NATASHA OAKLEY – Cinderella and the Sheikh (страница 4)

‘I’m returning to town after this evening.’ Again the brunette moved her hand suggestively across her low décolletage. ‘Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could spend some time together before you fly back to Amrah?’

‘No.’ And then he cursed himself for what had been a staggering lack of good manners. His shoulders moved in an apologetic shrug. ‘My father…’

Rashid let the sentence hang unfinished. The doctors, he knew, would do everything they could, but neither he, nor any man, could hope to foresee what the next few months would bring.

Emily leant forward and touched his hand, outwardly concerned.

Rashid studied her face. She didn’t care. There was no genuine emotion in her painted eyes.

And he couldn’t be bothered.

The truth of that slid into his brain like a dagger through silk. He wanted to shake these people off, move away, find space to breathe. And yet he had the responsibility of a guest towards his host’s friends. A responsibility he was shirking.

It was a relief when a loud crack ripped across the general murmur of conversation. He looked out towards the formal gardens stretching down to the ornamental lake and at the white firework cascading down like some overblown pompom.

‘Oh, my God, how lovely.’ Emily unwound her overly long body and stood, hand raised to shield her eyes as though that would somehow make it easier to see what was happening out in the landscaped gardens. ‘Fireworks! Oh, Rashid, how beautiful.’ She turned her long neck so she could look directly at him.

Another sharp crack, followed by a hiss and sizzle, and he caught sight of a particularly spectacular cascade of golden shards.

‘I love fireworks!’

Vaguely, very vaguely, he was aware of the movement around the table. Chairs scraped back and then Nick’s hand touching his arm. ‘Coming to see?’

Rashid shook his head. He looked up and met his friend’s understanding blue eyes. Nick knew why he was here and would be tolerant if his behaviour wasn’t quite as it should be.

Rashid’s head jerked upwards as he felt the spurt of anger flicker deep inside him. Under any other circumstances he wouldn’t be here. Given half a choice he’d be back in Amrah, ready to spend precious time with his father if he was sent for. And he’d have been watching his brother’s back, holding off the factions that were all too eager to turn recent events to their advantage.

His friend smiled and deftly manoeuvred the rest of the party outside. Rashid pulled a weary hand across his face and then let his eyes wander along the panelled walls. So different from home, but no less beautiful. Shelton Castle was a place of wealth. A little shabby, but in the English style of conserving all that was old regardless of fashion.

He’d come hoping to understand—and he didn’t. The fifteenth Duke of Missenden was feckless and without honour. He fully deserved the destiny he had created for himself, Rashid thought, and if he’d scared him by coming here, so much the better.

Rashid was distracted by a flash of peacock-blue dipping in and out of the black-dinner-suited men clustered by the doors to the terrace. He sat back in his chair and watched Miss Pollyanna Anderson weave her way through the tightly packed throng watching the fireworks.

She was his one uncertainty. Where did she fit into all this? Last night he’d finally accepted Nick’s statement that the dowager duchess and her daughter were not accepted by the late duke’s children and therefore unlikely to be complicit in anything underhand.

But Pollyanna was too confident. She’d worked the room tonight with the assurance of someone who knew she belonged.

It had been Pollyanna who’d orchestrated the staff so they were largely inconspicuous. Pollyanna who’d managed the minor fracas earlier. He couldn’t see her as someone passive. She appeared strong and capable.

So, given all that, was he prepared to accept Pollyanna Anderson’s sudden desire to come to Amrah was a mere coincidence? His strong mouth twisted. And if it were not a coincidence, what he wanted to know was what she hoped to gain. And by what means did she intend to gain it?

His eyes narrowed. Did she hope to coerce him into silence by distorting what she saw in his country? Or was she some kind of a honey trap? Set to embarrass him and discredit his evidence?

That didn’t feel right. She moved gracefully enough, but she didn’t walk in a way that suggested she expected to be looked at. Her dress was a stunning colour, which brought out the deep blue of her eyes, but he doubted it had been made by any of the designers the women he’d spent time with would have deemed worthy of notice.

She was attractive, he conceded, but in a very English way. Wide blue eyes, pale alabaster skin and hair the colour of desert sand. But no femme fatale. And, baring the fact he was certain she’d known exactly who he was and where he was to be found at any given time this evening, she’d not tried to approach him.

She’d been too busy working, controlling the events of the evening with a skill born of practice. He watched her as she paused, looking back towards the fireworks with a slight smile. Then she raised a hand to rub her neck and turned away. Her movements were rapid and she walked with obvious purpose across the highly polished floor towards a narrow door in the back wall.

It was the small furtive glance she made back across the now almost empty ballroom that had Rashid on his feet. Curiosity had always been his besetting sin and this was beyond temptation.

Rashid sidestepped the table and followed her across the ballroom. The door she’d walked through opened easily and he slid quietly into what appeared to be an intimate but ornately furnished sitting room. Gilt mirrors hung on the opposite wall and the furniture looked as if it belonged in a museum rather than a family home. All with a faded air of grandeur befitting one of England’s foremost stately homes.

It took less than a second to locate Ms Anderson. She was sitting at right angles to the fireplace on one of a pair of brocade sofas, as yet completely unaware he’d come in. Via her reflection he watched her slip off her shoes and reach down to rub at her toes.

The rhythmic movement of her fingers over stockinged feet was unexpectedly sensual and his eyes were riveted. Even more to the tantalising glimpse of her full breasts as the front of her dress gaped.

Rashid forced himself to look away and his eyes snagged on the back of her neck, with the two soft tendrils of honey-gold hair that had escaped the tight twist she’d favoured. It was the kind of neck made to be kissed. Long. Soft.

Maybe he’d underestimated her success as a potential honey trap? Pollyanna possessed a natural sensuality.

‘Ms Anderson, my name is Rashid Al Baha.’

Her head snapped round to look at him and her mouth formed an almost perfect ‘o’. ‘Wh—?’

‘I apologise,’ Rashid said, moving farther into the room, ‘for disturbing you.’

She hurriedly returned her feet to the torturous-looking heels she’d been wearing and stood up, letting the soft folds of her dress mass around her ankles. ‘No. That is, I…’ One agitated hand twisted the loose curls back into her chignon. ‘I’m sorry, did you need something?’

Rashid stopped a few feet away from her. ‘I’m no great lover of fireworks.’

‘Oh.’

Again that almost perfect oval. His eyes flicked across her flushed face and over a body that he knew Western convention would deem too curvaceous. She was not a conventional beauty, perhaps, but he felt a vague sense of disappointment that she was not a consolation prize.

Centuries ago he might have taken this woman in recompense for her stepbrother’s sins. Maybe there’d been wisdom in that. It was just possible that a few weeks in the arms of Miss Pollyanna Anderson might go some way to dissipating his anger.

He watched the tremulous quiver of her full lips and felt a renewed rush of sexual awareness. Rashid clenched his teeth and forced himself to look at the famed Rembrandt hanging over the ornate fireplace.

‘I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk,’ he said, looking back at her, determined to regain control.

‘Talk? I…’ Her hand smoothed out the front of her dress, drawing attention to her curves.

‘Or are you not aware your request to film in my country has been passed to me?’

‘W-we did think it might have been.’ And then she smiled.

She had an amazing smile. Rashid felt the full impact, particularly when it was combined with the feel of her hand in his. ‘It’s really kind of you, Your Highness.’

‘Rashid, please.’

The beating pulse at the base of her neck was the only indication he had that she wasn’t entirely comfortable. She had such pale skin. So white.

‘Rashid,’ she repeated obediently. ‘And I’m Polly.’

It took him a moment to catch up. A moment he spent remembering that he needed to let go of her hand.

‘Minty suggested I try to speak to you about it tonight, but I doubt I’d have had the courage.’