Darker Side of Desire & the Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner(22)

‘How could it have got in there?’ she begged, her teeth chattering with reaction. ‘Raoul, someone must know about Saud. Someone tried to kill him…’ Her voice started to rise and she felt Raoul’s fingers at her nape, urging her to relax against him.

‘Perhaps,’ he agreed, ‘but maybe not. Whichever the case, it was fortunate that you went in to him.’

‘He had thrown his panda on the floor,’ Claire told him stupidly, knowing that she was simply talking to hold at bay the terrible fear still stalking her. ‘I was just going to give it to him when I heard it. Oh Raoul, he could have died. I could have gone in there in the morning and…’

Her stomach heaved and she shuddered in his calming embrace. ‘Shush… you mustn’t torture yourself with too-vivid imaginings. It is true that it could have happened, but it is also true that it didn’t. Allah must be over Saud.’

He said it half-humorously, but Claire wasn’t in the mood to be amused. She glanced fearfully at her own bed, and correctly interpreting her fear, Raoul released her, carefully stripping it and then remaking it. Not until he had searched every inch of the room and assured her that it was safe did he return to her.

‘If you would like me to stay with you for tonight… I should prefer what has happened to be kept a secret between us. If it was a deliberate attempt to kill Saud, then whoever made it will try again. I don’t want to panic them into going into hiding. If we say nothing it might lull them into a false sense of security. Curiosity to discover how their plan misfired, if nothing else, should draw them out into the open.’

Did she want him to stay with her? If only he knew how much, Claire thought wildly. There was nothing she wanted more right now than the security of his arms round her, his body shielding hers. A slow heat started to burn through her, amazing her that she could so easily feel desire alongside her fear. It wasn’t merely for security and protection that she wanted Raoul beside her, she thought bleakly. She wanted the passionate possession of his body as well, his hands and lips against her skin, hers against his. She became acutely conscious of the warmth of his skin, of the thinness of her silk gown and her breasts hardening perceptibly beneath it, aroused by their contact with his body. Trying to disengage herself, Claire said wildly, ‘I didn’t think you were coming back tonight, I…’

‘My business was completed earlier than I expected,’ Raoul told her tersely, adding with a cruelty that hurt, ‘besides, where else would I want to be other than with my wife; the woman who might bear my child?’

His hand covered her stomach, heating her skin until she felt fluid and boneless, his lips brushed hers lightly until they parted voluntarily.

‘Go to sleep, Claire,’ Raoul told her harshly, releasing her with an obvious rejection that stung. ‘Otherwise I might forget my side of our bargain and take you to my bed.’ He saw her expression and laughed sardonically. ‘What’s the matter? Do you find it offensive when I remind you of my frustration… my physical needs? Do I shock you with my blunt admission that I want you? Go to bed, Claire,’ he reiterated, turning towards the door, and it struck her that he looked tired, and more than that, defeated. But there was no reason for him to suffer the demons of sexual frustration, she told herself bitterly. There must be women aplenty who would delight in his lovemaking.

Too exhausted to dwell more deeply on his comments Claire crawled into her bed, but she didn’t sleep well. Almost every half-hour she was awake and checking on Saud, who Raoul had insisted she return to his cot, which he assured her was now quite safe. The snake had also been removed, but she couldn’t pass the spot where it had lain without shuddering with fear and nausea. If she hadn’t heard Saud… If Raoul had not returned…

Over and over her mind kept playing back to her the sound of the snake’s soft movements, her throat gagging with fear, until sleep at last claimed her in a stifling, thick embrace.





CHAPTER EIGHT


NIGHTMARES tormented her uneasy sleep—muddled images of the dining-room at the Dorchester, men with guns which turned into writhing snakes—and Claire woke up, her heart pounding, her body bathed in perspiration, a sudden movement in the shadows by the door making her tense and call out in fear, ‘Who’s there?’

‘Only me.’ Raoul detached himself from the shadows. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, but you were crying out in your sleep.’

Shivering, Claire admitted huskily, ‘Every time I close my eyes I keep hearing that snake, I keep remembering what happened in London…’ She shuddered and then tensed in disbelief as Raoul walked towards her bed, casually pulling back the bedclothes. ‘What… what are you doing?’

For the first time she thought she saw a certain grim humour gleaming in the darkness of his eyes as he surveyed her pale features and tense expression.

‘Since you cannot sleep properly because of your nightmares, and I cannot sleep for the sound of your fear, we might as well share what is left of the night together.’ He was in bed beside her before Claire could protest, and treacherously an inner voice whispered that the warm weight of his body in bed beside her was comforting.

‘Come.’ When his arms came round her, pulling her against his body, a different kind of fear raced through her veins, but the heat of his body pressed against hers was too compelling to resist. She wanted this, Claire admitted drowsily, she wanted this close union   of their bodies, this comfort Raoul gave to her standing between her and her fears. But merely being held in his arms possessed its own form of torture and Claire was relieved when she felt sleep stealing over her, drowning out her desire to touch the taut male flesh against which her head was pillowed, to press soft kisses into the curve of his shoulder and feel his body harden with desire, in the same need she could feel stirring deep inside her.

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.