Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN

but she had never intended that her aunt should assume she was pleased or, more importantly, that she actually intended to accept.

      However, having made her own interpretation of Petra’s words her aunt proved stubbornly hard to change!

      Rashid had proposed! Of course it was impossible that Petra might have refused, and every attempt Petra made to tell her that she had done just that was greeted with amused laugher and comments about Petra’s ‘teasing’ until Petra herself fell silent in despairing exasperation.

      ‘I should have trusted Rashid, of course,’ her aunt was saying. ‘Although it was very thoughtless of you both to put your reputation at so much risk, Petra. Your mother would have hated knowing that people were beginning to talk about you the way they were,’ she reproved her gently.

      Her mother! Petra’s heart suddenly ached. Her mother would have hated knowing that her daughter’s name was being bandied about in a scurrilous way, that was true, but she would not have condemned her for what had happened. Petra knew that as well.

      ‘So, you and Rashid are betrothed,’ her aunt was saying happily. ‘We are going to be so busy, Petra. Oh, my, dear,’ she said, giving Petra another hug. ‘I had not meant to tell you this, but now that you have put my mind at ease with the news of your betrothal I feel that I can. Had Rashid not offered you marriage, it would have done our family a very great deal of harm, and lowered our standing in the community to such an extent that my own husband’s business would have been badly affected—as would your cousin’s chances of making a good marriage. And as for your grandfather… I do not exaggerate, Petra, when I tell you that I think the shame might have killed him.’

      Killed him!

      Petra stood frozen within her aunt’s warm embrace, feeling as though she had suddenly walked into a trap which had sprung so tightly around her that she would never be able to escape. And it made no difference at all that she had unwittingly and foolishly been the one to spring that trap herself!

      There was no way out for her now. For the sake of her family she had no alternative other than to marry Rashid!

      ‘Oh, Petra! You look so beautiful,’ her aunt whispered emotionally. ‘A perfect bride.’

      They were standing together in Petra’s bedroom at the family villa, waiting for Petra’s grandfather to escort her to the civil marriage ceremony that would make her Rashid’s wife.

      After the civil ceremony there was to be a lavish banquet held in their honour in the specially decorated banqueting suite of the hotel.

      Petra’s aunt had spent virtually the whole of the last three days there overseeing everything, along with some of Rashid’s female relatives, but despite her exhortations Petra had not been able to bring herself to go and view the scene of her own legal entrapment.

      There was no point, she knew, in trying to tell her aunt that she did not want to marry Rashid. The older woman had a ridiculously high opinion of him and would, Petra knew, simply not be able to accept that Petra herself hated and despised him.

      Rashid knew it, though—she had made sure of that the day he had come to formally ask her grandfather for her hand in marriage.

      Unable to refuse him outright as she had wished, for the sake of her aunt and her family, she had had to content herself with a bitterly contemptuous and hostile glare at him when her grandfather had summoned her to receive his proposal.

      ‘I am pleased to see that you have had the good sense to realise there is no alternative to this—for either of us,’ he had managed to tell her grimly, gritting the words to her so quietly that no one else could hear them.

      And, as though that hadn’t been bad enough, she had then had to endure the miserable, humiliating parody of being forced to pretend that she wanted to accept his proposal!

      However, she had managed to avert her face when he had leaned towards her to kiss her, so that his mouth had merely grazed her cheek instead of touching her lips.

      Beneath his breath he had taunted her, ‘How very modest! A traditional shrinking bride! However, I already know just how passionate you can be beneath that assumed cold exterior!’

      And now there was no escape for her.

      Her attendants—a swarm of pretty chattering girls from her aunt’s extended family and Rashid’s—had already left for the hotel in their stunning butterfly-hued outfits, and soon Petra herself would be leaving with her grandfather. She tensed as her bedroom door opened and her grandfather came in.

      Giving her veil a final twitch, her aunt left them on their own.

      As he came towards her Petra could see that her grandfather’s eyes were shining with emotion. ‘You are so like your mother,’ he whispered. ‘Every day I see more and more of her in you. I have something I would like you to wear today,’ he told her abruptly, producing a leather jewellery box and removing from it a diamond necklace of such delicate workmanship that Petra couldn’t help giving a small murmur of appreciation.

      ‘This is for you,’ she heard her grandfather telling her. ‘It would mean a great deal to me if you would wear it today, Petra.’

      Now Petra could understand her aunt’s insistence on choosing a fabric for her wedding gown which was sewn with tiny crystals. Originally, when the silk merchant had come to the house with a selection of fabrics, Petra had wondered bitterly just what kind of fabric would best suit a sacrificial offering. It had been her aunt who had fallen on the heavy matt cream fabric with its scattering of tiny beads with an exclamation of triumph.

      Petra could feel her grandfather’s hands shaking as he fastened the necklace for her. It fitted her so perfectly that it might have been made for her.

      ‘It was your mother’s,’ he said. ‘It was my last gift to her. She left it behind. She would have been so proud of you today, Petra. Both your parents would, and with good reason.’

      Proud of her? For allowing herself to be tricked into a soulless, loveless marriage?

      Panic suddenly filled her. She couldn’t marry Rashid. She wouldn’t! She turned to her grandfather, but before she could speak her aunt came back into the room.

      ‘It is time for you to leave,’ she told them both.

      As her grandfather walked towards the stairs Petra made to follow him, but her aunt suddenly stopped her. ‘You are not wearing Rashid’s gift,’ she chided her.

      Petra stared at her.

      ‘The perfume he sent you, which he had specially blended for you,’ her aunt reminded her, clicking her tongue as she hurried over to the table and picked up the heavy crystal bottle.

      ‘No… I don’t want to wear it…’ Petra started to say, but her aunt wasn’t listening to her.

      Petra froze as the warm, sensual scent surrounded her in a fragrant cloud.

      ‘It is perfect for you,’ her aunt was saying. ‘It has the youthfulness of innocence and the maturity of womanliness. Rashid has chosen well. And your mother’s necklace is perfect on you, Petra. Your grandfather has never stopped missing her or loving her, you know.’

      As her throat threatened to close up with tears, Petra demanded huskily, ‘If he loved her so much then why didn’t he at least come to the funeral? Even if he could not have been there he could have sent a message… something… anything…’

      All the pain she had felt on that dreadful day, when she had stood at her parents’ graveside surrounded by their friends and her father’s family and yet feeling dreadfully alone, was in her voice.

      She heard her aunt sigh.

      ‘Petra, he would have been there. But there was his heart attack—and then when your godfather wrote that he did not think it a good idea that you should come here to us, that you had your own life and friends, he was too proud to… to risk a second rejection.’

      Petra stared at her.