Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: December 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Эбби Грин, Линн Грэхем - Страница 18

CHAPTER NINE

‘ZAHRA!’ THE NEXT DAY, as afternoon faded into evening, Molly moved forward with a delighted smile to greet a surprisingly familiar face. The young Djalian woman had been her first pupil at the Djalian Embassy in London. The daughter of a senior diplomat, Zahra had so enjoyed Molly’s lessons that before leaving London again she had recommended that Molly teach English to Tahir.

‘Your husband believed that you would find my company useful,’ the slender brunette told her shyly. ‘I can act as an interpreter and also explain the bridal rituals.’

Molly’s green eyes lit up with interest. ‘I’m getting rituals?’

‘The first royal bride to marry the King of Djalia this century? You’re getting the full Djalian bridal treatment!’ Zahra assured her with amusement. ‘We’re going out into the desert for it too. It would be a lot easier to do it all here but tradition means everything to our tribes.’

‘You’ll keep me right...thank goodness,’ Molly whispered, hugely grateful for the support because without an interpreter she wouldn’t be able to understand what was happening or why.

‘It is a great honour for me and my family that I have been entrusted with such a role. My mother is very pleased and proud,’ the Djalian brunette shared with a rueful laugh. ‘Of course, my parents are probably hoping that you’ll thrust me in the path of some eligible male but I have to tell you now...most of them are far too old for me. Too many of our young men died fighting Hashem and his troops.’

‘That’s sad,’ Molly recognised.

‘But the most important young man survived. Our King is revered for his bravery and his wisdom.’

‘He is pretty special,’ Molly muttered helplessly, reddening at Zahra’s knowing smile as she made that statement.

‘Yes. The King is the one person in Djalia who can unite all the different factions. He even keeps Prince Firuz on his side,’ Zahra pointed out with a grimace. ‘He’s an old horror but we don’t want to be at odds with our nearest neighbour and he did keep our current King safe from Hashem while he was still a boy.’

‘Yes,’ Molly conceded while thinking that Azrael had also paid a very high price for that protection with the punishments he had endured. A step ahead of her companion, she climbed into one of the air-conditioned rough-terrain vehicles parked in readiness outside the palace while the staff and luggage accompanying her piled into the two cars behind.

‘But Prince Firuz won’t even attend your wedding because Christian rites are being included. He is very rigid in his views,’ Zahra admitted and then she winced. ‘I’m being indiscreet. I should not be gossiping. My father would be ashamed of me—’

‘Then Azrael would be equally ashamed of me,’ Molly countered wryly. ‘I need to know what’s going on and I don’t want the sanitised version.’

The vehicle swept them only across the road to a flat plain where a helicopter awaited them. From the air, Molly peered out at the view of the palace from above and noted for the first time that there was a large, busy building site to the rear of it.

‘New offices and kitchens,’ Zahra informed her, but that was the entirety of their conversation during the flight because it was too noisy to chat.

They were set down in front of a large encampment of black tents and literally mobbed by a bunch of howling women the instant they appeared. Zahra explained to her that the howling was of a celebratory nature to welcome the bride. Her companion soon proved her worth by banishing the crowd, who wanted to see Molly bathe in the linen-lined copper bath she was confronted with.

‘I’ll stay at the entrance to make sure nobody comes in,’ Zahra proffered, politely turning her back as Molly shed her clothing and climbed with great difficulty into the deep bath, which clouded the air with the aroma of scented oils. ‘I have explained that in your culture bathing is always private.’

‘I expect there’s not much privacy in these tents between women,’ Molly conceded, determined not to make a fuss about the differences and to fit in to the best of her ability, but very grateful not to be forced to put her naked body on show.

Having already bathed at the palace and washed her hair, Molly only made superficial use of the ceremonial bath and clambered out into a fleecy towel. Her wedding gown and lingerie awaited her in a connecting tent and she wasted no time in getting dressed, with Zahra well able and willing to hook up the back of her dress.

‘It’s a beautiful dress,’ Zahra sighed, admiring the long lace sleeves and the slender silhouette of the elegant design Molly had chosen. ‘Some brides here already wear Western gowns as one of their bridal changes. Photographs of you in this will encourage the fashion.’

A big silver box arrived to much fanfare.

‘The bridegroom’s gift to his bride,’ Zahra explained.

‘So, it’s a tradition.’ Less pleased by the awareness that Azrael was only doing what was expected of him rather than what he actually wanted to do, Molly opened the box and gazed down in awe at a fabulous set of emerald jewellery.

‘These are royal jewels, passed from mother to son for the next generation. The King’s mother, Princess Nahla, only wore them once when she married Prince Sharif.’ Nimble fingers brushed Molly’s nape as Zahra clasped the stunning necklace and passed her the glistening drop earrings.

Molly felt as though she were living history when she was escorted into yet another tent where Azrael awaited her, tall and grave in his traditional robes. His beautiful eyes were dark and serious below his lush screening lashes and she suspected that she was still unforgiven for her reaction to the possibility of a pregnancy. It really didn’t matter, she admitted wryly to herself, because with one glimpse at Azrael the dulled ache between her thighs throbbed in wanton recollection, her entire body now shamefully attuned to his in the most mortifying way. The rising colour in her cheeks had nothing to do with the temperature.

The celebrant was an American minister and the service was short and sweet. Azrael’s cool fingers slid a gold ring onto her wedding finger and, for the first time, Molly truly felt like a married woman.

In silence, Azrael admired the dress, which faithfully followed Molly’s lush curves but which revealed barely any skin. He concentrated his attention on the rusty little marks scattered below her collar bone, trying to look on them as imperfections while recalling that the same freckles extended the stippling over her full creamy breasts. Unhappily for him he loved her freckles, and the urgent pulse at his groin infuriated him at so formal an occasion and when they had parted on such poor terms. How could he still hunger for a woman who did not want his child, who did not want to create a family with him? Who rejected a future of any kind with him? Who expected him to discuss what it was pointless to discuss? Her callous attitude, after all, had said all he needed to hear.

Molly had barely spent ten minutes in Azrael’s presence before she was swept off again to be dressed appropriately for the signing of the marriage contract, which was the main event as far as her companions were concerned. Freed from the limitations of her Western wedding gown, Molly followed Zahra’s advice and simply let the attendants dress her up as a traditional Djalian bride. Her hands and feet were ornamented with elaborate swirling henna patterns, her nails painted, her face made up with a much more dramatic application of cosmetics than she would personally have used. Finally, swamped in emerald-green brocade with a richly embroidered, buttoned blue under tunic sewn with pearls, she saw herself in a mirror and she didn’t recognise her reflection because even her hair was hidden below an elaborate headdress. Throughout photos were taken by a female photographer. She wondered if Azrael would prefer her in such garb and whether it would bring a smile to his lean features.

She saw Azrael again in the presence of the solemn imam with the marriage contract laid out on a table and with Zahra and Butrus acting as witnesses. Coached by Zahra, she knew to allow the imam to ask her three times before she accepted and signed her name. She was settled down then into an elaborate wooden chair and then, to her dismay, hoisted high by a bunch of men and borne off into a big tent where a crowd awaited them. A drum was beating out a tattoo and women were wailing in apparent happiness. Molly pinned a fixed smile to her tense face as she was seated on a stage and watched Azrael brought in with loud drumming and even more pomp and ceremony. Kneeling at her feet, Zahra explained every stage, pointing out the tray of seven spices and the seven foods for purity arranged on a low table. She was brought a rose water and pomegranate cordial to drink and she was abstracted, marvelling at how stunning Azrael looked in his rich golden attire.

‘I first saw his picture at the embassy in London,’ she shared reflectively with Zahra. ‘I didn’t know who he was back then but I noticed him.’

‘Women do tend to notice His Majesty.’ Zahra smiled. ‘Butrus mentioned that the first time the King saw you it was obvious that he was noticing you as well.’

Molly wondered if that was true, if it was possible that the same awareness that had initially electrified her had also affected Azrael. While musicians took their seats, dancers trooped in and tossed sweets to the guests. Azrael took a seat on the stage beside her as a table was arranged in front of them and Zahra excused herself.

‘Zahra’s been a wonderful help,’ Molly confided. ‘Explaining everything, translating for me. I didn’t make any mistakes.’

‘Everything at an occasion like this is new to you. Don’t worry about making mistakes,’ Azrael responded quietly.

A veritable feast of food was brought to them and Molly ate sparingly, too conscious of being the centre of attention to relax, but as the evening wore on and she watched Azrael take part in an astonishingly acrobatic traditional dance with actual swords her tension gradually ebbed because all around her people were happy and obviously having a good time. Every so often Zahra would approach her and bring people for her to meet, and the emeralds that still glowed round her neck were complimented many times and clearly a highly recognisable symbol of Djalian royalty that the guests liked to see on display.

They left the continuing festivities in the helicopter. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked Azrael.

‘You’ll see,’ he parried. ‘I hope I have made the right choice. Butrus thought I was crazy. The normal option would have been to remain in the encampment for the night.’

But Molly was grateful for any choice that took them away from the noisy partying and the almost suffocating attention of so many people. Privacy, she appreciated, was a gift Azrael rarely enjoyed and it would be the same for her because the local media would publish their wedding photos. At the same time, now that the cameras and the audience were gone, how would they be together and how would Azrael behave?

Azrael lifted her out of the helicopter because she was struggling in her capacious layers of brocade and silk and very much looking forward to changing into something more comfortable and shedding the heavy jewellery. In the darkness she couldn’t see where they were. All she could see was an actual burning torch flaring against a wall.

‘Where are we?’ she asked because she could still see no artificial light and it was very quiet. As she drew closer to the torch she saw that the wall was a rock rather than an artificial creation and her brow furrowed in confusion.

‘It is a surprise. The helicopter will pick us up again in the morning.’ Azrael hesitated. ‘I brought you back to the cave for the night...’

A cave? The cave? Molly hinged her dropped jaw shut again, grateful for the darkness. ‘Wow,’ she said chirpily as if it were the best news she had ever heard, because she was not stupid, after all.

If Azrael was taking her back to the cave for their wedding night it was because he believed that was romantic and, since he was far too practical to be what she would have deemed a natural romantic, it signified a feat of imagination and effort on his part that she had to admire...even if she hated it.

‘The stars are beautiful and the moon is full,’ Azrael pointed out with pronounced determination as they trudged across the sand by the light of his cell phone.

My goodness, he’s trying—he’s trying so hard to make this special and you are an ungrateful cow, Molly scolded herself furiously. But to be fair, he had wrong-footed her because she had been planning to tell Azrael that she thought it would be wisest if they stopped having sex until they had both decided where their marriage was heading. Why? Because sex with Azrael killed her brain cells, she thought wildly, knowing there was no way she could drop the sex ban on him when he’d gone to the extreme lengths of taking her to a cave for the night. I mean, how lucky am I to be the woman who gets to spend another night in the cave?

A clutch of robed men moved away from the front of the cave, bowing to them both and addressing Azrael in their language. ‘They are honoured to guard us tonight,’ Azrael translated.

Molly contrived a brilliant smile and passed on into the cave...and found it transformed. There was a bed, a proper bed and lit lanterns everywhere. A seating area with rugs was arranged around a small fire as well as a table with covered dishes. Towels were heaped helpfully by the pool edge. Her contrived smile blossomed into a genuine smile and she spun back to Azrael to say spontaneously, ‘You’re not crazy. It was a wonderful idea.’

Smiling brilliantly, Azrael lifted her off her feet and set her down on the side of the bed.

‘How on earth did you get a bed out here?’ she whispered wonderingly.

‘With the help of the same tribe who once brought supplies here for my mother and I,’ he told her, watching as she tugged off her headdress and set it aside, shaking her head so her copper tresses spilled in bright spirals across her pale skin. She toed off her shoes and settled back against the heaped pillows, emerald earrings gleaming in the flickering candle light and acting as a reminder of something he had forgotten.

Azrael dug into his pocket to retrieve the ring box and handed it to her. ‘I had it made to go with the necklace. I intended to give it to you before we signed the marriage contract but we were never left alone.’

‘Better late than never,’ Molly quipped, flipping open the box with inquisitive eyes, which widened at first sight of the huge oval emerald surrounded by diamonds. ‘My word, this is gorgeous.’

Long brown fingers eased the ring out of its velvet bed and installed it on her wedding finger.

‘Thank you,’ Molly said warmly, understanding that the ring, given in private in contrast to the royal emeralds, was a personal gift.

No, she acknowledged, it very definitely wasn’t the right moment for a serious discussion about whether or not their marriage had a future. He had made such an effort to please her that she was touched and surely a lasting future was more than implied by such an approach? I want to keep you. And she very much wanted to keep him, she conceded helplessly, watching him ditch his cloak and his head cloth and visibly shed the tension of the day.

‘Would you mind if I took a dip in the pool?’ Azrael enquired very politely. ‘It’s warm in here and it has been a long day.’

‘Of course not,’ she said, her body starting up a guilty hum at the very idea of him stripping. That very first glimpse of him in the same cave had turned her into a committed voyeur.

It was their wedding night but he was probably exhausted because he rarely enjoyed more than five hours of rest. Determined to get more comfortable, Molly stood up and began to remove the heavy emerald brocade robe.

‘Allow me,’ Azrael murmured, lifting it from her taut shoulders. ‘Keep the emeralds on. It is a joy to see you wear them as I imagined.’

The hands she had been lifting to remove the weighty necklace dropped again and she settled back on the bed, striving not to look as though she was watching him undress when that was exactly what she was doing. He shed his tunic and stepped out of the loose linen pants he wore below, shedding his boxers at the same time, and the light fell on that long, elegant back she had so appreciated when she was half-unconscious and her breath betrayed her with a sudden indrawn hiss that made him whirl around, an ebony brow lifting in query.

‘Your back...’ she muttered hot-faced, sliding off the bed to approach him and step behind him, fingers lifting to trace the paler slashes of old scarring that marred his perfection. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Firuz had me whipped when I was seventeen,’ he admitted tightly. ‘Are the scars still so obvious?’

‘No...no, they’re very much faded,’ she mumbled awkwardly, looking up at him with appalled eyes. ‘Whipped? Literally whipped?’

Azrael jerked his chin in confirmation, clearly not a fan of pursuing the demeaning topic. Naked as a bronze god, he stalked over to the pool and stepped in, evidently expecting the dialogue to end there.

Molly hovered barefoot in the sand, wringing her hands. ‘But...why would he do such a thing?’ She tried but she could not hold the question in.

‘When Firuz married my mother, he made an agreement with Hashem that neither my mother nor I would be allowed to become the focus of any rebel activity in Djalia against Hashem’s rule. You must understand that my stepfather was afraid to anger Hashem because Quarein is a poor country with very little military capacity.’

‘Yes...?’ Molly breathed encouragingly.

But it didn’t work. Azrael stretched out in the pool on the rocks in brooding silence, long black hair tousled around his big stiff shoulders. With a stifled sigh, Molly stripped off and, fighting her self-consciousness about her own body, she padded across the sand and stepped into the pool beside him, sinking down on the nearest flat rock. ‘Yes?’ she said again, refusing to surrender to that silence.

‘From the moment Hashem executed my father, my mother became his most implacable enemy. She was a very brave woman. She raised funds for the rebels and was, until I became old enough, their de facto leader. She used Quarein as a safe house for both of us but, make no mistake, being married to Firuz was tough for my mother. He is a hard, judgemental man, who makes daily life difficult for those around him. When phone messages between his home and the rebels were intercepted by Hashem and brought to my stepfather’s attention, it put my mother in grave danger.’

Molly grimaced. ‘Of course it did.’

‘To protect her I said that I had sent the messages and Firuz had me whipped. I believe he knew the truth and he let it go because in his own limited way he did care for my mother. As long as someone was punished Hashem was satisfied.’

‘That’s one of the secrets you thought I wouldn’t want to know,’ Molly guessed, smoothing a soothing hand down a bulging bicep. He was so modest, so reluctant to acknowledge his own courage for what it was. His sheer strength appealed to her on the most basic level because she knew that no matter what happened she could depend on Azrael. He was very strong and his innate need to protect those weaker than he was ran through him like a vein of solid gold.

‘Why would you want to know such a thing?’ Azrael demanded in honest bewilderment, twisting to study her with glittering dark golden eyes.

‘I don’t know, but I do,’ Molly fielded dry-mouthed, somewhat belatedly noticing that, despite the icy temperature of the rock pool, he was fully aroused.

‘Sometimes you are a very strange woman,’ Azrael breathed thickly.

‘But the differences between us are kind of fascinating,’ Molly told him shakily, wanting so badly to touch him but afraid of doing it wrong.

Could she have but known it, there was no wrong in that line as far as Azrael was concerned. As he bent his head to claim her lush, inviting mouth, he carried her hand down his body, his breath tripping in his throat simply at the brush of her tiny fingers. Molly touched, stroked, in too awkward a position to really explore and he took care of that problem too by springing upright with a noisy splash and scooping her dripping body up to plaster it against his hot, wet body with an enthusiasm that suggested he was not as tired as she had assumed earlier.

‘We’ll get everything wet!’ she gasped as he brought them both down on the bed.

And Azrael laughed with hearty amusement, spreading her out like a feast to be savoured, gazing down at her with wondering satisfaction. She didn’t want his child, he reminded himself darkly before he sent that reality back into the burial ground at the back of his mind where he kept things that couldn’t be changed. For the first time ever, he would live in the moment, savour its sweet pleasures and look neither forward nor back. On his wedding night, he was not the Djalian King, he was only a man, a man with a voracious appetite for the warmth and relaxation and pleasure that Molly represented.

Molly pushed him back against the pillows before he could kiss her again. ‘My turn,’ she told him with a hectically flushed face.

She knelt over him, wondering just where to start and spoilt for choice, her hands finding those wide brown shoulders and smoothing down over the hard buds of his male nipples to the corrugated lean muscle of his stomach and then lower, finding him, tracing him, rejoicing in the silky, tensile strength of him and the rise of his hips in response. With those stunning heavily lashed golden eyes welded to her every move she felt as though she had him at her mercy and she liked that feeling of power.

‘I might be a little clumsy at this,’ she warned him.

But Azrael was a willing sacrifice for any form of experimentation as he watched her lower her mouth to him. It was the most erotic thing he had ever seen. She licked, swiped and stroked and then she stretched her ripe lips around him and her head bobbed, copper ringlets trailing across his thighs like teasing ribbons. He had to fight to withstand the intensity of the pleasure, and when he couldn’t tolerate it any longer he reached up and dragged her down to him to find her mouth again for his tongue, darting and exploring while his hands hungrily moulded the swollen bounty of her tightly beaded breasts and slid slower to trace the gloriously wet opening between her thighs.

‘I want you now... I can’t wait,’ he groaned hoarsely, pushing her away and startling her as he sprang lithely off the bed to stalk over to the chest by the wall and rummage within it.

He tore open the packet and put on the condom while she watched with wide, equally impatient eyes for him to return to her. Her arms opened automatically for him, the throb between her thighs like a pulsing hum of eager welcome, a deep-seated ache that only he could satisfy. He drove into her hard and fast and she wanted to cry out but she was recalling those tribesmen outside the cave and the lack of doors and his controlled silence while she pleasured him. A tiny little whimper was wrenched from her and then there was nothing in her world but a nameless fear that for some reason he might stop, which she couldn’t have borne.

Her heart thumped like an express train inside her body as Azrael reached a hard, insistent rhythm that made her buck and gasp with helpless excitement, her hips writhing, her entire skin surface burning up with the inexpressible wildness of the experience. The wicked delights of his possession went on and on and on until finally her body was thrust over the edge into climax. Delicious internal convulsions gripped her as the surge of pleasure washed over her in an unstoppable tide.

Still floating, she lay there cradled in Azrael’s arms and feeling positively sunny in mood. It was slowly dawning on her that a baby with him, assuming she wanted to keep him, might even be a development she could welcome. Why? Because he was great in bed? Hardworking, honest, noble, gorgeous? Naturally there was also the beautiful ring and the cave setting, chosen for her benefit. But most of all her heart was his because he was a hero, who had suffered horrors she couldn’t imagine, horrors he didn’t even want to talk about for fear of upsetting her! Listening had almost broken her heart as she’d pictured Azrael, young and proud and vulnerable, accepting pain and humiliation to shield his mother. Now she was also picturing a little Azrael or a little girl and her heart began to go all floaty too.

‘I was thinking...about a baby...’ she murmured, stumbling over the words, having spoken before she even knew what she planned to say.

‘We don’t need to concern ourselves with that issue,’ Azrael cut in, smooth and cutting as polished steel. ‘Forget about that idea. I wasn’t thinking rationally.’

Molly was disconcerted by that response; her lips framed a silent oh of perplexity and then hurt flared inside her where it didn’t show because she felt rejected. He had thought the concept over just as she had done but he had reached a different conclusion. She had decided that it could be a very good idea to have a family with him but evidently, after further consideration, Azrael had decided against the same idea. He had changed his mind. He was entitled to do that. Did that mean that he no longer wanted to keep her? And if he had decided that, what was she supposed to be doing about it?

He hadn’t asked her to fall in love with him, had he? It was her own fault that she had fallen head over heels in a process that had started the day she first saw that gorgeous portrait of him in the Djalian Embassy. But they had originally signed up for only a few months of being married and perhaps Azrael had realised that that option would still suit him best. Was there even a possibility that he was already planning that his next wife would be Princess Nasira? In fact, was Molly merely a kind of hiccup and an aberration in Azrael’s planned marital journey?

That sneaking, humiliating suspicion kept Molly quiet when she would normally have spoken up and asked him why he had changed his mind. How could she ever be good enough or loveable enough for someone like Azrael? she questioned painfully. Compressing her lips, she shut out the mad tumult of her rushing thoughts and stamped on them hard when they tried to emerge and torment her again. Agonising over what could not be would not change anything. It would not change what Azrael felt and thought, but if she was sensible, and she so badly wanted to be sensible, she would begin trying to detach herself from unrealistic hopes and step back from her emotions.