Protecting the Desert Princess. Carol Marinelli

could Jamila tell a single soul that she secretly loved Fahid—the King—and no one must ever know about the occasional love they shared.

      ‘Here.’ Jamila handed Layla a cloth, which she took, and she washed her private parts as Jamila washed her hair.

      Still Layla carried on speaking.

      ‘Well, you should rest while we are in Australia,’ Layla said. ‘You deserve to have a holiday too.’

      ‘Layla!’ Jamila’s shrewd eyes narrowed as she rubbed oil into Layla’s long black mane of hair. ‘What are you up to?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Layla shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘I just think that it would be nice for you to have a chance to rest and relax.’

      Layla said no more, but she was worried about how her plans might affect Jamila, who was old and very set in her ways.

      Trinity and Zahid, Layla had decided, would just have to bear the chaos of her actions. After all, they had had their fun—but poor Jamila…

      Layla swallowed and dismissed the gnaw of discontent. She certainly wasn’t going to change her plans to spare a servant’s feelings.

      ‘You are too thin,’ Jamila said as she looked at Layla’s skinny knees jutting up out of the water, her slender arms wrapped around them.

      ‘Jamila,’ Layla said, ‘I could fill this bath and you would still say that I was too thin. Do you remember when I was a baby and always hungry and you said that I was too fat?’

      Jamila’s hand paused as she went to rinse Layla’s hair—Layla should not remember those times. Jamila thought of those little fat legs and arms and her round belly. Layla had been such an angry, demanding baby and toddler. She had begged for attention from her father and it had been denied her as he’d grieved deeply for Annan, the late Queen. Jamila had tried to comfort the little princess with food, feeding her cream, honey, anything that might stop the relentless sobs that filled the palace.

      Such sad, sad times.

      ‘Let us get you dressed,’ Jamila said, quickly finishing Layla’s hair. ‘Your father wishes to speak with you before you leave.’

      Layla had chosen a simple burnt orange cotton tunic for the journey, but Jamila prepared a silver robe and silver jewelled slippers for her to wear on her arrival as there would be some dignitaries to greet them. Her fingers, toes and ears were dressed in pretty jewels, and her long black hair was tied in a low bun which was worn at the side of her head.

      ‘Dismissed,’ Layla said to Jamila, and then frowned when still she stood there.

      ‘You will listen to what your father has to say, won’t you?’ Jamila asked, for she too was worried at the thought of Layla beyond the palace walls.

      ‘Dismissed, Jamila,’ Layla said.

      Alone, Layla stepped out onto the balcony. The sun was starting to set and the sky was a fiery orange. The desert was like molten gold and it was a sight to behold, a view that she loved, and yet she knew there was more. She looked up to the sky, through which she would soon be being carried to her long-awaited adventure.

      She knew she was being bad, and yet she had tried so hard to be good.

      Once this was over she would be good for ever, Layla vowed.

      This was her last chance.

      Four years ago, when she was twenty, Layla had been dressed in white and gold and led down the stairs to walk into a room and select her husband from the men who knelt there.

      Hussain had been and still was considered the right choice. They had played as children, and her father had told her that marrying Hussain would bring many benefits to the people of Ishla. Yet as Layla had walked down the stairs she had remembered what a mean little boy Hussain had been, and she had collapsed and started to shout and scream.

      The kind palace doctor had smoothed out the offence caused by explaining that anxiety had caused the young princess to have a seizure.

      Layla smiled to the sky. She had not selected her husband that day.

      It had not been a seizure, just her temper exploding as she had looked at her wrist and recalled one time with Hussain.

      ‘How do you make a match burn twice?’ he had asked when Layla was nine.

      ‘Show me?’

      Wide-eyed, Layla had watched as he had lit the match and blown it out and then dug the burning sulphur into her wrist.

      Immediately Layla had slapped him.

      Now she looked down to the small scar on her otherwise unblemished skin and wondered about Hussain’s reaction if his wife were to slap him.

      He had no doubt moved on from matches now!

      Layla headed back inside and opened the drawer in her dresser. Feeling far into the back, she removed the wrapped parcel she had been hiding.

      Opening it, she held in her palm the black ruby named Opium. It had been gifted to her at birth by the King of Bishram and must surely be worth quite a lot.

      Layla hoped that it was.

      She had read that Mikael was expensive, and perhaps he would want to be paid.

      Layla slipped the ruby into her tunic, worrying about something she had read on the internet about Australian Customs. She tried to tell herself that it would all be okay.

      She made her way through the palace to her father’s study, where Abdul, the King’s chief aide, let her in. But Fahid dismissed Abdul so that he could speak to his daughter alone.

      ‘Are you looking forward to your trip?’ Fahid asked her.

      ‘Very much, Father.’

      ‘When you are in the hotel you will have your own room, with Jamila adjoining. Jamila is to take care of you there, but at all other times you are to be with either Trinity or Zahid.’

      ‘I know that.’

      ‘If you are in a restaurant then Trinity is to come with you if you need to go to—’

      ‘Father!’ Layla interrupted. ‘I do know the rules.’

      ‘They are there for your protection,’ the King said. He looked at his daughter, whom he loved so very much. She was so contrary—floaty and vague, and yet arrogant too, just as her mother Annan had been. Layla was fiercely independent, and yet naïve from living her life within the palace grounds.

      ‘Layla, I have not asked to speak with you to deliver meaningless words and a lecture. I really want you to listen to all that I have to say. Things are very different overseas—the people are different too. There is traffic…’ The King winced as he thought of his daughter in a foreign city with fast-moving cars when she had never so much as crossed a road.

      Layla saw his grimace and her heart went out to her father. ‘I know you are worried for me, Father,’ she said. ‘I know that you have loved me from the moment that I was born…’

      Again the King closed his eyes as Layla hit a still raw nerve.

      He hadn’t loved her from the moment she was born.

      In fact the King had rejected Layla for more than a year. Sometimes Fahid wondered if that was why Layla was so rebellious and constantly challenged him, even if she couldn’t logically know about that time.

      He worried so much about her—especially knowing that soon he would be gone from his world. Surely Layla needed a stern husband like Hussain, who would keep her in line?

      He would just miss the wild Layla so…

      ‘Do you have any questions you wish to ask?’ Fahid offered.

      ‘I do.’ Layla nodded. ‘Father, I was looking up the customs in Australia—I thought I would find out who curtsies to me, who bows, and what