Sheikh's Mail-Order Bride (4 page)

‘Good morning.' The Prince bowed over her hand, in the European style. ‘I trust you are feeling better? You look quite—quite transformed.'

‘I have certainly never worn exotic garments such as these,' Constance replied, flustered by her thoughts, and by his touch, and by that gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, which she must have imagined.

‘I regret our markets were unable to provide the kind of clothing you are accustomed to—or so I was informed by the female who selected these. The wife of one of my Council members.'

‘Please thank her. And please believe me when I tell you that I like these clothes much better. They are infinitely more suitable to this climate. In my own clothes, I would be far too hot. All those petticoats and...'
stays
was not a word one said to a gentleman, never mind a prince ‘...and things,' Constance finished lately. ‘What I mean is, thank you, Your Highness, for being so thoughtful. I am afraid that I have no means to pay you back for these, but...'

‘Do not, I pray, insult me.'

His manner changed so abruptly that Constance flinched, only then realizing how informal he had been moments before. She bit her lip. She dropped into something that could be construed as a curtsy. ‘I assure you, no insult was intended.'

Silence. A nod. More silence. Constance stared down at her feet. ‘I expect you've brought me up here to tell me I'm to be packed off on a ship at first light,' she said resignedly.

Prince Kadar pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘It is, unfortunately, uncommon for trading vessels from the west to call in at our port. Most sail straight for India once they have navigated the Cape of Good Hope. I have confirmed that the next ship is not expected until August.'

‘August! But this is only May.'

‘Unfortunately we have no other ship here at Murimon which is fit for the voyage. Apparently my brother commissioned a schooner to be built. A three-master. Ocean going.' Prince Kadar shook his head. ‘Why Butrus imagined he needed such a thing, I have no idea, but it is beside the point. It is not completed, and will not be until July at the earliest.'

‘So I am effectively stranded here for two months,' Constance said.

‘Possibly three.'

‘I'm terribly sorry.'

Prince Kadar gave her one of those assessing looks. ‘For what?'

‘I shall be inconveniencing you. Three months is a long time for an uninvited guest to stay.'

The Prince smiled. ‘But I did invite you, last night, to stay for as long as you wish.'

‘Yes, but...'

‘Lady Constance, I repeat, your presence here is most welcome.'

Goodness, but when he smiled she quite lost track of her thoughts. It was like the dazzle of a faraway star captured in the lens of her telescope, temporarily blinding her to everything else. ‘Thank you,' Constance said, blinking. ‘If there is anything I can do while I am here to work my passage, so to speak, then I would be delighted to help. I'm afraid I'm not a very good needlewoman, but I'm very good with accounts. Though I can't imagine why you would need a bookkeeper when you most likely have a treasurer.'

‘And an assistant treasurer and any number of scribes,' the Prince said. ‘There are any number of needlewomen here at the palace too, I expect. Your time will be your own.'

‘I'm not sure I'll know what to do with it. I like to be busy.'

‘Then you must see some of our country, explore its delights. Which brings me to the reason I asked you up here, to my private terrace. Come.' Prince Kadar ushered her over to the waist-high parapet. ‘There, take a look at Murimon.'

The view which confronted her was quite stunning. Sea and sky met on the horizon, both brilliant azure blue, the sky streaked with wispy white cloud, the sea sparkling with little white-crested waves. A line of fishing boats was strung out in the distance, too far away for her to make out more than the distinctive shallow hulls and single lateen sails. The wide sweep of the coastline to her left consisted of a number of little bays and fishing villages similar to Bashir's village, with white strips of sand, the houses huddled together on the narrow shoreline. Behind the nearer villages, narrow strips of green cultivated land could be made out. On the right, the terrain was more mountainous, rolling red-and-ochre hills guarding much steeper, jagged peaks. Here, there were few vestiges of green, and even fewer villages.

The port of Murimon sat proudly in the centre, directly below the palace. The harbour was formed by two long curves of rock embracing the sea. At the end of each arm stood a lighthouse. On the furthest-away point, buildings covered every inch of available space, some three or four storeys high, some squat and low. Presumably wharves, their huge doorways opened directly onto the jetties which sat at right angles to the shoreline. The nearer harbour wall was higher and rockier, housing a small defensive fortress. The port was nothing like the size of Plymouth, where she had embarked on the
Kent
, but it looked to have a similar sense of bustle. Ships of all shapes and sizes sat at anchor in the middle of the bay or were moored to the jetty. Dhows, much bigger than the fishing boats of Bashir's village, darted in and out between the statelier vessels.

The town attached to the port lay spread out below them. Constance leaned over the parapet to get a closer look. The path she must have followed in her chair last night zigzagged up the hillside below, past houses, tall and narrow, and tinkling fountains set in small squares.

She leaned over further. The roof terrace seemed to be at the highest point of the palace, in the very centre of the building. There looked to be three or even four storeys below the huge central edifice on which they were perched, with two low terraced wings on either side. A vast piazza, tiled with marble and bordered by two straight sentry-like lines of palm trees, formed the entrance to the palace itself, with a sweeping staircase on either side of an arched portal meeting on the first floor. It was exotic and absurdly impractical and utterly foreign and completely overwhelming.

‘Well, what do you think of my humble domain?'

Constance turned too suddenly, snatching at the edge of the parapet as the heat and the glare of the sea and the sky and the sun all combined to make her dizzy.

A strong arm caught her as she staggered. ‘Careful. I would hate to have to report your untimely death for a second time.'

She laughed weakly. Her cheek rested against the Prince's shoulder. She closed her eyes to combat the dizziness and breathed in the clean scent of cotton dried in the sunshine, warm skin and soap, and the slight tang of salt from the sea. Her senses swam. She put her hand onto his chest to right herself. Hard muscle over bone. Which she had no right to be touching.

‘Thank you, I'm perfectly fine now.' Constance turned back to the view, shading her eyes. ‘Your humble domain is absolutely spectacular. I've never seen anything remotely like it. How far from the harbour was the
Kent
when she went down?'

‘You see that dhow out there?' He stood directly behind her, his arm pointing over her shoulder at a distant boat. ‘She lies not far from there. Almost all of her passengers and crew were rescued by the boats which were harboured at the port. A few of those who perished were found in the next bay, over there. The bay where you were washed up is beyond that outcrop, as you can see, a fair distance away. The piece of broken mast you clung to must have drifted with the tide and carried you there before depositing you on the beach.'

The sea looked so calm, she could hardly credit that it could have been so violent. ‘I don't remember anything,' Constance said with a shudder, ‘save being thrown overboard. Absolutely nothing after that.'

‘It is as well.' Kadar stepped back. ‘I think you have more than enough terrible memories of the storm to keep you awake at night.'

‘Not last night,' Constance said. ‘I slept like the dead, rather appropriately.'

Prince Kadar set his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. ‘But on previous nights, you have had nightmares, yes?'

His touch unsettled her. ‘Sometimes,' Constance said, slipping from his grasp. ‘It was one of the reasons I spent so many hours stargazing. It was a distraction from the prospect of torrid dreams.'

‘Stargazing!'

‘The study of the cosmos, the stars and the planets,' Constance elaborated.

‘You are an astronomer?'

‘You seem astonished. Is it because I have a passion for studying the night sky, or is because I am a woman with a passion for stargazing?' Constance turned away, absurdly disappointed. ‘My father too, finds it inexplicable. He can see no practical purpose to it, and if there is no prospect of him profiting from something he is utterly uninterested.'

‘I don't think it's inexplicable, and I most certainly do not think the fact that you are a woman should disbar you from scientific study. Quite the contrary. It is to your credit and to be commended.'

‘Oh.' She turned back to face him, her cheeks hot once again. ‘I'm terribly sorry. You sounded so— And then I assumed— And I ought not to have— Only my father— And I should not have spoken to you as I did, but I keep forgetting that you are a prince. I mean I don't forget, exactly, especially not when you give me that
assessing
look and I wish that I was thinking something a little more interesting for you to assess, but I fear that you would think my mind rather boring if you could read it, which you can't, obviously, though truly you do give one the impression that you can, and—and—oh, dear, that is another thing you do. Those silences. They make me want to fill them, and I start babbling and here I am, doing it again.'

Her face, she was sure, was bright scarlet. ‘You're probably now wishing there was a ship for Bombay due tomorrow after all,' Constance said, once again failing to keep to her resolve to stop talking.

‘Actually, quite the reverse. I was thinking that I have the perfect solution to occupy you for the three months you will be here.'

‘Ah, you have a vacancy for a court jester?'

Smiling faintly, the Prince took her hand, leading her over to the covered object which stood in the middle of the terrace. ‘Lady Constance,' he said, tugging at the knot which held the tarpaulin in place, ‘I have no need of a court jester, but I do have a vacancy for a court astronomer.'

* * *

Kadar pulled the tarpaulin away, and Lady Constance's mouth fell open. ‘A telescope! And such a telescope!' She ran her hands along the polished wooden barrel. She touched the little stool which was contained in the instrument's mounting box. She stroked her fingers along the system of pulleys and the brass handle which allowed the unwieldy tube of the telescope to pivot and rotate on its axis. She peered into the eyepiece. Finally, she ran her hands once more along the barrel. ‘I have never seen anything so beautiful,' she said, her voice hushed with awe. ‘How did you come by such a sophisticated instrument?'

She was staring at it as if it were made of gold. ‘I share your passion for studying the stars. You have no idea how rare it is to meet a fellow astronomer. This particular instrument is a seven-foot reflector,' Kadar said. ‘It was built in Mr Herschel's workshop. I purchased it five years ago, when I spent some time at Oxford. It has travelled with me ever since.'

‘This actually comes from William Herschel's own workshop?' Her big brown eyes glowed. Her smile was soft, almost tender, as her fingers strayed compulsively to the telescope again. Captivating, he had thought she could be last night, and she was. There was a sensuality in the way she touched the instrument, mingling reverence and passion. And he was once again becoming aroused!

‘I met the great man himself,' Kadar said, dragging his eyes away. ‘Mr Herschel, I mean. I went to see the forty-foot reflector that he had constructed in Slough. A most impractical instrument, I thought, far too cumbersome to be of much use. Mr Herschel himself admitted as much. He, however, was fascinating. The telescope with which he discovered the new planet is very similar to this one.'

‘Georgium Sidus
, he named it, in honour of the King,' Lady Constance said. ‘I like Uranus much better though, after Urania, the goddess of astronomy. Is it wrong for a court astronomer to confess that she prefers mythology to science as an explanation for the construction of the constellations?'

‘You are a romantic, then?' Kadar asked, in some surprise.

‘Who can deny the romance of the stars? Aside from my father, that is,' Lady Constance added wryly. The mention of her parent seemed to visibly deflate her. ‘How long will it take, do you think, for a letter to reach England? I must write to Mama.'

‘Weeks, perhaps a month or so. The securest and quickest route is to send it by way of the Red Sea to Cairo, where it can be handed over to your Consul General. I will ensure it is given priority.'

‘Thank you, once again I am indebted to you. You know, this morning I thought about what you said last night. The fact that I am legally dead, the notion that I could choose to remain so. It was only for a few brief moments, but I did think about it, though I know it would be very wrong of me. It was rather a sobering experience, for the sad fact is that the only person who will be truly mourning me will be Mama, and in a way, she has already mourned my passing. When I sailed, though we neither of us could admit it, it was pretty certain that I'd never see her again.' She blinked furiously. ‘Oh, for goodness' sake, please ignore me. It is not like me to be so morbid. Nor to feel sorry for myself.'

Kadar thought the feeling justified, but could see no point in saying so. ‘Come into the shade of the awning, and let me pour you a cool drink.'

‘I've embarrassed you again.'

‘No.'

‘You must think me a very volatile creature, one minute letting my tongue run away with me, the next falling into a swoon over a telescope, and the next bubbling like a—a stream.'