The Mistress Bride

After opening the limousine door for her, his eyes blazed with possessive approval as he helped her to alight. 'Beautiful,' he murmured softly.

Flash bulbs exploded, people called out. Evie plastered a social smile on her face, and let Raschid escort her to their wedding.

The civil ceremony itself was to take place in front of only a few chosen witnesses. Then they were to return to Westhaven where the rest of their guests would be waiting to watch the Christian blessing Raschid had arranged to take place there.

There was to be a Muslim blessing, too, but not here in England, and not until Raschid's father was well enough to attend it. Or when he was ready to accept Evie as his son's wife she suspected was the truth. Her mother, Christina and Asim were waiting for them inside the foyer. At least Asim was wearing traditional Arab robes, Evie noted wryly.

The service was short, over almost before it had begun. Evie stood beside Raschid and repeated her vows in a frail voice that had their few witnesses straining to hear them. Raschid's voice was stronger, but slightly constricted, as if he was finding this more of a strain than he had expected it to be.

Evie felt the ring slide on to her finger, looked down to see a band of delicate gold twining around the Al Kadah family crest.

Did this ring make her one of them now? she wondered. 'You may now kiss the bride, sir.'

Kiss the bride. Like an automaton, Evie turned towards Raschid as he turned towards her. Lavender eyes clashed with gold. It was like free-falling into a vat of hot honey, and for several long seconds she wasn't aware of anything but this man and the power he had over her.

He didn't move, didn't attempt to claim his kiss, but just stood there looking down at her with his darkly tanned face cast into disturbingly sombre lines. The tension grew. Evie's heart began to stutter, her parted lips trembling slightly as they waited for that kiss. What was wrong with him? Did looking down into this face that bore no resemblance to his own people make him suddenly realise what he was actually putting at risk by joining himself to her? By now the breathless tension was beginning to envelop everyone. No one moved, no one spoke; all eyes were fixed intently on them. Her skin began to shimmer, long lashes flickering as her eyes anxiously asked him a question.

Raschid murmured something soft in his own language, a plea to Allah, Evie thought it was. Then she felt his hand searching for and taking hold of her hand, felt the tremor in his long fingers as he drew that captured hand up between their two bodies.

His dark lashes fell over liquid gold eyes as he looked down at the crested ring adorning her finger. Then he kissed it gently and lifted his eyes back to Evie's again. 'Kismet,' he said, that was all.

Kismet. The will of Allah. Their destiny.

Evie's heart swelled to bursting. And at last she smiled. In the next moment his arms were banding around her and he was claiming his kiss.

Outside the registry office, the air had suddenly developed a crystal clarity to it that totally outshone the dark shadow of before. Flash bulbs popped again, people called out to them. Evie smiled for the cameras, serenely ignored the questions and let her new husband lead her down to the waiting limousine, which would take them back to Westhaven.

Raschid maintained a grip on her hand as the car sped them away. Evie turned to smile at him, but he didn't smile back. 'You look utterly, soul-destroyingly lovely,' he murmured huskily. 'But for a while back there you also looked heart-breakingly sad.'

'Maybe I was having second thoughts,' she said teasingly.

'Were you?' It was a serious question.

Well, Evie asked herself, was I really having second thoughts about marrying this man?

'Kismet.' She smiled. The word really did seem to say it all for both of them. He nodded in understanding and dropped the subject to lean over and kiss her instead. But he wasn't fooled. Evie knew that he was aware that she might have answered one question but she had avoided telling him why she had looked so sad.

No giant white canopy awaited them at Westhaven, no band, no hundreds and hundreds of guests. Just a few close friends, a clutch of close relatives, and the summer house where the local vicar waited to bless their union in respect of Evie's Christian faith.

An alfresco buffet lunch had been laid out on trestle tables on the lawn in front of the house. Great-Aunt Celia was present, but she sensibly avoided actually speaking to either the bride or her groom. And Harry was there, escorting a pretty young thing that gazed doe-eyed at him. Evie spied Raschid standing talking to them at one point and wondered curiously when mutual hostility had turned into friendship.

'I've given him some of my horses to train,' Raschid explained later when she asked him the question. 'As a consolation prize for being a good loser.'

'What an arrogant thing to say!' Evie exclaimed.

'Not really,' Raschid drawled, sending her a wry look. 'For I would not have handled losing you to him as honourably as he has handled losing you to me.'

'Why?' she asked curiously. 'What would you have done?'

The hand he had resting on her still slender waist drew her around to stand in front of him. 'Guess,' he whispered. 'I think we are talking of locked doors and eunuchs again,' Evie pondered sagely.

'Preceded by kidnap, of course,' Raschid added. 'Which is exactly what I am about to do to you right now.'

As he spoke a helicopter came swooping low around the side of the house, gleaming white against the summer-blue sky and forcing the women to clutch at their hats as its rotor blades churned up the air around all of them. It set itself down on the lawn several hundred feet away. 'Our transport away from here,' Raschid announced.

'I'll go and get changed .. .'

'No need.' Raschid stopped her by capturing her hand. 'You look perfect as you are. Come, say your goodbyes quickly. We are working to a very tight schedule.'