Modern Romance May 2015 Books 1-8. Кейт Хьюит

see him.’

      ‘Why’s your horse in a sanctuary?’ Jaul pressed with obvious incomprehension.

      ‘Because, Mr Spoilt-Rotten-Rich, when my father had to vacate the farm tenancy I no longer had anywhere to house Hero and no money to pay for his upkeep either. Then, luckily for me, we sold the island to Cesare and I gave the sanctuary an endowment to give Hero a home for life,’ Chrissie explained without heat as she gently stroked the neck of the beautiful Arabian mare she was riding. ‘He’s safe, well-looked-after and happy. It was the best I could do for him.’

      Their time in the desert was almost over, Chrissie reflected, for they were travelling back to the palace as soon as they returned to the camp. The palace stables were packed with wonderful horse flesh and Jaul had had his stallion and her gorgeous high-stepping mare brought out for their use. Every day they had gone riding at dawn and at dusk when the desert heat was at its coolest. She had adored those quiet times with Jaul and the knowledge that their mutual love of horses and fresh-air activity was something they could share. But although Jaul had been endlessly attentive and reassuring she could not escape the suspicion that something was amiss with him.

      While Jaul had endured long meetings with the tribal sheikhs, who had arrived every morning to speak with him and stayed throughout the day, Chrissie had spent the time with their wives and families. She enjoyed meeting people and learning about their lives and with Zaliha to translate she had held story-telling sessions with the children and all formality had been abandoned while she entertained them. Jaul had called those sessions an ‘unqualified success’ and had complimented her on her easy manner with his people. He had even asked her to consider working with the professionals on a nursery education development programme for Marwan, pointing out this was her area of expertise. His request had filled her with pride and pleasure, yet in spite of his praise and satisfaction she remained convinced that there was something wrong between them.

      There was a distance, a reserve in Jaul that had not been there before, and he had not made love to her since their wedding night. Of course, he had been forced to sit up late with his visitors, she acknowledged ruefully. He had come to bed in the early hours and had still risen at the crack of dawn as he always did. But since that first night, he hadn’t touched her at all, indeed had suddenly become very restrained in his behaviour in a way that was totally unfamiliar and confusing to Chrissie because Jaul was such a naturally physical person. Last night, for instance, she had shifted over to his side of the bed and he had lain there as rigid as an icicle being threatened by the heat of a fire. Chrissie had intended to make encouraging moves herself but the polite goodnight he had murmured had made her pull back from that idea.

      Maybe, she thought anxiously, now that she was available all the time, as it were, she didn’t have quite the same appeal. Or more probably, common sense suggested gently, he was simply exhausted by early starts, late nights and the need for constant courteous diplomacy while he worked with the different factions involved in the talks that were lasting, on average, eighteen hours a day. The very last thing she should be doing with Jaul, she told herself urgently, was allowing her imagination or her insecurities to conjure up seeming problems in what was probably perfectly ordinary behaviour. Their marriage was working, wasn’t it? She thought it was working but the renewed closeness she had fancied she saw during their second wedding night seemed to have evaporated again.

      When they arrived back at the palace, Bandar greeted them in the entrance porch to speak urgently to Jaul. Jaul pokered up and a flush mantled his exotic cheekbones, his response to his aide clipped and cool in tone.

      ‘What’s happened?’ Chrissie asked worriedly.

      A tiny muscle pulled tight at the corner of Jaul’s unsmiling mouth. ‘My grandmother has arrived in Marwan and has asked to see me. She’s staying at an hotel in the city.’

      ‘My goodness, she must be quite an age now,’ Chrissie remarked.

      ‘I understand that she is travelling with her daughter, Rose. Obviously at some stage she remarried...my grandfather did not,’ Jaul could not resist reminding her.

      ‘I suppose, taking into account how he and your father felt about her, it would be an awkward and uncomfortable meeting for you but—’

      Jaul froze and fell still.’ I have no intention of agreeing to a meeting with the ladies. I have instructed Bandar to send my apologies and an appropriate gift.’

      Chrissie closed a dismayed hand over his arm and tugged him into one of the many cluttered reception rooms off the ground-floor hall of the palace. ‘You can’t mean that?’

      Jaul frowned down at her, his stunning bone structure rigid. ‘Please try to understand, Chrissie. I have never heard any good of Lady Sophie, only that she is a terrible troublemaker and I have quite enough to deal with at the moment without encouraging that sort of personality into my life.’

      Chrissie was disconcerted by the force and strength of his comprehensive rejection of his grandmother and his aunt and had to resist an urge to risk changing the subject by asking him what else he was struggling to deal with that was so onerous that he could not spare an elderly woman a fifteen-minute hearing even when she had come so far to see him.

      ‘You have to change your mind about this, Jaul.’

      ‘Although I have every respect for your opinion, I will stand firm on this,’ Jaul grated, temper licking along the edges of his roughened voice. ‘This is not your business.’

      ‘Lady Sophie is the twins’ great-grandmother and that makes her my business as well.’

      Jaul shot her an impatient glittering golden glance and compressed his wide, shapely mouth as he took an impatient step closer to the door. ‘I refuse to discuss this any further. I have told you how I feel and why.’

      ‘I’ll go and see her in your stead.’

      Jaul swung back lightning fast from the exit he had been making. ‘No, you will not. I forbid it.’

      ‘You forbid it?’ Chrissie repeated in an almost whispered undertone, wondering when and where her husband had developed the belief that he had the right to forbid her from doing anything.

      ‘Yes, I do,’ Jaul repeated grittily and he strode off.

      Forbid away, my love, Chrissie thought ruefully, I’m afraid it won’t get you anywhere because it is no longer the sixteenth century when wives blindly obeyed husbandly dictates. As far as she was concerned, good manners alone demanded that Jaul meet with the two women when they had flown out to Marwan purely on his behalf. On the other hand she could quite understand his attitude when both his grandfather and his father had made his grandmother out to be such a horrible person. Before she could lose her nerve, however, she was determined to do what she believed was right and she asked Zaliha to track down Bandar and discover which hotel Jaul’s grandmother was staying in.

      A couple of hours later, a well-dressed middle-aged woman introduced herself as Rose to Chrissie at the door of the hotel suite and thanked her warmly for coming in Jaul’s place. ‘As I said when you phoned, my mother is becoming increasingly frail and your willingness to meet her lifted her spirits.’

      ‘But I don’t know if I can do anything to break the family stalemate,’ Chrissie warned the older woman ruefully.

      ‘When my mother read about your marriage to Jaul in the newspaper, there was no stopping her,’ Rose confided. ‘She was convinced that her grandson’s marriage to a British woman would make a difference to her grandson’s attitude.’

      A tiny old lady with a fluff of white hair and faded blue eyes sat in a high-backed armchair with a cane clasped between her gnarled hands. ‘I’m Sophie, your husband’s grandmother,’ she said simply.

      Chrissie stretched out her hand. ‘I’m Chrissie.’

      ‘How much have you been told about me?’

      ‘The barest facts,’ Chrissie admitted. ‘Perhaps I should share my experience with Jaul’s family with you.’

      Tea