An Arabian Courtship Read online

  In the afternoon new furniture was delivered. Polly was noisily shifting it about the lounge when he came towards her. Her heartbeat went haywire and she hated him for it.

  ‘Why aren’t the servants doing that?’

  She straightened with an arctic smile. ‘Because I’m enjoying doing it myself. Sorry, did the racket disturb your concentration?’

  ‘As it happens, no. I wanted to speak to you.’

  Polly lifted a footstool. ‘Carry on.’

  His eyes flashed. ‘Put that down.’

  With exaggerated care, she obeyed. Rapier-taut, he breathed. ‘I owe you an apology for this morning. I am sorry if I distressed you.’

  ‘Do I look distressed?’ she demanded acidly, and turned away to plonk herself down on a seat. Once again he had disconcerted her. She could feel the tears gathering.

  ‘I do not know how I ever thought that you were quiet,’ he told her.

  ‘The fox condemns the trap, not himself.’

  ‘William Blake,’ he identified softly. ‘How sweet I roamed from…’ As Polly studied him in astonishment, he shrugged. ‘Poetry is much loved by my race.’

  She bent her head.

  ‘I wasn’t considerate this morning,’ Raschid went on.

  ‘And of course we must stick to the letter of the law, mustn’t we?’ she muttered bitterly.

  ‘No,’ he contradicted. ‘We have to live together, and this situation demands adjustment on both sides.’

  So they had a situation now, not a marriage. She couldn’t breathe, and she sniffed. With a sigh he knelt down in front of her and gently rescued the cushion she was crushing between her hands. ‘You are upset. I shouldn’t have married someone…’

  ‘I’m not upset! I just don’t like anybody looking at me when I’m crying!’

  A shadow of that rare smile skimmed his mouth. ‘Am I to leave while you compose yourself?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Irritably Polly wiped at her damp eyes. ‘But I really don’t want to hear one more time about how you didn’t want to marry me. How you can say that and then…’ She faltered to a blushing halt.

  ‘Make love to you?’ he interposed. ‘You are very innocent, Polly.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m getting educated all the time.’

  Raschid sighed, ‘I am a man like any other…’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not on a pedestal!’ she snapped tearfully.

  His eyes glittered in driven frustration. ‘You are my wife, my very beautiful wife, and it is my right…’

  ‘To demean me by using me?’ Polly inserted jerkily.

  He pressed a finger to her quivering lower lip. ‘That is crude, and what I have to say to you now is not easy, but I don’t want you to be hurt.’ He slid upright again and moved a nebulous hand. ‘You must not begin imagining that you have become—’ unusually, he hesitated, ‘attached to me.’

  Fixed by that remorseless azure gaze, she was a butterfly on the end of a twisting pin. ‘I really don’t think I want to hear any more of this.’

  ‘It would only make you unhappy and it would only make me uncomfortable. I couldn’t respond to those feelings. I don’t have them to give. There, it is said, and you can be offended with me if you wish,’ he completed harshly.

  Rage had glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth. ‘Attached to you?’ she retorted, wondering if the parasitic choice of term was accidental or subconsciously deliberate. ‘To what aspect of your truly entrancing nature could I become attached? I’m in no danger of…’

  ‘If it is true I am glad of it, but it is not unusual for a woman to become confused about her feelings for her first lover.’ As Raschid cut her off in throbbing mid-speech his narrowed eyes gleamed over her fiercely.

  Polly had leapt up in her fury. ‘Oh, don’t give me an open-ended invitation like that to ventilate my exact feelings, Raschid. It might prove seriously damaging to your ego!’

  ‘Sexual pleasure is not restricted to those in love, Polly,’ he bit out.

  ‘All the way to Dharein with its strict moral code to find a husband preaching promiscuity!’ she derided.

  Dark colour had sprung up over his cheekbones. ‘It was my intent to say that within a marriage where there is respect and understanding there is no shame in enjoying physical intimacy,’ he returned icily.

  Her chin went up, although she was shaking. ‘I was taught that emotions were the distinction that lifted us up out of the animal kingdom. I’m surprised that you’re not suggesting that I take a lover so that I can field-test your convictions for myself!’

  Eyes an incredulous blaze of shimmering blue clashed with hers. ‘The penalty for adultery in Dharein is still death.’ It was a primal and savage snarl to match an anger strong enough to drain the outraged colour from her cheeks. ‘But were I ever to have cause to suspect your fidelity that penalty would seem a happy exit from this life.’

  The violent aggression she had incited arrested her vocal cords and her heartbeat. He released his breath in a hiss and stared at her. ‘It seems that I have yet to learn appreciation of your jokes,’ he enunciated through clenched teeth, the menacing cast of his hard features easing only slowly. ‘But that was a provocation which would rouse any man to anger.’

  Her knees were disgracefully wobbly. ‘Excuse me,’ she mumbled, and fled before her queasy stomach could disgrace her.

  Fortunately a few gulps of fresh air out on the balcony beyond their bedroom settled her back to normality. When a hand touched her shoulder, however, she nearly leapt in the air in fright.

  A firm hand steadied her. ‘I believe you should abandon this tendency to refer to other men as if you are still free to think of them.’

  His eyes still had a banked-down glitter. Backed up against the balcony wall, Polly was absently relieved to have a wholly clean conscience in that direction. ‘Was it true what you said?’ she asked.

  He shifted one of his exquisitely expressive hands. ‘Divorce is easy for both sexes in our society. The rights of women and children are well protected by the law. They were enshrined there centuries ago. There is little excuse for those…’

  ‘But it does happen?’

  ‘It has been some years since such a case has been presented, but the law still stands.’

  ‘Well, I think…’

  ‘I would point out that while our penal code is harsh, infringements are fewer than those in more liberal countries. Nor do our women walk in fear of sexual assault. Polly, let us discuss something on which we are less likely to argue. I don’t want to argue with you.’ Staring down at her vibrantly beautiful and intransigent face, he gently pushed a straying strand of hair back from her cheekbone, employing the familiarity that was almost second nature to him now.

  She spun bitterly and violently away from that confident hand. ‘I’d like to be on my own. I’m sure you have work to do.’

  His jawline clenched. ‘I came to ask you if you would like a tour of that hospital. I have arranged it.’

  An anguished bitterness consumed her. Was this one of those adjustments he had mentioned? The necessity of sacrificing the occasional hour to her entertainment outside the bedroom door? Of humouring her with the pretence that he respected her as an intelligent, thinking human being? She saw herself yesterday, utterly riveted by the spellbinding charge of his full attention. She saw herself last night, slavishly eager in his arms. And she recoiled from both degrading images. This was a fever which required starvation at every possible opportunity.

  Raschid had spelt out brutal facts. She ought to thank him for the short sharp shock treatment. If this agony of pain she was enduring, if this dreadful urge to claw, scratch and bite she was experiencing was the death throes of some embryonic love, she wanted no part of it, and she would have no part of such colourful fancies. There and then she made that pact with herself. The stubborn determination which was the backbone of her character underlined the decision.

  In her conviction that she loved Chris, she had wished unhappi
ness on herself. Raschid was just as unobtainable. Did she have a masochistic streak that rejoiced in suffering? Well, if she had, on this occasion it was not about to find even a tiny outlet.

  ‘I don’t really think that that would be my style.’ She produced a bright smile. ‘But I hope that won’t cause offence.’

  ‘And I hope that you know what you’re doing,’ he intoned coldly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE limousine sped through the palace gates and shot to a halt in the courtyard. Polly took a deep breath before she climbed out. Zenobia came hurrying anxiously to greet her as if she had been lying in wait.

  ‘It is late, lellah,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You have been out for so long, and Prince Raschid returned soon after you left.’

  Since Polly had planned that nifty timing she had the grace to blush. Zenobia moved to take the single package which was all her mistress had to show for an entire morning in Jumani. For three weeks a silent war of attrition had been raging between Polly and Raschid. His five-day absence at a meeting of OPEC in Geneva had proved a much-needed breathing space for her fast fraying nerves. But now he was back.

  If she could, she avoided him. If she couldn’t, she took refuge in a cool, offhand manner. Neither practice pleased. To a feudal male who took for granted that he should be the very centre of his wife’s universe anything less was an insult. At the heart of his detachment would always dwell that chauvinistic ambivalence. But Polly had no plans to play the doormat. After all, wasn’t she just riding out her time here in Dharein? Hadn’t he been the one to lay down the rules? If he was now discovering that philosophy and action had little in common, the problem was his, not hers.

  ‘I think,’ Zenobia’s dusky face was strained, ‘Prince Raschid was concerned that you were away, lellah. So unfortunate,’ she muttered.

  Polly’s eyes gleamed. Raschid wouldn’t show her that he hadn’t been pleased. He would be as aloof and unfailingly polite as he had been before he left. Why not? Her paltry sense of satisfaction was short-lived. For every dismissive word, every deliberate avoidance, she had paid a thousandfold when the sun went down. He punished her for her defiance with exquisite finesse and ruthless expertise during the hours of darkness.

  Heat suffused her unhappy face. As long as her heart hammered crazily to the intoxication of his kisses, she had nothing to congratulate herself on. Her stubborn elusiveness by day and her bitter attempts to withstand his seduction at night had not turned him from her physically.

  She was watering her lush indoor plant collection when he appeared.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she tossed in his general direction, dealing his tall, superbly masculine figure on the threshold the most sparing acknowledgement. But the inescapable weakness a glimpse of him always brought was invading her body, pulling every tiny muscle taut with sharp awareness.

  She didn’t hear him cross the carpet. The first she knew of it, the dainty watering can was wrested from her and her feet were leaving the floor. He crushed her mouth under his, his tongue thrusting a fierce passage between her yielding lips with a passionate, searing urgency that currented through her with a lightning-bolt efficiency.

  ‘Hello…Polly,’ he derided.

  Giddily recovering, she shrieked, ‘Put me down this minute!’

  ‘As you put the phone down on me yesterday?’ he gritted.

  She was totally unprepared for the towering rage which made a mask of his darkly handsome visage. ‘I didn’t put it down. I was about to get in the bath, and I told you that!’ she argued, breathlessly involved in a struggle for release that was as undignified as it was unsuccessful.

  Her eyes flew wide as Raschid kicked open the door of their bedroom.

  ‘And that…it came before me?’

  ‘Everything comes before you!’

  ‘I will teach you manners if it is the last thing I do,’ he swore, dropping her from a height down on to the mercifully well sprung bed.

  Polly bounced back against the headboard, her green eyes ablaze, maddened by his treatment. ‘You touch me now and I’ll never forgive you for it!’

  He sent the door crashing shut with a powerful hand and swung round. ‘I hear and I tremble,’ he scorned. ‘The next time I return you will be waiting for me.’

  ‘Behind the door with a brick, in all likelihood!’ she snapped.

  ‘And you will have something more to say to me than “Oh, hello”,’ he mimicked, and yanked off the gold agal, a predatory glitter illuminating his wrathful stare. ‘What fashion is that in which to greet your husband? You have sulked long enough. I won’t stand another day of it!’

  ‘I don’t sulk!’

  He sauntered over to the bed like a sleek cat stalking an already cornered prey and calmly began to remove his clothes. ‘I am master in my own household.’

  ‘You can’t do this to me!’ she raged, violently thrown by his sudden unforewarned change of tactics.

  He lowered his lean, sun-darkened body down beside her, pulling her to him with determined hands. His eyes roamed almost savagely over her. ‘If it pleases you…I missed you in my bed,’ he breathed less roughly. ‘Feel your body against mine. It speaks of welcome, and that is what I will have. I think you missed me too.’

  ‘Do cows jump over the moon?’

  Disorientatingly laughter tremored through his long, muscular physique, making Polly unbearably aware of his potent masculinity. ‘Ah, Polly, what a talent you have for making me laugh when I’m angry! I should have lost my temper with you long ago.’

  There were tears in her eyes. She was trying so desperately hard not to react to him. ‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, fast reaching a stage where she was no longer too proud to plead.

  Raschid’s lips whispered provocatively over hers. ‘You want me,’ he murmured, ‘and there is no shame in that. For five days all I have thought about is this moment and the pleasure we will share.’

  And this was now and tomorrow was another day. That insidious philosophy suppressed that terrible, aching despair, and she surrendered as she had feared she would all along. Five days stretched out over aimless hours and lonely nights could be a lifetime.

  * * *

  ‘I think cows do jump over the moon.’ Raschid’s slumbrous gaze tracked mockingly over her when all passion was spent.

  They didn’t, they went into orbit. Shifting away from him, she fiercely denied that misleading after-intimacy of togetherness and muttered venomously, ‘When I’m free I could make a fortune selling my story to one of the tabloids. I’ve got just the title! I was an Arab sex slave.’

  The lazy arm which had predictably reached out to prevent her retreat tensed. With an appreciative laugh he dipped his mouth to the smooth curve of her pink cheek. ‘I think you are as likely to do that, aziz, as walk naked down a street.’

  Damn you, don’t you ever take me seriously?’

  ‘A sense of humour helps.’ Coolly employing his superior strength, he turned her back to face him. ‘Do I have to repeat what I said earlier? From now on, you behave,’ he spelt out.

  ‘I’m not a child!’

  Slowly he rested his dishevelled dark head back on the pillow and looked steadily back at her. ‘Only children play hide and seek.’

  ‘Because they want to be found,’ Polly countered shakily. ‘Well, I’m afraid there was no such ego-boosting motivation behind my wish to spend as little time as possible with you. Now if you’re…finished…I’m getting up.’

  His hands swept up to close round her slender forearms. ‘You are not going anywhere, and you will listen to me. Do you think that the ridiculous lengths you have gone to in avoiding me have not aroused comment? Asif has a phrase,’ his brilliant blue eyes glittered up into the pale oval of her face, ‘fighting dirty…’

  The blood rushed hotly to her face. Not once had it occurred to her that her conduct might embarrass him. Stubbornly engaged in what she deemed a private war of survival, she had forgotten the prying eyes and listening ears surrounding them.

>   ‘Perhaps you think I enjoy having my father enquire if I cannot control my wife?’ An unhidden flash leapt in his eyes. ‘He finds it very amusing. I don’t, and while an English gentleman might turn the other cheek, I will not. Push me and you will discover that to your satisfaction if not to your pleasure.’

  ‘Let go of me!’ Polly breathed.

  ‘Am I hurting you?’

  ‘That’s not the point!’

  ‘That is exactly the point,’ Raschid overruled. ‘I am sorry if I wound your pride, but better that than any more lasting damage.’

  She stiffened. ‘If you’re threatening me with violence…’

  His nostrils flared. ‘No man who is truly a man needs to hurt a woman to make her see reason. If I have to hold you to make you listen to me, it is because you spend so much time running away from reality,’ he asserted drily. ‘While you are my wife you will behave as I expect my wife to behave, and whatever differences we have are not to be set up for public debate. Is that understood?’

  Polly quivered with temper and chagrin. ‘I hate you!’

  ‘That wasn’t the question.’

  ‘You lousy bully!’

  ‘A bully would have cut out your tongue and shackled you to the foot of the bed with a chain by now,’ a disturbing quirk matched the sudden humour in his eyes, ‘but what a very dull life a bully would lead with a Polly cowed into submission! I believe you understand very well what I have said and I don’t think you will repeat those errors.’

  ‘I wonder where you get that idea!’

  Slowly he smiled. ‘It didn’t work, did it? And it is not very comfortable to avoid someone all day and then go to bed with them at night. I believe you must now see the point of the relationship I was trying to establish with you, now that it is being made clear that you cannot embarrass me into sending you home.’