ZAFIR WASN’T USED to feeling anything less than wholly confident. He wanted to take heart from Fern’s willingness to accept his ring, but the way she’d talked about not having any defenses, especially physically... Did she think he would force her? Not in a million years! He hadn’t pressed his first wife—
But then, he hadn’t felt a need for her like he did for Fern. Was he above seducing her? Clearly not.
Her balking at agreeing to sleep with him bothered him. Not in an arrogant, entitled way. In a deeply disturbing way. Even before he’d found her and confirmed her pregnancy, he’d been unable to shake the near irresistible urge to fetch her back into his life. Sleep together. Make love to her one more time.
A storm he’d barely acknowledged had been crashing inside him for months as he fought those urges, only settling when he’d had her in the car beside him. Now a fresh turbulence kicked up, despite the flash of his grandmother’s ring from the hand that gripped his arm as she steadied herself on the shiny oak floor.
She had reservations about resuming intimacy with him and he supposed he couldn’t blame her. He’d promised he wouldn’t cause her to lose her job or get pregnant and that vow had been thoroughly shattered. If she’d rather have a platonic marriage while she learned to trust him again, he should be prepared to accept it, but he found it wasn’t something he could face easily.
Glancing pensively at her, he saw only a bundle of cascading red curls held in a blue ribbon.
“Chin up,” he said, refusing to let her hang her head before his family. “Neither of us will be apologists for making a baby out of wedlock.”
“More like poster children,” she commented under her breath, surprising him with her levity. “I was looking at the pattern in the parquet. This house is beyond words.”
It was a country cottage compared to the palace in Q’Amara, not that he said so aloud. The staff would put rat poison in his dinner if they overheard such a remark. But she did make him see things with new eyes.
“I think you’ll be good for me, Fern,” he told her as they arrived at the music room door. “You remind me not to take things that I value for granted.” He held her gaze with a significant look.
Whether that reassured her at all, he wasn’t given an opportunity to judge. Peabody opened the door to exit the room with an empty tray and stepped back as he saw them, allowing Zafir to enter with Fern.
Her grip on him tightened, betraying her nerves. Soft greens and old gold leaped at him. He took in antique furniture and silk area rugs that he did take for granted, along with the cheery fire beneath the white mantel and the green-and-gold drapes that closed out the blustery night. This was, in many ways, the happiest place of his childhood since it was where his family had been whole.
The two people waiting in tight-lipped silence weren’t happy. His bringing a woman into the house was unusual. His accommodating her in his private quarters was eyebrow-raising. Her pregnancy, well, there was a reason his mother had wanted to speak to him upon his arrival. She was always the first to smell scandal and in spite of her personal history, maybe because of it, she was always the first to try smothering any flames that threatened to disgrace the family again.
His grandfather sat in his favorite wingback chair. He wore a dark suit that set off the gold chain of his pocket watch. Zafir’s mother wore a long black velvet skirt and a starched white blouse. The flouncy ribbon at her throat was the only bit of softness in her elegantly aged demeanor. She had not broken when Zafir’s father died. She’d hardened like carbon placed under extreme pressure.
His grandfather betrayed no surprise at seeing either of them, even though Zafir’s arrival at the house had been as unannounced as his guest’s.
“What is that infamous quote by that American ballplayer?” his grandfather asked rhetorically. “Something about déjà vu all over again?”
Zafir’s mother snapped a look to her father and brought it round to her son, keeping it as sharp as an ice pick. “It would be nice if I could learn certain news directly from you, rather than through the servants,” she stated.
“They told you I was engaged? How did they know when Fern only accepted my proposal a few minutes ago? Grandfather, Mother—my fiancée, Fern Davenport.”
Zafir provided their titles, but as his mother offered her hand for a reserved handshake, she said stiffly, “William and Patricia, please,” and found her Lady-of-the-Manor smile. “I see my daughter has replied to my call with a message after all. I was told she was indisposed.” Her gaze slid down the dress Fern was wearing. “I remember now where I heard the name Davenport,” she added condescendingly.
“Your granddaughters spoke of me?” Fern said, pink beneath the layer of powder on her skin, but earnest, which was appealing in its particular way. “I’ve missed them. I hope they’re well?”
His mother’s expression flickered with indecision, as she tried to determine if she should soften or not. “I didn’t talk to them long. I was distracted, but yes, they’re quite well. Taking some sort of dance lessons.”
“You know the girls?” his grandfather asked. “Forgive me for not rising. Gout.”
“Fern,” Zafir offered as he turned a chair from its place near the fire so she could sit.
She thanked him with a smile and lowered into it, then answered his grandfather. “Amineh hired me last year to tutor the girls in English. I lived with them for about six months.”
“Really, Zafir,” Patricia said in an undertone meant only for him. “The governess?”
“It’s a bit late for snobbery about who we make our children with, isn’t it, Mother?” Zafir replied in a conversational tone loud enough to make Fern pinch her lips together.
“Are we speaking openly then?” his mother asked, metaphorically dropping her gloves. “Because I have to wonder if you did make this one.”
“Don’t take offense to that, Fern,” Zafir said without breaking eye contact with his mother. “It’s a family tradition. My grandfather said the same thing to my father.”
Fern might have gasped. His mother definitely did.
His grandfather leaned forward to admit to Fern, “It’s true. I did.” Ice rattled in his glass as he lifted it with a palsied hand and tilted it at Zafir’s mother. “All three of my girls were highly sexed. Zafir’s father wasn’t her first.”
“No, your solicitor was,” Zafir’s mother declared with a very fake, very tart smile.
“We’ll have a paternity test when the baby is born if it will set your mind at ease, but I’m quite confident it’s mine,” Zafir said. With false geniality aimed at his mother, he added, “You’ll have another grandchild. I thought you’d be delighted.”
His grandfather snorted. “Heard that one before, too. I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he said to his daughter, raising her ire even further.
“How is this my fault?” she demanded, elegant and composed, yet indignant. “I didn’t get her pregnant.”
“No, but you were after Amineh about schooling the girls in English.”
“Here. I wanted her to put them in school here. Not hire someone—” She glared at Fern.
Fern sat very still, body language braced and watchful, hands a tight knot in her lap.
Zafir was sorry to put her through this, especially when his mother was lobbing some heavy artillery and Fern was already sensitive to being blamed, but he wouldn’t have the strong personality he did possess if he hadn’t grown up holding his own against the ones who’d raised him.
“She did it to please you,” his grandfather pointed out before Zafir could interject, indicating Fern with his half-empty glass. “This girl never would have been under his nose if you hadn’t interfered.”
“That’s funny,” Zafir said with a snort.
“It is not,” she retorted frostily. “And even if I do bear some responsibility for her hiring someone, you ought to know better than to let an opportunist—”
“Talk to Ra’id before you decide who took advantage of whom, Mother,” Zafir interrupted, leaning a hand on the back of Fern’s chair. “Fern’s virtue was his responsibility while she was under his roof and he failed to preserve it. He’s barely speaking to me right now.”
Fern looked up at Zafir, her brows tugged into an anxious crinkle. “Really? He’s not upset with me for being a terrible example for his daughters?”
“Their grandmother is a terrible example for them,” he stated, enjoying it. “But no, partly he’s taking advantage of the chance to get back at me for all the years I was so protective of Amineh, but he knew exactly how worldly you were. He is genuinely offended with me and remorseful toward you. Expect a sincere apology when you see him next.”
“That’s not necessary!” she insisted, chin crinkling as she tried to hold a wobbly smile. “I’m just glad they’re not cross with me. I’d love to see Amineh and the girls again.”
“She’s anxious to see you, too,” he assured her, moving his hand so his knuckles felt the tickle of her curls as he brushed them back from her shoulder. “I should have explained when I said that we come here a few times a year, Amineh and I try to overlap our visits. If she doesn’t come to us in Q’Amara first, we’ll—”
“Zafir,” his mother said sharply. “You are not actually marrying her. What happened to the marriage you were arranging with that troublemaker’s daughter?”
“Ra’id has suggested his cousin would be a better match for the girl,” Zafir said, straightening. “As a personal favor to his family, I have stepped out of the running. My real motives will be obvious after our marriage is announced,” he told Fern. “But it’s a very good alliance for both sides, he’s closer to her age, and it still provides the girl’s father some of the influence he craves. By facilitating it, I hope to defuse some of his animosity. My hope is that it will turn out well.”
“You hope!” his mother repeated. “That doesn’t mean it will. That doesn’t mean you should marry—I’m not being a snob,” she remarked to Fern. “My sister married a male nurse, of all things, so I understand that spouses come in all vocations.”
“At least she married him,” Zafir’s grandfather said in an aside, proving that pretentiousness came in all sizes in this household.
“Well, I couldn’t marry, could I?” his mother snapped with such vehemence it took the temperature to arctic levels. “Everything we worried could happen, did. Do I wish I could go back and marry him? Yes! But we’d all be dead now if I had. So no, Zafir, you may not marry this English woman. You won’t stir it all up again and leave me sleepless here, terrified every time the telephone rings. You’ll live here, Fern,” she said firmly. “I realize I’ve said some things that might have put you off, but you’re a mother. You understand our instincts to protect our children. That doesn’t go away no matter how old or pigheaded they get.” She tossed that last statement at Zafir. “And you’ve seen how private the southeast unit is. We won’t be in each other’s way. I would enjoy finally having one of my grandchildren so close.”
Zafir half stepped so his leg was right up against Fern’s chair. He had expected resistance to his marriage because Fern didn’t have a pedigree dating back to Elizabeth I. Not this.
“I’m not here to ask permission, Mother.”
“It’s denied regardless.” His grandfather finished the last of his drink and set it on the table with a decisive clack. “Your mother will be worried sick, Zafir. How can you even consider doing that to her again? And the baby? You can’t put it in harm’s way. Amineh’s situation is different. No. Marry this girl, I agree you should do that much, but leave her here.”
“No. Don’t marry her. It makes you a target—” Patricia said, voice rising, but Zafir spoke over her, even louder.
“You two are not keeping my wife and child away from me.” His hand went to Fern’s shoulder. He felt her start at his touch and firmed his grip on her, dimly aware he wasn’t being reassuring but snarlingly possessive. His mother’s anxiety could frighten Fern off.
“We’re not keeping anyone away from anyone,” his mother said crossly. “I wish you and your sister would stop acting like your father and I were denying each other access when it was a necessary arrangement that worked—”
“It didn’t work for me!” Zafir boomed so ferociously his sharp words echoed into the silence it created.
His mother went white and she looked away, chin thrust out.
Zafir realized his body was primed for a physical altercation, blood racing, muscles twitching with readiness. It wasn’t just the split in his psyche that had prompted his outburst. His broken family was an old fight, but Fern and his baby were his.
His grandfather hitched forward on his chair, obviously finding it a struggle, but his voice was strong. “Zafir. Your father and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on much, but I never doubted his love for your mother. He wanted to take her to Q’Amara with him. It wasn’t safe. He had to leave her here and he couldn’t even marry her. It was too much for your people to take. He had to keep her like a damned mistress. You were meant to be with him when he was killed. I won’t let you put us through that again. She—” he pointed at Fern “—stays here.” Then he pointed at the floor, his tone that of a man still confident in his position of power despite his physical decline.
“Do you think I would risk my wife and child if I thought that same danger existed?” Zafir demanded aggressively, but the word love gave him pause. Love had made his father weak enough to take up with a woman that his country had never accepted. It had weakened him in the eyes of the people he governed and had weakened him as a man, prompting him to take ridiculous chances and make bad decisions.
What was he doing if he took Fern back to Q’Amara? Was it a wise decision? Or a selfish one? Why was he so determined? Lust? Or something else? If you cared about someone, you put their interests, their lives, above your own.
His mother rose to pull a tissue from a box on a side table. “Was it so horrible to live in two places?” she challenged in a choked voice, keeping her back to them as she dabbed at her eyes.
Tortured by his inability to grasp his own motivation, Zafir did what any child did under stress. He went to his mother. Taking hold of her shoulders, he set his chin alongside her hair, sorry he’d caused her to cry, but... “If you had thought there was a chance you could have lived together, wouldn’t you have tried?”
They would have, he knew they would. They had loved each other very deeply, which had formed the trade-off for the difficult decisions they’d had to make. He wasn’t prepared to make those same decisions. He needed Fern with him. Now that he’d seen it as possible, no other option was good enough.
“Oh, I hate when you sound like him sounding like he knows he’s right,” she said as she brushed his hands off her shoulders and swiped impatiently at her face.
Disturbed, feeling as though he didn’t quite know himself, Zafir gave her time to compose herself by moving to help his grandfather to his feet. When he offered a hand to Fern, she kept her eyes downcast.
That shook him. If she refused to come with him, he didn’t know what he would do. Seduce her? Talk her around? Demand?
Leave her here after all?
Gently tilting her chin up so she had to show him the reflective silver of her eyes, he said, “I would not take you anywhere that I thought would risk your life, Fern. I hope you trust me in that.”
“Childbirth notwithstanding?” she said with an ironic quirk of a smile.
He didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. What had he done to this woman?
“That was a joke,” she said.
“It was a rebuke for being careless with you and I deserved it,” he said, dismayed. Furious with himself. He brooded through the entire meal.
* * *
Much to Fern’s relief, Zafir ended the meal by stating they would take after-dinner coffee in his suite. The minute the door was closed behind them, she asked, “Did you do that on my behalf? Do I look as exhausted as I feel?”
“I’m exhausted,” he countered, eyeing her pensively. “Jet lag is catching up to me. But my grandfather tires easily these days and you have had a long day.” His mouth twisted with self-disgust. “I’m sorry to have put you through all that.”
“I had a nap earlier,” she reminded him. “I’m tired, but it’s more social fatigue. I feel like I was in the longest job interview of my life. Would you mind?” she asked, showing him where the zipper of the lace sheathe closed at the top of her spine.
“My grandfather liked you,” Zafir said as though trying to offer a comfort.
“Who is Esme?” The old man had accidentally called Fern that for the second time right before Zafir had cut short their post-meal chatter.
“My grandmother. You don’t look anything like her. She was quite short, had black hair and eyes like mine, so I thought for a minute he’d had one too many whiskeys, but I think it’s your manner that made him think of her. She was quiet and thoughtful the way you are. The rest of us are scrappers, determined to jump in ahead of everyone else and take control. She was always an influence of calm, taking time to think about things before she reacted.” He released the zip on her dress and his light touch sent a ripple of pleasure through her.
“I’m not calm, I’m terrified,” she admitted.
“About coming with me to Q’Amara?” He touched her shoulder, urging her to turn to face him.
“I meant in general, but...” His mother’s anxiety had been contagious. The whole time she’d been answering questions about where she grew up and who she knew through Miss Ivy and when she was due, she’d been thinking about where Zafir expected her to sleep and what her future with him might hold.
A firm kick nudged her from her absorption into a light gasp and a touch on the spot where the baby was insisting more space was needed.
“Are you okay?” Zafir frowned at her belly.
She chuckled. “As far as personalities go, I think we’ve created another scrapper. Quite pushy,” she pronounced with rueful affection, liking what he’d said about his family and how he’d intimated she had a place in it that was notable and valued.
“Can I...?” His gaze fixed on her belly and his hands came up. He hesitated as he looked to her for permission.
Her nerves jolted like an electric shock had run through her, pushing a flood of tingling warmth into her inner thighs. He hadn’t even touched her!
The strength of her anticipation startled her. Her life had been fairly devoid of human contact before he had taught her how wonderful it could be. Since then, especially in the last few months, she’d discovered some people loved touching pregnant women. Strangers asked to pat her belly. Sometimes they didn’t even ask, but this was different.
This was Zafir. She had been aching for his touch since forever. And it was his baby. Emotions, already amplified by pregnancy, threatened to overwhelm her.
“I— Of course,” she said huskily, quivering with tension like liquid at the rim of a cup. She lifted her hands and waited.
At first he barely grazed her with splayed fingertips, like she was a soap bubble that would burst at the least pressure. The thought made her lips twitch and she covered his hands, showing him how to press firmly enough to find the baby’s shape.
“That’s the bum. And this is where—oh! Did you feel that? Must be a knee, right?”
He choked a breath of laughter. “Doesn’t that hurt?” He explored gently where the nudge had happened.
She shrugged. “Not really. Takes me by surprise. Keeps me awake sometimes. I honestly don’t think either of us will get much sleep if I—”
“Shh.” Discovery of magic played across his face. “It must be so strange,” he said with quiet reverence, shifting the lace on the silk of her slip as he moved his hands around the shape of her belly. “Can you even wrap your mind around it? That’s our child that we made, right there. I can feel it, but I can hardly believe it. Are you scared? About the delivery?”
“Yes,” she admitted, giving him a crooked, sheepish smile. “Not that I have anything to be frightened of specifically. Just apprehensive, I guess. I’ve read too many books on what could go wrong and keep worrying what will happen to the baby if. And Miss Ivy—” Wait. Would he...? “Do you want to come into the delivery room with me?”
He stopped moving his hands, but left them resting on her. His brows tugged up in surprise. He parted his lips without speaking, like he didn’t know how to respond. “It didn’t occur to me— Yes, I do,” he asserted firmly before a rare glimmer of uncertainty entered his eyes. He searched hers. “Do you want me to?”
“I do. Very much.” So much it made her head swim. Her hands found their way onto his and held him there. “I didn’t even think about it until just now and...I would feel so much better if I knew you were there to make it all go well. Please come with me.”
“Of course, Fern.” His smile wasn’t steady, but maybe that was her eyes, blurring with relief and joy. “Of course I’ll be there.” A shaky laugh rattled his voice and he sidled his hands up her waist to where she was more Fern than baby, his touch possessive and tender.
This was how it was supposed to be with a man when you were having his baby. She was going to burst, she was so happy right now.
“But aren’t there classes or something?” he asked. “Men are pretty much useless, I suppose. Nothing to know except how to stay out of the way, but I should learn that much, shouldn’t I?”
Fern laughed. “Miss Ivy was going to them with me. But didn’t you go in with your wife when she had Tariq?”
He let his hands fall away, leaving an impression of coolness where his hands had been. “No. She opted for full anesthetic and caesarian section. But her specialist is world-renowned. I’ll—” He pinched his lips into a frustrated line. “I’d like to call him and ensure he can take you on, if you’re cleared to travel.”
It was hard for him to back off a step and not tell her what he would make happen. She probably wouldn’t have been able to hide her smile over how hard that was for him if she hadn’t heard the greater question in his statement. He was asking if she was coming to Q’Amara.
The mere fact that he was leaving the door open for her retreat was incredibly reassuring. She genuinely didn’t think he would risk her life or that of his baby and something else was niggling at her. His wife had opted for surgery. She wanted to know more about that and his marriage in general.
She wanted to know Zafir better.
It was not something that could happen if she was haunting a different house in another country. And she’d seen tonight how the division in his family still affected him. She couldn’t bring herself to do that to him. To their child.
She nodded. “You should call him,” she agreed. “If I can travel, I think it would be good to have the baby there. So there’s no question of citizenship.”
He nodded slowly, with more than agreement. Pride. His smile wrapped her in a blanket of approval. Cupping the side of her face, he caressed her cheek with his thumb. “This is going to work, Fern.”
She hoped so. She dearly hoped so.
* * *
Zafir was ready to find his mattress.
Last night had been painful in the best possible way. Without any further debate, Fern had slipped into his bed while he was on the phone, leaving him to find her there.
It had been like Christmas morning—a tradition his mother had insisted upon despite his father’s Muslim faith. Zafir had stood for a long moment admiring the ribbon of her red hair, the polka dots of her freckles, the hidden potential in her slumbering countenance.
Eventually he’d gone in search of something to wear to bed. He went naked under most things whether it was sheets, thobe or tuxedo so a simple pair of boxers was a struggle to locate. Then he’d dozed beside her, too aware of her to fall into a proper sleep, mind turning over possibilities while his body ached to pull her across the desert plain of sheets into the pillar of his own.
She’d been equally restless, getting up several times.
“I’m sorry I keep waking you,” she’d murmured when she’d come back at one point. “Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?”
“No. I could find another bed if I wanted to.” He’d rolled toward her, cursing the expanse of the mattress. “Does your back hurt?” He’d done some reading before settling in.
“No, there’s just no room in this body for anything but baby anymore.” She’d yawned, and added in a drowsy whisper, “I keep getting so confused. I wake up and realize you’re here and think I’m at the oasis so how can I be pregnant? But it’s nice to sleep with you again. I missed you.”
She’d drifted off, leaving him thinking, yes. For all the ache of desire coursing through him, it was very nice to have her beside him. He’d missed her, too.
They’d then had a busy morning of appointments and arrangements. Fern was given a complete physical before an official came in to marry them in a perfunctory ceremony witnessed by his mother and grandfather.
His mother could grouse all she wanted about a proper church wedding, but the one thing his father had got right in Q’Amara’s evolution was tolerance of other faiths. Zafir was often criticized for not limiting or outright censoring online content, but his mixed parentage meant neither of the two dominant faiths in his country felt threatened that he would refute one or the other.
Which is why he’d chosen a civil union rather than favoring one religious blessing over another.
They’d followed it with photographs for the press release and he’d approved his mother’s preliminary guest list for a proper reception in the summer. They’d eaten in the air on the way to Q’Amara before Fern had gone to sleep in his stateroom, leaving him answering emails between fielding conversation attempts by the obstetrics nurse he’d hired to travel with them.
He had timed the release of their marriage announcement so it hit the wires just before they landed. His country’s media stations were barely out of bed and no international paparazzi were among the lenses trying to get a shot of his new wife. Well veiled in the predawn light, she didn’t offer much to scoop for those who’d made it to the airport in time to catch them deplane and travel to the palace.
He ought to sleep now, he knew, before the demand for interviews became too great to ignore and he was tied up for hours.
But sleep was not the reason he wanted to find his bed.
No, after the brief research on his tablet last night, he’d lain awake with a need for confirmation burning a hole in his mind. He’d waited through Fern’s exam with barely controlled impatience, was heartened to hear her pronounced in excellent health and well enough to travel with sensible precautions, and then Dr. Underhill had thankfully been ahead of him.
“And since I expect any groom in your situation would want to know, Zafir, I’ll save you the trouble of asking. Fern, so long as you feel comfortable making love, it should be perfectly safe to do so.”
She’d blushed crimson, of course. Zafir had deflected the conversation to boring topics about transferring her file to the specialist he’d contacted to take her in Q’Amara. He hadn’t said a thing about Underhill’s remark afterward.
But when they’d kissed to seal their marriage, he’d quested for a response and she’d opened as beautifully as desert flowers to rain. He had been quaking inside with wanting her ever since, like a volcano threatening to crack under the pressure of burning lava rising within it.
If he could have locked out the world and seduced her, he would have. But even though he shouldn’t ignore the interview requests, there was one task, one person, he absolutely could not disregard.
“Where is she?” Tariq asked as he charged into Zafir’s private apartment and looked around the empty lounge.
Zafir had left Fern here, suggesting she put her feet up while he fetched Tariq. He’d had quite the father-son chat with the boy before they’d circled back along the second-floor landing to Zafir’s rooms.
The drawback to having an exceedingly mature and intelligent child, Zafir was learning, was the inability to pull any wool over the boy’s sharp brown gaze, even when it meant reflecting a less than admirable light on himself.
You told me before that we were born into families of influence and should never misuse that. Did Miss Davenport know that she didn’t have to be nice to you in that way, if she didn’t want to be?
I believe she did know that, yes, Zafir had claimed, even while a part of him still squirmed under the knowledge that his sophistication and experience well surpassed hers. He might not have coerced her, but he’d taken brazen advantage of her artless joy in discovering passion for the first time.
And was going mad with wanting to do it again.
While she was acting very quiet. His one query, when he’d seen her turning his grandmother’s ring around on her finger and asked if she was all right, had been met with a rueful smile. “As you pointed out last night, I like time to consider things and haven’t really had a chance to sort through all this. Yesterday I was going to rent a flat around the corner from Miss Ivy and raise this baby alone. Not everyone operates at light speed the way you do,” she’d teased lightly.
Which he didn’t think had been meant as a warning that he should put the brakes on his libido, but he’d taken it as such. The guilt he was carrying over thrusting her into this new life was enough to instill some worry in him when they arrived in his rooms and she wasn’t there. Amineh had been anxious to have a webcam conversation, but Fern wasn’t in his adjoining office at his desk or even in the small powder room off that.
His massive bedroom, which anyone could get lost in, was empty. She wasn’t behind any of the marble colonnades, wasn’t in the vast canopied bed, hadn’t entered the dressing room, wasn’t sitting in the reading alcove and hadn’t walked into his small sunken library to peruse his antique books. The sauna, not recommended in her condition, was empty, as was the bathing pool and the grotto shower with the faux waterfall. She hadn’t walked out to his private balcony or followed the stairs down to the pool, either.
Disquiet began to creep into his psyche as he called for her and she didn’t answer. Vaguely he was aware of Tariq calling for Miss Davenport as he ran from corner to corner, but Zafir was far more concerned about her condition than maiden names versus married.
“She probably went to her room in the harem,” Tariq said with snap of his fingers, chuckling as if they should have guessed that first.
Tariq opened doors that Zafir used so seldom he’d forgotten they were there. A piece of modern art sat in the alcove before them, half blocking the ornate wooden panels, but Zafir’s mother had never lived in this palace and Tariq’s mother had certainly never come through them. About once a year, Tariq grew curious enough to wander through them and staff cleaned all nooks and crannies of the palace regularly, but otherwise no one entered this wing.
Pushing through with his son, Zafir feared he had the answer to Fern’s level of comfort with lovemaking if she’d taken herself into this private domain.
The passage from the sheikh’s quarters was short and dim, lit only by narrow slits in the door where it terminated onto a balcony that extended in a circle around the courtyard below, not unlike the main entranceway to the palace.
Unlike the front foyer, it looked down on a communal bath sunk into the lower floor. A glass dome in the roof allowed sunlight to pour onto the tropical plants that were mostly self-sustaining, provided he kept the pool filled and the fountain running. In the four corners, antique gilded cages hung silent, awaiting exotic birds.
Doors led off the surrounding walls into luxurious accommodation reserved for the women in the ruling family: daughters, sisters, mothers. Wives.
Zafir did not find his wife in the opulent suite closest to the shortcut to his rooms, the apartment reserved for Wife Number One. She answered Tariq’s call and stepped out to wave from the furthest room, the one traditionally used by the groom’s mother. She didn’t need to sleep in close proximity to the sheikh.
Sadira had chosen and modernized that distant apartment, Zafir had seen after her death, adding a computer desk and a television console along with a contemporary queen-sized bed. The other rooms still contained the sumptuous, pillow-covered mattresses and silk wall hangings that had been refurbished and replaced for their marriage party eleven years ago. Was it significant that Fern had gravitated to Sadira’s room?
She didn’t look at him as she came toward them. A wide smile for Tariq brightened her face.
Vivienne was not being shy about spending his money on outfitting his pregnant bride, and was doing so very prettily. Fern wore the dress in a silvery moss color that she’d flown it, but her yellow cardigan, abaya and veils were gone. Her low heels clicked on the marble and even though she wasn’t as willowy as when he’d first seen her, and her bump sat high and prominent, the rest of her was so curvy his mouth watered. Her loose hair bounced and shimmied. As she moved into a beam of sunlight, it caught glints of gold and auburn, producing a halo effect, making Zafir catch his breath at how utterly stunning she was.
“Tariq! It’s so nice to see you.” Her genuine warmth wasn’t even for him, but filled Zafir with gladness.
Tariq canted his head at her. “You look...different.”
“I’m sure I do,” Fern said, cutting a glance at Zafir that sent him a private message. He hadn’t been aware of a desire to become one of those couples who read each other’s minds, but he liked the sense they were.
“Has your father talked to you about, um, why I’m here?” she asked, one hand resting with light significance on her belly.
“Yes. And I wanted to know, do you expect me to call you Mama?” Tariq asked in his forthright manner. He crossed his arms and hitched his hip in a way that Zafir recognized was his own stance when he had already made up his mind about something, but had to suffer through propriety before he could get to the bottom of things.
Fern’s expression blanked. “Oh. I hadn’t...”
“Yes,” Zafir interrupted firmly.
He had thought he’d covered everything with Tariq and leave it to his son to ferret out a fine point, but Zafir found himself loving the idea of Tariq using the title. Fern, at least, would live up to the designation. She already valued Tariq for everything he was.
Fern’s expression flickered and her smile was vaguely apologetic toward Zafir before she returned her attention to Tariq.
No. A cold hand clutched around Zafir’s heart and his pride began to tear down the middle as he realized Fern was going to contradict him. She would not reject his son.
“I would be honored to know you thought of me as your mother, Tariq,” she said with quiet sincerity, and he gave himself a mental shake. Of course she wouldn’t reject the boy. “If your father would like you to introduce me as your mother and call me that in public, then please do. But it would mean more to me if, in private, it was something you chose to do. If...” Fern sent another contrite glance toward him that, Zafir realized, was an apology for challenging his dictate. “If your father doesn’t mind, I’d prefer that you think about it and decide on your own if you’d like to address me as Mother. Until you’re certain, perhaps you could call me Fern?”
And she thought she didn’t know how to get her way, Zafir thought with a quirk of private humor.
“You make a good point,” Zafir allowed, so profoundly relieved it was easy to be magnanimous. He wasn’t used to being gainsaid, but now was as good a time as any to demonstrate to both of them that he would always be willing to take Fern’s opinions into account. “Fern it is, unless you feel differently,” he said to Tariq.
“That’s not what I meant,” Tariq said with an exasperated roll of his eyes. “I meant do I have to say Mama. It’s so babyish. I’d rather call you Mother. I can’t call you by your name. That would be too confusing for my little brother or sister. And disrespectful.”
“Yes, I suppose it would be,” Fern said, pinching her lips together in a poor attempt to suppress a laugh. “Then yes. I would be delighted if you’d call me Mother. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Tariq said with offhand confidence. “I don’t remember my mother and I like you quite a bit. I was very disappointed when I visited my cousins and you weren’t there,” he declared with a pointed look. Then he transferred his attention to Zafir. “May I call my cousins and tell them Miss Davenport is my mother now?”
“You may text your uncle and ask when would be a good time to have that conversation,” he said. “Then you should get back to class.”
“Will you take over my lessons?” he asked, turning back to Fern.
“I think I will be busy with the baby very soon, but I will always take an interest in your studies. Please ask your tutor if I could sit in sometimes, particularly for language or history, so I can learn, too.”
Tariq nodded and started toward the wide archway of the main passage back to the palace. He checked himself and came back to give Fern’s expanded waist a befuddled search, arms half-raised for an embrace.
“Oh, um—” Fern bent awkwardly, accepting Zafir’s quick grasp of her hand so she didn’t lose her balance. Tariq’s arms went around her neck and he landed a quick kiss on her cheek. She closed her eyes, mouth pressing into a smile of deeply touched emotion.
“I’m really happy you’re my mother,” Tariq said, making Zafir’s heart swell with pride. “My cousins will be so jealous,” he added with an impish grin and raced off.
“Oh,” Fern said, placing a hand over her heart. “I didn’t expect that.”
“The kiss or the part where he treated us like half-wits?”
She laughed, glanced at the marble floor and tucked her hair behind her ear. “The part where he made me feel like we’re a family. I never had that. It means a lot.”
The glitter of happy tears on her lashes filled him with the impulse to cradle her close. Sex? Yes, he wanted to fondle and caress, push into her and know the exquisite clasp of her again and again, but this desire was more than that. He wanted to feel her against him, smell her hair, bring her into his life as much as his home.
How had she come to mean so much to him when he’d only known her a little over a week last year and not even two full days in the last forty-eight hours?
She caught his eye, read something in his face that made her bashfully turn away and move to the low wall of the balcony, where she followed the curve of the nearest staircase with her eyes, leaning to study the benches and broad-leafed plants surrounding the pool.
“This place is incredible. Can you imagine what it was like— When was it built?”
“Five hundred years ago. And yes. As a teen I stood in this empty wing more than once and fantasized about exactly how incredible it must have been.” He could still manifest the pictures he’d created in his mind: the abundance of naked breasts and bottoms, the mysterious configuration of a woman’s body that he’d only barely understood, yet longed for the authority to command for further study.
She giggled as though reading his thoughts.
He moved closer. “But my days of valuing quantity over quality are gone,” he assured her.
She blushed and retreated toward the stairs. “Are you sure? There are an awful lot of rooms here, looking ready to be filled by women of every shape and size.”
“Is that why are you’re in here?” he asked, moving to descend beside her, one hand clasping her elbow in case she lost her footing on the worn, slippery steps. “Are you checking up on me? Ensuring I’m not hiding anyone?” Or scoping out a residence for herself? His muscles hardened with tension.
Culpability flashed in her eyes. “I didn’t realize where I was going when I started snooping. But isn’t this where I’m supposed to be? Why are you here? Isn’t it forbidden? That’s what harem means, doesn’t it?”
“Most Westerners think the word means brothel.” He liked the slant of her smile. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was flirting with him, but very shyly. Because she had so little experience with it, he supposed. He probably volleyed back a little too hard when he stated arrogantly, “I’m the sheikh. Nothing in this palace is forbidden to me.”
She blushed, no match for his suggestive tone.
“These rooms are for the children?” she asked, peering into an alcove with sleeping benches around three sides. It only had a curtain, not a door.
“The children of wives—yes, plural,” he confirmed at her look, “stayed with their mothers upstairs. Girls moved into their own space as rooms became available. Boys left the harem around six or seven. I moved Tariq when his mother died, since there was only his nanny to keep him from falling in the pool in here.”
“Then all these little rooms were for servants?” she asked.
“Concubines and eunuchs,” he explained, thinking with affectionate amusement, so naive.
“Oh. Of course.” Her cheeks pinkened. Her expression grew more speculative as she peered into the spare accommodations with new eyes, making her way back toward the corner below where they’d come in. “This one’s quite spacious,” she remarked, stepping into the biggest room on the ground floor.
“Reserved for the sultan’s favorite. You’ll notice that aside from the Number One Wife, she has the shortest distance to walk to be with him.” He pointed to where the stairs ended near the passageway to his chamber. “And all who visited him had to pass the wife’s door.”
“Politics are not a modern invention, are they?” she remarked, moving deeper into the concubine’s lair. “She had air-conditioning,” she said with surprise, studying the window of latticed marble that stood behind a waterfall that ran in his front courtyard. Glittering light bounced off the gold plate behind him to brighten this space more than the other rooms.
“One resident of this room was so prized, the most trusted eunuch slept beside her so she wouldn’t be murdered by the other women.” He stalked closer to her, fully sympathetic to his ancestor’s beguilement.
Something wistful passed over her face. Her lashes fluttered as she realized how close he was. She tried to make her retreat look casual, but that’s what her quarter turn and step away was.
He’d been chasing her around the harem long enough.
“Fern,” he said quietly, keeping her from walking out of the room altogether. “We should talk about what the doctor said. About making love.”
She stopped, but didn’t turn. Her hands moved to clench together and her upper arms stained with an extensive blush. “Do you want to?”
A sudden pang of juvenile fear hit him. He didn’t want to admit to his feelings before she did. He might be staring down his first marriage all over again. But if trust was an issue, the only way to gain hers was by being completely honest.
“Do I want to talk? Or make love? I’m prepared to wait until after the baby, if you’re not up to it, but yes. I would like to make love to you.”
“Even though I’m fat?”
“You’re not fat. You’re beautiful,” he said with sincerity that bordered on reverence, moving closer. “Is that why you’re hesitating? You’re feeling self-conscious?”
“Yes,” she said in a small, overwrought voice. “And because feeling this way seems so brazen in my condition.”
A laugh of relief started to rise in him, but was knocked back into his throat by her next words.
“And so sinful if it’s just lust.”