A Question of Honour. Kate Walker

her hair. He’d liked the wild Clementina better—hell, he’d loved the wild one even though he hadn’t been able to show it. She’d thrown him off balance when he was already tight on edge with all that had happened. The news about his father. About Nabil. About his security chief.

      ‘Would it have hurt so much to give me that?’ she challenged.

      ‘Not if I could have been sure that all you really wanted was those twenty-four hours.’

      ‘I said so, didn’t I? And you didn’t believe me.’

      ‘It depended on what you wanted to do with that extra day—where you planned to go. You ran away from the palace once before. How was I to know if you were setting off to some other hideaway or if you ever planned to come back.’

      ‘I said that I would!’ She turned on him a look from those brilliant eyes that was searingly scornful, even with a touch of pity threaded through it. ‘It must be hellish being you—being so suspicious of everyone. Is there anyone you can trust? Anyone you can believe in?’

      I believed in Razi. In spite of himself, Karim couldn’t stop the thought from sliding into his mind. He had put his trust in his brother and look where that had got him. The worst failure of his life. Two deaths he hadn’t been able to prevent. A whole change of life, the old one turned inside out. A new role that he had never wanted. Even a bride he had almost had to marry out of duty, if that hadn’t been decided against.

      ‘I had no reason to believe in you.’

      Dark memories made his words as cold as black ice, turning the atmosphere inside the room colder than the wintry scene outside.

      ‘And I had no way of knowing that you were simply heading for a birthday party in Lilac Close...’

      That got through to her. If he had thought that her eyes were amazing before, they were stunning now, open wide in shock and questioning bewilderment. The knowledge that he had shaken her out of her defiance gave him some satisfaction in return for the way she had escaped yesterday, leaving him with his mission unaccomplished. She had lost all colour now, her cheeks parchment-white, in contrast to the rich dark fall of her hair, those impossible eyelashes.

      ‘How did you know?’ Her voice sounded rough and raw, as if it came from a painfully dry throat.

      She really didn’t know who she was dealing with and the satisfaction at having wrong-footed her so completely was like a roar in his blood.

      ‘It was easy.’

      She was still staring at him as he headed for the hall, wrenching open the door. The wild fury of the snowstorm made him wince. It had been nothing like as bad as this when he had driven back to the cottage this morning. There must have been inches—more—that had fallen while he had been inside, waiting for Clementina to arrive. No wonder the reception for his computer had been spotty to say the least.

      Hunching his shoulders and ducking his head, he headed out towards where her tiny elderly car was parked, its tyres already halfway deep in the drifts.

      Just what was he doing now? Clemmie asked herself, as something that was not just the cold but something more, something deeper and rawer than the icy blast of the wind from outside crept round her neck and shoulders, making her shiver miserably. It was something about Karim himself. About the way he had looked at her, the ice in his eyes, the blank emotionlessness of his tone. He had been sent to fetch her and that was the one thing he was concentrated on, like a hunting dog with the scent of its prey in its nostrils. He was never going to let her go.