The prospect unnerved Elinor and she looked up at him again and froze at the hungry light in his measuring gaze before hurriedly glancing down at her coffee again. Shock decimated her appetite for her toast, while her tummy performed an enervating series of little somersaults. His close scrutiny might suggest that he found her attractive, but she could not believe that a prince could have developed a personal interest in her and scolded herself for letting her imagination take flight. Perhaps he was more like his kindly brother than she had appreciated and was simply keen to smooth over the unpleasantness of their first encounter.
Ahmed secured Zahrah in a child’s seat in the back of a glossy black Range Rover. Elinor climbed into the passenger seat and watched Jasim stroll round the bonnet. Even with his black hair tousled by the breeze he was as strikingly sleek and beautiful as a bronzed angel. She met his eyes through the windscreen and suddenly she was wildly, hopelessly aware of her own body. Her full breasts felt constrained inside her bra and an odd little clenching sensation low in her pelvis made her shift uneasily in her seat. She was shocked, for she hadn’t realised that being drawn to a man could be such a physical experience, that her body could feel as if it were all revved up for a race. Mortified colour mantled her cheeks. A lean brown long-fingered hand as wondrously well-proportioned as the rest of him depressed the handbrake and the engine fired.
‘Are you fond of horses?’ Jasim enquired.
‘I’ve been mad about them since I was a kid,’ Elinor confessed with a rueful laugh. ‘I started riding lessons at the same age as Zahrah. A neighbour kept stables and I used to go there and help out after school.’
‘Have you ever had a horse of your own?’
Elinor tensed and her face fell. ‘Yes, from the age of nine to fourteen. My father sold her then. He thought the time I spent with Starlight was interfering with my studies—’
‘You must’ve been upset.’
‘I was devastated.’ Elinor folded her lips, unable to find adequate words to explain just how shattering a blow that sudden loss had been to her. Her father had not even warned her of his intentions and she had not got the chance to say goodbye to the horse she’d loved. Starlight had also been her last link with her late mother and her only real friend, the one element in her wretchedly unhappy teen years that had kept her going through thick and thin. ‘But she was still a young horse and I’m sure she went to some other girl to be absolutely adored all over again.’
‘It sounds as though your father was very strict,’ Jasim remarked, keen to extract more information from her. He was not at all surprised that the very first thing she should tell him should be a sob story guaranteed to paint her in a sympathetic light.
‘Too strict. After that, I wasn’t allowed any interests at all outside school. It was a relief to leave home,’ Elinor admitted ruefully, thinking of the release of no longer having to live daily with constant wounding criticism and reproaches for her unacceptable exam results. Although greater maturity had enabled her to appreciate that she had simply been an average student rather than a completely stupid one, her father had made her feel like a hopeless failure at the tender age of sixteen years and her selfesteem had still to recover from his abrasive style of parenting.
Jasim’s sculpted sensual mouth tightened as once again she confirmed his suspicions about her true nature. He recalled the widening invitation of her expressive and artful eyes as she met his gaze, the revealingly taut points of her nipples that were currently showing through her T-shirt. She was certainly very responsive and he found her inability to conceal her reaction to him very, very sexy.
A decent parent, however, would naturally have sought to impose restrictions on so free-spirited a daughter, he reasoned, expecting to feel disgusted at the mounting proof of her probable promiscuity. Instead he tensed at the heavy arousal stirring at his groin and cursed the ready sexual heat that afflicted him in Elinor Tempest’s company. Only sexual satisfaction would take care of that problem and he had no intention of practising patience, nor even the suspicion that patience would prove necessary. Mindful of his niece’s presence, he concentrated on not thinking about how thoroughly Elinor would be persuaded to ease the demands of his high-voltage sex drive.
‘I’ll give you a tour of the stud farm,’ Jasim drawled.
As they were early for Zahrah’s lesson, Elinor made no protest and indeed her interest quickened at the prospect of a special viewing in the owner’s company, because although she often visited the stables to ride she had stayed away from the stud. It was a large impressive operation housed in immaculately maintained buildings, complete with all-weather gallops and paddocks, and it was heavily staffed. The manager hurried out of the office to greet Jasim. The resident vet and other senior staff soon joined them. Keen though she was on horses, the dialogue soon ranged beyond Elinor’s knowledge with talk of racing prospects and recent wins on the turf. Some way through it, she left to check that Zahrah’s horse was saddled up. The little girl’s instructor arrived soon afterwards.
‘Will you be taking Amaranth out?’ the groom asked Elinor the
n.
‘Yes, please.’ A huge smile on her face, Elinor went to greet the big brown gelding impatiently shifting in his box as he recognised the sound of her voice. She petted him and led him out. It had taken a month of regular visits for the head groom to trust her with the more lively mounts. The freedom to ride pretty much whenever she liked and without cost was yet another good reason why she wanted to hang on to her job.
In the midst of trying to disengage from his staff, Jasim saw her ride out and his ebony brows shot up. ‘You let the nanny ride Amaranth?’ he demanded in a tone of censure.
‘Elinor is well able to control him, Your Highness,’ the head groom responded. ‘She’s a terrific rider.’
At that moment Jasim received the perfect opportunity to see that truth for himself as she spurred the spirited gelding towards a fence, soaring over it with a grace and ease that impressed even him.
Elinor heard the thump of pursuing hooves and turned her head. On the back of his powerful black stallion, Mercury, Jasim was catching up on her fast. Her chin came up and she urged Amaranth on in a flatout race across the lush rolling acres of parkland that made Woodrow Court such a paradise for a horse lover.
Jasim was stunned that she had the nerve to challenge him, for he had expected her to come to a halt and wait for him. He rarely rode in female company because women tended to cling to him like superglue and chatter and flirt continually, behaviour that interfered with his relaxation. In comparison, Elinor gave him the opportunity to chase her and he appreciated that her control of her mount and her skill were worthy of his respect.
Amaranth ran out of steam by the lake and Elinor reined him in and dismounted below some trees. Jasim was talking on a cell phone as he rode up on Mercury. He slid down to the ground with effortless grace and watched her remove her riding cap, releasing the piled up mass of her hair in a silken tangle of luxuriance and stretching in a movement that delineated every curve and ensured that her generous little breasts strained beneath her T-shirt. Although he was convinced it was a deliberate move to attract his attention to her body, that cheap little trick still worked on him. Indeed desire knifed through him, making him hot and hard within seconds. Conscious of the reality that the breeches would conceal nothing, he peeled off his cap and strode over to the edge of the lake, willing the tumult of his rampant hormones back under control. He was furious and knocked off balance by a loss of self-discipline that he had not experienced since the years of adolescence.
Elinor looked across the lake and rejoiced in the early summer lushness and the natural beauty of her surroundings. Although she sometimes felt isolated at Woodrow, she had no desire to exchange the countryside and the sense of well-being it gave her for the noise and buzz of the city.
‘You’re an excellent rider,’ Jasim murmured levelly.
Helpless amusement sparkled in her green eyes as she sensed that she had irritated him. ‘You’d have beaten me hollow on Mercury if I hadn’t had such a head start.’
His keen attention was welded to her. He wasn’t used to being teased and he was so bone-deep competitive that he was accustomed to coming first in every field of his busy life. Even his best friend could not have called him a good loser. Yet confronted by the captivating mixture of mischief and artless innocence that momentarily shone in her smile, his exasperation vanished. He was seeing, he told himself harshly, what his brother had to see in her. Even though it was undoubtedly a fake front put on to attract, it was also indisputably effective when a guy as cynical as he was about women started questioning his view of her.
Her skin warming below the intensity of his stare, Elinor drank in the fresh air and decided that being alone with Jasim in such circumstances was likely to cause the kind of talk that would only damage her standing in an old-fashioned household. ‘I’d better get back. Zahrah’s lesson will be over soon.’
‘Her nurse is coming down from the house to collect her. I’ve ordered refreshments for us…ah, there they are now.’
Her lower lip had fallen away from the upper as she turned to follow his gaze and saw an estate Land Rover trundling towards them across the grass. ‘You ordered refreshments for us…to be served out here?’