The Ice Maiden's Sheikh

“What makes you so damned sure I know? Back to the palace, I suppose! Where else would she go?”

Her scarf was slipping forward over her face again. Jalia began irritably tearing at the pins that held it. What a stupid bloody custom it was, the bride having to be chosen from among a group of bridesmaids, all with scarves draped over their heads, to test the groom’s perspicacity! Everyone knew the groom was always tipped off as to exactly what his bride would be wearing, and today anyway Noor had infuriated all the diehards by wearing Western white. Bari would have had to be blind and ignorant to miss her, even under the yards of enveloping tulle.

But everyone had insisted on playing the ancient ritual out, nevertheless. It was just one of many reasons why Jalia was grateful that her parents had fled Bagestan years before she was born, and why she was not happy about their plans for coming back.

Latif Abd al Razzaq was another.

He gazed at her, incredulous. Jalia knew he would never believe that, as opposed as she had been to Noor’s hasty, ill-conceived wedding, Jalia had had absolutely nothing to do with this last-minute sabotage.

But what did she care? What Latif Abd al Razzaq thought of her mattered precisely nothing to her.

She flung the beautifully embroidered scarf away from her, not caring that it caught on a rosebush bristling with thorns.

“You have her ring.”

“Yes,” Jalia admitted coolly.

“How did you get it?”

“What makes it your business to ask me that question, Excellency? And in that particular tone of voice?”

His voice shifted to a deep growl. “What tone of voice do you want from me, Princess?” he asked abruptly.

Jalia’s skin twitched, but she brushed aside her nervous discomfort.

“I would be quite happy never to hear your voice at all.”

Jalia was glad of Latif Abd al Razzaq’s dislike, of the fierce disapproval that he didn’t bother to hide. A man like him could only be an enemy—she knew that much—and it was safer to have the enmity in the open. Then no one was fooled.

Looking up at him now, in the deep green silk jacket that intensified the dangerous depths of his emerald eyes, a thickly ornamented ceremonial sword slung from one hip, she felt the antipathy like a powerful current between them.

She didn’t know why he should dislike her, though she understood her own deep dislike of him clearly enough: he embodied everything she least liked in a man. Autocratic, overbearing, sure of himself, super-masculine, proud of it.

“Did Noor speak to you before she fled?”

She sighed her outrage. “What do you hope to gain by this?”

“Did she drop any hint? Did she say she was heading to the palace?”

“Will you stop imagining I stage-managed this? Whatever Noor is doing, and whoever is helping her, I had nothing to do with it! Has it occurred to you at all that this may not be what it looks like? For all you or I know, Noor was enticed out of the house by some threat—”

“Ah! She did not leave of her own accord?” The emerald eyes glinted with mocking admiration.

“I don’t know! Can’t you get it past your rigid mind-set that I have no idea why Noor has left—if she has?”

“If?”

“Well, I only have your word for it, Excellency, and you have now and then shown a predisposition to wanting to see me put in the wrong!”

His Excellency gazed at her without speaking for a moment.

“We must talk to the others. Come.”

He turned on his heel and started along the wide, roofed terrace, then entered the arched passageway that led into the main courtyard of the house.

Jalia’s jaw clenched, but she had to talk to Noor’s parents, and that meant apparently obeying Latif’s command. Besides, she reminded herself, he had the ring, and if she wasn’t present he would be sure to put some damning interpretation on the fact that he had found it in Jalia’s own hand.

Two

They descended the magnificent worn marble staircase to the main courtyard, where an air of subdued confusion hung over the wedding party. People were milling around, wondering and speculating, or simply looking bewildered.

Only the Sultan and Sultana looked unruffled, serenely chatting to whoever approached them, so that a tiny island of calm was created in the sea of unhappy excitement.

“What happened?”

“Where is the Princess?”

“Has someone been taken ill?”

“Is the wedding called off?”

The cloud of questions billowed her way, but Jalia didn’t stop; Latif was striding along as though the people were so many trees, and she was grateful to have the excuse to keep going. She had nothing to tell.

In the spacious, pillared reception hall, the families were grouped together on the low platform at one end of the room, talking in quiet, distressed voices. Everywhere the rich carpets were spread with tablecloths laid with china, crystal and silver, as if a thousand people had decided to picnic at once.

“Jalia!” Her mother and aunt, both looking tearful and confused, ran to her. “Did she say anything to you before she went? Where is she going? What happened?”

“H-has she really left the house?” Jalia stammered. She had never seen the two princesses so deeply distressed. Oh, how she wished she had been a little more reasoned in her opposition to Noor’s wedding! If her interference had contributed to this unhappiness…

“Didn’t you know? She has gone! She took the limousine! Still wearing her dress and veil!”

“She didn’t even change?” Jalia gasped. “But where could she go in her dress and veil, except back to the palace? Did she take any luggage?”

“The servants say it is all still stacked in the forecourt, nothing taken. There’s no sign of her at the palace. They will phone if she turns up, but if she had been heading there, surely she would have arrived by now! Tell us what happened!” her aunt begged.

“Aunt, I have no idea what happened! I wasn’t with her.”

But any information, she knew, was better than nothing at a time like this. “I went up with the other bridesmaids to collect her at the right time. The hairdresser said she’d gone into the bathroom. We waited. After about five minutes, I followed her in. She wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Zaynab, I should have raised the alarm right away, but I thought it was just nerves or she’d gone out to the wrong balcony or—” She bit her lip. “So I went to look for her. I suppose that wasted time, but I thought…”

Her aunt patted her hand. “Yes, you thought it was just one of Noor’s little games, Jalia. Anyone would have. But it’s more serious than that. It must be, for her to leave the house. Did she say anything to anyone? When I was with her she was fine, laughing, so happy and excited….”

“Aunt, she—I found her ring. It was on the floor in the room I am using. She must have gone out that way to avoid being seen.”

Latif produced the al Khalid Diamond. Her aunt all but snatched it from him, moaning with horror.

“She must have panicked,” someone offered. “Bridal jitters.”