by Lynne Graham
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Polly muttered.
He sent her a winging glance. ‘You forget—I was there. Had I been less prejudiced against you, I would have suspected the true circumstances sooner. Your behaviour was self-explanatory. It was your parents who forced you to the match.’
‘I made the decision,’ she insisted.
‘I disagree.’ The contradiction was coolly emphatic. ‘When one makes a decision one accepts it. To say the very least, you were not in a state of acceptance when you married me.’
Unsure where this was leading, Polly said nothing. In any case, he had spoken the truth. Depressed about Chris and deeply concerned for her family, she had plunged into giving her consent. She had not thought the decision through, she had run away from it. In confusion she appreciated that Chris had not entered her head until Raschid had put him there by association. Recalling her torment at the wedding, she wondered where all that emotion had gone. It did not hurt now. Why? Why didn’t it hurt?
Raschid sighed. ‘All you must concentrate on now is recovering your strength. I have stayed too long. That dreadfully garrulous woman will assault my ears. Is she ever silent?’ he enquired wryly.
She gave him an absent glance. ‘No, but she’s kind. I like her.’
‘Then the purpose was fulfilled. I thought you would be happier with a British nurse.’
‘Thank you for the flowers,’ she whispered shyly before he reached the door. ‘They’re beautiful…nobody’s ever given me flowers before.’
Chris slipped out of her puzzled musings and her lashes drooped on the flower-bedecked room and the not very cheerful reflection that the floral offerings were worth about as much as the statutory visit Raschid had made. He could not be seen to neglect an ailing wife.
* * *
‘Only twelve weeks to Christmas, but who would credit it?’ Susan MacKenzie stared out unappreciatively at the sun slowly sinking in a blazing glory of crimson and cerise and peach before she returned to brushing Polly’s hair. ‘I can’t wait to get home and be cold and get wrapped up in woollens. Will you miss Christmas?’
Polly’s eyes watered. ‘Yes.’
‘Smile!’ hectored Susan. ‘You’re almost on your feet again. You’re suffering from the post-flu blues, that’s all. It’s only ten days since you were really ill. Then I know you’re fed up with this room. That’s why you’re getting a surprise.’
Polly had had more surprises than she could handle over the last week. Raschid four or five times a day had been a big enough shock to her expectations. Sometimes he stayed only a few minutes, other times he stayed an hour. He never came empty-handed. The bedside cabinet was piled high with paperbacks. If he didn’t bring books, he brought flowers or magazines. But half the time he was there, he was broodingly silent, forcing Polly to chatter nervously non-stop.
An intense cloak of reserve characterised Raschid. She could never tell what he was thinking. He had a trick of listening with acute interest no matter what trivial rubbish she was spouting. It had to be a very useful device when he was caught up in boring business meetings, but Polly found it frankly unnerving.
His body language was far from informative. He never relaxed in her company. He paced restlessly like a prowling cheetah confined in a too small cage. He also maintained a distance from the bed that suggested he was in the presence of dangerous contagion.
Polly had gone over and over their conversation ten days earlier, searching for the source of his constraint and his avoidance of the tiniest show of intimacy. But she was essentially in the dark as to the cause. She did suspect that the knowledge that she had succumbed to outside pressures in marrying him had ironically flicked Raschid’s pride on the raw. He might have assured her that he now saw her differently, shorn of her brazen guise as a weak-hearted gold-digger, but why did she receive the peculiar impression that a money-grabbing blonde would have been more welcome to him? She frowned. That was just another in a long list of imponderables, and Raschid was full of them.
‘You’re not very curious, are you?’ Susan rattled on. ‘Don’t you want to know what the surprise is? You’re dining with your husband tonight!’
Instead of reacting in blushing confusion, Polly paled. Why on earth would he make such an effort? Guilt? He was leaving for New York again tomorrow. No doubt he was breaking his neck to engage in a passionate reunion with his mistress. He probably had no trouble at all in talking to her. Maybe she even travelled with him. Suddenly her eyes misted with tears and she bent her head quickly over a letter from her sister. It was the ’flu which was making her miserable, wasn’t it? She was fed up with herself. These moody highs and lows of temperament were unfamiliar to her.
Maggie had mentioned that Chris had spent the weekend at Ladybright. Polly sighed and set the letter down. Thoughts that would have been heresy to her a month ago had been bombarding her increasingly of late, and she knew why. Her devastating physical response to Raschid had pointed out a glaring lack in her feelings for Chris, forcing her to question them. How could she love Chris without ever having longed to physically express that love? Yet, incredibly, that was what she had done for the past four years.
Had she mistaken liking and admiration and loneliness for loving? The idea that she could have so misunderstood her own emotions dismayed her. But what else was she to believe?
She had missed Chris terribly when he started medical school. She had been hurt and lost as their childhood closeness stretched to a more adult gulf. But those were growing pains, weren’t they? Chris had been mature for his age, while she hadn’t been, she acknowledged ruefully. A shy, introverted teenager, she had depended heavily on Chris as a friend. Had she stubbornly clung to an adolescent dream longer than other girls?
The lingering remnants of that rosy dream world had died on her wedding day. Of course it had hurt, even though her love for Chris had been a highly idealised and quite impractical thing. In a sense it had been a security blanket as well while no one else attracted her. And all this time she had really cared for Chris as he cared for her. If it had been real love she would not have been defenceless against Raschid.
When Raschid came in she was reading. Glued to the printed page, she didn’t hear him. ‘Is that enthralling?’ he queried.
Glancing up, she did a forgivable double-take. Raschid was wearing an open-necked white silk shirt and a pair of tight-fitting jeans that hugged his narrow hips and long, lean thighs. What he did for jeans would have sold racks of them. Polly’s stomach performed a somersault. ‘Pardon?’ she queried.
‘The book.’
‘Oh, that.’ Carelessly she put it down. ‘I didn’t know you wore jeans.’
He shrugged rather tensely, skimming a beautifully shaped hand off a denim-clad hip. ‘Since you are not strong enough yet to dress, I thought I would be more casual.’
As she began to rise he curved an arm round her and the next minute she was airborne. ‘You know, I can walk—I’m not crippled!’ she protested breathlessly.
‘The doctor said that you were to take everything very slowly. You can’t want to risk a relapse. Our climate is not kind to the delicate.’ Ebony lashed blue eyes travelled reprovingly over her pink face.
There was a whirring sensation behind her temples. The sunwarmed scent of him was in her nostrils, the virile heat of his flesh penetrating the light kimono robe she wore. The whirring became a thrumming pulsebeat throughout her tautened body. She was unnaturally stiff by the time he stowed her on a tumbled pile of silk cushions in a vast and austere room.
Desire was in her like a dark enemy he had implanted, a hot, feverish intoxication of every sense that left her reeling on the lowering realisation that until she met Raschid she had been part stranger even to herself. While she lay in her bed and he remained distantly polite, denying that her vulnerability existed had been easier. But when he touched her those proud self-delusions shattered. Then, as now, her awareness of him was so pronounced that it was an exquisite pain. And worst of all,
some treacherously feminine trait in her gloried unreservedly in the race of her pulses, the dryness in her mouth and the crazy acceleration of her heart. Tearing her attention from him, she squashed those renegade feelings. The power of them terrified her even as they pointed out all over again what she had not felt for Chris.
Raschid folded down lithely and food started to arrive, borne by half a dozen servants. ‘Had I known in advance that you would be well enough to join me this evening, I would have located a table and chairs,’ he told her.
Dear heaven, had Susan MacKenzie somehow prompted him to this invitation? Polly’s cheeks flamed.
‘I expect that you have noticed that these apartments are not very modern.’
‘I assume Berah preferred the traditional look,’ Polly said, woodenly dismissive.
Visibly he tautened. ‘Berah and I lived in a different wing of the palace.’ He paused. ‘After her death I chose to embrace new surroundings.’
Had he set up a holy, untouchable shrine in the old? Polly had long since discounted Jezra’s assertion of Raschid’s unhappiness with her predecessor. Four years ago, Jezra had been a child scarcely qualified to make that judgement. His undoubted sensitivity to any reminder of Berah was more revealing. Exactly where did this female in Paris fit in? Then she was being very na;auive, wasn’t she? Raschid was a very male animal. His sexual needs had not diminished with his first wife’s death. A mistress would have been more a necessity than an indulgence, Polly thought darkly. Fortunately she really didn’t care what he did as long as he left her alone.
‘In comparison with your home, perhaps you find this household rather primitive,’ he continued, still only receiving half her attention. ‘These things have never been important to me. My needs are few. I have never been much of a consumer of luxury goods. Then I spend little time here.’
What was suddenly freezing her into a polar absence of expression was the amazing sight of Raschid embarrassed and fighting to maintain his usual air of daunting gravity. For some reason he had started noticing that his home had all the warm welcome of Frankenstein’s castle. ‘Oh, I think this is very comfortable…cosy,’ she added in a generous rush, as if they were not seated on a carpet in the middle of an echoing and three-quarters-empty room.
‘I usually eat with my father.’
It was a rare titbit of personal information. Raschid never talked about himself. From Jezra Polly had learnt that he had spent the early years of his life in the desert, travelling with Nurbah’s relatives, the only allowance made towards his status that of an accompanying tutor. At ten he had gone to a military academy in Saudi Arabia, concluding his education with a degree in business management. The two brothers had enjoyed incredibly different childhoods. King Reija had evidently ruled against the dangers of too great a Western influence being allowed sway over his son and heir. But Raschid’s childhood impressed Polly as having been distinctly grim and cheerless, high on character-building discipline and low on parental attention and carefree pursuits. It explained that gravity beyond his years.
‘You didn’t have to eat with me,’ she said flatly, shaking irritably free of her irrelevant thoughts. ‘After all, you told me that this would be on the proscribed list. Of course, Asif always eats with Chassa when he’s at home. But then, I expect he picked up bad habits, being educated in England.’
At her reference to his brother, his lean features shuttered, his mouth hardening. ‘I don’t deny that Asif is more Westernised, but he is not someone whom I presently wish to discuss.’
Obstinately she persisted, ‘Why? Is he in some sort of trouble?’
He sent her a gleaming glance, refusing to be drawn.
‘I found him very pleasant.’
A sardonic brow lifted. ‘The art of being pleasant has always been at Asif’s fingertips. He has infinite charm with your sex when he chooses to employ it. Now, as you know, I leave for New York tomorrow.’ An odd little silence stretched like a bed of nails beneath her nerves. Her smile began to feel frozen on her lips. ‘When I return perhaps you will have made alterations here. You have a free hand. I would wish you to feel at home for as long as you are here,’ he concluded smoothly.
It was a speech like a scorpion with a sting in its tail. For as long as you are here. It reverberated through Polly. Was he making a discreet reference to a divorce in the not too distant future? What else could he be doing? Their marriage as such had not even begun, and already he was foreseeing its conclusion. A fierce and blinding wave of anger consumed her. ‘Exactly how long do you expect me to feel at home?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t please feel the need to talk in polite riddles. If you want a divorce, just say so!’
Raschid did not react to her fury. His eyes remained steady. ‘I am not presently thinking of a divorce.’
‘What did you raise my hopes for, then?’ she slammed back, outraged by his coolness. ‘I’d like a time limit to the sentence.’
‘Until we tire of each other, then,’ he said softly. ‘These attractions fade as swiftly as the flowers that bloom in the desert after rain. What is between us will pall just as quickly. It would not be fair of me to pretend otherwise. I do not wish to hurt your feelings, Polly.’
Blindly she studied the glass of lemonade in her hand. How could he employ such brutal, demeaning candour and contrive to do so with that quality of apparent sincerity? Was she ever to understand Raschid? She was trembling with a mass of conflicting emotions. Hatred rose uppermost. Her pride revolted against the implication that she was a purely sexual being, put on this earth for his gratification, an object to be lifted and discarded at whim. He had never planned to give their marriage a fighting chance. He had never envisaged permanent ties. To tell her that openly was to offend her beyond forgiveness.
‘You don’t have that power,’ she parried through compressed lips.
‘Perhaps you will now practise the same honesty with me.’ He surveyed her with unreadably bright eyes, but the tension in the air was tangible. ‘About Chris.’
Her brain in a dazed whirl, Polly echoed, ‘Chris?’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘YOU called for him when you were delirious. Had you not been ill, I would have requested this explanation sooner,’ Raschid advanced harshly. ‘Naturally I wish to know exactly what your relationship with this man entailed.’
The mists of incomprehension cleared. Polly’s colour fluctuated wildly. Had she called for Chris? While she was ill, had her subconscious mind teemed with the conflict of her unsettled feelings? From beneath her lashes she studied the brooding cast of his features. So this was what had lain behind the constraint she had sensed, this was the subject postponed until she was on the road to recovery. His suspicions roused, he had gritted those even white teeth and simmered over the idea that his bride might not be as pure and untouched as he considered his medieval due. What he really meant was, had she slept with him? The offensively arrogant bite of his demand that she explain herself chased away her momentary embarrassment.
‘Polly!’
‘My relationship with Chris is nothing to do with you.’ Swept by an unfamiliar sense of feminine power, she met his charged stare. ‘You bought my disposable future, not my past,’ she retorted drily.
In a controlled movement Raschid sprang upright. ‘Are you in love with him?’ he raked at her. ‘I will have an answer from you. You are my wife!’
But only when it suits you to throw it at me, she thought with an inner venom that slightly shook her. In love. In love with love. Was that what she had been? It was still none of Raschid’s business.
‘Look at me! I will not address the back of your head. But I will have an answer,’ he assured her grimly. ‘That is my right.’
Angrily she glanced up. ‘What’s it to you if I am madly in love with him?’
His eyes blazed at her, a formidable and powerful anger written into every taut line of his aggressive stance. ‘And with this you expected to establish a relationship with me?’ he seethed across the room at
her. ‘I told myself that I would not judge you unheard again, but I was foolish to doubt my own perception.’
He was like a coiled whip ready to unfurl. She was on dangerous ground. Her malicious intent to confirm his suspicions suddenly lost its strength. Since it must be obvious that Chris had not returned her feelings, wouldn’t she end up looking rather pathetic? There could be no vengeful satisfaction in such a conclusion. Realising how she had cornered herself by losing her temper, she said irritably, ‘For goodness’ sake, I was only joking! Do we need the three-act drama?’
Suddenly alarmingly close, Raschid dropped down in front of her and repeated, ‘Joking?’
Polly attempted to retreat. A ruthless hand caught in her hair and blue eyes of feral brilliance flared into her. ‘Explain the joke,’ he invited.
‘Joke wasn’t the right word,’ she altered in desperation. ‘You don’t understand…’
His long fingers tightened their hold. ‘Make me,’ he suggested lethally.
‘Chris and I grew up together. He’s…he’s really just a friend.’
His narrowed stare probed her defensiveness. ‘I do not think that is quite the whole story.’
Polly’s teeth gritted. ‘It’s chapter and verse.’
‘I believe that you have been attracted to this man,’ Raschid countered lazily. ‘And perhaps if I had not come along…’ The hand at the nape of her neck eased her backwards at the same time as he pressed her down on the cushions by lowering his own weight to keep her captive. ‘But it is strange that I should still fail to see the humour of your…er…joke.’
‘It wasn’t supposed to be a joke!’ In raw frustration she struggled to wriggle free.
‘Truly diplomacy is not one of your talents.’ A tigerish smile slanted his mouth. ‘You were trying to make me jealous—you are very transparent, Polly. But how could I be jealous of my wife? You belong to me, you go nowhere without my permission.’
