by Lynne Graham
In the simmering silence, Jasim yanked off his boxers. A lithe, incredibly male figure, his strong, hard body would have drawn any woman’s attention. Elinor’s cheeks were very pink. Even in the midst of a row, she found his sleek bronzed nudity an impossible distraction.
‘If I didn’t know for a fact that you were a virgin when I had you first, I would throw you out of the palace!’ Jasim growled at her, the blaze of his wrath increasing at her refusal to come clean. ‘What sort of a slut accepts a ring of that value from a married man and then, not content with that piece of brazen scheming, jumps into bed with his brother?’
‘Don’t you dare call me a slut!’ Elinor flung at him furiously, stalking into the spacious limestone bathroom in his wake. ‘You’re the one who made all the running in our relationship, not me!’
Jasim switched on the water in the wet room and stepped beneath the refreshing gush. He was disgusted that she had lied to him and that he had had sufficient faith in her unlikely tale to actually broach the subject with his father. Naturally he had wanted to believe her story, for the truth he was facing now was a good deal less acceptable. His wife was a greedy, deceitful and immoral liar, who had used her sexual allure to manipulate his brother. There was nothing to celebrate in that fact and much to be ashamed of.
Even so, he noted without surprise, there was no hint of shame in Elinor’s stance. Glorious red hair framed the pale beauty of her face and her emerald green eyes were bright with umbrage. She was fizzing with impotent rage at his condemnation and the sight in no way cooled his deep abiding anger with her. She had tried to take him for a fool and deserved everything she had coming to her. She needed to understand that it was time to clean up her act. If she did not, she was likely to find life very hard, for he had no intention of tolerating her devious ways.
‘Well, you did make the running,’ Elinor repeated afresh when he failed to respond.
‘You didn’t exactly fight me off, did you? Why would you have done?’ Jasim derided as he washed. ‘I played right into your hands. I was a better bet than Murad because I didn’t have a wife. Of course you were willing to sleep with me!’
‘I can’t believe that you’re insulting me like this—’
‘No?’ Water streaming down his lean bronzed physique, Jasim treated her to a lethal look of contempt. ‘My brother was much softer with women than I will ever be.’
‘You’re supposed to be my husband—are you ever going to behave like one?’ Elinor hissed, green eyes livid with anger.
‘Not while your dishonesty is still fresh in my memory. I want the whole truth from you now,’ Jasim decreed in a tone of steely command. ‘How far did your tempting of my brother go? It must have been pretty intense if he gave you that ring.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong and I’m not answering your stupid demeaning questions.’ Her breasts heaving as she dragged in a deep breath to sustain her struggling lungs, Elinor glowered at him. ‘Nor am I willing to go through some crazy second wedding with you…once was enough!’
‘You’re in the wrong country to issue a threat like that,’ Jasim delivered with chilling bite as he sauntered out of the shower and reached for a towel. ‘Place me in that kind of position and I swear I will tell my father about your sordid flirtation with Murad. If I do there will be no wedding and you will find yourself flying back to London alone.’
Elinor was chilled to the marrow by that warning, for she was in no doubt of how ruthless he could be. ‘You can’t threaten me like that.’
Smouldering dark golden eyes clashed levelly with hers. ‘Don’t tempt me. In Quaram I can do just about anything I want to do, aziz.’
‘Does that include taking a second wife?’ Elinor demanded with stinging scorn, for in the mood he was in she saw no reason to approach the topic with greater tact.
Jasim froze, his smouldering dark golden eyes narrowing and darkening to view her with questioning censure. ‘Is that your idea of a joke?’
‘No, not at all. It was your cousin, Laila, who suggested that you might be hoping for an arrangement like that…’
Jasim lifted his damp dark head high, an expression of incredulous outrage stamped in his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘She would not dare. Only you would have the bravado to subject me to such an offensive piece of salacious prejudice. It is more than a century since anyone in Quaram took more than one wife,’ he spelt out rawly.
‘I am not prejudiced!’ Elinor shot back at him furiously.
Jasim dealt her an unimpressed look and strode out of the bathroom regally, as though he were not wrapped in a towel. Elinor shot after him, unwilling to let the matter lie, even though his shocked reaction was already beginning to make her suspect that she might have fallen headlong into a nasty little trap that Laila had set for her. Having filled her head with melodramatic drivel, Laila had set her loose to either worry herself sick about Jasim’s supposed plans or confront her husband with the issue and deeply offend him.
‘What a distasteful thing to say to me,’ Jasim breathed, his beautiful dark eyes cold as black ice as he cast aside the towel and went into the dressing room. ‘You should be ashamed of taunting me with such a tawdry accusation. I’m dining with my father this evening and I won’t see you until tomorrow.’
Elinor folded her arms and compressed her lips. She was still very angry with him for misjudging her, but at the same time she was so worked up and upset that she could as easily have burst into floods of tears as shouted at him. ‘Why should I care what you do or where you go?’ she demanded mutinously, determined not to show weakness.
‘Clearly I need to ask you to watch your manners and to avoid controversial subjects like culture with my relatives tomorrow,’ Jasim spelt out flatly. ‘Remember your behaviour reflects on both Sami and I.’
‘I’ll try not to embarrass anyone,’ Elinor breathed tightly, mortified to death by that request and reminder.
Frozen to the spot, she stood by the window, only dimly aware that he was dressing in traditional robes similar to those his father had worn. As he strode out of the dressing room she turned to look at him. The white cotton thoub he wore below the black goldtrimmed cloak was buttoned, embroidered and immaculate. With his head covered and a double black cord binding the gutrah in place, his transformation into a regal desert prince was complete.
Twenty minutes after his father’s departure, Sami was returned to Elinor’s care accompanied by a gaggle of chattering attendants and a long procession of nursery furniture and toys. He was installed in the big room across the corridor from the master bedroom. Once he had gone down for the night, wonderfully impervious to all the excitement that was centred on him, Elinor accepted the light meal Zaid had had prepared for her.
She felt absolutely wretched. Laila had set out to trip her up and had succeeded beautifully with her booby trap of a reference to Jasim’s fictional plans to take another wife. Now Jasim was affronted and convinced she had been making fun of him on the score of a delicate cultural issue. He also thought she was a shameless liar; if his father could not confirm Murad and her mother’s romance thirty years earlier, there was nobody else to perform that feat for her. Had the King forgotten his elder son’s university romance? Or did he genuinely not know about Murad’s youthful relationship with an Englishwoman?
Whatever, Jasim continued to believe that Elinor had wantonly schemed to destroy his brother’s marriage and take Yaminah’s place, only to surrender that ambition when a more accessible member of the royal family strode into her firing line. If that was what he thought of her, what sort of a relationship could she possibly have with her son’s father…?
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT SOME timeless hour before daybreak, voices wakened Elinor. She had not slept well. Her argument with Jasim had kept on replaying inside her head and she had thought of other words she might have thrown, last words, final words, more cutting words, even the ultimate putdown. Having run the gamut of those pointless replays she had finally questioned t
he sheer level of ongoing anger that was preventing her from finding peace. Now her head was heavy, her body weary and her eyes swollen. She felt awful and could hardly credit that this was her second wedding day.
Frowning, she sat up in bed, registering from the dim glow penetrating the curtains at the window that the sun had not yet fully risen. She fumbled for the light by the bed.
‘Allow me.’ It was Jasim’s voice and the unexpectedness of his appearance startled her.
‘Yes?’ Elinor prompted tightly when the lamp flooded the room with light and illuminated his tall figure by the bed. He was no longer wearing robes and he bore little resemblance to his usually immaculately groomed self. He was clad in faded jeans and a T-shirt, his black hair was tousled and he was badly in need of a shave. But it was his brilliant ebony-lashed dark eyes and the strain etched there that captured and held her attention.
He spread lean brown hands in an expressive movement that was remarkably eloquent of his mood. ‘I’m sorry for waking you but I couldn’t sleep. We parted bitterly, which is not how it should be today of all days,’ he breathed tautly. ‘I lost my temper. I was rude. I was cruel…’
‘Yes…’ Elinor could barely breathe that word of confirmation because conflicting feelings were at war inside her. He was so serious and full of guilt that she could not maintain her distance and still hate him. With all her being she wanted to reach out to him at that moment and indeed even as she spoke she stretched out a hand to him.
His lean, stunningly handsome face grave, he immediately closed his hand over hers. ‘When I have to picture you flirting with Murad, something twists inside me and I am filled with such anger I cannot hold it in,’ he admitted in a driven undertone.
As it dawned on her that it was jealousy and possessiveness he was describing her defences gave and she pulled on the hand holding hers to bring him down on the bed beside her. ‘But there wasn’t any flirting with Murad…ever,’ she stressed earnestly. ‘Your brother talked to me as if he was my father. He never said anything that couldn’t have been said in front of his wife or indeed anyone. He was kind to me but that was all.’
Beautiful dark eyes locked to hers, Jasim exhaled slowly. ‘I will try to accept that. It is not that I want to disbelieve your story about your mother…’
‘But it was that story that brought me into your family’s life in the first place,’ Elinor pointed out.
Jasim met her clear green eyes, which bore not a shadow of constraint, and resolved to settle the issue by having it investigated. He knew he should have talked to his brother about Elinor, but he had not been able to make himself take that sensible route to enlightenment and then Murad had died. For the first time, however, Jasim was wondering if he could have totally misunderstood Elinor and Murad’s relationship, which he had never had the opportunity to observe for himself.
‘Please don’t think I’m saying something I shouldn’t, but when you mentioned that Murad had had extramarital affairs, I realised why his wife travelled with him everywhere he went,’Elinor admitted uncomfortably. ‘I may be wrong, but I suspect that your brother’s wife was insecure and more likely than most to be jealous and suspicious of her husband’s behaviour around other women—’
‘You are saying that Yaminah saw something that was not there,’ Jasim remarked without expression.
‘I remember her staring at me once when she saw Murad and I laughing at something Zahrah had said. She didn’t speak any English, which was awkward. I think your brother was fond of me in a mild way because my mother had once meant a great deal to him. Perhaps that was misinterpreted, I don’t know. What I do know was that there was never any suggestion of sexual interest in his attitude to me.’
Jasim was still challenged to credit that his womanising brother could have been unreceptive to Elinor’s looks and appeal. But he was equally determined not to allow the issue to divide them. ‘I too suffer from a suspicious nature when it comes to women,’ he confessed, lifting a hand to stroke a forefinger along the alluring pout of her full pink lower lip. ‘Three years ago, I was seeing a woman called Sophia who belonged to one of your country’s titled families. I thought about marrying her. I believed she was a woman of good character and integrity and then the tabloid press exposed her for what she really was…’
‘Oh…’ Elinor said tremulously, her mind only half on the conversation as his finger slid into her mouth and she laved it with her tongue, heat blossoming between her thighs while she dizzily met his intent gaze. ‘And what was she?’
‘She’d been a real party girl, who had dabbled in drugs and had countless affairs. She had also had surgery to restore her long-lost virginity for my benefit,’ he advanced with a roughened laugh, his attention sliding against his will to the neckline of her nightgown where the shadowy cleft and the peach smooth slopes of her full, firm breasts were on tantalising display. ‘Yet that was of much less importance to me than all the lies she had told and I had swallowed. She had me fooled.’
And Elinor heard the lingering bitterness and hurt pride in that admission and recognised how afraid he was that he might fall into the same trap again. ‘But you can’t possibly believe that all women are the same,’ she whispered, her breath feathering in her throat.
‘Right now, I don’t know what I believe…or that I care, aziz.’ The hot blood settling heavily in his groin, Jasim brought his mouth down with a driven groan on hers, his tongue plundering the sweetness from between her readily parted lips with an urgency that made her heart pound like a drum within her ribcage.
Jasim jerked back from her with a look of frustration. ‘I can’t stay. It’s almost dawn and it takes hours to prepare a bride for her wedding.’
Elinor was shocked by a desire to pull him back to her and wish her bridal duties to perdition if it prevented them from being together. As he sprang off the bed she raised an abstracted hand to rub her cheek where his stubble had scratched her. What shook her most was the intensity of her desire for him. He was teaching her things about her own needs that she would never have guessed and that she suspected she might never have known with another man, for Jasim’s raw passion had lit a similar passion inside her.
‘We’ll be together later,’ Jasim husked. ‘But I’m afraid I need a few minutes of grace before I can be seen in public.’
Colour washed her face as she appreciated that he was lingering by the window while he waited for the visible bulge of his arousal to subside. But that she could affect him that way was a source of pride and satisfaction for her as well. He switched out the light before he left and she sank back into her warm comfortable bed and stretched luxuriantly at the prospect of a day that was now shorn of fear and insecurity.
Elinor was wakened again by a slender girl in her teens. Gamila introduced herself and told Elinor in English that breakfast awaited her.
‘Lovely, thanks.’ Elinor slid out of bed and slid her arms into the wrap she had left out beside the bed. Her attention rested on the untouched pillow beside hers and an ache, an uncommonly painful ache, stirred inside her. It bothered her that she missed Jasim so much. How could someone she had recently believed she hated have come to matter so much to her?
‘Prince Jasim ordered a wide selection of food for you,’ the girl added.
‘I’d like to see my son first,’ Elinor said apologetically.
‘It’s still very early. The little prince is still asleep,’ Gamila explained. ‘I went in to see him. He is a beautiful baby.’
A warm smile curved Elinor’s mouth. ‘I think so too.’
Downstairs she entered a dining room where the table groaned beneath the weight of a vast array of food. Elinor discovered that she was extremely hungry and enjoyed orange juice, cereal and two toasted muffins spread with honey. Even while she was eating the house seemed full of activity, with feet passing up and down the stairs and the chatter of many female voices. There was no sign of Zaid or any other man.
Having eaten, Elinor was escorted back upstairs to ha
ve her hair washed. It was conditioned and rinsed several times and then piled into a towel while a bath was run for her. She watched as an aromatic bath potion was swirled through the water and rose petals were scattered on the surface. Settling into the warm fragrant water and relaxing her stiff muscles was the purest of pleasures. It was an effort to get out again and swathe herself in a fleecy towel.
Once her hair was dry, Gamila suggested that she dress in casual clothes to head over to the main palace. There on the second floor she found a full-size beauty parlour awaiting her. She knew what the fashion was and consented reluctantly to a waxing session. It wasn’t quite as painful as she had feared but she didn’t think it was a procedure she would ever want to volunteer for. She agreed to a massage and lay on a narrow padded table where she was pummelled and rubbed with fragrant oil. Slowly the stress drained out of her body. At some stage she fell asleep and wakened without the slightest idea of where she was or how much time had passed to find that she was being given a manicure and pedicure. Relaxed after that nap, she began to take an interest in the proceedings. Her nails glossily perfect, she sat watching while intricate henna patterns were painted onto her hands and feet. She wondered if Jasim would enjoy that traditional touch and smiled. She was relieved that there was no sign of Laila in the gathering of female attendants because she was not sure that she could have kept the peace.
Sami was brought to her while her hair was being straightened and smoothed. He gave her a huge sloppy kiss and settled into her lap like a homing pigeon, intrigued by the amount of activity around her. Her companions looked on Jasim’s son with unreserved adoration and when he got down from her knee to crawl off in exploration he was petted and fussed over. Sami lapped up the attention to the manner born and Elinor found herself wondering how her son had ever managed with only his mother to admire him.
Her make-up was done last and then she was guided into another room to be shown the Western wedding dress, which she was apparently to wear. Astonished, for she had expected to be presented with a traditional Quarami bridal outfit, Elinor stared at the white wedding dress, which glittered as though stars had been sewn into the fine fabric. Thousands of crystals caught and reflected the light. It was a wonderfully romantic dress, and when she had put it on she could only marvel at her image in the mirror: her every wedding-day dream was fully satisfied by the magnificent gown. Her henna decorated hands and feet didn’t quite match in style, but she didn’t think that mattered as she eased her feet into delicate crystal-studded sandals with high heels. A short veil was attached to a silver coronet of flowers on her head.