?’
‘How can I possibly deny you when you ask so sweetly?’ He picked up his newspaper to resume reading. ‘Tell Benedict what it is you need and he’ll make sure you get it.’
‘I will. And, Hassan?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Just go away and let me read my newspaper, will you?’ he growled.
Ella was smiling happily to herself as she went off to find Benedict and, as always, the English aide was surprisingly friendly towards her. Surprising considering he’d delivered the replacement dress and underwear the morning after Alex and Allegra’s party. At the time Ella had wondered what he must think of women like her, and how many he had to deal with in the course of a year. Women who fell into bed with a powerful man without really knowing them. Was it strange for Benedict Austin to see that same woman now installed as queen?
But he was nothing if not efficient and had soon allocated her an airy, north-facing room at the far end of the palace, close to the perfumed garden. Deliberately, she left the shutters open so that drifts of sweet scent could waft inside. As a place to paint, it took some beating.
Ella prepared the room thoroughly before the first sitting, intending to make rough sketches in charcoal before attempting to put oil to canvas. She positioned a chair against a completely plain background and decided that she would depict Hassan in his everyday robes. She’d taken the opportunity to study existing portraits in the palace and the few of her husband showed him looking resplendent in his various military uniforms and his more formal sheikh regalia. But she found herself wanting to show the person behind the position, the man not the king. As if by doing that, she might discover more about the man herself.
She sat down to wait for him, realising just how little she really knew about him. He’d still never mentioned his mother, and hadn’t said much about his father either. She remembered the day she’d arrived here, when he’d resolutely silenced her questions about his upbringing. And she had let him silence her, determined to maintain a precarious kind of peace no matter what the cost.
But pregnancy was changing more than just her body; it was changing the way she viewed the world. Hassan’s mother was not just a person whose name had caused the face of her elder son to darken with pain. She was also a part of the child whose daily kicking inside her belly grew stronger each day. And impending motherhood had also forced Ella to re-examine her views on her own family. She’d recognised that while she might not always approve of the way they behaved, she loved them all very dearly and could never deny their influence on her and the child she carried.
Why, this baby might be a boy who would grow up to be the spitting image of her father! And so what? She let her hand drift to lie on the hard swell of her belly. Was this what her own mother had felt, this powerful bond connecting her to her child? For the first time in her life, she acknowledged how difficult it must have been for her mother to have reared Bobby’s children and also the children he’d had with another woman. He’d been unfaithful for much of their marriage and she had simply turned a blind eye to what was going on.
And yet Julie Jackson had somehow managed to keep it together. Ella and her brothers and sisters may not have had much money, but their messy home had been full of laughter, hadn’t it? Not like this great, silent palace where Hassan had grown up. She tried to imagine him and his brother playing in the wide corridors and thought how lonely it must have been for them.
‘Ella?’
Still lost in her thoughts, she looked up to see that Hassan had arrived at the ‘studio,’ his dark brows raised in mocking question.
‘Sorry.’ She smiled at him. ‘I was miles away.’
‘I can see that for myself. Are you ready for me?’
‘Absolutely. Come and sit over here. That’s right, just here.’
He sat where she’d asked him to and as she smoothed the headdress which covered his black hair, she resisted the urge to lean over and kiss him. It was one of their rules—or rather, it was one of his rules—no physical intimacy outside the bedroom. He’d told her that protocol demanded it, that the aides and ministers who moved with such silent deference around the palace would not approve of their king fooling around with his new bride. Because kisses tended to get out of hand and lead on to other, deeper intimacies. And Ella understood that. Just as she understood that it was yet another way for her husband to keep her at arm’s length.
He glanced up at her. ‘What must I do?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘You know exactly what you must do. You’ve sat for paintings before.’
‘Ah, but it was always with a man, never with the woman who just a few hours ago was lying in my arms.’
‘Can you