The Mistress Bride Read online

  It was the shower that Evie made for, turning on a tap that sent no less than seven power jets of water sluicing around her at the absolute perfect temperature. She stayed in there for ages, aware of Raschid moving around in the other part of the bathroom.

  Aware also that he hadn't come to join her here in the shower because the mood had been ruined. Her mother, his father. It was usually one or the other of them that put this dampener on their pleasure.

  But there was worse to come, though Raschid didn't know it yet. Which was why she had walked away just now rather than have it all out with him there and then.

  Coward, she accused herself. Then grimaced in acknowledgement of that very obvious fact. But it was not going to be easy to say what she had to say, because the world was about to topple down upon them both, and she didn't know how Raschid was going to react to that.

  By the time she left the shower, Raschid had left the bathroom, but a turquoise silk caftan had been draped over a stool and she smiled at his thoughtfulness as she dried herself. She had worn it many times before here. It was one among several Raschid had brought her back from his homeland.

  Pulling it on over her naked body, she released her hair from the simple knot she had fastened it in before going into the shower, and the long mass fell in a slightly damp tangle down almost to her waist. Finger-combing it as she moved, she went back into the bedroom to discover that Raschid had gone from there also.

  She found him in the living room, standing by the drinks cabinet pouring sparkling water on to freshly squeezed orange juice. Neither of them drank much alcohol, she because she didn't care for it and Raschid because his religion forbade it. He was dressed, which surprised her. Normally he was hard put to pull on a robe during evenings like this. But that soft checked cotton shirt, buff trousers and casual slip-ons he was wearing on his sockless feet were sending her messages.

  Raschid was intending to take her home later rather than keeping her here for the night as he usually would. Well, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, Evie told herself heavily when she felt her heart sink in disappointment. For what she had to tell him was going to necessitate some time apart while they both came to terms with what it was going to mean to them.

  Hearing her come into the room, he sent her a brief smile over his shoulder. 'Your food has arrived, ma'am,' he drawled. 'Now you may feed that other ravenous appetite of yours.'

  It was meant as a joke. But Evie couldn't laugh. Because the moment she glanced across the room to where an elegant soapstone coffee table stood spread out with a cold meal fit for a king her stomach objected.

  Having gone from clutching at her with a demand to be fed, it was now clutching with sickening dread because she knew she couldn't put it off any longer.

  'Raschid,' she said huskily. 'I need to talk to you.' Glass in hand, he turned, something in her tone perhaps alerting him to trouble, because his eyes had already sharpened. 'What?' he demanded.

  Her throat dried up, her eyes shifting away from him because she knew she couldn't look at him and say what she had to say. So instead she walked over to the window where she reached out to send the curtain swishing open so she could fix her gaze on something outside while she decided how to begin. A tense silence followed. One where Evie could feel Raschid's quick mind grinding into action, picking up on the vibrations she was giving off, sorting through them and-belatedly perhaps-realising that all was not well with his lover.

  After a minute, he put down his glass and walked slowly towards her. He didn't attempt to touch her-those shrewd instincts of his warning him that she needed her own space. 'What's wrong, Evie?' he prompted soberly.

  Tears washed across her eyes and stayed there. 'We have a problem,' she began huskily-only to go silent again when she found she couldn't continue.

  Raschid said nothing, waiting patiently for her to go on.

  Evie could see his face reflected in the darkened window. He looked grave, the smoothly handsome lines of his features so very still that she knew he had already prepared himself for something dire to come. And, to her wretched despair, she found she couldn't do it. He was too important to her. She loved him so deeply that she discovered she couldn't risk the chance of losing him.

  Not yet, she thought achingly. Please, not yet.

  'My mother wants you to find an excuse not to attend my brother's wedding,' she said, dragging the half-truth out from the depths of a real desperation.

  Another silence. Evie watched that face via its darkened reflection and saw a frown mar its smooth lines. Her heart began to beat with a sickly pump. He wasn't a fool, this man of hers. His highly tuned instincts where she was concerned had been warning him of something far more disastrous than a silly problem with her mother.

  Oh, there was truth in the lie, she grimly acknowledged as she stood there waiting for his response. Her mother had spent the whole of their lunch together today telling Evie in no uncertain terms how much she would prefer it if Sheikh Raschid stayed away from Julian's high-profile wedding in two weeks' time.

  'The notoriety that the two of you generate is bound to shift emphasis away from the bride and groom and on to yourselves,' Lucinda Delahaye had predicted. 'If he had the smallest amount of sensitivity he would have realised that himself and graciously declined the invitation. But since he has no sensitivity I feel it is your place to tell him.

  But, as both Raschid and her mother knew, Evie was not open to that kind of petty manipulation. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have even bothered mentioning such a conversation to Raschid.

  So, what had been normal about today? she asked herself starkly as she watched that reflected face shift from puzzlement into annoyance. Within minutes of her getting up this morning the whole day had gone rocketing out of control. Since then she'd felt as if she'd been in a car accident, so shocked and dazed that she'd been barely able to function on a normal level.

  In fact, the whole day had gone by in a fog. Until Raschid had taken her to bed of course, she mused ruefully. There the fog had cleared up remarkably-only to be replaced with a different kind of fog. The glorious fog of loving. Now even that fog had cleared, she noted heavily, and Raschid was standing behind her looking as if she had really let him down after such a tense build-up.

  Which was, in effect, what she had just done. 'Is that it?' he said eventually.

  'Yes,' she confirmed, pitifully aware of the depth of her own wretched cowardice.

  'Then go to hell,' he murmured succinctly, refusing the request without any compunction. And turned his back on her to walk away.

  Her heart took a lurching leap to her throat. The way he had said that told her he knew she had just chickened out over something. She turned too, staring anxiously after him as he crossed the room with that long, lithe, graceful stride of his that always set her pulses racing no matter what the mood was like between them.

  'Raschid, you-'

  'I refuse to discuss it,' he cut in, sounding annoyed, offended and just downright disgusted, which made Evie wonder how he would have reacted to what she had cravenly backed out from saying. 'Your mother is not your keeper and she certainly isn't mine!'

  'It's a fair request,' she said, surprising herself by jumping to the defence of her mother. It seemed that anything was better than confessing the truth, she ruefully acknowledged. 'You know as well as I do the kind of interest we generate when we go anywhere together. In this case, it has to be Julian and Christina my mother must consider, not your feelings or mine.'

  'And my father is a very close friend of Christina's father,' Raschid coldly countered. 'In fact, Lord Beverley is almost solely responsible for helping my father overcome some very awkward political and diplomatic obstacles in his quest to reform and modernise my country. I will not offend Christina's father simply because your mother wants me to.'

  The chin was up, Evie noted. The passionate lover was now in full Noble Prince mode.

  'In the face of my father's failing health,' Prince Raschid concluded
, 'it is my duty to be there as my father’s representative.'

  Duty. Evie knew all about Raschid's dedication to duty!

  It was a shame that sense of duty did not extend to encompass the woman who was his lover.

  'So be it,' she said, suddenly sounding as cold as ever she could sound when she felt like it. 'But don't be surprised if I put into place some contingency plans of my own to keep the gossip to its minimum.'

  His eyes narrowed on her. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

  Evie shrugged. 'Duty,' she quoted right back at him. 'I have a duty to ensure that my brother and his bride maintain centre' stage on the day of their wedding.'

  'And how do you intend to do that?' he mocked her. 'By pretending I don't exist?’

  'Would you notice if I did?' Evie threw back cynically. She could have bitten off her tongue when his sharp eyes narrowed. 'Was that it?' he demanded. 'Was that remark a big hint to what is actually eating at you tonight, Evie?' He clarified the question. 'That I don't give you enough of my attention?'

  So he had guessed that she'd just dissembled. Evie smiled to herself and wondered how he would react if she told him he couldn't be any further from the truth.

  'Would you care that much if it was?' she countered, throwing him yet another red herring.

  He didn't answer-which was, she supposed bleakly, an answer in itself.

  'I'm tired,' she said wearily. 'I think I'll go home .. .' Which was just another provoking remark he let float pointedly by him. 'I have to go away tomorrow,' he informed her instead. 'I will be gone for about a week. When I get back I think we need to talk.'

  Evie shivered, feeling the icy fingers of a terrible foreboding go trailing down her spine. 'Fine,' she said, moving towards the door.

  He said not a word, but his eyes did as they followed her passage across the room. He was sharp, he was shrewd, he had a mind like a multi-million-dollar computer that was programmed to make very accurate assessments at lightning speed.

  He knew as well as she knew that there was something going on here that she wasn't telling him.

  'Evie .. .' .

  He was a master of timing, too, Evie tagged on to her list of attributes as she paused in the doorway. She didn't turn, and the silence between them lengthened like a wire being stretched to its absolute limit. Unspoken emotions beating out a throbbing tattoo that made her want to just break down, right here and now, and sob her wretched heart out.

  'I would care,' he murmured gruffly.

  It was too much. On a whisper of silk, Evie turned and ran to him.

  I love you so very much, she wanted to cry out, but didn't dare in case the evocative words started the avalanche she knew would bury that love without a single trace. So instead she wrapped her arms around him and buried her misery in the warmth of his solid presence.

  I'll tell him after Julian's wedding, she promised herself weakly. It can easily wait until then.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT HAD been billed as the wedding of the year, and anyone who was anyone was expected to be there to watch Sir Julian Delahaye and Lady Christina Beverley tie the sacred knot: the rich, the famous, titled nobility, not to mention a heavy presence of foreign dignitaries who had flown in from all over the world to be here out of respect for Christina's father, whose diplomatic skills had earned him lifelong friends in far-flung places.

  The weather was glorious, the location a picture-perfect English castle complete with ramparts and moat set in its very own ten-thousand-acre estate right in the heart of Royal Berkshire.

  You really couldn't get any more romantic than that. It was no wonder some people were willing to sell their souls to acquire an invitation.

  Which made Evie very much the odd one out here today, because she would have sold her soul to be anywhere but here. She should, in fact, have been heading up an entourage of six lovely bridesmaids. You could even say that it had been expected of her. But she'd turned the invitation down, upsetting several and annoying many, but. ..

  A sigh broke from her-the pair of lavender-blue eyes staring back at her via the dressing-table mirror she was sitting in front of mocking to say the least. She just couldn't have done it to the happy couple. After all, how much bad luck did you invite on yourself by having the family black sheep play a major role at your marriage? It just wouldn't do and they all knew it wouldn't do-which was why Christina's mother had found it difficult to hide her relief when Evie had turned the request down.

  But neither did it mean she could escape her duty altogether. As sister to the groom she had an obligation to be here-if only for Julian's sake. And, black sheep of the family or not, she was not about to disappoint her brother. She loved and respected him too much.

  So here she was, quietly preparing herself for the event ahead, in the room allotted to her by the Beverley family in the east wing of their beautiful home-very much aware that her mother was doing the same in another room not that far away, because she could feel the waves of resentment reaching out to her through several layers of solid stone.

  And why was her mother so resentful? Evie asked that pair of eyes in the mirror. Because Lady Lucinda Delahaye had once been thwarted of the chance to put on a day like this for her own daughter when Evie had turned her back on the chance to marry a marquis so she could be with her lover.

  'He won't marry you!' her mother had angrily predicted two years ago. 'He's an Arab prince for goodness' sake! And unlike you he will know his duty! When the time comes he will turn his back on you and marry one of his own. You mark my words, Evie. You mark my words.'

  Well, she'd marked them all right-and to this very day she was still marking them. Though the moment of their parting now loomed so very large on the horizon that it actually blocked out her view of anything else. Two weeks you've had-two long wretched weeks to find enough courage to tell Raschid what he needs to be told, she castigated those mocking eyes in the mirror. And what do you do? You avoid him. You let him fly home to Behran for a week without saying a single thing, then spend the next week not even daring to let yourself see him.

  Excuses--excuses. Her life recently had become one long round of lying excuses.

  Another sigh whispered from her, one of those heavy sighs she had caught herself releasing a lot recently. She looked bruised around the eyes, she noticed, even with the very professional job she had done on her make-up. But then, a worry and lack of sleep had a habit of doing that.

  Coward, she derided those eyes in the mirror.

  A knock sounding at the door to her room forced her to put her thoughts aside as she turned on her dressing stool to invite whoever was there to come in. The heavy oak door swung smoothly inwards on well-oiled hinges, and her brother Julian stepped into the room.

  He looked gorgeous, already dressed in his formal grey morning suit with its dashing silver silk waistcoat and cravat.

  'Hi,' he greeted. 'How are you feeling?'

  'It should be me asking you that question,' Evie smiled. His answering shrug showed that Julian was not in the least bit nervous about what was to come. He loved Christina to distraction and Christina openly adored him. This was no carefully arranged union between two noble dynasties.

  'Mother's having a panic attack over the state of her hat or some such thing,' he drawled. 'So I thought I would come and hide in here.'

  'You're welcome,' Evie murmured, following him with wryly understanding eyes as he went to stand by her window.

  Their mother could be an absolute tyrant when she was stressed out or angry. Today she would be feeling stressed out, worrying that she didn't let the family down, that her choice of outfit was absolutely perfect, that she looked exactly what she was-the upper-class super-elegant mother of the handsome baronet groom.

  'I can't believe they've stuck you right out here on the edge of the world,' Julian complained, checking out the view she had of the stable block that had been temporarily turned into a car park.

  The vast fifty-bedroom castle- had been split into
two pieces for the wedding, the east wing housing guests of the groom while the guests of the bride occupied the west wing. The further east you went, the smaller the rooms became until-this one, where the old tester bed almost filled it and the plumbing was antiquated-a message in itself to the dreaded black sheep.

  Smiling to herself, Evie turned back to the mirror. 'I have been put here because this is so obviously a single room,' she explained, using the exact same words Christina's stiffly smiling mother had used when she'd shown her in here earlier that morning. 'And I am so obviously a single woman,' she tagged on in mockery of herself.

  'They're all such damned hypocrites,' Julian grunted in disgust. 'They might disapprove of you and what you do in your private life, but they don't have to be so obvious about it. I wouldn't mind,' he added, 'but they had the damned barefaced cheek to invite him!'

  'Not for my benefit.'

  'No,' her brother acknowledged grimly. 'They invited him because they can't afford to offend him--despite what he is to you.'

  'And he had the damned bad taste to accept,' Evie said. 'Your doing?' Julian asked.

  'No,' she denied, her voice cooling considerably because she'd wondered if Julian had been suspecting her of trying to manipulate the situation. 'Actually, I asked him not to come.'

  And he told me to go to hell, she recalled with a weary grimace. Not that she had expected anything less from him. Raschid was arrogant by birth. It was built into his genes to ignore what it did not suit him to see. And refusing to see his presence here today as an embarrassment to her stupid mother was, perhaps, one of his more understandable bouts of blindness. After all who, in this day and age, condemned a man and woman for wanting to be together so long as they were both free and single?