A Whisper of Disgrace

Rosa flinched as she crossed her arms over the betraying tightening of her breasts. ‘Don’t treat me like a whore, Kulal,’ she said quietly. ‘Or I’ll walk away from this proposed union   right now.’

He saw the way she had lifted her chin. Saw the glint of steel which had entered her dark eyes—and in that moment she looked very proud and very Sicilian. A formidable woman, he recognised as he inclined his head in a gesture of grudging acknowledgement. ‘Very well,’ he said softly. ‘If such games amuse you, then we will obey convention and wait a little longer—and the anticipation will add spice to my growing hunger. I shall send a car for you in the morning. And in the meantime, you might want to give some thought to some appropriate attire.’

Her fingers touched the slippery silk lapel of her robe. ‘What do you mean—appropriate?’

He wanted to say that stark naked would be his first choice and the skimpy crimson dress which had done such dangerous things to his blood pressure would be a close second. But not in public. In public she was going to have to play the part expected of her. They both were.

‘Something which a future princess might wear on the way to meet her prince.’

She thought about the few clothes she had flung into her suitcase just before her impetuous flight from Sicily. ‘I’ll try.’

‘And make sure you bring all your belongings with you.’

She looked at him warily. ‘Why, where am I going?’

‘To Paris.’ He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘To begin your new life.’

CHAPTER SIX

A NEW LIFE.

Kulal’s words played repeatedly in Rosa’s mind the following morning as she crammed down the lid of her suitcase. Was it possible to just shrug off your old life and emerge without any traces of it clinging to your skin? She snapped the suitcase closed. All she knew was that she was going to try—she was going to lose her troubled past and step out into a new and unknown future as the sheikh’s bride.

Remembering Kulal’s directive about appropriate attire, she chose a silk chiffon dress the colour of raspberry sorbet and black shoes which made her feel very tall—but she wore no jewellery, not even the ring her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday. Platinum bright and studded with emeralds, her hand felt strangely bare without it for she was never without it glittering on her little finger. But now it seemed to mock her and the relationship she’d enjoyed with her father. It made her question whether that, too, had been false, like everything else around her.

Had he known? she wondered. Had he realised before his own violent death that the daughter he’d so adored had been the child of the brother he detested? Had he been broken-hearted and careless as a result—dropping a match in that cavernous old warehouse which he and his brother had owned so that they had burned to death, their tortured cries carrying out on the hot, Sicilian breeze?

She was grateful for the loud knock which broke into her troubled thoughts and she opened the door to find Kulal’s driver standing there. Wordlessly, he took her suitcase from her, leaving Rosa to follow him. But her questions about Kulal’s whereabouts were met with a polite shrug. As if he didn’t understand what she was saying—even when she spoke to him in French—and Rosa got the feeling that he understood her very well.

Her feeling of isolation grew as the car headed out towards the airport and she peered out of the window at the upmarket holidaymakers. Against the azure backdrop of the sea, there were women in tiny shorts, big sun hats and even bigger pairs of sunglasses as they hung around the harbour areas, as if waiting for an owner of one of the luxury yachts to pluck them up and sail them away to paradise. She thought how carefree they all looked as they fished around in their giant leather bags. As if they had nothing more taxing on their minds than when their next coat of lipstick needed to be applied. She wondered if they even noticed her—the woman in the expensive limousine being taken to marry a man who was little more than a stranger.

The powerful car slid to a halt at the Nice airport and she was escorted straight out onto one of the airstrips, where a large plane stood waiting on the tarmac. Its gleaming jade-and-rose bodywork reminded her of some oversize exotic bird and a steward wearing matching livery ushered her on board. The light in the cabin was dim and it took a moment or two for her eyes to adjust to the sight of Kulal reclining on one of the seats, reading through what looked like a pile of official paperwork. He looked utterly relaxed, with his long legs stretched out in front of him and one arm pillowing his ebony head. Reluctantly, she ran her eyes over him in unwilling appraisal, unable to deny the sheer physical perfection of the man.