In the gloom Raschid moved. A match was struck and a lamp shed unwelcome clarity on her hot face. ‘It is wiser this way.’
Stunned, she dropped her head. ‘Yet when I wanted it this way, you wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘I was wrong.’ He seemed to be measuring his words carefully, and well he might have done, for her temper was starting to rise. ‘I am not afraid to admit myself at fault. The money…it was less than nothing to me. I should have let you sleep alone. I won’t take advantage of you in that fashion again.’
Evading visual contact, Polly bit her lower lip. ‘And if I were to say that you wouldn’t be…er…taking advantage…?’
‘My answer would still be the same.’ As she flinched, his hand pressed her flat, forcing her to meet the charged glitter of his eyes. ‘Do you think that I no longer want you? That is not the case. But once you said that I demeaned you, and I did. How could I not? Our marriage goes nowhere. It can go nowhere,’ he spelt out harshly. ‘We have no future together.’
‘You never saw one!’ Polly was torn by an agony that was almost physical.
His fingers slid slowly from her shoulder. ‘No, I did not. You love children, and I—I have been through that war once with a woman, and I know too well its end. Even with love it could not work.’
In the chaos of those early days at Ladybright, it hadn’t occurred to her that Raschid was seeing her with children for the first time. But even registering that rare betrayal of his vulnerability, she was beaten back into a passion of pain by his concluding statement. He was talking about Berah—Berah, who exerted the same deep hold on him in death as she had alive, and that was the real reason in her opinion why he had no room for Polly in his life.
‘I don’t want to hear about her. She was weak and selfish, and she wasn’t a saint.’ As anger and hurt clawed cruelly at her, the last remnants of her control came crashing down. ‘And she’s ruined you for anybody else!’
Perceptibly he curbed the anger hardening his facial muscles. ‘I know you mean no disrespect. Had you any real understanding of how desperately unhappy she was, you wouldn’t speak like that. She did not ruin me. If anything, it was I who destroyed her. I watched her change from a contented and uncomplicated girl into a bitterly insecure and disturbed woman.’
‘But I…am…not…her!’ Her throat was thick and full. ‘And I love you.’
A profound silence enclosed the involuntary spill of her words. She shut her eyes tightly, physically willing the clock to turn back and reclaim her confession.
‘You are distraught. You do not know what you are saying.’ Raschid’s withdrawal was instantaneous, a cold wind across tender flesh.
She was too bitterly upset to heed the warning. ‘Don’t I? It may be an emotion foreign to you in relation to me, but I know how I feel!’
Dark blood had burnished his high cheekbones. Slashing a hand down in finality, he reached for his woollen tobe. ‘No more. In the morning you will regret this.’
‘All I regret,’ she framed with a shaky sincerity that had its own dignity, ‘is falling in love with a man who is afraid to feel anything for any woman. What did she do to you?’ she continued painfully.
A tremor racked him. He lifted his clear, compelling eyes from the ground and challenged hers fiercely. She knew that he hated her for witnessing his naked emotion and probing clumsily at wounds that had never healed. After four years he couldn’t even bear to talk about Berah. In inflicting pain on him, Polly suffered doubly, for she felt his pain as if it was her own. In stark fear, she had lost her head, for if he shut her out of his bed, he shut her out altogether. Her heart belonged to him, but it was an unsolicited gift he had cast aside without hesitation. Then who wanted to find love where they felt none? Her love had no intrinsic value. What had she believed she might awaken with her foolish admission? Pity would have heaped coals of fire on her.
What did she do to you? He hadn’t answered. Polly could have answered for him. She had died.
Some timeless period on in that endless, hellish night, Raschid returned. In silence she lay there until dawn spread a grey pall of light. She must have slept then, for the racket of rotor blades rudely awakened her and the heat that had damply slicked her limbs told her the day must now be well advanced. As she sat up, she was disconcerted to find Raschid seated at the corner of the bed, his probing scrutiny mercilessly pinned to her.
‘The plane…?’ she queried.
‘Aldeza is a half-day’s ride from here. By air it will take less than half an hour.’
She fiddled with the fringed edge of the rug. ‘You’re still speaking to me.’ It was a limp attempt at humour.
‘Strange as it may seem in the light of recent events, we are not, I hope, undisciplined children.’ The cool controlled politeness with the edge of satire she dreaded was back. A tortured sense of frustration consumed her. The barriers were erected again with a vengeance.
* * *
At first glimpse Aldeza stole Polly’s breath away. At the second it stole her heart. An exotically beautiful white marble palace of crowned domes and slender minarets, it shimmered a dozen tranquil reflections in the stilled waters of the silent stone fountains dotting its superb frontage. On every side lush gardens of shaded arbours and trellised walks beckoned and vibrant roses of every imaginable hue flourished against the oasis of greenery. The Palace of the Fountains was a polished jewel enhanced by an exquisite setting.
Built four hundred years ago by an ancestor of Raschid’s, the hilltop palace had lain empty for over fifty years. Polly couldn’t understand why nobody in the family had previously mentioned its existence to her. Surely they must visit this beautiful place? Before they entered the building, she darted over to a glorious climbing rose and snapped off a single, unfurling bud.
‘Why don’t the fountains work?’ she asked.
‘I believe they must have fallen into disrepair. That can be rectified,’ Raschid assured her.
‘Oh, don’t make that effort on my account!’ she snapped.
Doors stood wide on a huge, deserted entrance hall, lined by carved pillars. An army could have marched before them. Mosaic tiles in every shade from lapis lazuli to deepest emerald patterned every surface with spectacular effect. ‘This is out of this world,’ Polly said reverently, cricking her neck and turning slowly. ‘I’ve never seen anything…’
‘Quite so reminiscent of an Arabian Nights fantasy?’ As he watched her, an irreverent grin banished his austerity. ‘At last I have pleased!’
Resenting his ability to tease her when she was employing conscious effort to conceal her absolute misery, she moved away. ‘Why is it empty?’
‘The situation is remote and not easily accessible. In the days before hunting was prohibited, my father would bring parties of guests here. But now Aldeza has become a white elephant. When the family desire a change of scene they head for the Costa del Sol and the nightlife. We have a villa there.’ He paused. ‘Did I tell you that Asif and Cha
ssa are in Spain at present?’
‘No.’
‘I believe that their problems are at an end,’ he remarked.
Polly folded her arms. ‘Good for them. Who last lived here?’
She could feel his frown on her back. But his family were not her family, and he had slapped her down on the one occasion she had dared to believe otherwise. She would not be drawn now to invite another snub.
‘My grandmother, Louise. She lived here alone for many years.’
She spun. ‘Louise? That’s not an Arabic name.’
Raschid looked at her in surprise. ‘She was French. I thought you would have known that.’
‘It never fails to amaze me what you imagine I might magically know without being told,’ she said tartly.
‘Or me of what you might learn did you but ask.’
Her teeth gritted. ‘I am asking. How did you acquire a French grandmother?’
‘Her father was an anthropologist, who came here to write a book on the nomadic culture. Louise worked as his assistant. My grandfather, Salim, only met her once to fall violently in love with her.’ His firm mouth curled dismissively. ‘Much happiness it brought to either of them!’
‘It sounds romantic to me,’ observed Polly.
‘They broke up within two years and spent the next fifteen living apart. Does that sound romantic?’ Raschid threw her a sardonic smile. ‘But of course I would not know what might fall within that category, would I?’
‘You said it, and if he was one bit like you, I’m not…’ The curious sound of a stick tapping across the tiled floor whipped her head around.
CHAPTER NINE
A WIZENED little old lady, shrunken by age into a bent bundle of black cloth, was approaching them, flapping a hand to harry the servants hurrying behind her. As she creaked down low before Raschid, he tried unsuccessfully to persuade her from the attempt, but down she went, jabbering in shrill excitement, her blackbird-bright eyes avidly pinned to them both.