The Ice Maiden's Sheikh by Alexandra Sellers

crashing.
    Then it seemed they were urging Latif to remainin the valley for a day or two to sit with the village council for some important cases. After a while, one man left the team and accompanied Latif and Jalia down the mountain.
    The man led them to his own house, where his wife and daughters smilingly produced lunch for them. As usual, they ate in silence, and it wasn’t till after the meal was over that Latif said, “There are several urgent matters before the council. It’s important that I sit to hear them. But it means that we will not leave the valley tonight.”
    Jalia nodded her acceptance of the situation.
    â€œSome of the younger boys will go and bring what you need from the truck. What do you need?”
    â€œOnly my backpack.”
    Later, while the members of the council gathered at one of the houses in the village, greeting Latif with loud welcome, the women led Jalia up the hillside to an isolated house set in a walled, terraced garden, whose profusion of flowers and greenery she had noticed from their campsite this morning.
    â€œWhat house be this?” she asked in her archaic, textbook Bagestani.
    â€œLady Jalia, this is the home of your future husband.” The women smiled. “If you do not know it now, you will soon be familiar with it, if God wills!”
    Jalia’s smile stiffened a little. This was a dilemma, for if she denied being Latif’s fiancée, she would have to be housed somewhere else. She knew enough of the country traditions to understand that.
    And she didn’t want to sleep anywhere else; she wanted to sleep with Latif. Was she going to turn herback on the possibility that he had cracked, that he had decided to make love to her?
    Not a chance. And if this arrangement left Latif in future explaining to his tribe just why Princess Jalia did not return to the valley as his bride, that was his problem, wasn’t it?
    So in the split second she had to choose, Jalia chose to say nothing. The women smiled and nodded and led her inside.
    â€œThe ways of the outside world are strange,” one of them observed on a note of laughter. “Here in the valley no man takes his bride to his home before the ceremony has been concluded. How will you negotiate a good dowry, Lady Jalia, if you give up your jewel to his keeping before he pays for it?”
    â€œEven a noble lord like Lord Latif—do not all men dream of capturing a woman’s prize, giving nothing in return?”
    â€œFor shame, Amina! When a man like Lord Latif declares himself before witnesses, that is as good as a marriage contract!”
    They were laughing the way women laugh who are leading the bride to her new husband’s bed, and to her amazed dismay, Jalia felt her cheeks growing warm.
    â€œWhen the time comes, Lady Jalia, will you come to the valley, and let us marry you?” asked one young, pretty woman who, it was obvious from certain joking comments, was only recently married herself.
    â€œFoolish Parvana! The ceremony will take place in the palace, of course….”
    So the laughter and banter went on, while thewomen showed her around the pleasant house and garden that was Latif’s family home. It was bigger than many in the village, but not out of scale: it had two domes, when many of the houses it overlooked had only one, and a very large enclosed garden, and a high wall.
    â€œBecause in times of trouble the women and children of the valley came here with the animals,” someone explained. “Then the chief and the men would ride out to fight.”
    â€œWhen Ghasib’s men came, we did not fight. We had heard that it was more dangerous to fight. Once the tunnel was built, we knew, he could bring as many soldiers as he needed….”
    â€œMany of the treasures of this house were buried, Lady Jalia,” someone explained, pointing to the bare walls and floors and niches. “That is how we protected ourselves from