CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
V IOLET WOKE TO no shadows.
She lay there, staring and still a little more bold, more curious... And, no, she would not hide, or sulk, or even justify why she’d climbed out of bed last night as she heard him pass.
‘Sahir...?’
He was just on his way out when she appeared, holding the curtain over her scant nightwear.
‘Good morning, Violet.’
Her cheeks were red, and they stared at each other for a moment, both aware that last night he’d seen what lay behind the curtain.
‘Can I come with you?’ she asked.
‘I’m going riding.’
‘I know you are.’ Violet nodded. ‘I’ve decided I’d like to try.’
‘You’ve never ridden?’
‘I want to try new things, and you said Josie was a good horse to learn on.’
‘I’ll have the stable manager—’
‘No,’ Violet said. ‘I don’t want to go riding with someone I don’t know.’ Her eyes met his. ‘When do we leave here?’
‘Tomorrow night.’
‘Then I might never get this chance again.’
‘Very well. But a short lesson, or you’ll be in agony.’
He stood outside the curtain as she pulled off her nightgown.
‘What do I wear?’ she asked.
‘Just a robe. I shall sort out some chaps.’
‘Chaps?’ she asked from behind the screen, doing up the tiny buttons down the front of a lilac gown. ‘What are they?’
‘Leg coverings made of leather.’
‘Sahir!’ she chided in a voice she had never known she owned. ‘We barely know each other!’
And he let her flirt, let her be free, and even if she didn’t appreciate the way she’d arrived, oh, she knew she did not want to leave the desert.
Or him.
At the stables, he handed her the most awful-looking things. ‘What on earth...?’
‘You need to wear them,’ he said, watching as she attempted to put the chaps on. ‘The other way.’
‘Can you at least help?’ she asked, although she never usually did.
He glared but, ever polite, took the chaps and knelt.
And now he was being all gentlemanly, even as she lifted her robe, barely touching her as he buckled the straps.
As good as his word.
Aagh!
‘Stay still...’ he warned.
‘I’m trying,’ Violet said, feeling a touch deflated because he showed no reaction.
He seemed irritated, in fact.
‘You’re not a very nice teacher,’ she said, when he snapped at her fourth attempt to mount a very placid Josie.
‘Because I’m not a teacher,’ he said. ‘I offered the best horseman in Janana to give you a lesson. But, oh, no...’
‘You’re not very patient.’
‘And you’re not very good at listening.’
‘I’ve never been so close to a dog, let alone a horse.’
He felt his heart crack as he thought of all the horses he had, the cats and the dogs, and the birds that tapped on the palace windows.
Then he thought of her not stroking the little foal, and how fiercely she guarded her heart. He could feel she was trusting him, knew she was flirting, and it felt like a gift.
He wanted that gift, and yet what did he offer in return?
‘Can you move that stool?’ she asked.
‘It’s called a mounting block,’ he corrected. ‘And it’s where it should be.’
She stood up, trying it all over again.
‘Balance your weight,’ he told her.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘It’s the getting my leg...’
Josie really was rather large, and he saw Violet just couldn’t stretch her leg far enough, so ended up lying prone over the saddle.
‘Violet!’ he snapped—but not in a terse way. It was more like the noise the velvet rope had made as it slithered over her head.
And then the tension gave, and he laughed. Not the mirthless shouts of laughter he occasionally gave, nor even the softer, shorter bursts. This was a low, deep laugh that he released as she lay there, face down. He even playfully slapped her bottom, and she almost cried with laughter as he prised her leg up and over and practically hauled her into position.
‘I’m upright!’
Josie moved a couple of steps and she squeaked.
‘Do I need a riding hat?’
‘You do not.’ He walked Josie around for a few moments. ‘Look ahead,’ he told her. ‘You don’t look down when you drive.’
‘I can’t drive,’ she informed him. ‘There’s no need in London. Anyway, I have no sense of direction.’ She smiled down at him. ‘How am I doing?’
‘Better,’ he conceded.
‘Can I trot?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Can I trot now?’ she asked, all of six minutes later.
‘Go on, then.’ He nodded, confident in Josie, then frowned in bemusement as Violet made some clicking noises. ‘Give her a few squeezes with your legs.’
She seemed reluctant to, and even Josie gave him a confused glance. He spoke in Arabic to the old girl.
‘What are you saying to her?’ asked Violet.
‘That you are very confident for someone so clueless.’
He gave Josie a tap and Violet let out a shriek as the horse sped off, Violet jolting up and down as she fought to stay on.
‘How do I make her stop?’ she yelled.
‘Pull on the reins.’
‘It worked!’ Josie slowed to a walk and Violet, breathless and exhilarated, looked as if she felt she ruled the equestrian world. ‘Can we go for a ride in the desert?’
‘No.’
‘I could do this at the local riding school at home.’
‘You could—yet you never have,’ he pointed out. ‘You can’t learn it all in one day. You’re going to be sore.’
‘I. Don’t. Care,’ Violet told him. ‘I want a desert ride. It is my holiday, Sahir.’
‘Holiday?’
‘Well, it sort of is,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to waste it.’ She gave him a smile. ‘I’ve decided to embrace the time I have rather than endure it.’
And she was the most persuasive, guilt-inducing, incredible person he had ever met, because a short while later they were actually setting off, his beast chomping at the bit as Josie plodded along.
‘How is it?’ he asked as they left the tent far behind.
‘So nice.’ She closed her eyes. ‘If I hadn’t been kidnapped to get here, then this would be the best day of my life,’ she teased.
He smiled, but it faded as his horse started to get stroppy. ‘I’m going to stretch him—do you want to get off for a while?’
‘No.’
‘Violet...’
‘I’ll just keep walking.’
‘But you won’t...’
He felt it then—flashes of her deciding to trot, or gallop, or falling off...fears he did not allow himself to have.
And yet he’d been having them since the moment they’d met.
He kicked his horse, trying to outrun his thoughts, trying to rid his head of that moment when he hadn’t cared what happened with King Abdul, or if he might be missed for a week.
And his head hadn’t quite cleared even as he slowed and turned—for there she was, plodding along on Josie, her cheeks bright red and a smile on her face. He slowed his horse to a walk.
‘We’ll go back,’ he told her.
‘Not yet.’ She looked at the endless dunes, and then she looked up to the sun. ‘How do you find your way back?’
He told her about the observatory, how they were all taught about the stars...
‘What if it’s cloudy?’
‘You’d know north.’
‘No.’
‘You’d know it.’
‘I don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘I must have missed that lesson. I’m not the brightest...’
‘Violet.’ He stopped her. ‘You are one of the cleverest people I know.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Oh, you are. We are all taught about the skies here, and the patterns of the land, the winds. It is just something I took for granted. The palace is built in the shape of a star...’
‘I saw,’ she said. ‘Well, I noticed when the helicopter took off.’
‘Were you terrified?’
‘A bit.’ She nodded as they rode on. ‘But not adequately terrified.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Just...given my situation, I wasn’t that scared.’
As they rode he told her about the palace ruins his mother had loved.
‘My father is adamant that they remain untouched. Or rather...’ Sahir paused, for he did not discuss his thoughts with anyone, and yet he found that constantly challenged when he was with Violet.
He glanced over at her, saw the dreamy look in her eyes. She glanced back, as if expecting him to carry on speaking.
‘The plans have to get passed by the council, and some of them are opposed.’
‘But not all of them?’
‘No.’ He nodded. ‘Unfortunately, it is the vocal few who are against change.’
‘It always is.’ She told him about the library committee. ‘Honestly, it took for ever to get them to agree even to join social media.’
He smiled. ‘We have the raw materials; the Bedouins have the skills.’
‘They do for now.’
He frowned, unsure how Violet could speak so knowledgeably, but she turned and smiled.
‘Use it or lose it.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll put that to the council.’
It was an incredible trip, and as they turned to head back, even though she’d been warned not to, Violet wasn’t scared to persist with him.
‘Can I ask a question?’ Violet said. ‘Just one.’
‘One.’
‘Why do you feel guilty about your mother?’
‘Maybe because she was lonely, and unhappy.’
She knew when he was being evasive. And something told her that she was getting the standard Sahir reply.
‘Don’t bother answering if you’re just going to fob me off,’ she said.
‘You really don’t miss anything,’ he said.
But then he paused, unsure whether or not to proceed. Yet she’d somehow trusted him, and now he felt the same way. It was something he had never shared before, though.
‘She was breathless on our last walk,’ he said. He had replayed that morning so many times. ‘I should have noticed.’
‘I’m out of breath now.’
‘We’ve been out for two hours.’ He gave her a slight smile, knowing she was trying to assuage his guilt, but it would never leave him.
They kept riding, the tent now in sight.
‘She had a nosebleed. I caused it. I was scolding her...’ He gave a pale smile at Violet’s shocked expression. ‘No, I did not hit my mother.’
‘I know that, but...’ She shook her head. ‘What do you mean, you caused it?’
‘My brother and sister had worked out that she had a confidant.’
He saw Violet holding in a gasp, trying to be as calm as he had been for her when she’d revealed her truth.
‘I had always known. Aadil seemed to know too. He was my protection officer then, but his father was an elder on the council.’ He glanced over, aware he probably wasn’t making much sense, but Violet nodded.
‘So, a bit of a stickler for the rules?’
‘Correct.’ He gave her a half-smile. ‘As I’ve told you, there is a lot of leeway, but discretion is the absolute rule.’
‘And she wasn’t being discreet?’
‘No. I was very concerned that she was going to get in trouble. And so I told her off. I told her to be more careful.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She started to laugh.’
They were almost back, and Sahir found he didn’t want to be.
‘Mother thought it was hilarious. She told me I was staid, and like my father, but then she was kind. She was always a bit wild, but she said she would be more careful, told me not to worry... And then her nose started bleeding.’
They were so close to the stables, to other people, and the horses seemed to intuit that, for they stopped.
‘She had leukaemia.’
‘You couldn’t have known.’
He said nothing.
‘Sahir?’ She questioned his self-imposed silence with his name. ‘Were there other signs?’
‘I believe my father had noticed a bruise on her back, another on her thigh. She told him she had been exploring the ruins...’
‘And did he rush her to the palace doctor?’
‘No.’ His voice was black. ‘He did not. I was told she fainted at breakfast.’
He saw her look over at him.
‘The doctor knew immediately that she was gravely ill. She was taken to the royal hospital. I was called out of school. It was that fast.’
‘That’s so sad... What was your father like afterwards?’
‘Much the same as he’d always been. He said the country had lost a brilliant queen.’
‘What else?’
‘Truly? Not much. He went straight back to work—not that he had a choice. The country was on the edge of war.’
‘Here?’
He nodded. ‘My father was taking breakfast meetings with aides the morning after her funeral. I know he had to be, but he should have made time for Jasmine, at least.’
‘What about Ibrahim?’
‘He wanted to go back to school pretty much straight after.’
‘And you?’
‘I was back by October. There were some formalities for me to attend to. After that, life just carried on. He barely mentions her now. I sometimes wonder if he misses her at all.’
The conversation was over. She knew that both from his curt tone and also because the stable hand was approaching.
She wished they had longer.
Even their whole week. Because it felt all too soon for their time to be over.
‘Slowly...’
He guided her down and she felt her feet hit the ground. As she headed for the tent she saw a look pass between Sahir and the stable hand as she rather gingerly walked away.
‘I warned you,’ said Sahir.
‘You did,’ Violet said. ‘I’m just a bit stiff...’
So was Sahir.
Back to being formal.
Even as she sank into the bath Bedra had prepared, Violet was na?ve about the agony to come. Even as she sat and ate dinner, and tried to get comfortable on the floor, she had no idea what awaited her.