The Mistress Bride

'No.' His mouth twitched appreciatively at the reference. 'But I trust him with my life so I can therefore trust him with your virtue.'

'But can you trust me with his?' Evie threw back provokingly.

His answer came quick and fast, so fast she didn't even see it coming until she was locked in his arms and being utterly consumed by the kind of kiss only Raschid could issue.

'I can trust you,' he affirmed as he drew away.

And why could he sound so smugly confident about that? Because she was clinging to him, lost in him, drowning in him, as always.

But then Raschid had trouble dragging himself away from her, and it was some consolation to feel his mouth come back to hers for a hot, hungry, final kiss before he could bring himself to remove her hands from around his nape and reluctantly step away.

'I must go,' he said gently. 'My flight plan has been filed and I dare not miss my slot.'

Which meant he was intending to fly himself to Behran, Evie realised with a small shaft of alarm that had its roots in the frightening fear that, with their luck right now, anything might happen to him during the long flight.

'Take care, won't you? And call me, whenever you can!'

'I'll call,' he promised. 'And I will see you again within the week.' Fine words, sincere words. But he didn't call her, and neither did she see him within the next two weeks.

CHAPTER NINE

By THEN the isolation was beginning to get to her. She hadn't dared to so much as step out of the apartment for fear of being waylaid by the press or people she did not want to see. Oh, her mother called her up every day on the telephone. In her own way, Lucinda was trying to be supportive, but it didn't come easily to her. And really it was Evie who found herself ladling out calm reassurance to her mother when each new day went by without hearing a single thing from Raschid.

'If he lets you down in this, I'll kill him,' Lucinda vowed when a full week had gone by with no word from Raschid.

'Trust him, Mother,' Evie replied. 'I do. He loves me as much as I love him and he wants this baby. With that kind of incentive men can move mountains.'

But, as the days went by without any word from Raschid, for the first time ever Evie found herself wishing the newspapers would give her some clue as to what was going on in Behran. But they were frustratingly empty of any reference to either Sheikh Raschid or Evie Delahaye for a change. It was a matter of priorities to them. A juicy scandal had suddenly blown up involving two government ministers and the media were busy covering that.

Asim didn't help. For he too clamped up whenever Evie tried to grill him, feigning no knowledge of what Raschid was doing and advising her to be patient. But he knew more than he was admitting to, Evie was absolutely sure about that, and the fact that he wasn't

prepared to speak could only mean the information filtering back to him from Behran had to be bad.

Oh, he tried his very best to make the wait bearable. In fact, she and Asim became quite close friends during those two wretched weeks. He had duties to attend to at the Behran Embassy for part of each day, but otherwise he devoted his time exclusively to her.

They walked together each morning on the roof garden attached to the apartment. And in the evenings he encouraged Evie to reacquaint herself with the game of chess something she had played often with her father before he'd been tragically killed in a horse-riding accident when she was only ten years old. Her arm healed quickly under Asim's care. He was a good man, a kind man, a pleasant companion, and it was during those two weeks that she began to understand why Raschid kept him close by all the time.

He also talked freely and proudly about his country and all of the changes that had been made during the last twenty years. Life in Behran, she discovered, was not as totalitarian as she had believed it to be. The women were not kept hidden behind locked doors. It was no longer compulsory for them to cover themselves when they ventured out in public. Education was compulsory for both sexes, and women were beginning to find a place for themselves in all aspects of the working society. Only a very small section of the people wanted to keep things as they used to be, he'd told her. Most people saw the advantages in moving forward with the rest of the world rather than trying to pull against it.

But the most curious point of all she learned from Asim during these talks they shared was that all of the changes made in Behran had been effected through Raschid's father, which made his old-fashioned attitude towards marriage all the more confusing.

But then, religion did that-divided and fragmented a human race that should be drawing closer together. Religion, colour, social tradition. Her own mother was guilty of discrimination in all three areas, so why should Evie expect Raschid's father to feel any different?

And Raschid's father did not feel different as Evie found out for herself soon enough.

His feelings were made known to her via his personal envoy towards the end of the second week of her enforced isolation.

Asim was out attending to his duties as was his habit during the middle part of the day. Evie hadn't been feeling too well that morning, sickly and aching as if she might be going to come down with a bug.

'You are unwell, Miss Delahaye?' he'd enquired when she'd declined their usual walk on the roof garden before he'd left her.

Evie had just sent him a rueful look. 'You're the doctor,' she'd said dryly. 'You tell me why I feel sick all the time.'

Asim had grimaced his understanding of her condition, and left her lounging on one of the living-room sofas, apparently content to read a book, which she did, in a half-hearted kind of way until the sound of steps in the hallway brought her jack-knifing to her feet.

Since no one else but Asim had access to the apartment, and he wasn't due back for ages yet, she thought it was Raschid returning at last. So her eager expression reflected that assumption as the living-room door swung firmly inwards only to cloud in confusion when two complete strangers stepped boldly into the room.

Two Arabs, to be precise, dressed in smart western suits and looking about as innocuous as two gangsters.