by Penny Jordan
‘I am never bored. I have my tapestry and my newspaper, and in due course Ali will return to drive us back to the villa for a small repast and an afternoon nap.’
There was no way she intended to indulge in afternoon naps, Mariella decided silently as she picked up her charcoals and started to work.
In her mind she already had a picture of how she wanted the frieze to look, and within minutes she was totally engrossed in what she was doing.
The background for the horses, she had now decided, would not be the racecourse itself, but something that she hoped would prove far more compelling to those who viewed it. The background of a rolling ocean of waves from which the horses were emerging would surely prove irresistible to a people to whom water was so very, very important. Mariella hoped so. His Highness had certainly liked the idea.
It wasn’t until her fingers began to ache a little with cramp that she realised how long she had been working. Madame Flavel had fallen asleep in the comfortable chair with its special footstool that Ali had brought for her, her gentle snores keeping Fleur entranced.
Smiling at her niece, Mariella opened the bottle of water she had brought with her and took a drink. Where was Tanya? Why hadn’t she got in touch with her?
The door to the corridor opened to admit Hera and Ali.
‘Goodness, is it lunchtime already?’ Madame Flavel demanded, immediately waking up.
Reluctantly Mariella started to pack up her things. She would much rather have continued with her work than return to the villa, but she was very conscious of Madame Flavel’s age and the unfairness of expecting her to remain with her for hours on end.
CHAPTER NINE
BY THE end of the week Mariella was beginning to find her enforced breaks from her work increasingly frustrating.
‘It disturbs me that you are so determined not to marry, chérie,’ Madame Flavel was saying to her as she worked. ‘It is perhaps because of an unhappy love affair?’
‘You could say that,’ Mariella agreed wryly.
‘He broke your heart, but you are young, and broken hearts mend...’
‘It wasn’t my heart he broke, but my mother’s,’ Mariella corrected her, ‘and it never really mended, not even when she met and married my stepfather. You see, she thought when my father told her that he loved her he meant it, but he didn’t! She trusted him, depended on him, but he repaid that trust by abandoning us both.’
‘Ah, I see. And because of the great hurt your father caused you, you are determined never to trust any man yourself?’ Madame Flavel commented shrewdly. ‘Not all men are like your father, chérie.’
‘Maybe not, but it is not a risk I am prepared to take! I never want to be as...as vulnerable as my mother was...never.’
‘You say that, but I think you fear that you already are.’
Mariella was glad of Ali’s arrival to put an end to what was becoming a very uncomfortable conversation.
* * *
IT WAS TWO o’clock in the afternoon and Madame Flavel was taking her afternoon nap.
Mariella walked restlessly round the garden. She was itching to get on with the frieze. She paused, frowning slightly. And then, making up her mind, hurried back inside, pausing only to pick up Fleur.
Ali made no comment when she summoned him to tell him that she intended to go back to the enclosure, politely opening the door of the car for her. Stepping outside was like standing in the blast of a hot hair-dryer at full heat.
The car was coolly air-conditioned, but outside the heat shimmered in the air, the light bouncing glaringly off the buildings that lined the road.
Like the car, the enclosure was air-conditioned, and as soon as Ali had escorted her inside and gone Mariella began to work.
A moveable scaffolding had been erected to allow her to work on the upper part of the wall, and she paused every now and again to look down from it to check on Fleur, who was fast asleep. Her throat felt dry and her hand ached, but she refused to allow herself to stop. In her mind’s eye she could see the finished animal, nostrils flaring, his mane ruffled by the wind, the sea foaming behind him as he emerged from the curling breakers.
Somewhere on the edge of her awareness she was vaguely conscious of a door opening, and quiet but ominously determined footsteps. Fleur made a small sound, a gurgle of pleasure rather than complaint, which she also registered, her hand moving quickly as she fought to capture the image inside her head. This horse, the proudest and fiercest of them all, would not tolerate any competition from the sea. He would challenge its power, rearing up so that the powerful muscles of his quarters and belly were visible... Fleur was chattering happily to herself in baby talk, and Mariella was beginning to feel almost light-headed with concentration. And then just as she was finishing something a movement, an instinct made her turn her head.
To her shock she saw that Xavier was standing beside Fleur watching her.
‘Xavier...’
She took a step forward and then stopped, suddenly realising that she was still on the scaffolding.
‘What...what are you doing here?’ she demanded belligerently to cover her own intimate and unwanted reaction to him.
‘Have you any idea just how much you distressed Cecille by ignoring my instructions?’ he demanded tersely.
Mariella looked away from him. She genuinely liked his great-aunt, and hated the thought that she might have upset her.
‘I’m sorry if she was upset,’ she told him woodenly, her own feelings breaking through her tight control as she gave a small despairing shake of her head.
‘I promised His Highness that the frieze would be completed as soon as possible; your aunt is elderly. She likes to spend the afternoon resting, when I need to be here working! Whether you believe this or not, Xavier, I too have a...a reputation to protect.’
‘In that case why didn’t you simply come to me and explain all of this to me instead of behaving like a child and waiting until my aunt’s back was turned?’
Mariella frowned. What he was saying sounded so...so reasonable and sensible she imagined that anyone listening to him would have asked her the same question!
‘Your behaviour towards me has hardly encouraged me to...to anticipate your help or co-operation,’ she reminded him as she went to climb down from the scaffolding, surreptitiously trying to stretch her aching muscles.
‘Although she herself refuses to acknowledge it, my aunt is an elderly lady,’ Xavier was continuing, breaking off suddenly to mutter something beneath his breath she couldn’t quite catch as he strode forward.
‘Be careful,’ he warned her sharply. ‘You might...’
To her own chagrin, as though his warning had provoked it, the scaffolding suddenly wobbled and she began to slip.
As she gave a small instinctive gasp of shock Xavier grabbed hold of her, supporting her so that she could slide safely to the floor.
Mariella knew that the small near-accident was her own fault and that she had worked for too long in one position, without stopping to exercise her cramped muscles, and her face began to burn as she anticipated Xavier’s triumphant justification of his insistence that she was chaperoned, but instead of saying anything he simply continued to hold her, one hand grasping her waist, the other supporting the small of her back, where his fingers spread a dangerously intoxicating heat right through her clothes and into her skin.
Dizzily Mariella closed her eyes, trying to blot out the effect the proximity of him was having on her, but, to her consternation, instead of protecting her all it did was increase her vulnerability as sharply focused mental images of him taunted and tormented her, their effect on her so intense that she started to shake in reaction to them.
‘Mariella? What is it? What’s wrong?’ she heard Xavier demanding urgently. ‘If you feel unwell...’
Immediately
Mariella opened her eyes.
‘No. I’m fine,’ she began and then stopped, unable to drag her gaze away from his mouth, where it had focused itself with hungry, yearning intensity.
She knew from his sudden fixed silence that Xavier was aware of what she was doing, but the shrill alarm bells within her own defences, which should have shaken her into action, were silenced into the merest whisper by the inner roar of her own aching longing. No power on earth, let alone that of her own will, could stem what was happening to her and what she was feeling, Mariella recognised distantly, as her senses registered the way Xavier’s grip on her body subtly altered from one of non-sexually protective to one of powerfully sensual. She could feel the hot burn of his gaze as it dropped to her own mouth, and a sharp series of little shivers broke through her. Without even thinking about it she was touching her lips with the tip of her tongue, as though driven by some deep pre-programmed instinct to moisten them. She was trembling, her whole body galvanised by tiny sensual ripples of reaction and awareness that made her sway slightly towards him.
She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw and raised her hand to touch it with her fingertips, her eyes wide and helplessly enslaved.
‘Mariella!’
She felt him shudder as he drew breath into his lungs, her body instinctively leaning into his as weakness washed over her.
His mouth touched hers, but not in the way she had remembered it doing before.
She had never known there could be so much sweet tenderness in a kiss, so much slow, explorative warmth, so much carefully suppressed passion just waiting to burn away all her resistance. She wanted to lose herself completely in it...in him.
She gave a small cry of protest as Xavier’s ears, keener than hers, picked up the sound of someone entering the gallery, and he pushed her away.
Caught up in the shock of what she had experienced, Mariella watched motionless as Xavier went over to where Ali, his chauffeur, was hovering.
Lifting her hand, she touched her own lips, as though unable to believe what had happened...what she had wanted to happen. She had wanted Xavier to kiss her, still wanted him to kiss her, her body aching for him in a hundred intimate ways that held her in silent shock. She and Xavier were enemies, weren’t they?
He was walking back to her and somehow she had to compose herself, to conceal from him what was happening to her.
She felt as though she were drowning in her own panic.
‘We must get back to the villa, immediately,’ he told her curtly.
Instantly her panic was replaced by anxiety.
‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘Has something happened to your aunt?’
She started to gather up her things, but he stopped her, instructing her tersely, ‘Leave all that.’
He was already picking up Fleur, his body language so evident of a crisis that Mariella forbore to argue. Her stomach was churning sickly. What if something had happened to his great-aunt, perhaps brought on by her own stubborn determination to ignore his dictates? She would never forgive herself!
Falling into step beside him, Mariella almost had to run to keep up with him.
They drove back to the villa in silence, Mariella’s anxiety increasing to such a pitch that by the time they finally turned into the courtyard of the villa she felt physically sick.
Giving some sharp order to Ali, in Arabic, Xavier got out of the car, turning to her and telling her equally shortly, ‘Come with me.’
Even Fleur seemed to have picked up on his seriousness, and fell silent in his arms, her eyes huge and dark.
Please let Cecille be all right, Mariella prayed silently as the huge double doors to the villa were thrown open with unfamiliar formality and she followed Xavier into its sandalwood-scented coolness.
Without pausing to see if she was following him, Xavier headed for the anteroom that opened out into what Mariella now knew was the formal salon in which he conducted his business meetings.
Unusually two liveried servants were standing to either side of the entrance, their expressionless faces adding both to Mariella’s anxiety and the look of stern formality she could see on Xavier’s face, giving it and him an air of autocratic arrogance so reminiscent of the first time she had seen him that she automatically shivered a little.
Expecting him to stride into the room ahead of her, Mariella almost bumped into him when he suddenly turned towards her. A little uncertainly she looked at him, unable to conceal her confusion when he reached out his hand to her and beckoned her to his side.
Holding Fleur tightly, she hesitated for a second before going to join him. Wide as the entrance to the salon was, it still apparently necessitated Xavier standing so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body against her own as he gave the servants an abrupt nod.
The doors swung open, the magnificence of the room that lay beyond them dazzling Mariella for a moment, even though she had already peeped into it at Madame Flavel’s insistence.
It was everything she had ever imagined such a room should be, its walls hung with richly woven silks, the cool marble floor ornamented with priceless antique rugs. The light from the huge chandeliers, which Madame Flavel had told Mariella had been made to Xavier’s grandmother’s personal design, dazzled the eyes as it reflected on the room’s rich jewel colours and ornate gilding. Luxurious and rich, the decor of the salon had about it an unmistakable air of French elegance.
It was a room designed to awe and impress all those who entered it and to make them aware of the power of the man who owned it.
As her eyes adjusted to the brilliance Mariella realised that two people were standing in front of the room’s huge marble fireplace, watching Xavier with obvious apprehension as they clung together.
Disbelievingly Mariella stared at them.
‘Tanya,’ she whispered, her voice raw with shock as she recognised her sister.
Her sister looked tanned and expensive, Mariella noticed, the skirt and top she was wearing showing off her body. She was wearing her hair in a new, fashionably tousled style, and it glinted with a mix of toning blonde highlights.
She was immaculately made up, her fingernails and toenails shining with polish, but it was the man standing at Tanya’s side on whom Mariella focused most of her attention. He was shorter than Xavier and more heavily built, she guessed immediately that he must be Khalid, Xavier’s cousin and Fleur’s father.
‘Khalid,’ Xavier acknowledged curtly, with a brief nod in the other man’s direction, confirming Mariella’s guesswork. ‘And this, I assume, must be...’
‘My wife,’ Khalid interrupted him, holding tightly to Tanya’s hand as he continued, ‘Tanya and I were married three days ago.’
* * *
‘HONESTLY, MARIELLA, I just couldn’t believe it when we docked at Kingston and Khalid came on board. At first I totally refused to have anything to do with him, but he kept on persisting and eventually...’
It was less than twenty-four hours since Mariella had learned that her sister and Khalid were now married, and Tanya was updating her on what had happened as they sat together in the garden of the villa’s women’s quarters, whilst Fleur gurgled happily in her carrier.
‘Why didn’t you tell me what was going on when I telephoned you?’ Mariella asked her.
Tanya looked self-conscious.
‘Well, at first I wasn’t sure just what was going to happen—I mean...Khalid was there and he was being very sweet, admitting that he loved me and that he regretted what he had done, but...
‘And then you left that message on my cell phone saying you were here with Xavier, and I was worried that you might say something to him and that he would find a way of parting me and Khalid again...’
‘Have you any idea how worried about you I’ve been?’ Mariella asked her.
Tanya flushed uncomfortabl
y.
‘Well, I had hoped that you’d just think I wasn’t returning your calls because I was so busy... It didn’t occur to me that you’d ring the entertainments director...’
‘Tanya, you didn’t ring me to check on Fleur for days. Of course I was worried...’
‘Oh, well, I knew she’d be fine with you, and I did listen to your messages. But Khalid... Well, we needed some time to ourselves, and Khalid insisted... Please don’t be cross with me, Ella. You’ve never been in love so you can’t understand. When Khalid left me I thought my life was over. I’m not like you. I need to love and be loved. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Xavier for what he did.’
‘Xavier didn’t physically compel Khalid to abandon you and Fleur, Tanya,’ Mariella heard herself pointing out to her sister almost sharply.
The look Tanya gave her confirmed her own realisation of what she had done.
‘How can you support him, Ella?’ Tanya demanded. ‘He threatened to stop Khalid’s allowance; he would have left me and Fleur to starve,’ she added dramatically.
‘That’s not true, Tanya, and not fair either,’ Mariella felt bound to correct her, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell her sister that it was her own opinion that Khalid was both weak and self-indulgent and that he had selfishly put his own needs before those of his lover and their child. She could see already the beginnings of a sulky pout turning down the corners of Tanya’s mouth and her heart sank. She had no wish to quarrel with her sister, but at the same time she couldn’t help feeling that Tanya wasn’t treating her own behaviour with regard to her maternal responsibilities towards Fleur anywhere near as seriously as she should have been doing.
‘Well, we’re married now and there’s nothing that Xavier can do about it! And he knows it!’
Mariella knew that this was not true and that Xavier could have carried out his threat to stop paying Khalid his allowance, and also remove him from his sinecure of a job. However, she also knew from what Madame Flavel had innocently told her that Xavier had not done so because of Fleur.