An Arabian Courtship Read online

  He swept a cavalier’s bow with an imaginary hat. ‘I wouldn’t be hampered.’ His brown eyes roamed appreciatively over her beautiful, laughing face and he sighed. ‘You’re right—I’m a hopeless flirt. I can’t help it. You are much too distracting, Polly. But there are times when distractions are welcome.’ He stared moodily out at Raschid cantering through the gates. ‘He is a very tough act to follow.’

  ‘Are you in competition?’

  He didn’t look at her. ‘When Raschid was a boy, he trained his own falcon. For three months it went everywhere with him until it was tamed. He didn’t mind getting clawed in the process. Our father was very proud of him. In his eyes that’s the sort of behaviour that separates the men from the boys. I’ve still to make the grade, and the most hellish side of it is that you can’t dislike Raschid for it.’ He turned back to her with a rueful smile. ‘For his family, even his unworthy brother, there is no sacrifice he would not make.’ He evaded her gaze and sounded a rather strained laugh. ‘But when the competition gets too much I can always think of the jeans.’

  ‘The what?’

  He pulled open the door, slim and elegant in his tailored riding gear. ‘It is what you call an “in” joke, Polly,’ he divulged, having recovered his natural buoyancy.

  Unable to see anything humorous in Raschid choosing to relax in less formal clothing, Polly soon cast the trivial remark from her mind. Asif’s undeniable uneasiness with her for several uncomfortable seconds had concerned her more. Was he afraid that Chassa had made indiscreet confidences? He should know his wife better. Chassa was too loyal to spill the secrets of their marriage.

  Returning upstairs, she wandered into Raschid’s study. It was really a library, shelved from floor to ceiling with books in several languages. She ran a thoughtful fingertip along the spines of a collection of poetry books. Berah’s? Frowning, she passed on, surveying the dull appointments of the cheerless room. Apart from the telephones and the computer it was as early medieval as the rest of the place. Only the bathrooms and the kitchen quarters had been modernised—quite the opposite of Asif and Chassa’s wing, which was full of designer furniture and pale, pearlised carpets. Then it was a challenge to picture Raschid against a similar backdrop.

  Her hand trailed idly over the back of the chair by the desk. Did he ever think about the woman inside her pleasing shell? Her pride, her emotions, her needs? How were they to live together? How did you begin when the end was already within view? But she had begun. Why did she continue to deny the obvious? She was drowning in a physical infatuation that was terrifyingly intense. Of course she didn’t know herself any more. Raschid walked into a room and there wasn’t a skin cell in her body which didn’t leap to that awareness. She had fought him less than she had fought herself.

  Feed a cold, starve a fever; the old saying sang in her head. Could she equate a fever with an obsession? Raschid was fast becoming one. He might infuriate her, he might confound her understanding and he might sting her pride, but at no stage did he do less than fascinate her. She was on the edge of a precipice and the ground was suddenly crumbling from beneath her feet. She didn’t want to be starved of him. She was already wondering how long they would have together before his next trip abroad. And if she fell in love with him, what then? Irritably she quelled that foolish worry. The more she looked back at the amount of time she had wasted mooning about over Chris, the more her stomach curdled. Her intelligence was now in firm control of her imagination and her emotions. She was not, she told herself thankfully, likely to be vulnerable in the same direction again.

  ‘You would like tea, lellah?’

  Zenobia smiled at her from the doorway. Reddening, Polly set down the gold pen she had absently lifted, studying it, questioning how it had got into her hand. ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ she said vaguely.

  She kept her nose in a newspaper over breakfast. Raschid fingered through his mail and watched her in exasperation. After they had eaten, an air-conditioned limousine ferried them away from the palace at speed. They travelled along a wide thoroughfare banked by young trees being industriously watered. Taking in the size of an impressive building near completion, Polly asked what it was.

  ‘A second hospital. It is due to open in a few weeks.’

  ‘I’d love to see it.’ Her mouth compressed. ‘But I suppose that would be out of order. It wouldn’t do for anybody to hint that you had a wife animated by intelligence.’

  ‘I am not sure that it is intelligence that is animating you at this moment. I will see what I can arrange.’

  As they topped the brow on a rolling hill, Jumani spread out before them. The glass of tall office blocks reflected the cloud formations. As they drove through the city her bad humour melted away as her attention roamed in eager darts. Modern skyscrapers vied with wedding-cake mosques and graceful minarets. Green expanses of parkland gleamed at intervals between the buildings. The pavements were busy and the inviting window displays she glimpsed as they sped past belonged to retail outlets that were many and varied.

  ‘How does civilisation look now that you have got over the wall?’ Raschid enquired silkily.

  ‘It’s lovely. Is that a shopping centre?’ she exclaimed.

  His eyes gleamed. ‘Yes, Polly. Jumani has several.’

  It happened slowly. He began to smile, and it was like no smile he had ever given her before. Like the sun after the rain, it was brilliant and warm.

  A herd of dinosaurs could have been running amok in the city traffic—Polly would not have noticed. That smile that was neither cynical nor merely polite passed through her with the paralysing force of an electric current.

  The day was an entertaining whirl. She enjoyed the tour of the warehouses and the excessive attention they received. She found herself laughing a lot, relaxing as she had never relaxed before in Raschid’s company. They had lunch in a private room in a luxury hotel in the city centre; men didn’t take their wives into public dining-rooms in Dharein. Raschid was not entirely at ease during the meal while the manager and waiters swarmed about them. Polly suspected he was breaking new ground. And deep in her tangled thoughts she was vaguely conscious that she would do almost anything to waken that charismatic smile again.

  That evening they had barely finished dinner when Raschid’s secretary, Medir, made an apologetic intrusion to mention an important phone call. Restive on her own and pleasantly relaxed, Polly decided to go for a walk in the palace gardens. In the shelter of the steep walls pepper and tamarind trees shaded fragrant oleanders with heavy pink blooms that scented the night stillness. Strolling back, she was in a brown study, and she gasped in dismay when a dark shadow moved into her path.

  ‘Good heavens!’ Clasping a helpless hand to her palpitating heart, she stared accusingly up at Raschid. ‘Could you make a little more noise? You scared me—I thought I was alone out here.’

  His mouth slanted. ‘You are far from alone. Seif and Raoul have not been more than a few steps from you since you came outside.’

  Dazedly she followed the direction of his hand and registered two more shadows over by the wall. Raschid’s bodyguards.

  ‘I am sorry if I startled you, but then you are not very observant.’ His manner was teasing.

  ‘What were they doing following me?’

  ‘They are there for your protection.’

  Before she could drily enquire if walls half-way to heaven were not protection enough, the unmistakable sound of voices raised in argument filtered down from the balcony above them. Polly recognised Asif’s voice immediately.

  ‘I believe we should go back inside,’ Raschid drawled.

  ‘All couples argue,’ she said uncomfortably.

  ‘Few as much as they do.’ It was grim.

  Polly frowned. ‘Well, I hope you’re not blaming her. She’s very easygoing.’

  ‘You don’t understand the situation.’

  ‘Educate me, then.’ A silence that was deeply mortifying stretched in answer to her request.

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bsp; ‘Don’t get involved,’ Raschid murmured finally. ‘I voice that warning kindly.’

  She felt snubbed, firmly slapped down for daring to imply that she might be sufficiently accepted as part of the family to be trusted with a confidence. In the darkness her cheeks burned. She liked Asif and Chassa, but she was neither the interfering type, nor in this case was her curiosity of the morbid variety. Picking up Raschid’s tension, she had impulsively tried to share whatever was worrying him.

  ‘Chassa does not enjoy the best of health when she is pregnant. No doubt tempers become short,’ he continued smoothly.

  He was only covering up; there was more to it than that. Assuming that Asif was equally keen to have a large family, surely he was guilty of selfish neglect? As Raschid curved an arm round her to guide her back indoors, Polly went suddenly still in the charged hold of an explosive acknowledgement which demolished her composure.

  Where on earth would she be if she became pregnant? Already that was a possibility. She was astonished that not a single word had ever been spoken on that subject. Was Raschid under the impression that she had taken some step to avoid the danger?

  ‘What is wrong?’ He glanced down at her narrowly.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something you haven’t thought of.’ An anger she didn’t quite comprehend raced up hot and swift inside her. ‘Although I must admit that on every other count you were ahead of yourself—with one strange exception. What happens to our strictly timed marriage of convenience and extreme practicality if I become pregnant?’ she demanded shakily. ‘Or is there a wheel within a wheel there as well? Some nefarious plan, perhaps, to gain an heir without the encumbrance of a wife? I imagine that would suit you very nicely.’

  In the unkind clarity of the overhead light Raschid’s pallor was pronounced. His burnished eyes blazed dangerously bright, but his response when it came was very quiet. ‘That would not be within my power, Polly. I can give no woman a child. You stand in no danger of becoming a mother while you live with me.’

  Shock sent a wave of giddiness over her. Her fingers tightened painfully on the stair rail. In that instant Raschid had turned her over and inside out. She had not been prepared; she had never even suspected. The shock stupefied her into silence.

  ‘I am sorry—I have embarrassed you.’ His proud bone-structure was etched hawklike beneath his golden skin, black lashes half obscuring silvered eyes that even now possessed a cruel capacity to interpret her every fleeting expression. ‘The manner of telling was unforgivable. Unfortunately you took me by surprise.’

  Afterwards she didn’t recall climbing those stairs. In stricken confusion she blamed herself for blundering clumsily in where angels feared to tread. Having noted the unusual aspect of Raschid overlooking any eventuality, might she not have made that last step in deduction for herself? Or would she have? Berah had been firmly fixed in her mind as the partner unable to have children. Only now did she see that she had had no evidence on which to base that assumption. Secure in her misapprehension, she had repeatedly missed the point of all that she had learnt about his first marriage.

  He stood straight and still by one of the tall lounge windows and met her uneasy gaze unflinchingly. ‘You must wonder that I should have concealed this fact at our first meeting. Had the marriage been of my seeking and had I viewed the tie as one of permanency, I would naturally have told you. Then I did not consider it a necessary explanation. But for some time I have wished to raise the matter with you. Before I went to New York,’ he quoted unemotionally. ‘But you took yourself off to bed early, and I must confess that when I returned yesterday, it was my belief that you must already be aware of the fact.’

  Polly was being overtaken by a hideous premonition of what his life must have been like with a wife desperate to have a baby. ‘I wasn’t,’ she told him.

  ‘That was obvious. Perhaps you thought that the fault lay with Berah. No, the failing was mine, not hers,’ he asserted. ‘But I am not, after so many years, over-sensitive to this fact now. Insh’allah.’

  His dark-timbred drawl was the merest shade unsteady. All the over-sensitivity that ferocious pride of his denied was written in his jewelled eyes. Could she have turned time back and remained in ignorance, Polly would have done so. A floodtide of guilty tenderness pierced her deep. In its wake a nameless emotion as fierce as the desert heat clawed pain into her. But she could not reward his hard self-discipline with an emotional response. With that thought she lifted her head and said quite naturally and without a hint of sympathy, ‘It’s not really something that concerns us.’ She paused before continuing, as continue she must, for that terrible curiosity would not leave her alone, ‘But I would appreciate knowing a little more about Berah. Of course, if you don’t want to talk about her, I’ll understand and respect that.’

  A muscle jerked tight at the corner of his mouth. ‘There isn’t much to tell. For an Arab woman, children are an integral part of marriage. She will measure her own importance in terms of the sons she gives her husband. Berah could not adapt to childlessness. It was not to be expected that she could do otherwise. Her sole interests revolved round home and family. Unable to have what she most desired, she was naturally unhappy.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘We had been married for two years. Berah had seen several different doctors, and then I…she did not want to tell me when the discovery was made. It was a heavy disappointment,’ he confessed curtly. ‘A marriage can have no meaning without children.’

  ‘These days couples actually decide not to have children,’ Polly protested lamely.

  Raschid dealt her an inscrutable glance. ‘Not in an Arab society, and there is a difference, is there not, in a freely made decision? In a man such a failing…’

  ‘Will you stop that? Fault—failing. Will you stop talking as if it was something you could have helped?’ The involuntary censure sprang from her—she could not retain it.

  ‘I am sorry that my terminology should offend.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that, for goodness’ sake!’ Very close to tears, she stumbled to a halt. She hated herself for forcing Raschid to answer her questions. For a charged minute, she even hated him for confessing a very private and personal sorrow in the heroic and stoic tradition of a sinner awaiting the casting of the first stone. But above all her conflict dominated a near-overwhelming need to be physically close to him. Denied that, she could only sit there in miserable silence.

  ‘My brother had to become a husband long before he wished for the responsibility. Chassa and Asif have paid high costs of their own. Asif was a very poor candidate for an early marriage, but stability only comes with future generations…’ A knock sounded on the door and Medir appeared on command, wringing his hands in his usual deprecating fashion. ‘Excuse me,’ said Raschid, and swept out, at last releasing her from that terrible rigidity of expression and bearing. Her shoulders slumped and slowly she breathed again.

  He reached for her in the night when she was pursuing sleep without success. Finally he offered her the physical contact she had craved. Of their own volition her hands linked round the strong column of his throat, her fingertips delving into the feathery strands of his hair. Tonight, inexplicably, she was wild for him. The driving spur of a hunger she could never have expressed in words pulsed in her veins. Like the sea tide that beats eternally on the shore, it was powerful, irrefutable and tenacious. The same elemental force seemed to energise that stormy fusion. Afterwards Raschid kept his arms wrapped tightly round her. ‘I wasn’t gentle,’ he breathed. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  As she uttered a shy negative, the tension in him gave. A deep and abiding sense of peace cradled her. She buried her face in his shoulder, loving the scent and the touch and the feel of him, but sleep was far from her. Unbidden rose an image of a little boy with black hair and bright blue eyes, and she crushed it guiltily in her imagination. Raschid had lived ten years with the knowledge of that impossibility. But wasn’t it strange that the wife who had
reputedly loved him so deeply should have selfishly wallowed in her own disappointment without caring about the damage she was inflicting on him? What kind of love was it that had ensured that Raschid remained as painfully sensitive now as he must have been then? Anger stirred in her and that pain she could not comprehend kept her awake.

  Conversation over breakfast was practically non-existent. Stealing a glance at the distant cast of his hard profile, she found it extraordinarily difficult to equate him with the passionate lover of the night hours. All that was light-hearted, warm and volatile in Raschid was strictly confined to the bedroom. Beyond that door he was courteous and aloof. Last night she had almost flung herself at him. Now she cringed from the memory. Perhaps it was imagination, but Raschid seemed a thousand miles further away from her this morning.

  Uncertainly she cleared her throat, and he looked up. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. On the other hand, she would not surrender to her own discomfiture in front of him. ‘What are we doing today?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘I’m afraid I have work to attend to. You must make your own amusement.’ He got up.

  The silence crushed her like a giant stone. Her head bowed. She was humiliated by the assumption she had made and the chill of the snub she had invited.

  He paused at the door. ‘Why don’t you ask Chassa to go somewhere with you? She would enjoy the diversion.’

  ‘When I require your advice on how to get through the day, I’ll ask for it,’ she whispered.

  Emptiness yawned inside her. When had she forgotten the rules? Their marriage was a temporary expedient. Was Raschid worried that she was in danger of forgetting the fact? He had a depth of percipience she had found uncannily acute on more than one occasion. He was highly attuned to fluctuations in behaviour and atmosphere. He watched, he waited and he deduced. An unwary word or gesture rarely escaped him.

  Had it not been for what he regarded as a fatal flaw he would have dutifully remarried long ago. He would have selected someone suitable, of course. Some little twittery, submissive creature who knew her place. He wouldn’t have chosen Polly. The more she thought along those lines, the more humiliated she felt. He was tearing her self-respect to ribbons. She despised herself for responding trustingly to yesterday’s misleading warmth. She despised herself more for craving a smile—a stupid, worthless smile from a selfish brute who endowed her with invisibility the minute dawn broke.