Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and Unrepentant\Return of the Prodigal Gilvry\A Traitor's Touch (20 page)

Love meant subservience for one, dominance for the other. Love meant there was a winner and a loser. Love was not an equal thing. Not in Iain's experience. Not that he had any experience. Not until now.

No. He was not in love. He was in lust. Though last night hadn't felt like lust any more than that time on the beach at Zante. What he was feeling was homesick, most likely, and Cordelia was home. Which was a daft idea because apart from anything else, he hadn't missed Glasgow at all.

So it must have been the combination of the stars and the desert and the sea and the beautiful woman last night after all. The romance of it. Would he have felt the same if it had been another beautiful woman? He'd known a few. He tried to imagine them, but none could replace Cordelia. No one compared to Cordelia. He shouldn't have said that last night. He shouldn't even have been thinking it, for he had no intention of spending the rest of his life comparing.

Which reminded him he'd be spending the rest of his life without her. A fact he immediately shied well away from. It was proximity, that's what the problem was. It was being constantly in her company that had deluded him into thinking he could not do without her company. It was the way she was so like him and so unlike, he thought, half-conscious that he was becoming a bit desperate. It was because he felt protective of her, because she made him feel like a knight errant.

No, another daft idea, and while he was on the subject of daft, what did he think he was going to do, even if he was in love with her, which he wasn't? She had made it very clear that all she was interested in was meeting her sister. She had made it even more clear that she valued her independence above all. She'd turned down D'Amery, and no matter that Iain thought D'Amery was a fool, he was a pretty good proposition for a husband. The right kind of man for Cordelia, in fact, while Iain was most definitely the wrong kind of man. Though Cordelia was here with Iain, and she'd refused D'Amery. Twice.

What if he was in love? What if all the things he'd taken as truths were only the product of two totally screwed-up people like his mother and father who should never have been together in the first place? Cordelia was nothing like his mother. He was certainly nothing like his father.

Iain groaned. You could twist logic any way you liked. There was no such thing as truth, only gut feel, and his gut told him that what had gone on between his mother and his so-called father was not something he wanted to get into. But his gut also told him that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life without Cordelia. Was he just lonely then? He thought about this, and then remembered what he'd said last night. It had come out without him even thinking about it too. Instinct. If he couldn't have Cordelia, no one else would ever do.

‘Aye, which leaves me right back where I started. I'm a bloody eejit.'

‘Sir?'

He turned to find Akil had returned. The man must be thinking he really was an idiot, talking to himself. ‘I was just saying to myself that it's a perfect site,' Iain said inanely.

Akil bowed his head. ‘Chosen by Prince Ramiz after much consultation. The bay here is much deeper than further along the shore at the existing docks. If you have seen enough, I will take you back to the Second Palace, and then I must bid you goodbye. I leave with the Lady Cordelia before dawn. That way we make the most of the day before the sun becomes too hot.'

Which statement left Iain feeling so sick to the stomach he could only nod. There was no use in trying to decide whether this strange, tender, protective feeling that squeezed his guts and made his heart skitter really was love, because even if it was, there was no point in saying anything until Cordelia had seen her blasted sister, by which time the feeling might well have passed, and if it hadn't—well then, he would deal with it then. In the meantime, he had much more important things to worry about than whether or not he was in love. Which he wasn't. Such as Sheikh al-Muhanna's arrival. And ships. Ships were the thing. But as he followed Akil back to the palace, Iain discovered that not even steamships mattered more than Cordelia. Which was definitely a first.

* * *

It was a beautiful palace, and Cordelia seemed to be its only occupant, save for the small army of servants who were so discreet as to be nonexistent. She surrendered to the temptation of the hammam baths, lying naked on a long marble slab in the steamy heat while a dark-skinned woman rubbed scented oil into her skin and pummelled and kneaded her tired muscles until she felt as if her bones had been removed. She lay, wrapped in a towel, quite limp, as the steam from the water poured over hot stones wafted around her, then allowed herself to be led to the deep-green pool, gasping as the icy water enveloped her.

More oils made her skin feel softer than she had ever known it. Her hair was braided, and she was dressed in a long silk tunic in her favourite shade of blue, the hem and cuffs intricately beaded with turquoise, her only other garments a pair of organdy pantaloons pleated into the waist and held under the tunic with a belt made of gold threads, with matching slippers.

Cleansed, invigorated and looking satisfyingly like one of the illustrations from
One Thousand and One Nights,
Cordelia felt sufficiently restored to take herself to task. How many times in the past ten years had she wished herself here? And now here she was, and instead of thinking about Celia, she was obsessively dissecting a betrothal that wasn't even real. What's more, she was in danger of compromising the one thing she'd fought so hard to earn over this past decade, and that was her precious independence. She didn't need Iain to be at her side when she met Celia. She didn't need Iain by her side at all.

This, while true, was not at all palatable, for the thought of not having Iain in her life made her feel quite sick. She had obviously become far too accustomed to him, that was all. She had spent too much time in his company.

Though two years with Gideon had not made her feel like this.

Two years with Iain, and she would almost certainly feel the same indifference she felt for Gideon, Cordelia told herself stoically, ignoring the fact that she'd never felt for Gideon what she felt for Iain. Iain, who had kissed her last night as if—as if he did not want to stop kissing her. Iain, who had said he suspected no one could compare to Cordelia.

‘Which meant absolutely nothing more than that I am different from every other female,' she said to herself firmly. Which was most likely true, but not necessarily a good thing. Men did not want their wives to have a past. They did not want their wives to challenge them and upbraid them and they certainly didn't want them to be independent. Not that a wife could ever be independent. Not that she was thinking that she wanted to be Iain's wife, even if he did want her, which he didn't, and...

‘Devil take it, what is the point in thinking about any of this when I leave first thing tomorrow morning?'

* * *

She had been pacing the innermost courtyard of the palace, working her way round the colonnades which bordered it. At the corner of each was a fountain. Iain stood at the one diagonally opposite her. He was wearing a long dark blue tunic. It suited him, the silk caressing his lean frame, clinging to the long length of his legs. His feet were, like hers, clad in leather slippers. The colour of the tunic made his eyes seem even bluer, though that surely was not possible.

‘You look—you look as if you belong here,' Cordelia said, unable to take her eyes off him.

‘I like it here. I've just spent the last half-hour being beaten up by a ferocious man wearing only a towel.' Iain grinned. ‘I feel as though my bones have been broken and put back together. I could get used to this. Are you still worried about Celia?'

‘I don't want to talk about Celia.'

Iain crossed the courtyard. ‘I'm not much interested in her either right now, I confess. I'm not the only one who looks as if he belongs here. You look like you should be in a harem.'

‘They don't have harems here in A'Qadiz. Not the sort of places you imagine anyway. My sister would not tolerate it.'

‘I thought we'd agreed we weren't going to talk about your sister?' Iain ran his hand down her arm, shoulder to wrist. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but when I see you like this, I can understand why the men of this country used to lock their women out of sight. Have you anything on at all under this thing?'

She lifted the hem of her tunic, revealing the flimsy pantaloons, and heard his sharp intake of breath. ‘Dear God, Cordelia, I don't know how I'm supposed to keep my mind on what I need to say when you look like that.'

She knew then that she had been fooling herself. He had come to say goodbye, and she didn't think she could bear it, because it was suddenly, horribly and fatally apparent that the turmoil she was going through was love. It was the only thing that made sense. She had fallen in love with him.

‘What's wrong? You look as if you've been shot.'

Stabbed through the heart, more like. ‘Indigestion,' she said, though she had barely touched the food which had been served to her.

Iain was frowning. ‘Look, I know you've a lot on your mind. I was going to wait until you saw Celia—you see, there's no getting away from her, it seems—but I can't. You might be gone days. Weeks. I don't know how long you will be gone, and I know the timing is not right, but when would the timing ever be right for such a thing and...'

He was nervous. ‘You don't want to lie to Celia's husband. You're right. I shouldn't have asked you. It doesn't matter now anyway, you can tell him as soon as you meet him, since Celia will not be with him and...'

‘This is not about Celia or Celia's husband,' Iain interrupted. ‘I'm sick to the back teeth of talking of the pair of them, if you must know. Cordelia, ever since last night...'

‘I know. You need not fear, I did not take it seriously,' she said quickly. Her voice was pitched too high. She sounded odd. No wonder Iain was looking at her strangely.

‘Cordelia, would you just hold your tongue and let me speak? This is hard enough to say without you interrupting me. In fact, I wasn't going to say anything...'

‘Until I saw Celia.' Goodbye is what he was trying to say, and she didn't think she could bear it. ‘Don't say it, Iain, because—because...' If he didn't say it, then she could carry on pretending. But he had had enough of the lies. He had said so just today, she remembered, so the worst thing, the very worst thing she could do would be to tell him how she felt, and if she opened her mouth again, she was afraid that the words would come tumbling out. So there was only one thing to do.

‘I'll be leaving first thing in the morning,' Cordelia said. ‘And even though I am not really the type of woman to be taken in by the romance of the desert and the stars, to say nothing of a royal palace and a very, very attractive man, I cannot help thinking it would be a terrible shame to let such a rare combination go to waste. Look at us, Iain. We look as if we belong here. A desert prince and his concubine. Let us pretend, just for one night, one last night, that is what we are.'

‘I won't think of you as a concubine.'

‘A princess then.' He was still looking at her strangely. He still seemed as if he would persist in saying what she did not want to hear. So Cordelia twined her arms around him, and pressed her body against his. ‘Just for tonight Iain, let's not talk. Let's just enjoy what we have,' she whispered, and kissed him.

He surrendered to her with a low groan, kissing her back, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tight against him. He was hard. There was something extremely sensual about the slither of silk against his erection. She deliberately rubbed herself against him.

He swore, tearing his mouth away from hers. ‘Cordelia, if you carry on like that, I'll never remember what I came to say, let alone actually say it.'

‘Then don't.'

She pulled him back towards her, and kissed him again. His hands slipped on the silk of her tunic. Delightful, but it was getting in the way. She grabbed his wrist and tugged him towards the nearest of the rooms which lay cool behind the terrace. The bathing chamber. She was about to try another, softer room, when the low marble counter, similar to the one on which she had been massaged, caught her attention.

‘Take it off,' she said, tugging at his tunic, pulling her own over her head. The soft hiss of his breath expelling told her he liked what he saw, as she stood before him naked from the waist up, draped in perfectly translucent organza from the waist down. But tonight was not about what Iain could make her feel, it was about what she could do to him. This might be their last time. It might be the only time she could make love to him and love him. She was going to make sure he remembered it.

Lifting his tunic at the hem, she helped him ease it over his head. He was completely naked underneath, had already lost his slippers. She feasted her eyes on his body, on the lean, long lines of him, feeling herself heat, tighten, at the sight of his obvious arousal. She kissed him extravagantly, curling herself around him, pressing herself into him, her mouth clinging, her hands roaming, trying to memorise every inch of him, dragging her lips away only to lead him to the marble bench.

‘What are you doing?'

She smiled at him, the smile she knew he could not resist, the smile he called smouldering. ‘When in Rome,' she said, indicating that he should lie down. ‘Or rather, when in a harem.'

She picked up the bottle of oil from the shelf by the mirror and tipped some on to her hands before climbing up beside him, kneeling between his legs, to smooth the oil over him in one sweeping movement, from chest to belly, then back up. His skin glistened in the soft lamp light. His muscles clenched and rippled under the sliding palms of her hands. She picked up the bottle and smoothed on more oil, until he was sleek with it, and then she lay down on top of him, her breasts sliding over his chest, their skin clinging, sliding.