An Arabian Courtship

by Lynne Graham

  Was that what she had been doing? ‘You don’t want a relationship, you want a bed partner,’ she condemned.

  Raschid was inexorably drawing her down on top of him. ‘If that is true, I have yet to find one. So far I have taken a human sacrifice to bed and awakened to sullen silences—not to mention the disappearing wife act.’

  At this Polly’s lips opened on a soundless oh of outraged disbelief.

  He smiled. ‘But I live in hope of the sacrifice becoming a partner.’

  ‘I want to get up!’ she repeated unsteadily.

  His response was husky and soft. ‘Lie to yourself, aziz, but never lie to me.’

  Her head twisted away. ‘I meant what I said.’

  Tumbling her over, he smoothly reversed their positions. Gazing down at her, he indolently laced a brown hand into the wild disarray of her bright hair. ‘Your obstinacy may rival mine, but not, I think, your endurance. Or your powers of self-denial. Exactly where would you be if I didn’t throw you on beds, aziz?’ he demanded with lethal satire.

  Pinpointing her deep sense of floundering inadequacy, he held it ruthlessly up to the light. He hurt her as he had never hurt her before. Her susceptibility to his smallest caress was indefensible. ‘You…bastard!’ she muttered.

  A formidable cool sharded his intent stare. ‘Even if I should find adoration distinctly boring, how I dislike to hear such language upon my wife’s lips.’

  You liar! Did Berah bore you? She was tortured by the memory of the male who had talked of his first wife in a tone the reverential reserved for an early Christian martyr, the male who had sensitively removed to new surroundings to evade distressing reminders. Berah had touched him deeply. Berah had awarded him all that an Arab prince was brought up to expect from a wife—in public and in private. Her love had been acceptable. Her love had been returned. Jealousy laced with pain wrenched at Polly. ‘You won’t be receiving adoration from me!’

  Without hesitation Raschid released her, casting her bewildered face a hard, glittering smile. ‘However, there are other things that I will have,’ he declared. ‘There you are, Polly. Just this once I give you what you say you want—your own company and an empty bed. But why is it, I wonder, that you should lack the glow of a woman receiving her heart’s desire?’

  Her pallor was pronounced, her pulse suddenly a thunderbeat. Her heart’s desire…Oh, lord, help me! she thought. In that bemused instant of savage rejection and jealousy, she saw. She saw what she had blindly fought for and, conversely, blindly fought against. It was not solely that lean, sunbronzed body that roused the indecently insatiable hunger of her senses. No, it was so much more. That quick and clever brain, that potent aura of leashed animal vitality, that quicksilver humour which could flash out disconcertingly from behind the gravity, that…She could have gone on endlessly, a new convert glorifying her idol. She loved him, head over heels over sanity. Logic had nothing to do with it. Love, she appreciated dazedly, wasn’t something you could control or decide not to feel.

  ‘Ask me, admit that you want me, and I’ll come back to bed.’

  Wrenched from stricken self-analysis, she looked at Raschid weakly. Oh, why does it have to be you? she thought. A lithe, unashamed pagan, already provocatively aware of his physical power over her. She recognised that change in him—that overt, predatory awareness of his sexual magnetism. She could have sworn that it hadn’t always been there. But it must have been. Wasn’t blindness one of her worst failings? And wasn’t perception his strongest talent? How long would it be before he guessed that this wasn’t the full extent of his power?

  In the silence he sent her a wolfish smile, amused now, outrageously confident. With it went a look of outright possession. ‘It may not be today, it may not even be tomorrow, but you will make that admission eventually,’ he told her.

  ‘I hope you have the patience of Job!’ The snappy retort came to her with the saving ease of habit, but he left her sunk in depression.

  Even desire didn’t threaten his cool self-dominion. He was as content to sate his high sex drive with Polly as he would have been with a mistress. He was just as safe from emotional involvement. All this fine-sounding talk about wanting to establish a relationship was a subtle counter-manoeuvre aimed at driving her metaphorically to her knees and moulding her into the required image of wifely behaviour.

  It wasn’t worth any more than that wretched swimming pool being created for the past ten days at phenomenal expense and incredible noise out in their courtyard. Had she asked for a swimming pool? Even hinted? It was pretty hard to pretend that you didn’t notice a swimming pool being built, but Polly had managed the feat. And now in the midst of a running battle she discovered that she didn’t want to fight Raschid any longer, but she shrank from the danger of him realising how she really felt about him.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night the call came, shrilling through the veil of her slumber, causing her to mutter crossly, but late phone calls for Raschid were not unusual.

  ‘I’ll take this on another line.’ Before she drifted back to sleep, she wondered that he should have spoken in English.

  It was still dark when he shook her awake. He was fully dressed, his features tautly cast. He gripped her hand firmly, his eyes were steady. ‘You must be brave, aziz,’ he urged. ‘I have bad news to relate. Your father has had a heart attack—a serious one. He is in intensive care.’

  ‘No!’ Her mind rejected it entirely. Her energetic, jovial father, lying on the boundary between life and death? Impossible! But beneath Raschid’s level gaze, she lost that fragile, futile confidence. ‘Dear heaven!’ she whispered.

  ‘As soon as you are dressed we will be on our way to England. Zenobia has already packed for you, the arrangements are made. I didn’t wish to waken you before it was necessary.’

  Polly gasped, ‘That call…it was for me! Mother…’

  Raschid sighed. ‘It was not from Anthea. It was Mrs King, the housekeeper, who contacted me. Your sister Maggie also spoke briefly to me. I understand that your mother is so distraught that she is in bed under sedation. Your family are greatly in need of you.’

  Her mother had collapsed—of course she had. She had always leant heavily on her husband. With his life in the balance, she would go to pieces, regardless of how that reaction would affect her family. ‘The children must be terribly frightened,’ she muttered worriedly.

  ‘Quite so, and though it is very hard for you, that is why you must be strong—for all their sakes. Your father is alive,’ he emphasised. ‘Hold to that. He has tremendous zest for life, and that must be in his favour.’

  They landed to a grey, wet London evening. The waiting car ferried them the hundred miles to the local hospital, where the consultant was carefully non-committal. There was, they learnt, a danger of a second attack. Polly was allowed to glance in at her sleeping father. His ruddy face was drained and caved in. She rammed back an undisciplined sob of fear as Raschid’s arm moved bracingly round her. He had been so marvellous, immensely calm and reassuring and sensible. It was second nature for him to advocate the setting aside of personal feelings to consider others more vulnerable.

  Maggie rushed down the steps of the house and flung herself into Polly’s arms. The household was in chaos. ‘Why couldn’t Uncle Peter and Aunt Janice have been here?’ she sobbed. ‘Mummy thinks Daddy’s going to die!’

  Polly also regretted the absence of Chris’s parents. Had they been in England they would have come to Anthea’s assistance, but they were in South America where Peter Jeffries, a high-flying executive for an international consortium, was engaged on important business. They weren’t free to fly home to support Anthea through her ordeal, and Polly sighed, fearing that her mother would find her presence of little comfort.

  The following days were ever after a blur for Polly. A flood of well-wishers, denied access at the hospital, called at the house. Anthea exhausted Polly with her constant demands for reassurance and her pettish refusals to accept i
t. Her visits to her husband’s bedside always resulted in an emotional breakdown when she came home again. Unable as she was to accept a female in a supportive role, the task of soothing Anthea fell upon Raschid. His phenomenal patience with her mother’s hysteria shamed Polly. In her heart she knew that he deemed Anthea a pretty, self-orientated and utterly useless woman, who was failing her children at a time when they most needed her.

  On the same day that the consultant cautiously pronounced that Ernest appeared to be out of immediate danger, Raschid was recalled to the Middle East by an attack on a Dhareini tanker in the Gulf. Polly was in the nursery, where she had been spending most of her time trying to keep up her siblings’ spirits. She was reading a story to Elaine with Timothy sleepily curled up on her lap when Raschid came to break the news to her.

  In the dull glow of the gas fire his constraint was noticeable. Putting Timothy into Maggie’s reluctant arms, she followed Raschid from the room. ‘Many casualties?’ she asked.

  ‘The number is not yet certain.’ His angular cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. ‘They have been airlifted to the nearest hospital. I am afraid that this means that I must leave.’

  ‘Of course. Those poor men…their families.’ Polly’s voice broke, and shamefully it was not out of shocked compassion alone. For a selfish moment, she could not bear the knowledge that they were to be separated.

  Timothy’s cantankerous wails flooded the landing as Maggie flounced out. ‘He just won’t settle for me. He wants you.’ Uncomfortably she glanced between Polly and Raschid, for they were several feet apart.

  Her brother fastened chubby arms victoriously round her neck and subsided. Over the top of his curly head, Polly took in Raschid’s absorption in a section of unadorned wall and the rigidity of his profile. He really was upset. In fact, she had never seen him so upset about anything that he wouldn’t even look at her.

  ‘It may also be some time before I can return,’ he related woodenly. ‘Excuse me, I must take my leave of your mother.’

  Her heart was heavy as lead. Mrs King was packing for him, and she insisted on helping. When she came down to the hall Raschid was leaving the drawing-room. She could not help but feel neglected at the inordinately long time he had devoted to her mother while she had wasted time upstairs, believing he would return there.

  ‘I must go now.’

  Uncertainly she drew level with him. He inclined his dark head, a silvered coolness in the scrutiny he sent fleetingly over her. ‘I will keep in touch,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ll miss you.’ It was dragged from her.

  He elevated an ebony brow. ‘I think you have much to keep you occupied here.’

  And that was that. He strode out of the door, down the steps and into the car. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t look back once. He took his leave of her with no more emotion than he would have used with a servant. He left her behind, and she was white-faced and sick inside. He made her painfully conscious that, for all his patience and kindness, he had not even kissed her since they left Dharein. Generally she had been too tired and too busy to refine too much on that restraint. But once or twice, yearning for that comfort that only intimacy with a loved one could bring, Polly had been very tempted to drop hints—only to be forestalled by the embarrassing fact that she didn’t know how to be subtle or even clumsy in that direction when Mrs King had put them in a room with single beds.

  She pressed a shaking hand to her lips. They had had so little time here alone together; she had spent long hours with the children to keep them from under her mother’s feet. Raschid hadn’t come looking for her, though. In retrospect it seemed to her now as if he had been steadily withdrawing from her ever since they arrived.

  * * *

  ‘Really, darling,’ snapped Anthea when her daughter reached for a second scone, ‘I’m not surprised you’re putting on weight!’

  Encountering Janice Jeffries’ sympathetic eyes, Polly flushed. ‘Actually I’ve lost some,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense! The buttons on that blouse are pulling.’ An astonishingly coy look banished her mother’s irritation. ‘That was always my first sign. Don’t be prissy, Polly. Are you pregnant? You can tell me—I am your mother.’

  Freezing, Polly studied her plate. ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Then I suggest you cut out the sweet things.’ In disappointment Anthea became sharp.

  Janice, whose weekend stay was due to conclude that afternoon, tactfully turned the conversation. ‘I understand that you’re leaving on Thursday, Polly.’

  Anthea sniffed, ‘Everybody’s abandoning me!’

  Chris’s mother laughed. ‘Ernest will be home on Tuesday and Peter and I will be down the weekend after next. Polly must be missing her husband. She’ll soon have been here a month.’

  Anthea frowned. ‘Good lord, is it really that long?’

  Leaving the two older women chatting, Polly went for a walk outside. In two weeks it would be Christmas. It was very cold. She dug her hands into the pockets of the old coat she had taken from the gunroom. The emergency here was over; it was her own personal crisis that raged on. Raschid hadn’t phoned in five days. Contact had slowly wound down in frequency as her father’s health steadily improved. Raschid had not once prompted her return. She had finally made her own arrangements. She would just darned well turn up—Hey, remember me, I’m your wife!

  Her strained face convulsed and suddenly she was crying. It was happening just as he had said it would happen. Her attraction had faded. Raschid might not be ready to think of divorce yet, but he was in no hurry to reclaim her. When she heard steps behind her, she stiffened in dismay.

  ‘I thought I’d give our mothers an extension before I broke up the party,’ teased Chris as he drew level. He peered at Polly’s turned-away profile. ‘Here, what’s wrong?’

  In embarrassment she shook her head, praying that he would leave her alone again. On his couple of visits to Ladybright before his parents’ return from abroad, she had been uneasily conscious of his searching glances, his efforts to take their conversations into more personal channels. But some things weren’t for sharing. One of them was the conviction that Raschid was making the most out of a cast-iron excuse for their separation. Even his father could not question a daughter’s attendance on a sick parent.

  ‘It’s that damned odd marriage of yours, isn’t it?’ he persisted curtly.

  A choked sob escaped her. When she would have turned away, he prevented her by closing his arms round her. ‘Oh, Chris, don’t be nice,’ she begged. ‘It’ll only make me worse.’

  His hold tightened uncomfortably. ‘He can’t force you to go back to him!’

  ‘But I want to go back,’ Polly said in surprise.

  ‘You don’t need to pretend with me.’ As he stared into her lovely, tear-drenched eyes, his features tightened. ‘Polly, I…’

  ‘I’m not pretending.’ Her hand was braced against his shoulder, trying to press him back. Even as she dazedly read his intent expression, it was too late. He was kissing her. For a stunned second she was still before she jerked her head angrily back. ‘For goodness’ sake, Chris!’

  Abashed and awkward now, he let out a groan. ‘Hell, I’m sorry. I got a bit carried away.’

  In her high heels she could see over his shoulder. A hundred yards away beneath the trees lining the rear entrance to the estate, a dark male figure was stationary. In bemused horror Polly blinked. Raschid was already swinging away to retrace his steps. Her pulses had no time to go off on the Big Dipper ride he usually inspired.

  ‘I could kill you!’ she launched fiercely at Chris before she set off across the sodden lawn in pursuit. When she breathlessly reached the driveway, the silver limousine was still parked. Raschid was lodged by the open rear door, darkly magnificent in a navy suit and inhumanly still.

  ‘You will have your divorce,’ he pronounced flatly.

  The cold menace of his chilling stare killed the words of explanation bubbling on her lips, and when she moved f
orward, he slashed a hand through the air, forcing her to a halt. ‘Do not return to Dharein. I will neither see you nor speak with you again.’

  The blazing, earth-shattering row Polly had anticipated was nowhere in sight. Tried and sentenced without a hearing and dismissed with a snap of his aristocratic fingers, she was in shock. Before she could recover, Raschid slid into the car and slammed the door. Her eyes were maintaining a glazed contact with the receding car when Chris reached for her. Raschid hadn’t even been angry enough to lose his head, she was thinking numbly. Possibly he had seen what he wanted to see—the excuse to end their marriage.

  ‘Polly, I don’t know what to say,’ Chris muttered tightly. ‘Ever since your wedding, when I realised you weren’t a kid any more, I guess I’ve had this feeling that I missed the boat, but I didn’t mean to come on to you. Holding you like that…well, you’re very tempting and I just lost my head for a moment.’

  Barely listening, she mumbled, ‘It’s not contagious.’

  Anger flared briefly within her. Had Raschid no faith in her at all? No trust? No respect? If only she had slapped Chris like some outraged Victorian maiden! Raschid had been too far away to see her annoyance, hear her angry words.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Chris pressed. ‘I feel terrible. This is my fault.’

  Polly shrugged jerkily. ‘It’s just a stupid storm in a teacup. Forget about it,’ she advised tautly. ‘I’m flying back in a few days anyway.’

  He sighed. ‘If there’s anything I can…’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How do you intend to cover his departure?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d entered the house and the car was parked out of view. He could see us from here,’ she pointed out, tight-mouthed. Raschid had spied on them, he hadn’t advertised his presence, and what had he been doing arriving by the back entrance? A kiss, and she was in the divorce court. How dared he condemn her out of hand!