Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride / The Spanish Husband / The Bellini Bride
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‘Are you trying to seduce me in broad daylight, Sheikh?’ she demanded mock sternly in an attempt to soften her rejection of him.
But Raschid refused to play the game. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I was trying to demonstrate how deeply I care for you.’
‘What—here?’ Evie mocked that also, but this time the mockery was ever so slightly spiked. ‘In front of a Christian altar—what will your God say? Or did the tent above your head make you forget where you were for a moment?’
‘My God is the same God as your God, Evie,’ he answered very grimly.
‘Well, just in case you’re wrong, I’m off, before we get struck down by a bolt of lightning or something,’ she said, clinging to her bantering tone despite his much—much graver one. ‘I’ll see you later—’
‘Evie.’
She had already turned her back on him when he said her name like that, making her go still as the muscles around her heart gave a painful pinch.
Raschid wasn’t stupid, she knew that. Those all-seeing liquid-gold eyes of his had caught the haunted look in her own eyes before she’d turned away.
‘What?’ she prompted warily.
There was a moment’s complete silence from behind her that trickled down her rigid spine like a warning. And she closed her eyes, mouth gone dry, heart still pinching in protest at what she was struggling to keep bottled up inside her today.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she denied.
‘The same “nothing” that has made you as elusive as a rare butterfly for the last few weeks?’ he grimly suggested.
‘You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy,’ she murmured defensively.
‘You’ve been hiding,’ he corrected. ‘And you are still hiding.’
‘I just need to get through this day with my dignity intact, that’s all,’ she sighed.
‘And you think that my kissing you here diminishes that dignity?’ He sounded cold all of a sudden—as haughty as hell. Which was a bad sign. For Raschid a bruised ego always—always made him insufferably arrogant.
‘I did warn you not to come,’ she reminded him.
‘And because I refuse to hide like you I am to be punished, is that it?’
Put like that, he had a right to sound offended, Evie wearily acknowledged. ‘You’re a man,’ she said dryly. ‘Bedding one of England’s most eligible females only adds to your standing, whereas I get called a cheap little slut.’
‘The woman in the awful lilac dress!’ Raschid recognised instantly. ‘The words match her sour expression.’
Despite her heavy mood, Evie couldn’t resist smiling at his caustic description of dear Great-Aunt Celia. ‘To be fair,’ she twisted around to say to him, ‘she did call you a womanising barbarian.’
A sleek, superbly drawn black eyebrow arched in enquiry. ‘And you agree with her?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she admitted. ‘But then,’ she added softly, ‘I like you barbaric.’
The darkening look in his eyes set her stomach fluttering.
‘I have to go,’ she murmured, turning away what that fluttering sensation was tempting.
‘More evasion?’
‘I’ll see you later,’ was all she replied, and walked gracefully away.
Stepping out from beneath the sultry-aired canopy was like stepping into another world. The sun was bright, the air crystal-clear, and the sights and sounds of celebration were everywhere.
The bridal party was posing for photographers in front of a perfectly placed beech tree that looked as if it had been standing there for at least a thousand years. All about them their guests stood around in small groups watching them. A small army of white-jacketed waiters wove in and out with silver trays laden with fluted champagne glasses, trying to avoid the children who were running about like swirling dervishes and letting off steam.
The band was still playing, and it seemed odd to Evie that she hadn’t heard a single note while she had been with Raschid.
But then, Raschid had that kind of effect on her. When he was there her world began and ended with him alone. Which was why this other world out here felt so very strange and alien.
Julian caught sight of her and called out, then waved his hand in an imperious command for her to come and join them. Evie nodded her head in acknowledgement but took her time making her way over there. Her brother didn’t know it, but she had no intention of appearing with them on any photograph.
So she stopped a waiter to collect a champagne glass, paused then to chat lightly to the first group of people she came to. Saw, from the corner of her eye, her brother’s attention become claimed by more pressing duties that made him forget all about her, and kept her social smile fixed firmly in place as she wandered from group to group—the only group she carefully avoided being the Arab contingent.
Someone appeared at her shoulder and tentatively touched her arm. She turned her head, the social smile still fixed firmly in place, found herself looking into the ruefully smiling face of an attractive man with brown hair, grey eyes and a shy disposition.
And instantly her expression mellowed into true tenderness. ‘Harry,’ she greeted softly. ‘How lovely to see you.’ It was purely instinctive for her to go up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his lean cheek.
From not very far away several people stood observing the exchange from completely different perspectives. Her mother observed with unmasked satisfaction, Raschid with grim speculation as he watched Evie’s face, saw that smile as the one he’d always believed was reserved exclusively for him—and discovered that it hit him rather hard to know another man warranted such tenderness.
He knew, of course, who the guy was, and what he had once been to Evie. They had been childhood friends, sweethearts in their teenage years—but never lovers, he reminded himself as he watched the Marquis of Lister place hands that most definitely coveted around Evie’s slender waist.
‘He’s still in love with her,’ a cold voice murmured beside him. ‘She broke his heart when she left him for you. Will you break her heart, Sheikh Raschid, when it’s time for you to let my daughter go?’
‘I wonder what appeals to you more, Lady Delahaye,’ Raschid smiled tightly. ‘The prospect of your daughter receiving that broken heart or my leaving her?’
‘I love Evie,’ Evie’s mother declared stiffly.
‘Really?’ he drawled. ‘Then I beg leave to inform you that it doesn’t show.’
‘She has a right to be able to stand alongside the man she loves with her head held high in pride, not to avoid his presence at all cost!’
‘And whose fault is it that she does avoid me?’ Raschid challenged. ‘Certainly not mine,’ he denied.
‘She doesn’t look well,’ Evie’s mother stated tightly. ‘She most certainly doesn’t look happy. And that smile she is offering Harry is the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her today.’
‘I know…’ Raschid acknowledged quietly, his mind locked on something else Lady Delahaye had said that had managed to strike at the very heart of him.
Because, he realised, Evie didn’t look well. He knew she was unhappy—that much had been patently obvious to him for several weeks now.
But ill—as in sick? A chill went whipping though him.
‘Excuse me,’ he said curtly, and walked away, leaving Lucinda Delahaye to follow his long, lean, graceful approach towards her daughter with angrily resentful eyes.
Resentment that turned to grim satisfaction when she saw her son and his new bride waylay Sheikh Raschid before he could reach his target. She could see his frustration behind the smile of congratulation he had fixed on his lean dark face. And she could see Evie, so engrossed in whatever Harry was saying to her that she wasn’t aware that her lover stood not ten feet away.
Thank goodness for Julian, Evie was thinking as she pretended to listen to Harry enthuse about the innovative breeding programme he was using at his racing stud, while her real attention was fixed on Raschid, and the disturbing fact that he had been striding purposefully towards her.
She’d seen her mother speak to him, seen by both their expressions that the short meeting had not broken any ice. Whatever her mother had said to Raschid it had made him excuse himself curtly and make directly for Evie, which could only mean one thing.
Her mother was stirring trouble.
‘You should come down some time and see what we’re doing there,’ Harry was saying. ‘You won’t believe the changes since you last visited, Evie.’
Laughter suddenly exploded into the afternoon air, Julian and Raschid sounding deep and hearty, Christina’s lighter laughter like the tinkling of fairy bells, sweet and delicate and undeniably happy.
And once again Evie was glad of her wide-brimmed gauzy hat that was hiding her envious wish to be with them instead of standing here with Harry.
Harry, whom she had once thought she loved to distraction but now couldn’t even remember what that love felt like since it had been so thoroughly overwhelmed by what she felt for Raschid.
‘But your mother tells me you don’t get down to Westhaven much any more.’ Harry’s voice reached out to her from what felt like a long, long way off. ‘Is that because you didn’t fancy running into me?’
‘What?’ Dragging her attention away from the laughing trio, Evie made her eyes focus on Harry’s uncomfortably flushed face. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Harry,’ she admonished. ‘We were very good friends once. I thought we still were.’
‘I embarrassed you by asking you to marry me.’ He grimaced.
‘I was very honoured that you asked me,’ Evie replied. ‘And very sad that I had to turn you down. But it wouldn’t have worked for you and me, Harry,’ she added softly, watching the way his restless grey eyes couldn’t look directly at her. ‘We knew each other too well, were too—comfortable with each other.’
‘There were no exciting sparks flying between us, you mean.’ He laughed tensely. ‘Not the sort that fly between you and your Sheikh, anyway.’
There was no kind way to answer that, so Evie didn’t offer one. Instead she turned the conversation back to the safer ground of horses. Not long after that, the Master of Ceremonies called for them to take their places in the main marquee where the wedding banquet was to be served.
Seating four hundred guests around huge round tables was no small feat, and for the next couple of hours Evie didn’t so much as lay eyes on Raschid, her place being with family relatives and his amongst the dignitaries seated right over on the other side of the marquee.
So the day crawled on, through course after course of delicately prepared dishes and benign conversation. The speeches began, the champagne glasses being constantly refilled to mark each toast offered to the bride and groom.
By the time people began to drift away to go and get ready for the ball that evening, Evie was beginning to feel very jaded. She went to her room and indulged herself in a long soak in the antiquated cast-iron bath in the vague hope it would help remove some of the tension from her body.
It didn’t. So the knock at her bedroom door as she was just pulling a satin robe over the flesh-coloured teddy she intended to wear beneath the gold dress tonight made her heart sink in weary anticipation of yet another lecture from her mother as she called a very reluctant, ‘Come in!’
And was therefore surprised when it was Raschid who stepped into the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
HER horror must have shown on her face, because his expression was not a pleasant one as he firmly shut the door behind him and pointedly twisted the key in the lock. Then he was turning to lean his broad shoulders back against the solid oak and folding his arms across his chest in what she could only describe as his confrontational pose.
Gone were the flowing white robes of the Arab and in their place were the clothes of the super-sophisticated western man. White shirt, black bow tie, creamy white dinner jacket and black silk trousers that accentuated the length of his powerfully muscled legs.
Evie’s insides began to flutter, her eyes darkening warily as she made herself look into the grimness of his. He was glancing around the room with an expression of unconcealed disfavour.
‘Your brother was not exaggerating when he informed his lovely new wife that you had been insulted,’ he remarked. ‘It is no wonder her cheeks flushed with mortification as she went off to take the issue up with her mother, who then flushed and blamed your own mother—who had apparently…’ his hard eyes flicked to Evie ‘… made a special request that you be accommodated as far away from the west wing of the castle as they could possibly place you…’
The west wing being where Raschid would be accommodated—in one of the very large and very grand bedroom suites, Evie assumed. And was unable to hide the hurt she experienced on learning that her own mother could be so petty in her disapproval of her relationship with Raschid that she could go to such extremes.
‘Just say the word,’ Raschid said coolly, ‘and I will have your things moved in with mine.’
‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said, wondering if her mother truly believed she could prove a point with such action. Did she honestly think it would keep them apart if they had no wish to be apart?
Half a mile of draughty corridor was certainly no deterrent to Raschid, anyway.
‘Is that why you’re here?’ she asked a trifle wearily. ‘To check out my supposedly insulting accommodation?’
‘No…’ His dark head shook, those golden eyes of his grimly fixed on her tired face. ‘I am here to enquire after your health.’
‘My health?’ Evie frowned at him in puzzled confusion. ‘Was that your sweet way of being sarcastic?’
‘No,’ he denied. ‘I was being sincere. To put it bluntly, Evangeline,’ he added, using her full name in much the same way her mother did—as a warning of worse to come, ‘you look wretched.’
Oh, great, she thought. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning away from those too shrewd golden eyes.
‘Pale and pathetic,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Too frail to stand up and too tense to sit down.’
‘I said,’ Evie flashed at him in irritation, ‘I feel fine! There is absolutely nothing wrong with me!’
The simple fact that she was snapping at him was telling Raschid the opposite. His eyes narrowed, the aggressive stance he had taken up against the door altering to one of dangerous challenge.
‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Then you can have no objection to my escorting you down to the ballroom, can you?’ he tagged on very silkily.
Evie sighed, wishing that this day were already over and done with. ‘Raschid—’ she began wearily.
‘Raschid—nothing,’ he coolly cut in. ‘I have played my official role here today, to perfection. So have you. Now it is time to relax and begin enjoying ourselves.’
Relax—nothing. Evie parodied him inside her head. He was angry with her for avoiding him all afternoon and he was here to fight, not enjoy himself.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he enquired when she didn’t say anything.
‘Several,’ Evie answered dryly. ‘But I don’t think you’re in any mood to hear them.’
‘Wise girl,’ he commended. ‘Now be even wiser, and slip your delectable body into whatever it is you are wearing tonight before I decide that it may be more satisfying to toss you down on that excuse for a bed behind you and assuage my anger in other ways.’
‘Novel,’ she mocked, feeling some rather well known but unwanted sensations go chasing through her system at the prospect of his alternative. ‘But I am not walking out of this room with you, Raschid, with my mother standing guard only a few doors away. She would have my guts for garters.’
‘And I will have them for a noose which I will tie around your beautiful neck if you don’t walk out with me,’ he countered. ‘So, which will it be, Evie? Your mother’s pride or my pride? Take your pick.’
The direct challenge.
Evie sighed one of those sighs she’d caught herself doing a lot recently, and went to drop down on her dressing stool. ‘Don’t do this to me tonight, Raschid,’ she pleaded heavily. ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m really not up to it.’
‘I know the feeling,’ he grimly commiserated. ‘In fact, I am thoroughly annoyed with both you and your prejudiced family,’ he clipped out. ‘To the extent that if I am provoked any further today I may just disgrace myself by telling them all what I think of them!’
‘And that includes telling me, it seems.’ Despite his anger and her own depression, Evie found a rueful smile from somewhere.
‘Quite,’ he clipped. ‘So be sensible, Evie, and humour me unless you want to see an ugly scene erupt in the Beverley ballroom.’
He meant it too; Evie could see that in the grim cut of his mouth as he levered himself away from the door and walked across the room to the antiquated wardrobe, much as her mother had done several hours ago.
Only, the similarity ended with the opening of the wardrobe door. For Raschid took one look at the dress hanging there—and began to chuckle. ‘I knew you were brave,’ he grinned. ‘But not this brave.’
‘Brazen is the word my great-aunt Celia used,’ Evie informed him.
Turning with the dress over his arm, he laid it on the bed then came over to where she was sitting.
‘Up,’ he said firmly, curving long fingers around her upper arms to help her.
Then, because she looked so adorably pathetic with that miserable expression on her face, he bent his dark head and kissed her—and when all she did was sigh shakily into his mouth he deepened the kiss until the sighing stopped and she began clinging.
‘Now…’ he said when he eventually drew away again. ‘Do you dress yourself or do I do it for you?’
‘I don’t suppose you would consider letting me get through the rest of today in my own way?’ she suggested hopefully.
The dark head shook, his hands already dealing with the knotted belt around her waist.
‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when her robe fell open to reveal a flesh-coloured silk teddy that hardly hid what it was supposed to be covering. ‘Very seductive.’
Long, knowing fingers made a caressing journey from her tiny waist to the proud thrust of her breasts. His thumb pads teased her with little passes across the tight nubs of her nipples and a different kind of sigh escaped her, one that whimpered like an anxious kitten while her slender hips writhed as those teasing caresses made other parts of her stir into sweet, throbbing life.
‘I’ve missed that little sigh,’ Raschid whispered softly, his eyes possessive on her as he watched her sink into that sensual trance his touch always induced. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he added huskily.
‘I can tell,’ she sighed out pleasurably. He was very aroused—but then, so was she. They had not been together like this for two weeks now—a long time for them. ‘Kiss me,’ she groaned.
He responded quickly, hotly, hungrily, his mouth covering hers with a driving force that had her head snapping back on a slender neck while his arms crushed her tightly to him.
He was alive and wanting, his mouth urgent now as it kissed and sucked and licked and tasted its way across her cheek and jaw while his hands moved lower again, cupping her around her silky thighs before his fingers slid beneath the teddy and drew her hard up against him.
‘Raschid—’ she groaned as he set his hips moving against her in an age-old rhythm that set an equally old rhythm pulsing inside herself. ‘We haven’t got time for this.’
‘I can be quick,’ he murmured audaciously. ‘Five minutes and you will feel wonderful, I promise you…’
‘Incorrigible man,’ she scolded, then gasped when knowing fingers slid along her buttocks until they reached what they were searching for.
She was warm and she was moist and she was ready for him. She never could put up much of a resistance to him. Her hands jerked up, clutching at his arms for support as he captured her mouth with a kiss that tossed her into a world of frantic hunger.
‘Release me,’ Raschid pleaded hoarsely against her mouth.
Fingers trembling in their urgency, she did as he bade her, drawing down the zip on his evening trousers and releasing him from the silk shorts he wore beneath. He filled her hand, hard and throbbing, smooth as silk, such a potent source of power and pleasure that her control went haywire. It didn’t matter—not when it was so apparent that his control was no better. His heart was pounding, his breathing shot. Two red streaks across his lean dark cheekbones were underlining the ruthless intent burning in his eyes as he edged her backwards until the backs of her thighs met with the edge of the solid oak dressing table.
With a fierce sexual urgency he parted her white thighs and pressed his own taut brown ones between them. Then, with the deftness of experience, he released her lower body from the silk teddy and bent his knees so he could enter her cleanly.
His grunt of satisfaction as he felt her muscles close greedily around him was matched by her groan of pleasure. Her fingers were clutching his neck, her spine arching over his supporting arm so he could suck on her breasts through the teddy while he drove them both to a place beyond bearing.
And he was right. Five minutes later and she did feel wonderful, limp and languid, not a hint of tension or stress in her.
‘Now you look less like a haunted woman,’ he murmured softly, golden eyes darkened to polished bronze by sensual satisfaction as they viewed her.
‘And you look ridiculous with your trousers round your shoes,’ Evie countered tauntingly.
But he just grinned, all slashing white teeth and pure male arrogance. Even in a situation like this, Raschid knew he looked devastatingly sexy. He was still inside her, his hands holding her against the cradle of his lean hips while his eyes ran tenderly over her love-softened face.
‘I adore you, you know…’ he softly informed her. ‘If the world stopped turning at this precise moment, I could die a happy man.’
Evie almost told him then. Almost… Almost tested that statement with words that would surely make his world stand still. But—
No.
The need to get through what was left of today without causing a major disaster was paramount. So, ‘Your five minutes are up,’ she said, and felt his soft laugh vibrate in the very essence of her before he ruefully and reluctantly drew away.
He helped her to dress, smoothly drawing up the zip on the gold silk gown then standing back to watch her with darkly possessive eyes as she twisted up her hair, then sat down to replenish her make-up.
Getting up to slip her feet into the strappy gold shoes, Evie then turned towards him to announce she was ready. Seeing a question written in his love-sated eyes, she smiled her answer.
No more compromising for the sake of her mother. They would go down to the ball together and damn the consequences.
For this could be the last time she would be able to show herself in public with him like this.
Julian and Christina were dancing the first waltz when they entered the ballroom. The lights had been dimmed, and a single spotlight followed the bride and groom around while everyone was standing around the dance floor, thankfully too busy clapping and teasing the newly-weds to notice Evie and Raschid’s arrival.
With her hand resting in the crook of Raschid’s arm, Evie watched from the sidelines as gradually other couples began to join the newly-weds. Lord Beverley with his wife, Robert Malvern gallantly inviting Evie’s mother to dance.
‘Shall we?’ Raschid murmured.
‘Why not?’ she replied, but there was a lot of bravado in her tone and he arched his sleek black eyebrows at her as he drew her into his arms then danced off with a lightness of foot that secretly made her breathless.
‘You’re good at this,’ she remarked, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so she didn’t have to see the kind of looks they would be receiving.
‘It is expected of a dashing Arab prince,’ he blandly mocked himself. ‘I can jive too, and I’m not bad at the Gay Gordon.’
‘You don’t have a modest bone in your body, either,’ Evie tagged on dryly.