Page 20 of A Question of Honor

Clemmie shivered in the rush of icy air that had flooded into the small room as Karim yanked open the door and she grabbed at the blankets, pulling them up around her, even over her head, huddling into them for protection.

But it wasn’t the cold that he had let into the cottage that made her shudder. Instead the feeling came from deep inside, a terrible sensation of rejection and embarrassment at the way she had behaved. Tossed violently on an unknown sea of physical feelings, she had lost all thought of sanity and self-preservation and had thrown herself at him like some wild creature, driven only by her baser instincts.

The blankets were doing no good. She pulled them closer round her, but they felt rough and uncomfortable against her sensitised skin. Every nerve, every sense that Karim had awoken now stung with an arousal that refused to die down. Even the cotton of her nightdress was uncomfortable against her still peaking nipples and so much of her body was an ache of frustrated hunger that it felt like a bruise over every inch of her. She longed to call Karim back, to beg him to reawaken the excitement that had driven all thought from her mind, left her at the mercy of primal needs that were too strong to be contained.

It was no wonder that she had never needed to fight to resist the sort of temptation that she might have been assailed by. She had never known it. Never experienced anything like real temptation before. But one touch, one kiss from this man and all her defences had been blown apart, leaving her gasping and vulnerable, unable to even form the word No in her mind, let alone speak it.

But she hadn’t needed to say no. Karim had said it for her. Whatever she had felt for him, he had felt nothing of the same. He might have wanted her physically; she was not so naïve as to be unaware of just what the powerful response of his body meant. But he hadn’t wanted her.

She had thought—had hoped—that she had found a way to ensure that her first time with a man was, if not out of love and truly something special, then at least with someone who made her feel special. Someone who excited her like no man had ever done in her life before. And Karim had made her feel that way. His touch had sent delight through every inch of her body, at least until he had pushed her from him, rejecting her so violently that she still felt the bruises on her soul. And instead of a wonderful, exciting initiation into womanhood, she just felt grubby and limp, like a discarded rag.

Slowly, awkwardly, Clemmie got to her feet. Her ankle still ached, though she realised she had forgotten all about it when she was in Karim’s arms. Her legs didn’t quite feel as if they belonged to her and she swayed where she stood as she tried to gather her strength. She just wanted to go and hide, but she knew that Karim was not going to allow that to happen.

If she needed any reminder then the sound from outside brought her head up sharply, knowing she was already on borrowed time. The hiccup and cough of her old car’s engine finally breaking into life, the rattling roar that told its own tale. Karim had somehow got it started and very soon he would have moved it out of the way, freeing his own vehicle to take to the road and drive them both away from here.

He would expect her to be ready and waiting to go with him when he came back into the house.

Just for a minute Clemmie considered rebelling. She would just sit here and...but as the hooded blanket slid from her head to her shoulders, reminding her that underneath the brown wool she was just about naked, the tee shirt nightdress still rucked up above her waist, all the fight went out of her in a rush. She didn’t want Karim coming back and finding her still as he had left her, discarded and unwanted, in a miserable bundle on the sofa. She would be dressed and on her feet, ready to face him.

Ready to go.

Slowly she looked round at the small shabby room in the cottage that had been her home for the past months. The place that been her haven, her sanctuary from the negotiations that had taken her life away, the promises that her father had made on her behalf. But it was no longer her sanctuary. In a couple of days it had changed completely and all because of Karim.

Karim had invaded her space, he had taken away her privacy, her security—her self-respect—and nothing would ever be the same again.

So she might as well go now and face the future that lay ahead of her. Her brief, foolish dreams of finding anything else to put in their place had shattered, falling at her feet in piles of dust. There was nothing more for her, nothing to look forward to, to hope for. She’d had her short taste of freedom and it was over. She had no possibility of avoiding her future any longer. So she would dress, and collect her last few belongings and when Karim returned he would find her waiting, if not ready, for the marriage that had been planned out for her when she was a child.

It was time to forget about dreams and to accept the future that fate and her father had decided for her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ENGLAND WAS A lifetime away.

Three days. Thousands of miles. The other side of the world. And she felt as if she’d lived a whole lifetime since then.

Clemmie stood by the high window and stared out at Rhastaan city spread out below her at the foot of the hill on which the palace was built. If anything brought home to her how much her life had changed, then it was this city set on the outskirts of the desert, a heavy heat haze hovering on the horizon and a total lack of any wind to stir the flags on the royal buildings.

If she opened the window, then the ferocious heat of the day would rush into the room, fighting against the almost brutal air-conditioning that kept the place cool. Kept it liveable in. It was amazing just how quickly she had got used to a very different atmosphere, very different temperatures so that in spite of the fact that it was the sort of environment she’d grown up in, the raw heat of this desert kingdom was almost unbearable. She was actually longing for the cold of the little cottage that had been her home, her haven for such a short time. Here, she was surrounded by every comfort, every luxury, and yet she would trade it all in an instant for another few days of feeling free, of really being herself as she had been in Yorkshire.

But that was never going to happen.

With a deep, dragging sigh, Clemmie turned away from the window and moved back into her room, her bare feet making no sound on the pink veined marble tiles, the turquoise silk of her long robe sliding sensuously over their polished surface. Another thing that she would gladly go without if she could. The robe might be made from the finest silk, be decorated with beautiful embroidery and have been made exactly to her measurements but she longed for the battered jeans and tee shirts she had lived in before.

Clemmie plonked herself down on a padded stool and stared at her reflection in the dressing table mirror. She barely recognised herself, with her make-up done in a way she would never have chosen, heavy kohl outlining her eyes, rich red lipstick emphasising her mouth. And her hair...!

The wild dark locks had been pushed and pinned into an ornate arrangement of smooth, elaborate curls that pulled at her scalp and made her head itch. She was the woman her father had wanted her to be, trained her to be, but she couldn’t help wondering what Karim, who had wanted her to look and behave like a future queen, would think of it.

Karim.

Just his name sounded alien inside her head. He had come into her life in a storm and had turned it upside down. For a few crazy, dangerous hours she had thought that he might be more than just the man who had been sent to collect her. That he could be something special. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

If she had needed anything to drive that home to her, then the journey here would have been all that it would have taken. She might as well have been a piece of luggage that he had collected and had to deliver to Nabil, he had spared her so little attention. With her car out of the way, he had grabbed her small case, taking it out to dump it in his vehicle, then, opening the front passenger door, he had stood there waiting for her, not a word being spoken. When she had come past him to slide into her seat he had held himself stiff as a statue hewn from granite, keeping well back from touching her. Only his eyes had moved but when she had met his gaze it had been hard as polished jet and every bit as impenetrable.

Had he spoken more than one sentence to her?

‘Seat belt...’

The command had been tossed at her as he’d climbed into the car beside her and put the key in the ignition. And then that had been it. Silence. When she’d tried to speak, he had just flicked a sidelong glance at her and then made a gesture to where the rain that had replaced the snow was lashing against the windscreen, reducing visibility to a minimum and making driving conditions very difficult.

‘I need to concentrate.’ It was clipped, blunt, totally dismissive. And then he had added, ‘We need to get to the airport and on a plane to Rhastaan before Ankhara finds out where we are.’

If there was anything guaranteed to clamp her mouth shut, then it was that. How could she have forgotten about the man who was set against her marriage to Nabil? He was the head of a group who would do almost anything to make sure that the alliance that marriage represented never took place. Huddling into the raincoat she had pulled on over jeans and a jumper, she pulled her jacket tightly round her, chilled to the bone in a way that had little to do with the weather and was more the result of her thoughts.

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