And yet if she was going to marry Fareed, shouldn’t she at least attempt to get to know him?
‘I’m sorry you were pulled away from your work. If I had known Ibrahim was going to interrupt your work to take care of me, I could have asked him to call me a cab.’
Fareed’s reply was a derisive snort.
‘Call a cab when he has a dozen vehicles at his disposal and probably twice as many drivers? I’m to take you to the palace where, no doubt, he’ll be happy to organise a car and a driver to be put at your disposal for however long you are here.’
He turned to study her as the traffic slowed.
‘It seems you have bewitched him.’
How to respond?
‘Nonsense! He’s asked me here as thanks for the bee episode and so I could see your country and perhaps work here for a while. I imagine, once I start work, I can live in at the hospital.’
Another snort.
Kate sighed.
If the man was like this when he thought her just a visitor, how much more awkward and dismissive would he be when he discovered she was to become his wife?
She should tell him—let him work it out with Ibrahim—but she had given her word she’d tell no one of the agreement. To all intents and purposes, she was coming here to work, full stop.
And as for seeing sights, so far all they’d seen was traffic. Was this Fareed’s way of disobeying his uncle’s orders? She’d have been better off being shown around by one of the camels wandering across the streets—the cause of the traffic chaos.
‘Are they sacred animals that they are allowed right of way?’ she asked, and Fareed, though he looked momentarily shocked that she had asked a question, did, finally, reply.
‘No, just animals with minds of their own! But they have been essential to the survival of my people for thousands of years, so no one would harm one. We will be out of this traffic soon.’
Kate turned her attention back to her surroundings.
Rows of small shops and businesses gave way to signs of development, boarded lots, some with massive cranes rising behind the fences, and beyond them the outlying residential area of a sparkling new city.
‘How exciting it must be to be able to build a city from scratch,’ Kate said. ‘To try to get it right from the beginning.’
For a moment she thought Fareed wouldn’t answer, but after a swift glance her way, he relented.
‘This city is my uncle’s dream. He had so many plans he needed teams of architects and engineers and builders to implement them. He drew the best from all over the world, told them what he wanted, then made sure he got it. He might appear a charming cosmopolitan man but he has the core of steel all our leaders had to keep the tribes alive in inhospitable places for thousands of years.’
Kate heard the words but also the love this man must feel for Ibrahim. Could a man who loved his uncle be all bad?
The vehicle left the city, the built and unbuilt bits of it, and swung onto a wide road that ran along the shoreline.
‘Oh!’
Kate barely breathed the word, so astonished was she by the wide stretch of golden sound reaching out to the deep blue of a placid sea. Squat palm trees lined the landward side of the road and beyond them, green parklands stretched to the foothills of craggy red-grey mountains.
The road curved gently around the shallow bay, coming to a point where rugged cliffs met the sea, and perched atop the cliffs, like something formed from the land itself, there was a multi-towered building.
The old fort?
‘How do you get to it?’ Kate asked, staring up now at the sheer cliffs.
‘There is a way from the inland side,’ Fareed explained. ‘And a secret way from the sea. Once it was a place of refuge for the fishermen who lived along the shore, but now it is deserted, except for the caretakers and some artisans who are restoring parts that have deteriorated.’
As they rounded the corner, Kate turned back to look again, marvelling at the beauty of the structure and wondering how on earth it had been built on such an impossible site.
But they were passing the fishing village now, the colourful boats tied up along the shore, and beyond the village high mud brick walls—
‘Another fort?’
‘The palace,’ Fareed replied.
She was here!
In Amberach!
With her bridegroom?
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PLANS FOR the wedding were completely out of Kate’s hands, and there were brief moments when she allowed herself to relax and enjoy her new surroundings, but the strain of deceiving her mother lived with her night and day.
Too afraid her mother would hear the anxiety in her voice, or that even talking to her mother—lying the way she was—would make her break down, Kate had used the time difference between the countries as an excuse to communicate through emails.
The pain of the deception stayed with her as she settled in the palace, in her own suite of rooms in the enormous, rambling, maze of a place.
In reality she’d had little time for worry or self-pity, with various female members of Ibrahim’s family fluttering around her, helping her settle in, filling her so-called ‘dressing-room’ with garments and gowns she was sure she’d never wear, underwear so fine it looked as if it would fall apart if she breathed and nightgowns that made her blush.
In the bathroom she’d found perfumes, soaps, creams and various unguents she’d only sniffed at, filling an entire wall of shelves, while another cabinet carried an array of make-up from the top French cosmetic manufacturers.
The day before the wedding, she was escorted to a large reception area. It was magnificent, the floors covered in silk carpets woven in dazzling jewel colours, the walls carved with fanciful trees and flowers and painted, again in brilliant colour. Arched windows along one side of the room must look out into the big courtyard that Kate had been too timid to explore.
She only knew it was laid out in patterns similar to the carpets, with a fountain in the centre and trees and bushes cut into fantastic shapes. Not that she could see it now, for filmy silk curtains covered the windows, billowing slightly in the breeze.
Following her escorts, she was led to the far end of the room and seated on a low divan in the middle of a kind of dais, so she was raised above anyone coming into the room. Women began arriving—women she’d never met, although all of them appeared very excited to be meeting her. And all of them were beautifully dressed in designer fashions once they’d removed the black abayas that had covered their gowns.
They cooed and oohed and touched her clothes—a beautiful silk gown in palest lemon—and her hair—in its usual unruly plait down her back, and cooed and oohed again.
Several younger girls appeared, giggling and carrying pots of what looked like paste.
‘This is your henna party,’ one of them, who introduced herself as Farida, told her. ‘We are to be your attendants today and tomorrow. We are cousins of Fareed. This is Suley and this is Mai.’
They set down the pots they carried, and beckoned an older woman towards them.
‘Hayla is the best henna artist in the country. She will do a beautiful job. Your skin is so pale, the henna patterns will look stunning.’
Henna?
Artist?
Patterns?
Kate longed to ask for details but the girls were chattering excitedly amongst themselves and more and more women were arriving, introducing themselves and touching her, as if checking she was real.
The three handmaidens cleared everyone away, and the artist knelt in front of Kate, taking one of her feet in her hands and turning it this way and that.
She opened the lid on one of the pots and Kate realised what was happening. She’d seen pictures of women with their hands and feet decorated with the dark red-brown colour—henna.
