An Arabian Courtship

Tensely she edged round a couch. He didn’t move forward a helpful inch. What was more, the nearer she got, the bigger he seemed to get. He had to be well over six feet, unusually tall for one of his race.

‘Now take your hair down.’

Her lashes fluttered in bemusement. ‘M-my h-hair?’

‘If it is your desire to become my wife, you must learn that I do not expect my instructions to be questioned,’ he drawled. ‘When I command, my wife obeys.’

Polly was transfixed to the spot. That cool of absolute conviction carried greater weight than mere arrogance. She flinched when he moved without warning. Long fingers darted down into her hair, and in disbelief she shut her eyes. He was a lunatic, and you didn’t argue with lunatics. He was so close she could smell a trace of expensive aftershave overlying the scent of clean, husky male. In other words, he was ten times closer than she wanted him to be. Her bright hair tumbled down to her shoulders, the pins carelessly cast aside.

‘You are amazingly obedient.’ Abrasion roughened the low-pitched comment.

Reluctantly, fearfully, she looked up. Some treacherously feminine part of her was seized by an almost voyeuristic fascination. He was superbly built, dramatically good-looking. Even Polly would have sneaked a second glance had she seen him somewhere on the street. High cheekbones intensified the aristocratic cast of his features. Sapphire-blue eyes were set beneath flaring dark brows, his pale golden skin stretched over a savagely handsome bone structure. Up close he was simply breathtaking. But in spite of his gravity and the sleek trappings of a sophisticated image, Polly sensed a contradictory dark and compelling animal vibrancy. He had the unstudied allure of a glossy hunting cheetah, naturally beautiful, naturally deadly. He also had a quality of utter stillness which unnerved her. Overpowered, she instinctively retreated a step, steadily tracked by fathomless blue eyes.

His cool, sensual mouth firmed. ‘In the circumstances, your timidity seems rather excessive. I value honesty above all other virtues. It would be wiser if you were to behave normally.’

Silence fell.

‘You are still very young,’ he continued. ‘Can you really have reflected upon the kind of life you will lead as my wife?’

Anybody with the brain power of a dormouse would have run a mile the moment they paused to reflect, Polly decided ferociously. Why did she have to stay put? Because, as Maggie had innocently reminded her, this had been her decision. Her lips moved tremulously into a firmer line. ‘Of course I’ve thought it over.’

‘You are probably aware that as I handle my country’s investment funds, I frequently travel abroad, but as my wife, you will remain in Dharein. You will not accompany me,’ he emphasised. ‘There you will mix only with your own sex. You will not be able to drive a car. Nor will you be allowed to leave the palace either alone or unveiled. From the hour that I take you as my bride, no other man may look upon you if that is my wish. Within our household we will even eat separately. Perhaps you have heard that certain members of my family are less strict in their observances of these traditions. I am not. I would not wish you to be in ignorance of this fact.’

Ignorance suddenly seemed like bliss. He described an existence beyond the reach of Polly’s imagination. Purdah—the segregation of the sexes that resulted in the practice of keeping women in strict seclusion. Sufficiently challenged by the thought of marrying him, all she could produce was a wooden nod.

Audibly he released his breath. ‘You cannot have been accustomed to many restrictions. I understand that your parents regularly entertain here.’

‘I don’t put in much of a presence.’ Polly was thinking of her mother’s wrath when she had hidden in a landing cupboard at the age of eleven sooner than recite poetry to family friends.

A winged jet brow ascended. ‘When I entertain, you will have no choice.’

Her forehead indented. ‘But you can’t entertain women on their own?’

His brows pleated.

‘You just said that I’d never see another man again. I wouldn’t be much use as a hostess,’ she pointed out flatly.

A disconcerting quirk briefly shifted his unsmiling mouth. ‘It is possible that I have been guilty of some exaggeration on that count,’ he conceded. ‘But you must understand my surprise that a young woman, raised in so free a society, should be willing to enter an arranged marriage. I was concerned that you might have erroneously assumed that your position as my wife would grant you an exciting and glamorous existence.’

‘I expect it to be dull.’ The impulsive admission just leapt off Polly’s tongue. She shrank from the incredulous glitter irradiating his narrowed stare. ‘I mean, not dull precisely, but—well, an Arab wife, who has servants and doesn’t get out either…well,’ she was faltering badly, ‘she can’t have very much to do with herself.’

‘An Arab wife concerns herself with the comfort of her husband,’ he intoned coldly.

He was most erratic in his arguments. ‘But you said you wouldn’t be around much.’

Even white teeth showed in an almost feral slash against his bronzed skin. ‘By that I wished to warn you that I will not dance attendance on you.’

But you expect me to dance attendance on you! she thought. He was a male chauvinist pig, an award-winning specimen. He put chauvinism in line with a capital offence. Stonily she studied the carpet. ‘Yes.’

‘Our alliance will be one of extreme practicality,’ he delivered in hard addition. ‘I am not of a romantic disposition. I tell you this…’

‘You didn’t need to. You wouldn’t be here if you were romantic,’ Polly interrupted thinly. ‘I suppose Mother said something which made you worry that I might be suffering from similar delusions. I’m not.’

For a male receiving a reassurance he had surely sought, Raschid looked unrelentingly grim. ‘This becomes clear. Then we are of one mind. I will not receive complaints of neglect when I am involved in the business concerns which take up most of my time.’

By the sound of it, if she ran into him once a week she would be doing well. She smiled. ‘No, I won’t complain.’

‘Had I sacked Dharein from border to border, it appears that I could not have found a more conformist and submissive bride,’ he declared very softly. ‘But I warn you of this now—should we prove incompatible, I will divorce you.’

That was a piece of good news Polly had not even hoped for. How could they be compatible in any field? He intimidated her. A close encounter with an alien would have been less terrifying. The unashamed threat of domestic tyranny echoed in all his stated requirements.

‘You have nothing to say to this either?’ he prompted in a husky growl. ‘You are composed and content with this future?’

‘Are you?’ Glancing up unwarily, Polly encountered a hypnotically intense stare which burned flags of pink into her fair skin. A curious tightening sensation clenched her somewhere down deep inside. It made her feel very uncomfortable.

A chilling smile slanted his well-shaped mouth. ‘Could I be impervious to the allure of such beauty as you possess?’

No doubt this was an example of the charm her mother had mentioned, and it was absolutely meaningless. When Raschid had first seen her in the doorway, neither admiration nor warmth had coloured his impassive appraisal.

‘Although I should confess that I am not in accord with the meeting of East and West in marriage,’ he added smoothly. ‘I will treat you with consideration and respect, but I will not alter my way of life. The adaptation required will, necessarily, be yours alone. I can only accept your word that you feel yourself equal to this challenge.’

Out of the blue the strangest suspicion came to her, infiltrating her self-preoccupation. Could he possibly want her to refuse him? Surely he could not have come here to invite a rejection which would be an intolerable insult to one of his race and status? Polly cast aside that highly unlikely interpretation. A purist might have respected his refusal to offer empty reassurances about their future together. But all he achieved was a deepening of each and every one of Polly’s nervous terrors at the picture of herself, marooned in a strange environment, forced to follow foreign customs while at the mercy of a husband who planned to make no allowances for her.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she mumbled, hating him with every fibre of her being for redoubling her fear of the unknown. He defined an existence which chilled her to the marrow.

He studied her downbent head. ‘I can ask no more of you. One must hope that the sacrifices entailed are not more than you find the elevation worthy of. Since I have established to my own satisfaction that you fully comprehend the nature of our future relationship, there can be no necessity for a further meeting between us.’

Laser-bright eyes met her startled upward glance in cool challenge.

‘But you’ll be staying now…for a while?’ she queried.

‘Unfortunately that will not be possible. Late this evening I am leaving for New York,’ he revealed. ‘Nor will it suit my schedule to return here again before the wedding.’

Nonchalantly untouched by her dismay that he cherished no plans to stay on as her parents expected, he bent down to enclose lean fingers to her wrist and raise her firmly upright. Her knees were cottonwool supports. Dazedly she watched him clamp a heavy bracelet to her wrist.

‘Your betrothal gift,’ he explained, answering her blank stare.

Of beaten gold and studded with precious stones, it was decorated with some primitive form of hieroglyphics. Polly was put grotesquely in mind of a slave manacle. Valiantly she tried to express gratitude.

A cool hand pressed up her chin, enforcing contact with black-lashed eyes of lapis lazuli which were dauntingly enigmatic. Raschid ran the forefinger of his other hand very lightly along the smooth curve of her jawbone, silently studying her, and somehow, while he maintained that magnetic reconnaissance, she could not move. A peculiar disorientation swept her with light-headedness. He dropped his hand almost amusedly. ‘I think you will be very responsive in my bed, Polly. I also suspect that you may find your training as a librarian of small advantage to you there. But I await enlightenment with immense impatience…’

Had the door not opened, framing her parents’ anxious faces, Polly would have fled there and then. A deep crimson had banished her pallor. Raschid turned to them with a brilliant smile. ‘Your daughter is all that I was promised—a pearl beyond price,’ he murmured smoothly. ‘Truly I am blessed that I may claim so perfect a bride.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE ORGAN played Purcell as Polly came down the aisle, parchment-pale, her screened gaze avoiding the tall, exquisitely dressed male watching her with untraditional cool from the altar. Throughout the past fortnight of hectic preparations she had existed in a dream state, her brain protectively hung in an emotional vacuum. That was the only way she had coped.

Her mind shifted inexorably back to her parents’ dismay when they had realised that Raschid was not remaining with them as a house guest. She had hoped…what had she hoped for? Dismay had swiftly become acceptance. In awe of him, her parents had put up no objections. They were not even attending the second ceremony in Dharein. From the moment Polly left the church she would be on her own.