The Sheikh's Innocent Bride

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Pamela was afraid that Morag would crack under the pressure of the questions being asked. In an attempt to frighten Morag into continuing to keep quiet Pamela made the mistake of threatening her. Morag panicked and admitted everything she had done to the housekeeper.’

  ‘So my name has been cleared?’ Kirsten nodded to herself with satisfaction even as she frowned in puzzlement. ‘But I don’t understand why Lady Pamela would come all the way to Dhemen to see me.’

  Beneath his bronzed complexion, Shahir seemed very pale. ‘The woman is facing prosecution. I have already interviewed her. Our meeting was brief. I see no reason why she should escape punishment. Perhaps she hopes to awaken your pity. Remember that she had none for you.’

  More troubled by his bleak attitude than by Pamela’s arrival at the Ahmet Palace, Kirsten shook her head as though to clear it. ‘To be honest, I’m in shock at all this.’

  ‘You don’t have to see her. Such a person is beneath your notice.’

  ‘I would like to hear what she has to say for herself.’ Kirsten’s chin came up at a determined angle. ‘But I really don’t want her to enter our home.’

  ‘It will not be necessary for her to do so.’

  Shahir escorted her to a large building situated nearest the entrance to the Ahmet complex. It housed the offices of the senior courtiers, the administrative block, and the reception rooms used for formal public occasions. When he would have accompanied her into a small audience hall, she informed him that she would prefer to see Pamela alone.

  ‘As you wish…then I will leave you.’

  His formality offended her. She was on a high: her name had been cleared, her reputation cleansed, her innocence of theft proven. But Shahir, infuriatingly, was behaving as though someone had died.

  As Kirsten passed by a tall gilded mirror, she realised what a staggering change Lady Pamela would now see in her. Her eloquent mouth quirked. Pearls glistened in her ears and round her throat. Her turquoise and pink wrap top, matching tiered skirt and fine pink leather pumps were the very latest in designer style.

  Two of the élite palace guards were stationed in the hall where Pamela was waiting. Kirsten gave them a nod of dismissal. The brunette looked worn and tired, and her dress was badly creased.

  ‘Your Serene Highness…’ Pamela performed a low and very creditable curtsey without hesitation. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’

  ‘I just want to know why you did it.’

  Pamela Anstruther fixed incredulous china-blue eyes on her. ‘Because Prince Shahir was in love with you, of course…why else?’

  Kirsten was paralysed to the spot by that retort. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Pamela’s mouth took on a resentful curve. ‘I was mad for him too. I hated you for getting in the way.’

  ‘You were jealous?’

  ‘I saw the Prince with you twice—in the limo the day he offered you a lift, and the day I invited him for tea. The way he looked at you was really quite nauseating,’ the brunette contended with a bitter laugh. ‘He couldn’t hide it. You were just a farm girl, but I could practically hear the wedding bells ringing. It was like you had cast a spell on him—and yet you were so naive that you didn’t even see the power you had.’

  ‘If you disliked me so much why did you ask me to help you with the party preparations?’

  Pamela heaved a weary sigh. ‘Right from the start I planned to have you accused of stealing. I wanted you out of the castle and away from him. But I didn’t want to harm you personally—’

  ‘Really?’ Kirsten cut in very dryly.

  ‘Really,’ Pamela insisted. ‘It was simply a case of needs must. I had no hope of getting anywhere with the Prince while you were around.’

  ‘So you decided to frame me for theft? You ensured that I found that brooch while Shahir was in the next room and that was your first step towards setting me up to be accused of stealing, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not denying what I did. I bribed silly little Morag to lie and stick the pendant in your locker. But I had no luck, did I? You’re years younger than I am, and perfectly beautiful. Your Prince was obsessed with you and he married you all the same. And Morag got cold feet and dropped us both in it.’ Pamela Anstruther settled defiant blue eyes on Kirsten. ‘I’m ruined anyway. I’ll have to sell up and leave the glen. I can’t live there now that everyone knows what I did to you. I’m getting the cold shoulder everywhere.’

  ‘That’s not my fault.’

  ‘No, but do I really deserve to be dragged into court and prosecuted into the bargain? After all, it’s pretty obvious that Prince Shahir would have married you even if you had murdered someone!’ Pamela pointed out sourly. ‘I’m sorry I ever tangled with the pair of you. I’m sorry that I had you accused of something you didn’t do and that you lost your job. But I do feel the need to point out that it doesn’t seem to have harmed your social prospects much.’

  Kirsten treated the other woman to a cool appraisal, and it took the self-discipline that Shahir had patiently taught her to prevent her from succumbing to an inappropriate desire to laugh. ‘I believe I’ve heard enough. Go back to the UK. I’ll think over what you’ve said, but I’m not making any promises.’

  Without another word, her mind buzzing with feverish thoughts, Kirsten left the audience chamber and walked briskly back to the huge rambling palace that had been designated as her home and Shahir’s. A palace within a palace, it rejoiced in its own high walls and the seclusion and the wonderful steam room she had enjoyed on her wedding day.

  All Kirsten could really think about was Pamela’s unswerving conviction that Shahir loved his wife. She was also starting to appreciate why Shahir had been under so much strain when he had last spoken to her: he would be devastated by the realisation that he had misjudged her. He set himself such impossibly high standards and tore himself up over every error. Hadn’t she already learned that he was his own fiercest critic?

  She heard her royal husband’s voice before she saw him. Wondering who he was talking to, she tiptoed over to the door of his study and peered in.

  ‘I blew it,’ Shahir was saying morosely. ‘I always blow it with her. I say the wrong thing…I do the wrong thing. How am I supposed to tell her that I didn’t really care if she was a thief any more? That doesn’t sound right, does it? It sounds crazy, but that’s how it was. I had stopped thinking about it.’

  His confessor loosed a sympathetic sigh as his floppy ears were stroked. Short stubby tail wagging gently, the little dog curled up at Shahir’s feet and lay down to sleep.

  ‘You should be talking to me, not Squeak,’ Kirsten declared.

  Shahir leapt upright in surprise and swung round in a fluid arc. A dark line of colour scored his proud, angular cheekbones. ‘I didn’t expect you to return this quickly.’

  ‘Pamela is so self-obsessed she’s not good company,’ Kirsten quipped, moving in a restive prowl round the room, because she was so nervous that she could not stay still. ‘I’ve decided that I don’t want charges pressed against her or Morag. Presumably Morag Stevens has been sacked?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Let that be enough, then. I just want the whole thing dropped and forgotten about now.’

  ‘But you were deliberately singled out to suffer Pamela Anstruther’s malicious attacks on your reputation. What those women did was criminal.’

  ‘I was the victim, but you were the cause. No, believe me, I’m not blaming you for being so fanciable that Pamela Anstruther was willing to break the law to discredit me in your eyes.’ Reluctant amusement shone in Kirsten’s gaze as Shahir slung her a disconcerted look. ‘But what she did does seem to have been girlie warfare of the nastiest kind—and that’s what it was all about. Of course I expect she was after your money as well as—’

  ‘I imagine so,’ Shahir slotted in, before she could elaborate on what else he might have to offer in the fanciable department. ‘You are choosing to take a strangely lighthearted view of this affair.’

 
; ‘Affair? Did you ever…with Pamela, I mean?’ Kirsten suddenly prompted in horror, mentally crossing her fingers and praying that he had not.

  Shahir spread two lean brown hands wide, his shock and embarrassment at finding himself the target of so intimate a question patent. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But maybe you were just a little tempted by her before I came along?’

  ‘Her manner was so encouraging that I may have considered the possibility once or twice.’ His even white teeth were visibly gritted as he forced out that admission. ‘But I maintained a formal distance with her and ultimately her boldness offended me.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me that,’ Kirsten murmured gently. ‘I can now see how Pamela might have thought she had a chance with you and that I spoilt it.’

  ‘That would be nonsense, and it should not influence your opinion of what she did to you.’

  ‘You’re not a woman, Shahir. You don’t understand.’

  But he was so honest. Kirsten marvelled at how honest he was. She wanted to apologise for getting so personal, but she was impressed that he would tell the truth even when to do so affronted his fierce pride. Now she wondered how she had ever dared to doubt his word.

  Lean strong face bleak, Shahir straightened his shoulders like a soldier facing up to a firing squad. ‘You must allow me to offer you my profound regret for not having had faith in you when you were accused of stealing. I—’

  ‘That’s fine—it’s OK. Pamela’s clever, and that stunt she pulled with the brooch really did make me look very guilty.’

  ‘Please let me say what I must,’ Shahir incised.

  Kirsten fell silent, frustration filling her—for she had wanted to discuss something that was much more important to her.

  ‘I am ashamed that you came to me for help and I would not believe that you were telling me the truth. I did let you down,’ he asserted, not quite levelly. ‘That will live with me until the day I die.’

  I know it will,’ she muttered helplessly, wishing he didn’t take everything quite so much to heart. ‘But you are only human.’

  Strained dark golden eyes sought and held hers. ‘You left home without money or proper support. Any one of a number of appalling fates might have become yours. Throughout the seven months it took for me to find you I was haunted by fear for your wellbeing.’

  Kirsten nodded thoughtfully. ‘Even before you knew I was pregnant?’

  ‘Yes…and that discovery made my betrayal of your trust all the more unforgivable,’ he reasoned grittily.

  Kirsten lifted her head high, green eyes full of resolve. ‘I forgive you.’

  Shahir frowned. ‘But you cannot—’

  ‘If I say I forgive you, I forgive you!’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Is my forgiveness mine to give or not?’ Kirsten suddenly shot at him in exasperation.

  Shahir paled and compressed his beautiful mouth into an austere line. ‘Of course it is yours to give.’

  ‘Then you’re just going to have to live with being forgiven for thinking you were married to a thief.’ Studying his darkly handsome features, Kirsten felt her heartbeat accelerate, and tried not to smile because he was being so very serious. ‘We didn’t know each other when Tazeem was conceived. That was the real problem. We had all that physical attraction going for us and complicating things, but we were still almost strangers.’

  Shahir looked pensive. ‘I had not thought of it from that angle. You are right. Trust takes time to build. But I had never known a hunger such as you awakened in me,’ he confided, half under his breath. ‘It was like a fire that burned out my common sense and control. I saw you and I was lost. I fought it and the fire kept on blazing up, destroying all my good intentions.’

  ‘I didn’t help you stick to your good intentions when I lied and said I wasn’t a virgin. Don’t keep on talking as if only one of us was in charge of events.’

  A rueful laugh was wrenched from Shahir. ‘I was not in charge at all. With hindsight I see that when Pamela suggested you were not as innocent as you seemed I wanted to believe it because it made you seem more within reach.’

  Temper sparking, Kirsten exclaimed, ‘What did that witch say about me?’

  ‘Foolish insinuations which I know to be untrue—for you were pure until I took advantage of you,’ Shahir stated soothingly.

  Feeling that her being taken advantage of was not a direction she wanted their dialogue to travel in, Kirsten changed the subject to the one that had been on her mind from the minute she’d rushed to find him. ‘On our wedding day you told me you didn’t love Faria…’

  His imperious dark brows rose in surprise. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But, you see, I didn’t believe you. I assumed you were just saying that to cover up the truth and keep me happy.’

  He viewed her with candid bewilderment. ‘I would not have deceived you.’

  Excitement was beginning to nip at Kirsten. He had been telling the truth when he’d said he no longer loved Faria!

  Shahir grimaced. ‘Perhaps I was not very convincing when I tried to explain about Faria, but I was most embarrassed. To reach my age and to realise that I had never been in love—’

  ’Never?’ she whispered in wonderment.

  ‘It wasn’t until I met you that I realised that the emotions you inspired far surpassed anything I had ever felt for Faria. I then felt very foolish. I had mistaken a moment of admiration, a daydream, for the real thing.’

  Kirsten reached hurriedly for his hands and tugged him closer, fingers curving into his and clinging like mad. ‘So you were saying…?’ she encouraged.

  Anxious dark golden eyes gazed down into hers and his hands tightened in the hold of hers. ‘I think I may have fixed on the dream of Faria, who was conveniently out of reach, as an excuse to avoid the threat of having to marry when I didn’t want to.’

  Kirsten shifted enticingly closer, freeing one hand to slide it up over a broad shoulder. ‘It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that when you took me into the desert and read all that gorgeous love poetry to me you were being romantic.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Because you felt romantic—not because being romantic was what you thought of as a duty on your honeymoon.’

  Shahir looked indisputably lost as he attempted to work out that statement.

  ‘I’ve been so stupid… Of course, if you’d just said.’ Kirsten gave his tie a little admonitory tug as she began to unknot it. ‘Just said you loved me, then I would have known and I would have told you how I feel about you.’

  Shahir trailed loose his tie and unbuttoned his collar with rare clumsiness. ‘So I just say…I love you?’ he breathed unevenly.

  ‘And I say… Fancy that? I love you too. I’ve been in love with you ever since you swooped up on that dangerous motorbike and almost ran Squeak over.’

  They stared at each other, absorbing their respective expressions. A joyful smile had illuminated her face and a glow of happiness had banished his gravity and tension.

  ‘I think that must have been when it happened to me too. I never knew a happy moment after that until we were safely married,’ Shahir confided. ‘But how can you love me when I have made so many mistakes?’

  ‘Stop arguing about it…you’re loved,’ Kirsten told him.

  ‘I thought you were only marrying me because you were pregnant.’

  ‘And I thought that was the only reason you asked me.’

  ‘You could not have believed that the first time I proposed at the castle,’ Shahir pointed out. ‘At that stage it hadn’t occurred to either of us that you might have conceived.’

  ‘No, but I thought you were proposing out of guilt.’

  He closed his arms round her and crushed her to him in a fierce embrace. ‘There was some guilt, I admit,’ he told her huskily. ‘But much more love and desire was involved. Regrettably, I didn’t understand my own heart that day—and the accusation of theft against you shocked me and divided us. Had
that not occurred I would have realised within days that you were the woman I wanted to share the rest of my life with. Instead I let you down—’

  ‘No…no…no. No more of that,’ Kirsten scolded, resting an admonitory forefinger to his beautifully shaped mouth.

  He pressed his lips to the centre of her palm and then lowered his head to savour her lush mouth with reverent appreciation. ‘I love you so much it hurts,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘Never again do I want to relive those months of searching and fearing that I would never see you again.’

  Her hands slid below his jacket and across his lean, muscular chest. With a ragged groan of response he devoured her mouth again. Kisses interspersed with passionate declarations of devotion followed, until matters became so heated that Shahir swept Kirsten off to the privacy of their bedroom…

  Eighteen months later, Kirsten bustled round the spacious nursery at Strathcraig Castle until Tazeem finally and reluctantly dropped off to sleep. Her toddler’s boundless reserves of energy never failed to amaze her, and he had enjoyed a very sociable day. Now, with his black lashes resting on his cheeks like silk fans, he looked like an angel. That idea made her grin, for he could be as naughty as any other child and she had to learn to be firm with him.

  Earlier that day Shahir and Kirsten had thrown a huge Christmas party for the tenants, the staff and their neighbours, and a very good time had been had by all. King Hafiz, who had become a regular visitor at his son and daughter-in-law’s Scottish castle, had laughed uproariously at the antics of the clowns hired to entertain the children. And even the latest additions to Shahir and Kirsten’s family circle had managed to stay awake later than usual.

  But now their infant son, Amir, and their daughter, Bisma, were slumbering in perfect peace in their adjoining cots. These twins had been a surprise package, for their arrival had not been planned.

  In fact Kirsten had not even got round to tackling Shahir about his fear of her undergoing childbirth again before she had realised that she was already pregnant again. She had discovered that spontaneous passion in the steam room could have consequences—quite delightful consequences, she reflected, regarding her eight-week-old twins with fond maternal pride.