The Desert Bride Read online

  Bethany had closed her eyes and turned away. She was devastated, her bitter fury quelled by shocked disbelief at the fact that he had actually answered her, called her sarcastic bluff with a candour that was savage. In a daze she stood there, heard him leave the room. The kitten scrabbled at her feet playfully, and as her knees gave she sank clumsily down on the beautiful rug and watched the tiny creature frolic innocently around her without really seeing its antics.

  The deep-freeze effect of shock slowly receded, and her mind began to work again. She’d heard Razul describing his second wife not with pleasure...no, not with pleasure but with barely concealed revulsion. He did not want a not very well-educated wife, content to gossip and shop and watch TV and treat him like a god who could do no wrong. That might be his father’s standard of a good wife but it was not Razul’s. That, she realised dazedly, had not been his dream.

  Tears of released stress suddenly stung her aching eyes. She had wilfully misunderstood what Razul had been telling her from the beginning. He had told her that he had no freedom of choice and she hadn’t listened. He had told her that his father did not want him to marry her and she hadn’t listened properly to that either.

  In King Azmir’s eyes she was not an acceptable wife for his only son and nothing was likely to change that fact. The old boy might be a fond and over-protective father but the only way Razul had been able to win his consent to bringing Bethany here had been by promising that it would only be a temporary alliance. It had been one last chance for them to be together before he did his filial and princely duty by marrying some brainless bimbo and settling down to produce children.

  Not his choice; not his dream. How could she have been blind enough to believe that Razul would go to such extraordinary lengths merely to get her into bed? She remembered his panic when he’d realised that she was ill, and his distress at the hospital, and the tears fell faster than ever. Maybe it wasn’t quite love but Razul really did care about her and he had never tried to hide the fact even when she was being more of a nightmare than a dream.

  She covered her face with splayed fingers and sobbed with noisy helplessness as she thought of that ring lying at the foot of the pool. He had been trying to show that he respected her, that even if the marriage couldn’t last it didn’t mean that it had to be a mockery.

  His father was a horrible, mean old man, rotten with prejudice and as cruel as some Dark Age medieval tyrant, she thought wretchedly. Just because he had made a mistake and had been humiliated and hurt by Razul’s mother, he had decided that Bethany was unacceptable, unsuitable and not even worthy of a meeting or a chance to prove that she could be the right wife for his son. It was just as well that he was suffering from ill-health. At that moment Bethany decided that, if she could get close to the old misery guts, the sheer shock of hearing her opinion of him would finish him off altogether!

  As she rooted around blindly for a hanky one was planted helpfully into her hand. With a start she opened her reddened eyes and focused strickenly on Razul as he crouched down on the carpet beside her. ‘Go a-away!’ she sobbed, cursing the sneaky silence of his approach.

  ‘I have upset you.’

  Her teeth gritted as another sob shuddered through her. ‘Why sh-should you think that?’

  ‘I have never seen you cry before.’

  ‘What did you expect after saying what you did?’ she flared at him on the back of another howl.

  ‘You drove me to it,’ he grated unevenly.

  ‘That’s right...b-blame me!’

  He pulled her into his arms and she went rigid. But the achingly familiar scent of him washed over her and her resistance broke with dismaying abruptness. She buried her face against his shoulder and struggled for breath.

  ‘I should not criticise you for being the woman you are,’ Razul whispered, not quite steadily. ‘For if you were not the woman you are I would not want you.’

  She sniffed. ‘That’s perverse.’

  ‘Then I am perverse...what does it mean?’

  She very nearly laughed. ‘Stubborn, contrary.’

  ‘We are both these things.’

  ‘Quick-tempered, aggressive?’

  ‘These too.’

  This time she did let an involuntary gurgle of laughter escape her. ‘A match made in hell?’

  ‘No...never that, aziz. Although I cannot face the end of the summer, I will hold these weeks with you in my heart for ever.’

  Any urge to laugh was instantly banished. Bethany horrified herself by bursting into floods of tears again. She had never been more miserable in her life. He smoothed her hair back from her brow and muttered soothing, incomprehensible things in Arabic as if he were trying to calm a distressed child, and she had the lowering feeling that he was totally at a loss as to what to say or do. For what was there to say? she thought tragically. Like it or not, the end of the summer would come.

  ‘You are exhausting yourself,’ he murmured, but she had the oddest suspicion that he was actually quite cheerful about the fact, which was, of course, a quite ridiculous idea in the circumstances and one more symptom of her seemingly ingrained need to find fault with him, she scolded herself fiercely.

  ‘I want my ring back,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You did not want it before.’

  ‘I’m not crawling for it either!’ she asserted jerkily into his shoulder.

  ‘I have never wanted you to crawl,’ Razul sighed. ‘Only to give us this chance.’

  Her throat threatened to close over again. Dear heaven, why did he have to keep on saying distressing things like that? If she cried any more she would be suffering from dehydration! She drew in a deep breath to calm herself. ‘I will.’

  ‘You will have changed your mind again by tomorrow—’

  ‘No, I won’t...I promise!’ she told him frantically, clutching at him with feverish hands while the kitten settled into the folds of her dress and went to sleep, having given up on the hope of receiving any attention from either of them.

  ‘But what has brought about this change in you?’ he demanded.

  ‘The thought of you with another woman...you idiot!’ Bethany sobbed, wanting to kick him just as much as she wanted to cling to him. Did he need everything spelt out?

  ‘You are jealous?’

  ‘Of course I am...do you think I have the feelings of a stone?’ she accused in disbelief.

  ‘Occasionally I have thought this,’ he admitted gruffly, holding her so tightly that it was an effort for her to breathe, and no use at all for her to go stiff with outraged pride and attempt to peel herself away from him, because he was infinitely stronger than she was.

  She subsided again, too exhausted by her emotional breakdown to continue a struggle against an embrace that she was thoroughly enjoying. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, comforted by the hard, warm feel of him. A strange sense of peacefulness was creeping over her, along with a bone-deep tiredness. She stifled a yawn.

  ‘Am I allowed to carry you to bed?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He smiled down at her, and even on the edge of sleep she felt her drowsy pulses speed up and her heart accelerate. ‘Unfortunately I am dining with my father tonight.’

  She tried not to let her facial muscles freeze but it was hard. Although very possibly she did not have the right to censure King Azmir’s decision. Her tempestuous emotions had drained away, leaving room for a little intelligent reflection. Maybe she was a genuinely unacceptable wife for Razul. Razul was half-French. He was not wholly of Arab blood. It was very possible that a British wife and the son who might eventually be born of such a union would not be acceptable to the people of Datar as the family of a future ruler. It was a thoroughly depressing suspicion but a realistic one.

  Exhausted as she was, it was nonetheless hard for her to get to sleep. She was thinking helplessly of the empty, narrow life she would return to in England. The idea stirring at the back of her mind was madness, sheer madness, she told herself...or was it? She had
to have something if she had to face that future without Razul, and lots of women managed to raise a child alone. But to deliberately bring a child into the world without a father... But then what else would she ever have of Razul? she asked herself fiercely.

  She wanted his child, his baby. Was that so wrong? He would never know. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Two months...two months in which to become pregnant by a male scrupulously guarding against the possibility. It was a tall order but not an insuperable challenge, she decided, pitting her wits, against the problem and coming up with one or two possibilities which made her smile to herself as she finally drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN Razul saw Bethany walking across the stableyard towards him, his brilliant smile hit her like a shot of adrenalin in her veins. Crawling out of bed in darkness suddenly felt worthwhile. He caught her hand in his and introduced her to the inmate of every stable on the block before finally drawing her over to a doe-eyed mare whom Bethany cheerfully petted.

  ‘You like horses,’ he murmured in a tone of discovery.

  ‘Very much, but I’ve only ridden a few times in recent years,’ she confided. ‘So I’ll be a little rusty.’

  ‘Did you have a pony as a child?’

  It was an unlucky question. Her beautiful face shadowed and stiffened. ‘Once...briefly. She was a real little beauty too. I had one wonderful season on her with the pony club.’

  ‘I sense that I have roused an unhappy memory. Did an accident take her from you?’

  Her mouth compressed and she shrugged. ‘No...my father took her from me. He said he was only loaning her out to a very good friend for a week or two but I never saw her again.’

  ‘He sold her?’ Razul frowned with immediate sympathy. ‘Perhaps the expense had become too much?’ he suggested.

  Bethany uttered a wry laugh and swung herself up agilely into the saddle, wishing very much that she had kept her mouth shut. ‘No, it wasn’t that. The very good friend was an actress he was chasing at the time. She had a little girl too. He wanted to impress her with an extravagant gift, and why go the expense of buying another pony when he could take mine?’

  Razul surveyed her in clear disbelief. ‘You are not serious?’

  ‘Look, he bought the pony in the first place. Can we drop this subject?’ she said tautly.

  ‘No, we cannot. Could your mother not prevent him from such an act?’

  She expelled her breath in a charged hiss. ‘My mother has never tried to prevent my father from doing anything in her life...and if it was unpleasant she just ignored it. At the time she pointed out that it was his pony, not mine.’

  Before he could press her further Bethany moved off, directing the glossy little mare at the gates that led out of the stableyard. Beyond the walls she reined in, her troubled thoughts put to flight by the view before her. The sun was a great globe of rising fire, sending shimmering ribbons of glorious colour trailing across the dawn skies. Fingers of light fell on the sands, turning them peach and scarlet and gold, dancing off stark outcrops of rock and casting mysterious shadows. The desert landscape, so brutally drained by the merciless heat by day, had an eerie and glorious beauty at sunrise.

  ‘You were right,’ she marvelled as Razul drew level with her. ‘It looks fantastic at this hour.’

  ‘I could show you beauty here at any hour,’ he asserted with immense pride and confidence.

  His world, his heritage, and he was so much a part of it—as untamed as a land at the mercy of harsh elements that could not be controlled. She searched his hard profile with softened eyes and an aching understanding. ‘You didn’t like the English climate much, did you?’

  ‘It was a change...but it was very cold. Come on,’ he urged.

  But she took her time in following him on that gorgeous Arab thoroughbred he rode. The sleek stallion raced across the sand, rider and horse enviably fluid and at ease. She liked watching him and smiled, feeling like a burden when he came back to her. He looked guilty too. ‘I forgot that you had not ridden for a while.’

  And he wouldn’t take off again on his own, no matter how often she told him that she was perfectly happy to pad along at her own unexciting speed until she found her confidence again. Eventually she stopped telling him, for she could hardly help noticing that he was in a wonderfully good mood, that quick, spontaneous smile breaking out with quite devastating frequency. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He cast a spell over her and no longer did she feel threatened by that. Tomorrow, next month, indeed the end of the summer, suddenly seemed a lifetime away. One day at a time, she promised herself.

  ‘We will breakfast outside and I will make coffee for you,’ Razul announced on their arrival back at the palace.

  ‘The proper way?’

  He grinned. ‘The only way.’

  Taking time out from the quick shower that she had promised herself, she headed down to the old harem quarters, stripped down to her bra and briefs on the edge of that ancient marble pool and climbed in.

  ‘Great minds...’

  She spun round and her cheeks flamed pink as she saw Razul smiling down at her from the side of the pool. Tugging off his gleaming riding boots, he went in still clothed. ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘No joy yet.’

  ‘It’s a big pool,’ he sighed ruefully.

  She started to giggle, and once she started it was very difficult to stop.

  ‘I could buy another ring,’ he suggested hopefully as he waded through the water.

  ‘I want that one,’ she insisted, sitting down on the steps and hugging her aching ribs. ‘Another one wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Well, then, don’t sit there being lazy!’ Razul shot at her in exasperation. ‘Help!’

  So she searched too, but it was Razul who literally struck gold with a relief that was highly entertaining. He snatched it up, grabbed her hand and threaded it on her finger with a lack of romantic ceremony which nearly sent her off into whoops again. He looked down into her laughing face and his stunning eyes flared golden in the sunlight, an expression of such intense hunger stamping his strong features that she blinked up at him in sudden stasis.

  ‘You are so very beautiful...and so very undressed,’ he murmured thickly.

  As the sweep of his appreciative appraisal took in the flimsy bra and briefs which were all that interrupted his view of her gleaming body, only then did she actually recall that she was half-naked. Her cheeks warmed at the awareness but she made no move to cover herself. Indeed there was a wicked delight, she discovered, in standing there in the glow of his very masculine admiration.

  He lowered his tousled dark head and pressed his mouth against the corner of hers, teasing, playing. The front snap of her bra gave beneath his deft fingers and her breath caught. In sensual shock she watched her breasts spring free, wantonly bare and full, her pink nipples pouting into taut buds even before he raised a hand to touch her.

  ‘Don’t you dare stop...’ she whispered shakily.

  He laughed softly, found her mouth and tasted her as if they had been apart for a century and he could not believe the joy of finding her again. Her knees wobbled beneath the onslaught. She strained forward, the throbbing tips of her swelling breasts rubbing with delicious friction against the wet roughness of his polo shirt, and he caught her to him with suddenly impatient hands, pinning her to him as he strode up the steps out of the water and swiftly to her bedroom.

  The tip of his tongue flicked against the roof of her mouth, twinned hotly with her own in a highly erotic assault that made her senses swim. She dug her hands into his thick hair and kissed him back wildly, all the pent-up passion of her fiery temperament bent on entrapment.

  It was like setting a torch to a bale of hay. With a savage groan he lifted her high against him and curved her thighs round his lean hips. Electrified by that primitive response, she did it again. He reacted with quite devastating enthusiasm.

  He brought her down on the edge of the bed and rip
ped off his polo shirt.

  She rested back breathlessly on her elbows, excitement snaking through her in a shameless surge, an even greater excitement than that which she had experienced on their wedding night for it was infinitely less one-sided. This time there was no fear of the unknown and no terror of her own responses, only an aching, tender need for his pleasure to match hers. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him without saying it out loud.

  So she rammed back her own shyness and curved forward to unsnap the waistband of the skin-tight riding breeches he still wore. The palm of her hand rested against the hard, swollen bulge of his manhood as she struggled with the zip in sudden embarrassment over her own lack of expertise.

  ‘I will die of frustration,’ he swore, with a sound between an agonised groan and reluctant laughter, and then his patience gave and he brushed aside her inept fingers, dealing with the problem in one second flat.

  She flung herself back on the bed like a willing sacrifice, every tiny muscle taut with helpless anticipation. Razul surveyed her with slightly dazed eyes, as if he was not quite sure that this was really happening to him, but he dispensed with the shrunk-fit breeches with remarkable speed and fervour, hauled her back to him and kissed her breathless.

  He captured an urgently sensitive nipple in his mouth and her whole body jerked, a stifled gasp dragged from her as an arrow of clawing heat flamed through her, making her hips rise and her thighs tremble. Her own response was shatteringly intense. Her restive hands skimmed in torturous circles over the smooth skin of his back and then sank into his hair tightly as her temperature rocketed.

  A hot fever of excitement seized her as he wrenched off her briefs. Never in her entire existence had she dreamt of wanting anything as desperately as she now wanted him. Her heart was slamming against her ribcage, the blood pulsating wildly through her veins. As he caressed an engorged pink bud with the flick of his tongue and the teasing graze of his sharp teeth, he found the most sensitive spot of all with skilful fingers and made her jerk and quiver and moan, thrown helplessly out of control, her teeth clenched, her throat extended as the hot wire of sexual tension tightened and tightened until she was convinced that she was in mortal torment.