A Question of Honor

Chapter SIX


THE SMALL ROOM seemed to shrink even more, the darkness closing in around her as she faced up to the truth of what was happening. She was just a pawn in so many political games. She wasn’t a person, just a piece on a political chessboard. She shivered convulsively, unable to hold back the instinctive response to her thoughts.

‘Are you cold?’ Those sharp black eyes had caught her reaction, and he was moving forward hastily. ‘Shall I put some more coal on the fire—build it up?’

‘No.’ Her shake of the head was determined, almost wild, sending her hair flying around her face. ‘No, thanks.’

All she wanted was to go away and hide somewhere, go into the darkness with her thoughts. Close her eyes and try to hold on to that last image of Harry as he waved from the window when she had driven off. The last time she would ever see the baby brother she was doing this for. Surely Karim, who said that he had lost a brother too—and in a far more permanent way—would understand.

But then she looked up into those opaque eyes, all emotion wiped away—if there had ever been any there in the first place—and she knew that she was dreaming even more if she allowed herself to think that he even saw her as a person. She was that point of honour that had to be dealt with. He would do his duty, deliver her to wherever she needed to be—where he needed her to be—and then he would go on his way and forget her, never even looking back for a second.

‘I’m tired,’ she managed, avoiding the real issue that tormented her. ‘I want to go to bed—to sleep.’

He didn’t even try to hide the way he looked at his watch, checking the time, and just that single sidelong glance told its own story, reminding her of the frequent occasions on which he had done just that already tonight. Checking his phone, his computer, frustrated by the delay that kept them trapped here together. Impatient and anxious to be on his way. To get this matter of duty over and done with, the responsibility that his father had passed on to him, handed over to the people who really wanted her.

And then he could go home, satisfied that he had done his duty. Honour would be served.

‘Yes, I know it’s early,’ she snapped, flinging her own scathing glance at the grandfather clock in the corner, its large white face only barely revealed in the flickering light of the flames. ‘But I’m tired. I had a late night last night. I was talking with my friends,’ she added with even more of an edge as she saw his dark head come up, black eyes narrowing sharply as he stared at her down the long, straight beak of his nose, nostrils actually flaring as if he had caught some distasteful smell just beneath them.

Harry had been restless, overexcited by the party and then unhappy at the thought that she was going away, that his beloved Clemmie would be leaving in the morning and was unlikely to be coming back. In order to let Mary have a much needed night’s sleep, and to indulge herself with one last long night together before those dreadful final farewells, she had sat with the little boy, reading him story after story, and then finally rocking him to sleep in her arms. She had been so afraid of disturbing him that she had sat there for over an hour until she had felt that she could ease herself away and leave him sleeping. As a result she had barely had more than a couple of hours’ rest herself.

‘We could do something...’

Karim cursed himself for letting the truth about the situation with Ankhara slip. It had had exactly the result he had dreaded, set her off in a panic so that now she was restless and unsettled as a nervous cat. He doubted very much that she would be likely to sleep as she had declared, even though the shadows under her eyes did seem to speak of her need to rest. They had darkened since he had seen her first, making him wonder just what had happened in the days since he had arrived at the cottage. What had happened last night? He had waited, watched, until all the lights in the house had gone out, but all he had seen before that was some kid’s party, and, later, a group of mothers arriving to take their little ones home.

‘And what, exactly, would you propose?’ Her head was flung back, huge eyes widening even more as she faced him. ‘Play some music, perhaps. Or watch a film on DVD—oh, no, I forgot—we don’t have any electricity, do we. So that’s a no then.’

‘We could talk.’

Talk! What the hell was he thinking about even suggesting it? Talking meant her moving her lips, drawing attention to the wideness of her mouth, the soft fullness of those rose-tinted lips. Every time she spoke, or when she had opened her mouth to eat or drink, all he had been able to think of had been the way those lips would feel under his, how they would part to the pressure of his tongue. How her mouth would taste deep inside, warm and moist in an intimate caress.

It was all he could do now not to stare fixedly at that mouth, or reach out a hand to trace a finger along the bow shape of her lips.

‘Talk? No, thanks. I’ve had enough lectures on duty and honour from you and everyone else to last me a lifetime.’

He’d missed a beat, watching her lips and tongue frame those words, wanting...

‘Something else then.’ He sounded as if he’d swallowed broken glass, his throat husky and raw, so that she frowned at him when she heard it.

‘Something else?’ She rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘Precisely what? Oh—perhaps you’d like to try a board game—I know Nan has some somewhere. A little old-fashioned looking but they don’t really change, do they? Can I challenge you to a game of Ludo or perhaps you’d prefer Snakes and Ladders?’

She couldn’t make it plainer that she was being sarcastic, but he couldn’t resist taking her up on it, teasing her deliberately.

‘Why not? If that’s what’s available. And I’ve never played either of those—I have to admit to being intrigued to find out just what sort of game goes by the name of—Ludo? And what the devil is Serpents and Ladders?’

‘Snakes. It’s a board game—they both are. And you’re not going to convince me that you actually want...’

‘Oh, but I do.’

The look she turned on him as she tested the truth of his assertion was impatience, indignation and total disbelief all in one. The trouble was that it was pure provocation at the same time, the wicked gleam in her eyes, the faint curl at the corner of her mouth. He hoped to hell that these ridiculously named games would have something to hold his attention, distract him from looking at her, keeping his eyes on the board or something so that he wasn’t so tempted.


Her little hiss of irritation was so appealing that it was worth having suggested this just to hear it, and to see the spark in her eyes as she told him without words that he was going to regret this. The pert challenge of her rear pushing against the denim of her jeans as she bent over a drawer in the sideboard to pull out the box of games was much more difficult to resist and his palms itched to smooth across the taut buttocks, curving over the swell of her hips.

Hell—no! That was the way to destruction and devastation. Why did the one woman to make him this hot and hard in so long have to be the woman who was barred from him? The woman who would destroy his honour and that of his family—his country—if he tangled with her. It would be one hell of a lot easier if she wasn’t giving off signals that a blind man could read at a hundred paces. She was as drawn to him as he was to her, but they could not, they must not act on it.

Needing to hide the brutally physical effect she was having on him, he sat down hard on the settee she had just vacated and forced his attention on to the boxes she had lifted from the drawer. It wasn’t easy. The swing of her hair as she placed the boxes on the table brushed against his face in a way that was a torment to his heightened senses, and her position as she bent to open the top gave a savagely tempting glimpse of the shadowed valley of her cleavage and the creamy curves of her breasts. Only by digging his teeth hard into his lower lip, almost drawing blood, did he manage to hold back his groan of primitive response.

‘So tell me the rules...because there are rules, I presume?’

Weren’t there always rules? Rules that ran your life on regimented lines. Rules that would cause chaos if broken. The scar on his chest stung as if in response to his thoughts and he rubbed at it abstractedly. If he had needed any reminder of what happened when the rules got twisted and shattered, it was right there, underneath his shirt, etched into his skin. His life had been built on loyalty. Loyalty to his father, to his older brother the Crown Prince, to his country. Those had been the rules—until he’d bent them so that his brother could ease up on the protocol he fretted at. As a result, those rules had been blown so wide apart that new ones had to be put in their place.

And Razi was dead, his reputation buried with him.

But at least these rules were simple. It was, after all, just a child’s game, with die and counters, cartoon images of brightly coloured snakes, ladders of various lengths. It did help to distract him—barely. The truth was that he could play the game with just one quarter of his concentration, the rest he tried to fix on other matters—keeping the fire alight, removing the guttering stubs of candles and replacing them with new ones, checking his phone, his computer, to see if the connection had been restored. It never had, only adding an extra mental burn to the rage of his physical frustration.

At the same time, there was a strangely intense relaxation in what he was doing. If someone had told him at the start of this mission that he would end up sitting opposite the gorgeous, sexy, beddable woman he had been sent to collect—playing a child’s game and actually enjoying it, Karim told himself half an hour or so later, he would never have believed them. And if they had told him that the woman he was sitting opposite was the woman who made his body harden and hunger in a way no woman in the rest of the world had ever done—and he hadn’t been able to do a thing about it— he would have declared that they were crazy. Totally out of their heads. There was no way he was going to accept any mission that put him into such a position, and to hell with the repercussions.

But no one had told him, no one had warned him. And he was here, now, with irresistible temptation in the female form sitting opposite—so close—too close—and he was having to clamp down hard on every carnal impulse that made him a man.

But at least she had calmed down. She seemed to have pushed away the realisation that there was a possible threat to her, a danger from the plotters and manipulators who didn’t want her marriage to go ahead. She had lost that look of the startled rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and she was focusing on the game. She was also fiercely competitive, biting her lip in disappointment when she hit a snake, or crowing in delight when he did the same, especially when it was the longest snake on the board.

‘Down!’ She laughed, the sound tangling round his insides and pulling hard. ‘Go on—right down to thirteen again! I’m going to win this game.’

‘Not if I can help it!’

Glancing up into Karim’s face, lit for a moment then shadowed again as the flames played over his features, Clemmie saw the way his mouth had softened slightly, his eyes less like deep black ice. He thought he’d settled her down, she knew. He believed he had distracted her from the thought that out there, in the wildness of the storm, someone was hunting them—hunting her. And he had almost succeeded.

He’d be doing a better job of it if he wasn’t so intent on looking at his phone, tapping the screen of his tablet, to check on what was happening. The small frequent movement set her teeth on edge, reminding her that not all was as peaceful and warm as the small firelit room.

And yet, in the strangest way, she felt a relaxation such as she had never known before. Not since she had played these games with her grandmother. The simple moves of the game, the heat of the fire, the flickering light of the candles, all created an enclosed space, a sanctuary, where there was just the two of them, and the rest of the world was shut out beyond the thick stone walls of the cottage. The desultory conversation drifted over a range of topics, nothing too deep, nothing too controversial. She had never felt so free in her life. Never believed that she could actually say what she wanted, express herself openly, and not be slapped down verbally as she was at court, or warned with a black frown or worse from her father if she ventured into forbidden territory.

She even felt comfortable with the physical sensations that were racing through her body, stinging at her nerves, as she shared this confined space with the big dark man who had invaded her life. She wanted to know the fizz of excitement that made it almost impossible to sit still. She wanted to hear the rough texture of his voice scraping across her skin, allow herself the luxury of leaning forward, apparently to move her counter over the board, but in fact to inhale the scent of his body and let it intoxicate her in the most sensual way.

‘Five...’

Karim totted up the number of dots on the bright red die and counted the spaces as he moved his counter along, narrowly missing the same long ladder that had taken her own token almost within reach of the end goal. She was so intent on watching his long-fingered hand, the tanned skin, the clean, cared-for nails...imagining what that strength, that control would feel like on her own skin, how it would be if it lost control, that her breath quickened in her lungs, her mouth drying fast.

‘My turn...’

As she reached for the die and the shaker, her hand touched his, the burn of electricity sizzling over every nerve, making her gasp in uncontrolled shock.

‘What?’

His dark head came up sharply, black eyes burning into hers so that she almost flinched away from their force on her skin.

‘N—nothing...’

Her voice cracked and broke in the middle as she tried to swallow to ease the tension in her throat.

‘My turn,’ she managed again.

‘OK—no!’


It was worse this time because he reached out to still her hand, long fingers closing over hers, warm and hard and... She tensed herself to pull away, then found she couldn’t make herself do it.

‘Not your turn—not yet. I have to...’

His attention was back on the board, allowing her a moment to snatch in a much needed breath. Was it confusion or the rush of loss as he released her hand that clouded her thoughts? Karim was counting again.

‘Thought so.’

Blankly, she watched as he took his counter back to his original square on the board and one elegant finger stabbed at the following numbers. Then he moved his token, not to the long ladder but to one of the most fearsome-looking snakes and slid down it, right to the tip of its tail, six rows below.

It took a couple of unsteady heartbeats for her to realise what she had just seen and to count back again, checking it out.

‘That’s five,’ she managed at last.

‘And I originally made a mistake and counted six. It’s fine now.’

‘You didn’t have to.’ Was the snow falling even more heavily outside, whipped up by the wind, or was that the race of her heart pulsing in her ears? ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Of course she hadn’t noticed. She’d been so busy watching him, watching his hands, the down-dropped lids as he focused on the board. The jet-black arc of his long lashes resting above those knife-sharp cheekbones, shadowing the olive skin. She’d been watching the movement of his lips as he counted the squares, imagining how it would feel, how it would taste to have those lips on hers. Wanting his mouth on hers.

‘I didn’t see...’

Her tongue stumbled over the words, tangling up on itself so that she wasn’t sure that what she said was even comprehensible.

‘But I did—’

His eyes lifted again, seeming to spear her on his intent gaze. Hot colour flashed over her skin, making it burn so fiercely that she was grateful for the flickering shadows that hid the changing colour of her complexion.

‘And if I had not corrected it, it would have been cheating.’

He made it sound like the worst sin possible.

‘And you are such a man of honour.’

The look he turned on her made ice drops skitter down her spine. It was both challenge and agreement. Don’t ever doubt it, he might have said, and she didn’t doubt it. How could she possibly? But there was a darkness and a tension behind the words that tightened her throat in a sense of apprehension at the thought of something coming closer, growing more dangerous, like a premonition that would affect her life in an ominously threatening way.

Feeling cold through to the bone in a way that no warmth from the fire could banish, she forced her eyes away from his, focusing intently on the board in front of her. Up another ladder, down a snake...straight up to the last few numbers and then...

‘I won!’

The triumph was a soaring rush of adrenalin, a dangerous mix with the fast beat of her heart, the hungry need she had never known before. And yet, underneath it all, that worrying chill still lingered disturbingly.

‘You won...’ Karim conceded and then he took all that triumph and excitement away, leaving only the chill, by yet another glance at his watch, his phone. ‘Another game?’

‘No, thanks. I’m tired.’

It was true. With the rushing away of all that heated response, pushed from her soul by bitter disappointment at the realisation that her imaginings were just that— fantasy—she felt drained and lost, bone-weary. She nerved herself for the sarcastic comment—something on the lines of running away—or hiding.

It didn’t come. Instead, with another of those infuriating glances at his watch, Karim simply nodded, picking up the counters, the die, and tossing them back into the box.

It was like riding some emotional roller coaster, one moment allowing herself to go up, up into the heady air of believing he was interested—that he might know something of the way she was feeling, and experience it too. Only to be knocked right back down again in the space of a heartbeat as one more casual glance at his watch told its own story.

The relaxed, enjoyable evening—the evening she had thought was relaxed and enjoyable but in fact had probably just been him tolerating her, going along with things to pass the time and distract her, was over. She was dismissed, his thoughts turning to something else entirely. He didn’t have to say that all he wanted was to get out of here and deliver her to her husband-to-be. It was written into every action he took, hidden under the careful mask of politeness.

Now she really was tired. She felt like a balloon when all the air had escaped from a small leak, limp and flat, but the thought of heading up into the icebox that was her bedroom held no appeal at all. Karim was moving, getting to his feet, picking up cushions from the settee, dropping them on to the floor.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Your bed.’ A wave of his hand indicated the sofa. ‘Mine.’ This time he gestured towards the cushions at his feet. ‘You don’t want to freeze upstairs.’

‘N—no...’ It was disconcerting, almost as if he had read her thoughts.

‘A bit of a tight fit, but it will have to do. I’ll get some blankets.’

She had been tired, but would she be able to sleep now? Clemmie asked herself when, a few minutes later, she was ensconced on the settee and firmly wrapped in the blankets Karim had brought down from the bedroom. She was cosy enough—physically at least—but a sneaking chill was winding its way around her thoughts.

Was Karim really acting out of consideration for her or was he merely settling there on the floor to keep a watch over her, make sure she didn’t attempt another escape during the night? She’d freeze to death if she did; the knee-length pink tee shirt style nightdress she had pulled on was modest enough but no protection against the bitter night, but clearly he didn’t trust her. Turning restlessly on the lumpy sofa, she fought to get comfortable. It was impossible to get her thoughts straight on Karim. One moment he seemed to care just a bit. The next she was sure he was only doing that duty he believed was so important. Her eyes went to where Karim still sat in the one chair, a black, bulky figure in the darkness. Now that the candles had been extinguished for safety, the only light came from the glow of the fire, banked down ready to last through the night. His arms rested along his thighs, shoulders hunched forward as he stared into the grate. Was she destined only ever to have ambiguous feelings about him?

That thought made her stomach clench at the realisation that her time with him was ebbing away fast. Once the dawn came he would find some way of getting the car moved, getting them on their way. And if the future had seemed grim enough before, the thought of the loveless political marriage she had to make hovering like a black cloud on the horizon, now the prospect of getting there and watching Karim walk away out of her life seemed impossible, unbearable. How had he come to mean so much to her in such a short space of time? And how could she let him go when they reached Rhastaan?

Let him go! Burying her face in the blanket, she forced back the bite of acid in her mouth. She wouldn’t let him go. She would have no part of it. He would just turn and walk away from her. Job done. Duty fulfilled. Not a single look back.

Somehow she fell asleep but in her dreams there were dark shapes and shadows haunting her mind, chasing after her. She was running, calling out for Karim, but he was ahead of her. Always ahead of her, walking away, and no matter how fast she tried to run, he was always so far ahead of her even though he was just walking. But her father and Ankhara were behind her, catching her up, coming closer with every step they took.


‘No...’ She wished she could shake them off but they were coming closer. ‘No—no!’

‘Clementina...’

Someone had caught up with her, caught her. They were holding her arm, shaking her...

‘Clementina.’

She knew that voice—recognised it... A rush of memory jolted her awake, bringing her upright in shock, eyes wide, staring into the dark face that had haunted all her dreams but only because it had always been turned away from her. Now he was here, so close, perched on the edge of the settee, his hands closed about her arms, the heat of his palms burning into her skin. He had discarded his sweater and the trousers he had been wearing, his only covering a white tee shirt and dark boxers. She could barely see his features in the shadows but the dark pools of his eyes drew her in.

He was too close. She was drowning. She could hardly breathe, the little air she could snatch in tangling in her throat as she stared up at him. And that air was touched with the scent of his skin, still warm from the blankets he’d been sleeping in.

‘What happened?’

‘I—was scared. Ankhara...’

Hell, he’d really messed up, Karim reproached himself, telling her about Ankhara. Nightmares were bad enough; the thrashing of her body and the way she’d moaned in her sleep had brought him awake fast. She’d been dreaming about the man who’d sent men after them. Who would try to put a stop to this marriage if he possibly could.

‘It’s all right.’

Did she know what it did to him to see the way her eyes had widened, deep as lakes in the whiteness of her face? How could he ever have thought her the wild, careless party girl she’d been described to him as? The woman who had carelessly tossed her duty to her family, to her country, aside when she had set out to seek her own pleasure, heedless of anyone else. There was more to it than that. Another reason why she had come here. He didn’t know what it was but he was sure there was something underneath her apparent recklessness. Perhaps it was something to do with this Harry—whoever he was. A friend? A lover?

‘Clementina, it’s all right—you’re safe.’

And she would be safe if he had anything to do with it, he vowed inwardly. He would make sure she reached Rhastaan safely if it was the last thing he did. He didn’t allow himself to acknowledge that that vow was made for Clementina herself, not just for the debt he owed to Nabil’s family.

‘C-Clemmie...’ Her voice was low and husky, that trace of breathlessness still lingering in a way that tugged at his nerves.

‘What?’

‘Clemmie,’ she said again, more strongly this time. ‘My—friends—call me Clemmie.’

‘Is that what we are? Friends?’

The battle he was having with the sexual hunger that had flared as soon as he had taken her in his arms to waken her made his question rough and raw, catching on her mood, changing it in a second. She frowned, bit down on the softness of her lower lip as she considered, then shrugged in a way he couldn’t interpret. Not with his head full of forbidden thoughts of how he wanted to reach out and ease her lips apart, stop her from injuring the soft flesh. He wanted to soothe the injury she was inflicting on herself with the sweep of his tongue. She was so close, the scent of her body so warm that he could almost taste her on each breath he drew in, and the cotton boxers provided little or no concealment of the aching hardness that those thoughts, the enticement of her body had built between his legs.

‘If that’s how you want it,’ she muttered. ‘After all, what else could we be?’

‘What else indeed,’ he agreed, nodding slowly. Then, seeing her shiver in the night air, he frowned sharply. ‘You should get back under the blankets—go to sleep.’

Her eyes met his, shadowed and defiant.

‘I don’t want to sleep. I’m afraid that if I close my eyes it will all come back again.’

‘But you need to rest...’ And he needed to get the hell away from her before he gave in to the carnal thoughts that were frying his brain.

‘Couldn’t you hold me?’

It was the last thing he had expected, the last thing he needed, and it knocked him off balance for a moment, almost reeling back where he sat.

‘Clemmie...’ His voice was thick, rough, and it was only when he heard himself say it that he realised he had conceded and used the name she wanted him to call her.

Her pink tongue slicked over her lips, leaving behind a gleam of moisture that had a kick of cruel temptation out of all proportion to its size. Hunger clawed at him, forcing him to clamp his mouth shut on a groan of response.

‘Please hold me. Just till I get back to sleep.’

She moved the blanket aside, opening a space under it for him to join her, and the movement revealed the slender pale length of her legs, the sight draining all the moisture from his mouth in a second. He tried to speak, to tell her how crazy this would be—how wrong—but his voice failed him and she was already talking again, taking his silence for some sort of concession of agreement.

‘I don’t think I could possibly sleep if you don’t. And you must be cold out there in what you’re wearing.’

He was cold. In spite of the fire, there was no real warmth in the air and he was thinking longingly of being under the blankets and huddling into them.

But the truth was that he was also thinking more longingly of being under the blankets with her and holding her close. In spite of the cold, his body burned at the thought.

‘Please,’ she said again in a voice that took all his strength from him.

He was lost.