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In the afternoon new furniture was delivered. Polly was noisily shifting it about the lounge when he came towards her. Her heartbeat went haywire and she hated him for it.
‘Why aren’t the servants doing that?’
She straightened with an arctic smile. ‘Because I’m enjoying doing it myself. Sorry, did the racket disturb your concentration?’
‘As it happens, no. I wanted to speak to you.’
Polly lifted a footstool. ‘Carry on.’
His eyes flashed. ‘Put that down.’
With exaggerated care, she obeyed. Rapier-taut, he breathed. ‘I owe you an apology for this morning. I am sorry if I distressed you.’
‘Do I look distressed?’ she demanded acidly, and turned away to plonk herself down on a seat. Once again he had disconcerted her. She could feel the tears gathering.
‘I do not know how I ever thought that you were quiet,’ he told her.
‘The fox condemns the trap, not himself.’
‘William Blake,’ he identified softly. ‘How sweet I roamed from…’ As Polly studied him in astonishment, he shrugged. ‘Poetry is much loved by my race.’
She bent her head.
‘I wasn’t considerate this morning,’ Raschid went on.
‘And of course we must stick to the letter of the law, mustn’t we?’ she muttered bitterly.
‘No,’ he contradicted. ‘We have to live together, and this situation demands adjustment on both sides.’
So they had a situation now, not a marriage. She couldn’t breathe, and she sniffed. With a sigh he knelt down in front of her and gently rescued the cushion she was crushing between her hands. ‘You are upset. I shouldn’t have married someone…’
‘I’m not upset! I just don’t like anybody looking at me when I’m crying!’
A shadow of that rare smile skimmed his mouth. ‘Am I to leave while you compose yourself?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Irritably Polly wiped at her damp eyes. ‘But I really don’t want to hear one more time about how you didn’t want to marry me. How you can say that and then…’ She faltered to a blushing halt.
‘Make love to you?’ he interposed. ‘You are very innocent, Polly.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m getting educated all the time.’
Raschid sighed, ‘I am a man like any other…’
‘Don’t worry, you’re not on a pedestal!’ she snapped tearfully.
His eyes glittered in driven frustration. ‘You are my wife, my very beautiful wife, and it is my right…’
‘To demean me by using me?’ Polly inserted jerkily.
He pressed a finger to her quivering lower lip. ‘That is crude, and what I have to say to you now is not easy, but I don’t want you to be hurt.’ He slid upright again and moved a nebulous hand. ‘You must not begin imagining that you have become—’ unusually, he hesitated, ‘attached to me.’
Fixed by that remorseless azure gaze, she was a butterfly on the end of a twisting pin. ‘I really don’t think I want to hear any more of this.’
‘It would only make you unhappy and it would only make me uncomfortable. I couldn’t respond to those feelings. I don’t have them to give. There, it is said, and you can be offended with me if you wish,’ he completed harshly.
Rage had glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth. ‘Attached to you?’ she retorted, wondering if the parasitic choice of term was accidental or subconsciously deliberate. ‘To what aspect of your truly entrancing nature could I become attached? I’m in no danger of…’
‘If it is true I am glad of it, but it is not unusual for a woman to become confused about her feelings for her first lover.’ As Raschid cut her off in throbbing mid-speech his narrowed eyes gleamed over her fiercely.
Polly had leapt up in her fury. ‘Oh, don’t give me an open-ended invitation like that to ventilate my exact feelings, Raschid. It might prove seriously damaging to your ego!’
‘Sexual pleasure is not restricted to those in love, Polly,’ he bit out.
‘All the way to Dharein with its strict moral code to find a husband preaching promiscuity!’ she derided.
Dark colour had sprung up over his cheekbones. ‘It was my intent to say that within a marriage where there is respect and understanding there is no shame in enjoying physical intimacy,’ he returned icily.
Her chin went up, although she was shaking. ‘I was taught that emotions were the distinction that lifted us up out of the animal kingdom. I’m surprised that you’re not suggesting that I take a lover so that I can field-test your convictions for myself!’
Eyes an incredulous blaze of shimmering blue clashed with hers. ‘The penalty for adultery in Dharein is still death.’ It was a primal and savage snarl to match an anger strong enough to drain the outraged colour from her cheeks. ‘But were I ever to have cause to suspect your fidelity that penalty would seem a happy exit from this life.’
The violent aggression she had incited arrested her vocal cords and her heartbeat. He released his breath in a hiss and stared at her. ‘It seems that I have yet to learn appreciation of your jokes,’ he enunciated through clenched teeth, the menacing cast of his hard features easing only slowly. ‘But that was a provocation which would rouse any man to anger.’
Her knees were disgracefully wobbly. ‘Excuse me,’ she mumbled, and fled before her queasy stomach could disgrace her.
Fortunately a few gulps of fresh air out on the balcony beyond their bedroom settled her back to normality. When a hand touched her shoulder, however, she nearly leapt in the air in fright.
A firm hand steadied her. ‘I believe you should abandon this tendency to refer to other men as if you are still free to think of them.’
His eyes still had a banked-down glitter. Backed up against the balcony wall, Polly was absently relieved to have a wholly clean conscience in that direction. ‘Was it true what you said?’ she asked.
He shifted one of his exquisitely expressive hands. ‘Divorce is easy for both sexes in our society. The rights of women and children are well protected by the law. They were enshrined there centuries ago. There is little excuse for those…’
‘But it does happen?’
‘It has been some years since such a case has been presented, but the law still stands.’
‘Well, I think…’
‘I would point out that while our penal code is harsh, infringements are fewer than those in more liberal countries. Nor do our women walk in fear of sexual assault. Polly, let us discuss something on which we are less likely to argue. I don’t want to argue with you.’ Staring down at her vibrantly beautiful and intransigent face, he gently pushed a straying strand of hair back from her cheekbone, employing the familiarity that was almost second nature to him now.
She spun bitterly and violently away from that confident hand. ‘I’d like to be on my own. I’m sure you have work to do.’
His jawline clenched. ‘I came to ask you if you would like a tour of that hospital. I have arranged it.’
An anguished bitterness consumed her. Was this one of those adjustments he had mentioned? The necessity of sacrificing the occasional hour to her entertainment outside the bedroom door? Of humouring her with the pretence that he respected her as an intelligent, thinking human being? She saw herself yesterday, utterly riveted by the spellbinding charge of his full attention. She saw herself last night, slavishly eager in his arms. And she recoiled from both degrading images. This was a fever which required starvation at every possible opportunity.
Raschid had spelt out brutal facts. She ought to thank him for the short sharp shock treatment. If this agony of pain she was enduring, if this dreadful urge to claw, scratch and bite she was experiencing was the death throes of some embryonic love, she wanted no part of it, and she would have no part of such colourful fancies. There and then she made that pact with herself. The stubborn determination which was the backbone of her character underlined the decision.
In her conviction that she loved Chris, she had wished unhappi
ness on herself. Raschid was just as unobtainable. Did she have a masochistic streak that rejoiced in suffering? Well, if she had, on this occasion it was not about to find even a tiny outlet.
‘I don’t really think that that would be my style.’ She produced a bright smile. ‘But I hope that won’t cause offence.’
‘And I hope that you know what you’re doing,’ he intoned coldly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE limousine sped through the palace gates and shot to a halt in the courtyard. Polly took a deep breath before she climbed out. Zenobia came hurrying anxiously to greet her as if she had been lying in wait.
