LITMIR.BIZ

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She wasn’t Asad’s future.

      No doubt there was another perfect princess in store for him, hopefully one with a stronger character than the deceased Badra.

      “I am glad to hear you say so.”

      “I’m sure you hear it often enough.”

      “Perhaps.”

      She huffed out a small laugh at his arrogance. “You don’t lack confidence, that’s for sure.”

      “And do you think there is a reason why I should?”

      “No, Asad, you are everything a desert sheikh should be.”

      “My daddy is the bestest sheikh ever,” Nawar said, her tiredness showing in the childish pattern of speech so rarely exhibited by the young girl.

      “Even better than Sheikh Hakim?” Iris teased. “After all, he is king over all of Kadar.”

      “Daddy is sheikh to the Sha’b Al’najid,” Nawar said around a yawn. “That’s bestest.”

      “I suppose it is, sweetheart.”

      The little girl’s eyelids drooped.

      “So, why is the peacock the symbol for your house when your tribe is called the people of the lion?” Iris asked Asad.

      Even he had been named for the large predatory animal.

      “The peacock is a symbol for the women of my house.”

      “But it’s on the panel that leads to the …” And then Iris understood. “It covers the doorway that leads to what is traditionally considered the women’s chamber.”

      “Yes.”

      “So, how did a bird become the symbol for the women of your house?”

      “Many generations ago, one of the first sheikhs of our line, gave a peacock and peahen pair to his bride as a wedding gift. They were very exotic birds, something none of the Bedouin of their tribe had ever seen though as nomadic people they saw more wonders than the settled dwellers of our part of the world.”

      “Where did he get the birds?”

      “I do not know, but his wife was so taken with them that she embroidered their likeness on all of her clothing.”

      Nawar made a soft little snoring sound and Iris couldn’t help smiling. “And it became tradition to do so in the following generations.”

      “It did, though not all adhere to this tradition any longer.”

      “Why do you?”

      “I did not, for a while, but my grandmother finds the birds beautiful, even the less-flamboyant peahen.”

      “Badra was not as impressed with the tradition,” Iris guessed.

      Asad’s featured turned stern. “She was a princess of a neighboring country, but she preferred Western ways to anything the desert had to offer.”

      “Even you.”

      “Even me.” Asad’s clenched his jaw and Iris felt badly for reminding him that his marriage had not turned out anything like he’d anticipated when he’d dumped her to marry the virginal princess.

      “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

      “It is the truth.”

      “I’m still sorry.”

      “Come with me to put her to bed,” he invited, indicating his sleeping daughter.

      Iris nodded before her brain could even finish processing the request. She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. Keeping her distance from him was the only hope she had of keeping her heart intact this time around.

      But keeping her distance from his daughter simply wasn’t an option. After the years of rejection at her parents’ hands, Iris did not have it in her to disappoint the child.

      Besides, she liked Nawar.

      Iris helped Asad undress Nawar and put a nightgown on the sleeping child like she’d done it a hundred times before. It should feel awkward, but it didn’t. Maybe the old saying was true, some things were just like riding a bicycle. You never really forgot how to do them, no matter how young you were when you learned.

      While Iris had no experience with children as an adult, in boarding school she had often taken care of the younger ones.

      She tucked the little girl into her bed, soothing her back to sleep with a soft lullaby when Nawar started to wake after her father laid her down.

      “You’re good with her,” Asad said as they left the room moments later.

      “Thank you. I’ve had some experience.”

      “I wasn’t aware you had small children in your life.” He talked like he knew a lot more about her life than he possibly could.

      “I don’t.”

      “But you’ve had experience?” he prompted.

      “I learned how to tuck little girls in when I was a child myself.”

      “Explain,” he pushed.

      “My parents sent me to boarding school when I was six. I was terrified at night without our housekeeper there to tuck me in and tell me a story.”

      “I know this is a common practice, sending away one’s children, but not one I could ever approve of for my own.”

      She didn’t imagine a man who considered family as important as Asad did would. That knowledge cemented her certainty that his parents’ defection to Geneva had hurt him badly, though he might never acknowledge it.

      “It’s actually not as frequent a practice in America as it is in England, particularly not for children as young as I was, but there are some schools who will board their students from the age of six.”

      “And your parents saw fit to send you to one of these?”

      “Yes.”

      “But how does that explain your experience with small children?”

      “When I had been there a year, another six-year-old girl came to board, as well. Though I was second youngest of all the boarders, I was seven then and used to the life. The rest of the children in our grades were day schoolers.”

       “Day schoolers?”

      “They came for the day, not to live.”

      “I see.” He stopped her before they returned to the feast. “But you were a night schooler? No that would not be right.”

      She smiled at his attempt to get the word right. “I was a resident, or a boarder.”

      “Oh, yes, of course. And this little girl …”

      “They put her in my room because we were so close in age. I could hear her crying in her bed that first night. She missed her parents terribly.”

      “So, you comforted her?”

      “I had a little flashlight. I used it to read her a book. Then I sang to her until she fell asleep.” Iris had returned to her own bed after that, more comforted than she had been at bedtime since going to the school.

      “It became a routine.”

      “Yes. She was only there for a semester. Her parents had been in an accident and couldn’t care for her, but as soon as they could, they came and got her.”

      Iris had been without a roommate until the next year, when they’d put the two newest and youngest residents in a room with her again, since she’d been so good with her other roommate. “The girls’ dormitory mother made sure that the youngest residents were always put in my room.”

      “Even when you were older? That must have

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