Protecting the Desert Princess

For the first time in his life he did not have a solution.

For the first time in his life Mikael cried.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LAYLA RETURNED INTACT.

A little swollen, the doctor commented as she examined her.

‘I know!’ Layla said. ‘There was no one there to bathe me! The hotel refused to send someone, and the baths are high there and not sunken. I slipped getting out. I am still very sore.’

She spoke with the same authority she always did and looked the doctor in the eye as she lied.

‘Does my father have to know about that?’

The doctor hesitated, for perhaps King Fahid should know. Yet she was a kind woman, and she had been the one who had delivered Layla the awful day that her mother had died, and she had also fabricated the story about a seizure just to help Layla.

‘Of course not.’

The King breathed out a long sigh of relief when it was reported that there was not a bruise nor a cut on his daughter’s skin and that it appeared no harm had come to her. He sent for her and Layla stood, resigned, staring above and over his shoulder as her father delivered a very stern lecture and demanded more details as to what had happened in her time in Australia.

‘You lied to me,’ Fahid said. ‘Even now you lie. What was the whole point of running away if all you were going to do was sit with people who have just had a baby? You don’t even like babies.’

Layla breathed out through her nostrils.

‘I want the truth, Layla,’ her father demanded. ‘Did you dance?’

‘Yes, I danced,’ she said.

‘And drink alcohol?’

‘Once.’ She’d admit to once. ‘I had an Irish coffee. I have wanted to try one since Zahid told me you could have whisky in coffee and the cream stays at the top.’

‘What else?’

Layla said nothing.

‘What else?’ the King demanded. ‘What else did you get up to?’

‘I tried to get a joint.’

‘A joint?’

‘Weed,’ Layla said. ‘The same stuff that was found in Zahid’s locker at school! I had always wanted to try it.’

‘And did you?’

‘No one would let me.’

‘What about men?’ the King demanded—for, like her mother, Layla had always dreamed of romance. ‘Did you do anything of which you are ashamed?’

‘No, Father.’

Her answer was the truth.

‘Layla?’

‘No, Father, I did nothing of which I am ashamed.’

‘I’m very disappointed in you, Layla.’

‘I know that you are.’

‘Are you disappointed in yourself?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I am proud of myself and glad that I did it. I’ve had my rebellion. I am sorry that it had to hurt you.’

‘You are supposed to say yes, you are disappointed in yourself.’

‘But I’m not.’

‘You won’t be teaching,’ he said, and saw her lip tremble. ‘Who knows what you might suggest…?’

‘I would never encourage poor behaviour in my students,’ she said, ‘but I am an adult—’

‘Enough!’

The King went through her punishments.

‘No more teaching…’ He saw her chin jut. ‘No phone.’

‘I never had one in the first place.’

‘No letters.’

Layla was relieved. Otherwise poor Mikael might need to get a wheelbarrow for the thousands of letters in Arabic that might be delivered to him—letters he could never understand. Her heart squeezed as she thought of the small note she had left him and wondered if he would ever work it out.

Perhaps it was better to have their contact severed so brutally.

‘No internet—ever!’ Fahid continued.