Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN

destroying her.

      Outwardly, in the eyes of other people, she must seem as though she had everything anyone could possibly want, Petra reflected as she checked her appearance in her bedroom mirror.

      Rashid, who was currently away on business and was not due to return for another two days, had kept his promise not to touch her. Indeed, he quite obviously found it a very easy promise to keep; his relaxed calm politeness whenever they were together made her grit her teeth together against the fury of physical and emotional confusion she herself was enduring.

      How was it possible for her to want him so much when he quite obviously did not want her? She lay in bed at night aching for him. Longing for him, thinking about him—fantasising about him, if she was honest—and then in the morning was filled with such a sense of self-revulsion and despair at her own lack of self-control that she despised herself even more than she did him.

      He treated her as distantly as though she were merely a visiting house guest—an outsider to his world and life to whom he was obliged to be polite. She had absolutely no idea what he might be thinking or feeling about their marriage, or about her, and that further intensified her sense of loneliness and frustration. It was not natural to live in the way they were doing, and her body, her mind, her heart, her spirit rebelled against it.

      She wanted to share her life and herself fully with the man she loved, but how could she do that when that man was Rashid, a man who did not love her in return? A man she could not trust!

      She paused in the process of packing her clothes for their Race Week stay in the hotel complex, a tiny, fine tremble of sensation electrifying her at the thought of seeing Rashid. Angrily she dismissed it. She reminded herself firmly instead that she was due to visit the racecourse stables to discuss with Rashid’s trainer what arrangements needed to be made with regard to guests visiting the stables to view the horses.

      Already, although they were still in March, the temperature had climbed well into the high thirties, and Petra dressed accordingly, in cotton jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt, plus a hat to protect her head from the sun.

      The young man Rashid had appointed as her driver smiled happily at her as he opened the car door for her.

      Petra had timed her visit to coincide with the end of the morning exercise session, and when she walked into the yard it was bustling with activity as the newly exercised horses were returned to their stables.

      Rashid’s manager and trainer were standing together on the far side of the stable yard talking to one another as Petra walked in. Several other groups of people were in the stable yard, including two small dark-haired children.

      Smiling at them, Petra started to make her way towards Rashid’s manager and trainer, but as she did so she saw one of the children suddenly dart across the yard, right into the path of the highly strung, nervously sweating young horse being led across the yard by his handler.

      As the horse reared up Petra reacted instinctively, making a grab for the child and snatching him from beneath the horse’s hooves.

      She could hear the uproar going on all around her; the shrill squeal of fear from the horse and the even shriller scream of panic from the child, the groom’s anxious voice, the voices of the onlookers, and then the breath was driven out of her lungs as the world exploded in an agonising red mist of searing pain followed by a terrifying sensation of whirling darkness as she hit the ground.

      Blearily Petra opened her eyes.

      ‘Ah, good, you’ve finally come round properly.’

      A uniformed nurse smiled at her. Weakly Petra began to move, and then winced as she felt the pain in her shoulder.

      ‘Don’t worry, it isn’t serious. Just a very nasty bruise, that’s all,’ the nurse comforted her cheerfully. ‘You were lucky, though, and the little boy you rescued was even luckier.’

      The child! Petra sat up anxiously and then gasped as pain ripped through her shoulder.

      ‘Are you sure he’s okay?’ she pressed the nurse.

      ‘He’s fine—in fact I think his father is in a worse state of shock than he was. They are related to the Royal Family, you know. Cousins, I think. The father couldn’t sing your praises highly enough. He is convinced that if you hadn’t acted so promptly the horse might have killed his son.’

      ‘It wasn’t the horse’s fault!’ Petra protested. ‘The yard was busy, and he was obviously nervous… Ouch!’ She winced as the nurse readjusted the strapping holding the protective pad in place against her skin.

      ‘Don’t worry, I’m just checking to see if you’ve stopped bleeding.’

      ‘Bleeding?’ Petra frowned.

      ‘The horse’s shoe caught your shoulderblade, and as well as inflicting a wonderful-looking bruise it’s also broken the skin. It looks fine now, though.’

      ‘Good—in that case, I can get dressed and go home,’ Petra said.

      ‘Not until the doctor has given you the all-clear,’ the nurse warned her.

      Half an hour later Petra was sitting fully dressed on the side of her bed, frowning mutinously at the young doctor confronting her.

      ‘Look, I can’t stay in overnight,’ she told him firmly. ‘We’re less than a week away from Race Week, and I’ve got a hundred things I have to do. You’ve said yourself that you’re ninety-nine per cent sure that I don’t have concussion, and—’

      ‘I would still prefer you to stay in overnight, just to be on the safe side,’ the doctor was telling her insistently.

      Petra shook her head.

      ‘There really isn’t any need. I promise you I feel fine.’

      ‘We should at least alert your husband to what has happened,’ the doctor persisted.

      Rashid. Petra tensed. Right now he was in London, overseeing some problem with the alterations to the hotel which the Royal Family had just acquired to add to their portfolio of hotel properties. He wasn’t due back for another two days, and she could just imagine how he was going to feel if he was dragged back on account of a wife who emotionally meant nothing whatsoever to him at all!

      Determinedly she set about convincing the young doctor that there was no reason why Rashid should be unnecessarily alarmed about a mere minor accident, when he would be home within a couple of days anyway, and to Petra’s relief he seemed to accept her argument.

      When it came to allowing her to go home, though, he was harder to persuade, but in the end he gave in and said that provided she was not going to be left on her own, and that there was someone there to keep an eye on her, he would agree to discharge her.

      Assuring him that there was, Petra held her breath whilst he checked her bruised shoulder, and then wrote her a prescription for some painkillers, before finally agreeing to her discharge.

      An hour later she was on her way home, gritting her teeth against the unexpectedly intense pain in her shoulder as she was driven slowly and carefully back to the villa by her very protective and anxious young driver.

      Once there, she was fussed over by Rashid’s staff to an extent that made her grit her teeth a little and insist that they stop treating her as though she was a fragile piece of china.

      Within an hour of her return she had received so many concerned telephone calls that she was refusing to take any more, and the largest reception room of the villa was filled with floral tributes—including an enormous display from the Royal Family, thanking her for rescuing one of their family.

      Ignoring the dull, nagging ache which even the strong painkillers she had been given at the hospital had not totally suppressed, Petra went into the room she used as her office and started to go through the sample menus submitted to her by the hotel’s senior chef.

      Their guests would be dining in one of the hotel’s private dining rooms, and Petra worked into the evening, meticulously