Sheikh's Forbidden Queen: Zarif's Convenient Queen / Gambling with the Crown

With a look of deep resentment, the young Vashiri woman backed into the corridor and Belle shut the door on her while heaving a sigh of relief. ‘Of course you can’t talk with her listening in!’

Ella drank from her glass. She felt incredibly thirsty, her mouth very dry as she watched Zarif leap across the central fire pit with astonishing athleticism and grace, his lean, muscular body soaring high above the flames. At that moment he simply took her breath away.

‘He’s so fit and he’s probably been doing that stuff since he was about five years old,’ Betsy commented admiringly. ‘Nik said he had a very traditional upbringing with his grandparents and his uncle.’

Belle was scanning Ella’s expressive face as she watched her handsome bridegroom bring down his sword with a metallic clash to meet the other men’s weapons in the inner circle. ‘Why on earth did you reject him three years ago?’

‘None of our business,’ Betsy slotted in uneasily.

‘He told me he would always love Azel and that she was irreplaceable,’ Ella heard herself admit before she could think better of it.

‘You’re kidding me,’ Belle breathed, her face stunned. ‘I can’t believe he was that stu—’

‘At least he was honest,’ Ella countered defensively. ‘It wasn’t what I wanted to hear but I was better off knowing.’

‘Men!’ Belle exclaimed in a tone of lingering disbelief as Ella opened the door to invite Hanya back in to join them. Ella was annoyed with herself for speaking so freely and reckoned that Hanya’s deflating presence would, at least, make her guard her tongue.

When the dance was finished, Ella’s mind was stuffed with exotic imagery of Zarif as she had never seen him before. Hanya led them downstairs into an ornately tiled room where Zarif was waiting with his brothers, the imam and an older man in a wheelchair with a nurse hovering over him. Halim al-Rastani’s poor state of health was obvious in his sunken dark eyes and pallor but he smiled warmly at Ella and he lifted a frail hand to urge her to come closer.

Lean, strong face grave, Zarif moved forward to join her and perform a formal introduction.

‘You are indeed very beautiful,’ Zarif’s uncle told her kindly. ‘It is a joy for me to meet you at last. May you and my nephew be blessed with many children and a long life.’

Momentarily colliding with Zarif’s warning golden gaze and feeling rather as though she had run into a brick wall, Ella swallowed hard and lowered her lashes. Quite ridiculously she felt guilty about the reality that she had no intention of having any children with Zarif and indeed was currently taking medication that should prevent pregnancy. Her head was also beginning to swim a little. It had to be the heat getting to her, she thought ruefully, perspiration dampening her upper lip. The palace had ceiling fans everywhere but no proper air conditioning and she was sweltering in the heavy kaftan layered with petticoats.

The imam stepped forward and began to speak while Betsy’s husband, Nik, stationed himself to Ella’s left side and quietly and smoothly translated every word of the Arabic ceremony for her benefit. A guiding hand resting in the shallow indentation of her spine, Zarif led her over to the table where a document awaited their signatures.

‘The marriage contract,’ Zarif explained as the witnesses followed suit. He lifted a large and ornate wooden box from the table and extended it to Ella.

‘What’s this?’ she whispered, leaning slightly sideways at the sheer weight of the box.

‘It’s the mahr...your dowry,’ Nik translated with some amusement.

Hamid darted forward to remove the box from Ella’s hold and bestow it on Hanya, who was waiting outside the door.

‘I have a dowry?’ Ella muttered to Zarif, her disbelief at the explanation unconcealed.

One hand cupping her elbow, Zarif drew her into an alcove off the corridor. His lean, extravagantly handsome face was forbidding in its uninformative stillness. ‘It is traditional that I give my bride the royal jewel collection.’

‘But you’ve already given my family so much,’ Ella muttered in growing discomfiture.

‘That is our private business. I sincerely doubt that you want that fact spread round my entire family,’ Zarif spelt out very drily. ‘I’m sure I need not add that you must surrender the jewels when we part.’

Her face flamed hotter than a fire in embarrassment and she tore her discomfited gaze from his lean, darkly handsome features, embarrassment and resentment creating a heady tempest of reaction inside her. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she declared, wrenching her arm free of his and leaving the alcove to join Hanya where she waited with the box several feet away.

‘Your Majesty.’ Hanya curtsied to her for the first time and ushered Ella into another room. ‘You will want to put on some jewellery before you meet your guests.’

In actuality there was nothing Ella wanted to do less than don any piece of jewellery that was only on loan to her until Zarif took a real wife and which had previously been worn by Azel. How dared he assume that she would have the cheek to try and retain valuables that did not belong to her after their fake marriage ended? Pride brought her chin up but she thought better of protest and compressed her lips, leaving Hanya to the task of selecting items from the overflowing casket of glittering gold-encased gems.

Decked out, in her own opinion, like a Christmas tree, Ella followed Hanya slowly into the vast reception room where all the guests were gathered. Hanya left her hovering just inside the doorway and approached Zarif. Ella watched the dainty brunette speak to her tall, powerfully built husband and wondered what Azel’s cousin was saying to stamp such a look of brooding dissatisfaction on Zarif’s lean, strong face. Ella joined Belle, who admired the collar of flawless sapphires encircling Ella’s elegant neck and the superb matching pendant earrings reaching almost to her shoulder.

‘Wow,’ Belle breathed in reverent admiration. ‘I’ve seen loads of jewels but in all my life I’ve never seen anything to equal the size and clarity of those.’

Zarif studied his bride, whose gait was almost imperceptibly unsteady. His expressive mouth tightened. While the famous sapphires certainly enhanced the breathtaking gentian blue of her eyes, the feverish colour highlighting her cheekbones and the pallor of her porcelain skin beyond it were equally obvious to him. Most probably the large amount of alcohol she had consumed was having an effect, he thought derisively, furious that she could have been so foolish as to indulge in such a dangerous practice when their behaviour was the focus of every person present.

One hand on her elbow as guidance, he escorted her round the room to introduce her to local dignitaries and then he took her through to the banqueting room where the wedding meal was being staged.

Ella was feeling very hot, literally as though she were burning up below the kaftan. There was a sensation of tightness across her chest and her breath was wheezing and catching a little in her throat. The jewellery was as heavy as the dress and she felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. ‘I think I need to sit down,’ she told Zarif before he could make her talk to any more strangers.

A pair of throne-like chairs sat below a canopy and he settled her down in one with great care. ‘Food will be brought to us,’ he informed her, taking a seat by her side.

Ella had never felt less hungry in her life. Indeed the prospect of food turned her stomach. There was a metallic taste in her mouth and her throat felt funny. Strong black coffee was served to her by a kneeling servant.

‘Coffee will sober you up,’ Zarif pronounced with lethal derision.

‘I’m not drunk...I only had one drink,’ Ella whispered back at him, staring at him in consternation and surprise. ‘And I don’t feel like coffee.’

‘Drink it,’ Zarif instructed in a raw aside.

Ella felt more like throwing it at him but, conscious that they were the cynosure of attention, she sipped doggedly at the bitter brew, hoping it would ease her tight throat. Unfortunately the coffee seemed to exacerbate her nausea and before very long she flew upright without a word to Zarif and headed off in urgent search of the nearest cloakroom.

‘Where are you going?’ he demanded, catching her hand in his to still her in her tracks.

‘Cloakroom...sick!’ she gasped in desperation.

He urged her out through a side door with a scantily leashed curse. ‘In there...’ he told her grimly.

In merciful privacy, Ella lost the meagre contents of her stomach and then hung on the edge of the vanity unit to stay upright while she tried to freshen her mouth. Cramping pains continued to course across her abdomen. She was feeling really ill and she staggered slightly as she reeled dizzily back to Zarif’s side. ‘I’m not well,’ she muttered shakily, feeling hot and cold and dreadful, black spots appearing in her vision.

‘You will have to control it,’ Zarif informed her unsympathetically.

Her head swimming, her legs hollow and weak, Ella gave him an incredulous glance from heavily lidded eyes and then she dropped like a stone to the tiled floor at his feet.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_ede05ef1-c6d9-532d-b216-afa061ebe89a)

ZARIF STUDIED HIS BRIDE, his stern gaze welded to the still slight figure in the big bed. Recent events had made certain facts painfully clear: Ella was his wife and his to protect. His responsibility alone. And he had almost lost her, indeed come within minutes of doing so and he was still in shock from the experience.

Had he known what he was doing when he married her? Had he really believed he could shrug off all sense of obligation and sidestep the commitment? So what if, once, she had played games with him and hurt his pride? She had only been a girl, a fickle, lively girl playing with fire without knowing she could get burned. And yet he had intended to burn her, had intended to punish her.

His wide sensual mouth compressed on the acknowledgement that everything had changed in the space of a moment, the same moment in which Ella had collapsed at his feet. He had made a grievous error of judgement and it could have cost Ella her life. He did not want to picture a world in which Ella no longer walked. His bitterness was not so deep, his pride not so high. He still wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman and he could not let her go, he would not let her go until he was free of his craving for her. Only then could he move on and remarry, awarding his next wife the full unquestioning commitment that was her due.

Ella’s eyelashes fluttered and then lifted on a dimly lit room.

An ornate canopy hung over the bed. The edges of the fabric were fringed and tasselled and swinging a little in the breeze. She identified the source of the breeze as the whirring fan in the background and put a hand up to discover what was covering her nose.

‘Don’t touch the oxygen mask!’ Zarif warned her, suddenly appearing by the side of the bed and giving her a fright.

Ella blinked up at him as though he were a mirage. Muddled and confusing images of the sword dance, the wedding and the guests were racing through her mind faster than the speed of light until she recalled the last ignominious moment in the cloakroom, after which everything became a complete blank.