Rose wouldn’t make a fuss, she told herself. No doubt someone had been holding her hand, taking her arm, keeping her safe all her life. It was what she’d wanted to escape. The constant surveillance. The cotton wool.
As he tucked her arm beneath his, she told herself that she could live with it for a week. And, as she leaned on him a little, that he would expect nothing else.
The path wound through trees and shrubs. Herbs had been planted along the edges, spilling over so that as they brushed past lavender, sage, marjoram and other, less familiar, scents filled the air.
Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the trickle of water running, the splash of something, a fish or a frog, in a dark pool. She caught glimpses of mysterious arches, an ornate summer house, hidden among the trees. And above them the domes and towers she’d seen from the air.
‘It’s magical,’ she said at last as, entranced, she stored up the scents, sounds, images for some day, far in the future, when she would tell her children, grandchildren about this
Meet someone who would look at her and see Lydia Young instead of her famous alter ego.
The thought leached the pleasure from the moment.
She’d been featured in the local newspaper when she’d first appeared as Lady Rose, had even been invited to turn up as Rose and switch on the Christmas lights one year when the local council were on a cost cutting drive and couldn’t afford a real celebrity.
Even at work, wearing an unflattering uniform and with her name badge clearly visible, the customers had taken to calling her ‘Rose’ and she couldn’t deny that she’d loved it. It had made her feel special.
Here, now, standing in her heroine’s shoes, she discovered that being someone else was not enough.
That, instead of looking at Lydia and seeing Rose, she wanted someone, or maybe just Kalil al-Zaki, to look at Rose and see Lydia.
Because that was who she’d been with him.
It was Lydia who’d been afraid of taking off, whose hand he had held. Lydia he’d kissed.
But he’d never know that. And she could never tell him.
He was silent too and once she risked a glance, but the floor level lighting only threw his features into dark, unreadable shadows.
Then, as they turned a corner, the view opened up to reveal that while behind them, above the darker bulk of the mountains, the stars still blazed, on the far side of the creek a pale edge of mauve was seeping into the pre- dawn purple.
‘It’s nearly dawn,’ she said, surprised out of her momentary descent into self-pity. It still felt like the middle of the night, but she’d flown east, was four hours closer to the day than her mother, fast asleep in London.
She was on another continent at sunrise and, to witness it, all she had to do was stand here and wait.
Kal didn’t even ask what she wanted to do. He knew.
‘There’s a summer house over there,’ he said, urging her in the direction of another intricately decorated domed and colonnaded structure perfectly situated to enjoy the view. ‘You can watch in comfort.’
‘No…’
It was open at the front and there were huge cane chairs piled with cushions. Total luxury. A place to bring a book, be alone, forget everything. Maybe later. Not now.
‘I don’t want anything between me and the sky,’ she said, walking closer to the edge of the paved terrace where the drop was guarded by a stone balustrade. ‘I want to be outside where I can feel it.’
He let her go, didn’t follow her and she tried not to mind.
Minding was a waste of time. Worse. It was a stupid contradiction. Distance was what she had wanted and the old lady with the wand was, it seemed, still on the job, granting wishes as if they were going out of fashion.
She should be pleased.
It wasn’t as if she’d expected or needed to be diverted, amused. She had a pile of great books to amuse her, occupy her mind, and exploring the garden, wandering along the shore should be diversion enough for anyone. If the forbidden delights of Kal al-Zaki’s diversionary tactics hadn’t been such a potent reminder of everything she was missing. The life that she might have had if she hadn’t looked like Lady Rose.
But then, as the mauve band at the edge of the sky widened, became suffused with pink, she heard a step behind her and, as she half turned, Kal settled something soft around her.
For a moment his hands lingered on her shoulders, tense and knotted from sitting for too long, and without thinking she leaned into his touch, seeking ease from his long fingers. For a moment she thought he was going to respond, but then he stepped back, putting clear air between them.
‘You will get cold standing out here,’ he said with a brusqueness that suggested he had, after all, been affected by their closeness. That he, too, was aware that it would be inappropriate to take it further.
‘And you don’t want to explain to Lucy how I caught a chill on your watch?’ Light, cool, she told herself.
‘That wouldn’t bother me.’ He joined her at the balustrade, but kept his eyes on the horizon. ‘I’d simply explain that you stubbornly, wilfully insisted on standing outside in the chill of dawn, that short of carrying you inside there was nothing I could do about it. I have no doubt that she’d agree with me.’
‘She would?’ The idea of Rose being wilful or stubborn was so slanderous that she had to take a breath, remind herself that he was judging Rose on her behaviour, before she nodded and said, ‘She would.’ And vow to try a little harder-a lot harder-to be like the real thing.
‘His Highness, the Emir, on the other hand,’ Kal continued, ‘would be certain to think that I’d personally arranged for you to go down with pneumonia in order to cause him maximum embarrassment.’
He spoke lightly enough, inviting amusement, but she didn’t laugh, sensing the underlying darkness behind his words.
‘Why on earth would he think that?’ she asked, but more questions crowded into her head. Without waiting for him to answer, she added, ‘And why do you always refer to him as His Highness or the Emir?’ She made little quote marks with her fingers, something else she realised Rose would never do, and let her hands drop. ‘Sheikh Jamal is your uncle, isn’t he, Kal?’ she prompted when he didn’t answer.
‘Yes,’ he said shortly. Then, before she could say another word, ‘Someone will bring tea in a moment.’
‘This is your first visit here, too,’ she said, ignoring the abrupt change of subject. ‘Why is that?’
‘Watch the sunrise, for heaven’s sake,’ he practically growled at her.
In other words, Lydia, mind your own business, she thought, unsure whether she was pleased or sorry that she’d managed to rattle him out of his good manners.
Here was a mystery. A secret.
That she wasn’t the only one hiding something made her feel less guilty about the secret she was keeping for Rose, although no better about lying to him, and without another word she did as she was told.
Neither of them spoke or moved again while the darkness rolled back and the sun, still below the horizon, lit up bubbles of cloud in a blaze of colour that was reflected in the creek, the sea beyond, turning them first carmine, then pink, then liquid gold. As it grew light, the dark shapes against the water resolved themselves into traditional dhows moored amongst modern craft and beyond, sprawling over the steep bank on the far side of the creek, she could see a small town with a harbour and market which were already coming to life.
‘Wow,’ she said at last. ‘Double wow.’
She caught a movement as Kal turned to look at her and she shrugged.
‘Well, what other word is there?’ she asked.
‘Bab el Sama.’ He said the words softly. ‘The Gate of Heaven.’
She swallowed at the poetry of the name and said, ‘You win.’
He shook his head and said, ‘Are you done?’
‘Yes. Thank you for being so patient.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it,’ he assured her as they turned and walked back towards the summer house-such an ordinary word for something that looked as if it had been conjured up by Aladdin’s djinn-where a manservant was laying out the contents of a large tray.
The man bowed and, eyes down, said, ‘
She turned to Kal for a translation. ‘He said, “Peace be upon you, Lady. Welcome.’”
‘What should I say in return?’
