Page 62 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘Yes.’

‘Is it very expensive?’

‘No.’ She told him the brand. ‘It’s strong.’

‘Well, this is delicate,’ he told her. ‘Baby mint leaves from the palace garden...spearmint leaves too. And I believe some green tea. And a little honey, from the palace bees... Perhaps not to your standards.’

‘Fine...’ She pushed forward a delicate glass and watched as the pale brew was poured. And, yes, it looked fresh, and gorgeous, and utterly perfect.

‘Shame it doesn’t come in teabags,’ she said.

It was her first smile. Fleeting, but he felt a heady relief that it had returned to her features.

‘Faisal is sorting out the dress,’ he told her.

‘I bet he can’t get it back—’

‘Violet,’ he broke in. ‘Consider it sorted.’

‘Did you arrange my transport?’

‘There is transport already scheduled in a few days.’ He put down his glass. ‘To use the phone for that would be...’ He didn’t know quite how to capture the word. ‘Darar.A disservice...misuse.’

‘Of transport?’

‘Of the desert,’ he said. ‘The line to the palace is for the most serious emergency.’

‘Yet you sorted the dress.’

‘Because you told me that was urgent. Time here is considered valuable. Exceptionally so.’ He saw two straight lines form above her pretty nose. He smiled. ‘If I call for...say, your teabags, yes, there is a temporary solution, but at a cost.’

‘What cost?’

‘You don’t taste the fresh mint. More importantly, you don’t speak. Or, if I am here alone, I don’t get the space and the time to reflect.’

‘But I should never have been brought here.’

‘I agree, and I want to know all that has occurred.’

Violet frowned.

‘I came back to find you gone,’ he told her. ‘Faisal was perturbed.’

‘The butler?’

‘Major-domo,’ he corrected, but only so he could better explain. ‘Faisal is the head of my household in London. He is distressed—as is Pria.’

‘You had no right...’

‘Violet.’ He closed his eyes, about to remind her that this was not his doing, but she was his responsibility, and it was his own team that had done this, so he accepted her words. ‘Can I speak?’

‘No.’

‘Explain?’

‘No.’ Violet refused to hear him. ‘I want to go home.’

‘As you wish. I shall make the call and we will never have to discuss this again. You can hate me for the rest of your life.’

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