The Desert Bride Page 3

  ‘You are prepared to endure bodily restraint?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Without my permission you are not allowed to leave the palace.’

  ‘Nobody allows me to do anything...I do what I want to do!’ Bethany spat back at him, and jerked at the ornate handles with furious fingers. ‘And I am returning to the airport!’

  ‘If you force my men to put their hands upon you they will be severely embarrassed that you should invite such an indignity...but they will not flinch from their duty,’ Razul warned.

  The doors sprang open. Instantly the two guards outside spun round and faced her, yet they did not look directly at her and she remembered how at the airport, after she had mentioned Razul, the male eyes had swiftly averted from her as she’d passed. It was an insult for an Arab man to stare openly at an Arab woman who was not of his family...but she was not one of their women. Such pronounced respect ironically sent a shudder down her backbone, and the mere concept of instigating a pointless struggle with those fierce-looking men made her cringe. In one violent movement of frustration Bethany thrust the doors shut again.

  ‘If you don’t let me out of here I’ll scream!’ she hurled down the length of the room at Razul.

  ‘It will only make your migraine worse.’

  How did he know that she got migraine headaches? How did he know that she could already feel the first dismaying signs of an attack?

  ‘You think I won’t scream, don’t you? You think I’m so damned impressed by your utterly ridiculous threats and your blasted throne room, I haven’t got the bottle!’ Bethany fired off at him, shaking all over with rage.

  ‘“The bottle”?’ A frown-line divided his winged ebony brows as he rose fluidly upright and began to move towards her.

  ‘Stay away from me...I’m warning you!’ On the edge of hysteria for the very first time in her life, Bethany threw back her shoulders and screamed. It hurt her ears, it hurt her throat, it hurt her head. But what shook her even more was the reality that nobody came running to see what was amiss.

  ‘Ask yourself what happiness your life in the West has brought you,’ Razul urged her softly as he moved towards her. ‘You work relentless hours. You drive yourself like a mouse on a treadmill and deny yourself every feminine pleasure.’

  ‘I am extremely happy!’ Bethany launched back rawly, her back pinned to the doors. ‘I’m totally fulfilled by my work.’

  ‘Being totally fulfilled by me will be infinitely more satisfying. It will release all that pent-up tension—’

  ‘The only way I am likely to release my pent-up tension at this moment is by physically attacking you...if you don’t keep your distance!’ Bethany swore, fighting against the increasing pounding of the building migraine, feeling her skin dampen, her stomach lurch. ‘Now maybe you think this little power game of yours is amusing but it has gone far enough...do you hear me? I want transport back to the airport right now!’

  ‘If I gave you what you say you want you would regret it for the rest of your life,’ Razul asserted wryly. ‘I will not permit you to make so foolish a decision.’

  ‘Back off, Razul!’ As he got too close Bethany took a defensive leap along the wall and saw swimming spots in front of her aching eyes, but she fought her own weakness to the last ditch. ‘The joke has gone stale. You cannot possibly intend to keep me here against my will. I couldn’t possibly be your type—’

  ‘I have catholic taste—’

  ‘Intellectually I find you—’

  ‘A challenge? When you have rested for a while you will feel more adjusted to the wonderful change in your circumstances. No longer are you alone—’

  ‘I like being alone!’ Bethany screeched.

  ‘You are afraid to share yourself—’

  ‘I am not sharing anything with you!’ It was a cry of despair. Suddenly, without warning, she snapped, the rigidity going out of her, hot tears burning her eyes, making her cover her rapidly working face with shaking hands.

  A pair of strong hands inexorably peeled her off the wall which was supporting her. ‘No!’ she gasped in horror.

  An even stronger set of arms relentlessly swept her off her feet. Her head was spinning in a cartwheel of fire. Her gaze clashed with glittering gold eyes set between lush ebony lashes longer than her own, and a stifled moan of mingled pain and defeat was dredged from her.

  ‘Stop fighting me.’

  ‘Put me down,’ she sobbed weakly.

  ‘Shush...’ he whispered softly, soothingly. ‘Surrender can be the sweetest pleasure of all for a woman. You were born to yield, not to fight.’

  She closed her water-clogged eyes, feeling too ill to try and struggle against overwhelming odds. Overwhelming odds...Razul in a nutshell, she reflected wretchedly. Two years ago she had blown every penny she’d possessed on a trip to Canada to stay with her aunt to escape him. Like a drug addict she had suffered withdrawal symptoms of sleepless nights, lost appetite, mood-swings and, worse, the frightening conviction that she had a streak of masochism more than equal to anything that her martyred mother had ever displayed in her dealings with her wandering husband.

  Razul was carrying her and without any apparent effort. The scent of him so close washed over her...clean, warm, intensely male. They had never been this close before. But she had wondered—oh, yes, she had wondered what it would feel like to be in his arms. Now it had been thrust on her when she was defenceless and, worst of all, she liked it, she registered in horror—liked the fact that he had taken charge, liked the soft, rich feel of his robes against her cheek, the raw male strength of him, the steady thump of his heartbeat. A sob that had nothing at all to do with her migraine escaped her.

  A clamour of anxious female voices chattered in Arabic as she was laid down on a bed. A cool hand rested on her forehead. Razul. A part of her wanted to retain that contact and that made her feel worse than ever. He lifted her up. ‘Drink this...’

  Her medication was in her bag but she drank the herbal concoction, lay back, weak as a kitten, and momentarily lifted her heavy eyelids. Two young women were kneeling on the carpet several feet from the bed and they both wore fixed and matching expressions of frantic concern and unholy fascination. Melodrama was born in Arabia, she thought helplessly.

  ‘The doctor is coming.’ Razul smoothed the fiery tangle of curls off her damp brow. His hand wasn’t quite steady. ‘Close your eyes; relax,’ he instructed in that dark, deep voice of his. ‘Tension must increase the pain.’

  Relax? A spasm of anguish snaked through her. He had brought her to the harem. Those had to be his women watching her. Wives, concubines—Oh, dear heaven, what did it matter what they were? she asked herself bitterly. He was still one man with two hundred young and beautiful women at his disposal—gifts from his father’s adoring subjects.

  Datar had made an official complaint to the British government when a certain notorious tabloid had spilt what the Dataris considered to be very private beans to an agog British public. Diplomatic relations had been cut off for six months. Contracts which should have gone to British firms had suddenly been awarded elsewhere. Since then the media had been tactfully silent about the Crown Prince of Datar’s exotic sex life. Not a murmur had appeared in print since those revelations two years earlier.

  Razul had been shattered when she’d dared to fling those same facts in his teeth—so outraged, so furious, so nakedly incredulous that any woman should dare even to mention such an unmentionable subject, never mind berate him with a personal opinion of his morals, that he had forgotten every word of English that he did have, slamming back at her in his own language before he’d stormed out, leaving her sobbing and empty and bitter as gall.

  In a haze of surprising drowsiness and broken shards of memory Bethany drifted at first, like a boat on a storm-tossed sea, but the boat slowly came into the calm of harbour, drawn there by the cool, strong fingers reassuringly linked with hers. Feeling inexpressibly relaxed, she slid into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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sp; Bethany wakened to the sound of chattering birds and stretched languorously. Her dark lashes lifted and she saw not a ceiling but a dome of incredibly beautiful stained glass far above her. She sat up with a stifled gasp. There was another shock awaiting her. She was not alone. Three brightly smiling young girls were kneeling in total silence on the carpet.

  ‘You are awake, sitt.’ One of them rose gracefully and shyly lifted gorgeous almond-shaped eyes to hers. Her slender body was garbed in a colourful, tight bodice and swirling skirt, her feet shod in embroidered slippers, gold jewellery tinkling with her every movement. ‘I am Zulema. We have been chosen to serve you. Many wished for this honour but only I speak English. Prince Razul say I speak English very good...is good enough?’ she checked in sudden dismay, the query undoubtedly prompted by the fact that Bethany was gaping at her.

  Bethany snatched in a gulping breath, striving to get a grip on herself as she took in the fabulous room and its alarming unfamiliarity, then glanced down and fingered the equally unfamiliar filmy white silk gown she was mysteriously clad in. ‘You speak wonderful English, Zulema,’ she mumbled weakly.

  ‘I will run a bath for you, sitt. You must long to be fresh. You had a very long journey, but it is so thrilling, I think, to fly on a plane. Once I travelled to London with Princess Fatima—’ Zulema’s animated little face abruptly clouded and she dropped her shining dark head as if she had dropped a clanger.

  Fatima...who was Princess Fatima? Razul’s sister, mother, aunt...wife? Bethany knew nothing about his family.

  As Zulema hurriedly pressed the other girls into activity Bethany absorbed their unhidden high spirits and the rather discomfiting way they kept on stealing fascinated glances at her. Were they maids or was their connection with Razul of a more intimate nature? After all, every one of them was wearing enough gold jewellery to sink the Titanic. Dear God, Razul had put her in his harem just as he had promised. And he had drugged her to keep her here last night!

  What had been in that seemingly innocuous drink that she had trustingly taken from his hand? She had never managed to sleep through a migraine before. Whatever he had given her had knocked her out cold. She had slept through what remained of yesterday late into a new day. And right now she was in shock—so much shock that her brain was traumatised. The sound of running water came noisily through a door now flung wide. In a sudden motion Bethany slid from the bed. Zulema gasped and surged to proffer slippers as if the wonderful, silk-soft rug were insufficient to protect her feet.

  ‘Please...’ Please leave me alone, she wanted to plead, but when Zulema looked up at her with a horribly embarrassing look of near-worship, as if she were some sort of goddess instead of a perfectly ordinary woman the same as herself, Bethany was struck dumb.

  ‘We will bathe you, sitt.’

  Bethany, who found even communal changing rooms a mortification, was appalled by the suggestion. Fighting to hide the fact, she murmured tightly, ‘You don’t need to serve me, Zulema.’

  ‘But you are the one...you must be served,’ Zulema protested anxiously.

  The one what? Bethany almost screamed, recalling that same phrase from the airport but restraining herself. ‘Where I come from,’ she said stiltedly, ‘we do not share bathrooms.’

  Zulema giggled and delightedly shared this barbaric desire for privacy with her companions. Bethany took advantage of the huddle to slide past them into the bathroom and close the door. The ultra-modern appointments were reassuring. The bedroom, furnished with antique cedarwood inlaid with silver, had given her the disorientating impression that she had been snatched back to the time of Sheherazade. Peeling off the gown, she climbed into the bath which had been run for her, but she sat rigid in the richly scented water like a puritan invited to an orgy, furiously washed herself and clambered back out again as fast as she possibly could.

  By the time she had finished with Razul he wouldn’t be able to get her back to the airport quickly enough! Was he crazy? Did he really imagine that he could make a prisoner of her? Of course, he could not seriously mean to try and keep her here by force. But everything he had told her the previous night flooded back to her—the endowment to the university... the strict anonymity demanded ...her own surprise, as a junior member of the department, when she had been offered the research trip.

  She emerged from the bathroom wrapped in towels. ‘Where are my clothes?’

  With pride Zulema indicated the fabulous heap of jewel-coloured silks now strewn over the bed.

  ‘My clothes...my suitcase,’ Bethany extended tautly.

  Neither was forthcoming. Ignoring her audience, Bethany flicked open chests and closet doors. Nothing, not a stitch of her own clothing in sight! She wanted to stamp her feet and scream with temper, and it must have showed because Zulema and her helpers looked worried sick, as if any sign of dissatisfaction on her part was likely to bring punishment down on their unprotected heads.

  ‘OK... I’ll wear this stuff. Choose something for me,’ Bethany invited grudgingly.

  Smiles broke out again like magic. Zulema extended an emerald-green silk caftan edged with gold, and a filmy pair of lace briefs and matching bra, the likes of which Bethany had never harboured in her plain white cotton underwear drawer. A flush of increasing rage mantling her cheeks, she dressed and stood at the mirror with a silver-backed brush, yanking it brutally through her long, wild mane of tangled curls.

  ‘I have displeased you, sitt?’ Zulema pressed in a small, tearful voice. ‘Why you not like my help?’

  Bethany felt all mean and small-minded and contemptible and handed over the brush, taking a seat on a divan. How the heck could you force the principle of equality on someone when equality was neither acknowledged nor desired?

  ‘Such glorious hair. I have never seen such wonderful hair,’ Zulema sighed, delicately teasing out each snarl with reverent fingers. ‘It is the colour of the setting sun, just as was said.’

  ‘Said by whom?’

  Zulema giggled shyly. ‘Prince Razul’s guards, they talk... It is forbidden that they talk, but men, they gossip too. A long time ago we hear about the English lady with the hair of glorious colours...soon all our people know and talk and the King, he got very angry indeed to hear the whispers about his beloved son. Ah...the English breakfast is here!’ Zulema carolled excitedly as the door opened.

  What kind of whispers? Bethany wanted to know as she stood up, but Zulema threw wide yet another door, revealing a dining table and chairs. ‘Just like home,’ she told Bethany as a procession of servants bearing trays followed in her wake.

  Open-mouthed, Bethany stared as the trays were unloaded and the lids on the metal dishes were lifted one by one. Fruit juices, cereals, toast, croissants, breakfast rolls, wheaten bread and every possible kind of preserve. Fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, even coddled eggs. Kippers, devilled kidneys, beef sausages, fried bread, tomatoes and French toast. It was lunchtime but she was receiving breakfast.

  Zulema pulled out a chair and Bethany collapsed down onto it, surveying the banquet before her. She was hungry but never in her life had she seen such a spread for one individual. The entire table was covered.

  ‘You like?’

  ‘I’m very impressed.’ Her voice wobbled in the presence of such shamelessly conspicuous consumption.

  ‘Prince Razul bring in chef from Dubai. If you not like his cooking, he go back,’ Zulema informed her cheerfully.

  Razul had hired a chef specifically to cook Western food for her? Heavens, did he actually think that she would be staying long enough for it to matter? Bethany took a deep breath, feeling more and more as though she was existing in some outrageous fantasy world, aeons removed from her own life of quiet, sensible practicality.

  She was finishing her tea when Zulema approached her again.

  ‘The Prince...he say he meet with you now,’ Zulema whispered, as if she were setting up an incredibly exciting romantic assignation.

  Bethany stood up and straightened her narrow should
ers with Amazonian spirit. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’

  ‘The horses?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  The palace was an astonishingly large building. It rambled all over the place in a hotchpotch of corridors, screened galleries and sunlit courtyards.

  At the head of a superb marble staircase Zulema abruptly halted and drew back several steps. ‘We must wait, sitt.’

  Bethany looked over the wall down into the magnificent courtyard below, but her attention had not been attracted by the lush selection of tropical plants and the beautiful playing fountains. It was Razul she saw, his luxuriantly black, slightly curly hair gleaming like raw silk in the strong sunlight...and then the woman, sobbing and clutching frantically at his ankles.

  ‘We go for walk, sitt,’ Zulema urged uncomfortably.

  ‘No, thanks.’ In all her life Bethany had never seen a woman humiliate herself to such an extent. She was appalled. She needed no grasp of Arabic to interpret that distraught voice, that subservient posture and the passionate intensity with which the poor woman was hanging onto him.

  Razul hissed something in his own language and literally stepped over her. As she attempted to follow him he snapped his fingers furiously at a cluster of servants cowering in a corner. Within seconds they were rushing to lift the woman from the ground and hurry her away through one of the archways off the courtyard.

  ‘Who is that woman?’ Bethany whispered.

  ‘The Princess Fatima,’ Zulema muttered thinly. ‘Prince Razul take only one wife. Always he say that... only the one.’

  Bethany’s stomach lurched sickly. Perspiration broke out on her brow. So Razul was married. Dear heaven, that tormented woman was his wife, and it did not take great imagination to comprehend the source of her hysteria, did it? Razul had brought another woman into the palace and the poor creature was quite naturally distraught. The sheer cruelty of his behaviour devastated Bethany. He was every inch the savage, despotic Arab prince, who believed his own desires to be innately superior to any mere female’s wants and needs.