by Penny Jordan
'Touch me. Kiss me, Claire,' he muttered thickly, punctuating his words with hard kisses, taking her hand and placing it against his body, kissing her fiercely as a shudder of pleasure rippled through him.
Fear left her completely, the soft kisses she pressed against Raoul's body eliciting a response that surprised and awed her.
'You don't even begin to know what you're doing to me, do you?' he demanded rawly, holding her slightly away from him. 'This began as an exercise in showing you that making love doesn't go hand in hand with pain, but when you touch me my body forgets you're only one step away from being a virgin and knows only that the softness of your hands and lips against it is a sweet form of torture.'
He kissed her again, more deeply this time until she felt as though she were sinking into soft warm darkness, the coaxing stroke of his fingers against the most vulnerable, intimate part of her body making her tremble and ache, her hands making feverish forays against his skin until he groaned and pressed himself against her, his flesh hot and damp, his skin tasting salt beneath her tongue. But it was only when his caresses had elicited a rhythmic unfamiliar reaction from her body that he gave in to the urgent need she could feel in the hard thrust of his body against her, this time drawing her slowly against him, teasing her breasts with light tormenting kisses as his body moved fluidly against hers, slowly possessing it, urging her to touch and experience the pulsating life force of him, until her touch became surer and communicated to him the same rhythmic welcome as her body, his mouth closing hotly over first the hard peak of one breast and then the other as she moaned and moved urgently beneath him, encouraged by the soft words of praise he murmured in her ear and then by the hard demand of his mouth as he relinquished his control, abandoning it to the driving force of his body.
His fierce cry of pleasure was an unfamiliar and yet elemental sound exploding around them as she dissolved into a whirlpool of pleasure, unaware that she was calling his name until he kissed and soothed her, unaware of anything other than the experience they had just shared.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN Claire woke up she was aware of having slept well and deeply. She was alone but still in Raoul's bed, and she leapt out, hurrying into her own room, her cheeks darkly flushed as she saw Zenaide waiting patiently for her, playing with Saud.
'The Lord Raoul said to let you sleep,' she said easily, 'he also gave instructions that I was to prepare you for a journey. See…' she indicated a case on the bed. 'I have packed what he instructed.'
Claire's eyes widened in appalled comprehension. Raoul was sending her away! She had betrayed her love to him and now he was sending her away from him. But what about Saud? Perhaps if she pleaded with him he would allow her to stay. What had happened was not entirely her fault. Her skin flushed delicately as she remembered her abandoned response to him. But he was the one who had encouraged that response. He had wanted her as much as she had wanted him, but now he was obviously regretting that wanting and wished only to be rid of her.
Saud beamed up at her, holding up his arms, and she bent down automatically to pick him up, tears suddenly blinding her as she realised that this was possibly the last time she would hold the little boy. What would the Sheikh say when he learned what Raoul had done? How would Raoul himself explain away her absence? But then it was easy for Muslim men to divorce women they no longer wanted, wasn't it? Tired, muddled thoughts chased one another through her mind. Too proud to go to Raoul and beg him to allow her to stay, even for Saud's sake, she humbly allowed Zenaide to bully her gently into getting bathed and dressed, glad that she had sent the younger girl to look after Saud when she saw the beginnings of dark bruises staining her skin—the unmistakable signs of the passion which had overwhelmed Raoul at the height of their love making.
Shivering suddenly as she wrapped her body in the thick fleecy towel Zenaide had provided, Claire wondered a little about that love making. The first time she could understand. Raoul had been bitterly, furiously angry and she was not so naive that she couldn't appreciate how quickly desire could spring from the loins of anger, once at least. But afterwards, when his anger had had time to die down… He had still wanted her, Claire reminded herself bleakly, and he had decided to assuage that want, desire at that particular moment in time being more important to him than anything else. But later, with his hunger appeased, he would have thought differently. Besides, if she was honest with herself, he had never wanted her to partner him in this charade and she, fool that she was, had given him the perfect excuse to be rid of her. What would he tell his uncle? That she had fallen in love with him, and he found her love embarrassing?
'If the Sitt is ready, Ali is waiting to drive her to the airport.'
Heeding Zenaide's calm warning, Claire dressed quickly, donning the clothes Zenaide had put out for her—soft, pure silk underwear in warm cream and a silk dress in the same fabric with a matching unstructured jacket. The ensemble was a sophisticated one, a little too dressy to travel in, but she felt too weary and miserable to change it. When she walked back into her bedroom she saw on the bed the perky hat that went with the outfit. In the shop she had loved it, but now… However, Zenaide was placing it with the rest of her luggage. If nothing else, she was better off by an exclusive brand-new wardrobe, she reminded herself cynically, trying to ignore the inner voice adding that she was also coming close to having a broken heart. She loved Raoul. She couldn't deny it any longer. With one last kiss for Saud, her lips were trembling badly as she turned to embrace Zenaide. 'You will look after him, Zenaide, won't you?'
'The Lord Raoul has arranged everything,' Zenaide assured her. 'He will not be left alone for so much as a moment.'
In that, at least, she had faith in Raoul. He would never let anything injure Saud. But what of love? Would the little boy have that?
A servant placed her case in the car. Raoul was so eager to get rid of her that there hadn't been time to pack everything, but doubtless the rest of her wardrobe would be sent on after her. Just before she left she had slipped in to Raoul's room, trying not to look at the large bed as she placed the jewellery he had given her beside it.
All the way to the airport she was fighting for self-control, trying to force back the tears that, once started, wouldn't cease until she had cried herself dry. As before, there were no passport formalities to endure. Ali escorted her through the departure hall and out on to the tarmac where a streamlined jet plane waited, bearing the colours of the Omarah royal family. Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile, Claire mounted the stairs. Raoul was so anxious to get rid of her that he wouldn't even wait for the twice-weekly Concorde flight, and she shuddered to think how much it would cost to transport her back to London in this expensive rich man's toy.
A steward showed her to a seat. Unlike a commercial plane, this one was furnished more like a luxurious living-room with deep lush seats and a separate section which he told her contained a bedroom and bathroom.
They were airborne almost immediately, the blue waters of the gulf left behind below them as the plane levelled out. The steward had disappeared and yet now, when she had the privacy to cry, Claire found that her pain went deeper than mere tears. She wanted to cry but it just wasn't possible. Instead her body ached with feverish pain, her mind crawling round in circles as she tried to rationalise the agony of mind and emotions threatening to swamp her. She heard a door open, and anticipated the return of the steward, but instead it was Raoul who stood over her, bending down to speak to her, his face stern and somehow older as he said something that seemed to reach her through a dizzy haze. He turned away then and she closed her eyes thinking he must be a mirage conjured up by her yearning mind, but there was nothing illusionary about the brandy he forced her to swallow, or the anger she could see glittering bleakly in his eyes as he returned the glass to the hovering steward.
'Claire, are you all right now?'
'Perfectly,' she lied in a thin, little voice. 'It was just that seeing you gave me such a shock. But then I suppo
se I ought to have guessed. I suppose you're here to make sure that I actually leave… I'm tired, Raoul,' she lied again, turning her face towards the window. 'I think I'll try and get some sleep. Wake me up when we reach Heathrow,' she finished sardonically.
'We aren't going to Heathrow.'
The quiet words were like a douche of cold water. 'Not… Then…'
'We're flying to Paris, Claire,' Raoul told her in the same cold emotionless voice, glancing at his watch, the gold strap glinting in the light, as he added, 'where we shall be married at five o'clock this evening. Everything is arranged. I have your passport, and I have checked with your Embassy. Since I possess dual citizenship and have retained my Christian religion, there is no bar to our civil marriage being performed in Paris. I have arranged matters with as much discretion as possible. Officially, we are travelling to Paris because my father has been taken ill, and you, in your capacity as my wife, have persuaded me to be reconciled with him.' His mouth tightened a little. 'My father has, of course, had to be included in my plans. He expressed himself most willing to participate in my charade…'
'Married? You and I? But…'
'Surely you did not think there could be any other outcome after what passed between us? Even now you might be carrying my child. Do you honestly think I would allow him to be brought up as I was, not knowing the love and care of his father?'
'Your child? But…'
'But what?' he asked sardonically. 'But it is not possible? On the contrary, Claire, it is all too possible! And our marriage need not be without its compensations. Sexually, at least, we are compatible, even if you do love another…'
Claire's head was reeling. Did he honestly still think she loved someone else, after what had happened between them? Even if he did, she suspected it would not be long before he guessed the truth, and dredging up every last ounce of her courage, she said firmly, 'No, Raoul, I will not marry you.'
'And I say you will.' His eyes had darkened to jade and Claire felt a frisson of fear as she looked into their obsidian depths. 'And I mean what I say. You will marry me, even if I have to drug and bind you to get you to the altar. Is that the way you want it, Claire?'
He wasn't lying. He had every intention of carrying out his threat if she didn't agree, and all because of a slender chance that she might be carrying his child.
'It seems a rather drastic course of action to take simply because we've been lovers,' she pointed out drily. 'We don't even like one another…'
'And I am the one to blame for this state of affairs because I gave in to my physical need of you, is that what you are trying to say?' His face darkened, the skin melding itself to his hard bones. 'You, Claire, are you not equally responsible? Do you think for one moment that if you had told me that you were still a virgin I…'
'But you did,' Claire reminded him hotly, his angry words unleashing her own temper. 'Afterwards you…'
'I am a man, not a boy, Claire,' he cut in jeeringly. 'What did you expect me to do? Carry you back to your own bed when every part of me still clamoured for release? But what is done is done and we must now think of the future. Our future and that of the child you might be carrying.'
There was no way she could make him listen to reason, Claire thought despairingly, and bearing in mind the traumas of his own childhood, was it so hard to understand why he was so determined that they should marry? He was, after all, right; impossible though it felt at the moment, she could be carrying his child. Taking a deep breath, Claire made up her mind what course of action she must take.
'Very well, Raoul, I will marry you,' she agreed with a calm she was far from feeling, 'but only if you give me your word that until we know whether I am pregnant or not, we live… separately, and that if I am not carrying your child you will divorce me.'
'And if you are carrying my child?'
'Then…'
'Then you will still want a divorce, even knowing you must leave your child with me, is that it? How you must love him, this man who holds your heart, even though it is I who have possessed your body. Very well,' he said tautly, 'it shall be as you wish, with one further stipulation. There will be no divorce until Saud is out of danger. Do you agree?'
Saud! She had almost forgotten him in the trauma of more recent events. 'And if I do will you…?'
'Allow you to sleep alone in your own bed?' His eyebrows rose. 'You are letting your imagination run away with you, Claire. What happened between us last night happened, but you have my word that while you live under my roof, whatever hungers and appetites I might have, I will not seek to satiate them in your bed. Does that reassure you?'
Numbly she nodded her head, turning away so that he wouldn't see the pain in her eyes. Of course, she should have expected nothing more. Raoul was a man of the East, accustomed to satisfying his physical desires with women who would be pliant and accepting in his arms. She had been nothing more than a brief aberration which already he was regretting.
Please God, don't let there be a child, she prayed mentally. If she was to bear Raoul's child, how on earth could she bring herself to leave them; and how could she stay, falling deeper in love with Raoul every day and knowing that her love could never be returned? Perhaps even one day being forced to witness his love for someone else? Had he loved the Muslim girl he had nearly been betrothed to?
They were married quietly and discreetly later that afternoon in a suburb of Paris. Not the wedding she had always envisaged for herself. As they had stepped off the plane, Raoul had turned back and then reappeared, handing her the large box in which Zenaide had placed her hat as they stepped into the waiting car.
'It is perhaps not the bridal array you might have expected, but I asked Zenaide to pack it for you.'
As he had asked her maid to put out the cream suit, Claire wondered, stealing a brief look at his shuttered profile, before taking the hat from its box. It was true, it did make her look more bridal, but her heart was heavy when the car came to a stop outside the small town-hall where the wedding ceremony was to be performed.
Now it was over and they were man and wife, Raoul's gold ring glittering on her finger. Outside their car still waited, the engine purring almost soundlessly. The brief ceremony had taken little more than fifteen minutes, and as Raoul replaced their passports and marriage certificate inside his jacket, Claire stared numbly ahead. Fifteen minutes. That was all it had taken to change the course of her life. Automatically her hand crept to the reassuring flatness of her stomach.
'Praying your body is not cherishing my seed?' Raoul demanded harshly. 'Try to look on the bright side, Claire. If you are carrying my child you may be sure that you will be generously recompensed for the… inconvenience.' His lip curled disdainfully, and Claire was overwhelmed by the need to lash out and hurt him as he had wounded her.
'That's your answer to everything, isn't it?' she stormed at him. 'Money… Well, there are some things money can't wipe out. I don't want your money, Raoul. I don't want anything of yours!'
'Especially not my child.'
The words lay between them like a gage, but Claire was too bitter to back down now. 'Especially not that,' she agreed, watching the anger die out of his eyes to be replaced by a cold, blank dislike.
He leaned forward and said something to their driver, then settled himself back in his seat without another word. Claire longed to ask him where they were going and how long he intended them to remain in Paris. Already she was missing Saud. Her hand covered her stomach again. What would it be like to have Raoul's child? In other circumstances, if there was the merest chance that he might return her love, there was nothing that would bring her greater happiness, but as it was she dreaded the prospect of finding herself pregnant. For the rest of her life she would be torn in two. Torn between wanting and loving her child, and knowing that if she stayed with it she would be risking the untold anguish of living in proximity to Raoul, thirsting more and more with every day that passed for his love, like a man separated from an oasis by a thick gla
ss wall. How could she possibly endure it?
Their car slid to a halt, jerking her out of her thoughts. They were outside a hospital, and Raoul got out, politely opening Claire's door, his hand on her elbow as he escorted her inside.
'We are in Paris to visit my father, remember?' he murmured as they walked into a tiled reception area decorated lavishly with flowers. The receptionist greeted them with a smile, her eyes widening fractionally as she looked at Raoul. No matter where he went, he would always draw those looks of appreciation from her sex, Claire recognised, the ache in her heart increasing. They were directed down a corridor and Raoul paused outside the room they had been told was his father's.
Lucien D'Albro was sitting up in bed reading a book, and he greeted them both with a smile. 'I had not realised that being in hospital could be such a pleasant experience,' he said to Claire, his eyes twinkling. 'One has every comfort. Indeed one might almost be in the most luxurious of hotels, and then of course, there is the added bonus of the nurses. So,' he turned to Raoul, 'it is done?'
'Yes.' Raoul kept his back to his father and walked across to the window. 'I have not yet thanked you for the part you have played in this. Time was short and there was no one else I could ask…'
His voice was low, the words terse and bitten off, but Claire was facing Lucien and was able to see the pain in his eyes as he said quietly, 'Is it so very hard to come to me when you need help, Raoul? I am after all your father…'
'Genetically, yes,' Raoul agreed harshly, 'but as a child…'
'It was your mother's wish that she return to her people. She wanted me to go with her, but my work, my life, was here in Paris. I explained that to her when we married. My tour in Omarah was only a brief one. She knew that once it was over I would be returning to France. I did not want to let you go, Raoul, but she reminded me how much more her people could give you than I. Our name is an ancient one, but financially…' He spread his hands. 'It was no secret that I married your mother for financial security. I had intended to use her dowry to restore the family chateau. It had been the dream of my father,' he sighed.