by Lynne Graham
Bethany hovered in a daze of bewilderment until Zulema drew her behind the screen. Very seriously the little maid covered her eyes. ‘I not look, sitt...only help.’
Bethany heard herself laugh, her fierce tension suddenly evaporating, and why not? Common sense insisted that Razul could not possibly be intending to really go through with his threat to make her marry him. It would be just too ridiculous. He had spoken in anger. Later she would gently call his bluff and reason with him, hopefully without offending that unquenchable pride which was so much a part of him. It had been a very melodramatic threat...but very Arabic and very Razul, she reflected helplessly.
She would accept his hospitality for another few days and see how she felt then. Really there was absolutely no reason for her to go rushing off home like a Victorian virgin threatened with ravishment! That would be a repeat of the same cowardice that she had exhibited in England. There was no good reason why, having come this far, she should not allow herself the luxury of getting to know Razul a little better. What would that cost her? And, in the meantime, she could even begin her research...
She slid into the warm, scented water, wryly accepting Zulema’s assistance and bending her head obediently as her hair was carefully wetted and then shampooed. Cocooned in towels, she emerged again and sat down to have her hair combed out and her nails painted. Why all the fuss? she wondered.
‘You look tired, sitt. Lie down and rest for a while,’ Zulema urged. ‘The party will last for hours.’
Party? So somebody was throwing a party. Her curiosity satisfied, Bethany smiled and lay down. She could hear a helicopter.
When she opened her eyes again, she could still hear a helicopter, or was it helicopters? She was surprised to realise that she had slept for several hours but then she hadn’t had much sleep the night before.
Zulema extended a shimmering, heavily embroidered golden caftan. It was really quite exquisite. The silk flowed across her body with a wonderfully sensuous feel. A vast square of gold chiffon was produced and draped around her head. ‘You look very beautiful, sitt,’ Zulema sighed admiringly. ‘You come now?’
Bethany followed her out into the hot, still air. She only had to walk a few yards before she was in another tent the size of a marquee. It was crammed to capacity with richly dressed but mainly middle-aged and elderly women. One by one they came up to greet her and kiss her on each cheek. They were terribly friendly but nobody spoke English and Bethany was quite frustrated, for she would have loved to chat and ask questions. An enormous banquet was spread out on a white cloth in the centre.
Bethany wasn’t very hungry but she picked at a few dishes out of politeness. The meal went on for ages but she wasn’t bored. There was so much going on around her that she was fascinated, and when the food was cleared away the dancing started to the strains of Arabic music issuing from a huge set of speakers. It got very noisy, but everyone was having a good time and there was a lot of laughter, particularly when a very large woman took the floor to undulate and shake like a belly dancer.
‘Please follow me, sitt.’ Zulema appeared beside her out of the crush. ‘It is time.’
As Bethany stood up the music went off. Time for what? she almost asked, but presumably Zulema meant that the party was now over, and she still didn’t know what the celebrations had been about. There were loud cries of ‘Lullah...lullah!’ She assumed these to be some form of goodbye angled at her, and she waved and smiled, which seemed to go down very well, before accompanying Zulema through the hangings at the far end which divided off a section of the tent.
Razul was standing there surrounded by older men. He looked so heartbreakingly handsome in a white linen robe with a dark blue, gold-edged overlay that her mouth went dry and her heart leapt like a dizzy teenager’s inside her chest as she crossed the floor to him. A bearded old man was speaking and receiving the utmost solemn attention from his assembled audience.
When that same old man abruptly moved forward, reached for her hand and looped a scarf round her wrist, Bethany was astonished. He looped the other end of it round Razul’s wrist and began speaking. Bethany froze. What the heck was going on? As her wrist was released again comprehension splintered through her in a violent wave and plunged her deep into shock. The old man had to be an imam or priest. Unless she was very much mistaken ...but she had to be mistaken...
Her stricken gaze flew to Razul. A faint frown-line divided his ebony brows as he noted her pallor. Her eyes took a dazed flight over the grave-looking men on either side of them. Her teeth sank into the soft underside of her lower lip and the tang of her own blood tinged her tongue. A tide of dizziness ran over her, leaving her light-headed. Dear heaven, unless her intelligence was playing tricks on her, she had just taken part in a marriage ceremony in the role of...?
Bride? She, Bethany Morgan, who was as anti-marriage as a woman could possibly be, had just played an unwitting part in a ceremony to which she had of fered no consent? Fathoms-deep in shock, she trembled. It couldn’t be legal—it couldn’t possibly be legal when she hadn’t understood a word of it or even what was happening to her! The other men were filing out.
‘What is the matter with you?’ Razul murmured in a driven undertone.
Her hands clenched into fists. ‘You ought to be locked up...’ she told him in a quavering voice that sounded alien to her ears. ‘I did not consent to marrying you.’
A dark rise of blood accentuated his hard cheek-bones. Stunned golden eyes flared at her. ‘But I told you we would be married if you remained—’
‘And did I say I agreed?’ Bethany gasped, still seriously weakened by shock.
‘You stayed...I took agreement to be given!’ Razul returned in an equally incredulous undertone. ‘Finally, I believed, you had come to your senses!’
‘There’s a big difference between staying and getting married.’ Bethany pressed damp palms to her cold face. ‘Any sort of married,’ she mumbled in faint addition, and then her anger stirred and she shot him an accusing look of pure outrage. ‘You did it deliberately, didn’t you? You knew I didn’t believe that you were serious and you took advantage of my ignorance to—’
Without warning Razul closed hard fingers over her shoulder and forced her closer. ‘Stop it,’ he bit out. ‘This is not the place for such a dispute...indeed, where could be the place for such a dispute? You are now my wife.’
His wife. Her stomach lurched. His wife...?
‘Do not shame me before my family,’ Razul warned, fiercely scanning her shocked eyes. ‘For that I will never forgive and nor will they. These are serious proceedings ...where is your respect?’
Every last scrap of colour drained from her cheeks. ‘But I didn’t know...I didn’t realise—’
‘Did I not tell you?’
‘Well...yes, but I didn’t believe,’ she began shakily.
‘Believe now,’ Razul gritted.
‘I don’t want to,’ she muttered in a very small voice, her lower limbs wobbling because the shock didn’t recede, it only struck deeper as the minutes passed.
‘Then why did you stay? Why did you not leave for the airport?’ Razul demanded with a scorching undercurrent of embittered anger.
‘I didn’t think you were serious about marrying me...not today, here, now,’ she whispered dazedly. ‘And not in a ceremony like that.’
Had Razul really believed that by staying she was agreeing to marry him? Or had he relied on her lack of Arabic to carry her through to a point where only throwing the most appalling scene would have stopped the ceremony dead? By the time she had realised what was happening it had been too late. And why had she been so blind? When he had talked about marrying her she had not expected an actual wedding. A party and witnesses and the solemnity of an imam had not figured in her dim grasp of what such a temporary contract might entail.
‘What was wrong with it?’
‘Nothing...but I thought...you see, I thought,’ she framed unevenly, ‘that you were intending some sort of contra
ct—’
‘Contract?’ he cut in with a frown.
‘Fatima said—’
‘What did Fatima say?’ Razul prompted with sudden menace.
‘Well, that you weren’t planning on a real marriage, that it would be only a temporary arrangement.’ Her voice began to join her lower limbs in the wobble effect as a flash of distinct incredulity darkened Razul’s eloquent gaze. ‘And, you see, I did once come across a written reference to this...er...this practice called mut’a.’
‘Mut’a...’ Razul whispered, and then he said it again, his flagrant distaste making Bethany wince. ‘In Datar we do not recognise such arrangements for they are open to great abuse. Our rules of marriage are fixed by law and as legally binding as, they are in your own country.’
‘Oh,’ Bethany mumbled.
‘Had she told you I was a serial killer, would you have swallowed that as well?’ When she failed to meet his fulminating gaze, Razul vented a derisive laugh. ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, but we are really and truly married, and you have yet to give me a satisfactory response to the question of why you allowed that helicopter to go without you.’
Bethany worried tautly at her lower lip in the electric silence. Her mind was a complete blank.
‘Why?’ Razul repeated with awesomely unwelcome persistence.
‘I plead a fit of temporary insanity!’
His strong features shuttered. Then as the murmur of voices sounded outside the tent his mouth twisted. ‘You will feel even more married by the end of this day,’ he forecast shortly as he drew back from her.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Bethany asked shakily. ‘I—’ And her angry voice was choked off as an older man in a clerical collar came hurrying in, spluttering apologies for his tardiness and closely followed by an elegantly dressed woman and man.
‘May I introduce you to the Reverend Mr Wilks, who is chaplain at the Royal City Hospital?’ Razul drawled without any expression at all. ‘My sister Laila and her husband, Ahmed, who have kindly agreed to act as our witnesses.’
Rooted to the spot, Bethany found herself shaking the minister’s hand, receiving a warm embrace from the anxiously smiling older woman and another handshake from her husband.
‘Blame Ahmed and me for the late arrival,’ Laila told Bethany ruefully. ‘We should have been here this morning but, as often happens in the medical world, the best laid plans can be wrecked by an emergency—’
‘Your presence was required in the operating theatre and naturally we understand that the call to save human life takes precedence,’ Razul interposed.
‘But it has messed up things.’ The attractive brunette sighed unhappily. ‘I know you wanted the ceremonies the other way round and I was supposed to be here to make Bethany feel at home and introduce her to all the relatives, and instead she was left marooned at her own wedding reception... I’m afraid Zulema would not have been an acceptable interpreter in the eyes of the older generation. They are all roaring snobs—’
Ahmed moved forward, pressing a soothing hand to his wife’s back. ‘Do you not think that we should allow Mr Wilks the floor?’ he murmured, with a twinkle in his brown eyes. ‘You will learn, Bethany, that my wife rarely pauses for breath when she starts talking.’
Bethany summoned up a strained smile. She absolutely could not bring herself to look at Razul. He had intended the English ceremony to take place first, and if it had happened that way she would have known what was going on in time to stop it...but would she have? Would she have had the courage to call a halt in the presence of his family, to shatter the expectations of so many important people by refusing to marry Razul?
Dear heaven, it would have caused a riot, not to mention plunging him into a humiliation of immense proportions... No, she didn’t believe that she would have had the nerve to do that to him when her conscience grudgingly suggested that she had played some part in the misunderstanding which had led to this ghastly conclusion.
‘Shall we proceed?’ the Reverend urged cheerfully.
When Razul had said that she would feel really and truly married by the end of the day, Bethany reflected in furious frustration, he had not been exaggerating. The service was the traditional one. She made her responses unsteadily, and when Razul grasped her hand to slide a wedding ring onto her finger she was as stiff as a clockwork doll. When she had to sign the register, her signature wavered. Misunderstanding...? Hell roast him, she thought in sudden, gathering rage; I’ll kill him when I get him on his own!
‘I am going to adore having another liberated woman in the family!’ Laila laughed as the minister fell into conversation with Razul. ‘I had to get married to gain my freedom, and our father is still recovering from the shock of seeing what he saw as my eccentric hobby become a career.’
‘You’re a surgeon?’ Bethany questioned, struggling for some form of normal behaviour and finding it very hard.
‘An obstetrician. Not much choice really.’ Laila pulled a comical face. ‘The Datari male is a macho creature but he would run a mile if he was faced with a female medic! But when he discovers there is a female doctor for his wife’s most intimate needs he is delighted I exist and the women are too. I am very happy that you have become a part of our family, Bethany,’ she said, with an embarrassingly sincere smile. ‘And I am sorry that you have had to wait so long to—’
‘It is time for us to leave,’ Razul interrupted abruptly.
‘Why are you in crown prince mode?’ Laila asked, with a sudden frown.
‘Laila—’ Ahmed was flushed, clearly already well aware of the lack of bridal joy in the atmosphere.
Razul’s sister subjected Bethany to an uncertain, questioning glance, her bewilderment and concern unconcealed. Bethany went scarlet with discomfiture.
‘We will see you very soon. I hope you will be our first visitors,’ Razul drawled very quietly.
They got one foot beyond the tent before Bethany heard a muffled surge of Arabic break from Razul’s older sister. ‘What is she saying?’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Forgive me if I choose not to translate.’ His hard-boned features a mask of grim restraint, Razul headed for the waiting helicopter, leaving Bethany to follow in his imperious wake. Behind them the music broke out as the wedding celebrations started up again.
‘Razul—?’
Screaming tension in every line of his lean length, he paused until she drew breathlessly level with him. ‘You want to know what happens now? That is very simple,’ he stated in a tone from which every drop of emotion had been ruthlessly erased. ‘At the end of the summer I divorce you. You go home. I take another wife. I will put this stupid, witless mistake behind me.’
‘Take another wife’...? Bethany stared fixedly at the space where Razul had been. He was already swinging up into the seat beside the pilot. At a much slower pace she clambered into a rear seat where Zulema soon joined her. The rotor blades started up with a deafening whine, mercifully forbidding any further conversation.
CHAPTER SIX
BETHANY was in severe shock. One minute Razul told her that they were really and truly married, the next he dismissed their marriage as easily as if it meant nothing. In other words, it did mean nothing to him. It might just as well have been a temporary contract! Marriage had merely been the convenient device by which he’d intended to get her into his bed on his terms. Evidently she was to have been Razul’s final fling before he settled down to the serious business of marrying someone suitable and acceptable, like Fatima, who came with gilt-edged fatherly approval. Musical wives like musical chairs.
Presumably they were now heading back to the palace... Well, he needn’t think that he was going to lock her up there to moulder away until the end of the summer! Nor need he fondly imagine that when he descended from the Olympian heights of his outraged pride she figured on featuring on the entertainment list for his final fling. To put it equally bluntly, he had no hope!
The trip in the helicopter was short. Bethany alighted,
her beautiful face set like pale marble. Only then did she realise that she was not where she had expected to be. She was surrounded by beautiful terraced gardens which were quite unfamiliar. Tamarisk and palm trees stood tall above lush slices of green grass and rioting tropical flowers. ‘This isn’t the palace...’
She turned but saw that Razul was still standing in the shadow of the helicopter. He was talking into a mobile phone, his intonation edged, his facial muscles clenched hard beneath his tawny skin. Whoever he was talking to, he did not appear to be enjoying the conversation.
Zulema answered her, ‘The King’s palace is only a short distance away, my lady. This palace is now the home of Prince Razul. It was where his mother lived. She died soon after the Prince was born. The King closed up this place, took his baby son and moved back to the old palace. It was very sad, for it is very beautiful, no?’
‘No...I mean yes.’ So Razul had grown up without a mother. Bethany crushed a tender green shoot of compassion in its tracks. What was that to her? she asked herself angrily, walking up a shallow flight of steps and beneath a carved stone entrance into a breathtakingly beautiful, marble-floored courtyard ringed by an arched cloister.
Dazzling panels of glazed tiles covered every wall. Water played softly in the silence, jetting down from a fountain set in the centre of a large pool. Beyond, yet another archway beckoned them into a magnificent hall the impressive width and length of a stretch of motorway.
Once in the hall, Bethany strolled through the nearest door into a large room, considerably surprised to find herself surrounded on all sides by antique furniture which would not have looked out of place in an English stately home.
‘The Prince tells me that this is a drawing room,’ Zulema informed her. ‘We have lots of drawing rooms here.’