Читать книгу Michelle Reid Collection - Michelle Reid - Страница 9

HER horror must have shown on her face, because his expression was not a pleasant one as he firmly shut the door behind him and pointedly twisted the key in the lock. Then he was turning to lean his broad shoulders back against the solid oak and folding his arms across his chest in what she could only describe as his confrontational pose.

Gone were the flowing white robes of the Arab and in their place were the clothes of the super-sophisticated western man. White shirt, black bow tie, creamy white dinner jacket and black silk trousers that accentuated the length of his powerfully muscled legs.

Evie’s insides began to flutter, her eyes darkening warily as she made herself look into the grimness of his. He was glancing around the room with an expression of unconcealed disfavour.

‘Your brother was not exaggerating when he informed his lovely new wife that you had been insulted,’ he remarked. ‘It is no wonder her cheeks flushed with mortification as she went off to take the issue up with her mother, who then flushed and blamed your own mother—who had apparently…’ his hard eyes flicked to Evie ‘…made a special request that you be accommodated as far away from the west wing of the castle as they could possibly place you…’

The west wing being where Raschid would be accommodated—in one of the very large and very grand bedroom suites, Evie assumed. And was unable to hide the hurt she experienced on learning that her own mother could be so petty in her disapproval of her relationship with Raschid that she could go to such extremes.

‘Just say the word,’ Raschid said coolly, ‘and I will have your things moved in with mine.’

‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said, wondering if her mother truly believed she could prove a point with such action. Did she honestly think it would keep them apart if they had no wish to be apart?

Half a mile of draughty corridor was certainly no deterrent to Raschid, anyway.

‘Is that why you’re here?’ she asked a trifle wearily. ‘To check out my supposedly insulting accommodation?’

‘No…’ His dark head shook, those golden eyes of his grimly fixed on her tired face. ‘I am here to enquire after your health.’

‘My health?’ Evie frowned at him in puzzled confusion. ‘Was that your sweet way of being sarcastic?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘I was being sincere. To put it bluntly, Evangeline,’ he added, using her full name in much the same way her mother did—as a warning of worse to come, ‘you look wretched.’

Oh, great, she thought. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning away from those too shrewd golden eyes.

‘Pale and pathetic,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Too frail to stand up and too tense to sit down.’

‘I said,’ Evie flashed at him in irritation, ‘I feel fine! There is absolutely nothing wrong with me!’

The simple fact that she was snapping at him was telling Raschid the opposite. His eyes narrowed, the aggressive stance he had taken up against the door altering to one of dangerous challenge.

‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Then you can have no objection to my escorting you down to the ballroom, can you?’ he tagged on very silkily.

Evie sighed, wishing that this day were already over and done with. ‘Raschid—’ she began wearily.

‘Raschid—nothing,’ he coolly cut in. ‘I have played my official role here today, to perfection. So have you. Now it is time to relax and begin enjoying ourselves.’

Relax—nothing. Evie parodied him inside her head. He was angry with her for avoiding him all afternoon and he was here to fight, not enjoy himself.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he enquired when she didn’t say anything.

‘Several,’ Evie answered dryly. ‘But I don’t think you’re in any mood to hear them.’

‘Wise girl,’ he commended. ‘Now be even wiser, and slip your delectable body into whatever it is you are wearing tonight before I decide that it may be more satisfying to toss you down on that excuse for a bed behind you and assuage my anger in other ways.’

‘Novel,’ she mocked, feeling some rather well known but unwanted sensations go chasing through her system at the prospect of his alternative. ‘But I am not walking out of this room with you, Raschid, with my mother standing guard only a few doors away. She would have my guts for garters.’

‘And I will have them for a noose which I will tie around your beautiful neck if you don’t walk out with me,’ he countered. ‘So, which will it be, Evie? Your mother’s pride or my pride? Take your pick.’

The direct challenge.

Evie sighed one of those sighs she’d caught herself doing a lot recently, and went to drop down on her dressing stool. ‘Don’t do this to me tonight, Raschid,’ she pleaded heavily. ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m really not up to it.’

‘I know the feeling,’ he grimly commiserated. ‘In fact, I am thoroughly annoyed with both you and your prejudiced family,’ he clipped out. ‘To the extent that if I am provoked any further today I may just disgrace myself by telling them all what I think of them!’

‘And that includes telling me, it seems.’ Despite his anger and her own depression, Evie found a rueful smile from somewhere.

‘Quite,’ he clipped. ‘So be sensible, Evie, and humour me unless you want to see an ugly scene erupt in the Beverley ballroom.’

He meant it too; Evie could see that in the grim cut of his mouth as he levered himself away from the door and walked across the room to the antiquated wardrobe, much as her mother had done several hours ago.

Only, the similarity ended with the opening of the wardrobe door. For Raschid took one look at the dress hanging there—and began to chuckle. ‘I knew you were brave,’ he grinned. ‘But not this brave.’

‘Brazen is the word my great-aunt Celia used,’ Evie informed him.

Turning with the dress over his arm, he laid it on the bed then came over to where she was sitting.

‘Up,’ he said firmly, curving long fingers around her upper arms to help her.

Then, because she looked so adorably pathetic with that miserable expression on her face, he bent his dark head and kissed her—and when all she did was sigh shakily into his mouth he deepened the kiss until the sighing stopped and she began clinging.

‘Now…’ he said when he eventually drew away again. ‘Do you dress yourself or do I do it for you?’

‘I don’t suppose you would consider letting me get through the rest of today in my own way?’ she suggested hopefully.

The dark head shook, his hands already dealing with the knotted belt around her waist.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when her robe fell open to reveal a flesh-coloured silk teddy that hardly hid what it was supposed to be covering. ‘Very seductive.’

Long, knowing fingers made a caressing journey from her tiny waist to the proud thrust of her breasts. His thumb pads teased her with little passes across the tight nubs of her nipples and a different kind of sigh escaped her, one that whimpered like an anxious kitten while her slender hips writhed as those teasing caresses made other parts of her stir into sweet, throbbing life.

‘I’ve missed that little sigh,’ Raschid whispered softly, his eyes possessive on her as he watched her sink into that sensual trance his touch always induced. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he added huskily.

‘I can tell,’ she sighed out pleasurably. He was very aroused—but then, so was she. They had not been together like this for two weeks now—a long time for them. ‘Kiss me,’ she groaned.

He responded quickly, hotly, hungrily, his mouth covering hers with a driving force that had her head snapping back on a slender neck while his arms crushed her tightly to him.

He was alive and wanting, his mouth urgent now as it kissed and sucked and licked and tasted its way across her cheek and jaw while his hands moved lower again, cupping her around her silky thighs before his fingers slid beneath the teddy and drew her hard up against him.

‘Raschid—’ she groaned as he set his hips moving against her in an age-old rhythm that set an equally old rhythm pulsing inside herself. ‘We haven’t got time for this.’

‘I can be quick,’ he murmured audaciously. ‘Five minutes and you will feel wonderful, I promise you…’

‘Incorrigible man,’ she scolded, then gasped when knowing fingers slid along her buttocks until they reached what they were searching for.

She was warm and she was moist and she was ready for him. She never could put up much of a resistance to him. Her hands jerked up, clutching at his arms for support as he captured her mouth with a kiss that tossed her into a world of frantic hunger.

‘Release me,’ Raschid pleaded hoarsely against her mouth.

Fingers trembling in their urgency, she did as he bade her, drawing down the zip on his evening trousers and releasing him from the silk shorts he wore beneath. He filled her hand, hard and throbbing, smooth as silk, such a potent source of power and pleasure that her control went haywire. It didn’t matter—not when it was so apparent that his control was no better. His heart was pounding, his breathing shot. Two red streaks across his lean dark cheekbones were underlining the ruthless intent burning in his eyes as he edged her backwards until the backs of her thighs met with the edge of the solid oak dressing table.

With a fierce sexual urgency he parted her white thighs and pressed his own taut brown ones between them. Then, with the deftness of experience, he released her lower body from the silk teddy and bent his knees so he could enter her cleanly.

His grunt of satisfaction as he felt her muscles close greedily around him was matched by her groan of pleasure. Her fingers were clutching his neck, her spine arching over his supporting arm so he could suck on her breasts through the teddy while he drove them both to a place beyond bearing.

And he was right. Five minutes later and she did feel wonderful, limp and languid, not a hint of tension or stress in her.

‘Now you look less like a haunted woman,’ he murmured softly, golden eyes darkened to polished bronze by sensual satisfaction as they viewed her.

‘And you look ridiculous with your trousers round your shoes,’ Evie countered tauntingly.

But he just grinned, all slashing white teeth and pure male arrogance. Even in a situation like this, Raschid knew he looked devastatingly sexy. He was still inside her, his hands holding her against the cradle of his lean hips while his eyes ran tenderly over her love-softened face.

‘I adore you, you know…’ he softly informed her. ‘If the world stopped turning at this precise moment, I could die a happy man.’

Evie almost told him then. Almost…Almost tested that statement with words that would surely make his world stand still. But—

No.

The need to get through what was left of today without causing a major disaster was paramount. So, ‘Your five minutes are up,’ she said, and felt his soft laugh vibrate in the very essence of her before he ruefully and reluctantly drew away.

He helped her to dress, smoothly drawing up the zip on the gold silk gown then standing back to watch her with darkly possessive eyes as she twisted up her hair, then sat down to replenish her make-up.

Getting up to slip her feet into the strappy gold shoes, Evie then turned towards him to announce she was ready. Seeing a question written in his love-sated eyes, she smiled her answer.

No more compromising for the sake of her mother. They would go down to the ball together and damn the consequences.

For this could be the last time she would be able to show herself in public with him like this.

Julian and Christina were dancing the first waltz when they entered the ballroom. The lights had been dimmed, and a single spotlight followed the bride and groom around while everyone was standing around the dance floor, thankfully too busy clapping and teasing the newly-weds to notice Evie and Raschid’s arrival.

With her hand resting in the crook of Raschid’s arm, Evie watched from the sidelines as gradually other couples began to join the newly-weds. Lord Beverley with his wife, Robert Malvern gallantly inviting Evie’s mother to dance.

‘Shall we?’ Raschid murmured.

‘Why not?’ she replied, but there was a lot of bravado in her tone and he arched his sleek black eyebrows at her as he drew her into his arms then danced off with a lightness of foot that secretly made her breathless.

‘You’re good at this,’ she remarked, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so she didn’t have to see the kind of looks they would be receiving.

‘It is expected of a dashing Arab prince,’ he blandly mocked himself. ‘I can jive too, and I’m not bad at the Gay Gordon.’

‘You don’t have a modest bone in your body, either,’ Evie tagged on dryly.

‘Thank you.’ Arrogant as always, he took the remark as a compliment. ‘Of course, a lack of modesty forces me to say that I am also dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room.’

Her mother danced close by, and Evie stiffened slightly at the glowering look she received. ‘Stop it,’ Raschid admonished. ‘Or I will take you back upstairs again.’

‘Fate worse than death,’ she quipped. ‘So you found her, Raschid.’

Julian and Christina swished up beside them. Christina looked radiant, her gentle eyes sparkling.

‘As you directed,’ Raschid replied. ‘I turned to the east and walked on to the end of the earth.’

Immediately the spark went out of Christina’s eyes. ‘I’m so sorry about your room, Evie,’ she cried in mortification. ‘I didn’t know until Julian told me!’

‘Don’t be silly, the room is fine!’ Evie assured her.

‘And maybe she deserved it after all,’ her brother put in. ‘Since she couldn’t even bring herself to appear in one small photograph with us!’

Raschid’s eyes narrowed. Evie’s cheeks flushed. The in formation was obviously new to him. ‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘Because she didn’t like the company,’ Julian suggested tauntingly.

‘Don’t be cruel, Ju,’ his new bride scolded him. ‘You know why Evie did it!’

‘Then perhaps you would like to explain it to me, Christina,’ Raschid drawled. ‘Excuse me, Julian, for I am about to steal your bride for a little while…’

And as deftly as that Raschid swapped partners, and was dancing off with a blushing bride clinging to his tall, lean, elegant frame, leaving sister and brother staring ruefully after them.

‘I think he’s angry,’ Julian remarked.

‘That makes two of you, obviously,’ his sister wearily replied.

‘Three actually,’ Julian said, then sighed as he tugged her into his arms and danced after the other two. ‘Mother came by your room earlier,’ he told her.

‘What?’ Appalled, Evie’s voice left her throat as a half-hysterical squeak. ‘I hope you’re teasing me, Julian!’ she gasped out shakily.

‘Why, what were you doing?’ he asked. Then grinned a typically rakish male grin when Evie blushed from breast to hairline. ‘Oh, wow. No wonder she’s on the warpath again,’ he said. ‘I hope you had the sense to lock the door…’

‘Raschid did,’ she mumbled.

‘Good old Raschid,’ her brother mocked. ‘Always thinking ahead of himself, that guy.’

‘She didn’t actually say she heard us, did she?’ Evie asked anxiously.

Looking down at her with wickedly teasing eyes, Julian drew out the silence while he pondered whether or not to lie—then laughed out loud as his poor sister’s face went from blush-red to paste-white. ‘She heard the two of you talking, that’s all.’ He finally let Evie off the hook.

‘I think I hate you,’ she choked, her chest feeling as if it had just collapsed.

‘Punishment,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘For being so pathetic as to believe your absence from my wedding photos is going to stop the gossip columnists from marking yours and Raschid’s presence here. What they will do,’ he went on grimly, ‘is make a whole lot of mischief out of the way you carefully avoided him. Intrigue,’ he incised, ‘is the spice of their lives, Evie. And you certainly gave them enough spice to make a meal out of your behaviour today.’

‘I didn’t want them splashing photos of me and him all over their papers instead of you and Christina,’ she defended herself.

‘Well, having thwarted them of a photograph, they will instead make much of the fact that they couldn’t catch the two of you together—anywhere. And how do I know that?’ he concluded. ‘Because those were the kind of questions most of our guests were pumped with today by the reporters. Which in turn made your entrance here tonight on Raschid’s arm a real revelation—for everyone.’

‘You noticed?’

‘You are such a naı¨ve little baby sometimes, Evie,’ her brother sighed. Standing several inches taller than her, Julian dropped his gaze to her surprised face. ‘I would think that the whole room noticed—which was why Raschid did it, isn’t it?’ he suggested. ‘He’d had enough of playing the nasty skeleton in your dark little cupboard. The man has more than his fair share of pride, and you kicked it today with your behaviour.’

By the time Raschid came back to graciously return the bride to her new husband, Evie was trying to come to terms with the unpalatable fact that she seemed to have upset just about everyone she cared about today, in one way or another.

He didn’t speak as he danced her away again, but the fingers that held her were saying a lot and he was wearing that cold, hard mask on his face that she knew very well.

‘I did warn you,’ she said, unable to say nothing even when expediency was telling her that silence in this case was the better part of valour.

‘So you did,’ he agreed. ‘It is a shame there were no hidden cameras in your bedroom earlier, for we could have stopped the gossips in their curious tracks then.’

‘Oh, don’t be such a boor, Raschid,’ Evie flashed, guilty conscience giving way to anger. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded. ‘What would you have done if our roles here had been reversed, and this had been Ranya’s wedding day, to which, by some utterly amazing quirk of fate, I had been invited?’

The smooth line of his jaw clenched, the angry outline of his mouth tightening even further as he took the very sarcastic scenario on board.

‘You would have asked me not to attend the wedding.’ She gave the answer for him. ‘And if, like you, I had told you to go to hell, you would then have made a point of completely ignoring me! But—unlike you,’ she then added tightly, ‘I would have accepted your desire for privacy, hurt though I may have been by it. The word is dignity, Raschid,’ she clipped at him coldly. ‘Something you should recognise since you have so much of it. Well, today I was protecting my dignity, not yours. And if you don’t like that, then it’s just too damned bad!’

It was fortunate, perhaps, that the music finished then. Evie flashed his ice-cold mask of a face one final searing glance then walked angrily away. But the sense of tight hurt she experienced as she did so was there because he let her do it.

After that, she went back to avoiding him—as she did anyone who might think it was their right to castigate her for one sin or another! Instead she stuck to those people who couldn’t care less what she did in her private life. She laughed, she danced, she chatted and teased and generally sparkled like a golden icon to beauty and social charm.

While inside she had never felt so lonely in her entire life.

The time came at last for the bride and groom to depart and everyone gathered in the castle’s great hallway to see them off. They were staying at one of the hotels close to Heathrow tonight before flying off to Barbados first thing in the morning.

Christina appeared at the top of the grand staircase dressed in a blush-pink Dior suit. In her hands she carried her wedding bouquet, and behind her Julian was grinning as he listened to the calls for his bride to throw the lucky flowers.

Evie stood and teased and called with the rest of them, but it was only the sudden flash from Christina’s eyes that warned her what was coming—as the bouquet came spiralling through the air and landed against her chest.

If silence could be measured in decibels, then the sudden silence that encompassed the great hall at Beverley Castle hit whole new levels. Everyone just stood there and gaped at Evie. No teasing, no jokes. They simply did not know what to say as Evie’s cheeks mottled with embarrassed colour.

From the back of the hall, Raschid witnessed it all in a kind of frozen stillness, the appalling truth that every single person here knew there was no hope of Evie marrying while she stayed with him hitting him like a punch to the solar plexus.

‘Well…’ Evie’s voice came out light and rueful. ‘We can all live and dream, I suppose.’

And dutifully the crowd laughed, but nervously, tensely.

For Evie it was the worst moment of her life. She kept smiling, though. With a teeth-gritting will-power she kept that darned smile in place. She hugged and kissed her brother, received a penitent Christina into her arms.

‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ the bride whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Shh,’ she cut in, and kissed Christina’s cheek. ‘Just go away, have a lovely honeymoon!’

By the time the car went off down the driveway, flying streamers and rattling tin cans, Evie had had enough. Seeing her mother making a beeline for her had her turning quickly in the opposite direction and slipping away into the soft summer darkness.

The lake beckoned, its moon-kissed silk-smooth surface acting like a soothing lure to her storm-tossed senses. Walking around the main marquee, she stepped up to the lake rim, and watched bleakly as the view in front of her went out of focus through eyes that slowly filled with tears.

Well, she told herself. She’d done it. She had got through today—though not quite as she’d wanted to get through it. She’d upset many and pleased none. But at least now she could concentrate on pleasing Evie.

And Evie wanted to—

Her heart began to throb. The deep dark well of frustration and misery she had been keeping such a firm hold on all day suddenly burst through its constraints. And with a fierceness that said it all she stretched out the hand still clutching Christina’s bouquet and with as much power as she could muster tossed the flowers as far as she could into the lake.

The bouquet landed with a soft splash, bobbed a couple of times, then lay there floating in a pool of moon-kissed ripples.

‘Feel better for that?’ a dark voice said behind her.

‘Not so you would notice,’ she said, not bothering to turn because she knew who it was. ‘Go away, Raschid,’ she then added flatly. ‘I don’t need another round in the verbal boxing ring with you, right now.’

‘No,’ he murmured gravely. ‘I can see that…’

She heard him move, her body tensed up as muscles tightened in screaming protest. The tears came back, so strong this time that they set her throat working and her soft mouth quivering. She closed her eyes over the tears, clamped her quivering mouth shut and clenched her hands into two tight fists at her sides while she waited for him to take the hint and leave, or ignore the hint with his usual arrogance.

The silence hummed, the tension along with it. After what felt like an age and no more sound came from behind her, Evie began slowly to relax the tension out of her body. He had shown sensitivity for once and left her alone, she assumed.

And on a long, long heavy sigh that seemed to come from the very lowest regions of her she kicked the strappy high-heeled shoes from her aching feet, released her hair from its uncomfortable knot, then lowered herself on to the bone-dry short-shorn grass to sit staring out at the glassy still lake.

In a little while, she told herself, she would go back into the castle and creep away to her room. Then tomorrow—

Another sigh. Tomorrow was just another day fraught with a different set of pressing problems. Tomorrow would be deal with mother time, deal with Raschid time.

Somewhere in the darkness an owl began hooting, sounding bleak and lonely as if it was calling hopelessly for a mate. A fish rose to the water’s surface, its tail making a lazy flapping noise as it rolled over, setting the bouquet of flowers bobbing again in the ripples it left behind.

She really shouldn’t have done that, Evie mused guiltily. Christina would be so hurt to know that her lovely bouquet had finished up in such a watery grave.

She shivered, and her knees came up, her arms wrapping round them, her loosened hair sliding in a thick silk curtain around her slender shoulders as she lowered her weary brow to rest it against her knees.

The feel of a jacket dropping across her hunched shoulders should have surprised her, but oddly it didn’t. She would have been more surprised if Raschid had simply walked away and left her to it.

‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said.

‘No,’ was all he replied, and dropped down on the grass beside her.

Turning her face on her knees so she could look at him through the curtain of her hair, Evie found herself gazing at a sombre profile that was, even so, the most beautifully structured profile she had ever seen. Like her, his knees were up, but parted so his wrists could rest upon them. His dress shirt stood out bright in the moonlight; his skin was like polished bronze.

Her heart swelled in her breast, swelled and swelled until she thought it was going to burst under the power of her wretched love for him.

He turned to look at her, sombre-eyed and flat-mouthed. ‘Are you ready to tell me what is wrong, now?’

No, she thought miserably. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. And she turned her face to stare moodily at the lake so she didn’t have to look at him.

‘Your mother thinks you are ill,’ he added when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to say anything.

I am, she thought. Soul-sick and heartbroken. ‘I didn’t know you had that kind of conversation with my mother,’ she remarked.

‘I don’t, usually,’ he dryly admitted. ‘But this one took the form of a—confrontation.’

Ah, Evie was very intimate with those kinds of conversations with her mother. ‘I’m not ill,’ she assured him.

‘Then what the hell is the matter with you?’ he rasped, suddenly losing all patience. ‘Because it has been patently obvious to me for weeks now that something certainly is!’

‘I thought I told you I didn’t want another verbal battle tonight!’ she snapped right back.

‘Then don’t turn this into one!’ He turned the tables on her as quick as a flash. ‘You are my life, my heart, my soul, Evie,’ he added gruffly. ‘I would do anything for you; I thought you knew that.’

‘Except marry me,’ she said, then grimaced at herself for stupidly blurting it out like that.

His answering sigh was heavy. It wasn’t words but—good grief—it spoke volumes in other ways. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

‘No,’ she denied, and went to get up, but his hand came out to press her down again.

‘Talk,’ he commanded. ‘Or reconcile yourself to the uncomfortable prospect of spending the night right here.’

He meant it, too; that tough macho gleam was in his eyes again. On a sigh she subsided. He let go of her, recognising the sigh as a gesture of defeat. Evie turned her gaze back to the moonlit lake once again, felt a tightness pull around her chest, and said flatly, ‘I’m pregnant.’