Chapter Forty-six
“Shahar, you are to pack your things. You are sailing on the evening tide with Jamil—you and Jamila.” Chantelle stared at Rahine as if she had lost her mind. “Did you hear me, child? You are going on a trip.”
“Where?”
“Where?” Rahine repeated. “What does that matter? This is an honor—”
“Where, Rahine?”
“Actually, I don’t know. Not even Haji could find out. But it really doesn’t make any difference. Jamil wants you to accompany him, and so you will.”
“And so will Jamila. If he’s taking her, he doesn’t need me along.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Certainly not!”
“Then you must be pouting because Jamil visited Sheelah last night.”
“Rahine—” Chantelle began warningly, only to have the older woman chide her.
“Then don’t sound like it. It’s you he’s taking with him, not Sheelah.”
“And Jamila.”
“You are jealous!”
“No…I’m…not! She can have him. They can all have him. He’s everything I first thought he was and more. I hate him!”
Rahine pursed her lips. “So you’re still upset about Mara? I tried to tell you there was more to it than just what she had told you.”
“You deny what he did to her every single time he summoned her?”
“No.”
“Then what more can you tell me? So he needed an outlet for his temper. Other men punch walls.” Rahine nearly choked trying to hold back a chuckle. Chantelle saw this and scowled. “Go ahead and laugh. It’s very funny that that woman was victimized to the bitter end.”
Rahine sobered. “No, it’s not funny. It’s tragic. But Jamil isn’t to blame.”
“He—”
“Shahar!” Rahine cut in sharply. “You’re going to listen to me this time whether you want to or not. Jamil was provoked. Mara deliberately forced him to punish her each time she was summoned. Did she tell you that?”
“No, but I don’t see how that leaves him blameless. He should have realized something was wrong with her and left her alone. Instead he called for her more often, using her as his whipping post. Do you know how disgusting that is?”
“I can see there is no getting through to you.” Rahine sighed. “It makes no difference that she gave every impression of wanting to be abused? There are women who enjoy that sort of thing, you know.”
“She hated it afterward.”
“Then she should have said something.”
Chantelle couldn’t disagree with that. She had told Mara the same thing.
But she didn’t want to see Jamil’s side of it, especially now.
For five days after Mara’s death he had summoned her, and she had turned away from him.
He could have told her what Rahine just did, but he hadn’t bothered.
He’d simply got angry when she wouldn’t talk to him.
And then he had gone to Sheelah. Well, fine.
Wonderful. He could continue going to Sheelah.
Chantelle wanted nothing more to do with him.
She turned away, mumbling, “Why doesn’t he take Sheelah with him on this trip instead?”
“He usually does take her whenever he leaves Barikah, but this time he wants you. It is your chance to make up with him, Shahar,” Rahine pointed out hesitantly.
“And if I don’t want to?”
“I imagine that’s why Jamila is going along, too,” Rahine said deliberately.
Chantelle swung back around, eyes narrowed and glittering violet. “He can just—”
“Enough, Shahar! I really don’t have time to argue with you anymore.
Jamil has sent for me, and I’m late now.
Pack your things. Be ready to leave by this evening.
And if I don’t see you again before you leave…
” Rahine stepped forward to embrace her.
“Allah go with you, and hopefully, he will help you come to your senses.”
Rahine had to rush now to Jamil’s apartment, but she had wanted to tell Shahar of the trip herself.
She had hoped it would cheer the girl up, the honor of being chosen to accompany the Dey, but apparently it hadn’t.
At least Shahar had listened this time about Mara.
She was intelligent. She wouldn’t continue to blame Jamil for Mara’s sickness.
But she was stubborn, too. For too long she had been the one and only favorite.
The jealousy she had tried to deny was going to fester for a while.
And if Jamil grows impatient with her and makes use of Jamila on the ship, that jealousy will magnify, she thought.
She should mention it to Jamil. She was still thinking about it when she arrived and found him alone in the room.
That was unusual. He usually had a half-dozen attendants at hand.
But her being here was unusual as well. He hadn’t summoned her to his rooms in years.
She couldn’t even begin to think of a reason for it now, and so hadn’t tried to, afraid whatever it was wasn’t going to be good.
To put it off, she went right to the subject that might distract him. “I just came from seeing Shahar to tell her of the trip.”
“How did she take the news?”
“She knows Jamila is going, too.”
Derek laughed. “So she didn’t take it well. No matter, Mother, she will have other things to get in a snit over once we sail.”
There was that heart-stopping “Mother” again.
Rahine was so unnerved at hearing it that she almost missed the fact that Jamil was speaking in English.
For her benefit? Not likely. He rarely used English except with foreign diplomats who spoke nothing else, the reason being he didn’t speak it very well—or at least he didn’t used to speak it well.
He had obviously mastered the language since the last time she had heard him speak it, when he was a child.
“Where…is your destination?” she asked hesitantly. “I haven’t been told.”
“To England, and I want you to come with me.”
“I want you to stay. Mother,” Jamil said from the garden doorway.
Rahine looked between the two and said only, “Oh, God,” before she started to collapse.
Derek leaped forward to catch her. “Dammit, Jamil, I thought you were going to give me a few minutes to break it to her gently!”
“And let you steal her right out from under my nose?” Jamil accused him.
Derek asked incredulously, “Are we going to fight about this, of all things?”
“Perhaps,” Jamil replied, moving to help Derek get Rahine to the bed. “You don’t need her. I do. She keeps peace in my life.”
“Does she know that? Have you ever told her?”
Jamil answered with anger. “You should have warned me you were going to ask her to return with you. I would never have allowed this meeting.”
“You couldn’t have prevented it, Jamil. I never would have left here without seeing her again. The first time didn’t count. She thought I was you.”
They got her to the bed, but when Derek tried to stand back, he winced at how tightly Rahine gripped his arm. He glanced down at her to find her emerald eyes fixed on him, wide and shimmering with tears.
“Kasim—oh, God, Kasim? Is it really—” She looked to Jamil on her other side, then back to Derek. “It is,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Oh, God, it really is.”
Derek sat down beside her, putting his arm around her. “You’re not supposed to cry about it, Mother.”
In response her crying became quite noisy. She hid her face in her hands, ashamed to have lost control like this, only to cry even louder when Derek wrapped his arms around her.
“Mother, please don’t do this. I thought you would be happy to see me.”
“I am!” she wailed.
The two brothers exchanged a look of mutual helplessness. Typical of their gender, they could deal with almost any situation—except this one.
“Can we get you something?” Derek asked gently. “Brandy? Kanyak?”
“She doesn’t drink spirits,” Jamil answered for her.
“How would you know?” Derek snapped back with impatience. “Just because you don’t—”
“You mustn’t fight,” Rahine interrupted, pushing herself away from Derek’s chest. “Brothers must never fight.”
“Were we fighting, Jamil?” Derek grinned.
“Not at all,” Jamil replied with the same grin.
Rahine tried for an expression of disapproval but couldn’t quite manage it.
She still doubted her faculties, her sight, her hearing.
Kasim here? Jamil showing concern and saying he needed her?
Again she looked from one to the other. So identical.
So beloved. Her heart felt as if it would burst, it was so full of emotion.
She swiped impatiently at her tears, then wet Derek’s cheek with her fingertips the next moment. “Why? When?”
“For some time now,” he replied, “so Jamil could safely search for Selim without an assassin turning up at every comer. Of course we didn’t know it was a pointless endeavor.”
“No, you couldn’t know he was already…Then it was you—ever since—” She tried to think back, but so many things were whirling through her mind, it wasn’t easy. “Ever since Shahar was bought…no, since you first summoned her. That was when you began acting differently. And I never guessed.”
“You were not supposed to,” Jamil said, bending down in front of her to take her other hand in his. “No one knew except Omar, since it was his idea to bring Kasim here to take my place.”
“You didn’t even tell Sheelah?”
“No, not until I returned last night. I thought of telling you—”
“We both did,” Derek interjected.
“But in order for the deception to work, it was better if no one’s behavior deviated in any way.”
“Except your own.” She smiled, squeezing his hand in understanding.
“Yes, well, my behavior was already unpredictable, and had been for months. Any mistakes Kasim made could be attributed to that unpredictability. But even now no one else is to know that he was here. He doesn’t want to be resurrected or called on to succeed me should something happen before my sons reach their manhood. ”
There was the potent reminder that tore at Rahine’s heart. She turned to Kasim, her eyes brimming with tears again.
“Your life is…tolerable, then?”
“More than tolerable, Mother.” He smiled at her. “It suits me admirably.”
Her throat constricted; she did not know whether to believe him or not. “I—I’m so sorry, Kasim,” she whispered brokenly. “I regretted sending you away almost as soon as you were gone. I prayed and prayed that you knew it—somehow sensed it. I never thought I would see you again to tell you.”
“I did know it, always,” he assured her. “And I understood once I met your father. I came to love him as much as you did. Of course, he’s grown rather dictatorial in his old age.”
She smiled at the humor in her son’s eyes. “Has he?”
“I’m to get married or else, don’t you know. He’s even sent a ship here to fetch me home. Didn’t trust me to find my own way.” She laughed as he had intended; then he said tenderly, “I have no regrets, Mother, so you mustn’t either.”
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. Jamil never—”
Derek cut in curtly. “Jamil is a pigheaded fool.”
“No, you mustn’t say that—”
Jamil interrupted this time. “He’s right, Mother.” Rahine’s chest swelled with pain as he suddenly buried his head in her lap and she heard his anguished plea: “Can you forgive me?”
“Please—Jamil—please don’t.” She was unable to stop the tears spilling down her cheeks again. She lifted his head to her breast. “I understood your hurt and anger. You two were as one, and yet I severed the cord. I had no right, and I certainly never blamed you for hating me.”
“But I did not—I could not. And when I finally understood that, I resented you for the barrier between us that I had created. I was wrong—”
“But it’s all right now, Jamil, truly.”
Derek broke in at this point, saying crossly, “I suppose this means you won’t be returning home with me.”
Rahine had to laugh at his tone. “Come now, Kasim, you didn’t really think I would. I don’t exist there, any more than you do here. Surely I am assumed dead after all these years.”
“There was mention of it to account for your long absence,” he was forced to admit.
“There, you see. We have both made different lives for ourselves that are all we want now.”
“You could make a new life, assume a new identity—see your father again.”
“That’s unfair,” she scolded gently. “He has you now. He doesn’t need me. But Jamil does.”
“Stop arguing with her, Kasim,” Jamil snapped irritably. “She’s staying.”
Derek gave in gracefully, knowing when he was outnumbered. “Just see that she knows she’s appreciated from now on, brother, or I’ll take a leaf from the Marquis’s book and send a ship back here for her.”
Jamil snorted in response, but later was to assure Derek that Rahine would never want for anything again, emotionally or otherwise.