Polly was aghast at that cold-blooded conclusion. ‘You’re willing to throw me out of the country?’
Hard dark eyes held hers. ‘If that is what it takes, yes...and naturally I would not wish you to return in the near future,’ he decreed harshly.
Polly was shaken by that solution because she had been planning to get to know her grandparents, her newly discovered Dharian family. She had no doubt that Hakim and his wife would be willing to visit her at least once in London but it would not be the same as staying on in Dharia and having the chance to explore her father’s heritage and culture for herself.
‘I cannot allow the current security situation to continue,’ Rashad informed her grimly and he went to the doorway of the tent to clap his hands. ‘We will have tea while you consider your options.’
Polly didn’t see how tea was going to be the answer to anything but the sheer amount of entertaining ritual involved in the brewing of tea by two robed men at least gave her something to watch while her brain struggled to deal with a rising tide of anxiety. He was using blackmail even if on one level she could understand his position. It was very unfair from her point of view, though, that she should have to suffer for something that was in no way her fault. In many ways by piling on that extra pressure of an immediate departure, he was taking her right to choose away from her.
‘Seriously...’ she began furiously, ‘you would actually force me to go home?’
‘When it comes to what is best for my country I will always do it,’ Rashad countered with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl. ‘That is my duty.’
Polly compressed her taut lips, her hand clenching angrily round her cup. She knew he meant it. It was stamped in the resolve that had hardened his lean, darkly handsome face. Either she stayed on in Dharia and agreed to marry him or she went home again and stayed there. She didn’t need to be pregnant to be offered a shotgun marriage, she reflected angrily. That was what he was offering her with the crowds providing the firepower of pressure.
Yet when it came to marriage all that went with Rashad in terms of baggage and culture and his people’s expectations was simply huge. Even so, she quite understood why he was willing when his next-best option was a marriage to a complete stranger about whom he would essentially know nothing.
‘Of course, you’d get the ring back if you married me,’ she said with a flat lack of humour.
‘And gain a gorgeous blonde wife,’ Rashad traded with a sudden charismatic smile that lit up his bronzed face, illuminating the hard cheekbones and hollows that gave his features such strong definition.
Polly glanced across the fire pit at him and the knowledge that if she said no she would never see him again sliced into her like the sudden slash of a knife blade. That prospect, she registered in mortification, was not something she wanted to think about. No more easily could she imagine being forced to walk away from the new family she had found. Perspiration beaded her upper lip as she fretted.
Marrying Rashad would be like taking a huge blind leap in the dark and she wasn’t the sort of woman who took risks of that nature, was she? But if it worked, there would be much to gain, she reasoned ruefully. She would have her grandparents for support. She was already powerfully attracted by Rashad.
‘The answer is...yes. It’s insane but...yes,’ Polly muttered almost feverishly before she could lose her nerve.
Although relief slivered through Rashad at her agreement that relief was threaded with undeniable resentment over his predicament. After all, he had been backed into a corner and forced to marry again. This was his choice, he reminded himself sternly. She was his choice and far superior to a bride who would have been a complete stranger, but the stubborn streak of volatility Rashad always kept suppressed had flickered from a spark into a sudden burning flame, for it was impossible for him to forget how very much he had hated being married.
‘IT’S NOT TOO late to change your mind,’ Ellie said with a hint of desperation while she watched the television to see the partying taking place in the streets of Kashan to celebrate Rashad and Polly’s wedding day. ‘Well, they probably do have you on the tea towels and you would need to be smuggled out of the country in disguise if you jilted him!’
‘Obviously, I’m not going to jilt him,’ Polly said quietly, wishing her sister would stop winding up her nerves with her dire forecasts.
Ellie had landed in Dharia forty-eight hours earlier and she had given her elder sister every conceivable lecture against marriage since her arrival.
‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Do you realise what you’re getting into? Are you even sure you will be his only wife? What if everything Rashad shows you on the surface is simply a front to persuade you to marry him? Look at those people partying at the announcement! He needs you more than you need him. That should make you suspicious. What if he has another woman hidden somewhere? A woman he really loves?’
Polly had dutifully listened to every possible argument but she had absorbed few of her sibling’s warnings for the simple reason that she suspected that she was falling in love with Rashad. Yes, she had finally worked that out all on her own. How else had she contrived to overlook his threat to throw her out of the country if she didn’t agree to marry him?
On her side of the fence, her reasons for marrying Rashad had become resolutely practical over the two short weeks that had passed since his proposal. One, her grandfather spoke very highly of his ruler, and she trusted Hakim and his wife Dursa because she was genuinely convinced that they would rate her need for happiness higher than any desire to see their grandchild wed their King. Two, Rashad had been honest with her. He had paid her no extravagant compliments and had made no mention of love and she had accepted that latter handicap with the strength of a patient, optimistic woman because she hoped that in time his feelings for her would change. Three, there was just something very powerful about Rashad that called to Polly on a very deep level and she couldn’t put it into words or explain it, so she had come to think of it as the start of love. She simply knew that she wasn’t capable of walking away from him.
And how did she know that? she asked herself as the cluster of chattering maids surrounding her twitched at the skirts of her elaborate wedding outfit and attached more jewellery to her, although she was already laden down with gold and precious gems because Rashad’s uncle had saved the family jewel collection along with his youngest nephew. How the fire-opal ring had become detached from that collection would probably never be known but Hakim believed that his son had very possibly taken it and given it to Polly’s mother, Annabel, for safekeeping during the chaos following the explosion that had claimed the lives of Rashad’s family. Her father, Zahir, had after all been the most senior soldier in the palace that awful day and had died himself within twenty-four hours.
She could never walk away from Rashad when her own family was so deeply involved with the country of Dharia. No, she knew that even if her marriage turned out to be a bad marriage she was very likely stuck with it until the day she died because her grandfather had spelt out to her that she had to think in terms of for ever when it came to marrying a ruling king. Rashad’s father had divorced twice before wedding Rashad’s mother and those matrimonial breakdowns had been interpreted as signs of his general instability and his lack of staying power and sense of duty as a monarch.
‘And even worse, you’ve hardly seen Rashad since you agreed to marry him,’ Ellie reminded her with anxious green eyes.
‘He’s had so many people to meet and so many arrangements to make,’ Polly responded quietly, for Rashad had spent the last fortnight travelling around Dharia. ‘He has to consult with others about everything he does to come up with a consensus. It’s the way he operates to keep everybody happy that they’ve had their say and Grandad says it works beautifully.’
Ellie