Darker Side of Desire & the Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner(16)

‘They are saying that when you lie with Raoul it will be like the sand caressed by the shadow of night,’ the Princess translated with a brief smile. Claire coloured hotly at the smile, her embarrassment provoking another wave of amusement. ‘Now they are saying that your cheeks are as pink as those of a maiden before she knows a man and that no one would think you had borne Lord Raoul’s child.’

Hennaed fingers stroked and caressed Saud’s plump baby limbs, and the small boy bore the caresses stoically until he was returned to Claire’s arms. A maidservant came in carrying a huge samovar while another produced delicate bowls for coffee. As guest of honour, the Princess was served first, Claire next. The coffee, although fragrant, was too strong for her taste, just as the sweetly sticky sweetmeats were too rich for her stomach, and she winced to see how many were pressed upon small Saud, but was reluctant to intervene and possibly cause offence.

‘You are thinking that too much rich food will make him sick,’ the Princess murmured astutely to her. ‘It is difficult for us to explain to them that it is better to give their children fresh fruit, and we can only make progress very slowly. The Badu are a proud people, fiercely independent, and to shut them away in a reservation of the sort they have in America and Australia for their native people would be to offer them a slow, tortuous death. However, children must be educated if they are to fit into our modern world. They trust me and I do what I can. They like you, wife of Raoul, and it pleases me to think that when I am gone you will continue my work among them. You have much compassion, I think, and not just for your own.’ She touched Saud’s head as she spoke and Claire wondered how much those wise eyes had seen. Had she guessed the truth about Saud? If so, the Princess would keep her own counsel, Claire was sure of that.

It was late when they left the oasis, dusk falling swiftly on the heels of the flaming sunset, wrapping the landscape in darkness. Claire was still fascinated by the glittering intensity of the stars in the desert sky, and peered out of the car window at them, Saud a warm and heavy weight in her arms.

The place was bustling with activity as their car swept into the courtyard. An unfamiliar black Mercedes made Claire’s heart thump. Raoul? Had he returned? Refusing her offers of hospitality, the Princess explained that she had an appointment in the city which she wished to keep. ‘We will meet again, wife of Raoul, and until then I pray that Allah will watch over you.’

In silence Claire and Zenaide climbed the stairs to Claire’s quarters. She was tired and hungry, but still alert enough to freeze when she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs towards her, angry determined footsteps which she was sure could only belong to one person.

As Raoul turned turned the angle of the stairs, he saw them, a bitter oath splintering the silence and making Zenaide tremble as she clung to Claire’s side.

‘So there you are! What happened, did you have second thoughts?’

‘Seconds thoughts?’ Unable to comprehend what he was talking about, Claire stared up at him. He turned to Zenaide.

‘I wish to see your mistress alone. Return to your quarters. Come with me,’ he ordered Claire. ‘I want to know exactly where you took Saud and why. Did you think to double-cross us? To claim a large reward for Saud’s safety? Is that why you stole away from here with him this afternoon?’





CHAPTER SIX


‘STOLE away?’ Anger and astonishment battled inside her, anger suddenly getting the upper hand. ‘I am not prepared to talk to you about your absurd suspicions on the stairs, Raoul,’ she flung over her shoulder as she walked swiftly past him. ‘I am not a servant to be berated on an open stairway.’

‘No,’ Raoul agreed ferociously. ‘What I have to say to you is better said in private, and think yourself lucky if I content myself with mere words. What I would like to do…’

‘Is what? Torture me? Murder me? And all because I accepted an invitation from your grandmother to accompany her on a visit to an oasis?’ Triumph edged under her calm voice, but she turned away so that he wouldn’t see it. All at once she wanted to punish him, wanted to humiliate and hurt him as he had hurt her with his accusations and lack of trust. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken Saud with me, but I thought he was safer with me than left alone, and I wasn’t sure if it might be construed as an insult if I refused the Princess’s invitation.’

‘This is true? You have been out with Faika? But she takes no one on her trips to the desert.’

‘She took me,’ Claire told him defiantly, ‘and you are perfectly at liberty to check with her. She is on her way back to the city at the moment. Of course, if you do check with her she will guess the truth, perhaps she might even think you have given me reason to flee from you, taking our “son” with me.’

‘I—I owe you an apology.’ He had his back to her, but Claire could see how hard it was for him to say the words. ‘When I came back and found you both missing, my first thought was that somehow someone had discovered the truth, but when Ali told me that no one had been admitted to the palace I thought you must have left alone.’

‘And knowing of my greed, of course you knew immediately what had happened?’

She watched in mute fascination as the dark tide of colour swept up over the back of his neck. Proud, the Princess had called him, and Claire could well appreciate how difficult he must be finding that he was in the wrong.

‘You were the one who changed her mind when she was offered fifty thousand pounds,’ he reminded her arrogantly, turning round to face her for the first time, the familiar coldness back in his eyes. ‘Naturally, once I had assured myself that you and Saud had not been the victims of some kidnap plot, my first thought was…’

‘That I had been the one doing the kidnapping,’ Claire supplied bitterly for him, refusing to accept the validity of his explanations. Saud was his responsibility and a very heavy one as the natural inheritor of the Sheikh’s titles and powers. ‘Had I known you were likely to return, I would have left a message with Ali.’

Her gibe had gone home, she could see by the sudden tightening of his mouth, but if he chose to come and go at will, he could hardly expect to find her waiting patiently while he did so. ‘As you can see for yourself, apart from having been fed with too many sweetmeats, Saud is quite well.’ She held up the sleeping baby, his face still sticky and slightly grubby. ‘Whatever you might think to the contrary, I do take my responsibilities towards Saud seriously,’ Claire added on a quieter note, unable to bring herself to tell this hard, unyielding man how much she loved the little boy, so much that it was almost as though he were her own child.

‘You have consistently shown a remarkable fondness for him,’ Raoul agreed aloofly, spoiling it by adding cynically, ‘but then when he is the heir to many thousands of millions of pounds, it is not hard to understand why.’

Anger made the colour bleed slowly from her face, leaving her as white as Raoul’s robe. ‘You think that,’ she whispered painfully. ‘You think me as vile and avaricious as that?’

‘I think you are a woman whose devotion was bought for a mere fifty thousand pounds,’ Raoul jeered at her hatefully. ‘Oh, and by the way, I have a letter for you. From your lover no doubt. It was delivered to our Embassy in London and flown out with the rest of the mail. While you are living here as my wife, you will not receive letters from other men,’ Raoul told her white-lipped, the sudden surge of anger she could see beating up behind his eyes frightening her with its intensity.

‘What did you tell him when you wrote to him, Claire? That your bed was lonely and that you missed his caresses, so much so that you were quite prepared to take to your bed a man who is little better than a cross-bred mongrel, possessing the worst traits of both his parents? Oh yes, I know what is said about me,’ he added tightly. ‘Small children never spare the sensibilities or the pride of their peers.’

For one crazy moment she wanted to lean forward and smooth away what she was sure were lines of pain from beside his mouth, to hold him in her arms as she might have done Saud and comfort him, dispersing the hurt she could sense inside him, but the moment was destroyed as he flung her letter down on to the divan and walked through her room to the corridor that connected it with his own.

On this occasion there was no AH to request that she join his master for dinner, and telling herself that she preferred it that way, Claire dismissed Zenaide when she had bathed and fed Saud, telling her maid that she was quite capable of preparing herself for bed. Zenaide still looked chastened and Claire hoped she had not been chastised for not telling Ali where they were going. Like an injured animal she wanted to retire to her lair to lick her wounds in peace.

How could Raoul have thought her so despicable? Surely he knew she would never do anything to hurt Saud? And as for his allegation that she might be deliberately fostering the child’s affection for mercenary reasons… Her mouth tightened and then relaxed as unbidden a memory slid into her mind of Teddy shortly after their parents had died. They had still been living in the old family house. She had spent the morning filling packing cases and Teddy was supposed to be playing outside in the garden. She had gone downstairs to make lunch and, on finding the front gate swinging open and no Teddy in sight, panic had exploded inside her. She had been on the point of calling the police when he had turned up three hours later, muddy and astonished that she should be so concerned. And yet instead of relief, all she had been able to feel had been a searing, blinding anger. She could well imagine Raoul’s reaction to the news that they were both missing and perhaps his suspicions were understandable if one took the logical view.