The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus (29 page)

‘Welcome to Dhurahn, Madam,’ said a small dark-haired girl with
a soft voice, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere to bow and gesture
across the hallway. ‘I am Masiri. If you will allow me, I shall show you to the
women’s quarters.’

The women’s quarters! Sam shivered. But what else could she do
but follow Masiri up the long flight of marble stairs and then along a gallery
through which the hallway down below could only be seen through a protective
fretted screen?

Another flight of stairs and another corridor, this one in the
form of an upper veranda that overlooked an enclosed courtyard and garden. Sam
caught her breath as she looked down into it, her misery momentarily forgotten
as she admired its beauty. A fountain sent droplets of water upwards to sparkle
in the sunlight before falling back to dimple the smooth surface of a pool.
Large lazy goldfish half hidden by water lily leaves basked in the warmth. The
air was full of the scent of the roses planted in the flowerbeds.

‘His Highness Prince Vere lives in the old part of the palace,
whilst his brother His Highness Prince Drax lives in the new part,’ Masiri
explained in careful English, adding, ‘you are to have the rooms of the Lady
Princess. It was for her that her husband built the garden.’

Sam forced a smile and nodded her head, although she had no
real idea who Masiri meant.

The girl had stopped outside a pair of double doors, and now
opened them.

Reluctantly Sam stepped inside—and then stopped. The room in
which she was standing was a beautiful drawing room, decorated as though it were
in a classically styled Georgian mansion. It was a woman’s room, Sam saw at
once, its furniture delicate and feminine—a pretty mahogany writing desk, a pair
of matching sofa tables—and there was even an embroidery screen and a sewing
box. A large gilt-framed mirror hung over an Adam-style fireplace; pale green
watered silk covered the walls and hung at the windows. A carpet woven in the
same pattern and colours as the plasterwork on the ceiling covered the floor.

The whole room was so elegant, its furnishings so obviously
antique, that Sam could only gaze at her surroundings in bemusement and awe.

Smiling at her, Masiri led the way to another pair of double
doors telling Sam, ‘Here is the bedroom for you, madam.’

Dutifully Sam followed her.

The bedroom was decorated in the same style as the drawing
room, and in the same colours. The large bed had pale green silk drapes lined in
gold silk, and the bedspread was green silk embroidered with gold.

‘Here is a dressing room and a bathroom,’ Masiri enunciated
carefully, indicating the doors on either side of the bed. ‘I go now and bring
you coffee and some food.’

Sam nodded her head. Her head had started to ache. She walked
into the dressing room. Mirrored wardrobes lined one wall, throwing back to her
an image of herself that depressed her. They had been travelling virtually all
day, and her serviceable long-sleeved khaki shirt and skirt looked dull and
dusty—and decidedly un-mistress-like.

She opened one of the wardrobe doors and then stiffened,
quickly opening another. There, hanging up neatly, were the clothes Vere had
bought. They had obviously been brought to the palace ahead of them and swiftly
unpacked.

Another woman might welcome a life in which unseen hands
performed every single necessary task and all one had to do was allow oneself to
be waited on, but Sam didn’t.

When Masiri returned with coffee and a plate of small sweet
pastries, Sam was waiting impatiently for her.

‘I want to see His Highness,’ she told her determinedly. ‘There
is something that I need to tell him.’

‘You wish His Highness to come to you?’ Masiri asked
uncertainly.

From the look on Masiri’s face Sam suspected that she viewed
her request as a breach of protocol, but she didn’t care.

‘Either he comes to me or you take me to him. It doesn’t matter
which,’ Sam told her firmly. ‘But I must see him as soon as possible.’

Vere looked at
the note his PA had
handed him and read it quickly.

Sam wanted to see him. He looked down at his desk, where his
staff had neatly stacked that correspondence they felt Vere would need to see
most urgently.

He also should, as a matter of good manners, seek out his
sister-in-law and enquire after her health. Drax would expect that of him at the
very least. Sadie was a very modern young woman, who was determined to ensure
that her husband and her brother-in-law did everything they could to promote
sexual equality amongst their own people, and Vere supported her in that. And
even if he had not done so, even if there had been issues on which they had
clashed, he would have forgiven her them because of the love she had for his
twin.

Initially Drax had brought her to Dhurahn as a bride for Vere,
not himself, as part of his scheme to prevent them both from being forced into
diplomatic marriages. Drax with the Emir’s eldest daughter, and Vere with the
Ruler of Zuran’s youngest sister. Neither of them had welcomed their neighbours’
marital plans, but they had agreed that they had to be dealt with tactfully and
a plausible reason found for refusal. It had been Drax who had suggested that
their best way out of the situation would be for them to provide
themselves
with wives, before either the Ruler or the
Emir could broach the subject of formal negotiations.

When Drax had fallen in love with the prospective wife he had
chosen for Vere, Vere had been happy for both of them—and happy for himself too.
Drax’s marriage meant that he could fob off both his neighbours’ attempts to
marry him into their families by pointing out that it was impossible for him to
agree without risking offending one of them.

Ultimately he imagined that when he did marry it would be a
diplomatic marriage, though one which he chose. The very thought of the
vulnerability that falling in love brought made him stiffen his defences against
it.

‘You will not be able to escape your fate, brother,’ Drax had
teased him. ‘You wait and see. You will follow the same path as our forebears
and fall in love with a European woman. It is written into our genes, its course
set into the stars. There is no escape.’

Drax was wrong, of course. Totally wrong.

He was, Vere realised, still holding his PA’s note, telling him
that Sam was asking to see him as a matter of urgency.

Just thinking about her waiting for him set off a reaction
within him that underlined everything he was fighting against. She touched parts
of him—his emotions, his self-control... Witness the way he had allowed her to
urge his possession of her when he should have withdrawn. Vere could feel the
colour crawling up under his skin even though he tried to suppress it. It was no
use. He could not withstand the turbulent surge of desire that crashed through
him, breaching every defence he tried to put up against it.

Images, scents, sounds filled his head, until his own breathing
quickened in time to the remembered race of hers. He moved uncomfortably in his
chair, all too aware of the heavy pulse of his erection. If he went to her now
he wouldn’t be able to trust himself not to touch her. But why
shouldn’t
he touch her?

Without telling her the truth? Without giving her the
opportunity to judge properly for herself whether or not she still wanted him?
His parents would have abhorred such an attitude, and so too did he. If he went
to her now... If he went to her now, feeling like this, he was afraid of what he
might say and do. Better to wait until he was more in control of himself.

Vere crushed the note and then released it to drop onto his
desk, ignoring it to focus on the other papers in front of him.

CHAPTER NINE

I
T
was several hours since the sun
had set. His desk was virtually clear, and Vere realised guiltily that he had
not been to see Sadie.

It didn’t take him long to walk through the old part of the
palace and into the new modern wing that Drax had designed.

Sadie smiled when she saw him, offering to send for coffee for
him, but Vere shook his head.

‘You are well? Drax told me that you have been tired.’

‘I am very well,’ she assured him. ‘And as for me being tired,
yes, I was—but now that I am home I feel much better.’

Vere knew that she would have heard about Sam, but she was far
too tactful to ask any questions. Unlike his twin.

‘Drax is returning immediately after the conference ends,’ he
commented.

‘I hope so.’

Vere remained with her for half an hour, but he could see that
she was, as Drax had said, looking tired, so he didn’t linger.

Now all he had to do was respond to Sam’s earlier summons.

He had made up his mind that he must tell her the truth and
admit how much he had misjudged and wronged her. It had been easy to set aside
his own strong moral scruples when he had believed that at least part of her
reason for having sex with him was because she was in the Emir’s pay, and
therefore he had no responsibility towards her. But now he knew that was not the
case, which meant that her desire for him must be genuine.

Whilst his flesh welcomed and indeed embraced that knowledge,
his mind wanted to withdraw from it. And his emotions?

Vere cursed himself under his breath as he felt his body
respond to the question with its now familiar ache for her.

Sam had waited
for Vere for what had
felt like hours, and then, when he hadn’t appeared, she had showered the grime
of the day from her tired body and wrapped herself in a towel, simply intending
to sit in the drawing room for a few minutes.

Instead she had fallen asleep in the chair, and that was where
Vere found her when he walked into the room.

She was lying with her head against the arm of the chair at an
angle that could only result in her waking up with a stiff neck, and her hair
looked damp, as though she had fallen asleep without drying it. Her lashes lay
against her cheek in soft dark fans. Her lips parted naturally as she breathed,
and in the dimly lit room the exposed flesh of her throat and shoulder gleamed
with the luminescence of the purest mother-of-pearl.

Vere could feel his heart thudding as heavily as though it had
become destabilised, crashing into his ribs with all the recklessness of a man
about to haul himself over a precipice, oblivious to his own danger, driven only
by a soul-deep need.

She looked so vulnerable and alone. There were smudges beneath
her eyes—had she been crying? He could feel the weight of his own guilt.

Somehow he managed to wrench his thoughts back to where they
should be. She was just a sleeping woman, that was all.

A sleeping woman whom he had held in his arms in the
tranquillity that had followed the intensity of their shared orgasm. He could
remember how it had felt to have her burrowing against him, wanting and needing
him, finding her security in being with him. Trusting him.

Shame vied inside him with a feeling of almost melancholic
sweetness that poured softly through his veins like warmed honey. Now was not
the time to disturb her, and possibly distress her with what he had to say. His
admissions and her questions could wait until morning. Though he couldn’t leave
her there to sleep so uncomfortably.

He leaned down, lifting her from the chair, his intention
merely to carry her over to the bed and then leave her.

However, he had barely taken more than a couple of steps when
she woke up, stiffening, and then relaxing as she said his name with recognition
and relief.

She reached out to hold on to him, turning her own body into
his. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Her voice was soft with sleep and contentment.
Automatically Vere tightened his hold on her.

Sleepily Sam clung to Vere’s strength as he carried her into
the bedroom and towards the bed. She had been so angry, so determined to tell
him that she wanted to leave, but somehow now that he was here, and she was in
his arms, that anger had evaporated like the pools of water created overnight by
the cold desert air, disappearing in the morning heat of the sun as though they
had never been.

She loved him so much. Surely with that love she would be able
to show him how much she needed the respect that came from knowing he valued her
and cared about her.

He was placing her on the bed. Lovingly she reached up to him,
twining her arms round his neck as the towel slipped away from her body, and she
breathed out his name against his skin in a soft sound of pleasure.

He must not stay here, Vere warned himself. But as he reached
to unclasp her hands from behind his neck Sam pressed her mouth against his in a
kiss of sweet command, the tip of her tongue tormenting the closed line of his
lips with eager little impatient caresses.

Vere could feel his resolve crumbling to dust—less than dust.
It was nothing, gone, forgotten as he let her tease him into submitting to her
pleasure. Her tongue slipped between his parted lips, causing Vere to shudder in
violent need as it found his and flirted with it, coaxing and cajoling. In the
moonlight Vere could see the stiff tightness of her nipples, erect with arousal,
and the curve of her breast demanding the cup of his hand around its soft
weight. He probed the urgent thrust of her nipple with the pad of his thumb,
stroking it, rubbing it erotically, feeling her going wild with sexual
excitement. Her tongue meshed with his, submitting to its control of their
pleasure. Her hands were trying to push away the fabric that was coming between
her and his flesh. She moaned beneath his kiss, her whole body trembling.

He reached out with his free hand to caress the curve of her
hip, his own body gripped by unbearable need when she arched upwards, opening
her thighs to offer him the gift of her desire for him.

Her sex pulsed with the frantic demand that was throbbing
through his own aroused flesh. She was moist and hot, crying out to him when he
touched her.

It was more than he could endure.

He undressed quickly and Sam wound her arms around him,
pressing her body close to him and kissing every bit of him she could
reach...his throat, his shoulder, his chest, and then, to his shock, his belly,
making his already hard erection swell and stiffen even more. Abandoning the
last of his clothes, Vere picked her up and placed her down on the bed, his
mouth against her breast, tightening around her nipple and drawing rhythmically
on it whilst Sam gasped and cried out that it was too much pleasure for her to
bear.

Her body was already convulsing into the beginning of her
orgasm when he entered her, and he felt her flesh tighten on him and possess
him, until his cry of release mingled with her own.

‘Oh, Vere. I knew right from the start that it would be like
this for us.’ Sam clung to him emotionally, her voice reflecting the intensity
of her experience whilst her heartbeat slowed back down to its normal rate.

How could she not love him and want him to love her after what
they had just shared? She felt so bonded with him, so very aware of how much he
completed her in ways that no one else ever could. During their lovemaking she
had given herself to him, completely and totally. This was how she would want
their child to be conceived, in an act of total commitment and giving, so that
it would be born carrying that gift of love within its genes.

‘Stay with me,’ she whispered.

How had it come to this? Vere wondered helplessly as his arms
closed round her, holding her to him. This wasn’t what he had intended when he
had come to her.

Wasn’t it? Did he really believe that? Or had he known all
along what the outcome would be once he touched her?

Soon Sam had fallen asleep. Vere rested his chin on top of her
head. It felt so right, being here with her like this—
she
felt so right. A sensation as though a rock was being lifted
away from a guarded, painful place inside him eased gently though him.

‘Stay with me,’ she had asked him, those words like a tender
healing touch on a sore place, overlaying his own painful teenage cry to his
parents of, ‘Don’t leave me’.

Sam woke up
abruptly, her hand on
the empty space in the bed where Vere should have been. He had gone, left her.
The pain inside her was raw and cruel.

She could smell coffee, and the shutters to the French doors
had been opened to let in the bright morning light. She pulled on her robe, its
long filmy sleeves covering her arms, and stepped through the open doors into
the enclosed private courtyard garden.

The sun warmed her skin, and bees hummed busily as they worked.
Sam paused to breathe in the scent of a newly opened rose. A shadow fell across
the path, and her heart turned over inside her chest in a leap of joy.

‘Vere!’

He was showered, his hair still damp, and the smell of soap was
on his skin as he came and stood beside her.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he told her quietly.

Vere had been awake before dawn, lying with Sam’s body a sweet
weight in his arms, whilst a much heavier and less pleasant weight lay on his
conscience.

It had been his own manservant who had discreetly brought fresh
coffee and fruit.

‘If it’s about the clothes—’ Sam began, but Vere shook his
head

‘No, it isn’t about the clothes. When we first met in Zuran you
had no idea who I was, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Sam agreed truthfully.

Vere exhaled.

‘I know you thought...that is, you suggested...I don’t
normally...I couldn’t help myself,’ Sam admitted. ‘I looked at you and I knew
that my life had changed for ever.’

How could he ever have thought of her as duplicitous? Her
honesty shone from her, shaming him.

‘I...I felt...something too.’

It astonished Vere that he should make such an admission, but
he had been compelled to do so, unable to deny the words that had surely come
from his conscience.

‘Not that I wanted to.’

‘No. I could tell that,’ Sam agreed. But something had changed.
She could sense it, although she wasn’t sure yet what it was. She knew what she
was hoping it was. Perhaps miracles could happen? Perhaps Vere could love her?
Not just physically desire her.

‘Before I left here for your camp we’d been alerted to the fact
that someone within the camp was in the pay of the Emir of Khulua. The Emir is
our neighbour, and on the surface there is cordiality between us, but he is of
the old school and likes nothing better than to create situations, which he can
work to his advantage. We’d been warned that he was likely to raise questions
about the legitimacy of our shared borders. Not because he genuinely believes
they are not legitimate. They are. No, what he was looking to do was to put us
in a defensive position.’

Sam listened, wondering if his natural concern about such a
matter had been responsible for the way he had behaved towards her initially
when he had arrived at the camp. Perhaps what she had thought was hostility had
merely been anxiety and preoccupation. She could understand that this was a
serious matter for him as the Ruler of Dhurahn.

Vere’s expression was very grave, and he was speaking slowly,
as though he was having to choose his words with great care.

‘When I discovered that you had been questioning the course of
the Dhurahni River—’

‘You were very angry with me?’ Sam supplied for him. She shook
her head and then reached out to him, placing her hand on his arm. ‘I was hurt
at the time, because I didn’t understand why you were angry. I understand now
that you’ve explained about the Emir, though. Do you know who it is the Emir has
been paying?’

Here was the opportunity, the opening he needed. A
gut-wrenching pain tore at him. She was being so tender and understanding. She
had no idea how little he deserved her concern, or how badly he had maligned her
in his own thoughts. But soon she would.

‘I believed that I did.’ Vere turned away from her. He couldn’t
bear to look at her when he told her. He didn’t want to see the warmth die from
her eyes to be replaced by the condemnation he knew he deserved.

Sam could feel the first prickle of an uneasy sense of anxiety,
and dread chilled through her body.

Something was wrong. In fact something was very wrong
indeed.

‘When I saw you on the path by the oasis I didn’t want to
recognise you. What had happened between us in Zuran wasn’t something I wanted
to remember—nor was it fitting behaviour for the son my parents would have
expected me to be.’

Vere could see the pain in her eyes, and it shocked him to
realise how much he wanted to take that pain away from her. He put his hands on
her upper arms, struggling not to allow himself to be distracted by the soft
smoothness of her skin beneath the sleeves of her robe,

Sam bit into her bottom lip. She was being over-emotional, she
knew, but it hurt knowing that he had had such a low opinion of her.

‘The truth was that I hadn’t forgotten you—because I couldn’t.
Your memory was embedded in my senses. But I couldn’t let it stay there. I
needed a reason to make myself resist you. It was no longer enough for me to
tell myself that my desire was something I had to control. Out of that need I
convinced myself that
you
were the Emir’s tool and
in his pay.’

Sam’s face had lost its colour. She looked every bit as shocked
and upset as he had imagined she would. She pulled back from him and he let her
go.

‘You thought that of me? But you made love to me... you asked
me to be your mistress.’ Sam was stumbling over the words, trembling as she
spoke them, desperately wanting to hear him say that she had misheard him.