Jewel in His Crown Read Free

was determined not to go out with him again.
    After work she walked home, to the tiny terraced house that she rented, for the second time that day. Her lunch breaks were always cut short by her need to go home and take her dog out for a quick walk but she didn’t mind. Hermione, the light of Ruby’s life, was a Jack Russell terrier, who adored Ruby and disliked men. Hermione had protected Ruby from her stepfather, Curtis, on more than one occasion. Creeping into Ruby’s bedroom at night had been a very dangerous exercise with Hermione in residence.
    Ruby shared the small house with her friend Stella Carter, who worked as a supermarket cashier. Now she was surprised to see an opulent BMW car complete with a driver parked outside her home and she had not even contrived to get her key into the front door before it shot abruptly open.
    â€˜Thank goodness, you’re home!’ Stella exclaimed, her round face flushed and uneasy. ‘You’ve got visitors in the lounge…’ she informed Ruby in a suitable whisper.
    Ruby frowned. ‘Who are they?’
    â€˜They’re something to do with your father’s family… No, not Curtis the perv, the real one!’ That distinction was hissed into Ruby’s ear.
    Completely bewildered, Ruby went into the compact front room, which seemed uncomfortably full of people. A small grey-haired man beamed at her and bowed very low. The middle aged woman with him and the younger man followed suit, so that Ruby found herself staring in wonderment at three downbent heads.
    â€˜Your Royal Highness,’ the older man breathed in a tone of reverent enthusiasm. ‘May I say what a very great pleasure it is to meet you at last?’
    â€˜He’s been going on about you being a princess ever since he arrived,’ Stella told her worriedly out of the corner of her mouth.
    â€˜I’m not a princess. I’m not a royal anything,’ Ruby declared with a frown of wryly amused discomfiture. ‘What’s this all about? Who are you?’
    Wajid Sulieman introduced himself and his wife, Haniyah, and his assistant. ‘I represent the interests of the Ashuri royal family and I am afraid I must first give you bad news.’
    Striving to recall her manners and contain her impatience, Ruby asked her visitors to take a seat. Wajid informed her that her uncle, Tamim, his wife and his daughter, Bariah, had died in a plane crash over the desert three weeks earlier. The names rang a very vague bell of familiarity from Ruby’s one and only visit toAshur when she was a schoolgirl of fourteen. ‘My uncle was the king…’ she said hesitantly, not even quite sure of that fact.
    â€˜And until a year ago your eldest brother was his heir,’ Wajid completed.
    Ruby’s big brown eyes opened very wide in surprise. ‘I have a brother?’
    Wajid had the grace to flush at the level of her ignorance about her relatives. ‘Your late father had two sons by his second wife.’
    Ruby emitted a rueful laugh. ‘So I have two half-brothers I never knew about. Do they know about me?’
    Wajid looked grave. ‘Once again it is my sad duty to inform you that your brothers died bravely as soldiers in Ashur’s recent war with Najar.’
    Stunned, Ruby struggled to speak. ‘Oh…yes, I’ve read about the war in the newspapers. That’s very sad about my brothers. They must’ve been very young, as well,’ Ruby remarked uncertainly, feeling hopelessly out of her depth.
    The Ashuri side of her family was a complete blank to Ruby. She had never met her father or his relations and knew virtually nothing about them. On her one and only visit to Ashur, her once powerful curiosity had been cured when her mother’s attempt to claim a connection to the ruling family was heartily rejected. Vanessa had written in advance of their visit but there had been no reply. Her phone calls once they arrived in Ashur had