CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘EVERYTHING HERE IS unfamiliar to me. Your lifestyle, the customs, the language,’ Polly murmured quietly as they walked along the battlements past stationed guards to take advantage of the aerial views. ‘When you add you and a new marriage into that, it can occasionally be overwhelming.’

      That made remarkably good sense to Rashad, who had been braced to receive a quiet emotional outpouring of regrets and accusations. Relief rising uppermost, he squared his broad shoulders and breathed in deep. ‘I can understand that.’

      ‘And I’ve barely seen you since the day I agreed to marry you. I realise that with your schedule you had no choice but it made me feel insecure.’

      Rashad was downright impressed by what he was hearing, it never having occurred to him that a woman in a relationship with him could speak her mind so plainly and unemotionally. In silence he jerked his chin in acknowledgement of the second point.

      ‘Yesterday was a very challenging day for both of us.’ Polly’s voice shook a little when Rashad settled an arm to her back to steady her on the uneven stones beneath their feet, long fingers spreading against her spine to send a ridiculous little frisson of physical awareness travelling through her all too susceptible body.

      ‘It was...’

      ‘I’ve never been in a serious relationship before...’

      Rashad stopped dead. ‘Never?’ he questioned in disbelief. ‘But you are twenty-five years old.’

      Polly explained about her grandmother’s long, slow decline into full-blown dementia and the heavy cost that had extracted from her freedom while her sister was away at university. ‘So, if I’m a little inexperienced in relationships, you’ll have to make allowances on that score,’ she told him tautly.

      A frown line was slowly building between Rashad’s ebony brows. His fingers smoothed lightly up and down her spine as if to encourage her to keep on talking as he stared down at the top of her pale blonde head, far more engaged in what she was telling him than she would have believed.

      Polly could feel the heat of embarrassment rising into her cheeks in a wave. Gooseflesh was forming on her arms, the hairs at the back of her neck prickling while the warm hand at her spine had tensed and stilled. ‘And I think that may be why I sort of freaked out last night because I was a bit nervous...of course I was...and you hadn’t made me feel safe or special or anything really!’ Conscious her voice was rising in spite of her efforts to control it, Polly looked up at Rashad in dismay and discomfiture.

      And for the very first time, Rashad understood his bride without words and he felt like the biggest idiot ever born because he had been guilty of making sweeping assumptions without any grounds on which to do so. It had not once crossed his mind that Polly might be less experienced than he was. Indeed he had even worried just a little that he might not be adventurous enough or sophisticated enough to please her. With a sidewise glance at the guards studiously staring out at the desert and the beach, Rashad bent down, scooped his surprised bride up into his arms and carried her indoors. Doors were helpfully wrenched open ahead of him by the staff as he strode back to their bedroom.

      ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Polly exclaimed when he had finally tumbled her down in a heap on the giant bed in which she had slept alone the night before.

      ‘Giving us privacy,’ Rashad advanced with a sudden smile of amusement that sent her heart racing. ‘I don’t wish to offend you but I had made the assumption that you would have enjoyed at least a few lovers before me—’

      ‘And why the heck would you assume that?’ Polly demanded with spirit.

      ‘Your values are more liberal. Here, although young adults now tend to choose their own partners, it is still the norm for women to be virgins when they marry. That would be more unusual in your society.’

      ‘I suppose so,’ Polly conceded reluctantly because she knew her sister fell into the same ‘unusual’ category, Ellie having admitted that she had yet to meet a man who could tempt her into wanting to cross that sexual boundary. ‘But my sister and I were both brought up in a very strict home. My grandmother believed that both I and Ellie were illegitimate and until she fell ill she policed our every move because she was afraid that we would repeat what she saw as our mother’s mistakes and come home pregnant and unmarried.’

      ‘I know very little about your background.’ Rashad settled fluidly down on the edge of the bed in a relaxed movement. ‘Even your grandfather warned me against having unrealistic expectations of you—’

      Polly flushed scarlet. ‘My...grandfather? Please tell me you’re joking—’

      ‘There was no discussion, Polly, but I guessed what he meant. He merely wished to protect you from the risk of me being naïve in that line. I am not naïve,’ Rashad completed with wry emphasis. ‘But Hakim and I have naturally never discussed anything that intimate, so he could have formed no idea of my attitude in advance.’

      In receipt of that explanation, her mortification ebbed. It was evident that her grandparents had made the same assumption and she couldn’t find it in her heart to fault her grandfather for trying to shield her from the threat of Rashad’s disappointment.

      ‘You’re not that old-fashioned,’ she commented with a helpless little giggle. ‘But obviously Grandad is.’

      ‘I spent several years studying at Oxford University and that was an enlightening experience being a mature student,’ he told her wryly.

      ‘Must’ve been,’ Polly conceded, picturing Rashad with his film-star good looks and wealth let loose to enjoy a student’s freedom. ‘Was that after your wife passed away?’

      His lean, strong face tensed. ‘Of course. I could not have left her behind here to be oppressed by her father.’

      Polly