Master of the Desert(30)

'You, Antonia?' Ra'id's expression changed from irony to sincerity. 'You  could never be ignored-you'd make sure of that. But please be serious  for a moment. I'm saying I love you, and I'll take a lifetime to prove  it to you if I have to. And, as for the land, it will always be yours-'

'Or I could give it to the people of Sinnebar,' she interrupted him, which felt right to her.

A faint smile tugged at Ra'id's firm mouth. 'Now do you see why I love  you?' he said, and, taking the fabulous sapphire ring out of its velvet  nest, he placed it on Antonia's wedding finger.

EPILOGUE

SHE couldn't have everything her own way.

Which wasn't such a bad thing, Antonia conceded, staring at her wedding  dress twinkling in the faint, pink light before dawn. Ra'id had insisted  that their people required their queen to look like a queen, and that  Antonia could have her wedding dress adapted at some later stage and  wear it again if she felt bad about the extravagance.

It was a dream of a dress, Antonia reflected, holding back the folds of  the lavish bridal-pavilion where she had spent the night. She had  tumbled out of bed in time to see Ra'id leave the encampment. He had  galloped away on his fierce black stallion, with his younger brother  Razi at his side, their very masculine silhouettes framed against a  brightening sky as they rode across the brow of the dune. They were two  unimaginably powerful men like heroes of old, leaning low over the necks  of their straining horses as they raced away, no doubt to enjoy an  early-morning swim in some lush, green oasis.

The wedding gown the tribeswomen had created for their queen was an  exquisite column of a dress in heavy ivory silk, embroidered for this  occasion in gold thread by specialist craftswomen who lived deep in the  interior of Sinnebar. It managed to be both demure and sexy, with long  sleeves to preserve Antonia's modesty, but bodyskimming to hint at what  lay beneath. She hoped Ra'id would take the hint, as they hadn't made  love since their last night in the desert. Far from dulling her sexual  urges, pregnancy had only made her hungrier for him, a fact she was sure  he knew, but which he cruelly refused to take action on. The thought  that this would be their wedding night made desire cry deep inside her,  and it was a voice she was determined he would hear.

The sexual tension between them had become unbearable, Antonia realised  as she walked deeper into the luxurious womb-like interior of her tent.  The bridal pavilion was decorated in many shades of crimson, fuchsia and  rose-pink silk, and was a delicately scented sanctuary where she was  supposed to be resting before the rigours of their week-long marriage  ceremony. But wanting Ra'id made rest impossible. It felt as if they  were starting over from the moment they had met. Her body yearned for  him so shamelessly, only now it was worse, because now she knew what she  was missing.

The wedding ceremony was to be at dawn and already a tented city had  grown up on the ivory-sugar sand. Lights glinted as far as the eye could  see, as Ra'id's subjects had gathered from every corner of the kingdom  to see him wed the girl who had laboured night and day at their side to  prepare the renovated fort for the first of the children it would house.  Antonia had wanted to name the centre after her mother, but the people  had ruled that they would name it after her. Ra'id had compromised when  he'd opened the Queen Antonia Children's Centre, adding a small plaque  signed by Antonia in memory of Helena Ruggiero that said quite simply:  She looked into the future and believed.                       
       
           



       

That plaque was the best gift Ra'id could ever have given her, Antonia  reflected, gazing at the casket of fabulous jewels he had given her the  previous evening. She smiled, remembering him commanding her not to take  them off during their wedding ceremony, as she had removed her jewels  once before. 'Our people must see you,' Ra'id had insisted, when she  protested at the size and quantity of the sparking diamonds.

'They'll hardly miss me wearing these,' she had replied, touching the  glittering stones he had fastened around her neck. 'They must be worth a  king's ransom.'

'No-a sheikh's,' he had told her dryly. 'You may consider me your hostage for life.'

She would, Antonia thought, hugging herself in anticipation.

She turned at the sound of footsteps. The women had come for her, she  noticed, her excitement mounting as they slipped silently into the  pavilion. She still couldn't believe they had come to dress their queen.

They bathed her, prepared her, scented her and polished her, until her  skin glowed and her body yearned for the touch of Ra'id-her lover, her  soul mate, her king. They laced the diamonds in her hair and arranged  her filmy, ivory-coloured veil beneath them-the veil that Ra'id would  remove in their wedding tent prior to …

The sound of the nafir, the horn with a single true note, was a  fortunate disruption to Antonia's progressively sensual thoughts. There  were people to greet, and a ceremony to undergo with grace and dignity,  before the longed-for moment when she could be alone with Ra'id.

And when that moment came she trembled like a virgin. Or, at least, that  was how she felt as Ra'id removed her veil with a teasing lack of  speed. She felt like a virgin waiting to be kissed by her lover for the  very first time. But when Ra'id kissed her brow, and then the swell of  her belly where their baby lay safe and loved, she knew this was going  to be better and far deeper than anything she had experienced before.

'Our child,' he murmured, sharing her sense of wonder.

'Our family,' she answered, quivering with enough expectation to found a  dynasty as Ra'id's lips brushed her mouth. That kiss was all the more  arousing for his lack of haste or pressure, she realised, shivering with  frustration beneath Ra'id's tantalisingly light touch.

'We have all the time in the world,' he murmured, teasing her as he always did.

'Don't make me wait that long,' Antonia protested, while Ra'id laughed.  And, falling back on the bed, he drew her on top of him. 'Tiger woman.'

'Meets rampant lion?' she suggested, tracing the lines of the tattoo on Ra'id's chest.

'An interesting coupling,' he agreed.

'Let's find out, shall we?' Antonia suggested, slipping out of her fabulous robe.