A Question of Honor

Chapter TWELVE


THE NIGHT HAD slipped away from them, burned up in heat and hunger and wonderful, glorious fulfilment. At some point exhaustion had claimed them and they had dropped into sleep that had swamped them totally, keeping them unconscious until outside, beyond the window, the late winter sun finally began to rise.

Fingers of light crept under Clemmie’s closed lids, bringing her awake, and slowly, gingerly she stirred, easing herself up from the nest of blankets they had built around them at some point in the darkness of the night. With a smile that recalled the delights of their lovemaking she looked down at where Karim’s dark head rested against the crumpled pillows, one arm flung up beside it.

Karim. Her lover and her love. The man who had made her his so completely through the night.

In the new light the scars on his chest looked raw and angry, making her heart clench at the thought of him being hurt so badly. And at remembering that he had got them trying—but failing—to rescue his brother. With gentle fingertips she traced the brutal lines, smoothing a soft caress over them. She heard his breath hiss in between his teeth and lifted her head to look into those black, watchful eyes.

‘Did I hurt you? I’m sorry...’

‘No.’

He caught her chin in firm but gentle fingers, holding her still when she would have turned away, bringing his head down so very close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.

‘No,’ he said again, deeper, rougher as his gaze seared her. ‘You caused me no pain. But I was surprised. Soraya hated the scars.’

She knew there had been other women before her but still it gave her heart a twist to hear her name.

‘But why? They were won in honour.’

The word fell into a pool of silence, making her world tilt sharply just once, then back again but to a point where she felt she no longer had a sense of balance. She had been so happy to see him reappear in her life that she hadn’t been able to think before she had flung herself into his arms. His touch had been like putting a flame to the blue touchpaper on an explosive, instantly devastating, destroying any hope of thinking rationally. She had given herself to him again and again without a care for her own safety or the protection of her heart. But now she could think and those unwanted thoughts reminded her that she had no idea at all what, other than the lust that had so clearly driven him, had brought him here.

I have travelled halfway across the world for this, he had said. But could he have travelled so very far only for that? No matter how powerfully he had wanted her, was that enough?

Because he had wanted her. How could she ever doubt that when her body still sang with the after-effects of the fulfilment she had known, parts of her aching, the delicate inner tissues bruised in a way she welcomed as the proof of her initiation into womanhood. The evidence of a man’s—this man’s—need of her, the hunger that his body had felt for hers. And hers for him.


But he had felt that before and because she had been promised to someone else his honour had kept him from acting on it. Now she was no longer forbidden, they were both free...

Free to do what?

Free to do what they wanted. She knew that this—the heated passion they had just shared—was what Karim had wanted all along. He had never offered her anything else. But she had longed for more. If he had nothing more to give her then she would have to find the strength to be content with what he offered.

Uncomfortable and restless, she eased her chin free of Karim’s grasp and wriggled upright, pulling one of the blankets with her and clutching it to her breasts as she stared into the glowing embers of the fire. The heat scorched her eyes but the burn was nothing compared with the sting of unshed tears that pushed at the back of them.

‘Clemmie...?’

She felt Karim move behind her, the sudden rush of cooler air as he eased away from her, propping himself up against the arm of the settee.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

It was just a mutter, low and gruff, and she wouldn’t have believed herself either, so she wasn’t surprised when she heard Karim’s response.

‘Liar!’

There was a touch of laughter in the half-amused reproach. But it was the other half of his tone that stabbed and twisted deep in her soul. A blunt fingertip touched at the back of her neck then slid gently down her spine. The gentle caress made her shiver as it stirred once again the hungry physical responses she might have thought were at least dormant for a while. But it seemed they were still there, just below the surface, waking at just a touch, and threatening to swamp her mind.

And she needed to think.

‘Don’t!’

She flinched away from his touch rather more violently than she had intended. The gentle touch was like the scrape of thorns with her nerves so very near the surface. She knew the mistake she had made when she sensed the tension in the powerful body behind her, the freezing of the movement of his hand.

‘What is it?’ Karim asked, his tone putting an edge on the question. ‘Did I hurt you? Is that it?’

‘No. Of course you didn’t hurt me.’

At least, not in the way he meant. He had been a wonderful lover, careful, considerate, gentle when she had needed him to be so, and responsive enough to recognise when gentleness was the last thing she wanted.

‘I mean—well, of course it was bound to be a little—difficult at first—but that was all. I wanted you. I wanted this.’

There was silence behind her as he absorbed that. He would not be satisfied, she knew, and the nerves in her stomach twisted into painful knots as she waited for what would come next.

‘Then what is it? What is it you are not telling me...? Look at me!’

It was a command she didn’t dare to disobey. If she turned she feared that he would see the truth that must be written on her face. But if she didn’t then he would know something was up—and he wouldn’t give her any peace until he found out what it was. Five days ago, in despair, she had told him that she loved him and had had to watch as he turned his back and walked away from her. She didn’t think she could cope with risking that happening again.

‘I’m sorry...’ Dragging up the strength from somewhere deep inside, she turned to face him, flashing a smile that she hoped was convincing. ‘I was just—trying to absorb all that has happened.’

If she looked into his eyes she would be unable to go on so she forced herself to focus on the dark hairs on his chest, watching them rise and fall with each breath he took. His breathing was deep and regular, quite unlike her own tight, shallow gasps.

‘After all, it’s not even a fortnight since I was here, packing, knowing that my birthday—and my wedding—was just days away. And then you appeared at my door.’

Had there been a tiny jolt in the regular, even beat of his heart? She could have sworn that just for a second something had made him react.

‘And then you disappeared out of the window—to see that little boy?’

When he had first arrived, Karim recalled, the small boy had been hugging her tight. As soon as he had appeared, her friend had bundled the child into his coat and left with him hastily. But not before he had caught sight of the small sturdy body, the dark hair, the face that had been an almost mirror image of the one that was now in front of him. The shock that was clear on Clemmie’s face told him he was right.

‘She called him Harry,’ he said quietly. ‘And the first day you tried to get extra time—to go and see someone—you began to say his name then cut it off.’

He didn’t need her to give any response. It was there in her eyes, in the film of tears that caught the firelight and multiplied it.

‘He is your brother?’

Clemmie’s head moved slowly in a nod of acknowledgement.

‘My mother ran from my father when she realised she was pregnant.’ Her voice was low and hesitant, but it grew in confidence as she told her story. ‘She was terrified that this child would be taken and—sold—into marriage as I had been, and she was determined that nothing like that would happen to this new baby. She knew she was already ill, so she gave him up for adoption and sadly she died very soon after he was born.’

‘So this is why you came here, to look for him?’

She’d come to trace her one other family member not, as her reputation had declared, just to have some time of freedom, some fun, before she married.

‘Yes. I found out about him when I learned that Mother had come here, to Nan’s cottage, before she died. She left me a note that told me who had adopted Harry and I just had to see him, if only once. But I couldn’t tell anyone about him.’

Karim felt the shudder that shook her slender body as a reproach without words. Intent on fulfilling his duty, locked into that code of honour, he hadn’t spared enough thought for the effect it had had on her, the prospect of her life being taken away from her. Arranged marriages were so common in his world. It was only when he had come up against this one that he had been made to reconsider.

‘If my father had known, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take him back—to use him for his own ends.’

‘He will never learn of him from me.’ Karim reached out and covered her shaking hands with his own, looking deep into her eyes. ‘You are under my protection now. Your father will never touch you again.’

Her laughter was shaken, right to the core. There wasn’t even a trace of humour left in it.

‘He wouldn’t want me. He’ll be happy if he never sees me again. Nabil has discarded me and now, as far as my father is concerned, my reputation is ruined. I bring the shadow of that scandal with me.’

Black cold fury sliced through Karim like a blade of ice and he reached out to pull her close, her head resting against his chest where his heart thudded in anger. As soon as skin touched skin he felt the bite of sexual need as it flooded his body, but he had to clamp down hard on it, fighting a brutal battle with the desire that threatened to destroy his ability to think.

For now he had to think. He had to know.

‘If I had realised that Ankhara’s man had known about our night together...’

The dark head that rested over his heart stirred slightly, and he felt the new tension in her body.

‘We weren’t together.’

Not for her want of trying. And now, with the scent of her skin around him, the softness of her flesh against his hands, he didn’t know how he had managed to hold back, how he had ever been able to deny himself this pleasure, this satisfaction. But could it ever be more than that?


‘Why didn’t you tell Nabil that you were still innocent? That nothing had happened?’

‘And he’d have believed that?’

She hadn’t been mistaken then, Clemmie realised. The steady pulse under her cheek had definitely missed a beat. Held this close, this tight, she couldn’t be unaware that he was as hot and hard and ready for her as if they had never made love at all that night. Her own senses were responding to that knowledge, her body softening, moisture dewing the folds between her legs as an answering beat set up in her blood in response to the pound of Karim’s heart.

All she would have to do was to turn closer in to him. To lift her face and press her mouth against his, smooth her hands down over the powerful ribcage, towards the thrust of his erection under the blankets. She could entice him into lovemaking and this awkward, difficult conversation would never have to be. She would never have to risk hearing him say that she had done it all for nothing. That she had played hazard with her future, her reputation, to get out of the contract that bound her to Nabil for only a few nights of heated passion. A blazing sexual affair that was going nowhere.

‘How could I tell him that when it would have been a lie? When he had only to look into my face—into my eyes—to know.’

Because something had happened. Something that had changed her life, changed her entirely. After that one night with Karim she could never be the same woman ever again. And it hadn’t been sex that had changed it, though it might just as well have been. If he had made love to her then he couldn’t have changed her any more than he had just by being himself.

By being the man she had fallen in love with.

She had been deluding herself to think that she could ever go through with the arranged marriage that had been set up for her. She had been sleepwalking towards a fate that she had no idea how it really was, how it would really feel. She had never really known what feelings were possible in a female heart, just what was possible between a man and a woman. What being in love truly meant and how shockingly powerful the feelings could be.

‘Something had happened. And I couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t.’

Something as earth-shattering, as elementally powerful as a volcano exploding and spewing red-hot lava into the atmosphere. It had changed her for ever and she had known that there was no hiding it, no pretending from here on in.

‘I told him that I was no longer the woman he thought I was—that I could never be the wife he wanted.’

She tried for a raw, jerky laugh of irony, only to find that it cracked and broke in the middle.

‘It turned out that I wasn’t the wife he wanted at all, anyway. He was only too grateful to me because he had been looking for an excuse not to go ahead with our marriage—but to marry Shamila instead. Apparently she’s already pregnant with his child.’

The deep sigh that Karim drew in lifted her head but then she let it drop again. She knew that the only way she could know what he was thinking was to look into his eyes and try to read what was going on there. But she still didn’t have the courage to do that.

‘You could have been a queen.’ His voice was rough and ragged. ‘You turned down a kingdom—for what?’

For love.

But she didn’t dare to say it.

‘I didn’t want it. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a queen.’

‘I would be proud to have you as my queen.’

Clemmie felt as if her head was about to explode. Had he really said...?

But Karim was moving, lifting her from her position against his chest, turning her so that from not daring to look into his eyes, she now couldn’t look anywhere else at all.

‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

Oh, she’d thought about it. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. If she and Karim were to have any future then he had to come to her of his own free will. Because he wanted to. Her heart wedged up high in her throat at the thought that he had done just that. But was there more than wanting behind his appearance here?

‘Because you would have felt honour-bound to marry me, knowing that my reputation was ruined.’

She was right about that, Karim’s slow nod acknowledged silently.

‘Is that how you wanted it?’ she asked sharply. ‘That I would come running to you?’

‘You told me that you loved me. Was that not true?’

Clemmie pulled away from him, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself, needing it like a suit of armour to hold her together when she feared she might start to crumble from the inside. Defiantly she lifted her chin, held her jaw as tight as she could.

‘I told you that I loved you but you said nothing in return. Except to hold on tight to your honour. Was I supposed to take what little you had to offer—take this—?’

A wild wave of her hand indicated the tumbled blankets, the crumpled cushions where the scent of their mingled bodies still lingered. The gesture threatened her grip on the concealing blanket but she suddenly found she didn’t care.

‘And not ask for more because I loved you.’

‘Loved?’ Karim questioned and Clemmie didn’t know how to answer him. She didn’t even know how the question was being asked. Was it possible that he believed her love had not been as strong as she had declared it to be?

‘Less than one week, Clemmie—is that all the time your love lasted?’

He almost sounded as if he was teasing her. And yet there was a rawness to his voice, a searching look in those deep dark eyes, that caught her up sharp and left her wondering...

‘It was more than you gave me. More than you have for me...’

He closed his eyes for a moment as he shook his head and when he opened them again she felt the look he gave her go straight as an arrow to her heart.

‘No, Clemmie. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know what was happening to me. That night—that first night we spent here—you got under my skin and I’ve never been able to free myself from you. That night was the closest thing to crazy I have ever been, and I haven’t felt in control of anything since. I had made a vow to my country—to my father—and I had to keep it. I had to walk away. By doing that, I kept my honour, but I lost you.’

Lost. It was such a small word but such a strong, emotive one, a world wrapped up in just four letters.

‘And then I heard that you had defied Nabil—that you’d told him there was someone else. I could only pray it could be me. I had to come—to see if you still felt the way you had then.’

I have travelled halfway across the world for this. I have no intention of giving up now.

But he still hadn’t said what this was.

‘You came for someone who has lost her reputation?’ Her voice wobbled dangerously on the words. ‘What will that do for your so important honour?’

Karim’s shake of his head was a violent rejection of her bitter question, the flash of rejection that accompanied it.

‘I don’t care about honour any more when I’m with you.’

‘And you expect me to believe you?’

Once more those black eyes dropped to the tangled bed, then came back over her half-covered body, up to her face, warm as a caress.

‘So what was that just now? And all the night long...?’

‘That—that was just sex.’

‘Just sex?’

Karim’s voice had dropped an octave, deep and disturbingly sincere as he took her hand.

‘For me, that will never be just anything. Not with you. And isn’t there a line in the wedding service—with my body I thee worship. What is worship if not honour? I want to honour you—to worship you with my body for the rest of my life if you will let me.’


He lifted the hand he held to his mouth, turned it so that he could press a kiss against her palm. The gentleness of the caress tore at her heart and she knew that this was what she wanted for the rest of her life too.

‘Clemmie...’ Over her hand, Karim looked deep into her eyes. ‘Will you let me? Will you marry me?’

She didn’t want to ask the question but it had to be said. If he didn’t answer it with the words she needed then how could she marry him, no matter how much she loved him? She had only just escaped from the prospect of one loveless marriage, so how could she ever tie herself down in another one?

‘As...as a matter of honour?’

She’d thought—hoped—prayed that he would say no but instead he inclined his head in a slow, thoughtful nod.

‘Yes, as a matter of honour...but not in the way you mean it.’

‘What other way is there? Your honour demands that we should marry and so...’

And so she could never agree. Because she wanted more—needed so much more. But deep inside there was a weakness, a shadow on her heart that urged her to say yes.

‘Not my honour.’ Karim’s tone was deep and dark, huskily intent. ‘My honour no longer matters in this. What matters is the honour that you would do me if you agreed to be my bride. I can think of no other woman I could ever want as much. No other woman I could ever love as much.’

Love. That small, softly spoken word caught on her nerves and hung there, making her head reel. Could she really believe—had he actually said...?

‘Love?’

‘Yes, love,’ he assured her. ‘I love you and I have done almost from the moment that we met. I knew it when you climbed out of that window and went to Harry—and, in spite of everything my training had taught me, I waited. I waited for you to come back as you’d promised you would. I knew you would—I wanted you to come back. I wanted you.’

It was a low caressing whisper, sincerity in every word he spoke.

‘I wanted you more than any woman I had ever met—but it was more than that. I wanted you to be free to be the woman you really were. We were trapped in a situation that we couldn’t control. Your father’s scheming, those political treaties, my family’s debt of honour had us trapped. I couldn’t set us free—you were the only one who could do that when you told Nabil the truth.’

Reaching out, he touched her face, cupping her cheek softly in the palm of his hand, so that she could feel the faint tremor in his fingers that told her just how much he meant this.

‘Clementina, you are my love, my honour. You are all I want out of life. All I need. But without you I am nothing. I love you and I want to do so till the end of my days. So please, tell me that your love is still there. Please say that you will marry me and make the rest of my life complete.’

And there was only one possible way she could answer that. Leaning her head to one side, she pressed her cheek against his hand and smiled deep into his eyes.

‘I will, my love,’ she told him, strong and sure. ‘It will be an honour to be your wife.’

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