Hot Arabian Nights

‘A fact which I am sure will give him a sleepless night worrying about the consequences, once his temper cools.’

‘Kamal knows perfectly well that I would not punish him for something said in the heat of the moment, and in private.’

‘Does he? Then I hope he is duly grateful. Were the cases reversed, I doubt you would find him so forgiving.’

‘No, no, you mistake the matter,’ Azhar said. ‘When all is said and done, Kamal is my only brother.’

Julia opened her mouth to tell Azhar exactly what she thought of Kamal, then thought the better of it, recalling her other, most unfortunate comparison to Prince George. ‘Obviously, you know him much better than I,’ she said, in what she hoped was a neutral tone.

Her hopes were unfounded. ‘Equally obviously, you do not actually believe that,’ Azhar said. ‘Please enlighten me.’

The pulse was still quite visible in his neck. ‘No,’ Julia said.

‘No, you do not agree with me, or, no, you will not enlighten me.’

She managed to stop herself from folding her arms defensively just in time. ‘No, I will not be intimidated into saying something which will make you even angrier than you already are,’ she said.

‘I am not angry with you.’

‘Yes, you are,’ Julia said, ‘because for some reason, you are reluctant to be angry with your brother.’

The flexing fingers stopped. Azhar pushed his coffee cup aside and got to his feet, staring out over the garden. ‘I am angry with Kamal, but it is unfair of me to be so. He resents my return, quite understandably so, when he has been custodian of the kingdom for so long. He perceives my enquiries into the well-being of the kingdom as criticism of his judgement. Again, understandably.’

Azhar did not sound at all convinced, Julia thought as she finished her own coffee and joined him. It was the first time he had admitted to any concern over his brother’s abilities, that his travels out into the kingdom were not merely to allow him to become reacquainted with it, but to ascertain its state of health, but she decided not to draw attention to this fact. ‘If your brother had nothing to hide,’ she said instead, ‘he would have no need to be defensive.’

‘I might be defensive myself, if the situation was reversed,’ Azhar replied. ‘Kamal—oh, I don’t know. Things here have changed, Kamal told me so himself. No doubt he is anxious for my approval, nothing more.’

He gave himself a little shake. ‘Enough of Kamal. This is one change that I heartily approve of,’ he said, pushing her hair back from her face. ‘From the first moment I saw you, I wanted to see it like this.’ He smoothed her hair down her back, his fingers feathering down her spine. ‘A river of fire.’

His touch was certainly setting her alight. She suspected he was using her as a distraction, but at this moment Julia was more than happy to be distracted. She stepped into his embrace, setting her hands on his shoulders, feeling the ripple of his muscles beneath the soft cotton of his tunic. ‘Is there such a thing as a river of fire?’

Azhar slid his hands up her sides to rest just under her breasts. ‘A river of fire is what you have kindled in me,’ he said softly.

He must be able to feel her heart hammering. He must be able to feel the heat of her skin through her tunic. Julia flattened her own hands on to his back, smoothing down the ridge of his spine to the taut curve of his buttocks. His pupils were dark. His breathing was just very slightly ragged.

Azhar cupped her breasts. She bit back a moan as he began to circle her nipples with his thumbs. The thin layer of silk grazed her acutely sensitive skin. His touch sent ripples of sensation down her body, making her belly clench, making her insides throb. He leaned closer, his mouth on her ear, nipping at her lobe.

Her body was clamouring for her to throw herself at him, to beg him wildly to take her, words that she had never spoken in her life. She was a mass of pulse points. Her nipples ached. She curled her fingers into his buttocks simply to stop them wandering, and felt him tense at her touch, saw the flare of heat in his eyes. He kissed his way along her jaw. He licked his way along her bottom lip, all the time his hands cupping and stroking, stoking the fires which blazed under her skin, running a path from her nipples to her belly to the raw ache building between her thighs.

And then he kissed her. A dark kiss, like melting chocolate, like warm honey, sweet and heady, it clogged her brain and added to the clamouring of her body. His tongue touched hers, stroked hers, making her languorous and setting her alight at the same time. When he broke the kiss she moaned in protest, until he covered her nipple with his mouth, sucking through the silk of her tunic, and Julia let out a strange little mewl of pleasure. She shifted restlessly against the low parapet, her hands roaming up and down Azhar’s back, feeling the flex and tense of his muscles, wanting to do more, but without any idea of what to do, hesitant about getting it wrong. And distracted. Very distracted. By his mouth, on her other nipple now. And then on her lips again, in a kiss that she could drown in.

And his hands. His hands, dear heavens, his hands. On her bottom. Pulling her into him, pressing the hard ridge of his arousal between her legs. And then his hands again. Unfastening the sash that held her pantaloons together, slipping between her thighs, sliding inside her.

Julia’s stifled moan had a rough edge to it. He slid his fingers higher, and began to stroke her. She was so hot. And she was so tight. Yet he slid so easily inside her, over her, and...

‘Oh, yes, that,’ she cried out before she could stop herself. ‘I mean—I didn’t mean...’

‘This?’ Azhar said, doing it again. ‘You mean this? Do not be shy Julia, how am I to learn what pleases you, if you don’t share it with me?’

‘Everything you’ve done pleases me.’

‘Then let me please you some more,’ he said. He kissed her and he stroked her, tongue and fingers entering her in unison, arousing her in unison, making her tighten around him, making her moan against him, making her arch her body so that he could thrust higher. She could hear herself pleading and moaning, and she couldn’t stop herself. She clung on, not wanting it to end, afraid that it would not end, but then Azhar urged her to let go, and he did something new and magical and she had no choice but to let go, with a shuddering cry, to cling on to him as her climax ripped through her, hot and wild as the desert just behind them, rippling like the soft sands of that desert, leaving her as alive, as bright and vivid as the desert sky above them, as if all that colour and all that exotic beauty had been infused into her veins.

* * *

‘Goodness.’ Julia blushed. ‘I mean—goodness.’

Her utter delight, and the fact that she made no attempt to disguise it, was refreshing as well as arousing. Not that Azhar needed to be further aroused. ‘Surely you are not at a loss for words?’ he teased.

The hectic flush on her cheeks deepened. ‘I am not in the habit of talking after such events. Or during. Not that such events are—oh, you know what I mean.’

He pushed her hair back from her face. ‘The pleasure of such events, as you call them, can be enhanced by communication.’

‘It was certainly pleasurable for me,’ Julia said. ‘But you...’

‘We have a saying, Julia. Any journey has many destinations. That was merely the first stage along the way. And sufficient for now.’ She looked unconvinced. Truth be told, he would give a great deal for a welcome release, especially looking at her now, hair wild, her tunic in disarray, her nipples still clearly defined through the silk. ‘Part of my pleasure is watching you learn to enjoy yours, Julia. To help you learn, if you wish me to, though I suspect that, freed from constraint, you may help me learn too.’

‘I can’t imagine how that would be possible. I don’t know what you want, and even if I did...’

‘Julia, when the time comes, I promise you will know.’

She smiled uncertainly. ‘I hope the time comes soon. I can’t believe I’ve already been here nearly a week. Only three more, and I will be heading back to England.’

She had not meant it, but her words were as effective as a dousing of icy cold water. In three weeks, he too would be claiming his freedom. Though it was all he longed for, it was a frighteningly small amount of time to achieve all that was required. It also meant that he had only another three weeks to spend with Julia, and oddly, for he was not at all in the habit of spending any significant time with a woman, that also seemed too brief. He liked her. He’d better be careful not to like her too much. ‘You are certain that another three weeks will be sufficient for your purposes?’ Azhar asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Julia replied blithely. ‘There are more than sufficient plants even within the small part of this lovely kingdom I have already visited to complete Daniel’s book in that time. Besides, in three weeks’ time I am sure you will be more than ready to take your rightful place as the King of Qaryma, and anxious to do so.’

Honesty, he had asked of her, yet he had not been honest with her in return, and looking down into her frank green eyes, Azhar realised that he did not want to lie to her. Though he had known her only a few days, all his instincts told him he could trust her. ‘Julia, I won’t be taking the crown from Kamal in three weeks.’

‘You need more time?’

‘I won’t be taking the crown from Kamal at all,’ Azhar said. ‘My father did us both a great disservice by his refusal to change the line of inheritance. When I left ten years ago, it was for ever. I have not come here to take up my crown, Julia, I have come to hand it over. In three weeks’ time, I intend to abdicate.’

Chapter Six

‘Enter,’ Julia called out brightly in Arabic, in response to the tap on the door of her suite, assuming it was her maid come to clear away the breakfast dishes. She finished rolling the last of the dried plant roots she had collected two days ago in protective cotton before placing them carefully in the replacement specimen trunk. She looked up, smiling. ‘See how perfect a home it is for my growing collection of specimens,’ she said.

But it was not the maid who stood watching her, it was Azhar. ‘Your return visit to the village at the oasis was productive, then?’ he asked.

‘Oh! I was expecting Aisha. Yes, very productive. Johara and I managed to communicate passably well, between my limited vocabulary and a lot of gesticulating.’

Azhar was clad in bottle-green today, his trousers and tunic both made of silk. ‘I am sorry that I could not stay to act as your translator.’

‘You had your own business to attend to at the diamond mine. I hope your day was equally as productive.’

‘Not particularly. The mine itself is apparently not as productive as it once was but I was unable to get a clear explanation as to why.’

‘Perhaps the reserves are simply running out.’

‘Perhaps, but it is a source of concern none the less.’ Azhar rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘The trade in diamonds provides Qaryma with one of its main sources of wealth. The impact of the decrease in output is starkly reflected in the Treasury accounts which I spent yesterday reviewing—much to my brother’s chagrin, needless to say.’

‘You surely don’t suspect him of fraud?’ Julia exclaimed.

Azhar shrugged. ‘I have no reason to suspect him of anything. I wish merely to ensure that everything is in order.’

‘Before you hand full control over to him, you mean.’ Julia closed the lid of her new specimen trunk and pushed it to one side. ‘We have barely had a chance to talk since you told me of your intention to abdicate power.’

‘Were you shocked?’

‘Very at first, and then I recalled what you said to me that day, when we were approaching the city for the first time. That you were here at the behest of a dead man to claim your freedom.’ Julia smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t understand what you meant at the time but I can now see you meant to be free of the crown. If that is the case, Azhar, if you are truly resolved to leave here, I can’t understand what you need me for?’

‘That has not changed. It is extremely important to me to leave in the firm knowledge that Qaryma is in safe hands. There is a real danger that I may see only what I want to see. A fresh perspective is what I need, and you are the ideal person to provide it. Someone dispassionate, with no emotional attachment to Qaryma.’

Exactly as he had described himself, Julia thought but did not say. ‘Why haven’t you told Kamal of your plans? You intend to trust him with your kingdom, yet you don’t trust him with the knowledge that it will be his. Unless—is this some sort of test period? To allow you to assess him—but then, if he fails...’

‘He won’t fail. He cannot be allowed to fail. It is impossible for me to remain here, Julia. My freedom has been very hard won.’

‘Until you actually abdicate, your freedom has not been won at all,’ she replied tartly.

Azhar’s laugh was bitter. ‘You are quite correct. For the last ten years, the freedom I thought I had claimed was a mirage.’

‘You really did think your father had disinherited you?’

‘I had every reason to.’

‘It must have been a terrible shock to discover he had not. You said you received a summons to tell you your father was dead, I think?’

‘The summons was from my father, though he instructed that it be sent only on the occasion of his death. He clearly had no desire to be reconciled with me, our estrangement was every bit as final as I believed it to be. Unlike your husband, my father could not control my actions while he was alive, but—’

‘By refusing to disinherit you, he was forcing you to return against your will. He was trying to control you from beyond the grave,’ Julia interrupted, her eyes wide. ‘Just exactly like Daniel!’

‘Precisely. I knew you of all people would understand.’

‘I do. I must say, though, that you must be in a tiny minority of men who would willingly renounce such a powerful and privileged position.’

‘Most men do not understand all that being in a position of power entails. Power comes with great responsibility attached. As a king, I would be constrained by my duty to my kingdom, bound to it by my crown. That is not freedom.’

Julia shuddered. ‘No, indeed, but as the eldest son you must have grown up knowing Qaryma would one day be yours.’

‘And railing against that fate, though I never believed I could avoid it. I never wanted to rule, whereas Kamal—it is one of the things that made him so angry the other day in the garden. He has always desperately wanted to rule. Even when we were children, it was a bone of contention. He wanted it but could not have it. I had no interest in it but was burdened with it. The irony has always eaten away at him.’

Julia rolled her eyes. ‘I can imagine. Were you never close? I know almost nothing of your past.’

‘That is because I have put it behind me,’ Azhar said. Julia drew him a sceptical look, forcing him to throw his hands up. ‘By the time I leave here, it will be behind me for ever.’

‘Context is all,’ Julia retorted. ‘To understand a plant, one must understand its environment.’

His lip twitched. ‘I am not a rare species to be documented and categorised.’

‘No, you are not rare, you are quite unique, which is why I’d like to understand you a little more.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘To speak the truth is not flattery,’ Julia said, quoting his own words back at him.

‘You are a very devious woman, Julia Trevelyan.’

‘I don’t think I’ll add that to my list of compliments. Has my deviousness paid off?’

Azhar laughed. ‘Yes, but you must not assume you have set a precedent. We will take a tour of the palace. You want to know more about my past. The palace both contains and defines my past. Can you be ready in half an hour?’

* * *

‘The palace is formed around four courts. The First Court functions merely as an entrance courtyard, with access to the stables, the guards’ quarters, the kitchens and stores. Anyone may enter the First Court. We are currently in the Second Court, which is the first inner courtyard, and the first to which entry is strictly controlled. You will observe too, that it is surrounded by a much higher wall than the First Court.’

Julia gazed around the huge open space, where five distinct paths formed by box hedges bordered by cypress and plane trees, radiated out at angles from the gated entry. She had passed through the space before, and had been much taken by the carefully tended formal gardens, which were laid out in the classical style around a huge central pentagon shape. She had noticed the high wall only to remark to herself on the quality of the shade it provided. Now it made her shiver. ‘It is like a castle keep.’

‘That is because it was originally built as a fortress. These walls form the oldest part of the palace, which dates back almost five hundred years.’

‘Are there still wars?’

‘Not for at least a century.’

‘Then the walls and the gate...’

‘Serve tradition. Symbolise the majesty of the King. Act as a reminder of his strength and his power. The walls demonstrate the gulf that lies between a king and his people.’

‘A gulf that you must have breached. You know the desert, Azhar, and the little I’ve seen of the people—they know you.’

‘That is true.’ Azhar agreed. ‘Even as a child, I hated the confines of these walls. I always yearned to know what was happening outside them.’

‘But your father preferred you to remain inside?’

‘He preferred that my trips into the kingdom were formalised.’ Azhar led the way along the middle of the five paths. ‘My father believed that a king must be seen to rule, that he must be a presence to his people, but that presence must be orchestrated. Processions. Feasts. Ceremonies. Always, the line between the King, his family and his subjects must be drawn firmly in the sand. And always, from my earliest days, as soon as I was old enough to think for myself, I disagreed with him. I wanted to see for myself, hear for myself and experience life for myself.’

‘Then as now,’ Julia said.

Azhar smiled grimly. ‘Then as now, as you say. If I make mistakes, they are my own. A king can never make mistakes.’

‘Never admit to them, at any rate. That is one royal trait that Daniel had in abundance,’ Julia interjected. ‘He hated to be in the wrong. There was a time in South America, when our barge—’ She broke off abruptly, shocked by the bitterness in her voice.

‘Your barge?’

Azhar raised an enquiring brow, but she shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. He blamed me, and though it was ludicrous I allowed him to blame me because it was easier than arguing with him. It is mortifying, on reflection, how much I permitted his opinions to rule me.’

‘And to give you a very low opinion of yourself,’ Azhar said gently.

‘Yes, you’ve said that several times, and I’m beginning to think you’re right, which is why I’ve resolved to try not to dwell on the past. I am not incapable of making mistakes—my dragoman being an obvious example—but nor am I inept. I have travelled alone halfway across the world. I have been robbed, and drugged and carried off by a complete stranger to a remote kingdom I had no idea existed until a week ago, and yet here I am, still alive and kicking. You see,’ Julia said, smiling, ‘I do listen.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

Azhar’s smile made her belly clench. His mouth distracted her. It reminded her of the kisses they had exchanged in the garden. It made her want more of them. She shouldn’t be thinking about kisses. ‘We are supposed to be talking about your past, not mine,’ Julia said.

She dragged her eyes away from the beguiling man to the almost-as-beguiling surroundings. It was cool in the shade of the tall trees. At the centre of the pentagon, on either side of their path, were a pair of matching fountains, their bases formed in a star shape, patterned with gold mosaic, the inside tiled in the traditional turquoise. In the centre of each, water spouted from a huge urn. Julia sat down on the edge of the nearest fountain, trailing her hand in the water. ‘It is very quiet here. I would have thought a court like this would be full of people coming and going—for it is a sort of waiting room, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Azhar said, with one of his fleeting smiles, ‘a waiting room. An empty one.’ He sat down beside her, leaning back on the edge of the fountain to gaze up at the inner wall, visible above the cypress trees. ‘My father was always very wary of foreign traders,’ he said. ‘He believed that Qaryma should be self-sufficient, that the wealth we had should be protected. He knew this desert like the back of his hand, but he rarely ventured beyond the boundaries of his domain, save on official visits.’

‘My own father never leaves Cornwall. He says that everything he needs is there, and in a way it is,’ Julia said. ‘He has his home, and he has his gardens, and he has his society meetings—men of science like Papa, who meet once a month to discuss the latest discoveries.’ She made a face. ‘Actually, what they mostly do is regurgitate their own work.’

Azhar laughed. ‘You make it sound as if they chew over their papers and spit them out.’

‘That is more or less exactly what they do,’ Julia replied. ‘In Cornwall, Papa is respected and admired, an established expert. Celebrated, in a way. Botanists travel from all over England to see his gardens, you know.’ She chewed her lip. ‘His fame in his field is well deserved, but it is a small field. He disapproved of Daniel’s book. He said it was far too wide in scope—that the best works concentrated on a narrow field of study.’

Azhar caught a small darting fish in his hand, its tiny scales flashing gold and green. ‘Then I assume he disapproves of your finishing it?’

‘Actually, he doesn’t know that’s what I’m doing,’ Julia confessed.

Azhar placed the wildly flapping fish gently back in the water. ‘Then what does he think you’re doing here in Arabia?’

‘He doesn’t know that either. He thinks I’m on a Hebridean island—that is in Scotland, the most remote part of Britain I could think of. I told him that I needed solitude to recover from Daniel’s death.’ Azhar looked so astonished that Julia laughed. ‘I wanted to surprise him with with the book when I had finished.’

‘I think you will do rather more than that.’

‘You think he’ll be angry?’

Azhar shook his hand dry. ‘In my experience men like your father do not like to be upstaged, especially by their own children.’

‘Do you think your father was afraid that you’d make a better king than he?’

Azhar snorted with derision. ‘My father thought no one would make a better king than he. What he was afraid of was that I wouldn’t make any sort of king, which is why he refused to allow me any sort of freedom.’

‘That is a recipe for disaster. He must have known a child with such an adventurous spirit as I imagine you would have been, would grow into a man who wanted to explore the wider world. If only he had permitted you to travel when you were younger, to satisfy your natural wanderlust...’

‘It was not so simple,’ Azhar said with a sigh. ‘It was not only my desire to experience a world beyond Qaryma, Julia, it was the fact that for me, Qaryma was...’

‘...a gilded cage,’ she finished for him with a smile. ‘A very beautiful one, and one that no longer contains your father.’

‘If I remained here, it would contain me though, for the rest of my life.’

‘Surely you exaggerate?’

Shaking his head, Azhar got to his feet, taking her hand to help her up. ‘Come, we can continue our tour later. I have ordered refreshments to be brought to us.’

* * *

‘This is the reception room for the Divan next door,’ Azhar said, stepping aside to let Julia enter in front of him. ‘The Divan is the room used for meetings of the Council, where foreign visitors are received, and for ceremonies such as weddings and coronations.’