The Sheikh Crowns His Virgin. LYNNE GRAHAM

Farida framed with slightly raised brows.

      Zoe coloured, wondering if her familiar use of Raj’s name had offended. ‘I didn’t know he was a prince,’ she said ruefully. ‘He said he was nobody of any importance.’

      Farida startled her by loosing a spontaneous giggle and turned, clearly translating Zoe’s statement for the benefit of their companions. Much laughter ensued.

      ‘The Prince was teasing you. He is the son of our King.’

      Zoe’s eyes widened to their fullest extent and she gulped. ‘He’s the bad-boy Prince?’ she exclaimed before she could think better of utilising that label.

      ‘The bad boy?’ Farida winced at that definition. ‘No, I don’t think so. He is my husband’s best friend and he took a dangerous risk coming here to see us. ‘

      ‘Oh...’ Zoe noticed that Farida didn’t risk translating her comment about Raj being a bad boy and resolved to be much more careful about what she said. According to Raj these people had had nothing to do with her kidnapping and they had looked after her well while she was unable to look after herself. She didn’t want to slight them.

      After all, she knew next to nothing about Raj, had merely read that tag for him on a website she had visited, which had contained the information that he had been sent into exile years ago for displeasing his father, the King.

      ‘Risk?’ she found herself pressing, taut with curiosity. ‘What did he risk?’

      ‘That is for his telling—if he has the opportunity,’ Farida said evasively. ‘But do not forget that the Prince is the King’s only son, his only child in fact. He was born to the King’s third wife when he had almost given up hope of having an heir.’

      Zoe nodded circumspectly, unwilling to invite another polite snub and swallowing back questions that she was certain no one, least of all Farida, would wish to answer. Stupid man, she thought in exasperation. Why on earth hadn’t he told her who he really was? It was not as though she could have guessed that he was of royal blood. She felt wrong-footed, however, and, recalling how she had assaulted him, gritted her teeth. It was his own fault though: he shouldn’t have crept up on her like that.

      An adorable toddler nudged her elbow in pursuit of a piece of apple and Zoe handed it over, waving her hand soothingly at Farida, who rebuked the little girl.

      ‘No, my daughter must learn good manners,’ Farida asserted.

      ‘What’s her name?’ Zoe asked as the toddler planted herself in her lap and looked up at her with eyes like milk-chocolate buttons, set beneath a wealth of wavy black hair.

      Farida relaxed a little then, and talked about her three children.

      * * *

      Accompanied by Omar, Raj strode into his cousin’s tent where his father awaited him, seated by the fire.

      ‘I thought I would find you here,’ his father informed him with a look of considerable satisfaction. ‘You are grown tall, my son. You have become a man while you have been away. Omar, you may leave. We will talk later.’

      Raj’s appraisal of the older man was slower and filled with concern because he could see that Tahir had aged. It was eight years since he had seen his father in the flesh. His parent had been in his fifties when Raj was born twenty-eight years earlier and the agility that had distinguished Tahir then had melted away. From a distance, Raj had watched his father’s slow, painful passage to the tent, recognising that the rheumatoid arthritis, which had struck his parent in his sixties, now gripped him hard in spite of the many medical interventions that had been staged. He was still spry but very thin and stiff, the lines on his bearded face more deeply indented, but his dark eyes remained as bright and full of snapping intelligence as ever.

      ‘Sit down, Raj,’ the King instructed. ‘We have much to discuss but little time in which to do it.’

      Raj folded lithely down opposite and waited patiently while the server ritually prepared the coffee from a graceful metal pot with a very long spout. He took the tiny cup in his right hand, his long brown fingers rigid as he waited for one of his father’s characteristic tirades to break over his head. Tahir was an authoritarian parent and had become even more abrasive and critical after the death of his third wife, Raj’s mother. Sadly, that had been the period when Raj had been most in need of comfort and understanding and, instead of receiving that support, Raj had been sent to a military school where he was unmercifully bullied and beaten up. From the instant Raj had left school, he and his father had had a difficult relationship.

      ‘I knew that Omar would run to you for help. He never had a thought in his head that you didn’t put there first,’ Tahir remarked fondly. ‘We will not discuss the past, Raj. That would lead us back to dissension.’

      ‘I’m sorry, but this woman...’ Raj began even though he knew the interruption was rude, because he was so keen to find out why his father had acted as he had and had risked an enormous scandal simply to take his brother down a peg or two.

      ‘You never did have a patient bone in your body.’ Tahir sighed. ‘Have sufficient respect to listen first. I want you home, Raj, back where you belong, as my heir.’

      Raj was stunned. For a split second he actually gaped at the older man, his brilliant dark eyes shimmering with astonishment and consternation.

      His father moved a hand in a commanding gesture to demand his continuing silence. ‘I will admit no regrets. I will make no apologies. But had I not sent you away, my foolish brother would never have plotted to take your place,’ he pointed out grimly. ‘For eight years I have watched you from afar, working for Maraban, loyally doing your best to advance our country’s best interests. Your heart is still with our people, which is as it should be.’

      Raj compressed his lips and gazed down into his coffee, dumbfounded by the very first accolade he had ever received from his strict and demanding parent.

      ‘Do you want to come home? Do you wish to stand as the Crown Prince of Maraban again?’

      A great wash of longing surged through Raj and his shoulders went stiff with the force of having to hold back those seething emotions. He swallowed hard. ‘I do,’ he breathed hoarsely.

      ‘Of course, my generosity must come at a price,’ the King assured him stiffly.

      Unsurprised by that stricture, Raj breathed in deep and slow. ‘I don’t care who I marry now,’ he declared in a driven undertone, hoping that that was the price his father planned to offer him. ‘That element of my life is no longer of such overriding importance to me.’

      ‘So, no longer a romantic,’ his father remarked with visible relief. ‘That is good. A romantic king would be too soft for the throne. And it is too late to turn you into a soldier. But your marriage... On that score I cannot compromise.’

      ‘I understand,’ Raj conceded flatly, shaking his hand to indicate that he did not want another cup of coffee, for any appetite for it had vanished. Sight unseen, some bride of good birth would be chosen for him and he and his bride would have to make a practical marriage. It would be a compromise, a challenge. Well, he was used to challenges even if he wasn’t very good at compromises, he acknowledged grimly. But he would have to learn, and fast, because it was unlikely he would have much in common with the bride chosen for him.

      ‘I should thank Hakem for bringing the Fotakis girl to my attention because I didn’t even know she existed,’ the King mused with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘I was outraged when I realised what my brother was planning to do. I was even more outraged when I realised that I had no choice but to approach Fotakis himself...the man who stole the beautiful Azra from me. But he has given his permission.’

      Only then registering what the older man was proposing, Raj threw his head back in shock. ‘You’re expecting me to marry Zoe?’

      ‘And to do it right now, today. I brought the palace imam with me,’ his father told him bluntly. ‘This marriage would be your