eyebrows in the haughty fashion he’d seen Exley employ to suppress pretention. “Rubbish, Mama. Englishmen keep mistresses all the time.”
Instead of being suppressed by his eyebrows, she whirled on him. “Tsst!” She grasped the arms of his chair and brought her face uncomfortably close to his, until he was pressed flat against the chairback. Her eyes were the most startling shade of green, far lighter than his own. It had always been difficult to look away from his mother when she focused her not-insignificant will on him.
“You must listen to me, Jibril.”
The fan of deep lines that radiated from her eyes caused an uncomfortable tightening in his chest: his mother was getting old. She’d been the cornerstone of his life—the one person to believe in him, to love him, and to support him, no matter what he did or how he failed—for as long as he had been alive. Hardly more than a child herself when she’d given birth to him, she had fought tooth and nail for him and she’d supported his goal of seizing his father’s faltering empire when the sultan had died. He loved his mother with all his heart. But he also knew she was the devil herself when it came to getting her way.
“You are only allowed one wife under English law, Jibril.”
It took everything he had not to roll his eyes. “Yes, Mother, I understand that.”
“I do not think you do.”
He threw up his hands. “Why don’t you say your piece? Because I know you’ll not stop hounding me until you’ve done so.”
She smiled, sat on the arm of his chair, and took his hand. “I’ve had an unhappy marriage and a happy marriage, Jibril. I can tell you, in all truthfulness, that a happy marriage is much better.”
“That does not surprise me.”
“You have not chosen each other, that’s true, but she’s an intelligent, comely girl and love isn’t something you stumble into; love is something you build.”
Gabriel did not bother telling his mother how much his prospective wife actively disliked him. Instead he said, “I’m entering into this marriage with the best of intentions and—”
“Bah!” She flicked one hand, “The best of intentions. What is that? You must enter into it with an open heart. You must look at intimacies with your new, young wife as the first step in a lifelong commitment to each other and to joy.”
Gabriel’s head became so hot it felt like it might explode. “Fine, I am entering it with a joyous and open heart and mind.”
She’d squeezed his hand so hard the bones shifted. “You are my eldest son and I love you beyond life itself. But—” Her eyes clouded and she looked, for the first time he had ever seen her, defeated. “But you are also your father’s son and he has left his stamp on you.” She held his hand pressed between her much smaller ones. “Although there was no love between us, I have rarely spoken ill of your father.”
“That is true.”
“But I must do so now. You view women as—well, you view them as a sultan would. That is to be expected, given where you grew to manhood, but you live here now.”
He disentangled himself and got to his feet. “Putting aside your ridiculous assertion that Englishmen somehow treat Englishwomen so much better than the treatment women receive in my country, is it your point that I am an Englishman in England who should behave in the English manner? Because I have grasped that, Mama. Believe me—I know who I am not. I would have thought my behavior over the past five years might have proved that to you. I’ve changed my name and abandoned my people—everything that I was is now behind me. I am English.” His voice had risen, which only bothered him more. “Now, I must go.”
She caught his arm before he could make his escape.
“You will do the right thing, Jibril. I know you will.”
Oh, if only his mother knew just how many wrong things he’d done lately and how he was—most likely misguidedly—trying to make them all right.
He snorted as he recalled the uncomfortable exchange. His mistresses were the least of his problems.
Besides its not being any of his mother’s concern, Gabriel was hardly enthusiastic about breaking off a mutually satisfactory association with a beautiful, passionate woman—or women, as the case may be—so that he might enter into marriage with a wife who at this very moment sat holding another man’s hand.
Irritation roiled with something else—surely not jealousy?