Darker Side of Desire & the Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner(25)

‘I am surprised to find you still here when your lover has been so anxious to contact you—even to the extent of contacting our London Embassy. Have you any idea how I felt,’ he continued bitingly, ‘when I was summoned from an important meeting to be told that someone had been making urgent enquiries about you?’

Someone? Fear struggled with incomprehension, until the truth dawned. Teddy must have been trying to contact her, or someone on his behalf. Had he had an accident, was he hurt? Anxiety took the place of fear, her emotions mirrored clearly in her eyes as she struggled to her feet.

‘Teddy…’ she began urgently, only to fall silent as Raoul said thickly:

‘So it’s true, you do love him, so much so that I merely have to mention his name and you are filled with concern for him.’ A muscle beat spasmodically in his jaw. ‘I wonder if he will still feel the same about you once he learns that you have given yourself to me… abandoned yourself to me would be a better description,’ he added softly, ‘because there was total abandonment in the way you offered yourself to me, wasn’t there, Claire?’

What could she say? She was too worried about Teddy to bandy words with him. ‘I must go back to the palace,’ she mumbled unsteadily, her mouth feeling as though it were full of marbles. ‘I must ring…

‘Teddy?’ Raoul interrupted viciously. ‘By all means, if only to tell him that he will make no further attempts to get in touch with you while you are living here as my wife. Indeed, I shall be surprised if he wishes to once he knows the truth, and you will tell him Claire, otherwise I will do it for you.’

With that threat ringing in her ears, Claire followed him blindly back up the path to the palace. Saud was balanced easily in his arms, chattering away in his as yet indecipherable private language, unaware of the tense atmosphere existing between the two adults.

Mentally checking the time difference, Claire worked out that she ought to be able to get through to Teddy’s school. She knew the number, but because of the language difficulties she was forced to ask Raoul to ask the operator for it. He had told her she could make the call from his study, and although she had never been in the room before, apart from noticing that it was furnished functionally rather than anything else, she paid little attention to her surroundings.

She had expected Raoul to leave once he had requested the number, but to her dismay after handing the receiver over to her, he lounged on one of the divans, watching her twisting the telephone wire in nervous fingers. Willing him to leave, Claire turned her back on him. Why was he staying? To make sure that she told her ‘lover’ about her marriage? Dear God, how was she going to be able to speak to Teddy properly with Raoul there?

At last, when she was on the point of giving up, someone answered the phone. A voice she dimly recognised as belonging to the headmaster’s secretary spoke into it, and haltingly Claire asked for the headmaster, too pursued by fear for Teddy now to worry about what conclusions Raoul might draw.

‘Ah, Miss Miles,’ she heard the headmaster saying calmly. ‘I’m so glad you’ve got in touch, and you must excuse me for not using your married name by the way, but I’m afraid I don’t recall what it is…’ He sounded so normal and calm that Claire felt a little of her tension easing away.

‘Teddy,’ she blurted out. ‘Is he all right? Someone’s been trying to get in touch with me, I believe…’

‘And you thought something was wrong? I’m so sorry my dear. Teddy is fine. No, we’ve been trying to contact you about the holidays. Teddy wrote to you, I believe…’ He broke off and murmured something which Claire didn’t catch, her mind recognising with appalled dismay that she had never replied to Teddy’s last letter. ‘Look, I’m getting him to come to the phone. I know you’ll feel more reassured if you speak to him yourself. He badly wants to come out and see you,’ the headmaster was continuing, ‘and if it’s at all possible, I should strongly recommend it.’

‘But…’

She was about to protest when the receiver was put down and then she heard Teddy’s familiar voice, weak tears of relief pouring down her cheeks at his, ‘Hi, sis. You’ve remembered that I exist at last, have you? Look, can I come out and stay with you?’

‘Look, Teddy, I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ she managed to interrupt before he could continue. ‘It’s terribly difficult getting out here, and…’ She broke off as the receiver was wrenched out of her hand.

Raoul was towering over her, his face almost white with rage. Before she could stop him, he muttered thickly, ‘I told you what to tell him and what I’d do if you didn’t…’ And then as he raised the receiver to his ear, Claire distinctly heard Teddy’s reedy voice exclaiming anxiously, ‘Claire? Sis, are you still there?’

For a moment there was deadily silence, Raoul’s eyes locking with hers. Claire trembled, knowing that he too had heard what Teddy said, and then he was speaking into the receiver, his voice oddly warm and reassuring as he intoned, ‘Teddy? This is Raoul speaking, Claire’s husband.’

Teddy must have said something, because there was a silence from Raoul’s end, and then he was saying, ‘Of course you can come out. Yes, that’s right, there can be problems with flights, but we’ll organise something. Yes, I’m looking forward to meeting you too…’ He handed the receiver back to Claire. ‘He wants to say goodbye to you.’

Numbly she spoke to Teddy, letting Raoul take the receiver from her when she had finished. Again a tense silence filled the room, and then Raoul said quietly, ‘I think we’d better have a talk, don’t you? No more lies, please, Claire,’ he continued curtly when she would have spoken. ‘You can’t honestly expect me to believe that your supposed lover is a boy with his voice still unbroken, who calls you “sis”. And I can’t understand why you should have allowed the misconception in the first place.’

‘Can’t you?’ Her voice was bitter. ‘Perhaps it just seemed easier to let you go on thinking the worst about me. You’d already made your mind up…’

‘And you didn’t care enough to change it?’

Why should he sound so tired? Honesty compelled her to admit a little of the truth. ‘It wasn’t that. I just thought it would be easier… safer…’ He looked at her and she forced herself to meet the look in his eyes.

‘Safer? But it wasn’t, was it, Claire? Do you honestly believe if I had known that, I would have…’

‘Made love to me?’ she ventured with a brave smile.

‘Among other things. But what’s done is done, and now I want the truth. All of it,’ he added implacably.

Slowly she told him, taking a deep breath and speaking in a low, husky voice.

‘So the money was for Teddy’s school fees?’

Claire hung her head. ‘Yes… I would have helped without any sort of payment… I wanted to help because of Saud, but you were so cutting and unkind, and I’d been worrying for months about how I was going to afford to keep Teddy at school. It’s almost his home to him, you see,’ she added unconsciously, pleading with him to understand. ‘Since we lost our parents he’s been so insecure. I wanted to provide him with all that he would have had if our father hadn’t died.’

‘And what about you, Claire?’ Raoul asked huskily when she finished. ‘Was there no one who could have lifted the burden from your shoulders? You were what when you lost your parents? Seventeen? Eighteen?’

‘Eighteen,’ Claire admitted, swallowed hard, hardly able to believe that it was tenderness she heard in his voice. ‘I… I was just about to start university, but of course that was impossible. My godmother helped as much as she could, but her second husband has a family of his own… She often gave me little treats… That visit to the Dorchester…’

‘Foolish, selfless Claire,’ Raoul murmured over her downbeat head, ‘so ready to deny herself for the good of others. I will arrange for Teddy to come out and stay with us, and you need no longer concern yourself with his school fees.’ His mouth tightened when he saw her expression. ‘No, Claire. Teddy is now my responsibility.’

‘But… but our marriage is only temporary,’ Claire reminded him breathlessly, ‘and he can’t come out here. I had to tell him something,’ she reminded him. ‘I couldn’t just disappear, so I went to the school and I told him we were getting married, but…’ She licked her lips, suddenly frightened to admit to Raoul the lie she had told Teddy.

‘But?’ he prompted, frowning. ‘You didn’t tell him you were marrying a man of mixed race, is that what troubles you? The shock he will have when he sees me?’

‘No!’ Her protest was vehement and instantaneous. ‘Of course not. Teddy wouldn’t worry about a thing like that. No, I told him we were in love,’ she admitted miserably. ‘I didn’t want him to worry, or suspect anything you see. There are several Arab boys at the school and if I had told him the truth, he might have let it slip and it could have endangered Saud… Raoul, what’s wrong,’ she asked uneasily, watching the slow tide of dark colour creep up under his skin. ‘I shouldn’t have lied to him, I know, but it seemed the most sensible thing at the time. Are you… very angry?’