Her breasts were crushed against the hard wall of his chest, his mouth enforcing his dominance over her, his fingers tightening on her hip bones as he moulded her against his body.
‘Raoul, please don’t do this,’ she begged in a panicky voice when his mouth finally released hers. Her lips felt swollen and bruised, her voice unfamiliar even to her own ears, edged with fear and hysteria.
‘Pleading with me, Claire? You should know better than to plead with a wild animal.’ His voice possessed a hypnotic quality that held a deadly fascination, and despite the warmth of his room Claire shivered, gasping in shock and outrage when his hand spread possessively against her breast. His thumb stroked slowly over her nipple and the dark head bent. Fierce shafts of pleasure seemed to jolt through her body, a crazy, mindless frenzy taking possession of her. ‘Claire…’
The shrill command of the telephone cut through the heavy silence, and Raoul released her almost instantly to go and answer it. He spoke into the receiver in Arabic, frowning as he turned and saw her, her gown still on the floor, her arms wrapped round her body. Murmuring something curtly into the receiver, he put it down and came towards her, taking the door key out of his pocket.
‘Saved this time from the mauling of the wild animal.’ The anger had gone completely from his expression. ‘Is that relief or disappointment I see in your eyes, Claire?’ he added mockingly as she edged away from him. ‘Your body is quite intoxicatingly responsive. Your lovers must have taught you well… or is it simply frustration that made you so hungry in my arms?’
He picked up the receiver before she could retaliate and tell him that she had felt nothing in his embrace apart from fear and loathing. He had treated her as though she were a rag doll incapable of feelings and her pride was as bruised as her mouth. He was an animal, a dangerous animal she would be wise not to tangle with again if she valued her self-respect and her safety. She had always sworn that when she did share the pleasure of intimacy with a man, it would be with a man she respected and trusted as well as loved, and yet she was forced to admit that she had come dangerously close to forgetting all the tenets by which she had previously lived her life when Raoul held her in his arms. Those light teasing kisses had inflamed her to the point where nothing else had mattered other than the hard possession of his mouth, and without the brutality of the kiss he had forced upon her she doubted that she would have been able to break free of the spell he seemed to have woven round her senses.
Safe in her own room she dismissed the maid and then locked the door behind her, telling herself that it was just as well she had found out what manner of man lurked behind the urbane exterior Raoul showed to the world. Now there would be no danger of her falling prey to his potent maleness. But as she lay on the verge of sleep she was forced to admit that there had been excitement as well as fear in her reaction to him; that her body had responded overwhelmingly to his touch and that she would have to keep a stricter guard over her emotions.
* * *
‘Welcome to Omarah!’
They had flown Concorde to Omarah in less than half the time it would have taken on a normal flight, and Claire inclined her head slightly towards Raoul as she followed him down the gangway, her body trying to adjust itself to the intense heat of the Gulf afternoon. Heat lay in a haze of dust over the city beyond the modern airport; minarets and mosaics vying with skyscrapers, the mingling of East and West an assault on Claire’s senses as she tried to assimilate the contrasting cultures.
A Mercedes limousine was waiting to ferry them from the airport to what was to be Claire’s home for the duration of their stay. She knew that Muslim families lived together, and had somehow expected that she would be sharing the woman’s quarters of someone else’s home but Raoul announced, as their driver negotiated the narrow streets of the souk, and then open, gracious boulevards, that the Sheikh had put one of his palaces at their disposal. ‘It is on the gulf, away from the city. The air is more healthy there for Saud.’
It was disconcerting to learn that they would be living alone together. When she had visualised her life in Omarah Claire had envisioned a life shared in the main with other women, rather than with Raoul who she had imagined would have as little desire for her company as she had for his, but her doubts and fears were forgotten as the city was left behind and they took the coast road along the gulf, past sugar-icing places, Moorish in concept, decorated with iron grilles.
They had gone several miles before they turned off the main road and bumped down a narrow track which came to a full stop in front of a pale pink palace, its narrow slit windows staring haughtily in the direction they had just travelled. As though by some magic signal, two doors opened in the high wall surrounding the palace and the Mercedes purred silently inside.
They were in a courtyard enclosed by the high wall on one side and a row of what seemed to be garages and outhouses on the other. In the distance, Claire could hear the sound of water, and the brilliant sunshine cast harsh shadows over the coloured pavings. More utilitarian than decorative, the courtyard was faintly disappointing. She had expected something more exotic.
Raoul was climbing out of the car and coming round to open her door for her, a courtesy she hadn’t expected, bearing in mind the much-publicised superiority of the Middle Eastern male. The heat of the afternoon struck her like a blow after the air-conditioning of the car, and a wave of faintness swept over her. Her body shrank from even the most accidental contact with Raoul’s, her eyes darkening as she remembered the savagery of his assault on her body. If the phone hadn’t rung when it had…
She shivered suddenly, forcing down her fear. If Raoul had been savage it was because he had been angry. Meeting his father had opened old wounds and he had reacted instinctively, wanting to hit out and hurt as he had been hurt.
‘Are you all right?’ He asked the question automatically and Claire nodded her head.
‘Just tired, that’s all.’ She leaned into the car to take Saud, as always finding comfort and strength in holding the child. A link had been forged between them the day she had saved Saud from death, and in some strange way it was almost as though he were her child.
A door opened in the palace wall, and taking a deep breath Claire followed Raoul towards it. She was now in his country, and would be judged as his wife; the woman who had borne his child outside marriage and who he had been forced to marry by his uncle. For Saud’s sake she must play her part perfectly. Head held high, Claire followed him into the cavernous darkness waiting beyond the open door.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IF the Sitt would come with me.’
As her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, Claire saw that she was being addressed by a girl in her late teens. Pretty and slender, her dark eyes regarded Claire rather anxiously, but her smile was warmly welcoming, and Claire was too tired to do anything other than follow her up what seemed to be an everlasting spiral of stone stairs, narrow slit windows giving her the occasional glimpse of sea and land spread out below them. By the time they reached the top, Saud had become a heavy weight in her arms, but mindful of the real reason for her presence here in this palace which made her feel totally alien, she was reluctant to let him go.
At last they stopped climbing and her companion indicated an arched doorway decorated with a fretted frieze of stylised flowers and symbols. Claire already knew that it was forbidden for a Muslim to copy directly from nature, but the intricacy of the detail of the frieze had a beauty all of its own. The heavy wooden door slid open under her companion’s touch, and at first Claire was almost blinded by the brilliance of the sunset flooding the enormous room. Tall arched windows looked out across the gulf, the scent of sandalwood hung evocatively on the evening air. A large low bed on a raised dais caught her attention, its gauzy hangings moving lightly in the air-conditioning.
Brilliantly hued silk and satin cushions were heaped on the bed and on the divan just below the windows.
It had been decided when Claire accepted the Sheikh’s proposition that she would have almost sole care of Saud. ‘It will not be thought of as unusual since you are a European,’ the Sheikh had told her, ‘and it will make the task of guarding him much simpler.’
After her companion had introduced herself as Zenaide, and had explained that she was to be her personal maid, she turned to the wall opposite the windows and opened a door set into it indicating that Claire was to follow her.
A narrow corridor lined on one side with floor-to-ceiling wardrobes opened out into a small square room with three doors off it. One of them led into a sumptuous bathroom, the huge sunken bath in the middle of the room making Claire draw a rather shaky breath. Two people could easily fit inside it, and hard on the heels of that thought came a vivid and tormenting mental image of Raoul, naked, his tawny skin gleaming with water as a dark-eyed, doe-like houri bathed his body.
More disturbed than she wanted to admit, Claire hurried out of the bathroom, heaving a faint sigh of relief as Zenaide opened one of the other doors and she realised that she was in Saud’s room. Nearly as large as her own it was rather bare, apart from a cot and a highchair, but once the furniture they had chosen in Paris arrived it would look much more cheerful. She would have liked to suggest having a mural painted on the walls—woodland creatures, scenes from Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh, but guessed that it would not be permitted. Saud was, after all, a Muslim child, but perhaps once she had got to know Zenaide a little better she could discover from the girl how they could make the room look more attractive and stimulating for the baby.