Page 21 of Silver Angel

“Just that he had a pleasant voyage, if more than a month at sea can be considered pleasant without any women aboard to aid a man’s comfort.”

Jamil scowled at his Grand Vizier. “Is this your idea of a joke, old friend?”

Omar couldn’t help himself; he laughed delightedly, then sputtered to a mere grin when Jamil’s scowl darkened. He turned watering eyes on Derek. “Reveal yourself before he thinks I’ve gone mad.”

Derek raised a hand and tugged back his hood even as he began walking forward. Jamil sat up, then stood up. One step brought him down from the dais, but he moved no farther than that. Derek had reached him, and they stood eye to eye, one pair of green eyes incredulous, the other identical pair moist with emotion.

“Jamil,” Derek said simply, but there was a wealth of meaning in that one utterance.

Jamil slowly smiled, and then he let out a great shout and crushed Derek in a bear hug powerful enough to crack the bones of a smaller man, and grunted when the same hug was returned.

“Allah’s mercy, Kasim! I never thought to look on you again.”

“Nor I you.”

And they both burst out laughing, for one had only to look in a mirror to see the other. Of course, that was not the same thing as being together.

“Nineteen years,” Derek continued, his eyes still roving over Jamil. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“No more than I have you. I don’t think I ever forgave our mother for separating us.”

“It made an old man very happy, Jamil,” Derek said in a subdued voice.

“What is that to me when I nearly destroyed myself in my grief?” Jamil demanded in a burst of resentment that he had never been able to overcome. “Did you know that they tried to convince me, too, that you had died, as they did everyone else? Me? As if I couldn’t sense the truth. I thought I was going mad, with even Rahine insisting you were dead, when I knew, I knewhere”—he struck his chest hard—“that it couldn’t be so. She finally had to admit what she had done.” That was the day he had stopped calling her mother.

“You should have told me.”

Jamil waved that aside. “I was fifteen before she would even tell me how I could contact you. I didn’t want to bring up feelings that had been buried for five years, feelings that I knew would be read by others before my letters could reach you.”

“And I was afraid to ask why you never answered my letters, which I began writing immediately.”

“I never received them. Our father saw to that, again at Rahine’s request.”

“Why?” Derek demanded, some of his own resentment resurfacing.

“She wanted no reminders. There were two of us, so one was easily sacrificed. But she wanted no reminders.”

Derek looked away before saying, “I remember her words when she took me down to that ship.” ‘I can’t go back, Kasim,’” she told me. “ ‘And even if I could, I can bear no more children. You are the only one who can carry on my family line, and that means as much to the English as it does here. Jamil was the firstborn. Your father would never let him go. But you, you are all I can give my father, and I love him, Kasim. I can’t bear to think of him dying alone, with no hope for the future. You are all that he will have of me. You will be his heir, his joy, his reason to live. Please, don’t hate me for sending you to him.’”

“She had no right!”

“No,” Derek agreed softly. “But I also remember her tears as I sailed away.”

They looked at each other for a long, silent moment before Jamil finally admitted, “I know. I often heard her crying when she thought she was alone, but I was young and unforgiving then. I hardened my heart to the fact that she missed you as much as I did. I refused to believe that she could still love you after what she did. And I hated Mustafa for a long time for letting her convince him to go along with it.”

“He had many sons at that time, even if we were his favorites.”

“Don’t make excuses for him, Kasim. Serves him right that he began to worry later when half of those sons died before they left the harem.”

That spiteful statement made them both suddenly grin. “You don’t mean that,” Derek said.

“No,” Jamil replied. “But he did finally bemoan the fact that he only had five sons left, one of which he had willingly given away, and as everyone believed this son dead, he might as well be. Of course he could rail at Omar, the only other one to know about it, for not stopping him from being so generous with his favoritekadine.”

When they both turned for Omar’s comments on this, they found that he had quietly left them alone for their reunion. They smiled at the old man’s thoughtfulness and moved onto the cushions scattered about the low dais. Jamil offered a long Turkish pipe with an amber mouthpiece, but Derek declined. He sprawled back in a very English pose, leaning on one elbow, his other hand resting on a bent knee. Beneath his now-open burnoose was revealed a white linen shirt with open collar tucked into clinging buff-colored trousers, likewise tucked into knee-high boots.

Jamil’s Turkish trousers were large and loose, ending at the knee, easily accommodating the Eastern fashion of sitting cross-legged, as he did now. His feet were bare, his collarless tunic green silk and lined with yellow gems about the neck and in several layers about the cuffless sleeves. An emerald the size of a walnut was in the center of the turban that he removed now that they were alone, giving his head a shake to loosen coal-black hair that was worn at least three inches longer than Derek’s.

When their eyes met again, Jamil asked pointedly, “Didyouforgive her?”