The Sheikh’s Disobedient Bride(45)
Pushing the pillow aside, she slid off the bed, dragged a dark outer robe over her delicate teal gown and left her room in search of food and drink.
She didn’t get far before a robed man noticed her. He didn’t stop her though. Nor speak to her. He watched her, then stepped back and she continued on, walking down one hall and stairs to another floor where she encountered another man—Tair’s guards?—and then another. Each time the men let her continue, none of them disturbing her, none of them saying a word, or giving her a look of reproof. Tally soon found out why.
Tair had been alerted—probably by the very first man she’d passed in the upper hallway—and was waiting for her downstairs.
“Running away?” he asked mildly.
“Hungry.” She shot him a swift glance. “Is that allowed, my lord?”
“Oh, if only that were the case.” He held out a hand, gestured for her to follow him. “But let me see if we can get someone to prepare something for you. Should only take a moment to wake one of the cooks.”
“I don’t want to wake the cooks—”
“Yet you’re hungry.”
“I know, but I can help myself. I like doing things myself.”
“I’m afraid our kitchens aren’t like yours in America. You’d find it difficult to get anything prepared.”
“How about simple tea and toast?”
“I’ll have the cook—”
“Forget it,” Tally sighed, turning away and pushing a hand through her hair, lifting it off the back of her neck. She was hot. Hungry. Grouchy. Tonight the heat hadn’t abated and she didn’t want Tair’s company and what she really wanted—was something comforting. Something that would calm her, relax her, make her feel like herself again.
“I’ll just go back to my room,” she said unenthusiastically, turning to retrace her steps and head back to her room on the third floor of the tower that wrapped around the mountain and gave expansive views of the desert valley beyond.
Tair fell into step beside her. “What’s wrong?”
She grimaced. “What do you think is wrong? I’m hot, and hungry—I’m not used to eating goat and goat and goat—and I’ve no books, and nothing to write with, and no camera to play with.” They were climbing the first staircase, their slippered feet silent on the worn stone steps. She lifted her hair off her neck again, exhaled a little, blowing the wisp of hair off her brow. “I’m bored. And trapped. And really really hot.”
Tair’s eyebrows lifted. “And you’re hot.”
“Yes.”
“Hungry and hot.”
“Yes.”
“And tired?”
“No. Not tired. Just bored.”
“Restless.”
“Exactly.” She paused on the second landing, her hand on the banister. “Tonight I just feel like a…” She glanced around, at the thick walls, and the iron bars on the lower windows. She shook her head. “A caged cat. And I hate feeling this way. I’ve spent too much time out—exploring—to feel comfortable all cooped up.”
His lips twisted and for the first time in days his expression was almost sympathetic; something had changed in him. “You sound like one of my men who has been here at Bur Juman too long.” His jaw shifted ruefully. “I have certain men who can only be here so long before they go stir-crazy.”
“Stir-crazy,” she echoed before shaking her head. “You know all the oddest expressions.”
“My English education.”
Tally lifted her head to search his face, trying to see past the wall he kept up, the wall that hid his thoughts and emotions from everyone around him. “You never talk about your education in England.”
“I know.” He gestured toward the next set of stairs. “Shall we?”
Resigned, Tally set up the next flight, torches flickering soft gold and orange light. She glanced at Tair once, and then again, wanting to push him for more information. She was fascinated by this side of him, the Western mother, the Western education, but he said so littleshe didn’t really know what he knew. How he felt. And that brought her back to the wall he maintained, the wall that kept him so mysterious as well as aloof.
Tally hated the wall. Hated it so much she vowed to break it down. She’d know him. She would. Even if it was the last thing she did.
On the third floor Tally turned toward her room when Tair’s hand touched the small of her back. “Not yet,” he said, his deep voice, so rough in the way he spoke his English, even deeper, rougher in the hollowed tunnels of the castle Tair called home. “I’ve something spectacular to show you.”