‘But that’s nonetheless what I believed.’
‘Is my son’s English so poor?’
‘In certain moods he is not the soul of clarity,’ she muttered tightly.
Her companion studied her for several unbearably long seconds, and then he threw back his head and laughed with rich appreciation. ‘Tell me about your trees,’ he invited.
In a daze she began to do so and then he moved a silencing hand. She followed the path of his gaze and went rigid when she saw Razul standing in the doorway, his dark features frozen with incredulity.
‘Take your wife home, my son, and borrow a dictionary,’ his father urged him, with a wry look of amusement.
A tide of dark colour obscured Razul’s hard cheek-bones, which were more prominent than they had been a week earlier. His lips parted and then, as he clearly thought better of comment, compressed into a bloodless white line. He-inclined his head then strode back out of the conservatory. Hurrying in his wake, Bethany could barely keep up with that long, ferocious stride. They were out of the palace in five minutes flat and she was out of breath.
‘A car will convey you home,’ Razul informed her.
‘Are you coming too?’
‘No.’
He very badly wanted to know what had passed between her and his father but she sensed that torture would not have driven him to request an explanation. He wouldn’t even look at her. She searched that coldly clenched profile and decided that it was not imagination which made her think that he had lost weight since she had last seen him. A Mercedes drew up.
‘I’m sorry I insulted your father,’ Bethany confided in a rush.
‘We have nothing more to say to each other.’ He turned fluidly on his heel.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she revealed dulcetly as she slid into the waiting car and slammed the door. The car drew off within seconds.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Razul was standing where she had left him, wearing an arrested expression of extreme shock. Well, whatever happened, she had had no choice but to tell him, and no doubt it was just one more messy complication, she reflected miserably, and, moreover, a complication that she was wholly responsible for creating. How stupid she had been—how unutterably stupid. Razul regretted their marriage now and she would just have to take that on the chin. However, her attempt to apply common sense to their problems only confused her more, for she could not imagine what could possibly resolve the situation that they were now in.
She was feeling a bit dizzy when she got back to the palace, so she went to her room. She had barely lain down when the door went flying open. Zulema stole one startled glance at Razul’s furious face and scurried out past him at speed. Pierced to the heart by that dark fury, Bethany closed her burning eyes.
‘Tell me that what you said is not true,’ Razul breathed rawly.
‘I’m afraid it is and it’s all my fault. I suppose you want to strangle me and right now I want to strangle myself,’ Bethany whispered with painful honesty. ‘I lied to you when I said I was on the Pill. I deliberately set out to get pregnant, and I did feel bad about deceiving you, but not bad enough until it was too late—’
‘Why did you lie?’ Razul broke in roughly.
‘I wanted a baby,’ she muttered painfully.
‘Without a father?’ he gritted with contemptuous distaste. ‘I have read about such women in your newspapers.’
‘Well, I wasn’t one of them! I wanted you too,’ Bethany confided miserably. ‘And if I couldn’t have you the baby was the next best thing. I just don’t know what came over me. It was a crazy, stupid thing to do. I knew you didn’t want me to become pregnant.’
‘I assumed you would not want to become pregnant.’ Razul sounded desperately strained. ‘Nor would I have risked such a development, not with the lesson of my own childhood behind me.’
Shock was settling in on him hard. She knew how he felt. Her own head was whirling in ever more torturous circles, for she could see no easy way out for either of them. She guessed that if she had a girl it would be all right for her to leave, but suppose she had a boy? And why did his father have to accept her when it was too late to make any difference? How much had his hostility towards their marriage contributed to Razul’s rejection of her?
‘You said...you said you wanted me too,’ Razul remarked rather unsteadily.
‘Yes,’ she said equally unsteadily. ‘My timing is very off, isn’t it?’
‘How deep does this wanting of me go?’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘Miserably deep.’
‘I need the dictionary.’
‘I love you...all right?’ she flung at him with sudden defensive aggression, her anguished eyes flying wide.
‘But you are most unhappy about it, and no doubt if you are unhappy about it for long enough you will soon overcome such unwelcome feelings altogether and feel a strong sense of achievement,’ Razul assumed with dark fatalism.
Bethany sat up. ‘Is that what you’re hoping for?’
‘I am sure it is what you are hoping for—’
‘And since you are always so sure that you know what I want, how could you possibly be wrong?’
‘I already know that you have good reason to have little faith in marriage. I also know that you are devoted to your career. I cannot blame you for these facts. But last week, when I believed we were happy and that there was hope for us, I was devastated to realise you were still thinking of leaving me—’
‘Razul... you left me with the impression that I had to leave at the end of the summer...no matter how either of us felt!’
‘That is not possible. I was entirely honest with you,’ Razul countered tautly.
‘I believed that your father had only agreed to a temporary marriage between us,’ Bethany spelt out. ‘For heaven’s sake, who was it told me on our wedding day that he would divorce me at the end of the summer and take another wife?’
‘But this was when you’d accused me of deceiving you into marriage and made it clear that you wanted your freedom back and I said nothing that was not the truth,’ Razul defended himself. ‘I promised my father that—’
‘You would remarry if our marriage failed?’ At his frowning nod of assent she was ready to explode. ‘You know something, Razul? You embarked on our marriage with so much pessimism you deserve everything that’s gone wrong!’
‘It was not pessimism. I did not believe that I had much hope
of you staying with me—’
‘Pessimism,’ she said again.
‘And naturally I had to be frank on this subject with my father—’
‘Instead of keeping your mouth shut...you turned him right off me, didn’t you? And you kept on saying things to me like “one last chance to be together”, and you mentioned the end of the summer with such frequency that it became firmly fixed in my head as the date of my expected departure!’
His lean hands were clenched into feverish fists. ‘Naturally I had to prepare myself for that departure—’
‘But I didn’t want to depart...I wanted to stay,’ she whispered vehemently.
‘Your career—’
‘Stuff my career!’ she raked at him, out of all patience.
Breathing fast, he studied her with painful but silent intensity.
‘Just why were you so convinced that I would leave?’ Bethany pressed furiously. ‘Was it because that was what you really wanted to happen?’
His strong jaw clenched hard. ‘I did not feel I could offer you enough to make the sacrifice of your other life worthwhile,’ he proffered in a stifled and driven undertone.
All the anger in her was instantly doused. She could not doubt that sincerity. She lowered her fiery head, and there was an enormous lump in her throat. She blinked back tears. If he saw them, his pride would be savaged.
‘All you have to offer me is yourself,’ she managed gruffly. ‘And that is enough for me. I happen to love you a lot. I can’t even imagine my life without you now, and you know...I don’t even know whether that pleases you or not.’
‘It pleases...it overwhelms,’ he muttered unevenly.
The silence went on endlessly. She heard his breath catch, listened to him swallow convulsively.
‘Does that mean you love me?’ she finally dared to ask.
‘I have always loved you,’ he said thickly. ‘Surely you know this well?’