Instead she turned away, pretending to stare out of the window and at the sea, fat tears squeezing from her eyes, but only half from the humiliating memories of being poked and parted and prodded by the wiry fingers of some old crone who smelt like camel dung.
The other half was because it never occurred to Zoltan to believe her. It never occurred to him that she might be telling the truth, that she might actually be a virgin. And the rank injustice of it all was almost too much to bear. She angled her body away from him to mask the dampness that suddenly welled in her eyes.
To think she had saved herself all this time only to be bound to someone like him instead. The one thing she had always thought hers to give; the one thing she had thought hers to control, and when all was said and done she had no control at all. No choice. It was not to be given as a gift, but a due.
What a waste.
‘It would seem your half-brother is superstitious,’ she managed to say through her wretchedness to cover the truth.
And from behind the wheel, Zoltan’s words sounded as though he was still smiling. ‘Yes. He always was a fool.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE could smell the salt on the air long before she could see the sea. They had left the highway some time ago. The track across the desert sands was slower going, until they topped one last dune and suddenly a dry desert world turned into paradise.
From their vantage point, she could see the rocky peninsula jutting into the crystal-clear sapphire waters, and where before she had seen no signs of vegetation beyond small, scrubby salt-bushes clinging to the sand for their meagre existence for miles, now the shores and rocks were dotted with palms, the rocky outcrops covered with lush, green vegetation.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said as they descended, heading for the long, white strip of sandy beach. ‘But how?’
‘A natural spring feeds this area. If you like, I will take you and show you where the water runs clean and pure from the earth. If I try hard enough, I’m sure I’ll remember the way.’
The offer was so surprising, not only because he was asking her again, but because he had revealed a part of himself with his words—that he had been here before, and clearly a long time ago.
‘I would like that,’ she said, wondering what he would have been like as a child. Overbearing, like he was now? Although that wasn’t strictly true, she was forced to admit. He wasn’t overbearing all the time.
Which was a shame, really, because he was much easier to hate when he was. And she didn’t want to find reason not to hate him, because then she might be tempted to wonder.
But no. She shook her head, shaking out the thought. She didn’t wonder. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to know what it would be like to be made love to by a man like this one, who clearly was no virgin himself, who had no doubt had many lovers and who probably knew all about women and what they might enjoy.
‘Is something wrong, Princess?’
She looked up at him, startled. ‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘Because you made some kind of sound, kind of like a whimper. I wondered if there was something wrong.’
‘No.’ She turned away, her cheeks burning up. ‘I’m fine, just sick of sitting down. Are we nearly there?’
Thankfully they were. A cluster of tents had been erected below a stand of palm trees in preparation for their arrival, one set apart from the rest.
‘Is that one mine?’ she asked, half-suspecting, half-dreading the answer.
‘That one is ours, Princess,’ he said, pulling open her door and offering her his hand to climb from the car. ‘It would not do to let everyone know the true state of our marriage.’
‘But I told you …’
He found it hard not to grind his teeth together. So she had—how many times already? Did she think he wanted to be reminded how much she did not want to lie with him? ‘I am sure you will be more than satisfied with the sleeping arrangements.’
She looked down at his hand, as if assessing whether he was telling the truth. ‘Fine,’ she said, finally accepting his offer of assistance. ‘But, if not, then I will not be held accountable for the bruise on your ego.’
‘I’m sure my ego can take it, Princess. It is the damage you do to the monarchy that is my more immediate concern, and indeed the damage you could do to your own father’s. So perhaps you might keep that in mind.’
Her face closed, as if she’d pulled all the shutters down to retreat into herself.
So be it.
She might be used to having things all her way when she was at home leading her sheltered spoilt-princess life, but she was here now, she was his wife, and she would start doing her duty and acting like his wife before they left and before the coronation. Nothing was surer.