Society Weddings by Sharon Kendrick, Kate Walker Page A

in a low, urgent tone. ‘I think that you must be talking out of the back of your head—as you say in America—if you think that this matter can now be forgotten.’
    There was a steely determination underpinning his voicewhich made her regard him with wary eyes. ‘Just what do you mean by that, Rashid?’ she whispered.
    ‘I have taken your honour,’ he said simply. ‘Taken it in a way which grieves me bitterly to think of, and there is a price to be paid for that action.’
    A price to be paid. He made it sound as if she were a diamond on sale and up for the highest bidder! ‘Don’t be ridiculous—’
    ‘I am never ridiculous!’ he lashed back, and then drew a deep, laboured breath. ‘Jenna, you were always intended to be my bride, and that situation will still stand. For how can I send you home to your father, knowing what has happened between us?’
    ‘But he need never know!’ she protested, desperate now.
    There was an infinitesimal pause. ‘Not even if there is a baby on the way?’
    Her heart missed a beat. ‘A baby?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘A baby ?’
    ‘Well, of course there could be a baby!’ he exploded impatiently. ‘Did you not learn biology at school? I used no form of contraception—and I assume that, as a virgin, you were not protected either!’
    The repercussions of what they had just done began to seep into her consciousness, like blood falling onto a stone. And it hurt. ‘Do you normally go around taking the risk of impregnating a woman?’ she questioned huskily, but her hands were shaking as she imagined him with other women. ‘Don’t you ever take any responsibility for your lovemaking? Just exactly how many children have you sired—?’
    ‘Jenna!’ he thundered. ‘I have never, ever spilled my seed into a woman before today! The royal blood of Quador cannot be squandered in such a way!’
    ‘Then what was so different about this time?’
    A pulse beat relentlessly at his temple. This he could not answer—except to tell himself that he had been out of control in a way which was completely alien to him and had shown him a side of his nature he had not known existed.
    ‘I have no need to explain my actions to you, Jenna,’ hesaid softly, his eyes as hard and as bright as diamonds. ‘But I see no need why the marriage should not now go ahead, as planned.’
    ‘Couldn’t we just wait to see if there’s a baby on the way?’ she beseeched him, knowing in her heart that it was useless, for she recognised that steely determination of old. ‘And if there isn’t—then couldn’t we forget the whole thing?’
    He knitted his dark brows together in recognition of her sustained reluctance to be his bride. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We cannot.’
    ‘And if I refuse?’
    No one refused him anything. Ever. And whether he got what he wanted by negotiation or coercion—he always won in the end. ‘Perhaps you wish that I should inform your father of what has just occurred?’
    Warning bells threatened to deafen her, and all she could see was the cold ebony light gleaming from his eyes. ‘Rashid! You w-wouldn’t d-do that!’ she breathed.
    ‘Wouldn’t I?’ He smiled, but the smile sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Oh, I would, Jenna—believe me, I would.’ The eyes glittered again. ‘And what do you suspect your father would say if I told him?’
    Jenna flinched. She knew very well what he would say. And feel. For a Quador man, her father was remarkably in touch with his feelings. Unlike this beast of a lion who sat so mockingly before her now! He would be hurt and angry that she had lost her honour before her marriage. He would feel her to be compromised, as indeed she now was. Quador had such black and white views on a subject like this, she thought. Oh, why had she ever agreed to come back?
    ‘He would make me marry you,’ she said woodenly. ‘You know he would.’
    ‘Correction. He would be delighted for you to marry me. It was always what he