The Wedding Game(69)

*





EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT

Prince Rafiq must save his desert kingdom’s pride in a prestigious horse race. But he’s shocked when his new equine expert is introduced…as Miss Stephanie Darvill!

Read on for a sneak preview of





THE HARLOT AND THE SHEIKH


by Marguerite Kaye

Prince Rafiq could be wearing tattered rags, and still she would have been in no doubt of his status. It was in his eyes. Not arrogance but a sense of assurance, of entitlement, a confidence that he was master of all he surveyed. And it was there in his stance too, in the set of his shoulders, the powerful lines of his physique. Belatedly garnering the power to move, Stephanie dropped into a deep curtsy.

‘Arise.’

She did as he asked, acutely conscious of her disheveled appearance, dusty clothes, and a face most likely liberally speckled with sand. Those hooded eyes traveled over her person, surveying her from head to foot with a dispassionate, inscrutable expression.

‘Who are you, and why are you here?’ Prince Rafiq asked, when the silence had begun to stretch her nerves to breaking point. He spoke in English, softly accented but perfectly pronounced.

Distracted by the unsettling effect he was having on her while at the same time acutely aware of the need to impress him, Stephanie clasped her hands behind her back and forced herself to meet his eyes, answering in his own language. ‘I am here at your invitation, Your Highness.’

‘I issued no invitation to you, madam.’

‘Perhaps this will help clarify matters,’ Stephanie said, handing him her papers.

The Prince glanced at the document briefly. ‘This is a royal warrant, issued by myself to Richard Darvill, the renowned Veterinary Surgeon attached to the Seventh Hussars. How do you come to have it in your possession?’

Stephanie knitted her fingers more tightly together, as if doing so would stop her legs from trembling. ‘I am Stephanie Darvill, his daughter and assistant. My father could not, in all conscience, abandon his regiment with Napoleon on the loose and our army expected to go into battle at any moment.’

‘And so he saw fit to send his daughter in his place?’

The Prince sounded almost as incredulous as she had been, when Papa suggested this as the perfect solution to her predicament. The enormity of the trust her father had placed in her struck her afresh. She would not let him down. Not again.

Don’t Miss