Читать книгу Michelle Reid Collection - Michelle Reid - Страница 16

IT WAS late into the evening local time when the plane finally touched down at Behran Airport. Dressed more casually now, in a turquoise silk wrap-around skirt and long-sleeved cotton top, Evie stared out of the window at a scene that was, as with most airports, a hive of activity irrespective of the lateness of the hour.

‘I didn’t realise that Behran Airport was such a busy one,’ she remarked to Raschid who was sitting beside her.

‘It isn’t—not by international standards anyway.’ He frowned, dipping his dark head so that he too could glance out through the small porthole window.

In the next second he was calling sharply for Asim who came hurrying down the aisle towards them. Reverting to Arabic, Raschid shot out a couple of curt questions that had Asim ducking his covered head to peer out of the window himself before he murmured something and walked off towards the flight deck.

And Evie felt the tension begin to seep back into her system because neither man looked happy. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked Raschid.

‘I don’t know yet.’ He was still frowning. Like herself he had changed just before they were due to land, only the difference between them was that he had reverted to Arab robes, and suddenly looked all the more alien for it with that black frown marring his face. ‘But there is too much activity out there for this time of night.’

Perhaps not the most comforting thing to tell her, Evie mused as she glanced out of the window again. They were still taxiing towards the main airport building. It was dark, of course, but the darkness had been diminished by the excessive amount of halogen lighting that seemed to be spotlighting the plane as it moved. And beneath the lights she could see people—lots of people standing watching their arrival as if they had nothing better to do.

Asim came back, his expression more sombre than when he had walked away. He relayed some information to Raschid in Arabic that had Raschid angrily freeing himself from his seat belt and standing up.

Pushing past the other man, he strode off towards the flight deck himself.

‘Be calm,’ Asim told Evie soothingly when he saw her expression. ‘It is nothing to worry about.’

Then why are both you and Raschid looking distinctly worried? she wanted to ask, but managed to keep the challenge to herself while her eyes remained fixed on the doorway Raschid had disappeared through.

The tension began to heighten the longer he was away. By the time he did finally reappear, the plane had come to a standstill some way off from the main building itself.

‘Don’t be too alarmed,’ he warned, which thoroughly alarmed her. ‘But my father has been interfering with my plans again.’

‘Wh-why?’ she said nervously. ‘What has he done?’

‘He has arranged a reception committee to meet us here at the plane. I’m sorry,’ he sighed, coming to sit himself down beside her. ‘This was not what I wanted. But—if you will just try to see it as a positive manoeuvre—in his own way he is trying to offer you a welcome.’

But you’re not feeling very positive about this, Evie thought as she felt all that bravery he had attributed her earlier drain right away.

‘What do I have to do?’ she asked, glancing warily sideways to see what looked like a dozen people in flowing robes making determinedly for the plane.

Her stomach flipped, her legs turned to jelly. Maybe she even trembled a little, because Raschid reached across her and slammed the shutter down over the window.

‘You will be yourself,’ he firmly replied. ‘I ask no more of you.’

‘Be myself in a cloak and veil?’ she drawled suggestively, expecting him to instantly deny the challenge.

But he didn’t. Instead his expression darkened perceptibly. ‘I would request that you wear the gown you married me in today,’ he said. ‘As a sign of respect,’ he quickly explained. ‘For those people who have come here so late in the evening to officially greet you.’

‘One being your father,’ Evie murmured grimacingly.

‘No,’ he denied. ‘My father is not quite strong enough to leave his palace. So we,’ he added slowly, ‘are to go to him.’

‘What, now?’ Evie jerked out, twisting her head to stare at him. ‘Tonight?’

‘It is perhaps a sensible alternative, when my father’s palace is only a few minutes’ drive away from here,’ he said. ‘Whereas my palace is still another hour’s flying by helicopter away.’

But, sensible or not, Raschid was still angry at the way his plans had been outmanoeuvred; Evie could see that in the grim set of his jaw. He was also uneasy about what all of this really meant; she could see that in the frown that still pulled at his brows, and in the perturbed glitter he was trying hard to hide beneath the heavy droop of his lashes.

‘What do you really think this all means?’ she questioned huskily. ‘And be honest with me, Raschid,’ she added. ‘I would rather be prepared for the worst than have it suddenly dumped on me so late that I have no time to react.’

‘As I dumped this trip on you too late for you to react?’ He grimaced.

‘No.’ Evie smiled, and to her own surprise the smile relaxed some of the tension out of her. ‘Because your in stincts were right and if you’d warned me that you were going to bring me here before we left England, I would probably have refused to come,’ she admitted.

Seeing the smile seemed to relax him too, and he reached out to touch a gentle finger to the corner of her upturned mouth. ‘I am going to take my own advice and be very positive about this,’ he murmured softly to her. ‘So I am going to put to you that I think my father’s intentions are entirely honourable, and he is attempting here to heal the breach at the first opportunity we are handing him.’

‘And you want me to do the same,’ Evie concluded from that.

‘Can you?’

‘I can try,’ she agreed. ‘But I can’t say I’m looking forward to any of this.’

It took only a few minutes to change back into her antique gold wedding gown. Asim found her a long white silk scarf from somewhere, which he advised her to drape loosely around her face.

Stepping back into the main cabin, she found that Raschid, too, had changed the dark blue outer robe he had been wearing for a much more dramatic black silk one trimmed with gold. And as he turned to face her she saw that a wide gold sash was now wrapped around his lean waist.

The black and gold made him look different somehow, taller, darker—disturbingly alien as he ran golden eyes still sharpened by anger over her covered head to her satin-shod feet.

‘Well?’ she said, smiling tightly across a tension that was beginning to make her face muscles feel very brittle. ‘Do I look presentable enough for your welcoming party now, do you think?’

Those lushly fringed, heavy-lidded eyes lifted up to clash with mocking blue. They saw the anxiety hiding be hind clear-cut crystal, and the strained pallor behind the creamy smoothness of her skin framed by the silk scarf.

Without saying a word he came to her, placed the tips of his long brown fingers beneath her chin to raise it—then kissed her, hard and hot, arrogantly uncaring that Asim stood by the closed exit door witnessing the embrace.

By the time he let her back up for air again, the pallor had altered to a soft flush of pink pleasure, and those cut-crystal eyes had darkened. ‘Now you look delicious,’ he murmured huskily, a teasing amusement suddenly dancing in his eyes. ‘Quite the shyly blushing bride in fact.’

Shyly blushing bride indeed! Evie thought caustically. ‘Well, whatever you say, this blushing bride is not walking two paces behind you,’ she warned, taking a firm grip on one of his hands while valiantly hiding her fears behind a mask of black humour.

The sound of his deep warm burst of appreciative laughter was the last thing Evie’s consciousness absorbed as she floated through the ordeal of meeting several prominent dignitaries and their wives, all smoothly introduced to her by the man whose hand her own remained glued to.

A long black limousine awaited them. It was a relief to disappear inside it. But it seemed that the ordeal was not yet over.

Sitting there beside Raschid, Evie gazed out of the car window as the car sped off towards the wire fencing that surrounded the airport complex. Big mesh gates swung open as they reached them, and without a pause the car drove smoothly out on to a tarmacadam road then turned right towards the city she could see lighting up the dark skyline in the distance.

But they hadn’t gone many yards before the inky darkness on either side of them was suddenly ablaze with light. Evie sat forward, felt as she did so Raschid’s increased tension as he too did the same, staring out of his own side window.

At the very same moment a loud noise erupted, startling her enough to make her gasp. The road was alight with car headlights, the noise deafening with horns being pressed as their car swept by.

Beside her, Raschid muttered something, sank back into the soft leather seat and was then oddly silent.

‘What is it?’ she questioned worriedly. ‘Why are they doing this?’

Turning to look at him, Evie was utterly dismayed to see his face had gone strangely grey. And he seemed to be having difficulty swallowing.

‘Raschid?’ Concern for him had her hand reaching out to grasp one of his.

‘Be at peace,’ he soothed her. ‘It is nothing to worry about.’

His voice was unsteady as he said the words, and if he wasn’t worried then something extreme was certainly disturbing him.

‘You look—hurt,’ she whispered, feeling her own throat thicken in aching response to his distress.

‘No,’ he denied. And at last turned suspiciously moist eyes in her direction. ‘They are welcoming us,’ he informed her gruffly. ‘They…’ One long-fingered hand lifted to make an expressive gesture towards the car window. ‘My people,’ he extended, ‘are welcoming us…’

Evie’s heart flipped over, the breath seized in her breast as full understanding finally hit her. His people were welcoming them and Raschid was so moved by the gesture that he could barely contain his feelings.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked softly.

‘Yes,’ he replied, but it was very obvious that he wasn’t. This had come as a real shock to him. He had not expected it and that was why it was having such a powerful effect on him.

An effect that had Evie’s own eyes glazing over as she wisely said nothing more while she gave him the chance to get himself together.

My people, he had called them. My people, in the truly possessive sense of the words. My people, whom he so obviously loved and whose love and respect he had been prepared to sacrifice for her sake.

As Evie sat there beside him while they drove between the cavalcade of lights and sounding horns that lined their route as far as the eyes could see, she finally began to understand what Raschid’s Kismet was doing for them here.

And she was humbled. Humbled by its force and by the man beside her who’d had the courage to reach out and grasp his own personal Kismet no matter what the cost might be.

For she hadn’t been the brave one here, not really. All she’d done was follow where her heart led her, but Raschid possessed two hearts, one of which had been in conflict with the other since the day he’d set eyes upon her. He must have always known that one day he was going to have to risk breaking one of those hearts. The heart that belonged here with his people, or the heart that belonged to Evie.

What he had done was place his trust in Kismet.

And this was his reward—not hers.

She was so very, very humbled by that.

‘I love you,’ she told him softly, although why she did she didn’t really know now; those words seemed so inadequate when set against all of this.

Yet he turned and smiled at her, and that smile was so warm and dark and soul-stirringly tender that she knew the words were not inadequate to him.

‘Look,’ he said then, drawing her attention back to her own window. ‘My father’s palace,’ he said.

Out there, beyond the glaring headlights, Evie found herself staring at a gold-lit stone building standing on its own raised piece of desert with a star-studded black velvet sky as its backcloth.

Surrounded on all sides by what looked like a twenty-foot-high boundary wall, complete with domed lookout towers on each of its four corners, it was as if the whole scene had leapt straight out of an Arabian nights picture book she remembered having as a child.

Awesome, mysterious, breathtakingly dramatic.

Two huge wooden gates cut into the wall swung inwards as they approached them. As tall as the wall itself, they were a commanding sight on their own, but when Evie realised that they guarded an entrance that was as deep as it was tall she began to understand what true awe was.

Inside was a vast courtyard, softly lit by concealed lighting that sparkled against fine sprinkles of water spouting from ornamental statues set within the exotic shrubs that grew in abundance on either side of the driveway.

The entrance to the house was a flower-hung archway of pure white marble. Clear blue light was seeping out from beyond it, and as the car stopped by a pebbled area that covered the last ten feet or so to the entrance Evie saw a woman step out from beneath the archway.

She was beautiful, dark-haired and slender but exquisitely rounded, and was wearing a long dark red silk dress that shimmered as she moved.

‘Ranya,’ Raschid murmured softly, and climbed out of the car to stride quickly towards her, too eager to greet his sister to remember his usually impeccable manners.

It was therefore left to Asim, who had travelled in the front of the car with them, to open Evie’s door and help her to alight.

Despite the fact that the hour was so late, the air was hot and very humid, and redolent with the fragrance of gardenia, oleander and heavily scented jasmine—all overlaid by a seductive aroma of some exotic spice Evie couldn’t quite capture. Music was playing somewhere—that distinctly Arabian sound that was so evocative of her surroundings.

Strange, alien, yet so disturbingly seductive it made her toes tingle and her heart thump heavily in her chest. Or maybe those feelings had more to do with the way Raschid and Ranya were embracing each other with an affection that reminded her of herself and Julian.

And why should they not? she asked herself. They were brother and sister—true brother and sister, born to the same mother and the only children of a man who, on the distinction alone of being a rich Arab Prince, should have produced a hundred children to a hundred different wives.

Yet he had not. Crown Prince Hashim Al Kadah had only ever taken one wife. When she’d passed away while his children were still young, he hadn’t bothered to replace her.

But then, she mused as she stood there by the car waiting to be remembered, if his wife had looked anything like his daughter Ranya, then it was perhaps understandable why the Crown Prince had never found another woman who could take his wife’s place.

It was Ranya who noticed Evie standing there, but as she went to move around her brother with the intention of coming forward Raschid stopped her with a question. Pausing, Ranya answered him, and there followed a hurried discussion in soft-voiced Arabic that to Evie, witnessing their body language, verged on the heated.

Then Ranya sighed, touched her brother’s arm with what Evie read as a gesture of sympathy, before firmly stepping around him to walk towards Evie.

After witnessing the heat in their altercation, Evie wasn’t quite sure how she should greet this new sisterinlaw of hers—with open warmth or defensive coolness? she pondered.

But the lovely creature made the decision easy. ‘At last we meet.’ Her embrace was both warm and welcoming, touching her lips to each of Evie’s cheeks. ‘I am Ranya, Raschid’s beloved sister, in case he has never bothered to mention me,’ she said with a teasing smile that literally stopped Evie’s breath because it was so like the smile her brother could use on occasion. ‘May I call you Evie, as Raschid does?’ she requested while gently urging Evie into movement.

The house waited; Evie wasn’t at all sure, now that she had come this far, that she wanted to enter it. As she drew level with Raschid, she noticed his tension was back again. ‘What now?’ she whispered tautly.

He didn’t answer; instead he reached for her hand then turned grimly to the archway. In silence they walked into his father’s home, where the hot desert air instantly tempered to a delicious coolness.

Evie found herself standing in a vast reception hallway the likes of which she had only ever seen in history books. It was as big as a moderate theatre hall, with a high domed roof elaborately decorated with pale blue and gold mosaic tilework. The floor beneath her feet was white marble, the eggshell-blue painted walls broken by a dozen archways that led off into what she suspected was a maze of corridors. Above each arch, diamond-shaped grilles covered what Evie presumed were the Arabian equivalent of interior windows where people could look down unseen on the hallway beneath.

‘This is lovely,’ Evie breathed softly.

Other than giving a brief smile of acknowledgement, Raschid seemed barely to hear her; his hand touched her arm to indicate which corridor he wanted to take. And the further they went down that corridor, the tenser he became.

‘Raschid—what is it?’ she asked anxiously, very conscious of his sister walking with them.

This time he didn’t even attempt to dissemble. Instead he stopped walking suddenly, turned to take her by the shoulders then pushed her up against the corridor wall so he could stand right over her while his sister paused several delicate yards away.

‘We have yet another ceremony to go through tonight,’ he announced, sounding clipped and grim and beginning to look just a little jaded around the edges. ‘Again, my father has arranged this. And again I find I am in no position to argue with his decree.’

‘A marriage ceremony, you mean?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’ He grimaced. ‘What else? Do you think you are up to it?’

Like him, Evie didn’t think she was being given very much choice in the matter. ‘What do I have to do?’ she asked heavily.

‘Nothing but stand beside me and repeat the vows you will be asked to say in Arabic. And I pray to Allah that then we will be allowed to do what we came here to do and be private,’ he sighed out sardonically.

‘But you don’t hold out much hope,’ Evie dryly assumed from all of that.

‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I do not.’

‘Raschid—’ Ranya’s voice softly interrupted them. ‘We really must go now…’

Another sigh, then his mouth clamped into a flat line of grim perseverance. ‘Come,’ he said, taking hold of Evie’s hand again. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

Not the most diplomatic thing to say to his bride. But then, Evie mused as they began walking along that long corridor again, how many times did he have to marry this wretched bride before he could be allowed to feel married?

They stopped at a door. Raschid seemed to need a moment to compose himself for what was to come next, and his fresh bout of tension became Evie’s tension as, with a perceptible straightening of his broad shoulders, his fingers tightened around Evie’s hand and his other hand reached out to open the door.

What followed became lost in the realms of a dreamlike sense of unreality. The room was dark—lit only by wall-mounted candles that gave off too little light for her to see very much of what was around her.

She was vaguely aware of people standing in the dimness, vaguely aware of their curious scrutiny as Raschid led her forward. The ceremony was short—shorter than she had expected. Beside her, Raschid quietly translated every word into English for her, before she was then required to repeat them in Arabic. And through it all she kept her body in touch with his body, needing to feel the security of his presence in this alien place with its alien service and its alien sounds and scents and language.

When it was over, Raschid’s attention was claimed almost instantly. As he turned to speak to the several men who had come up to him, Ranya appeared at Evie’s side.

‘Come,’ she said quietly. ‘We must go this way…’

‘But—’ Evie did not want to leave Raschid; glancing around her, her eyes caught sight of him standing several feet away. Her hand went out, anxious to catch his attention, but even as she did so the group of men closed in around him, and Ranya’s hand on her arm was firmly guiding her away through a door that led into frighteningly unfamiliar territory.

Not a corridor, but another dimly lit room which then led through to another and another…All were richly furnished, all wore the stamp of eastern luxury. At a fourth door, Ranya paused and turned what Evie presumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile on her before she was knocking on the door.

Someone called out in Arabic. A man’s voice. A sudden sense of dreadful foreboding shot like a steel rod along her spine. Ranya opened the door and stepped inside with Evie in tow.

After the eastern splendour of all the rooms they had passed through, Evie was expecting to find herself stepping into yet more of the same. She was therefore surprised to find herself standing in a big but definitely old-fashioned library that could have been transported right out of Victorian England.

It was all oak panelling lined with shelves upon shelves of leather-bound books. Richly coloured Persian rugs covered the polished wood floor and there was even a large polished oak fire surround with a log fire burning in the grate—although it did so behind a shield of heat-reflective glass.

The chairs and sofas were of old English dark red velvet, and several huge desks were groaning under the weight of the books and papers scattered across them.

And it all felt so very strange—as if she had just walked into her grandfather’s study on one of those duty visits she used to make to his home with her mother when she was a child.

Her grandfather had been a stern, sombre man who’d married very late in life and never seemed to quite understand how he had produced someone as beautiful and sophisticated as Lucinda.

But this wasn’t England, this was not her grandfather’s Victorian study, she reminded herself. This was Behran, and the man who was at this precise moment carefully pushing himself up from one of the wing-backed chairs was most definitely not her grandfather.

‘I bring Raschid’s wife to you as requested, Father,’ Ranya quietly announced.

And it was at that precise moment that Evie froze.

Eyes cold and fixed, the breath catching in her throat, Evie found herself staring at the tall and lean figure of—the enemy.

An enemy that could be no other person than Raschid’s father, simply because looking at him was like taking a glimpse into the future and seeing exactly how Raschid was going to look thirty years from now.

Even the eyes were the same colour—though this pair was guarded as they studied her stiff form.

He seemed to be waiting for her to do something. Make some gesture in respect of his high station maybe. But for the life of her—call it pride if you will—Evie could not offer this man any kind of gesture of respect.

Instead her chin came up, her eyes glassing over in a way Raschid would have instantly recognised if he had been here to see it happen.

His ice-princess was still alive and flourishing.

But Raschid wasn’t here, and the slick way she had been separated from him had her turning those cold eyes on Ranya in accusation. The other girl’s lovely cheeks flushed slightly in response, her soft lips mouthing a silent sound of apology.

‘Thank you, Ranya,’ Crown Prince Hashim murmured coolly. ‘You may leave us.’

‘No!’ It was sheer self-preservation that forced the protest from Evie’s throat. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him,’ she pleaded with Ranya.

Ranya looked uncertain suddenly. ‘Papa…’ She turned anxious eyes on him.

‘Go!’ he commanded. The voice was strong, dictatorial—yet right on the back of that harsh command came a sudden weariness. ‘Please, child,’ he added heavily. ‘Trust me. Give me some privacy to do what I have to do.’

With a rustle of silk and a touch of her hand to Evie’s arm in mute apology, Ranya obeyed without further hesitation. The door closed softly behind her, leaving a stifling silence behind.

Neither moved. Neither spoke. Evie felt that tension in her back increase to tingling proportions. Once again, the Crown Prince seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but once again Evie refused to utter a word until she knew exactly what it was she was dealing with here.

‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You are the golden icon my son was willing to forfeit his illustrious heritage for.’

‘I love your son,’ Evie threw back coolly. ‘Too much to expect him to do anything so drastic for me.’

‘A moot point,’ the old man said. ‘For he was prepared to do it with or without your blessing.’

‘I’m—sorry if that hurt you,’ Evie murmured stiffly. ‘But, as you and I both know, Raschid has a mind and a will of his own.’

‘Too true—too true,’ he ruefully acknowledged. ‘A fact that was brought home to me in the severest way possible. Call me arrogant if you wish, but I did not expect my son to defy me as he did,’ he confessed. ‘It came as a—shock to discover he had grown a strength of will that by far outstretched my own…’

He paused then to study her curiously, as if he was trying to discover what it was about her that had given his son such strength of will. Evie could have told him, but she was refusing to give this man anything.

Maybe he understood that. ‘Still,’ he shrugged. ‘Who am I to complain when Raschid is proving to be the kind of man I always prayed he would become? And I am sorry for frightening you with my unfair tactics while my son taught me this salutary lesson. There,’ he concluded. ‘Does that clear the air between us a little?’

‘Not if you’ve brought me here to repeat the offer,’ she said.

To her surprise he smiled. And it was like watching Raschid come to life in this older version. That smile flipped her heart over. ‘No.’ Ruefully he shook his covered head. ‘A lesson learned so painfully is usually an unforgettable one.’

He went quiet for a moment, his eyes clouding over with what Evie could only interpret as remorse. ‘The child is safe?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Your health is quite recovered?’

Evie gave a stiff nod in reply to both questions. But mistrust in his sincerity kept her lips tightly shut on the return query as to his own health.

His half smile told her he knew exactly why she was refusing to ask that question. ‘If you give my son this much trouble when he does something you do not like, then I pity him,’ he drawled. ‘Please…’ he then said suddenly. ‘Will you come and sit?’

Evie’s instinct was to refuse. She had no wish to move one inch away from this door behind which lay relative safety. But it suddenly struck her that he wasn’t standing so tall as he had been—as if the strength was slowly seeping out of him.

Like his son, she realised, good manners were bred into him. Love her or hate her, he could not bring himself to sit while a lady remained standing.

And, determined though she was not to soften her feelings towards him, neither could she keep a sick man standing when it wasn’t necessary. So she moved warily across the cluttered room to the other wing-backed chair set across the fireplace from the one the Prince had been sitting in when she arrived.

He waited until she sat down on the edge of it before he lowered himself carefully into the other one.

‘Thank you,’ he sighed, easing himself back into the chair then wearily closing his eyes.

An uncomfortable feeling of concern began to gnaw at her. ‘Are you all right?’ she felt constrained to ask. ‘Would you like me to get someone?’

‘No, no.’ He refused the offer. ‘I can sit, I can lie, but I must not stand for long periods,’ he explained. Then his eyes suddenly flicked open, homing in like two sharp golden lances on her face. ‘I offer you this information because I understand that you are loath to request it,’ he said with a small wry smile that made her rather disturbingly aware of just how easily he was seeing through her.

Just like his son.

Then his eyes were suddenly darkening into true gravity. ‘Despite your opinion of me, I am not a barbarian,’ he grimly announced. ‘I do not kill babies.’

Instantly Evie’s chin came up, her lavender-blue eyes filled with damning scepticism.

‘You may believe that or not.’ He coolly dismissed her expression. ‘For as it stands I am guilty as charged of attempting the subtle bribe to get you out of my son’s life,’ he admitted. ‘But the other suggestion presented to you was most definitely not sanctioned by me.’

‘Are you saying that the bed reserved in the private clinic was not your doing?’ Evie questioned.

The nod of his covered head confirmed the point. ‘Though I can accept,’ he added, ‘that I must have given the impression that it would have been better if the coming child had not been conceived or my ill-chosen messenger would not have taken the initiative upon himself to add such a grave suggestion in my name. Needless to say—’ he shrugged ‘—Jamal Al Kareem no longer holds such a trusted position in my employ—or any other position, come to that.’

‘If this is the truth, why hasn’t Raschid told me all of this?’ Evie was already questioning the truth in what he was saying here, for there was no doubt in her mind that Raschid would have rushed to tell her—if only to help clear his father’s name.

But the Crown Prince was shaking his head. ‘Raschid cannot tell you what he does not know,’ he said, then added with a shrug and a grim smile, ‘He would kill the man if he discovered this. Better I continue to shoulder the blame than have my son imprisoned for murder in one of our own jails. He will learn to forgive me in time, you see. Whereas you,’ he added shrewdly, ‘I suspect will never forgive—or even let me get close to my grandchild if you continue to believe me capable of such a dastardly crime. Which is why, of course, I am making this confession to you.’

He was right, and Evie didn’t even bother to pretend otherwise. Now all she had to do was decide whether she could risk believing him or not.

Then she looked into that face that was so like Raschid’s face. Saw the pride there, saw what it was costing that pride for this man to make this confession to her, and at last felt the tension begin to ease out of her backbone.

‘Your people lined our route here,’ she remarked, quite out of context. ‘Raschid insists they were welcoming us. Were they?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘And was that your doing?’

‘Ah,’ he said, and his smile was wry to say the least. ‘I understand what you are attempting to do here. You are attempting to bestow upon me qualities I do not possess,’ he perceived. ‘But—I will reluctantly decline the redeeming offer. So—no.’ He replied to the question. ‘I did not command my people to welcome you both here tonight. In fact, I confess that their response came as big a shock to me as it did to Raschid. You see…’ he added softly, ‘I saw my son’s marriage to you as a sign of weakness in him—whereas my people surprised me with their perception in seeing only strength in a man who stands by his principles, no matter what those principles are going to cost him.’

‘Kismet,’ Evie murmured softly.

‘My son’s definition?’ he asked, then smiled. ‘He could be right,’ he quietly conceded. ‘And who am I to be so conceited as to pull against the will of Allah?’

You are a man who is seeing your own power diminish as your son’s grows stronger, Evie realised on a sharp pang of understanding as she watched those eyes so like Raschid’s eyes cloud with a sadness at his own dulling senses.

And without letting herself think about it she got up and walked over to squat down beside him. ‘If I promise to be as good a wife as any woman could be for your son,’ she offered, ‘do you think you and I could call a truce?

‘And what would you require from me in return?’

‘Acceptance,’ Evie answered instantly. ‘That I am what Raschid wants—even though I absolutely refuse to walk two paces behind him, no matter how exalted he is,’ she added with a teasing smile that at last melted the ice from her eyes.

The Crown Prince burst out laughing.

And that was how Raschid caught them when he strode into the room a moment later. His face was hard, his eyes angry, his body taut with a desire to taste someone’s blood.

‘Ah,’ his father murmured in greeting. ‘My prodigal son at last. You have married well, Raschid.’ He dryly announced his approval. ‘She is beautiful. She is tough, and she is blessed with compassion. I commend your good taste and your good fortune.’

‘I wish you would tell me what he said to you,’ Raschid sighed out in heavy frustration.

‘I told you,’ Evie replied, leaning contentedly against him. They were standing on the balcony of Raschid’s private apartment in his father’s palace. The stars were still out, though not for much longer. Dawn was on its way. ‘He apologised. I accepted his apology. Then we called a truce.’

‘Just like that?’ He didn’t believe her.

‘Well, not—just like that,’ she allowed, but still had no intention of breaking his father’s confidence. ‘I liked him,’ she confessed. ‘He showed dignity in defeat and apologised with grace. And I felt sorry for him,’ she added with a small sigh. ‘He sees his own strength fading as yours grows stronger. It hurts him.’

‘And because of that you decided to forgive him?’

‘Well, no. But…’ Twisting around in his arms, Evie gazed up at him solemnly. ‘He is your father,’ she explained. ‘Which means that without him you would not have been born. Now…’ she continued, moving closer to the lean, hard length of his body. ‘Just think for a moment what that would mean to me. No you and me coming together like this,’ she said as her fingers began trailing across his silk-covered shoulders. ‘No one for me to love and be loved by. No fantastic sex on a starlit balcony…’

‘No, Evie,’ he groaned, catching hold of her fingers. ‘I—’

‘I know,’ she cut in. ‘You made this vow. But—tell me, Raschid, how much more proof does Allah need that you must truly love me, having just watched you marry me not once, but three times? And anyway,’ she went on before he could answer, ‘I have come up with a really ingenious strategy to get around your silly vow,’ she confided, reaching up to run the tip of her tongue along the rigid line of his jaw.

‘I seduce you…’ she whispered, freeing her captured fingers so she could slip the bootlace straps that were holding up her nightdress down her arms. ‘You don’t have to do a single thing, I promise you…’ Fine silk whispered to the ground around her bare feet.

‘This way, your honour remains firmly intact and I get what I want…’ she explained as her hands then became busy with the belt on his blue silk robe.

She found warm, tight male flesh and pounced hungrily on it. Her body arched, stretched sensually then moved even closer until she was pressing herself to the full length of him.

‘You see,’ she breathed against his mouth, ‘you taught me well. I know all the right moves to make this work for us…’

As she spoke one of her legs hooked itself around his leg, the pad of her bare foot stroking caressingly along a rock-solid calf muscle. The action brought her hips into more intimate contact with what was cradled between his hips.

If he was fighting to withhold his response to this blatant bit of female provocation, he wasn’t being very successful, and Evie sighed with pleasure against his mouth as she moved softly against him.

It took just two minutes to make him weaken, and another two to have him scoop her up in his arms and carry her inside. The bed waited—a wickedly decadent affair with silk sheets strewn with jewel-coloured cushions, which he settled them both down amongst.

Then there were too many long, delicious minutes to count when he took over the seduction, drawing her down through layer after layer of pleasure until she lay, boneless, beneath him.

‘A thousand years from now,’ he murmured as he paused above her, his face a dark gold map of intense desire, ‘I will still remember this night.’

‘Why this night, in particular?’ Evie questioned curiously. They had done this many times before after all.

‘Because of—this,’ he muttered, reaching out to take hold of her hand and bringing it to his mouth. ‘Mine,’ he breathed, taking a biting grip on her wedding ring at the same moment that he entered her.

It was such a possessive, pagan, passionate thing to do that Evie laughed as her long legs wrapped themselves around him so she could draw him in deeper.

‘Barbarian,’ she accused him.

It never occurred to her to question the thousand-year memory he had just laid claim to. But that was because she didn’t need to. Kismet was like that—answered questions that most people would find absurd.