The Sheikh's Innocent Bride. Lynne Graham

stone surround, he thought about Faria instead. It was rare for him to indulge himself with reflections about what could not be, for he knew how pointless it was to lament the inevitable. Faria, with her laughing dark eyes and compassionate heart, could never become his wife. Although Faria and he were not related by blood, Faria’s mother had briefly acted as Shahir’s foster mother when he was very young. And Shahir’s religion forbade the marriage of a man to his foster-sister.

      He had not known what love was before the day he had glanced across a courtyard at an interminable wedding and seen a very pretty brunette entertaining the children with magic tricks. Faria had grown up while he’d worked abroad, and she had trained as a teacher. He hadn’t even recognised her. On the last occasion he had seen her she had still been a little girl.

      While Faria had been brought up in the knowledge that Shahir was her foster-brother, he had barely heard the matter mentioned. Shahir was royalty, and all too many people claimed to have a connection with him. And, having enjoyed a brief period of intimacy with the royal family in the aftermath of tragedy, Faria’s parents, who had never been socially ambitious, had soon returned to their quiet lives. Meeting her as an adult, Shahir had immediately recognised that Faria was exactly the kind of young woman he wanted to marry. In that very acknowledgement the damage had been done—even before he could appreciate that he had mistakenly set his heart on a woman who rightly regarded him as an honorary brother.

      Was his nature innately perverse? Shahir asked himself now, his lean strong face shadowed by a dark frown. Although he would not mention his lust for Kirsten Ross in the same sentence as his unspoken admiration for Faria, he could not avoid registering that once again he was guilty of desiring a woman who was forbidden to him. Even that vague similarity disturbed him. In another sense it also challenged him, for Kirsten Ross was by no means out of reach.

      Perhaps, Shahir reflected in exasperation, he had become too careful—too fastidious in his refusal to let his libido rule him. Almost certainly he was suffering from the effects of too much sexual denial, and the most effective cure for the foolish fantasies assailing him in the middle of the night would be a welcoming and hopefully very wanton woman.

      And he knew exactly who was most likely to qualify in that department. Lady Pamela Anstruther, his nearest neighbour at Strathcraig, invariably acted as his hostess when he entertained at the castle. The arrangement suited them both. Pamela was clever and amusing, a strikingly attractive widow with champagne tastes, struggling to get by on a small income. Shahir respected her honesty and her survival skills. Pamela had never hidden the fact that she wanted him, and that sentiment would not complicate the issue.

      At morning break, later that same day, Jeanie frowned at Kirsten. ‘You look like you’re sickening for something,’ she scolded. ‘You have dark shadows under your eyes. Aren’t you sleeping properly?’

      ‘I’m fine…’ Uneasy with telling even that minor lie, Kirsten dropped her head. Several disturbed nights of sleep had left their mark on her face, and she was ashamed of her inability to get the motorcyclist out of her head. Time and time again their encounter would replay in her memory, and when she went to sleep her dreams took over. The disturbing and horribly embarrassing content of them she would not have shared with a living soul.

      ‘Is something wrong at home?’

      ‘No.’ Kirsten chewed tautly at the soft underside of her lower lip before finally surrendering to the pressure of her curiosity and saying, as artlessly as she could contrive, ‘There was a guy riding a motorcycle up our way last Friday afternoon. I think he was staying at the castle…’

      ‘There’s always a bunch of new faces staying in the service wing.’ The other woman’s attention was concentrated on the large scone she was liberally spreading with butter. ‘I bet it was that old tubby guy with the pigtail. You know…the one here to write a history book about the castle. Someone told me that either him or the photographer arrived on a motorbike, dressed like a Hell’s Angel.’

      ‘He doesn’t sound much like the man I saw.’ Kirsten focused on Jeanie’s scone, which was being cut into tiny slices so that the pleasure of eating it could be extended. ‘He was young, and he looked like he might have originally come from another country—’

      ‘Oh…him!’ Jeanie’s eyes lit up like a row of winning symbols in a fruit machine. ‘That’ll be the Polish builder working on the stable block. Tall, dark, tanned, superfanciable?’

      Kirsten nodded four times in eager succession, like a marionette.

      ‘I saw him on a motorbike in the village on Saturday night.’ Jeanie gave her an earthy grin. ‘You’ve got a pair of eyes in your head at last, have you?’

      Kirsten had flushed to the roots of her hair, but could not restrain the all-important question brimming on her lips. ‘Do you know if he’s married?’

      ‘Kirsten Ross—you shameless hussy, you!’ Jeanie guffawed with noisy appreciation. ‘No, he’s not married. That was checked out by an interested party on his first day. No wonder you’re away with the fairies this morning. I spoke to you twice and you didn’t notice. Did you get talking to him? I hear he speaks great English. Did you fall madly in love at first sight?’

      Kirsten was squirming with embarrassment. ‘Jeanie! I was out for a walk and we only spoke for a minute. I was just being curious.’

      ‘Course you were…’ Jeanie was merrily grinning at the prospect of what she saw as entertainment. ‘Right, with your face getting off with that builder will be no problem—but somehow I think that getting past your dad is likely to be the biggest challenge.’

      ‘So it’s just as well that I’m not thinking of trying to get off with anyone!’ Kirsten whispered in feverish interruption. ‘Look, please don’t go talking about this, Jeanie. If my dad hears any gossip about me he’ll go mad! He does not have a sense of humour about things like that.’

      ‘Kirsten…’ Jeanie leant across the table, her plump face arranged in lines of sympathy. ‘I don’t think anyone would repeat gossip about you to your father. Since he had that row with the minister and the church elders and left the congregation folk have been very wary of rousing his temper.’

      Kirsten jerked her head in mortified acknowledgement of the point.

      When the housekeeper signalled her from the doorway, she was glad of the excuse to leave the table and go and speak to the older woman. Offered the chance to work extra hours to cover for a sick colleague, Kirsten accepted gratefully and phoned her stepmother to say that she would be late home.

      It was a welcome distraction to be sent to a section of the castle that was new to her. The extensive service wing had been converted to provide state-of-the-art office facilities and a conference center, as well as accommodation for the constant procession of tradesmen and businessmen who visited the remote estate in a working capacity.

      Unfurling a floor polisher in a corridor, Kirsten hummed a nameless snatch of music below her breath. He was from Poland; a builder from Poland. Had she imagined that upper class accent? But then from whom had he learned the language? Perhaps that had influenced the way he spoke? Suddenly she wanted to know everything there was to know about Poland. Her own ignorance embarrassed her.

      At the same time she didn’t really know whether she was on her head or her heels. Why on earth was she thinking about a man she would never see again? He worked outside; she worked inside. The castle was huge, the staff extensive. In all likelihood they wouldn’t bump into each other again unless he sought her out—and why would he do that? She had shouted at him. Of course if she was the shameless hussy Jeanie had teased her for being she would seek him out for herself. Only thankfully she wasn’t. But the thought of never laying eyes on him again made her tummy feel hollow, and filled her with the weirdest sense of panic.

      Without warning the floor polisher was switched off, and she straightened from her task in surprise.

      ‘Look, miss. We’re having a very important meeting in here, and that machine’s damn noisy…couldn’t you go and clean elsewhere?’ a young man in a suit