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She had not been able to tell anyone why she had wanted to leave Markhazad in the first place. She had had to go, while she still could. Once she was married, once she was queen, her life would be lived within the confines of the palace walls, subject to her husband’s control, his to command. And she would have lost her last chance to spend time with the only other member of her family. The little boy who had now stolen her heart completely.
‘You are to be a queen,’ Karim said now, his tone dark and disapproving. ‘You should learn to behave like one.’
‘Unlike my mother?’ Clemmie challenged.
Everyone who knew of her story must know how her English mother had run away from the court, leaving husband and daughter behind, never to be seen again. Clemmie winced away from the memory of how it had felt to be left alone, abandoned by her one defender from her father’s worst excesses. Those had been the worst years of her life. It was only recently, in the letter from her maternal grandmother that had been delivered to her after the old lady had died, that she had learned why her mother had had to run. The unplanned, late in life baby she had been determined to hide from her husband. He was a secret that Clemmie was now just as determined to keep, whatever it cost her.
She knew how little her father had valued her because she was only a daughter. She had no needs or dreams of her own. Her only value to him had been in the marriage market, sold to the highest bidder. What he might have done if he knew he had the son he had dreamed of made her shudder to think.
‘I’ll behave like one when I am a queen! Until then...’
She watched that frown darken, felt a shiver run over her scalp and slither down her spine. She had a suspicion that she knew what he was thinking but she didn’t dare challenge it in case it meant he subjected her to more questioning that might push her to drop something revealing about Harry and his circumstances.
‘There is no “until then”. From this moment on you are the prospective Queen of Rhastaan, and I have been sent to fetch you home for your wedding and then your coronation.’
‘But I promised! And if he...’
‘He...’ Karim pounced on the word like a cat on a mouse, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of the chase. ‘He. Just who is he?’
Clemmie bit down hard on her lower lip in distress at how close she had come to giving herself away. She should know better. Even after less than half an hour in this man’s company, it was obvious that he was not the sort of person who was easily side-tracked or misled.
‘N-no one. Just a friend. Someone I met while I was living here in England. It’s his birthday soon and I promised him I’d be at his party.’
What was it they said—that if you were going to lie, then lie as close to the truth as you possibly could? He was focused on her so completely that she had little hope of getting away from him...unless...
‘And you think that you can delay our journey—the plans for the reception and the wedding that are already underway—for a party?’
‘But I promised! It’ll break his heart...’
‘And you expect me to believe that?’ Dark eyes turned glacial as he flung the question at her. ‘Just because you’re about to become a princess doesn’t mean that I have to believe in the fairy tales you make up.’
‘It’s not a fairy tale. I have to see—to see...’ The realisation of the danger in giving away just what she had to do dried her mouth and had the words shrivelling up into silence.
‘You have to see...?’ Karim queried cynically. ‘Just what is more important than the upcoming wedding—the future of the peace treaty?’
My family. My baby brother. Harry. The words beat inside her head, creating a terrible clenching sensation in her stomach that made her feel both nauseous and dry-mouthed in the same moment. A deadly combination.
But at the back of her mind there was the idea that had come to her like a flash of inspiration just moments before. It might just work. And she was desperate enough to try anything.
‘Who is this man—your lover?’
That was just so ridiculous that she was close to laughing out loud. Did he really think that she had come to England to meet up with a man? But perhaps it might almost be worth letting him think that for now. At least it would distract him from the truth. And while he was distracted...
‘Oh, okay! You win.’ She hoped it sounded yielding enough. ‘It seems I have no choice so I’ll go and get my bag. Look, why don’t you make a coffee or something? If we’re going to have to travel, we might as well have a drink before we go.’
He still eyed her with suspicion and he didn’t show any sign of moving towards the kettle as she walked past him and made her way up the stairs, her feet thumping on the uncarpeted wood. She walked noisily across the floor of her small bedroom, the one that was to the left off the landing, thankfully not the one directly above the kitchen. She had no doubt that Karim Al Khalifa was still standing, alert as a predatory hunter, listening to any sounds that reached him from above.
Determinedly, she added to the sound effects he would be waiting to hear by banging open the door of the elderly pine wardrobe, rattling the coat hangers inside. There was really no need to do any such thing. The small overnight bag she had prepared earlier was still lying, full and firmly zipped up, on the bed. But Karim would be expecting her to pack more than that. He thought she was leaving with him for ever. For the rest of her life.
The thought made her rattle some more coat hangers even more viciously, wishing she could throw some of them at Karim’s handsome head.
Karim Al Khalifa. The name reverberated in her head, making her pause to think. He was the son of the Sheikh—a friend of Nabil’s late father—who had arranged all this. So why had someone so important—the Crown Prince, after all—come on a mission like this? He had never explained that.
‘Clementina?’
Karim’s voice, sharp with impatience, came up the narrow staircase. He had clearly noted her silence. And he just as clearly wanted to be on his way. He wouldn’t be prepared to wait much longer.
‘Nearly done!’ She hoped her unconcerned tone was convincing. ‘Be down in a minute.’
She had to be out of here. Grabbing the small overnight bag and slinging its longer strap around her neck, and grabbing her handbag, she crept over to the half-open window. Karim might be big and strong and powerful but she had the advantage over him here. Several childhood holidays in England, visiting her English grandmother, had given her a detailed knowledge of this old house and the secret ways in and out of it that had been fun and exciting for a tomboyish teenager.
There was a trellis up the side of the wall, a heavy rich growth of ivy that was thick and strong enough to support her weight even though she was now no longer thirteen and just growing into her womanly form. With luck she could scramble down it, get to her car before he had even realised she had gone silent in the room above him.
But as she eased the window open fully, a last minute thought struck her. This wasn’t just a personal thing; there were so many other implications of all this—political ones, international treaties. If she just disappeared then, she shivered at the thought of the trouble it might cause. The repercussions of her behaviour. On her country. On him.
There was a notepad and pen beside her bed and she snatched these up, scribbling down five hasty words, adding her signature as an afterthought.
‘Clementina!’
What little patience Karim had was wearing thin.
‘Just a minute—or would you like to come and pack for me?’ she challenged.
The thought of him doing just that—coming upstairs, into her room, into her bedroom—made her heart lurch up into her throat, snatching her breath from her. But his growled response made her feel more relaxed.
‘Get on with it then.’
‘Oh, I will!’
Leaving the note lying in the middle of the bed where he couldn’t possibly miss it, she edged towards the window, her bare feet silent on the floor, her bag on one arm. She didn’t dare risk opening the window any further in case it creaked, the wood scraping against wood.
Sliding out backwards, her feet found the spaces in the trellis work that held the ivy tight against the wall with the ease of long-held memory. She prayed it would still hold her—they were both ten years older, herself and the criss-crossed wood. And she was definitely inches taller, pounds heavier. Her toes found the footholds, her hands knowing just where to grab to support herself on the way down. Holding her breath, she let the ivy take all her weight, inched her way down the wall, down to the ground at the back of the cottage, landing with a small sigh of relief as her feet touched the gravel.
‘So far so good...’
Her battered red Mini was parked several metres away, its small size and well-worn paintwork totally overshadowed by the big black beast of a SUV that was drawn up just outside the front door. A car as sleek and powerful as the man himself, Clemmie told herself as she wrenched the driver’s door open, tossed the bags on to the back seat, flinging herself after them and pushing her key into the ignition almost before she was settled.
