Silver Angel by Johanna Lindsey Page B

relaxation.
    But the room was not empty by any means. The coffeemaker was there, Jamil’s pipe bearer, and a half-dozen other attendants, all personal slaves. Also present was one of Jamil’s concubines, who had had time in the ten seconds Omar had waited before entering to veil herself, and was sitting at Jamil’s side with her head demurely bowed.
    “Did we have an appointment, Omar, that I have forgotten about?” Jamil broke the silence that had fallen over the room with their entrance.
    “Not at all, my lord. But we do request a private word, if it would not be inconvenient. Even your guards should leave, I think.”
    Jamil raised a brow at this request but did not ask why. He simply nodded his head and the many servants began backing out of the room, the customary way to leave the Dey’s presence, salaaming as theywent. Even the woman left in this way and managed not to reveal her chagrin at having her hour with Jamil terminated by the Grand Vizier. Jamil wouldn’t have noticed in any case. His eyes were on Omar’s mysterious companion, whose eyes were likewise on him, though he couldn’t tell that with the hood of the burnoose drawn down so low.
    The moment the room was empty, Jamil demanded, “Well? Has someone finally come forward with information on this cursed plot to see me in an early grave? What did he have to tell you, Omar?”
    “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 knew here ”—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