ALEXANDRA SELLERS – Sheikh's Honor (страница 4)

“You mean her family knew where she was but left her there?”

“I cannot say what they knew, only what was the tradition. A woman captured by a man in this way…her family would have ignored her existence from that moment.”

She threw a look over her shoulder at him. “And you accept that?” she demanded incredulously.

“There is nothing for me to reject, Clio. It was finished, many years ago. I am here because of it. My mother Nusaybah was the child of that union. What shall I say? Maktoub. It is written.”

“So that’s in your blood too, is it—abducting women? I suppose that makes it all right! Were you expecting my family and Prince Rafi to leave my sister Zara to her fate?”

He shook his head impatiently, but did not reply.

“But no,” she supplied for him. “That wouldn’t have served your purpose! You knew Rafi had to get her back—world opinion would dictate that. You probably thought he’d refuse to marry her, but that wouldn’t have bothered you. If you spoiled their love, it would be just their bad luck, wouldn’t it? So long as you got what you wanted.”

“I did not reason in this way,” he said levelly. “I believed that he would want her back and would make her his wife when I released her unharmed.”

She had succeeded in talking herself into deep anger. She could not trust herself to make an answer.

So he was a chip off the old block. Did her parents know this about Jalal’s genes? But she didn’t suppose it would have made any difference. If they weren’t concerned about what he had done to Zara, they’d hardly worry about what his grandfather had done to a nameless princess fifty years ago.

A few minutes later they arrived at a large, rambling brick house. It was on the shore of a very pretty lake, smaller than those they had crossed to get here. There were tree-covered hills rising high around one end of the lake, as if some spirit brooded protectively over the water. Fewer houses dotted the shore.

As they approached their destination, he saw a marina clustered with boats on one side, and a pretty painted sign high on one wall of the house that advertised homemade ice cream, a crafts shop and an art gallery.

Clio guided the powerboat in, cut the engine and expertly brought it up beside the dock. Meanwhile, the door of the house exploded outward, and at least half a dozen children of all ages, four dogs and a couple of cats erupted into the morning to cries of “Is he here? Did the prince come? What does he look like?” and loud excited barks.

Everybody raced down to the dock, except for the cats, who dashed up the trunk of a large, leafy tree that over-hung the water so picturesquely he felt he was in some dream, and clung there indignantly, staring at the scene.

“Calm down, yes, he’s here and he doesn’t want to be deafened on day one! Here, Jonah, grab this,” Clio commanded lazily, tossing the mooring rope as a tall boy ran to the bow. The dock beside the boat was stuffed with children and canines, all gaping at him and all more or less panting with excitement.

“Is that him? Is that the prince?” In the babble he could pick out some sentences, but most of what they were saying was lost, as always when too many people talked at once in English.

“He isn’t weawing a cwown!” one tiny creature cried piercingly, her woebegone eyes locking onto Jalal’s with heartfelt grief.

Clio and Jalal exchanged glances. She resisted the impulse to laugh with him.

“The natives are restless,” he observed.

Then she did laugh; she couldn’t help it.

“I should have realized what the result of an hour’s wait would be. They were excited enough about you when I left. Out of the way, everybody! Prince Jalal wants to get onto the dock. He isn’t ready to go swimming yet!”

One of the dogs was, however, and leapt off into the water with a loud splash.

Meanwhile, Jalal braved the natives to step onto the dock.

“Are you Prince Jalal?” “Are you a real prince?” “Where’s—”

“Cool it!” Clio cried beside him. “What did I tell you?” Getting a general reduction in the babel, she reeled off their names. “Rosalie, Benjamin, Sandor, Alissa, Jonah, Jeremiah, Arwen and Donnelly. Everybody, this is Prince Jalal.”

“Welcome to Canada, Your Highness,” said several voices in ragged unison, and the welcome was echoed as the laggards caught up. And then Jalal watched transfixed as, to his utter astonishment, they all bowed. From the waist.

He couldn’t restrain the bursting laughter that rose up in him. Their heads tilted at him in surprise. “Thank you!” he exclaimed, when he could speak. “I am very glad to be here. But I am not used to such bowing, or this name, Your High-ness!”

“But Clio said people have to bow to princes.”

“Clio said we had to call you Your Highness.”

He flicked her a glance, as if to an awkward child. She returned the look impassively, then bent to the task of tying the stern rope.

“Clio did not know. She thought I was a tall man,” he said, his lips twitching, and she thought, He thinks I’m not a worthy enemy, but he’ll find out.

“You are tall. You’re as tall as Daddy.”

“What will we call you, then?”

“Why not call me—Jalal? That is my name, and it will make me feel very welcome if you use it. Then I will think we are friends. Shall we be friends?”

“Oh, yeah!” “Cool.” “Sure.”

“I’m your fwiend, Jalal,” said Donnelly confidingly, reaching up to put her hand in his. She had clearly taken one of her instant likes to him.

His smile down at the child would have melted Clio on the spot, if she hadn’t steeled herself.

“Don’t people bow to princes?” Arwen asked, her head cocked on one side.

“Yes, people bow to princes, unless,” he said, raising a forefinger, “unless they are given special dispensation. And since we are going to be friends, I give you all special dispensation.”

“But you are a real pwince, aren’t you?” It was the little curly-haired darling again. Jalal squatted down to face her.

“My father was the son of a king. My mother’s mother was a princess. Am I a prince?”

Her eyes were wide. “Ye-es,” she said, half asking, half telling. She looked around her, then up at that fount of wisdom, seventeen-year-old Benjamin.

“Of course he’s a prince, Donnelly, that’s how you get to be a prince—your father was one,” Ben said knowledgeably.

“But you don’t have a cwown,” she reminded Jalal. “You don’t look like the picture.”

“Do you have a picture of a prince?” he asked.

Donnelly nodded mutely. Jalal lifted his arm, and she snuggled in against him as confidingly as a kitten. “Well, I have a crown, my father’s crown, but princes don’t go swimming in crowns, do they?”

“They don’t?” Donnelly sounded disappointed, as if she had been hoping to see just that sight.

“No.” Jalal, smiling, shook his head firmly. All the children had fallen silent, listening to him, almost entranced. “Do you wear your swimsuit to school?”

Donnelly, who did not go to school, gazed at him wide-eyed, and shook her head with mute solemnity.

“Princes only wear crowns in their palaces. There is no palace here. So I left my crown at home.”

“Ohhhh.”

“But one day, I hope you’ll come and visit me in my home, and then I’ll show you my crown.”

“Oh, neat! Can I come, too?” “Do you have a palace?” “Can I come, can I come?” “Is your home in the desert?” “Is it an Arab’s tent or is it a real palace?” “Do you have camels, Jalal?” “What’s it like in the desert?” “Were you a bandit before you were a prince, Jalal?”

And then somehow, in a circle of fascinated children, the two oldest boys carrying his cases, Jalal was being led up to the house, into the kitchen. Clio stood on the dock watching the progress of the little party.

No doubt she should have realized that a man capable of drawing as many followers to his cause as Jalal was said to have had would have powerful charisma. She didn’t like the way they were all falling all over him, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Not right now, anyway.

Four

“Uncle Brandon dropped the guys back and went out again. He said not to save lunch for him,” Rosalie reported, when Clio entered the kitchen.

That wasn’t unusual in the run-up to the season. He had probably had to go for more creosote or something, and would grab a hamburger in the plaza. But Clio would rather her father had been here to meet Jalal.

“You’ve got lunch going already?” she asked, sniffing the air. “That’s terrific, Rosalie.”

Whenever her mother was absent on one of her buying trips among the First Nation artists she represented in the gallery, as she was this week, Clio was in charge. This year Rosalie, who had arrived in tears shortly after Christmas declaring that she hated her new stepmother, was proving to be a big help in filling the gap left by Romany. Romany was on a visit to Zara and Rafi.

“What’s cooking?”

Rosalie told her, and the two cousins began to organize the meal.

Jalal was at the table, surrounded by kids. Everyone had something to show him, a question to ask….