Castles of Sand Read online

  Ashley trembled uncontrollably. This was not what she had wanted at all. On the contrary, she wanted Alain so weak with longing for her that he had no choice but to take her, and with a little cry she went after him, winding her arms around his waist from behind.

  ‘You don’t understand, you don’t understand!’ she cried, pressing herself against him, feeling the shudder that went through his body at her touch. ‘Alain, Alain, don’t go; don’t go, please! I want to talk that’s all. Talk, damn you! Oh, Alain, Alain, don’t leave me!’

  His hands had gone to his waist, to extricate himself from her binding arms, but somehow it didn’t work out the way he planned it. Instead of wrenching himself away, he turned to face her, and the tearful reproach in her eyes destroyed the barriers he would have erected. With a sensual twisting of his mouth, he reached almost compulsively to the cord at her waist, pulling it free so that the two sides swung apart. Then he jerked her against him, her slim naked body free and unconfined in his arms, as he bent his head to take her lips.

  The urgent pressure of his mouth was a potent provocation, and her lips opened eagerly to him. Her senses swam beneath his eager conquest, and acting purely on instinct she pressed herself against him. She wanted to extend that intimate embrace, to feel his skin warm against hers, and when his hands tore his shirt from his pants, her hands rushed to help him. The buttons were ripped from their holes, and one or two spilled on to the floor in his haste, but then the fine cloud of body hair that arrowed down to his navel was cushioning her breasts, crushing them closer to the tautly-muscled width of his chest.

  Panic briefly flared inside her as he swung her up into his arms and carried her across the salon and into her bedroom. What was she doing? she asked herself wildly, looking up into his dark driven face. What manner of retribution could she expect, if Alain chose to punish her for this? It was not the way he had planned it, this she knew, and his uncontrollable need for her was more than the physical appeasement he had spoken of. When he kissed her, when he held her in his arms, the emotions he was feeling were unmistakable, and although she was exhilarated that this should be so, she was unsure of her ability to sustain them. He had left her once before. He had spurned her and left her in the jealous hands of his brother. He might well do it again, and this time he would ensure there would be no reconciliation.

  She shifted anxiously in his arms, but it was too late now for such misgivings. In any case, when he laid her on the bed and seconds later joined her, she was too bemused by the warm pressure of his body to make any protest. Besides, she wanted him; it was that simple. She wanted him so desperately she was amazed she had lived so long without the hungry possession of his body, and the urgent passion in his eyes was just a reflection of her own.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he groaned, his long fingers cupping her breasts, bringing the nipples to a provoking tautness, ripe for his tongue. ‘Oh, Ashley, you do not want to deny me, do you? You want this as much as I do.’

  ‘In cold blood,’ she managed huskily, as his lips trailed a fiery path down to her navel, and he raised his head to look at her with burning eyes.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ he demanded, as her fingers slid through his hair, and her breathing quickened at his sudden anger.

  ‘It’s what you said,’ she reminded him softly, and he slid over her urgently, seeking her lips with his.

  ‘How could you believe me?’ he muttered, against her mouth. ‘Do you not know what you do to me, what you have always done to me? Dear God, Ashley, it was always love between us. That was what made it all so painful!’

  ‘Was it painful for you?’ she persisted, as his tongue played with her lips, and she felt the shuddering revulsion that ran over him at her words.

  ‘I wanted to kill you,’ he admitted in a muffled voice, his face buried in the silken curtain of her hair. ‘And because I could not do that, I resolved to hurt you, in any way I could.’

  ‘Like—like taking our son from me,’ Ashley suggested in a breathless voice, and Alain raised himself on his elbows to look down into her sensually flushed, yet troubled, features.

  ‘You persist in this calumny,’ he protested, with harsh impatience. ‘Ashley, is it not enough that I have admitted my need for you? Must you continually remind me of your betrayal?’

  ‘There was no betrayal, Alain,’ she insisted, lifting her slim arms to wind them around his neck, and he was not immune to their silken embrace. With a groan of submission he allowed her to draw him down to her, and her next words were spoken against his cheek.

  ‘Think of it, Alain,’ she breathed, arching herself against him. ‘Hussein is your son—yours and mine! We made him, you and I. Don’t you think he’s like you? Don’t you see he resembles you?’

  ‘No—’ Alain’s denial was hoarse, but Ashley was determined.

  ‘He is like you. Exactly like you. Why do you think I let you take him? If he had been Hassan’s son, do you think I would have given him away so easily? No! No! It was because he was yours, yours! And I knew you could give him a better start in life than I ever could.’

  ‘No!’

  Alain was incensed, but Ashley knew she had sown the first real seeds of doubt in his mind. It was there in the rapid darkening of his eyes, in the mobile anger in his mouth, and in the sudden violence with which he took her. He wanted to shut her up, to silence her, to show her he was still the master of the situation. But instead, after that initial invasion of her body, his fury dissipated in the passionate evocation of their lovemaking.

  Ashley gasped at the thrusting fire of his possession. But the sweet, mindless sensations he quickly aroused inside her sent all coherent thought from her head, and she responded to his savagery with instinctive sensuality, turning his grim determination into an irresistible compulsion and his fury to a wine-dark hunger. He could not sustain his anger, when his hands clung to her body and his mouth fed from her lips, and what began as a bitter assault changed eagerly to a mutual supplication.

  Ashley’s blood ran like liquid fire through her veins as the feeling he was evoking brought a moan of pleasure to her lips. Her hands caressed his back, running urgently over his moist skin, stroking and caressing and inducing his surrender, until his teeth fastened sensuously into her tormenting flesh. She was like a flame in his arms, twisting beneath him and inciting his emotions, and when the climax came she cried out in fulfilment, her nails raking his shoulders as he pressed his sweating face into her neck.

  The aftermath came with reluctance. Ashley did not want to let him go, and when he stirred with indolent lethargy she wound herself about him and would not let him move away.

  ‘Ashley,’ he groaned in protest, lifting his head and brushing the clinging strands of her hair from his lips. ‘Ashley, I think you have proved your point, have you not?’ His blue eyes were heavy-lidded and glazed with the languorous effects of their union. ‘You must know this was not how I intended it to be, but I lose my senses when I am with you, and I almost believe what you say to be true.’

  ‘It is true, it is!’ exclaimed Ashley urgently, grasping his shoulders, but Alain only shook his head and firmly pulled away.

  ‘You are a witch!’ he muttered, after he had extricated himself from her clinging limbs, and was sitting on the side of the bed. ‘My God! You almost make me believe that no other man has ever touched you! What is this power you have?’ He massaged his neck muscles with some impatience. ‘I will not let you humiliate me again!’

  Ashley hesitated only a second, then she too got up, making no attempt to cover herself as she stepped in front of him. ‘Was that what it was, Alain?’ she breathed, her hair falling demurely over her breasts. ‘A bewitching? A humiliation?’ She spread her hands. ‘You must know in your heart Hassan never touched me. He—he tried, but he couldn’t. Oh, Alain, listen to me, listen to me—Hassan was impotent!’

  Alain’s graven features terrified her, and with a whirling movement that sent her hair swirling about her she ran across the
room to the bathroom, closing the door and leaning against it, willing him to go while she still had the power to hold back her grief. If he didn’t believe her now, he never would, and she couldn’t bear to see the destruction of something she had begun to believe in.

  The forced opening of the door behind her sent her scurrying into the shower cubicle, and when Alain appeared beside her she gazed at him with wide, wounded eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you go?’ she demanded, unknowingly desirable in her pathetic defiance, and Alain, who was already partially dressed, gazed at her with sudden frustration.

  ‘Why don’t I go?’ he muttered, his hands clenching tautly. ‘Indeed, why don’t I go? That is a good question.’ He shook his head bitterly, and took a step towards her. ‘Perhaps because, like all fools, I do not know when to give in.’

  ‘I—I’ll turn on the water,’ she exclaimed threateningly, groping for the gold tap. ‘If—if you don’t go away—’

  ‘—you will soak us both,’ he agreed huskily, and even as her fingers set the shower in motion, he stepped into the cubicle with her.

  She shivered convulsively as the cascade of cool water came down upon them, but Alain seemed uncaring of the fact that his velvet trousers were getting wet. With a curiously wry twisting of his expression, he reached for her again, and the falling spray was merely the fusing element that bound their two bodies together…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ALAIN was gone when she awakened.

  The sound of Nuzab drawing the blinds evoked a momentary panic inside her, as her aching limbs bore witness to Alain’s repeated possession, and the memories of the night before flooded back in disturbing detail. But the bed beside her was empty. She was alone, with only the evidence of her nakedness to betray what had happened to the Arab girl.

  ‘Saida, lady,’ Nuzab greeted her as usual, setting her breakfast tray to one side, when Ashley made no immediate effort to prepare herself to take it. In truth, she was trying to decide how best to explain her lack of attire, but Nuzab, it seemed, had other things on her mind. ‘You did not eat any dinner last evening,’ she went on, with gentle accusation. ‘The food—it was not to yours or my lord’s taste? You have some complaint to make?’

  Ashley shifted the silken sheet more closely about her shoulders. ‘The food—oh, the food!’ She forced a faint smile. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t hungry, Nuzab.’

  ‘But Prince Alain—’

  ‘Prince Alain—left,’ declared Ashley firmly, choosing the easy way out. ‘He—he did not eat dinner with me.’ That, at least, was true!

  Nuzab pursed her lips, ‘But where was he, lady?’ she asked in some confusion. ‘When his father, Prince Ahmed, asked for him, he could not be found.’

  Ashley sighed. ‘I don’t know, do I?’ she retorted shortly, wishing the Arab girl would leave her to eat her breakfast in peace, but Nuzab could be annoyingly persistent, as the English girl already knew.

  ‘Is most strange,’ she declared, shaking her head so that her long black braids swung over her shoulders. ‘Even Muhammed could not find him, and Prince Ahmed was very angry.’

  Ashley forced a calmness she was far from feeling. ‘But—this morning; he’s been found, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, lady,’ Nuzab nodded. ‘He joined his father for the morning meal, and without doubt he will spend the rest of the day with the Princess.’

  Ashley wriggled a little higher on her pillows, tucking the sheet sarong-wise under her arms. ‘You mean his mother?’ she enquired, hoping Nuzab would not notice the slight bruising on her arms as she reached for the tray, but the Arab girl’s next words drove all thoughts of modesty out of her head.

  ‘His mother, lady?’ she echoed. ‘Ah, you think I mean the Princess Hélène.’ Nuzab smiled. ‘No, it is the Princess Ramira. Did you not know? She and her father, Prince Khalil, arrived last evening.’

  Ashley’s mouth felt suddenly dry. ‘But who is Princess Ramira, Nuzab?’ she asked, with sudden apprehension, and the Arab girl smiled in recognition that her news was of interest at last.

  ‘She is the friend of Prince Alain, lady,’ she averred, with characteristic fervency. ‘They have been friends for many years. I think Prince Ahmed would welcome her as Prince Alain’s wife.’

  Ashley was washed and dressed when Nuzab returned to take the tray, and the Arab girl looked with some distress at the untouched food.

  ‘But you have not eaten!’ she exclaimed, and Ashley avoided her eyes as she applied a brick-coloured gloss to her lips.

  ‘I drank some coffee,’ she replied in protest, checking the fastening of the cream cotton smock that successfully disguised the palpitating beat of her heart. ‘Don’t fuss so, Nuzab. I shall eat when I’m hungry, never fear.’

  Nuzab hesitated, looking doubtfully at the tray in her hands. ‘Lady is not well?’ she suggested. ‘Lady have—argument with my master last evening?’

  Ashley stroked a concealing brush over her suddenly flushed cheeks. ‘You’re imagining things, Nuzab. I’ve told you what happened. Now please leave me alone.’

  The Arab girl sthlh–tood her ground. ‘Nuzab think lady let my master upset her,’ she declared with some temerity. ‘Nuzab know my master spend many hours with—with you.’

  Ashley gasped. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Nuzab come back for trolley,’ explained the Arab girl reluctantly. ‘My lady not in salon. Nuzab—hear voices.’

  Ashley did look at her then, her whole face suffused with colour. ‘You mean—you mean you watched us!’ she demanded huskily, but Nuzab hastily shook her head.

  ‘No! No, lady, Nuzab not do such thing.’ Her wounded dark eyes bore witness to her innocence, and Ashley’s blood pressure subsided a little.

  ‘But you heard us?’ she persisted tautly, and the Arab girl nodded her head. ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About—about midnight, lady.’

  ‘Midnight!’ Ashley moistened her dry lips. ‘So why didn’t you say so earlier?’

  Nuzab bent her head. ‘It is not my business, lady.’

  ‘But now you’ve made it so.’

  ‘Nuzab worry about lady,’ she responded, and Ashley could not sustain her anger in the face of the girl’s evident sincerity.

  ‘Well, don’t worry, Nuzab,’ she said now, getting to her feet and putting a sympathetic hand on the girl’s shoulders. ‘I’m all right really. I—just need a little time to—to decide what I’m going to do.’

  ‘What to do, lady?’ Nuzab looked up at her wide-eyed. ‘But you will come now to see Prince Hussein.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Ashley nodded, ‘I’ll come to see Prince Hussein now. But—ultimately—I don’t know, Nuzab. I just don’t know.’

  Being with her son was like a salve to her feelings of raw vulnerability. Obviously, Alain must have given Hussein his orders concerning the way he was to behave, and his polite enquiry as to her health, and his hope that she had suffered no ill effects from her fall the previous day, were pure mimicry. Even so, away from Alain’s influence, he did show a more sympathetic side to his nature, but she understood only too well how hard it was for him to share Alain’s attentions with anyone. Hadn’t she once been the same?

  While her son struggled to master the arts of multiplication and division, Ashley tried to draw some conclusions from what she had learned. Nuzab’s innocent betrayal of the presence of another woman in the palace took on a different aspect when allied to her knowledge of Alain’s whereabouts the night before. Had Prince Ahmed really instituted a search for his son, or had it simply been Nuzab’s way of showing her how futile it would be to imagine any good could come from getting involved with any of the male members of the Prince’s family? Was it really important to know? Or was it not simply a case of the facts speaking for themselves, as they had done so many times in the past?

  Running a weary hand over her perspiring temple, Ashley tried to be objective, but it was almost impossible after what had happened the night before. Whatever his motives, Alai
n had made love to her, and because of this, her position was both strengthened and weakened. Alain wanted her. He could not deny that. But because of this, he might well consider the only solution was to be rid of her, before she created a situation he could not control. Was that why he had brought this woman here? This Princess Ramira, whom Nuzab seemed to think he might marry? Alain had told her categorically that he had no intention of marrying anyone, but he was his father’s heir, and as such he had certain responsibilities. What if he decided those responsibilities outweighed any loyalty he owed to his dead brother? For as long as he regarded Hussein as Hassan’s son, it was only his brother’s memory he was respecting.

  Ashley sighed, and Hussein lifted his head enquiringly. ‘Are you tired, mademoiselle?’ he asked, his soft lips parting, and she knew a sudden sense of futility for what she was trying to do. Being Hussein’s governess was not going to be enough: Alain had been right about that. Now that the initial thrill of being her son’s companion was over, she wanted more from their relationship, much more, more in fact that any governess had any right to expect. But she was his mother! His mother! And with every day that passed, the desire to tell him grew stronger and stronger.

  Now Ashley forced a smile and shook her head. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all,’ she said, supporting her chin on the slender knuckles of one hand. ‘How is the arithmetic going? How many of those sums have you done?’

  ‘Three,’ admitted Hussein reluctantly, viewing the seven still to be done without enthusiasm. Then: ‘What were you thinking about, mademoiselle? Were you thinking of Uncle Tariq?’

  ‘Tariq?’ The name slipped from Ashley’s lips unthinkingly, but fortunately Hussein seemed not to notice. ‘No. No, why should you think that? What has your Uncle Tariq to do with me?’

  Hussein shrugged. ‘He likes you, I know he does.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Ashley flushed.

  ‘Aunt Melina told me,’ replied Hussein carelessly. ‘You have met my aunt. She was my father’s sister.’