by Penny Jordan
When she woke again it was morning and Raoul was gone, the only evidence of his occupation of her bed the shallow indentation of his head in the pillow next to hers. She turned her face into it hungrily, breathing in the trace of his body scent, feeling her body tremble with longing. She heard Saud cry and was instantly jerked back into reality. They couldn't rule out the possibility that someone had discovered the truth, Raoul had said last night, and a sudden wave of nausea invaded her stomach.
That was the first time that fear had actually made her physically sick, she thought, minutes later, standing in her bathroom shaken and dazed by the intensity of her emotions.
Too lethargic from her broken night to want to make the long trek down to the beach, Claire told Zenaide that instead she would take Saud down to the main courtyard. 'It is quite sheltered down there but open enough for him to get some fresh air.' She knew that Zenaide was looking at her disapprovingly because she hadn't eaten her breakfast. Not even the delicious fresh fruit Zenaide had brought had been able to tempt her. Say nothing to anyone, Raoul had said, but the burden of keeping to herself what had happened was a heavy one. She couldn't suspect Zenaide, who was always so gentle and caring, nor Ali, but someone had been responsible for that snake… there was someone in the palace they couldn't trust.
By the time she reached the courtyard her head was throbbing, her headache a legacy of her fear. Even Saud seemed to lack his normal vitality, crying to be picked up and cuddled rather than employing himself busily with his toys as he normally did. How on earth were they going to keep him safe?
Because she had been concerned about his diet, Claire had brought with them a large supply of baby food which she prepared herself. Poison was a favourite method of murder in the East, so she had read, and she shuddered thinking of someone administering it to her small charge. She must not think about it, she told herself, she must get a grip on her emotions. Already Saud seemed to have picked up on her nervy, fearful mood and was reacting to it. Perhaps Raoul would be able to discover something, to find out who was the culprit. From Zenaide, she knew that he had gone to the city; Ali had not driven him and Claire wondered if he had deliberately left the other man behind to watch over them.
She managed to eat some lunch—a little of the delicately flavoured rice Zenaide brought out to her, and some of the fresh fruit—but she was shudderingly reluctant to return to her rooms, especially with Raoul absent, even though common sense told her that whoever had put the snake in Saud's room was hardly likely to attempt the same thing twice. She could only hope that Raoul was right when he said that by saying nothing they might be able to lure the would-be assassin out into the open.
She was just on the point of returning inside when Zenaide came hurrying into the courtyard, her normally smooth forehead puckered into a frown.
'It is the Princess Nadia, Sitt,' she exclaimed anxiously. 'She has called to see you.'
'Princess Nadia?' Claire too frowned, wondering if she ought to recognise the name. Raoul had mentioned various members of his family to her following the Princess's visit, but had added that his family was so large and its members so numerous that it was pointless her trying to remember them all.
'She is second cousin to the Lord Raoul,' Zenaide told her, still looking anxious. 'Shall I tell her that you are resting?'
For some reason her maid did not like the Princess Nadia, Claire observed, but that was no reason for her to deny herself. She had no wish to offend any members of Raoul's family and so she smiled calmly and asked Zenaide to bring the Princess to the courtyard and to arrange for coffee and almond cakes to be served to them.
Not sure of the correct protocol, but guessing that the title 'Princess' meant that her visitor was of superior rank to herself, Claire stood up as she heard footsteps approaching the courtyard, frowning a little as she caught the impatient tap of very high heels. She had been expecting a woman of middle age, but the girl stalking arrogantly towards her, the abba which had been covering her from top to toe as she rounded the corner discarded, was only half a dozen years or so older than herself. With swift dismay, Claire registered the haughty, almost petulant expression, the clothes that shrieked Paris and clung seductively to her lusciously curved body. Eastern her visitor might be, but her hair and make-up quite definitely came from the most elegant Western salons. This was no shrinking flower of the desert, but a sophisticated woman of the world whose elegance did little to conceal a nature which Claire guessed to be both hard and avaricious.
Her deeply-glossed lips parted in the coolest of smiles as she approached, dismissing Zenaide with a few curt words.
'So, you are the woman Raoul married instead of me?' were her first devastating words, accompanied by a taunting smile and a narrowed assessing glance. 'You have not deceived yourself that he cares for you, or ever will, I hope?' she added insultingly, carrying on before Claire could draw breath to retaliate. 'And this must be the child who is the cause of your hurried marriage. The Sheikh, my uncle, is well-known to disapprove of mixed marriages. Indeed it was he who advised my father to forbid my marriage to Raoul.' She shrugged and added, 'I must confess I was glad. As a lover Raoul is superb, but as a husband…'
A shrug of elegantly clad shoulders mocked all Claire's previous conceptions of what Raoul's intended bride had been like.
'A husband is only to be tolerated when he remains in the background, and provided, of course, he is very rich. Raoul is far too possessive ever to make a complacent husband. The insecurity of his childhood, of course. I hear he was most reluctant to make an honest woman out of you, Miss… but, of course, Eastern men are renowned for the importance they place upon their eldest sons. How old is he?'
Desperately trying to hold on to her temper, Claire responded. So this was the woman Raoul was to have married, and who, if she was to interpret her remarks correctly, was still his lover. A wedding ring gleamed on her hand, so she must be married and, no doubt, used her marriage to protect her from any censure regarding her wanton behaviour. Muslims were very strict guardians of the morals of their women, but the Princess Nadia seemed to make her own rules.
Did Raoul love her? A quiver of jealousy burned through her at the thought, so tormenting her that she missed her unwelcome visitor's next question, and had to have it impatiently repeated, feeling very much like an ignorant schoolgirl being chastised by her teacher.
'Raoul, where did you meet him? It must have been when he was working at our Embassy in London. That was just after my marriage. My father asked the Sheikh to send him there. Poor Raoul, he took my marriage very badly. A hungry man will take whatever is available, is that not so, Claire? And a clever woman knows how to make the most of whatever opportunities come her way. A girl of your station in life cannot have had many. Raoul is very attractive as well as a very wealthy man, and you were clever enough to know exactly which bait to use to hook him. Is this his child? He does not look very much like him. I should have thought he would be much fairer skinned. Where was it you said you met?'
Saud had been pulling himself up on to his feet, and fell over, suddenly starting to cry. Claire went instinctively to pick him up, realising only as she straightened that Raoul had returned and was striding towards them. Nadia had her back to him, and Claire wondered if she had the courage to endure Raoul's reaction to the other girl's presence. But a little to her surprise, when Nadia did turn and see him, there was nothing but polite calmness in Raoul's eyes.
'Raoul…' Her arms went round him, the glossed lips pouting for his kiss. Claire averted her eyes, hating the fierce pangs of jealousy storming through her, fighting to appear calm and controlled.
'Princess Nadia was just asking if we met when you were working at your London Embassy, darling,' she managed to enunciate gaily. She wasn't sure where they were supposed to have met. Let Raoul do his own lying and his own explaining if Nadia should cross-question him afterwards. As they were lovers and apparently had been for many years, she would naturally expect to know about a
ny other women in Raoul's life, although it was patently obvious that she did not consider Claire to be any sort of competition.
Her eyes dropped to Saud. He didn't look like Raoul, Nadia had said, and she had also commented on his olive skin. She started to worry at her lip, and was startled to hear Raoul saying curtly, 'It was the Paris Embassy at which I worked for a term, not the London…'
'Of course, Raoul,' Nadia was quick to intervene. 'That is what I said, Claire must have misunderstood me. It was just after I got married, wasn't it? I remember we visited you there when we were on our honeymoon. So where did you meet? You still haven't told me.'
'At a party given by a friend,' Raoul responded indifferently, surprising Claire by bending down to pick up Saud, who gurgled his pleasure, waving small fists excitedly in the air. Raoul must have been watching her, Claire thought dazedly, because there was nothing hesitant or awkward about the way he handled the child, and surely no one watching him would doubt that Saud was his. Claire had dressed him in cool cotton rompers, and the small chubby legs kicked enthusiastically. He had a small birthmark on his left thigh, and it caught Claire's attention as he wriggled in Raoul's arms. Nadia was looking at it too, and for a moment it seemed to Claire that the temperature in the warm, shaded courtyard suddenly dropped—enough to raise goose-bumps on her exposed arms, and to bring back the terrors of the night.
Raoul noticed immediately. 'You are not well?' he asked sharply.
'I'm… I'm fine.' How could she explain the frisson of terror which had just shivered through her? There was no logical explanation, but she was glad when Nadia eventually exclaimed that it was time she left, waving aside the coffee and almond cakes Claire offered.
'Far too fattening,' she pronounced, and Claire was sure it was no accident that her painted fingertips moved seductively down the curve of her body, drawing Raoul's attention to every enticing curve. Compared with Nadia, she was a pale snowdrop put against the beauty of a deep red rose, and she suffered by the comparison.
When Nadia had gone, Raoul announced that he had brought some work back with him that he wanted to finish. Claire wanted to talk to him, to tell him that she suspected Nadia might have guessed that Saud wasn't their child, but perhaps Raoul himself had told Nadia the truth. But surely in that case she would not have raised the subject? It was too taxing a problem for Claire to unravel. Her broken night was beginning to catch up with her, and when Zenaide came in to ask what she wanted to have for dinner, she told the little maid that she wasn't hungry and that she had decided to have an early night.
Saud, fortunately, seemed to have recovered his normal good spirits, laughing and gurgling when Claire bathed him, splashing her with the warm water as he played with his ducks. She grew more and more attached to him with every day that passed and knew she would feel the wrench when she had to leave. If she felt like this about Saud, how would she feel if she had conceived Raoul's child? Could she bear to leave him with his father?
She hadn't conceived a child, she was sure she hadn't, Claire told herself fiercely. She didn't feel any different than she had before. But it was early days yet, an inner voice warned her, far too soon for her to know one way or the other. As she prepared for bed, she found herself praying again that there would be no child. Hadn't she already endured enough heartbreak?
She was just walking through from her bathroom to her bedroom when the outer door opened. Thinking it would be Zenaide she paused, but it was Raoul who walked in, causing her nerves to quiver in mute reaction.
'Zenaide tells me you are not eating.'
'I ate some lunch,' Claire corrected.
'You are not feeling well?'
She flushed as she realised he was probably thinking along the lines she herself had been earlier, and probably with as much regret. If he wanted any woman to bear his child, it must be Nadia. 'Just a reaction from last night, that is all…'
'I wanted to talk to you anyway. It occurred to me this afternoon that we ought to have some sort of story prepared. Nadia will not be the only person to question you about the past.' He frowned as though remembering something. 'I cannot think why you should have thought she said I was posted to our London Embassy. Nadia of all people should…'
'Know that it was to Paris you were sent when she was married?' Claire said tautly. 'She did say London, Raoul. A slip of the tongue, no doubt, but she lied when she told you I had made the mistake.'
'Lied?' His eyebrows rose. 'Why should she do that?'
'Perhaps because she resents my presence in your life,' Claire said with a calm she was far from feeling. 'Anyone who loves resents the presence of someone else in the life of their lover.'
'And does your lover resent my presence in yours?' he asked softly. 'He has not written to you recently. Have you written to him, Claire? Have you told him that you might be carrying my child? That we have been lovers?'
'No… no, I haven't told him anything,' Claire whispered truthfully. Raoul's softly-spoken words were conjuring up images she would far rather forget. They had far too disturbing an effect on her composure. She glanced up and found him looking at her, probing the pale silk of her robe, reminding her how intimately he knew the curves that lay beneath. A hot languor spread through her veins; a tormenting desire to go up to him and press her body against his, wantonly offering herself to him, feeling him respond.
'And nor will you do so,' Raoul muttered arrogantly. 'You are my wife now, Claire, mine!'
She wasn't sure which of them moved first, she only knew that somehow she was in his arms, breathing in the warm male scent of him, feeling her pulses leap in exultation. She wasn't even going to think about what had brought him to her, what had sparked off his desire. He bent his head, and her lips parted eagerly, welcoming the probing invasion of his tongue, all her earlier insistence that there should be no intimacy between them forgotten as her body's craving overruled the fragile control of her mind. Her senses reeling wildly, she responded with all the banked down hunger inside her to the hungry dominance of his mouth, groaning with pleasure when his hand cupped her breast, stroking roughly over the thin satin barrier which separated his fingers from her flesh. Opening to him as eagerly as the furled petals of a flower to the sun, Claire drank in the touch and scent of him, sliding trembling fingers inside his robe, pressing her palms flat against the moist heat of his skin, thrilling to the hard possession of his mouth when her thumb rubbed lightly against the hard flesh of his nipple.
He dragged his mouth away from hers, plundering the soft scented skin of her throat, pushing aside her robe, copying the caressing movements her fingers had made against him. Shivering waves of pleasure crested and broke over her, her body the receptacle of sensations so acute that she thought she might break apart under the pleasure of them. Her tongue touched the strong column of his throat, feeling the muscles strain as he swallowed an involuntary moan of pleasure, urging her closer to him, his hands sliding down to her hips, and round to spread against the rounded curves of her buttocks, pressing her against him.
He was already hungrily aroused and the knowledge thrilled and excited her, her hips moving in instinctive enticement, her teeth nibbling delicately at the warm flesh between his neck and his shoulder. Raoul had taught her that love-making could be a sensual feast and now he was encouraging her to make for herself a banquet she knew no other man could ever rival. She wanted him as much, if not more, than he wanted her. She knew that male arousal was not as subtle as female, but her longing for him swept aside any rational doubts that might have made her think twice about what she was doing. When her body became impatient for his possession, she slipped out of her robe, pausing when she saw the look in Raoul's eyes. They glittered almost black in the dimly lit room and the hand he stretched out to her betrayed a fine tremble.
The drift of his fingers along the outline of her body, no more than a butterfly touch, was excruciatingly arousing, but some inner sense, some instinctive urge to respond to his rhythm held her still beneath it, her t
hroat closing on a hungry moan of impatience as his fingertips brushed briefly over the curves of her breasts. Surely he could see what he was doing to her? How much she needed the solid contact of his body against hers? But again something prevented her from moving, from taking the few steps necessary to bring her against him.
'Claire.' He said her name thickly, picking her up and carrying her the short distance to the bed, removing his own robe before lying down beside her.
Her whole body trembled with an acute ache, her eyes closed so that he wouldn't see the depths of the hunger in them as he bent towards her. Disappointment shivered bitterly through her as she felt his brief kiss on her lips, his tongue stroking gently over them, when what she wanted was the fierce intensity she had felt in him earlier. His lips drifted gently across her skin, his tongue touching, arousing, and then withdrawing, all down the length of her body until she felt she might explode beneath his tormentingly tentative caresses. He paused when he reached her breasts, stroking their pointed aching tips briefly with his tongue, but when Claire reached up to him, her whole body surging beneath the caress, compelled by a fierce need to urge him to intensify the contact, his fingers locked round her wrists, forcing them slowly down to her sides, his tongue returning to stimulate her throbbing flesh, until Claire felt she could stand it no longer and her body began to move wantonly, perpetuating an ancient rhythm.
Almost instantly the gentleness left Raoul's touch, replaced by the hunger she had earlier yearned for, explosive in its unbridled demands; the searing touch of his mouth against her body wanted an intimacy that made her gasp and tense until he showed her how he wanted her to respond, and all her previously held ideas of what desire should be between a man and a woman were overturned in a storm of pleasure too intense to allow hesitancy or withdrawal.