4

  A few weeks later, Fahim was feeling good. He had kept his distance; he had maintained strong boundaries; he had cleared his mind of thoughts of Rose as anything except a good employee on a promising trial period. He felt that it was safe to go peek in on a music lesson again, so he walked over to the music room, an airy spot with plenty of natural light, a selection of instruments, and some comfortable seating.

  From the hallway, Fahim grinned at the familiar twanging sounds of someone playing new chords, followed by a soft laugh and the chords played more competently. He cracked open the door just in time to hear Jamila sigh dramatically.

  “I'm never going to get this!” Jamila declared, looking down at her child-sized guitar. “I can't make anything sound right.”

  Instead of sternly correcting her, Rose only grinned, plucking the string on her own guitar to send a shivery note through the air.

  “Nothing sounds right when you're just getting started. Here, look at my hands. See how kind of lumpy they are, and the hard bits here and here? They're strong because I kept at it, and that's how you make cool sounds come out. Soon enough, you'll get strong too, strong enough to reach for the right strings and hold them down.”

  “I'll sound bad until I do,” Jamila said mournfully, and Rose nudged her with her elbow.

  “You should be proud of what you've already done. You know what a C and G chord look like, and that's more than you knew last week, isn't it? Think about what you'll know tomorrow.”

  Jamila smiled reluctantly, but still hesitated.

  “When can I learn to play a song?”

  “Oh, hon, you already can. Look, I'll show you. Okay, play the two chords I showed you…yes, that's right. Now, up and down, use the second strum pattern I showed you. Yup, just like that.”

  As Jamila concentrated on moving her fingers in the right way, Rose cleared her throat.

  “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…”

  Rose's singing voice was deeper than her speaking voice, and it sent a shiver of ice and fire down Fahim's spine. He found himself gripping the edge of the door, startled by the sudden beauty in the middle of his day, and he wondered at how Rose could pull magic out of nothing.

  “There,” Rose said after a few lines, beaming. “You see? You can already make music, you just need to learn to get better at it!”

  “I want to sing,” Jamila said, and Rose nodded, strumming her own guitar, her fingers swift and sure.

  “All right, just like I did…”

  Fahim shook his head, closing his door on the lesson. They had been so very wrapped up in the music that they had never noticed him. He knew how that could be sometimes, how music could take over, and leave everything else behind.

  Rose is going to be a good teacher. She's positive, and she meets the children on their own levels. Jamila will grow to love music thanks to Rose.

  He made his way to the library, hoping to catch up on some work that he had been avoiding, but Fahim had only been working for ten minutes before the door opened again. Only family and selected staff were allowed in the library without special permission, but he raised his eyebrows when his mother came in. Maryam was a spectacularly wise and clever woman, but she had never been much for books during Fahim's life.

  “Mother,” he said, standing, but she waved her hand at him, taking a seat at the window by his chair.

  “Oh, don't be so very formal,” she said with a snort. “I'm your mother, not some foreign dignitary you need to frighten.”

  “Just so,” he said with a laugh, sitting down again. “Shall I call for some tea?”

  “No, I won't take up too much for your time. I just wanted to speak with you about a slight…well, let's say awkwardness about your hire of the music teacher.”

  Fahim raised an eyebrow.

  “About Rose? What's your concern?”

  “Oh, no concern about Rose. She's been perfect. It's only that Jamila's been asking Rose about her baby, and I'm concerned it's making Rose uncomfortable.”

  Fahim's brow furrowed.

  “I…I think she's showing a little?” he hazarded. “Jamila's naturally curious, and I know Laura's been bonding with Rose as another pregnant woman. Is this a real problem, Mother?”

  “Ever the practical lawyer, my son,” Maryam said lovingly. “Normally I would say no, but Rose's life is very public. It is very public who the father of the baby is, and she ran off on him in the middle of a tour. Not very savory things for Jamila to poke at, are they?”

  Fahim tensed, and he had to quell the protective instinct that came over him at Maryam's musing.

  “None of that has anything to do with—”

  “Oh, calm down, Fahim, of course this doesn't reflect on Rose. As I said, Rose has been wonderful. When Jamila asked about those things, she changed the subject. And you know Jamila—always has to be chasing off after the next new thing. It was fine. However.”

  “However?” Fahim echoed, a trifle coolly.

  “Is there anything we need to know about Rose’s breakup with Darius Bright?”

  “Mother, that is not my story to tell. Rose's personal life is personal. Suffice to say, Darius Bright isn't a good man, and Rose left for her own safety and that of her child's. Ziad was aware of the matter before he confirmed her hiring, and palace security has been appraised. Beyond that, it is not our business.”

  Fahim wondered if there was a satisfied glint in Maryam's voice before she nodded, apparently satisfied.

  “Very good. I should have known that my clever sons would have things handled. That was all I wanted. And don't worry, Fahim. I've been a royal since I married your father. I know all about discretion.”

  Maryam left, but Fahim kept circling back to the discussion again and again as he worked through the afternoon. Was Rose's public life going to come up and haunt his family? Would it put stress on them or on Rose? Maryam was worried for Rose herself, but was she secretly worried about how her situation would all reflect on them as well? He loved his mother very much, but he knew how protective she could be of their family.

  Finally, shortly before dinner, he called over to the nursery, and just a few minutes later Jamila came running down the hall with her guitar in her hands.

  “I can play a song now!” she said proudly, and she treated him to a jangling version of the song that she and Rose had been playing earlier. It was, Fahim thought privately, a kind of awful that was so bad it looped back around to being charming, but there was no doubt that it was already better than it had been this afternoon.

  As Jamila finished with a flourish, Fahim clapped for her enthusiastically.

  “You and Rose have worked very hard on that,” he said, and she glowed under his praise. “You like Rose, don't you, Jamila?”

  “I do! Lots! She's going to teach me to play another song next week if I keep practicing this one.”

  “Ha, that's to make sure you learn every step well before you move on. But Jamila, listen. It's fine to be excited about Rose's baby, but it's not polite to get too personal about things like that, okay? People can be sensitive about babies, and it's easier to hurt them when you ask questions. If Rose wants you to know something about her baby, she'll tell you.”

  Jamila's eyes grew very wide, and she nodded seriously.

  “Aunt Sarah was telling me we have to be very sweet to people who have babies,” she said with all her authority. “I will be careful.”

  “Good girl,” Fahim said with a grin. “Now go on, you should get to dinner. Maybe your father would like some after-dinner music played on your guitar.”

  Fahim made a note to himself to apologize to Rose on Jamila's behalf. It was inappropriate to speak with someone who wasn't family like that, and Rose wasn't family. The separation in mind, he got back to work, because after all, the world worked much better when it had been divided up as it should be.

  5

  Rose couldn't stop pacing in her suite, despite the long day behind her. She poked at her lesson plans, but she couldn't concentrate on them for more than a few minutes at a time. The conversation she had had with Fahim echoed in her mind, inescapable and replaying until she was sick of it.

  “And I just wanted you to know that I am deeply sorry for Jamila's intrusive questions about your condition and that I have spoken with her,” Fahim had said.

  “Um…It's fine. Jamila's a little girl, and she's curious. I thought I…well, was Jamila upset or something?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. It's only inappropriate, questions like that between a student and her teacher. It won't happen again.”

  Rose hadn’t been able to help the little leap her heart gave when Fahim showed up at her suite earlier, but the conversation that followed had blindsided her completely. Of course she remembered when Jamila had asked her those innocent questions about her pregnancy, but she hadn't thought it was a problem. Children were curious; it was fine. Rose hadn't minded answering in the least, but apparently Fahim thought that there was something else going on.

  Does he think that I'm exposing Jamila to something that I shouldn't be? Does he think I'm a bad influence?

  There was a knock at her door, and she jumped up to answer it. There was no reason to think so, but she wanted it to be Fahim, there to give her some more insight on his apology, maybe there to make it make some more sense.

  Instead it was Laura, the king's pregnant wife and Jamila and Hasan's adoptive mother, and she relaxed with a smile.

  “Oh hey, Laura. Come on in.”

  Laura followed her in, her stomach larger than Rose's by far, and she took a seat on the couch gratefully.

  “I just wanted to know if you were feeling all right,” Laura said without any small talk. “You've been shut up in your suite for most of the day, and usually I see you at least a little while in the gardens when I'm on my own walk.”

  “Oh, ha, no problem at all,” Rose said a little awkwardly. “It's only that I've been busy, and anyway, I'm not sure what parts of the palace are open only to the family and not the staff…”

  Laura gave her a surprised look.

  “Didn't anyone tell you that you're free to explore the palace if you want to? The personal suites are all locked just like a house would be. In general, as long as you're not sneaking into rooms or rifling through drawers, you're meant to feel at home. You know, you are at home, right? They mean it when they say this is a live-in position.”

  Rose laughed at that, because she barely knew what home was anymore. She had been on the road so long that she wasn't sure it had anything to do with her.

  “I don't want to overstep.”

  “I understand that,” Laura said firmly, “but it's not good for you to be holed up. I want to do some more walking today. Come with me, and we'll start getting you used to the palace, okay?”

  Rose glanced down at her lesson plans and nodded. “Well, if it wouldn't be too much trouble…”

  Laura stood and firmly took her arm. Rose felt a surge of affection for the other woman. She had only known Laura a short time, but a part of her responded to Laura's calm take-charge attitude and her understanding of what it was like to feel like something of an outsider in this strange world she had fallen in to.

  “No, absolutely no problem at all, and you would be helping me beat my personal tendency towards sitting in one place and eating all the sweets. Come on. The app for getting around the palace is great, but it's really more for guests or even tour groups. I'll give you the insider's view.”

  Rose allowed Laura to walk her around the palace that, from the kitchen (“Really, if it's not in one of the big steel fridges, help yourself. The steel fridges are for caterers.”) to the observatory (“Um, knock first. This place is a bit popular.”), and a strange little room on the second floor that had a lovely fountain in it and nothing else (“Okay, I don't know why this is here, but it's pretty.”).

  Finally, they ended up on one of the terraces overlooking the garden, a small one that still had a table for two. Laura texted an order to the kitchen for tea and snacks, and then she sat back in her chair to give Rose an appraising look. Rose squirmed slightly, hunching her shoulders before she remembered she was twenty-eight years old and not some delinquent sitting in the principal's office.

  “So,” Rose said with an uneasy laugh. “I feel like you want to grill me a little.”

  “Maybe a little,” said Laura, not denying it. “I'm just noticing that Fahim's taken a lot more interest in the children’s music lessons than I ever thought he would, and that maybe you're a little starstruck yourself. It makes a woman wonder, that's all.”

  Rose coughed a little in surprise, because of all the things she had been expecting, this certainly wasn't one of them.

  “Wonder about me and…the prince? You must be joking. It is absolutely your imagination.”

  Laura only raised her eyebrows, and for some reason, Rose couldn't stop herself from continuing.

  “I mean, he's amazing. He's smart and kind, and no one in the world's going to say he's not good looking. There was that one article in the gossip magazines that the maids keep passing around, one of the most good-looking bachelors in—well. That's not important. Of course he's great to talk to and considerate, but I just got out of a relationship. I'm not ready to get into another one. That wouldn't be fair to me or to Fahim, or even to my baby. I have to think about—”

  She trailed off, because suddenly she was struck with the image of Fahim with a baby, her baby, in his arms. He was such a good uncle to Jamila and Hasan. Would he want to hold her baby? Would he—

  “Hey, just so you know, you're blushing,” Laura said wryly, and Rose ducked her head self-consciously.

  “It's not a thing, Laura,” she muttered. “I'm a mess. I just need to work on keeping my job and not…being a bad influence on Jamila.”

  Laura blinked at that, looking at Rose more carefully.

  “Hon, I appreciate the concern, but Jamila's as much mine as the baby inside me right now. I wouldn't let a bad influence come near her. Are you thinking of her asking you too many questions about your pregnancy? Is she still? I've talked with her—”

  “No, no, it's fine,” Rose said, wondering how things had gotten so out of hand. God, but it was hard to remember sometimes that as Hasan and Jamila's adopted mother, Laura was technically her boss. One of her many bosses. It was just that Laura was so kind.

  “Well, I think you're doing great,” Laura said firmly. “Jamila and Hasan are both so excited about the things that you've been teaching them, and I have the nightly concerts to prove it.”

  “They're enthusiastic,” Rose said, perking up. “That's always a good sign for a musician.”

  “That's right,” Laura said, and for a moment, Rose thought she had gotten out of the awkward phase of the conversation.

  “Though I do think that Fahim has a little crush.”

  “On?” Rose asked blankly, and Laura laughed.

  “On you, silly. He's always been a bit of a recluse, but since you've shown up, I've seen more of him than I ever have. Honestly, I have a feeling that all that stuff about Jamila's questions had more to do with him wanting you to feel comfortable and a little less like you were trying to teach guitar to an interview team.”

  “That sounds, um, I don't know, unlikely?” Rose hazarded. She wondered if Laura was trying to play matchmaker. This all felt like uncertain territory verging into dangerous. A romantic entanglement right now?

  If I lose this job, I'll lose the safety of the palace and its security team. I can't afford that. In less than a year, I'll have a baby to take care of.

  She was still musing on this when a movement down in the garden caught her eye. It was Fahim, without his jacket and with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He looked like a dignified man taking a well-deserved break from his work, and it struck Rose all over again how handsome he was. He was walking along the path towards the pond where they had had their chat, and he saw her just as she saw him. He grinned, raising his hand in greeting, and Rose waved back.

  “Blushing again,” Laura teased, and really, Rose had no idea what in the world to say to that.

  6

  All right. Just ask. She knows she can say no. If she doesn't want to do it, she'll just say no, and there would be nothing wrong with that.

  When Rose answered Fahim’s knock, he was briefly stunned by how lovely she was. She wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off and a pair of black jeans that fit her like a second skin. With her hair twisted up and off her elegant neck, something about her hit him straight in the chest. He took a breath, and Rose tilted her head to one side.

  “Hi,” she said. “Did you need me for something?”

  “You can say no if you want to,” he said abruptly, and that won a laugh at least, even if it did sound just slightly insane.

  “Good!” Rose exclaimed. “That's a very good thing to know. So I can say no. To what?”

  “The symphony is doing a sampler of traditional Yeni instruments playing music from the Western world. People can't decide if it's going to be the innovative event of the season or a huge travesty, but at the very least, it'll be entertaining to watch. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Oh, um. The symphony. Wouldn't that be really public?”

  Fahim was already shaking his head.

  “We wouldn't be sitting in the open seats. My family has a private box, and it's set so that it's a direct view to the stage. You can't angle cameras to catch a glimpse, so perfectly discreet.”

  Fahim held his breath at the interest and delight that bloomed in Rose's face, as if a dearly held wish that she had given up on was coming true.

  “I…I would like that a lot. What do I owe you for the ticket?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Fahim said. “You'd be doing me a favor. I love these events, and I don't have an excuse to go on my own. If I am bringing someone else along, however, that's different. Only, if you do want to go, we should be on our way fairly soon. I'm sorry, but I left it a little late—”