Sheikh's Honor

“Okay, everybody, the table needs to be set!” Clio announced, not sorry to break up the group. “Sorry, your fan club has work to do,” she added dryly to Jalal.

Jalal nodded impassively, recognizing the jealousy in that.

“He has to choose a plaque first!” someone exclaimed indignantly, and of course Clio had to give in.

“What is Clio’s plaque?” Jalal asked, as he browsed among the little squares of plastic, each with a different image on it, that were reserved for the use of visitors. For the length of his stay, this plaque would represent him.

“Clio’s the pussycat,” Donnelly articulated carefully. She pointed to the duty roster on the wall. “The black-and-white one. I’m the butterfly.”

“All right. I will take this one,” Jalal said, choosing a plaque with his finger and drawing it out of the spread.

“The tiger!” they chorused. “He’s a very wild tiger!” Donnelly informed him impressively.

Clio tried, but she could not keep her eyes away.

He was watching her gravely, and something unspoken passed between them. Something that made her deeply nervous.

“Right, then! He’s chosen a plaque! Let’s clear the table!” she cried, and the children all moved to their usual mealtime tasks.

“And I,” Jalal said. “What shall I do to assist?”

She had been hoping that he would expect to be served. She had been anticipating telling him that in this kitchen, everyone did their share, male and female, bandit and nouveau prince alike. She flicked him a glance, and saw that he was watching her face as if he could read her thoughts there. He gave her an ironically amused look, and she blushed.

“You can help me, Jalal,” an adoring voice said. “I have to fold the serviettes.”

One of the boys snorted. “Princes don’t fold serviettes, Donnelly!” he began, but Jalal held up a hand.

“No job worth doing is beneath any man.” And it infuriated Clio even more to see Ben nodding in respectful agreement, as if he had just learned something profound.

Jalal smiled down at Donnelly. “I would like very much to help you,” he said. “Will you teach me to fold them just right?”

It wasn’t often that Donnelly got to pass on her wisdom to anyone; she was usually on the receiving end. At Jalal’s words, her chest expanded with a delighted intake of air.

“It’s very important to match the edges!” she informed him.

A few minutes later they all sat down, amid the usual mealtime babble. When their parents were at the table, a certain amount of order was imposed, keeping it, as their father Brandon said, to a dull roar. But when Clio was in charge, she didn’t usually bother. It didn’t hurt anyone if once in a while bedlam reigned.

But the first time someone said, “Is that true, Jalal?” and the prince replied quietly, “I am sorry, I didn’t understand. When everyone talks at the same time, I can’t follow,” a respectful hush fell on them.

After that, it was, “Shhh! Jalal can’t follow!” when anyone tried to interrupt the current speaker.

Then lunch was over, and there was the usual competition to be first to get their plates into the dishwasher. Donnelly explained the task to Jalal, and again he performed it without apparently feeling that it was any assault on his masculinity or his princely status.

Clio was almost certain that he was doing all this just to spike her guns, because he had guessed that she was waiting to tell him how unimportant his princely status was here in the democratic confines of the Blake family, or to explain that male superiority had been superseded in the West. She was even more convinced of it when, straightening from having set his utensils in just the right place under Donnelly’s tutelage, he threw her another of those glances.

“Round one to you,” she bit out, feeling driven.

“Only round one? I have counted three,” he observed mildly. “How many before we stop the match, Clio?”

The match went on, under cover of surface friendliness, for several days. Brandon showed Jalal the ropes at the marina for a couple of days, and on the following day Jalal and Ben started creosoting the marina dock while Jeremiah went with Brandon to work on one of the cottages, taking their lunch with them. Teaching at the high school had stopped, and the next three weeks was exams, but the younger children were still at school full-time.

It was a beautiful day, and when they broke at lunch the first coat was done.

“That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen the first coat go on,” Ben said. “You really know how to swing a brush.”

The youthful admiration in his tone made Clio grit her teeth.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Jalal said.

“Paint the palace a lot, do you?” Clio interjected.

Jalal gazed at her for a long moment, as if he was bored with her childish taunts.

“We’ve got another hour till the second coat can go on,” Ben said. “Want to take a boat out? I could show you around.”

“Thank you, Ben, another day. Just now, I would like to talk alone with your sister Clio.”

The hair stood up on the back of her neck, but there was nothing she could say. Within a couple of minutes, she found herself alone with him in the big friendly kitchen. Tense, and angry because she was, Clio determinedly started her usual tasks.

“You dislike me very much, Clio,” Jalal said. “Tell me why.”

Taken aback by his directness, she shook her head and bent to scoop some dishwashing powder into the dishwasher.

He caught her arm, forcing her to straighten, and the touch shivered all through her. She did not want this. She was not at all prepared to start defending her attitude to him. And he had no right to demand it.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to touch a woman not related to you,” she said coldly, staring down at where his hand clasped her bare arm, just above the elbow. She felt under threat. She did not want to have this conversation.

He ignored her comment. “Tell me,” he said. “I want to know why you alone are unwilling to be my friend.”

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, using far more effort than was necessary for such a light hold, and staggered.

“I told you at the wedding. We will never be friends.”

“Why not?”

She was silent.

“Your sister has forgiven what I did. Your parents, too. Why cannot you?”

She turned her back on him deliberately, closed the dishwasher and set it going. He was silent, too, behind her, and her nerves didn’t seem up to the strain. Her skin shivered with awareness of him.

“Do you believe it impossible that your sister took no hurt while she was my hostage? Do you suspect me of hurting her, or allowing her to be hurt?” he asked, finally.

She was silent. Was that what she feared? She hardly knew. All she knew was that Jalal was a threat, and she wished he had never come.

“Look at me, Clio.”

His voice was seductive, almost hypnotic, though he did not seem to be doing that deliberately. Feeling driven, she turned to face him. He was too close. She thought dimly, Middle Eastern people have a smaller body territory or something—they always stand too close for Westerners’ comfort. Her heart kicked uncomfortably.