The Bride Price (38 page)

“Farha!” Bryna started almost guiltily when Sharif’s concerned voice spoke from behind her. She had not heard his footsteps on the stairs. “What are you doing up here?”

“Just waiting for the dawn,” she replied without turning.

“You will catch a cold.” She heard a rustle as Sharif stepped toward her and removed his heavy woolen aba. Then she felt the weight of it on her shoulders.

“You could not sleep either?” he asked, sitting on a cushion behind her. “Was it another nightmare?”

“How do you know?” she asked over her shoulder.

“`Abla told me.”

“I asked her not to.” She wished he had positioned himself so she could see his face.

“You asked her not to wake me,” the man corrected, pulling her back gently so she rested, warm and comfortable, against his chest. His arm was crooked loosely around her neck. He nestled his face against her hair, breathing in her sweet scent. As always he felt a stir of desire, but he sat motionless and silent.

After a long moment she stirred in his embrace, and to his surprise she rubbed her cheek against his hand, which rested on her shoulder. “I have missed you, my lord.” Her voice was a sigh carried on the breeze.

“And I have missed you, Farha.”

‘‘Why have you not visited me in the harem?”

“I did not wish to force my company on you,” he answered stiffly. Even though he had not released her, he seemed distant and withdrawn as he remembered their differences.

Bryna twisted in his loose grasp to face him, her expression puzzled. “How can you say that?”

“Did you think I could ignore your reaction to my proposal? It is a powerful blow to a man’s pride when his beloved finds the idea of marriage to him so distasteful that she swoons at the thought.”

“So that is what has been wrong between us,” she murmured, her relief showing plainly in her blue eyes. “Please believe me, Sharif, it was not your proposal that made me faint. It was that I was remembering.”

His arm tightened convulsively, then relaxed as he forced himself to ask, “What is it you remembered, Farha?”

“Only a bit of a conversation. And I do not know who the speaker was. But the words you spoke that night—I think I had heard them before. I just can’t remember...” Her voice trailed off helplessly.

Sharif felt an irrational flash of jealousy. Though he hated to think of it, it was possible that someone had proposed to Bryna before, that he was not the first. But had she accepted this other suitor? Had she loved him?

“Please do not be angry, my sheik.” Bryna gazed up at his stony face pleadingly. “But you must understand that I cannot marry you now. These jolts of memory strike and they leave me disoriented and uncertain. If I am not sure of myself, how can you ever be sure of me?”

“I am sure you are my love and my joy.” Easing the girl back so she leaned against him again, Sharif kissed the top of her head. “We will work these things out together. Do not worry.”

They sat together contentedly in the dawn until the muezzin summoned the faithful to mosque. As Sharif held her, Bryna considered revealing that she carried his child, but she waited. Another week should tell, and now that he seemed happy again, she could not bear to raise his hopes only to dash them.

In the days that followed, Sharif forgot his hurt and spent every possible moment with Bryna. After their week’s estrangement, she had a new appreciation for his tender thoughtfulness. He was as he had always been, she realized. She had changed. The spark of attraction she had felt since the moment she’d awakened from her delirium to find him sitting beside her bed had ignited. Now she felt more than desire. She loved Sharif Al Selim as she had never dreamed possible.

When the month of fasting started, Sharif watched Bryna carefully, concerned that she might not yet be strong enough for the ritual after her ordeal in the desert. But the sheik worried for more than her physical well-being. His gray eyes never seemed to leave her when a steady stream of guests began to appear at the Selim house each evening for the customary sunset breakfast parties and
sahúrs.

“Every year may you be well,” Bryna greeted everyone with the proper salutation of Ramadan when she was reintroduced to Sharif’s family, gathered each night on the rooftop. He watched warily as she tried to recall each person’s name and relationship, but to his relief nothing seemed to jar her into remembering her past.

In the time of fasting and sexual abstinence, Bryna seemed to become more beautiful each day. Her pregnancy did not yet show, but she seemed to glow with an inner light, partly because of her pleasant secret and partly because of her newly discovered love for Sharif. She wanted to tell him, but they never seemed to have a moment to themselves. When they were not hosting a supper, they were guests in someone else’s home. Aching with longing for her, the man often remembered an irreverent story his grandfather, the sultan, had told him years before.

“In trying to teach his apprentice how to make gold, the sorcerer warned him not to think of pink elephants during the complex process. Though he tried, the apprentice could not keep the forbidden subject from his thoughts. At last he gave up his attempts at alchemy, saying sadly to his master, ‘Why did you tell me not to think of pink elephants? If you had not told me, I would have never thought of them.”

“And so it is with women during Ramadan,” the old man had cackled wickedly. “If they were not forbidden, I would not even think of them at my age.”

Even without Ramadan, he thought of Bryna constantly, Sharif reflected wryly. During those long evenings, his eyes often found her sitting among the women. Above the half veil she wore among family, he could easily see the smile in her eyes when she looked at him. He wished that they could be alone, never knowing how fervently she wished the same thing. She wanted to tell him that she would marry him. She wanted to tell him everything, now that she was sure.

But when the opportunity presented itself, Bryna was as unprepared for Sharif’s reaction as he was for her news.

For the first time in nearly a month, the couple was alone in the garden. Sharif sat, his back against a tree trunk, with Bryna cradled in front of him. As they watched the stars, she told him that she was going to have a child. To her amazement, he released her abruptly and jumped to his feet, pacing and far from delighted. His mind seemed to be working rapidly, calculatingly.

“We must marry as soon as possible,” he muttered more to himself than to her.

“What do you mean we must?” She had risen to her feet as well and was watching him with a dangerous glint in her blue eyes.

He stopped pacing and looked at her. “We must, because it is the only honorable thing to do,” he explained as if he were talking to a half-wit.

Bryna stared at him disbelievingly. He was not excited in the least that she might bear him a son.

“I refuse to marry to appease your sense of duty,” she declared, struggling to keep her voice steady.

“But you are with child,” he argued reasonably.

Her chin rising, she snapped, “Just because I am with child doesn’t mean I must marry, Sharif.”

Sheer astonishment revealed itself in the sheik’s gray eyes. Never had a woman spoken to him in such a way. The astonishment turned to anger and his eyes to bits of flint as she glared up at him defiantly. Muttering dire curses under his breath, he whirled and stormed from the house without a backward look, leaving Bryna weeping behind him.

At dawn Sharif roused a few disgruntled retainers, who would have preferred to sleep the hot morning away, and rode into the desert with his falcon. The clean air of the desert would clear his mind, the sheik thought. There he could sort through his problem and arrive at a decision.

While he flew his mighty little
hurr
falcon, Sharif’s thoughts returned to Riyadh. Bryna was pregnant through no fault of her own. It was his fault, he reproached himself. He had known what could happen between a man and a woman when he wandered through the harem each night and looked in at her sleeping figure. But still, in the back of his mind, lurked the thought that the unborn baby might not be his at all. A man did not speak to a woman of her flux. How was he to know who the father was?

If the child was Nassar’s, it was his duty as head of his family to bring it up, Sharif brooded. But what if it belonged to one of the marauders? He did not know what had happened in the desert, but the fact remained that Bryna had not been a virgin when he had gone to her bed, he reminded himself, feeling disloyal even for thinking it.

Returning the bird to its handler, the sheik wheeled his mare and galloped back toward the city. Why was he thinking again of honor when love was at stake? he asked himself savagely. To whom the child belonged did not change Bryna or his feelings for her. He would always love her.

But could he rear the son of a Bedu raider or his worthless nephew and accept it as his own? The proud man forced himself to deal with the painful question on the long ride back to Riyadh. But by the time he reached home, his mind was made up. He had told Faisal he would marry the girl even if she could have no children. Now it was proven she was not barren. This child would be the first of many. He would marry Bryna and damn the consequences. She thought the child was his. Let the world think it as well. He found the unhappy woman in the harem garden. He watched her, undetected, for a moment from the door. She sat listlessly under the peach tree with her head against the trunk and her eyes closed. Unnoticed, her embroidery slid from her loose grip.

“Beloved,” he murmured repentantly, making his presence known.

Skeins of thread left a bright trail on the ground as Bryna fled to his arms. “Do not say anything, Sharif.” She silenced him with a gentle kiss. “I am sorry for my harsh words. You are right. We should not have done what we did, but
Insh’allah,
as you tell me yourself. We do have a responsibility for the child. If you still want me, I will marry you.”

“Of course I want you,” he assured her, but his heart ached. Now it was Bryna who spoke of duty and not of love. “There is nothing to prevent our marriage. You have made your
shahada.
We will marry during Eed al Fitr, the end of Ramadan.”

When he had gone, Bryna realized the sheik had rendered his decision regarding their marriage as emotionlessly as he delivered a judgment in
majlis.
She was not able to gauge his mood in the days that followed. A whirl of activity kept the engaged couple apart most of the time.

When they were together, Sharif was kind and solicitous, but Bryna sensed his aloofness as he struggled with his conflicting feelings. With all the conviction of a pregnant woman, she was certain she had lost his love. Amid the joyful preparations for her wedding, she became downcast.

She approached the day of her marriage with growing resentment. He had wanted to marry her and now that she had agreed, Sharif seemed to consider her nothing more than an obligation. She knew that part of the reason she loved him was that he was an honorable man, but she could not bear the thought of being just another duty. She longed to talk with him, but he avoided her company.

On the morning of her wedding, Bryna miserably allowed herself to be bathed and prepared for the ceremony by Sharif’s female relatives, balking only when they wanted to paint her arms and legs with henna. She was dressed in a magnificent wedding gown of dark blue velvet, lavishly embroidered with gold thread, with pearl buttons from neck to hem. On her ears she wore earrings of huge al Hasa pearls Sharif had bought for her. Her
ghata
was of rich striped silk, and on her forehead was placed another gift from Sharif, a heavy chain of riyals, the golden coins overlapping in their abundance.

While her soon-to-be relatives, all dressed in new holiday clothes, chattered behind her, Bryna stood alone beside the window looking out into the garden. She presented the picture of a docile bride. No one could know her misgivings as she waited to be taken to her husband.

If Bryna was a reticent bride, certainly Sharif seemed the reluctant groom. He scarcely looked at her when she was led to him in the tent pavilion pitched behind the house. He stared straight ahead, his handsome face serious as he grappled with his private thoughts. She still did not really wish to marry him, he thought bitterly, when he had tried so hard to win her. How could he do more for her than he was doing at this very moment? Would it always be that his love counted for nothing with her?

Bryna was relieved the ceremony was brief. The wedding feast followed, then the men of the tribe danced the ardha as the women clapped their hennaed palms. The celebration was especially festive, occurring on the great festival, but the nuptial couple seemed subdued. Little was said between them beyond what was required. At the end of the evening, the sura to end Ramadan was recited and the last line seemed to linger in the air: “Peace until the rising of the dawn.”

Then, in strained silence, the couple was taken to the women’s quarters. The door was scarcely shut behind them when Bryna turned to Sharif entreatingly. “Please, my lord, I think we have made a great mistake.”

“Hold your tongue,” he ordered quietly, scowling down at her. “The women listen just outside.”

She nodded, knowing it was true, and stepped away from the door to the middle of the lamplit room. Having been instructed on the proper behavior of a bride on her wedding night, Bryna knew she was expected to protect her
ird,
or feminine honor. The longer the struggle against her groom, the greater the honor. The women waited to bear the report to the men. But first she must speak to the man she had just married.

Coming to stand beside her, Sharif asked curtly, “What is it you wish to say, Farha?”

“Couldn’t you put me away for some reason?” she whispered urgently. “I know it can be done.”

“Not usually so soon after the wedding,” he retorted, “even if I wanted to.”

“Couldn’t you tell them you are not pleased with me or that I...I am not a virgin.”

“Wallahi, are you mad? Why would I do that?”