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  Tati nodded in silence because, of course, she knew.

  ‘Well, I’m not putting myself through that for anybody!’ Ana asserted. ‘Now, you be careful. Don’t let them realise that you’re not the bride for a few hours...that’s all I’m asking you to do, no big deal, Tati! Come on, give me a hug and wish me well with George!’

  Tati rose stiffly and hugged her, because she knew how headstrong Ana was and that nothing short of a nuclear bomb would alter her plans once she had made her mind up. ‘Be happy, Ana,’ she urged with damp eyes and a sense of dread she couldn’t shake.

  Tati hated it when people got angry and started shouting and she knew that the moment her aunt and uncle realised that their daughter had departed there would be a huge scene and furious raised voices. They would blame her for not telling them in advance. At the same time, though, she understood her cousin’s fears. Ana’s parents were so set on the marriage taking place that they were quite capable of following her to the airport and trying to force her to return to the palace. How could she subject Ana to that situation when she no longer wanted to marry the wretched man? After all, nobody should be forced to marry anyone they didn’t want to marry.

  Ana departed with the utmost casualness, a gormless servant even carting her luggage for her without a clue that he was assisting the Prince’s bride to stage a vanishing act. Tati sat on the edge of a seat in the corner of the bedroom, panicking at the very thought of allowing people to credit that she was her cousin and the bride-to-be. She supposed that that meant she was a coward and she felt ashamed of herself for being so weak. Deception of any kind was usually a complete no-no for Tati, whose birth father had gone to prison for financial fraud. Her mother, Mariana, ashamed of the character of the man who had fathered her daughter, had raised her to be honest and decent in all situations. And what was she doing now?

  While Tati was struggling with her loyalty to her cousin, her anxiety about her mother’s continuing care and her troubled conscience, someone knocked on the door and entered, a brightly smiling young woman, who greeted her warmly in English. ‘Tatiana? I am the Prince’s cousin, Daliya. I am a student in England, and I have been asked to act as your interpreter.’

  ‘Everyone calls me Tati,’ Tati told her apprehensively, thinking how silly it was that she didn’t even have to lie about her name because she and her cousin were both officially Tatiana Hamilton, thanks to her rebellious mother’s obstinacy. Tati’s mother and uncle had never got along as siblings. When Mariana’s brother, Rupert, had named his child after his mother, his sister had seen no reason why he should claim that privilege and she should not. Of course, back then, her mother could never have foreseen that she would end up living back at her birthplace and that there would be two little girls rejoicing in the same name.

  ‘I am sure you are wondering about the importance my people put on the bridal preparations,’ Daliya assumed. ‘Let me explain. This is not typical of weddings in Alharia because it is no longer fashionable. But you are different because this is a royal wedding. All the women who will attend you here today consider this a great honour. Most of them are from the older generation and this is how they demonstrate their respect, loyalty and love for the Basara family and the throne.’

  ‘I shall feel privileged,’ Tati squeezed out between clenched teeth, the guilt of being an impostor on such a solemn occasion cutting her deep. The pretty brunette’s explanation had made her want to die of shame where she sat. The very least she could do was be polite and respectful...until the dreadful moment when people realised that she was not the right Tatiana Hamilton. Inwardly she was already recoiling in horror from the thought of that dramatic unveiling.

  ‘All the same, I’m sure the unfamiliar will feel strange, and it may possibly intrude on your privacy to accept these diverse customs,’ Daliya suggested, her intelligent brown eyes locked to Tati’s face. ‘You are very pale. Are you feeling all right? Is it the heat?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just nerves!’ Tati exclaimed shakily as the other woman showed her out of the room and down a corridor. ‘I’m very robust in the health stakes.’

  Daliya laughed. ‘The elderly women obsessed with your fertility will be delighted to hear that.’

  ‘My f-fertility?’ Tati stammered helplessly in her incomprehension.

  ‘Of course. Some day you will be a queen and the natural hope is that you will provide the next generation to the throne.’ Daliya frowned in surprise as Tati stumbled in receipt of that explanation.

  For a split second, Tati had almost divulged the truth that she was not the right Tatiana, because it seemed so wrong to deceive people at such an important event. But they were already entering a very large room crammed with older women, some of whom wore the traditional dress but most of whom sported western fashion like her young companion.

  Aware of being the centre of attention and ill accustomed to that sensation, Tati flushed just the way she used to do at school when the bullies had christened her ‘Tatty Tato,’ mocking her for her shabby second-hand uniforms and worn shoes. Her uncle’s generosity in paying her school fees had not extended to such extras, and why should it have? she reflected, scolding herself for that moment of ingratitude. Tati had adored her loving mother growing up, but sometimes she had been embarrassed by her parent as well. Mariana Hamilton had never stood on her own feet and had never done anything other than casual work when it suited her. Relying on other people to pay her bills had come naturally to Tati’s mother and that had made Tati both proud and independent. Or as proud and independent as one could be when forced to live in her uncle and aunt’s country house and be at the family’s beck and call while working for barely minimum wage.

  All those thoughts teemed in Tati’s busy brain while she calculated how many hours she would need to play the bridal role to allow Ana to make her getaway, and that introspection got her through the hideous public bathing rite she endured. Herbs and oils were stirred through a steaming bath and then she was wrapped in a modesty sheet, just as if she were entering a medieval convent, and settled into the water to have her hair washed. Keeping up an air of good cheer was hard. Daliya lightened the experience with explanations of the superstitions that had formed such rituals and cracking the occasional discreet joke.

  ‘You are a very good sport,’ Daliya whispered in quiet approbation. ‘It is a good quality for a member of the royal family. I think all the women were afraid that you would refuse their attentions.’

  Tati contrived to smile despite her discomfiture because she knew for a fact that nobody would have got to roll Ana in a sheet and steep her in a hot herbal bath that smelled like stewed weeds. Ana would have flatly refused any such ritual, too attached to her own regimented beauty routine and too afraid that her hair would be ruined. Unfamiliar with such routines, Tati had told herself that she was having a treat, a rather exotic treat admittedly but pretty much a treat for a young woman who generally washed, cut and styled her own hair. What little she earned only kept her in clothes and small gifts for her mother when she was able to visit her.

  ‘You are very brave,’ Daliya told her as her hair was being combed out.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You are marrying a man you have never seen, never spoken to...or have you and the Prince met up in secret?’ she prompted with unconcealed curiosity.

  ‘No, we haven’t. Isn’t that the custom here? The sight-unseen thing?’ Tati queried.

  Daliya laughed out loud. ‘Not in Alharia now for generations. We meet, we date. It is all very discreet, of course. Only the Emir follows old cultural traditions, but with the Prince you need have no fear of disappointment. Had His Royal Highness desired to marry any sooner, he would have been snatched up by any number of women.’

  ‘Yes, I believe he’s quite a catch,’ Tati remarked politely.

  ‘Saif is of a thoughtful, serious nature,’ Daliya murmured quietly. ‘He is very muc
h admired in our country.’

  Tati had to bite her tongue on the flood of curious questions that she wanted to fire at the brunette. It was none of her business. Even the Hamiltons knew next to nothing about the Crown Prince, for none of them had cared about the details. That the marriage should take place and the dowry be given had pretty much encompassed the extent of her relatives’ interest and that awareness shamed Tati, because everything that her present companions took so seriously had been treated with scornful indifference by Ana and her parents.

  At that point, Daliya contrived to persuade their chattering companions that the waxing technician could take Tati into the giant bathroom with its waiting treatment couch alone. Tati had never been so grateful for that small piece of mercy in the proceedings. Discovering that she was only an hour and a bit into the lengthy bridal preparations, she heaved a heavy sigh, knowing that her cousin needed longer to make good her escape from Alharia. She felt worse than ever about her deception.

  After the waxing, the preparations moved on to a massage with scented oils. Her nails were painted and then henna patterns were drawn on her hands. Mentally exhausted, Tati drifted off into sleep and when she was wakened gently by Daliya, she sat up and was immediately served with a cold drink and a tasty little snack while all the women hummed some song around her. Her watch had disappeared, and she had no idea what time it was. Daliya was now telling her that she had to leave for a little while but would be back with her soon.

  That announcement plunged Tati into an even deeper dilemma. She had originally planned to share her true status and the reality that the bride had fled with the chatty brunette, but she was painfully aware that Daliya had been very kind to her. As the only English speaker she might well receive considerable blame for not having registered the fact that the bride was not who she was supposed to be. After all, everybody was likely to get very worked up once the truth emerged. Tempers would be fraught, angry accusations would be made. Uneasily, Tati decided to wait for a less personal, more official messenger before confessing that she was a complete fraud in the bride stakes.

  A long silk chemise garment was displayed for her benefit and it was evidently time for her to get dressed. She would be making her big reveal very soon, Tati acknowledged, sick at the prospect, her tummy hollowing out. But she had to be clothed to do anything, she reflected wretchedly, and she stood in silence while she was engulfed like an Egyptian mummy in layers of tunics and petticoats and her hair was combed out and a cosmetic technician every bit as slick as the type Ana used at home arrived to do her work. By the time Daliya reappeared beaming, Tati was ready to nibble her nails down to the quick, only she couldn’t because they too had been embellished and she didn’t want to offend anyone. And even that thought struck her as ridiculous, considering how offended everyone would be when the awful truth came out.

  ‘It’s time,’ Daliya informed her cheerfully.

  Tati feared she might throw up, so knotted were her insides by that stage, and the brunette’s reappearance didn’t help because she honestly didn’t want to involve Daliya in her disaster. And it would be a disaster, she thought wretchedly. However, her aunt and uncle were the proper people to be told first that their daughter had fled. As they were to be witnesses to what Ana had described with a sniff of disappointment as a very private ceremony, she was sure to see Ana’s parents very soon in the flesh.

  A posse of chattering women walked her through the palace, down stone staircases, across inner courtyards, through endless halls and corridors until finally they reached a set of giant ornate double doors set with silver and glittering gems and guarded by two large men in traditional dress brandishing weapons.

  ‘We must leave you here...but we will see you soon,’ Daliya smilingly told her, exchanging a brief word with the guards that had them springing into action and throwing wide the double doors...

  CHAPTER TWO

  ONLY A SMALL number of people awaited the bride’s arrival in the ancient splendour of that giant painted and gilded room, which was surrounded by elaborate carved archways and pillars. A regal elderly man was stationed by the side of another, taller figure shadowed by the archway below which he stood. Another pair of older men hovered beside a table, and across the room stood Rupert and Elizabeth Hamilton, Tati’s uncle and aunt, glaringly out of place in their fashionable Western attire.

  Rupert Hamilton frowned the instant he saw Tati and he strode forward. ‘You’re not supposed to be here for the ceremony. Where’s Ana?’

  Tati’s mouth ran very dry. ‘Gone,’ she croaked.

  ‘Gone?’ the older man thundered. ‘How can my daughter be gone? Gone where?’

  Saif watched with keen eyes from the sidelines and wondered what was happening. Seemingly the bride had arrived, but her father was angry and that word, gone, was remarkably explanatory in such circumstances. Who on earth was the woman who had arrived in her place dressed as his bride? Saif almost laughed out loud with relief and amusement at the confirmation that the Basara family’s bad luck with wives was continuing into his generation. Beside him, he could feel his father bristling with impatience, and he translated that single word for his benefit. ‘The bride is gone,’ he murmured in their own language. ‘This is a different woman.’

  ‘Gone to catch a flight back home. She’ll be airborne by now,’ Tati explained in a rush. ‘She didn’t want to go through with this.’

  ‘You bitch! You helped her to run away!’ her aunt Elizabeth shrilled at her in a tempestuous bout of annoyance, stalking across the room and lifting her hand as though to slap Tati.

  ‘No...there will be no violence in the Emir’s presence,’ another voice intervened—male, accented, dark and deep in pitch.

  Tati looked up in shock at the very tall young man who, for all his height and build, had approached so quietly and quickly that she hadn’t heard him. He had caught her aunt’s hand before it could connect with Tati’s face, and he dropped the older woman’s wrist again with a chilling air of disdain at such behaviour. And Tati’s first thought was foolishly that Ana would be raging if she ever saw a photo of the bridegroom she had abandoned, because there were few women who appreciated a handsome man more than her cousin.

  The big, well-built man towering over them, sheathed in an embroidered traditional tunic and trousers in opulent shades of brown silk worn with boots, was absolutely gorgeous. He had unruly black hair, eyes that were a startlingly unexpected and piercing green and lashes long enough to trip over, set deep below slashing ebony brows. He had skin the colour of creamy coffee whipped with cinnamon and stretched taut over spectacular bone structure, with a straight nose, a strong jawline and a wide sensual mouth. He was so good-looking that Tati’s tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth and she simply stared at him as if he had suddenly materialised in front of her like an alien dropped from a spaceship.

  ‘Be quiet, Elizabeth!’ Rupert Hamilton snapped to silence his wife’s ranting accusations. ‘How long has it been since Ana left the palace?’

  ‘It was hours ago,’ Tati confirmed reluctantly.

  The elderly man at the front of the room erupted into an angry speech in his own language. Saif shot a highly amused glance down at the bride who was not a bride. A sense of regained freedom and strong relief was now powering through him. She was tiny and she had huge blue eyes and a mass of wheat-blond hair that almost reached her waist...if she had a waist. The women had put so much clothing on the fake bride that she closely resembled a small moving mound of cloth. It was possible that she was rather round in shape but equally possible that she was built like a twig...and it didn’t matter either way to him now, did it?

  ‘And who are you?’ he prompted with what he felt was excusable curiosity.

  ‘Ana’s cousin, Tati.’

  ‘Which is a diminutive of?’

  ‘Tatiana.’

  ‘The same as the bride who is...gone?’ Black lashes swoope
d down low over his glittering gaze and his mouth quirked. ‘Is there a shortage of names in your family?’ he enquired with complete insouciance, apparently untouched by the angry outbursts emanating from everyone else in the room.

  A determined hand closed over her elbow, pulling her away from the silk-clad Prince. ‘I want a word with you,’ her uncle told her angrily. ‘Here you are clearly desperate to take your cousin’s place! That’s why you helped her, isn’t it? The temptation was too much for you. The thought of the clothes, the jewels and the holidays you’d be able to enjoy...the rich lifestyle that you’ve always dreamt of having and now, with Ana out of the way, it can all be yours!’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Tati pleaded with the older man because the Prince was only a few feet away from them.

  She was absolutely horrified by her uncle’s accusation that she had deliberately schemed to step into her cousin’s shoes, that unspoken but deeply wounding suggestion that she must always have been envious of Ana and her superior financial prospects. ‘Of course, I’m not trying to take Ana’s place. Right now, you’re upset—’

  Dalil Khouri was endeavouring to explain to the enraged Emir that although a bride had arrived, she was not the chosen bride, she was a substitute even if she was another grandchild of the Emir’s late friend. ‘Well, then, let the ceremony proceed!’ the old man commanded impatiently.

  Saif, repelled by the brutal condemnation he had heard the uncle aim at his niece, made an attempt to reason with his exasperated parent, but his father could not move beyond the perceived affront of his precious only son and heir being jilted by his bride. The Emir could not accept that outrage. He felt it too deeply, chiming in as it did to his own unhappy past experiences with the opposite sex. ‘I will not have my son left without a bride when the entire country knows he is to be wedded today,’ he told his adviser with barely leashed anger. ‘That is an insult we cannot accept. The other girl will do.’