The Desert Bride

‘Now we will have tea and we will talk,’ Razul announced with an exquisite simplicity of utter command that made Bethany recall exactly who he was, what that status meant and where she was. This rogue male was one step off divinity in Datar.

Bethany tensed and jerkily folded her arms. ‘I don’t think—’

Three servants surged out of nowhere, one with a tray bearing cups, one with a teapot, one with a low, ebonised, brass-topped table.

‘Early Grey...especially for you,’ Razul informed her, stepping up on the dais and dropping down onto the cushions with innate animal grace.

‘Early Grey’? She didn’t correct him. The oddest little dart of tenderness pierced her, making her swallow hard. She remembered him surreptitiously shuffling that ‘dainty Western cutlery’ he had referred to at a college dinner. Then she locked the recollection out, furious with herself. Miserably she sank down onto the beautiful carpet, settling her behind onto another heap of cushions, but her disturbing thoughts marched on.

She had been infatuated with him—hopelessly infatuated. Every tiny thing about Razul had fascinated her. She had been twenty-five years old but more naive in many ways than the average teenager. He had been her first love, a crush, whatever you wanted to call it, but it had hit her all the harder because she hadn’t been sweet sixteen with a fast recovery rate. And she had been arrogant in her belief that superior brainpower was sufficient to ensure that she didn’t succumb to unwelcome hormonal promptings and immature emotional responses. But he had smashed her every assumption about herself to smithereens.

‘There was a bit of a mix-up over my visa at the airport...I wouldn’t have mentioned your name otherwise,’ she heard herself say impulsively, and even that disconcerted her. She was not impulsive, but around Razul she was not herself. The china cup trembled betrayingly on the saucer as she snatched it up to occupy her hands and sipped at the hot, fragrant tea.

‘Your visa was invalid.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Bethany glanced up in astonishment, not having expected to hear that nonsensical claim again.

‘Young women are only granted visas under strict guidelines—if they are coming here to stay with a Datari family, can produce a legitimate employment contract or are travelling with a relative or male colleague,’ Razul enumerated levelly. ‘Your visa stated that you would be accompanied. You arrived alone. It was that fact which invalidated your documentation.’

Bethany lifted her chin, her emerald-green eyes flashing. ‘So you discriminate against foreign women by making lists of ridiculous rules—’

‘Discrimination may sometimes be a positive act—’

‘Never!’ Bethany asserted with raw conviction.

‘You force me to be candid.’ Brilliant dark eyes rested on her with impatience, his wide mouth hardening. ‘An influx of hookers can scarcely be considered beneficial to our society.’

‘Hookers?’ Bethany repeated in a flat tone, taken aback.

‘Our women must be virgin when they marry. If not, the woman is unmarriageable, her family dishonoured. In such a society the oldest profession may thrive, but we did not have a problem in that field until we granted visas with too great a freedom.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that I was mistaken for some sort of tart at the airport?’ Bethany gritted in a shaking voice.

‘The other category of female we seek to exclude I shall call “the working adventuress” for want of a more acceptable label.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow,’ Bethany said thinly.

‘Young women come here ostensibly to work. They flock to the nightclubs that have sprung up in the city. There they dress, drink and conduct themselves in a manner which may be perfectly acceptable in their own countries but which is seen in quite another light by Datari men,’ Razul explained with a sardonic edge to his rich vowel sounds. ‘A sizeable percentage of these women do not return home again. They stay on illegally and become mistresses in return for a lifestyle of luxury.’

‘Really, I hardly look the type!’ Bethany retorted witheringly, but her fair skin was burning hotly. ‘And, fascinating as all this is, it’s time that I headed for my hotel.’

‘Lone women in your age group are not currently accepted into our hotels as guests.’

Bethany thrust a not quite steady hand through her tumbling hair. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘No hotel will offer you accommodation when you arrive alone.’ His strong dark face utterly impassive, Razul surveyed her intently. ‘Had I not brought you to the palace you would now be on a flight back to the UK.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Bethany suddenly snapped, her nervous tension splintering up through the cracks in her composure. ‘It’s hardly my fault that my assistant broke an ankle before we boarded!’

‘Most unfortunate.’ But he said it with a faint smile on his beautifully moulded mouth, and his tone more than suggested that he was not remotely interested in the obvious fact that her planned stay in Datar had now run into petty bureaucratic difficulties, which she was quite sure he could brush aside...should he want to.

Bethany pushed her cup away with a very forced smile, behind which her teeth were gritted. ‘Look...this is an important research trip for me—’

‘But then you take all your work so seriously,’ Razul pointed out smoothly.

Her facial muscles clenched taut. ‘I am here in Datar to research the nomadic culture,’ she informed him impressively.

‘How tame...’

‘Tame?’ Bethany echoed in shrill disconcertion, having assumed that his own cultural background would necessarily prompt him to treat the subject with appropriate respect.

‘I have read your paper on the suppression of women’s rights,’ Razul murmured very softly.

‘You’ve read my paper?’ Bethany found herself gawping at him.

‘And, having done so, intend to generously offer you research in a field which could make you famous in the academic world when you return to the West.’ Burnished golden eyes suddenly struck hers with ferocious force.

‘What field?’ Bethany queried, a frown-line dividing her brows as she shifted uneasily on the cushions, instinctively reacting to the humming tension in the air.

Razul unleashed a predatory smile upon her. ‘A way of life never before freely opened to the scrutiny of a Western anthropologist. I feel remarkably like Santa Claus.’

‘Excuse me?’ The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Bethany scrambled upright and involuntarily backed away from the controlled menace that emanated from Razul in vibrating waves.

‘A prolonged stay in my harem will not only provide you with liberal scope for academic research, it will provide me with a long-awaited opportunity to teach you what being a woman is all about,’ Razul told her with silken self-satisfaction.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOUR harem?’ For the count of thirty seconds Bethany simply stared at Razul, her bright green eyes open to their fullest extent. Then she visibly bristled, her naturally sultry mouth compressing into a thin, unamused line. ‘Very funny,’ she said flatly, but there was an unevenness to her response as she fought against the giant tide of bitterness threatening to envelop her.

‘You walk in my world now.’ Razul issued the reminder with indolent cool. Veiled dark eyes slid over her in an all-encompassing look that was as physical as a caress. ‘When you walk from it again you will be a different woman.’

Her aggressive stance—feet apart and arms taut—quivered as a tide of fury surged through her, leaving her light-headed. ‘If you look at me like that once more, so help me I will knock your teeth down your throat!’ Bethany blistered back at him.

A scorching smile slashed his hard mouth, perfect white teeth flashing against his golden skin. He surveyed her with intense pleasure. ‘My father said... “Is this woman worth a diplomatic incident?” If he saw you now, truly he would not have asked such a question.’

‘What do you mean, “worth a diplomatic incident”?’ Bethany demanded, her voice half an octave higher.

‘Sooner or later you will be missed,’ Razul pointed out gently. ‘Questions will be asked, answers must be given. Our ambassador in London will be called to the Foreign Office. But I suspect it will be many weeks before we reach that stage—’

‘The Foreign Office?’ Bethany shook her head as though to clear it, a daze of utter disbelief beginning to enfold her.

‘You see, you have so few people in your life to notice that you are missing. You write to your mother only once a month. You communicate with your father not at all. Your sole close friend is currently enjoying an extended honeymoon in South America—her fall from grace in allowing a man into her life very probably loosened the ties of that friendship. As for your academic colleagues...?’ Razul enumerated these facts in the same calm, measured tone, as though he was well aware of her growing incredulity. ‘This is the long summer vacation. I doubt if they will be expecting to hear from you. I find your life of isolation a sad testimony to your wonderful Western civilisation.’

The pink tip of Bethany’s tongue crept out to moisten her dry lower lip. Shock was reverberating through her in debilitating waves. ‘How...how do you know all these things about me?’ she whispered jerkily.

‘An investigation agency.’

‘You put a private investigator on me? But when? You didn’t even know I was coming to Datar!’