The Desert Bride
Razul dealt her an irredeemably wolfish smile, his slumbrous golden eyes wandering over her, lingering on every tiny hint of the generous curves concealed by her loose clothing. Then, without warning, he stepped back and clapped his hands. The sound was like a pistol shot in the thrumming silence.
‘Now we will have tea and we will talk,’ Razul announced with an exquisite simplicity of utter command that made Bethany recall exactly who he was, what that status meant and where she was. This rogue male was one step off divinity in Datar.
Bethany tensed and jerkily folded her arms. ‘I don’t think—’
Three servants surged out of nowhere, one with a tray bearing cups, one with a teapot, one with a low, ebonised, brass-topped table.
‘Early Grey...especially for you,’ Razul informed her, stepping up on the dais and dropping down onto the cushions with innate animal grace.
‘Early Grey’? She didn’t correct him. The oddest little dart of tenderness pierced her, making her swallow hard. She remembered him surreptitiously shuffling that ‘dainty Western cutlery’ he had referred to at a college dinner. Then she locked the recollection out, furious with herself. Miserably she sank down onto the beautiful carpet, settling her behind onto another heap of cushions, but her disturbing thoughts marched on.
She had been infatuated with him—hopelessly infatuated. Every tiny thing about Razul had fascinated her. She had been twenty-five years old but more naive in many ways than the average teenager. He had been her first love, a crush, whatever you wanted to call it, but it had hit her all the harder because she hadn’t been sweet sixteen with a fast recovery rate. And she had been arrogant in her belief that superior brainpower was sufficient to ensure that she didn’t succumb to unwelcome hormonal promptings and immature emotional responses. But he had smashed her every assumption about herself to smithereens.
‘There was a bit of a mix-up over my visa at the airport...I wouldn’t have mentioned your name otherwise,’ she heard herself say impulsively, and even that disconcerted her. She was not impulsive, but around Razul she was not herself. The china cup trembled betrayingly on the saucer as she snatched it up to occupy her hands and sipped at the hot, fragrant tea.
‘Your visa was invalid.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Bethany glanced up in astonishment, not having expected to hear that nonsensical claim again.
‘Young women are only granted visas under strict guidelines—if they are coming here to stay with a Datari family, can produce a legitimate employment contract or are travelling with a relative or male colleague,’ Razul enumerated levelly. ‘Your visa stated that you would be accompanied. You arrived alone. It was that fact which invalidated your documentation.’
Bethany lifted her chin, her emerald-green eyes flashing. ‘So you discriminate against foreign women by making lists of ridiculous rules—’
‘Discrimination may sometimes be a positive act—’
‘Never!’ Bethany asserted with raw conviction.
‘You force me to be candid.’ Brilliant dark eyes rested on her with impatience, his wide mouth hardening. ‘An influx of hookers can scarcely be considered beneficial to our society.’
‘Hookers?’ Bethany repeated in a flat tone, taken aback.
‘Our women must be virgin when they marry. If not, the woman is unmarriageable, her family dishonoured. In such a society the oldest profession may thrive, but we did not have a problem in that field until we granted visas with too great a freedom.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that I was mistaken for some sort of tart at the airport?’ Bethany gritted in a shaking voice.
‘The other category of female we seek to exclude I shall call “the working adventuress” for want of a more acceptable label.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow,’ Bethany said thinly.
‘Young women come here ostensibly to work. They flock to the nightclubs that have sprung up in the city. There they dress, drink and conduct themselves in a manner which may be perfectly acceptable in their own countries but which is seen in quite another light by Datari men,’ Razul explained with a sardonic edge to his rich vowel sounds. ‘A sizeable percentage of these women do not return home again. They stay on illegally and become mistresses in return for a lifestyle of luxury.’
‘Really, I hardly look the type!’ Bethany retorted witheringly, but her fair skin was burning hotly. ‘And, fascinating as all this is, it’s time that I headed for my hotel.’
‘Lone women in your age group are not currently accepted into our hotels as guests.’
Bethany thrust a not quite steady hand through her tumbling hair. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No hotel will offer you accommodation when you arrive alone.’ His strong dark face utterly impassive, Razul surveyed her intently. ‘Had I not brought you to the palace you would now be on a flight back to the UK.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Bethany suddenly snapped, her nervous tension splintering up through the cracks in her composure. ‘It’s hardly my fault that my assistant broke an ankle before we boarded!’
‘Most unfortunate.’ But he said it with a faint smile on his beautifully moulded mouth, and his tone more than suggested that he was not remotely interested in the obvious fact that her planned stay in Datar had now run into petty bureaucratic difficulties, which she was quite sure he could brush aside...should he want to.
Bethany pushed her cup away with a very forced smile, behind which her teeth were gritted. ‘Look...this is an important research trip for me—’
‘But then you take all your work so seriously,’ Razul pointed out smoothly.
Her facial muscles clenched taut. ‘I am here in Datar to research the nomadic culture,’ she informed him impressively.
‘How tame...’
‘Tame?’ Bethany echoed in shrill disconcertion, having assumed that his own cultural background would necessarily prompt him to treat the subject with appropriate respect.
‘I have read your paper on the suppression of women’s rights,’ Razul murmured very softly.
‘You’ve read my paper?’ Bethany found herself gawping at him.
‘And, having done so, intend to generously offer you research in a field which could make you famous in the academic world when you return to the West.’ Burnished golden eyes suddenly struck hers with ferocious force.
‘What field?’ Bethany queried, a frown-line dividing her brows as she shifted uneasily on the cushions, instinctively reacting to the humming tension in the air.
Razul unleashed a predatory smile upon her. ‘A way of life never before freely opened to the scrutiny of a Western anthropologist. I feel remarkably like Santa Claus.’
‘Excuse me?’ The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Bethany scrambled upright and involuntarily backed away from the controlled menace that emanated from Razul in vibrating waves.
‘A prolonged stay in my harem will not only provide you with liberal scope for academic research, it will provide me with a long-awaited opportunity to teach you what being a woman is all about,’ Razul told her with silken self-satisfaction.
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOUR harem?’ For the count of thirty seconds Bethany simply stared at Razul, her bright green eyes open to their fullest extent. Then she visibly bristled, her naturally sultry mouth compressing into a thin, unamused line. ‘Very funny,’ she said flatly, but there was an unevenness to her response as she fought against the giant tide of bitterness threatening to envelop her.
‘You walk in my world now.’ Razul issued the reminder with indolent cool. Veiled dark eyes slid over her in an all-encompassing look that was as physical as a caress. ‘When you walk from it again you will be a different woman.’
Her aggressive stance—feet apart and arms taut—quivered as a tide of fury surged through her, leaving her light-headed. ‘If you look at me like that once more, so help me I will knock your teeth down your throat!’ Bethany blistered back at him.
A scorching smile slashed his hard mouth, perfect white teeth flashing against his golden skin. He surveyed her with intense pleasure. ‘My father said... “Is this woman worth a diplomatic incident?” If he saw you now, truly he would not have asked such a question.’
‘What do you mean, “worth a diplomatic incident”?’ Bethany demanded, her voice half an octave higher.
‘Sooner or later you will be missed,’ Razul pointed out gently. ‘Questions will be asked, answers must be given. Our ambassador in London will be called to the Foreign Office. But I suspect it will be many weeks before we reach that stage—’
‘The Foreign Office?’ Bethany shook her head as though to clear it, a daze of utter disbelief beginning to enfold her.
‘You see, you have so few people in your life to notice that you are missing. You write to your mother only once a month. You communicate with your father not at all. Your sole close friend is currently enjoying an extended honeymoon in South America—her fall from grace in allowing a man into her life very probably loosened the ties of that friendship. As for your academic colleagues...?’ Razul enumerated these facts in the same calm, measured tone, as though he was well aware of her growing incredulity. ‘This is the long summer vacation. I doubt if they will be expecting to hear from you. I find your life of isolation a sad testimony to your wonderful Western civilisation.’
The pink tip of Bethany’s tongue crept out to moisten her dry lower lip. Shock was reverberating through her in debilitating waves. ‘How...how do you know all these things about me?’ she whispered jerkily.
‘An investigation agency.’
‘You put a private investigator on me? But when? You didn’t even know I was coming to Datar!’
‘Did I not? A liberal endowment to your university ensured your eventual arrival—’
‘I b-beg your pardon?’ Bethany stammered, a painful throb of tension beginning to pulse behind her brow-bone.
‘Why do you think your superiors insisted that you base your research on Datar?’
‘The nomadic tribes here have not suffered the same level of exposure to the modern world as in other countries,’ she informed him harshly, her hands clenching in on themselves.
‘True...but who suggested the subject of your research?’
Bethany went rigid. The idea had come down from on high. It had not emerged from the anthropology department itself. Indeed there had been resentful mutters to the effect that she must have admirers in high places because such research opportunities abroad were, due to a shortage of finance, currently at an all-time low.
‘I’m building your university a brand-new library,’ Razul shared with her gently. ‘And my carefully chosen British representative, who stressed his special interest in Datar and also mentioned how very impressed he was by a series of lectures you gave last year, insisted on absolute and complete anonymity in return for the endowment.’
Bethany was starting to tremble. Without a flicker of remorse he was telling her that she had been lured out to Datar on false pretences. ‘No...I don’t believe you...I refuse to believe you!’
‘I have known the date of your arrival since you applied for your visa. I was not, however, prepared for you to arrive alone at the airport,’ Razul conceded wryly. ‘Or for the subsequent furore over your visa, but your solitary state has worked to my advantage. You now have no companion to raise the alarm...and I have you in my possession that much sooner.’
‘You have not got me in your possession, you maniac!’ Bethany snatched up her duffel bag and stalked to the exit doors. ‘I’ve listened to this nonsense long enough as well!’
‘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.
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.