at the table.
‘This looks wonderful, Dena,’ she said, trying very hard to ignore his hands grasping the back of her chair, the beautiful bones of his wrists, the dark hair exposed where he’d folded back the sleeves of his shirt, the woody scent of soap and shampoo as she sat down and he bent over her to ease the chair forward.
It was like living inside a kaleidoscope of the senses. Everything was heightened. The food glowed, gleamed with colour, enticed with spices. The arm of her chair, worn smooth by many hands. The starchy smell, the feel of the damask cloth against her legs. A silence so intense that she could almost feel it.
Then a bird fluttered down, anticipating crumbs, and gradually everything began to move again and she realised that Dena was speaking. That both she and Kal were looking at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
Dena excused herself, leaving Kal to pass on the message, but he shook his head as if it was nothing important and instead took her on a culinary tour of the table.
Rice cooked with saffron and studded with pine nuts and sultanas. Locally caught fish. Chicken. Jewelled salads. Small cheeses made from goats’ milk.
‘It’s a feast,’ she said with every appearance of pleasure, even though alarm bells were going off in her head, certain that she’d missed something. That somehow they knew…‘I just hope Dena does not expect me to eat it all. I usually have a sandwich for lunch.’
‘And here I was thinking that you spent every day at a lavish lunch, raising money for charity.’
His words were accompanied by a wry smile and the bells quietened a little, the tension seeping away beneath the honeyed warmth of his voice, his eyes.
‘Not more than once a week,’ she assured him. Then, managing a smile of her own, ‘Maybe twice. But I only taste the food.’
‘A taste will satisfy Dena. None of the food will be wasted.’ He took her plate. ‘Rice?’
‘A spoonful,’ she replied, repeating the same word each time he offered her a new dish. He put no more than a morsel of each on her plate but, by the time he had finished, it was still an awful lot of food to eat in the middle of the day and she regarded it doubtfully.
‘It will be a long time until dinner, Rose. We eat late. And you’re going to need plenty of energy before then.’ She looked up. ‘We’re going fishing, remember?’
‘Is it hard work? I thought you just sat with a rod and waited for the fish to bite.’ She picked up a fork. ‘Was that what you were arranging with Dena?’
He hesitated for a moment, as if he had some unpleasant news to impart, and the bells began jangling again.
‘Kal?’
He shook his head. ‘It was nothing to do with this afternoon. She’s had a message from Rumaillah. It seems that the Emir’s wife has decided to pay you a courtesy call.’
The fork in Lydia’s hand shook and the waiting sparrows dived on the scattered grains of rice.
‘The Emir’s wife?’
‘I know that you hoped to be totally private here, Rose, but I’m sure you understand that Princess Sabirah could not ignore your presence in her country.’
Lydia felt the colour drain from her face.
When Rose had asked her to do this it had all seemed so simple. Once she was out of the country there would be nothing to do but indulge herself in one of those perfectly selfish holidays that everyone dreamed about occasionally. The kind where you could read all day and all night if you wanted to. Swim. Take a walk on the beach. Do what you wanted without having to think about another person.
And, like Rose, do some serious thinking about the future.
She’d had ten good years as Rose’s lookalike and had no doubt that she could go on for ten more, but now she’d met Kal and the only person she wanted to be was herself.
No pretence.
No lies.
Not that she was kidding herself. She knew that if, in the unlikely event that he’d ever met her as ‘herself’, he wouldn’t have even noticed her.
Everything about him was the real deal, from his designer suit to the Rolex on his wrist-no knock-offs for this man. Including women.
The pain of that was a wake-up call far louder, the argument for reality more cogent than any that her boss at the supermarket could make, even using the in-store announcement system.
She had been coasting through her own life, putting all her energies into someone else’s, and she would never move on, meet someone who wanted her, the real Lydia Young, unless she started building a life of her own.
‘When?’ she asked, ungluing her tongue. ‘What time?’
Maybe she could throw a sickie, she thought a touch desperately, but instantly rejected the idea as she realised what kind of fuss
If Lady Rose took to her bed, panic would ensue, doctors would be summoned-probably by helicopter from the capital. And Kal or Dena, probably both, would call Lucy, the Duke of Oldfield and then the game would be up.
No, no, no…
She could do this. She had to do it.
‘Relax. She won’t be here for a day or two and she won’t stay long,’ Kal said, not looking at her, but concentrating on serving himself. ‘Just for coffee, cake. Dena will arrange everything,’ he added, that tiny muscle in his jaw tightening again.
What was that? Tension?
What was his problem?
‘Does she speak English? What will we talk about?’
‘I believe her English is excellent and I imagine she’ll want to talk about your work.’
‘Really?’ Lydia had a flash image of herself politely explaining the finer points of the checkout scanner to Her Highness over a cup of coffee and had to fight down a hysterical giggle as the world began to unravel around her.
‘Play nice,’ he said, ‘and you’ll get a generous donation for one of your good causes.’
Kal’s flippancy brought her crashing back to reality. This was not in the least bit funny and her expression must have warned him that she was no more amused by his remark than Rose, whose parents had been killed on a charity mission, would have been.
‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ he said immediately. ‘That was unforgivable.’ He shook his head and she realised that for some reason he was as on edge as she was. ‘I’m sure she’ll just want to talk about Lucy and her grandchildren. It’s a while since she’s seen them.’
As if that was better!
She’d assumed that being at Bab el Sama would be like staying in a hotel. Great service but everything at a distance. She hadn’t anticipated having to live with the pretence of being Rose in this way. This minute by minute deception.
She’d come dangerously, selfishly close to confessing everything to Kal before Dena had interrupted her but she could not, no matter how desperately she wanted to, break Rose’s confidence.
She had made this offer with a free heart and couldn’t, wouldn’t let her down just because that heart wanted to jump ship and fling itself at someone else.
‘I appear to have spoiled your appetite,’ Kal said, and she took a little heart from the fact that he didn’t seem particularly comfortable to hear of their unexpected visitor either.
‘I’m good,’ she said, picking up her fork and spearing a piece of chicken so succulent that, despite her dry mouth, she had no trouble swallowing it. ‘So tell me what, exactly, is your problem, Kal?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
