‘Real royalty,’ someone whispered appreciatively within Ruby’s hearing. ‘And you can definitely tell the difference.’
Mortified heat burnished Ruby’s fair complexion. Real royalty? Had she performed her role so badly? But then she knew that she could only be a pretend princess by virtue of her birth. How could she be anything else when she had spent all her life to date living as an ordinary person? But she was trying, she was trying very hard to be polite, reserved and dignified as Wajid had advised her she must be at all times while carefully avoiding controversial subjects. It was tough advice for a bubbly and naturally outspoken young woman to follow. To Ruby it also felt like trying to be something she was not while putting on airs and graces that went against the grain.
His tall powerful physique sheathed in a dove-grey suit, her husband looked devastatingly handsome. Her husband? Why was she thinking of Raja in such terms? He wasn’t her husband, not really, she told herself angrily, irritated by the mental mistake. A woman chose her husband with her heart but she had not. Guilty colour mantling her face, Ruby studied that lean, strong, wondrously handsome face and she steeled herself to feel nothing, absolutely nothing. She watched Raja work the room like a professional, smooth and practised and yet charming as well with a word here, a greeting there, for some a smile, for others a more serious aspect. He was a class act socially, everything she was not. Hovering at his elbow, Wajid Sulieman looked as though all his Christmases had come at once.
When refreshments were served, Raja was finally free to join Ruby. Lustrous dark eyes gleaming like polished amber flared down into hers while he rested a light hand at her spine. She went rigid, rejecting the temptation of even that much familiarity while recalling Bariah, who would never have been ill-at-ease in such a social gathering.
‘My family were very disappointed not to meet you today,’ the prince told her quietly.
‘Whereas here everyone is disappointed that I’m not you—you carry the accolade of being real royalty, unlike me,’ Ruby retorted, only to bite her lip a few seconds after that hot rejoinder had escaped her for she would have preferred to keep that particular thought to herself.
‘You are imagining that. A beautiful woman in fashionable apparel is almost always more welcome than a man,’ Raja fielded without skipping a beat.
Wajid introduced them to an older couple, who represented a charity that ran an orphanage just outside Simis, which Ruby, apparently, would be visiting the next day. In the wake of that casual announcement, which was news to Ruby, she appreciated how little freedom she now had when it came to how she might choose to spend her time. Her time evidently now belonged to an ever-growing list of duties, engagements and activities, not least of which was her need to learn the language so that a translator did not have to dog her every footstep.
‘You’re very quiet. What’s wrong?’ Raja enquired as Ruby mounted the stairs that led back to her suite.
‘It’s not important.’ Ruby pushed open the door and sped through to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable. A maid was engaged in hanging clothes in a closet there, male clothes. Her soft full mouth compressing as she recognised that fact, Ruby walked back into the main reception room where Raja was poised by the window.
‘You’re staying in this suite with me?’
‘Married couples usually share the same accommodation,’ Raja pointed out evenly.
Temper roused by that tranquil response skittered up through Ruby in an uneasy rush. He made it sound so simple but their relationship was anything but simple. ‘I didn’t realise that but for that plane crash you would have married my cousin Bariah,’ she admitted. ‘I hadn’t worked that out yet.’
‘A marriage would hardly have been included in the peace accord if the royal families did not have a bride and a groom in mind.’
As usual what Raja said made perfect sense and her teeth gritted in frustration. ‘I’m sure you would have preferred a proper Ashuri princess!’
Face deadpan, Raja gazed steadily back at her, patently refusing to be drawn on that touchy topic.
Tension roared through Ruby’s rigid stance like a hurricane seeking an outlet. ‘I said—’
‘I am not deaf,’ Raja cut in very drily. ‘But I do wonder what you expect me to say in reply to such an assumption.’
Flushed and furious, Ruby surveyed him. ‘Is an honest answer too much for me to ask for?’
‘Not at all, but I will not insult either you or your late cousin with the suggestion that I might compare two completely different women and voice a preference for either,’ Raja advanced, eyes cool while his strong jaw-line set hard as iron. ‘That is not a reasonable request.’
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly reasonable!’ Ruby slung back heatedly.
‘But to answer you would be disrespectful.’
‘Unlike you I’m only human. Naturally I want to know although I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask. Bariah was a real princess and would’ve had much more in common with you than I have.’
‘No comment,’ the prince pronounced stonily and with much bowing and scraping the little maid emerged from the bedroom and left the suite.
‘Bariah spoke the language, knew this country.’ Ruby’s statement was pained for after spending only hours in the Ashuri palace she was all too conscious of her deficiencies.
‘Given time and patience you will learn,’ Raja murmured quietly, his lack of tension merely increasing the adrenalin surge ready to charge through Ruby’s veins.
Ruby was in no mood to be comforted. ‘My cousin would have known automatically how to behave in every situation—’
‘Wajid already thinks you’re doing a marvellous job,’ Raja imparted gently.
As she stiffened defensively her eyes flared bright as topaz gemstones. ‘Don’t patronise me!’
‘I’m going for a shower,’ Raja breathed, casting his jacket down on a chair and striding into the bedroom.
Ruby stilled in her restive stalk round the spacious room and shot a startled glance in his direction as she followed him into the bedroom. ‘You’re actually planning to sleep in here with me?’
In the act of unbuttoning his shirt, Raja dealt her an impatient glance and said nothing.
For a timeless moment Ruby watched a wedge of masculine torso appear between the parted edges of the shirt. ‘There are two big sofas in the room next door,’ she pointed out, in case he had not yet noticed the possibility of that option.
Raja treated that reminder to the contempt he evidently felt it deserved. His eyes burned hot gold below his black, spiky lashes, his jaw squared, giving his face a dangerous edge.
‘All right…I’ll take a sofa,’ Ruby pronounced, determined to stick to her guns. It was her belief that if she reinforced their separation they would both soon forget those boundaries they had unwisely crossed and return to their original agreement.
Raja elevated a deeply unimpressed and sardonic black brow and stripped off his boxers to walk fluidly into the bathroom. As nude exits went it scored an impressive ten in the cooler-than-cool stakes. While the shower was running, Ruby made up a bed on a sofa for herself, donned her pyjamas, doused the lights and climbed in. Hermione snuggled in next to her feet.
A little while later, a wild burst of barking drove her from the brink of slumber.
‘Call off the dog or I will put her out to the kennels,’ Raja growled, his face grim in the light spilling from the bedroom.
Ruby leapt off the sofa, snatched the snarling Hermione up into her arms and attempted to soothe her overexcited pet. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘Retrieving my wife,’ Raja traded in a wrathful tone of warning.
‘I’m not your wife, not your proper wife!’ Ruby launched furiously back at him, inflamed by that insistence and the label.
‘So you’re not a real princess or a proper wife. Then what are you?’ Raja challenged impatiently, bending down from his considerable height to haul her up into his arms while she clutched Hermione frantically to her chest. ‘My sex buddy? A friend with benefits?’
He then went on to employ a third term of description, which was crude enough to make Ruby’s soft, full lips fall open in shock and her big, brown eyes flame. ‘How dare you?’
Raja settled her down on the bed with a good deal more care than she had grounds to expect from an angry man. Hermione tried to bite him. Composed in the face of that attempted attack, he scooped up the animal and put Ruby’s pet out of the room. From the other side of the door Hermione whined and scraped the wood.
‘Are you planning to do the same to me if I stand up to you?’ Ruby enquired furiously. ‘I am not sleeping with you again—’
‘I’m not very interested in sleeping right now either.’ At least six feet three inches tall and magnificently male, Raja threw back the sheet and slid into bed beside her.
‘I am not your sex buddy or that other thing you mentioned!’ Ruby proclaimed in a rage.
‘No, you’re my wife,’ Raja repeated again, immovably stubborn on that point.
Ruby was taken aback when he got out of bed again and crossed the room to reach for his jacket and retrieve something from a pocket. He returned to bed and reached for her hand.