to sit back down again and watch her children negotiate a compromise.
Lizzie phoned while Chrissie was savouring peppermint tea served with tiny cakes. Smoothing the barely visible bump that thickened her figure, she thought how grateful she was that her morning sickness had not lasted into her second trimester. Indeed her second pregnancy was progressing much more smoothly than her first and she put that down to the lack of stress in her current life. She chatted at length to her sister, who was due to arrive with her family and their father for a visit at the end of the week. Her family were regular visitors and distance had not driven a wedge between the sisters.
When their nanny reclaimed the twins for an early evening meal, Chrissie wandered down to the stables to visit Hero. Two years earlier, her elderly pony had arrived to take up residence in the ritziest stall in the royal block. Their reunion had been a wonderful surprise for Chrissie and she had been overwhelmed that Jaul, incredibly busy as he was, had taken the time and trouble to ensure that Hero could live out what remained of his days near his mistress in Marwan.
Having become heavily involved in the development of the nursery education programme, Chrissie had found her first year in Marwan had raced past her. Jaul’s people were friendly and supportive and although she sometimes attended formal occasions with Jaul, rubbing shoulders with diplomats, foreign dignitaries and businessmen, for much of the time she was simply Jaul’s wife. Family life and time to spend with the children were immensely important to both of them.
Having visited Hero, Chrissie headed back to their private wing to shower and change. Every year they celebrated that night the barriers between them had finally dropped and they spent the night in the harem. That was where they had rediscovered their love and happiness and it was a wonderful way of remembering how they had started out and keeping faith with the promises they had exchanged.
Dusk was falling when Jaul began lighting candles and a meal was being set out below the pillars. The murals were covered by discreet curtains, ensuring that no staff member could be shocked or offended by those depictions of earthly lust and love. Jaul liked to think that love must have featured in some of the relationships that had taken place in the harem but he could not begin to imagine how his grandfather Tarif had chosen shallow physical relationships over the far deeper and more lasting bonds he could have formed with the wife who had loved him.
Jaul frowned as he thought of his grandmother, regretting that their time together had been so short. Lady Sophie had died peacefully in her sleep the year before. Prior to that, Jaul had made frequent visits to the old lady’s home in London, keen to make up as best he could for the decades his late father had spent ignoring his mother’s very existence.
The iron ring on the huge outer door was smartly rapped and rapped a second time when he was only halfway down the room to answer it. Jaul grinned, well acquainted with his wife’s impatience.
‘I haven’t quite finished the candles,’ he warned her.
‘I’m here to help.’ Chrissie looked up into his stunning dark golden eyes and could have sworn that her knees wobbled.
‘No, you’re pregnant. You’re not allowed to do anything but put your feet up.’ Jaul ushered her over to an armchair furnished with a footstool.
‘Anything?’ Chrissie teased as she kicked off her shoes and sat down.
‘Conserve your energy for what’s really important.’ Glancing wickedly at the bed awaiting them with his eyes alight with amusement, Jaul knelt down beside her to reach for her hand and slide a platinum ring adorned with a glowing sapphire onto her middle finger. ‘Thank you for another wonderful year.’
Chrissie studied her latest gift in consternation. ‘We agreed that you weren’t going to buy me any more jewellery.’
‘I didn’t agree. I simply chose silence over argument.’
‘Sometimes you can be so devious.’ Chrissie lifted a hand to brush an errant lock of blue-black hair off his brow.
‘And you love it,’ Jaul told her with assurance, planting a kiss on the delicate skin of her inner wrist while tracing tender fingertips over the slight swell of her pregnant tummy. ‘You wear everything you feel on the surface but I hide it...except when I’m with you. I love you, habibti.’
‘I know.’ And Chrissie gloried in that sense of security, standing up to enable him to band his arms around her and claim her mouth with the hunger that neither of them ever tried to hide or suppress.
‘I’m so excited about the baby,’ he confided. ‘I missed so much with the twins. This time around I will treasure every moment with you.’
‘I bet you embarrass me by fainting or something,’ Chrissie forecast, surveying him with loving intensity as the dancing light and shadow of the candles played over his lean, strong face.
But Jaul won that bet. He was fully conscious for the birth of his second son, Prince Hafiz, a healthy seven-pound baby with his mother’s astonishingly blue eyes. There was a hint of his English grandfather in his bone structure. His elder brother gave him a teddy and Soraya gave him a picture she had drawn. In the first official photographs, with Hafiz’s parents holding him safe in their arms, happiness and contentment radiated from the entire royal family.
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from THE SINS OF SEBASTIAN REY-DEFOE by Kim Lawrence
PROLOGUE
Blaisdon Gazette. 17 November 1990
A hospital spokesman this morning said that two babies, believed to be twins, found yesterday on the steps of St Benedict’s Church, are now in a serious but stable condition. Police are anxious to trace the mother, who might be in need of medical care.
London Reporter. 17 November 1990
The foundation stone of the hospital’s new wing was laid by the late Sebastian Rey’s grandson, who was named after his philanthropist grandfather. Stepping in for his father, whose duties captaining the Argentine national polo team kept him away from the ceremony, seven-year-old Sebastian Rey-Defoe is the son of the well-known English socialite Lady Sylvia Defoe. Sebastian is set to inherit the Rey billions and the Mandeville Hall estate in England. He suffered only minor injuries in the crash that killed his grandfather outright.
14 February 2008
‘THERE IS A REASON, I suppose, why I am staying in a place called the Pink Unicorn?’ Not a name you could say and think of minimalist decor, and not a name Seb could even say without a grimace of distaste.
‘Sorry.’ His irritatingly cheerful PA pretended she hadn’t heard the sarcasm. ‘But it is Valentine’s Day and there isn’t a decent place within twenty miles of Fleur’s school that isn’t fully booked. The Lake District is considered romantic. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious,’ she soothed. ‘And it is five star, so you won’t be slumming it, and it has great reviews—people on the website rave about the little personal touches. Your room is... What does it say...? That was it: charming and bijou with beams and—’
‘Oh, God!’ he groaned. Six-five in his bare feet, he did not do bijou or beams... Was his petite PA punishing him for something?
‘Don’t be such a misery. You’re very lucky that the Pink Unicorn had a cancellation.’
‘I’ve sacked people for less. I’m ruthless, haven’t you heard?’ The previous month’s article in a particular Sunday supplement, even though it had spawned several rebuttal articles in well-known financial journals, had left a public perception of him that suggested his wealth could not have been made without an utterly ruthless disregard for the rules or his fellow man.
‘Where would you find someone else who gets your weird sense of humour?’
‘You think I’m joking?’
‘Or someone who is as efficient as me who doesn’t weep when you scowl or fall in love with you