'Dress?' she offered, lippy to the last. Except that the word didn't come out quite as she'd intended, but thick and throaty. More to avoid those eyes than because she was interested in his choice of transport, Violet looked past him.
A black Rolls-Royce was parked at the kerb. The little green and gold flag on the bonnet stirred in the breeze.
She barely stopped herself from letting slip an expression that would have brought her a rebuke from her grandma.
Her breathless, 'Who are you?' wasn't a whole heap better.
'If your story is true, Miss Hamilton, then your great-great-grandmother, Princess Fatima al Sayyid, was once married to my great-great-grandfather.'
At which point she did let slip a word that she used only under the most extreme pressure.
She would have been embarrassed about that, but a scream from rear of the house-Sarah's scream- obliterated the sound.
CHAPTER THREE
Violet didn't stop to consider what might have prompted the scream. All she could think was that Sarah was in trouble. But as she turned to rush to her aid, Fayad al Kuwani caught her arm, held her.
'Who is that?' he demanded. 'I understood you lived alone.'
'My neighbour. She's pregnant…' she said, shaking him off, leaving him with nothing but a handful of bathrobe. For a minute she didn't think he was going to let go, but even when it slid from her shoulder, exposing more of her than any man had ever seen, she didn't stop. She'd have run naked into hell for Sarah, and he must have realised that because before that happened he released her, uttering a muffled oath.
It wasn't in English, and she didn't wait for him to translate, but pulled her robe tightly back in place and raced down the hall.
She burst through the kitchen door to find Sarah, still clutching the newspaper she'd brought for Violet, standing on her doorstep. A man, stocking-masked, had his arm around her throat.