Jewel in His Crown Read Free Page B

sure there is some man hovering in the wings ready to do the ruling in Ashur.’
    The court advisor would have squirmed with dismay had he not possessed the carriage of a man with an iron bar welded to his short spine. Visibly, however, he stiffened even more. ‘You are, of course, correct when you say that women do not rule in Ashur. Our country has long practised male preference primogeniture—’
    â€˜So I am really not quite as important as you would like to make out?’ Ruby marvelled that he could ever have believed she might be so ignorant of the hereditary male role of kingship in Ashur. After all, hadn’t her poor mother’s marriage ended in tears and divorce thanks to those strict rules? Her father had taken another wife in a desperate attempt to have a son.
    Placed in an awkward spot when he had least expected it, Wajid reddened and revised up his assumptions about the level of the princess’s intelligence. ‘I am sorry to contradict you but you are unquestionably avery important young woman in the eyes of our people. Without you there can be no King,’ he admitted baldly.
    â€˜Excuse me?’ Her fine brows were pleating. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.’
    Wajid hesitated. ‘Ashur and Najar are to be united and jointly ruled by a marriage between the two royal families. That was integral to the peace terms that were agreed to at the end of the war.’
    Ruby froze at that grudging explanation and resisted the urge to release an incredulous laugh, for she suddenly grasped what her true value was to this stern little man. They needed a princess to marry off, a princess who could claim to be in line to the throne of Ashur. And here she was young and single. Nothing personal or even complimentary as such in her selection, she reflected with a stab of resentment and regret. It did, however, make more sense to her that she was only finally being acknowledged in Ashur as a member of the royal family because there was nobody else more suitable available.
    â€˜I didn’t know that arranged marriages still took place in Ashur.’
    â€˜Mainly within the royal family,’ Wajid conceded grudgingly. ‘Sometimes parents know their children better than their children know themselves.’
    â€˜Well, I no longer have parents to make that decision for me. In any case, my father never took the time to get to know me at all. I’m afraid you’re wasting your time here, Mr Sulieman. I don’t want to be a princess and I don’t want to marry a stranger, either. I’m quite content with my life as it is.’ Rising to her feet to indicate that she felt it was time that her visitors took their leave, Ruby felt sorry enough for the older man in his ignorance of contemporary Western values to offer him a look of sympathy. ‘These days few young women would be attracted by an arrangement of that nature.’
    Long after the limousine had disappeared from view Ruby and Stella sat discussing the visit.
    â€˜A princess?’ Stella kept on repeating, studying the girl she had known from primary school with growing fascination. ‘And you honestly didn’t know?’
    â€˜I don’t think they can have wanted Mum to know,’ Ruby offered evenly. ‘After the divorce my father and his family were happy for her to leave Ashur and from then on they preferred to pretend that she and I didn’t exist.’
    â€˜I wonder what the guy they want you to marry is like,’ Stella remarked, twirling her dark fringe with dreamy eyes, her imagination clearly caught.
    â€˜If he’s anything like as callous as my father I’m not missing anything. My father was willing to break Mum’s heart to have a son and no doubt the man they want me to marry would do anything to become King of Ashur—’
    â€˜The guy has to be from the other country, right?’
    â€˜Najar? Must be. Probably some