A Question of Honor

Chapter FIVE


‘THE...THE ELECTRICITY going out means that the heating has gone off too,’ she managed, needing to say something to break the silence that had tightened round her. ‘This house is going to get really cold very fast.’

It was already starting to chill rapidly in a way for which even Karim’s glacial stare couldn’t take the blame. The eerie sound of the wind howling around outside, rattling the elderly windows in their ill-fitting frames, added to the uncomfortable atmosphere.

‘You have a fire.’ Karim nodded towards the open grate.

‘If it will light!’ Clemmie acknowledged, knowing from bitter experience how difficult that could be. ‘I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours fighting with the damn thing in the past.’

‘It will light.’

Karim’s statement was resolute, adamant. The fire would do as it was told. It would light; it had no choice.

And it did light, of course. With an ease that made a mockery of all the times she had battled with the old-fashioned grate, he soon had strong flames catching on the wood he’d laid as kindling, licking around the coal. The crackling sound it made, the sparks that flew up the chimney promised that warmth would soon follow.

Which, of course, it did. Karim was in charge and nothing dared defy him. And Clemmie had to admit that she was more than thankful to see the golden glow fill the grate, feel the heat reaching out to touch skin that was now chilled through as the darkness closed in around them, the candles providing only a minimum of light. They would need to ration them if the electricity stayed off much longer. The half dozen or so she had in the cupboard would barely last the night. She didn’t want to admit to herself that some of the ice that seemed to have filled her veins had come from the realisation of just what a fool she had been. Imagining that Karim of all people could actually find her attractive—could want her!


The way he had immediately turned his attention to the task in hand, clearly forgetting all about her and any connection she might have imagined they’d made, told her in no uncertain terms that that fantasy had been all hers. And a fantasy was what it was.

‘Do you have any food for this evening?’

Karim kept his eyes focused on the fire as he spoke. It had been bad enough in the dark with her. The half-light of the candles and the fire was too alluring where it played over the warm curves of Clementina’s body, put an extra spark into the depth of her eyes. Being blind accentuated all your other senses and, though he hadn’t actually been blind, being lost in the complete darkness had had the same effect.

He had felt the warmth of her skin, inhaled the subtle floral and spice scent of her perfume. A perfume that was threaded through with the intensely personal aroma of the feminine body that had come so close to his. He had felt the warmth of her skin through the denim of her jeans when his hands lingered, longing, tempted, around the curve of her hips, the indentation of her waist. And in the deep silence, all outside muffled by the heavy coating of snow that had fallen, he could hear the soft sound of her breathing, knew the moment when it caught in her throat and then broke again in a faint hiccup of response to his touch.

Fool! Bloody stupid fool!

He rammed the poker in amongst the hot coals, feeling that he knew exactly how they must feel. He had arrived at the cottage—was it less than forty-eight hours before?—thinking that all he had to do was to get the woman he had been sent to collect into his car, drive her to the airport, and deliver her to her prospective bridegroom. But from the moment he had seen Clementina Savanevski he had known he was in trouble.

How badly in trouble he hadn’t realised quite then.

Suddenly his life and the plan he had for it had been turned on its head. Clementina had been nothing like he had expected and he had never anticipated the force of his own response to her. She had already delayed their departure by her disappearing act—and now this!

‘That’s the bad news.’

Her voice came from behind him and he knew he should turn to face her. But for now he wanted to stay turned away, to focus his attention on the fire before him, to tell himself that the heat of the flames was what was burning him up inside. It had nothing to do with anything else.

Nothing.

‘What’s the bad news?’

No, dammit, the fire was settled and going fine. He was going to look like all sorts of a fool if he didn’t turn. So much so that she would suspect there was something up and he didn’t want her thinking any such thing. He had made it seem as if the practicalities—candles, light, warmth—were all that mattered to him. They were all that should matter to him. And he didn’t want to let any suspicion of anything else slide into her mind.

‘What’s the bad news?’ he demanded again as he swung round.

She was standing behind the old shabby settee, holding on to the back in a way that suddenly made him remember her injured ankle and curse himself for forgetting. Without that they might still have been on their way out of here, but she’d fallen and he’d had to bring her inside. Another delay to add to the ones that had ruined every last detail of the plans he’d had to fulfil his promise to his father and then get on with his own life while he could.

Cursing silently, he felt for the phone that he had pushed into the back pocket of his jeans and checked it again. The screen told him all he needed to know. There wasn’t a hint of reception. Not a single bar to show even the hope of any call getting through. They were well and truly trapped. As he acknowledged the thought the whirling wind of the storm outside built up in power and ferocity to emphasise the point.

‘The food.’

She’d noticed his abstraction and was frowning faintly.

‘There might be some bits and pieces in the fridge—but I won’t be able to do much with them. The cooker is electric...’

A wave of her hand indicated the elderly and inadequately fitted kitchen.

‘So that’s gone—so has the kettle. I can offer you a sandwich...’

‘I’ll make it.’

Karim was already moving towards the kitchen. Did he have to make it so obvious he was impatient and anxious to be away from her? Clemmie wondered. If he had checked his phone once, he’d checked it a hundred times and he had only given up on moving her car when the storm had driven him inside.

‘I’ll do it!’ she protested, pushing him aside as she hobbled into the other room. ‘Small and tatty as it is, this is my house! You can’t come in here and throw your weight around just because you’re Crown Prince of somewhere...’

‘I was thinking of your ankle.’ It was a mocking drawl, one that made her stiffen her back in defiance. ‘Can you manage to stand on it?’

‘I’m fine.’

She would do it or die in the attempt, Clemmie told herself, grabbing the remains of a loaf from the bread bin and slamming it down on to the worktop. She was already regretting moving much at all, with her ankle aching and protesting fiercely when she put her weight on it. She opened the fridge door awkwardly and peered in, balancing precariously on her sound leg.

‘Cheese? Salad?’

The exclamation of annoyance from behind her should have warned her, but she was so determined on not looking at him that she missed it completely. All she knew was that she was suddenly grabbed from behind, snatched up into the air and carried forcibly back into the sitting room. There Karim dumped her unceremoniously on to the settee and pushed her back into the cushions with a firm hand when she struggled to get up again.

‘Stay there,’ he said in the sort of voice he might use to control a dog. One he expected to be obeyed.

Clemmie decided against fighting him over this. He’d been right about her ankle, though it galled her to have to admit it, and the warmth of the fire was welcome after the sneaking chill of the kitchen. She huddled closer to the grate and hugged a cushion tightly for comfort. It did nothing to wipe away the burn of Karim’s touch, ease the uneven lurch of her heart. The scent of his skin still lingered on her sleeve where he had held her and, believing he was occupied with the food, she couldn’t resist the primal urge to rub her cheek against it, inhaling deeply.

‘Food... Such as it is.’

She jumped like a startled cat as a plate came over the back of the settee, pushed almost into her face. Had he seen anything? Had he caught the betraying reaction she’d just given in to? With the scent of his hands still in her nostrils she felt the nerves in her body spring into painful pins and needles life as Karim came close to the fire. Would he sit beside her on the sofa? She didn’t know if she could bear it, cope with it, if he did. But in the same heartbeat she wanted it; longed for it with a burn that scorched her nerves.

So it was impossible to snatch back the sigh that escaped her when Karim took the only other seat in the room, pulling the battered brown armchair up to the fire as he sat down with his own sandwich on a plate. She saw that the sound had caught his attention, watched that warning frown appear between his dark brows, and nerved herself for the inevitable sarcastic comment.

Surprisingly it didn’t come.

‘Why do you live here? Like this,’ Karim demanded instead.

The way he looked round the room, dark eyes assessing, made her grit her teeth. She knew the cottage was shabby. But she liked it that way. It was the way that Nan had left it when she’d died and it brought back such wonderful happy memories of those brief childhood visits.


‘I’m sorry if it’s not the sort of palace that you are used to.’

‘Nor the sort of palace you are used to,’ Karim parried. ‘And very definitely not the sort of place you will be living in from now on.’

Don’t remind me! Did he really think that would be the sort of thing that would make her think differently about this cottage? That she would actually prefer the marble palace of Rhastaan where her life had been signed away as a child and from which she could never hope to escape?

‘But this place is my own! All mine and no one else’s.’

And until Karim’s arrival, no one from Markhazad or any of the surrounding desert kingdoms had known anything about it. He had invaded her privacy, stalking into her home like some dark, arrogant wild cat, taking with him her last traces of seclusion and solitude. From now on her life would not be her own. She would live in the public eye if she ever set foot outside the palace. And inside... Her mind skittered away from considering the prospect of life with the husband who had been chosen for her, the emptiness of a political marriage from which she had no escape.

If he had looked like Karim, though...

‘Yours?’ Karim queried.

She really had his attention now. That probing gaze, dark with disbelief, was fixed on her face, and a frown had snapped his black brows together.

‘My grandmother lived here, and I visited sometimes when I was a child. She left me the cottage in her will—and—well, there didn’t seem much point in changing it seeing as I was only here for such a short time and...’

She had foolishly taken a small bite of her sandwich and now her throat closed sharply over the bread so that she almost choked. She grabbed at the glass of water, all they had to drink, and swigged it desperately, hoping that he would miss the tears in her eyes or at least take them for the result of her coughing fit rather than a reaction to the cruel combination of past memories and the prospect of the future that had assailed her. Karim didn’t move an inch, didn’t even blink, his own sandwich part raised from his plate but frozen in mid-air. She could feel the burn of his searing stare, those dark eyes seeming to strip away a defensive layer of skin and leaving her raw and vulnerable underneath.

‘Two day-old bread!’ she managed by way of an explanation, waving her own sandwich in front of her face in the hope of distracting him. ‘Too dry.’

It was too, she realised with a grimace as she made herself force another mouthful down. She had been expecting to move on from the cottage, so her supplies of food had been deliberately run down.

‘So you were planning on going back?’ He’d picked up on what she had been about to say without her having to complete the sentence.

That brought her head back, her chin coming up in defiance as she blinked the betraying tears away from her eyes in order to be able to face him. In the firelight, shadows flickered and danced across his rough-carved face, making it impossible to read what thoughts the black ice of his eyes really held deep inside them.

‘Don’t sound so surprised. Of course I was going back.’ The prospect of what might happen if she hadn’t made her shudder inwardly. ‘In fact there was no need for your father to send you—or anyone else to come and fetch me.’

Oh, but there was. Karim prayed that his reaction didn’t show on his face. He had no wish to have her panicking and making things so much worse. If they could get any worse.

His appetite vanishing in the blink of an eye, he tossed his sandwich down on to his plate and slammed it on to the small coffee table. He was supposed to be out of here now, and well on his way back to Rhastaan. In fact they should have been there already, landing at the airport where Nabil’s security men would be waiting to take over. He would be free of his duty, of the promises that had been made, free of the burden of responsibility for Clementina, and on his way back to his own life.

Except that the changes in that life meant that he would never again be really free. No longer the ‘spare’ to Razi’s heir, with the extra degrees of independence that had brought, he was now learning what it meant to be the future Sheikh of Markhazad. Belatedly, he felt he had begun to understand just why a sense of rebelliousness, of restlessness had driven his brother. He also had to try to be both sons to his father, who had felt the loss of his heir so terribly.

But to think of Clementina as a burden grated against something deep inside. Her position and the promises his father had made, the peace treaties that were at risk now, were what made this situation so difficult. Without them, being with this beautiful woman, whose face was lit by the flames in the hearth, putting a glow into her eyes, tinting her skin with gold, would be no burden at all.

Hell, no!

Ferociously he slammed a door shut in his mind, cutting out the dangerous thoughts. But it was too late. Already his senses had responded, his blood flooding with a heat that had nothing to do with the burning coals that were only making the smallest impact on the encroaching cold. His gaze fixed on the softness of her lips, gilded by the light, so full, so soft that his own mouth hungered to take them, to plunder their sweetness, feel them give way under his, yield to the invasion of his tongue. He wanted to tangle his hands in the fall of her hair, inhale the intimate scent of her body, feel the softness of her breasts against him as he had when he’d carried her into the house after her fall in the snow.

Damnation, he wanted more than that. He wanted her on her back on this rug right in front of the fire. He wanted her under him, holding him, her body arching up to meet his, pressing herself closer...

No.

Grabbing his glass of water, he downed the entire contents in a series of harsh, powerful gulps that did nothing to douse the fires inside him. His body ached, the hardness between his legs making it impossible to sit comfortably, so that he pushed himself to his feet and paced around the room, finding a new frustration in the impossibly small space that confined him. What he needed was a brutal workout, a punishing run for miles until he was exhausted, or an ice-cold shower to subdue his demanding libido.

All of which were impossible for him, even the cold shower. Unless he went outside into the snowstorm, of course. And he could just imagine Clementina’s reaction if he did any such thing.

And, the way he was feeling, he doubted that even jumping into one of the snowdrifts would do anything to cool the heat that had been building up inside him ever since he had first met Clementina.

She was watching him now, her eyes wide with confusion and bewilderment, and who could blame her? He was acting like a captured wolf, trapped in too small a cage. He had to get a grip and distract himself from the hunger that was eating at him.

Talking. That might do it. Talk about anything—anything but sex. Think about anything but sex. And then when he was out of here he would find the nearest, most willing woman and lose himself in her. It might take more than one but at least he could have fun trying.

Now, what had they been talking about? The cottage and the fact that she had come here—running away from her duty.

‘So why didn’t you tell anyone where you were—and that you’d be back?’

It was the last thing Clementina had been expecting. She had been sure that he had something else on his mind, something that had brought that black scowl to his face, tightened the muscles in his long body until they made him stand as if he was ready for a fight.

‘Leave another note like the one I left you?’


Broad shoulders shrugged off her challenge, her shaky defiance seeming to bounce off those taut muscles.

‘I doubt very much that I’d have been believed. And then...’

But no, that was going too far. He already knew where she had been last night. The address was obviously filed away in some database on his computer, along with the trail that the tracking device had followed to Mary’s house. If she let anyone suspect that Harry existed, that he had been adopted after her mother’s unexpected death, then it would be the easiest thing to hunt down 3 Lilac Close and...

Following his example, she tossed the bread and cheese down on to her plate and pushed it aside, unable to think of eating any more. What she was doing would protect Harry—and Mary and Arthur. It would give them the future that she couldn’t hope for herself. She had signed the cottage away to the Clendons and she could only hope that they, and especially Harry, would love it as much as she had.

‘Yet you left me a note—and expected it to be believed.’

And even now she was still asking herself why. Not why she had left it. That had been the only honourable thing she could do. She couldn’t just have taken off out of here without leaving some communication that said she was coming back, that the future that was all mapped out for her was one she accepted—she had to accept.

But she didn’t quite know why she had thought that it mattered particularly to leave it for him—and that he would believe she had meant it.

‘But you didn’t really believe me—did you?’ she challenged. ‘You didn’t need to, for one thing—you had that tracking device on my car. You could have come and picked me up at any point.’

‘I could—but you seemed to be having such fun.’

‘Fun that isn’t part of my royal duties...’

The words faded away from her tongue, leaving her mouth dry and tight.

‘I was having...you saw?’

Karim didn’t condescend to give her an answer, but his total stillness told her all she needed to know.

‘You followed me!’

He didn’t even blink.

‘I came here to fetch you back to Rhastaan. It is my duty to make sure that you arrive there safely and in time for the wedding ceremony.’

Something in the word ‘safely’ caught on a raw edge of Clemmie’s nerves, making her frown in uncertainty. But there was something else that had slid into her mind, something that now seemed to explode in a shock reaction.

‘You followed me—you saw where I was—you saw I was...h-having fun.’ So had he seen Harry too? Had he looked through the window and seen the obvious affection she had for the little boy and he for her? Could he now tell someone...?

‘But you didn’t fetch me from there. You watched and then you came back here and waited for me to come home. Why?’

‘I have been asking myself that too.’

‘And how have you answered it?’

Another of those expressive shoulder shrugs but this time it was not just dismissive. Instead she would have said that it had a touch of uncertainty about it except that uncertainty was not something she could possibly associate with Karim in any way.

‘I wanted to see what would happen.’

‘But if I hadn’t come back—if I’d stayed or moved on somewhere else... No, don’t answer that!’

She caught the gleam of something disturbing and dangerous in that rough-hewn face. Something that the flickering candlelight made even more worrying as it cast shadows across his stunning features. She knew what would have happened if she’d tried anything else. He would have come after her like the hunting cat she’d imagined him to be earlier, and when he’d caught up with her...

Something cold and nasty slid down her spine at just the thought of what would have happened then. But, in the same moment, her pulse also jumped at the image of him coming after her, hunting her down, making her his.

Oh—that was stupid! Quite the most impossible image! If this man hunted her down, it was only to collect her and take her back to another man—to her prospective bridegroom. And he was only doing that because of this strongly felt sense of duty that he kept harping on about. Did she need any further evidence that he had never considered her as a person in all this, but only as the ‘target’, the errant princess he must return to her arranged marriage, no consideration as to whether she was willing or not coming into it?

‘Tell me something...why is it that you are here—? Yes, I know you’ve told me that you’ve come to escort me back to Nabil. But why you? Surely there must be other security men—other people you could have sent to fetch me.’

Other security men who wouldn’t have disturbed her as much as this man did. Who wouldn’t have sparked off these wild, sensual fantasies that had been plaguing her ever since Karim had walked into her life.

‘Why you?’

She’d touched on some raw nerve there; the change in his face, in his stance, gave it all away. He swung towards the windows, pulling the curtains closed on the night with a rough, jerky movement. With the reflected light of the snow shut out, the small room seemed even darker and more confined, claustrophobically so, and Karim’s lean muscular body filled the space with a sense of power that it seemed impossible the tiny cottage could contain. Clemmie didn’t know if the tiny hairs at the back of her neck had lifted in apprehension or excitement. She only knew that it suddenly seemed as if the heat from the fire couldn’t reach her and she was shivering in shock and reaction.

‘My father had promised Nabil’s family that he would make sure you reached Rhastaan safely. He owed them that, after Nabil’s father had saved his life once in a helicopter accident. It was a matter of honour.’

And that honour meant more than any consideration of the person he was dealing with. The need to get her back to Rhastaan overriding anything else.

‘But he has been taken ill—heart problems—that meant he had to hand the task over to someone else.’

And that was all she was. ‘The task’ who would be handed over like a parcel that needed delivery. If he had stabbed a knife between her ribs he couldn’t have wounded her more.

‘And only you could keep that honour? You don’t have the loyalty of your own security team?’

If she’d picked up her glass of water and flung it in his face, he couldn’t have reacted more sharply. It was as if she was watching a metal door slamming closed behind his eyes, shutting her off from everything in his thoughts, blanking out his expression completely.

‘You don’t!’

The realisation was sharp, shocking like a stab of light into her mind and closing off her throat, taking her breath with it.

‘You can’t trust your own men.’

Her voice came and went like a radio with faulty tuning and the strength seemed to be draining from her legs, seeping away from her, leaving her trembling with shock.

‘My father’s men.’ Karim’s tone was flat, totally deadpan, his face mirroring his expressionless response. ‘Or, rather, one—as far as we know for now. We found that he was working for Ankhara.’

Ankhara. The man whose very name was a threat to her own security, who was determined to prevent the marriage to Nabil from going ahead. Who wouldn’t let a mere woman stand in the way of his ruthless ambition.

Surely the room couldn’t have got so very much colder in the space of several uneven heartbeats? The fire in the hearth was burning brighter than ever but the heat didn’t seem to be reaching out to her. Instead she was chilled right through to the bone.


‘And he was the one who was supposed to come and fetch me?’

A brusque, curt nod was his only answer, not a word being spoken.

‘So you came instead of him.’

To make sure that the job was done properly. Because of that sense of honour he had referred to. The cold that was creeping through her body was there because of her own fault. Somewhere along the line, weakly, foolishly, she had allowed herself to think, to dream, however briefly, that there was the possibility that Karim had come to protect her specially. That he had cared just a little bit because—because it was her? What sort of foolishness had she let creep into her thoughts, making her feel that she mattered? At least to him. But the truth was that she mattered to no one.

It was a matter of honour.

Karim’s honour, and that of his father, his country. The country where he now was Crown Prince after the loss of his brother. He took that role very seriously, it seemed.