Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

‘Oh, Petra! You look so beautiful,’ her aunt whispered emotionally. ‘A perfect bride.’

They were standing together in Petra’s bedroom at the family villa, waiting for Petra’s grandfather to escort her to the civil marriage ceremony that would make her Rashid’s wife.

After the civil ceremony there was to be a lavish banquet held in their honour in the specially decorated banqueting suite of the hotel.

Petra’s aunt had spent virtually the whole of the last three days there overseeing everything, along with some of Rashid’s female relatives, but despite her exhortations Petra had not been able to bring herself to go and view the scene of her own legal entrapment.

There was no point, she knew, in trying to tell her aunt that she did not want to marry Rashid. The older woman had a ridiculously high opinion of him and would, Petra knew, simply not be able to accept that Petra herself hated and despised him.

Rashid knew it, though—she had made sure of that the day he had come to formally ask her grandfather for her hand in marriage.

Unable to refuse him outright as she had wished, for the sake of her aunt and her family, she had had to content herself with a bitterly contemptuous and hostile glare at him when her grandfather had summoned her to receive his proposal.

‘I am pleased to see that you have had the good sense to realise there is no alternative to this—for either of us,’ he had managed to tell her grimly, gritting the words to her so quietly that no one else could hear them.

And, as though that hadn’t been bad enough, she had then had to endure the miserable, humiliating parody of being forced to pretend that she wanted to accept his proposal!

However, she had managed to avert her face when he had leaned towards her to kiss her, so that his mouth had merely grazed her cheek instead of touching her lips.

Beneath his breath he had taunted her, ‘How very modest! A traditional shrinking bride! However, I already know just how passionate you can be beneath that assumed cold exterior!’

And now there was no escape for her.

Her attendants—a swarm of pretty chattering girls from her aunt’s extended family and Rashid’s—had already left for the hotel in their stunning butterfly-hued outfits, and soon Petra herself would be leaving with her grandfather. She tensed as her bedroom door opened and her grandfather came in.

Giving her veil a final twitch, her aunt left them on their own.

As he came towards her Petra could see that her grandfather’s eyes were shining with emotion. ‘You are so like your mother,’ he whispered. ‘Every day I see more and more of her in you. I have something I would like you to wear today,’ he told her abruptly, producing a leather jewellery box and removing from it a diamond necklace of such delicate workmanship that Petra couldn’t help giving a small murmur of appreciation.

‘This is for you,’ she heard her grandfather telling her. ‘It would mean a great deal to me if you would wear it today, Petra.’

Now Petra could understand her aunt’s insistence on choosing a fabric for her wedding gown which was sewn with tiny crystals. Originally, when the silk merchant had come to the house with a selection of fabrics, Petra had wondered bitterly just what kind of fabric would best suit a sacrificial offering. It had been her aunt who had fallen on the heavy matt cream fabric with its scattering of tiny beads with an exclamation of triumph.

Petra could feel her grandfather’s hands shaking as he fastened the necklace for her. It fitted her so perfectly that it might have been made for her.

‘It was your mother’s,’ he said. ‘It was my last gift to her. She left it behind. She would have been so proud of you today, Petra. Both your parents would, and with good reason.’

Proud of her? For allowing herself to be tricked into a soulless, loveless marriage?

Panic suddenly filled her. She couldn’t marry Rashid. She wouldn’t! She turned to her grandfather, but before she could speak her aunt came back into the room.

‘It is time for you to leave,’ she told them both.

As her grandfather walked towards the stairs Petra made to follow him, but her aunt suddenly stopped her. ‘You are not wearing Rashid’s gift,’ she chided her.

Petra stared at her.

‘The perfume he sent you, which he had specially blended for you,’ her aunt reminded her, clicking her tongue as she hurried over to the table and picked up the heavy crystal bottle.

‘No… I don’t want to wear it…’ Petra started to say, but her aunt wasn’t listening to her.

Petra froze as the warm, sensual scent surrounded her in a fragrant cloud.

‘It is perfect for you,’ her aunt was saying. ‘It has the youthfulness of innocence and the maturity of womanliness. Rashid has chosen well. And your mother’s necklace is perfect on you, Petra. Your grandfather has never stopped missing her or loving her, you know.’

As her throat threatened to close up with tears, Petra demanded huskily, ‘If he loved her so much then why didn’t he at least come to the funeral? Even if he could not have been there he could have sent a message… something… anything…’

All the pain she had felt on that dreadful day, when she had stood at her parents’ graveside surrounded by their friends and her father’s family and yet feeling dreadfully alone, was in her voice.

She heard her aunt sigh.

‘Petra, he would have been there. But there was his heart attack—and then when your godfather wrote that he did not think it a good idea that you should come here to us, that you had your own life and friends, he was too proud to… to risk a second rejection.’

Petra stared at her. She had known that her grandfather had made a very belated and seemingly—to her—very reluctant offer to give her a home, following her parents’ death, but she had had no idea that he had been prevented from attending their funeral by a heart attack.

‘A heart attack?’ she faltered. ‘I…’

‘It was his second,’ her aunt informed her, and then suddenly looked acutely uncomfortable, as though she had said something she should not have said.

‘His second?’ Petra had known nothing of this. ‘Then… when… when did he have his first?’ she demanded with a small frown.

Her aunt was becoming increasingly agitated.

‘Petra, I should not have spoken of this. Your grandfather never wanted… He swore us all to secrecy when it happened because he didn’t want your mother to feel…’

‘My mother?’

She gave her aunt a determined look.

‘I am not leaving this room until you tell me everything,’ she informed her sturdily.

‘Petra, you will be late. The car is waiting, and your grandfather…’

‘Not one single step,’ Petra warned her.

‘Oh, dear. I should never… Very well, then. I suppose it can do no harm for you to know now… after all, it was your mother your grandfather wanted to protect. He loved her so much, you see, Petra… He loved his sons, of course, but he had that love for her that a father will often have for his girl-child. According to my husband he spoiled her outrageously, but then I suppose that is an older brother speaking. When she left like that, your grandfather was beside himself… with anger… and with despair. He had planned so much for her…

‘Your uncle—my husband—found him slumped across his desk, holding your mother’s photograph. The doctor did not think he would survive. He was ill for a very, very long time. Oh… I should not have told you—not today,’ her aunt said remorsefully as she saw how pale Petra had gone.

‘All those wasted years,’ Petra whispered. ‘When they could have been together—when we could all have been together as a family!’

‘He missed her dreadfully.’

‘But my father wrote, sent photographs…’

Her aunt sighed.

‘You have to understand, Petra. Your grandfather is a very proud man. He couldn’t bear to accept an olive branch extended by your father. He wanted… needed to know that your mother still wanted him in her life, that she still loved him.’