‘Or were you thinking that it is Christmas Eve and you are far from home? No snow, no holly, no roaring log fires, no stocking,’ he teased, rather unfeelingly, she felt, for she was hopelessly sentimental about Christmas.
‘I’m a little old for a stocking,’ she muttered repressively.
‘I suppose you are.’ Raschid flashed her a slow smile. ‘I almost forgot—we have visitors.’
‘Visitors?’ Polly exclaimed in dismay.
He gripped her hand when she would have parted from him in the hall. ‘You will do very nicely as you are.’
As he guided her determinedly into the salon, she faltered in her steps several feet into the room. Her dazed scrutiny climbed the height of an eight-foot pine tree shimmering with starry lights and glittering baubles. The carpet beneath was heaped with gaily wrapped parcels. Somewhere in the background the strains of ‘Deck the Halls,’ erupted loudly.
Strong arms encircled her from behind. ‘Have I only made you homesick? I would have invited your family, but your father is not fit enough to travel yet.’
Her eyes filled and she swallowed thickly. ‘You did this for me?’
Raschid turned her round. ‘It is a small thing if it makes you happy.’
The pleasure of having overwhelmed her showed in his eyes alone. His head descended in slow motion and she stretched up instinctively for his lips to encircle hers, something vague about visitors receding into her subconscious as wildfire raced through her veins. He lifted his head, still holding her close. ‘I love you,’ he whispered half under his breath.
She didn’t look up. She didn’t believe him. She wished he had kept quiet, although it was herself that she ought to blame. By thoughtlessly hurling her love at him, she had made him uncomfortable, she had made him feel that he had to respond. And with such conviction he did it too, she reflected, torn between pain and amusement. He dropped it in a constrained, unsophisticated aside. He didn’t lie very well.
Somebody coughed noisily. Raschid jerked back from her.
‘Would you like us to go out and come in again?’ Asif grinned from the doorway with Chassa by his side. ‘Then again, I’m not that easily shocked.’
Chassa smiled at Polly’s astonishment. ‘I hope that you don’t mind that we’ve invited ourselves to Christmas lunch?’
‘How could she? We brought it with us, along with a Swiss chef. Airsick, by the way. Just as well he has got until tomorrow to get his act together,’ Asif laughed. ‘Chassa dressed the tree. Have you any idea how much trouble it was to transport that tree out here?’
Warmly embracing Polly, Chassa whispered, ‘Don’t listen to him. Raschid arranged it all, and we have had a lot of fun helping him to surprise you.’
It was a wonderful evening. Delighted by the efforts Raschid had made on her behalf, Polly felt her pleasure was increased by the awareness that she really was accepted as a part of his family. Chassa bubbled with an effervescence which Polly would never have associated with her a brief five weeks ago. She was a different woman, while Asif, once he had finished showing off, seemed curiously quieter. But whatever had strained their marriage had clearly been dealt with and set behind them. Chassa glowed with the confidence of a woman who knew she was loved.
When the other couple left them alone at midnight Polly could no longer resist the heaps of presents. Raschid had even arranged for her family’s gifts to be collected in London and flown out. By one o’clock she was in a welter of torn wrapping paper under his indulgent eye, dazed by the extravagance of all that he had bought her and hard put to it to understand how he had contrived to do so with only a telephone at his disposal.
‘All I’ve got for you is an anthology of poetry, and it’s not even wrapped,’ she confided shakily. ‘I wasn’t sure if I was even going to give it to you. I thought you might think I was being silly.’
Laughing, he gathered her up in his arms. ‘You are my Christmas present, but if you are about to start crying again I shall leave you under the tree!’
‘I’m so happy,’ she sniffed, and it hit her then, a piercing, frightening arrow of foreboding as if she was offending some jealous fate by daring to be so happy. ‘I don’t think I ever want to leave here.’
The stark fear in her eyes had covertly engaged his attention, to etch a faint frown line between his brows. ‘What is really wrong, Polly?’ he asked.
‘Wrong?’ she gulped, staving off that horrible feeling that had briefly attacked her and knowing that she was being ridiculous to pay heed to it. Tensely she laughed. ‘I was just trying to work out where I’ll ever wear all that jewellery!’
‘There is a State banquet next month and there is Paris next week,’ Raschid murmured into her hair. ‘But that was not really what was worrying you, was it?’
Cursing his perception, she buried her face in his shoulder. ‘I can’t help wondering how Dad will bear up to a festive season without parties,’ she lied. ‘I hope he’ll be sensible.’
‘I’m sure he will be. We’ll find time to visit again soon,’ he promised, his tone ever so slightly cool. But Polly didn’t notice. She was thinking what a silly fool she would be to let insecurity plague her, and she looked up at him with a bright smile.
Mr Soames cleared his throat. ‘Haven’t you suspected the cause for yourself, Your Highness? You’re pregnant.’ Taking her pulse, his examination complete, he missed the arrested paralysis of her face. ‘I would say ten to twelve weeks, and…’
‘I can’t be…I can’t be pregnant! It’s just not possible!’ Her interruption was a strangled squeak.
His beetling brows rose in concert. ‘There’s no room for doubt, Your Highness. Your condition is too well advanced.’
The intermittent nausea which had bothered her and then vanished came to mind…her disappearing waist. She gulped, welded visually to the older man’s cool professional confidence. ‘Honestly? I mean…I really am?’
The poor man probably wondered if she required a long-overdue chat about the birds and the bees. He had no idea why his announcement should reduce her to dazed incoherency. She drifted out of the rigidity of deep shock on to a euphoric plane and nodded like a vacant marionette while Mr Soames gave forth about sensible diet and regular rest and the excellence of Chassa’s obstetrician. She didn’t hear a word. Under the sheet her hands slunk covertly over her stomach. The hows, whys and wherefores could not preoccupy her. Somebody had made a mistake. Or whatever had been amiss had miraculously come right. Polly was in no mood to question a miracle.