“Actually, we don’t all know. I sure don’t.”
Lujayn. Leave it to her to break her silence only to say something contentious. From the gasps that issued from her family, it appeared her forwardness had distressed them. They evidently thought she might offend him. If only they knew how hard she’d tried and failed to do so.
He turned his eyes to her, turmoil seething with challenge. “You mean no one shared the details with you?”
Her eyes raised his annoyance. “Apart from ‘long story’? No.”
“And this is not the time to recount it.” Bassel put a hand on his niece’s, a gesture imploring her to leave it.
She didn’t. “When is a better time than now, with all relevant parties present, so this new beginning would be built on a solid ground of full disclosure?”
At this moment he wanted to roar for everyone to get out, leave him alone with her so he’d have that full disclosure. Whether it led to a new beginning or a final end, he had no idea.
“Prince Jalal, please excuse Lujayn,” Badreyah said, a tremor traversing her soft voice. “This has been quite a shock for her, to find out we’ve hidden something of this nature all her life....”
He raised his hand, unable to bear having this gentle lady apologize to him when he would never be able to offer enough amends. “No need to explain, ya Sheikha Badreyah.”
The woman lurched, those near-tears filling her eyes again.
Jalel could see that she’d accepted her brother would have his sheikh title once again, but hadn’t expected to hear the title applied to herself. But that was what she was, and that was what he’d always call her.
“Wow, does this make me a sheikha, too?”
Lujayn again. Lujayn always.
“If it does, I’m giving you all license to never call me that.”
No longer pretending that anyone else had his attention, he approached her. “So what will you answer to?”
Those silver eyes narrowed, their ebony lashes that he’d once told her were thick enough for him to lie down on intensifying the light they seemed to emit. “My name has been known to work just fine.”
He almost touched her legs as she sat on the couch, could see himself going down between them, dragging them over his shoulders, bearing down on her to crush those rose-petal lips and swallow those contentious words. He could feel everyone’s eyes clinging to them, no doubt sensing the field of tension they generated between them now that they were no longer harnessing their emotions.
“So…Lujayn.” He stressed each syllable as if tasting it, felt a rev of satisfaction as her pupils fluctuated, that sure sign of response. “In the name of full disclosure, let me tell you the whole story. This mess happened in the time of your grandfather. And my grandmother.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean your grandmother was involved?”
“Involved?” He gave a bitter huff. “You could say that. She was the one who accused your grandfather of a very potent mixture of theft and treason. But never fear. She was merciful in her righteousness and when he was convicted, she asked for a compassionate demotion in lieu of banishment or imprisonment. When your uncle was fifteen and your mother was twelve, their family lost a tiny bit of their name, becoming Al—instead of Aal—Ghamdi, and stumbled from a high branch of nobility into dishonor. Your grandfather had been my grandfather’s kabeer’l yaweraan—head of the royal guard, but after his conviction, neither he nor any of his family could find a position in the kingdom. Again, only my grandmother was humane enough to employ them, as her servants. Also as per her clemency, your grandfather’s transgression along with his family history was to never be talked of again. At the threat of some very creative penalties. It was, of course, so your family wouldn’t relive the disgrace, being reminded of what they lost. Needless to say, no one, starting with your family, brought it up again ever since, and the whole debacle has been suppressed or forgotten.”
Silence rang in the wake of his searingly blunt account.
Lujayn gaped up at him, the shock reverberating inside her buffeting him in waves of furious incredulity.
Suddenly, she heaved up, almost sliding against his body on her way to her feet, sending awareness roaring inside him in spite of everything.
She glared at him, antipathy crackling silver bolts in her eyes. “I should have known your family had something to do with this. But they had everything to do with it. Your mother fell right off her mother’s tree, didn’t she?”
“Lujayn! Stop it!”
Her mother’s mortification barely registered on Jalal’s inflamed senses. All he felt was this mass of incendiary passion seething at him. He was a hairbreadth from forgetting everyone surrounding him, and the questions eating at him.
“Your grandmother framed my grandfather, didn’t she? Over something personal, right? And with the only evidence being her word? You discovered his innocence easily enough, after all, when you bothered to scratch the loose dirt she buried my family under, right?”
His jaw muscles bunched. “That just about sums it up.”
She snorted. Gasps rang from around the room this time.
“So why didn’t the truth come out after she was dead? Because your mother picked up the torch after her? And why not when she was exiled? Then when your uncle and cousins were ousted? Why did everyone remain silent including my martyred family? Why did it take your so-called accidental digging for some other irrelevant purpose to uncover this piece of gratuitously evil art?”
“B’Ellahi, Lujayn, what’s gotten into you?”
Lujayn tossed her distraught uncle a glare before swinging her gaze back to Jalal, slamming him with the force of her outrage. “Do you think I’m crossing a line here, Your Highness? You think I shouldn’t be angry for a few minutes for the decades of my family’s disgrace and oppression at the hands of yours?”
Bassel surged, caught her arm, agitation blasting off him. “Lujayn, you are way over the line here.”
Badreyah placed a trembling hand on Lujayn’s other arm. “Whatever happened between our family members in the past has nothing to do with Prince Jalal or his mother.”
Lujayn rounded on her, her scowl spectacular, her voice a magnificent snarl, one worthy of a lioness. “Really? You mean she had to show you her compassion and employ you, of all people, as her head slave and punching bag? She had to deprive you of continuing your education at only fourteen so you can fetch her slippers and be the lab rat on which she perfected her cruelties? Excuse me as I don’t think so.”