as always - to my fans -
nic
Abdullah touched his head to the mat and prayed - his lips moving reverently over the words.
His heart was heavy as he bowed over the fifth "Isha" prayer which usually ended before midnight.
"Subhaan-Allaah wa'l-hamdu Lillaah wa laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wa Allaahu akbar wa laa hawla wa la quwwata illa Billaah," he spoke the words.
Abdullah was a religious man who had always tried to give guidance and support to Sheik Mohammed Aksam Al Sabid – praise be to Allah and guide him through his journey. He had been honored to have been appointed his advisor and been rewarded with riches and an esteemed position.
But this growing obsession the Sheik had for the pale foreigner did not bode well. The people respected the sheik and it was partly due to his father's memory and reign but also due to Mohammed's own wise rule.
There was talk in the bazaars and inside the court and harem that the girl had bewitched their lord.
They called Katharine a witch and a sorceress and claimed she had stolen the sheik's soul.
Many of the men in the bazaars spoke of Katharine's surpassing beauty and that in the act of fellatio – she had swallowed his seed and his soul.
Some called her a succubus while others just wanted her stoned and dead.
Abdullah was a learned man and knew the talk of Katharine was from vicious town gossips who were jealous of her beauty and the power she might hold over the sheik. But gossips could turn a falsity into the truth and rob Arabia of the powerful sheik's reputation.
He knew it was time to step in and get rid of the girl once and for all. Yasmeen had tried and failed. He would not.
*************************
She hadn't seen Mohammed since that retched night at the music hall. They had made love and he had discovered her state of pregnancy. She herself had not known until that moment. She had never been pregnant before and unmarried ladies were kept woefully ignorant of such knowledge until they became married and respectable. How could she have known?
The scene with Mohammed had replayed itself over and over again in her mind and as she had traveled back to England she knew he would come after her.
What was she to say to him - the father of her unborn child?
Worse than that was the situation she found herself in with Jamie.
He had gambled and drank away his family's fortune. He told her of it one afternoon when he had calmed down after she agreed to marry him.
Early in his teen age years, he had found he had an affection for men and did not pursue the young women of his age and breeding.
He had become taken with a younger man from a very affluent family and begun spending time with him. The man was a cad whose family had all but disowned him. Jamie spent more and more time with the man spending money at the gambling halls, drinking and wagering vast amounts to keep the young man's attention.
A year later, he was in severe trouble.
Jamie's father had insisted he not see the man anymore and had spoken to Kat's father about a betrothal.
But neither Jamie's need for respectability nor Mohammed ache for her – helped her steer her situation in the right direction.
Her choices were dim. Mohammed was her unborn child's father. He had a right to raise it.
But not only that, if her child was a boy, he would be the next sheik of Arabia supplanting his father when Mohammed died.
But Kat knew that his people would never want her as their queen and lady and she worried about an uprising that would harm Mohammed's country. She didn't want to undermine anything that Mohammed had forged and made and she ached with the uncertainty of it all.
It was frustrating and tiring and Kat had no one to turn to.
She dared not tell her family she was breeding –they would die of the shame.
And so she kept it all inside. She was sleeping poorly and beneath her eyes were dark circles.
She was only content when she walked along the small creek that wound through her father's property. England was green and lush and she had missed it when she had been suffocating in Arabia.
But now that she was in England, her heart longed for the heat and sand of Arabia and the proud man she had fallen in love with.
She settled herself under a small tree as the creek trickled by. She removed her shoes and breathed a sigh of relief.
She had a very poor appetite of late with bouts on nausea in the morning. But in the afternoon, she felt it less and was able to eat toast and drink tea. She was tired more and more often and found herself sleeping during the day. She knew it was the unborn child that caused it.
She leaned her head against a tree with her hands over her belly and sank into a light slumber.
********************
He had been walking through her father's property for awhile. The grooms pointed him in the direction she had taken to walking but it was still a vast and green estate.
The marriage certificate still burned a whole in his breast pocket and he longed to confront her father. But secretly, he was torn. He didn't want her screaming down the local parish's aisle claiming he was kidnapping her.
He wanted her pliant, in his arms, with love and affection on her face.
He wanted her dressed in a silk gown surrounded by her family with obedient words on her lips.
Did he want too much? No, he didn't think so.
He had at first been enraged when he had felt her rounded belly that evening at the music hall. He had thought that she meant to conceal it from him - that she had been scheming to take what rightfully belonged to him.
He conjured up all the evil deeds her people were capable of – and condemned her there and then.
But he re-lived the scene inside the small box and remembered her face devoid of guile and watched as she realized the truth. She was pregnant.
And after he had given her the ultimatum, he had gone back to his lodging and it had sunk in.
She was pregnant! His beautiful woman with the hair the color of the Sahara desert and her eyes like the Arabian sea was pregnant.
Inside her belly was a child they had created. Inside her belly was growing the next sheik of Arabia.
