That the old lady was still going strong while she felt weary embarrassed Zoe. She lumbered upright, feeling like an elephant in her cumbersome layers of clothing, hoping it was cooler outside than it was inside. But that was a false hope, she recognised when the humid air beyond the tent closed in around her and she was forced to trek across the sand in her wildly unsuitable shoes that dug in at every step. A camel was led in front of her and made to lie down. Farida instructed her to climb into the saddle, which, weighted down as she was by fabric and jewellery, was no easy task, but at last the deed was accomplished and the animal scrambled up again and swayed across the sands in the moonlight, accompanied by whoops from the women crowded round her and with the aid of the herdsman with his very modern torch.
‘It is symbolic,’ Farida explained. ‘Queen Ayshah stands in your mother’s place and she is sending you to your bridegroom.’
Zoe rather thought it was more as if she were a parcel to be delivered, although thank heaven, she reflected with a choked giggle, Raj wouldn’t be expecting to unwrap the parcel. She slid more than she dismounted from the camel and picked herself up off the sand, thinking fondly that she was having an even more exciting wedding day than either of her sisters had enjoyed while wondering when her mobile phone would be returned to her so that she could bring her siblings up to date with events.
She almost staggered into the tent lit by lanterns that awaited her and there she froze in consternation. A large bed confronted her and it dawned on her at last that this was her wedding night, which she was expected to spend in close proximity to her new husband. She wasn’t going to get her own tent this time or even her own bed because she was supposed to share the bed. In silence she pulled a face because she hadn’t anticipated that, although she knew that she should’ve done.
After all, her agreement with Raj that their marriage would be platonic was a private matter that neither of them was likely to discuss with anyone beyond their immediate family. Grateful when the women retreated again she sank down on the bottom of the low divan and breathed in deep while she waited for Raj to arrive. My goodness, she was getting so hot. She straightened and walked into the primitive bathroom that had been erected alongside and clearly in haste for their comfort. A mirror sat propped up on a chest and piece by piece she removed the heavy gold jewellery and set it on the chest along with the veil.
At that point she heard shouts and catcalls outside and she scrambled up to return to the main tent just in time to see Raj striding in and covering the door again with obvious relief. ‘Everyone gets overexcited at weddings,’ he said wryly, studying her with fixed intensity.
Colour mantled her cheeks, self-consciousness reclaiming her as she hovered. ‘Perhaps they’re also celebrating the fact that their Prince is home again,’ she suggested.
‘It is possible,’ Raj fielded with quiet assurance.
He wore confidence like invisible armour and she envied him that gift, wondering how he could ever have suffered the ignominy of panic attacks. He had the innate calm of a man comfortable in his own skin yet, from what little she had already learned, his past was littered with drama and disappointment. Yet he had overcome those realities and moved on, much as she wished to do.
‘Do you know where my clothes are? Are they still back at the house I was taken from?’ she asked uncomfortably.
‘I will enquire for you in the morning,’ Raj murmured smoothly.
‘I don’t even have a toothbrush!’ Zoe protested, falling back on trivialities rather than dealing with her insecurities over the situation she was in.
‘I will give you one,’ Raj informed her in a tone of finality.
Zoe swallowed hard on a burst of angry exasperation. Was she supposed to go to bed naked with all her make-up on? It wasn’t his fault that she had been separated from her luggage, she told herself urgently, and she shouldn’t take her ire out on him. Deal with it, she instructed herself, and she went back into the bathroom and removed the ornate kaftan before beginning to undo the buttons of the layers beneath. Arms aching, perspiration dampening her face, she stalked back uneasily into the bedroom. Raj was on his phone, black eyes skimming to her instantly. He cast the phone down and studied her enquiringly.
‘I’m afraid I need your help with all these buttons,’ she framed in considerable embarrassment. ‘I don’t want to tear anything...’
‘No, that would indeed be embarrassing,’ Raj conceded. ‘It would look as though I ripped the shifts off you.’
Breathing fast, Zoe spun round, presenting him with her slender back. ‘I just don’t get why it has all those buttons in an absolutely inaccessible place!’
‘Because you are not supposed to take it off by yourself,’ Raj informed her softly, a faint tremor racking her as she felt the gentle pressure of his fingers against her back as he undid the buttons, because a man had never got quite that close to her before and that he should be undressing her, even though it was at her request, was still a challenge. ‘Your bridegroom is supposed to remove the three shifts slowly and seductively. It is a cultural tradition.’
‘Oh...’ Zoe gasped and then as the ramifications set in, ‘Oh,’ she said again.
‘You will have Ayshah to thank for the shifts because I don’t think most brides bother with this particular tradition these days,’ Raj told her huskily, skimming the first shift down her arms and letting it drop to the rug beneath her bare feet before embarking on the next set of buttons. ‘That is a shame.’
‘Is it? A bridal version of the dance of the seven veils...or whatever?’ Zoe heard herself wittering on nervously, cringing even as the words escaped her.
Raj rolled his eyes and gritted his even white teeth because peeling her out of the silk shifts was testing his self-control. Her skin glimmered through the gossamer-fine tissue like the most lustrous of pearls and that close the sweet scent of her, of roses and almonds, was unbelievably feminine and alluring. Raj tugged down the second shift and let it fall before stepping away, carefully not looking at what would now be an enhanced view of her body because he did not require that encouragement.
Bemused, Zoe spun round, registering that he had stopped and walked away. ‘I don’t want to sleep in this one,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘These shifts are precious to your stepmother. They were put on me with a care that implied they were made of solid gold.’
‘She is not my stepmother,’ Raj incised curtly. ‘She is my father’s first wife.’
‘Right... OK,’ Zoe framed, registering that she had hit a tender spot with that designation, but very much out of her depth when it came to labelling or understanding the doubtless complex relations created in a family consisting of more than one wife. ‘But what am I to sleep in?’
Raj was forced to look at her and the image locked him in place. She was so clueless he swallowed hard on impatient words. She might as well have been standing there naked for the thin material hid very little. The pert little swells of her small breasts were obvious, not to mention the intriguing tea-rose colour of her prominent nipples and the pale curls at the apex of her thighs. Raj sucked in a sustaining breath, hot and hard as hell. ‘I will get you something of mine,’ he asserted, rather hoarse in tone, his dark deep voice roughening the vowel sounds.
‘I’m sorry I’m being such a pain,’ Zoe mumbled uneasily as Raj dragged out a leather holdall and opened it to rummage through it.
‘I didn’t bring much because I didn’t think I’d be staying long.’ Raj sighed, finally extracting a T-shirt and a pair of boxers for her use.
Zoe grabbed the garments with alacrity and spun round beside him. ‘Just undo the last ones, please, and I’ll be out of your hair,’ she promised.
Raj suppressed a groan, his attention locking on the sweet curvaceous swell of her bottom. Presented with the delights of her in reality his imagination could take flight with ease and he ached with arousal. He grappled with the
buttons, no longer deft, indeed all fingers and thumbs as he thought of laying her down on the bed and teaching her the consequences of teasing a man. But even as he thought of such a thing, he was grimly amused by it because he knew she was quite unaware of the effect she was having on him and that he would never touch a woman who had stated so clearly that she did not want to be touched. In fact, he had never been with a woman less aware of her seductive power over a man and, while at first he had found that absence of flirtation and flattery refreshing, now, suddenly, he was finding that innocence of hers a huge challenge.