Radeem, who had stopped in mid-sentence when Bashea entered, gulped and bent down to whisper in Tahj’s ear. “Bet you won’t be complaining any more about the money I spent. Worth every damn Abba.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Faraz was the first to recover his voice; he went over to offer Bashea his arm. She placed hers gracefully on top of his, her palm flat against the back of his hand, as he led her to the table, but Bashea’s eyes never left Tahj’s. She was vaguely aware she should be listening to whatever it was her host was saying at her elbow, but she had become lost in Tahj’s gaze, her blood humming through her veins.
Bashea felt a bubbling up inside, a strange warmth that seemed to come from her toes and spread upward and outward. For the first time in days she didn’t feel scared, or angry, or confused. She suddenly understood the humor of the situation she found herself in, faking an engagement to a prince she barely knew, while his clown of a captain was strutting around like a peacock, three women throwing themselves at him in front of the proud eyes of their doting father. It was all so wonderfully odd and off-kilter, and somehow she found herself grateful to be sharing it with Tahj.
The others started their animated chatter again. “You look lovely,” Tahj told her quietly.
“Thank you,” she returned, her face growing suddenly hot underneath the veil.
Food was brought to them in mounds—exotic fruits, spicy meat, and heavy breads—and as they ate, Faraz entertained them with stories about his daughters. After the meal, they pushed the tables back and the three girls danced in front of the fire while their father played the nay. The music the small, wooden flute made was slow and sensual, and the dance was perfectly synchronized, as the trio had been dancing with each other their whole lives.
Tahj and Bashea and Radeem reclined on satin pillows, which were brought out and thrown on the floor for their comfort, and watched with rapt attention. When the dance was finished, the girls collapsed breathlessly on the floor in front of Radeem while they all applauded. Soon after, Faraz brought out a sitar and small cymbals, and Etti and Dariya accompanied their father in a more frolicsome tune. Jessmyn pulled a laughing Radeem to his feet and cavorted around the room with him.
Bashea laughed, too, a little lightheaded from the strong drink her host had served. Radeem, noticing how amused she was, grabbed Bashea’s hands in turn, and forced her to dance along with him. Feeling carefree, Bashea spun with Radeem and then swirled around him, the alcohol loosening her hips as she shimmied closer and closer. On a whim, she took the scarf from her shoulders and wrapped him up in it, holding the two ends as if making him her prisoner.
Bashea was spinning and laughing with her head thrown back. Her eyes searched for Tahj, wanting to share her moment of joy with him and perhaps get him to dance, but he was no longer on the pillows. She completed her turn, still searching for him, when she spotted him on the makeshift dance floor, Jessmyn in his arms. As Bashea watched, the young dancer began to twirl around him, trailing her fingers along his chest as if in invitation. Radeem’s head blocked her view, and she strained to see around him. Jessmyn took Tahj’s hand and placed it on the small of her back and then bent away from him beguilingly so her hair nearly trailed the ground. Bashea’s mouth fell open as Jessmyn sinuously straightened until she was hip-to-hip with Tahj, their faces inches from each other.
Bashea stopped dancing so abruptly she nearly stumbled, her momentum making her dizzy. The smile that had lit her face moments before fell away, and the warmth she’d felt welling inside her turned to an instant inferno. Her eyes snapped with fire. Blindly, she left the dance floor, intending to storm off to her room, if only Faraz hadn’t stepped in her way.
The older man seemed to have noticed Bashea’s reaction, the sudden heat in her eyes followed by the icy frost, and called for an end to the dancing. “Come, Bashea. Sit by me, please. I would like to talk with you.”
Feeling it rude to do otherwise, Bashea sat rigidly on her cushion near her host as his daughter brought more drinks, constantly keeping Bashea’s cup full of a sweet, heavy liquor that made her drowsy.
“You will forgive me, I hope, my dear,” Faraz said, taking her hand gently. “But you remind me so much of my beloved, Talia.” Bashea noticed how his face and voice softened when he said the name. “She died over five years ago, when Jessmyn was just eleven,” he continued sadly. “I’ve tried to do my best by my girls, but I certainly lack a woman’s grace and good sense.”
Bashea was overwhelmed with compassion, the tears in her eyes a testimony to it. “That’s not true. Your girls are lovely, and they seem happy and completely devoted to you. It can’t be easy raising a family alone.”
“It’s not,” he conceded.
Bashea studied her hands as they separated the strands of a tassel on the corner of one of the pillows she lay on. “My mother died when I was ten,” she said softly. “It was me, my two sisters, and five brothers. My father raised us by himself. It was a struggle for all of us.” She peered into Faraz’s eyes with understanding.
Her host paused, something weighing on his mind. “Did he ever remarry?”
“No. She was his one true love, I believe.”
“I’ve often thought, maybe I should have remarried, for the girls’ sakes.” He glanced over at where they were puddled in front of Radeem, feeding the captain grapes and talking to him blithely.
Bashea followed his gaze. “We all must choose our own paths,” she said lightly. She reached out to squeeze his hand. “But you have raised three fine, strong young women with good hearts, my father. Who could ask for more?”
He regarded Bashea, his eyes soft, and touched her face. “Ahh” he sighed. “You remind me so much of Talia.”
“How did you two meet?” Bashea asked hesitantly, not sure if it would please him to share or make him sad.
To her surprise, he laughed. “My cousin, Jobar, had eyes for my Talia. But once I saw her, I knew. I just knew.” He paused for a minute, reflecting with a sad smile on his face. “So I challenged him to an arm wrestling match for the right to court Talia.” He laughed jovially, his big stomach bouncing. “And I won.”
“You arm-wrestled for your bride?” Bashea asked laughingly.
“Yes.” He snickered. “It was the only time I beat the thug.”
“You must have been inspired.”
“I was. I wasn’t about to lose that match to him, I’ll tell you that.”
“Ummm.” Bashea covered her mouth as she yawned. “I’m sorry, you’ve been a most gracious host, but whatever it is your daughters keep giving me,” she noted, looking down into her now-empty cup, “is making me terribly tired, and I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Faraz rose and helped Bashea to her feet. “Then it is off to bed with you.” He held her hands and kissed them in turn. “And the sweetest of slumbers.”
“Thank you.” She bent in to give him a kiss on the cheek, and was moved when she noticed the way this touched him.
Faraz squeezed her hands. “Thank you, for setting my heart at ease.” She nodded. “Pravin, your bride is tired,” he said with a wink. Tahj scrambled to his feet.
Radeem sighed, turning to the girls at his feet. “I think it is time for bed for me, too.” He tapped Dariya and Etti on the cheeks. “The door,” he whispered loudly, “will be unlocked.”
* * *
When they entered the bedroom, Bashea immediately took off her headband and set it on the mantle. Tahj leaned against the door, watching her and thinking of—and discarding—a thousand things to say to her.
“You will take the bed,” he said abruptly.
She turned in surprise. “But you are the prince.”
“I am the prince, and you will take the bed,” he repeated sternly.
She leaned against the carved bedpost, her hands behind her back, studying him. A slow smile crossed her face. “You certainly use that prince thing when it suits you.”
Tahj smiled back. “I do.” He moved past her, p
ulling a straw-backed chair out from the wall and angling it toward the fire, which someone must have lit for them. He sat down, propping his feet up on a tiny woven ottoman, leaning back a little so he rested against the head of the bed. He folded his arms behind his head. “You enjoyed yourself?” he said with just the slightest edge to his voice.
Her smile dimmed. She turned away from him. “As did you, I suppose?”
He observed as her slender hands undid the belt of coins at her waist and laid it across the foot of the bed, his eyes traveling her slender form with a desire he longed not to possess. She bent to unstrap the sandals, which crisscrossed up her calves, and he pretended to not notice how deliciously curved those calves were.
Then, with a suddenness which made him chuckle, she flopped down on her back onto the bed, her head landing a foot from his elbow. He came to the conclusion then and there she was tipsy. One delicate arm hung off the bed, almost touching his knee, a wide, intricate bracelet wrapped snugly around her upper arm. He laughed to himself, but sat back and closed his eyes, his sleepless night combined with his own alcohol intake making his eyelids heavy.
In what seemed like only a few minutes, he became aware of her steady breathing beside him. He opened his eyes to look at her. Quietly he let the front legs of his chair come down again to the floor and stood to get a better view. The arm farthest from him lay flopped over her stomach, but her near arm was now carelessly tossed over her head. Her lips were parted, cheeks rosy, whether from the wine or the dancing, he didn’t know. Her hair was splayed every which way, and she was the single most beautiful woman he had ever known.
It wasn’t just the physical beauty, he knew now. She had a certain inner light, the strength he saw when they battled their way out of the castle, the compassion he saw in her eyes when she spoke to Faraz about his wife. “You are some woman, Bashea,” he whispered, wanting again to just touch her face, if only briefly.
He flashed back to the moment she had entered the kitchen for dinner. He had admired the alluring way she set one foot purposefully in front of the other as she approached the table across from him, and he caught the moment her eyes changed from spellbindingly intense to tenderly warm. He knew she had begun to smile underneath her veil, though he could not see it, by the way her cheeks lifted and the light danced in her eyes, pleased and perhaps even amused by his reaction to her entrance.
When the dancing began later, Tahj watched the lively entertainment merrily, at first laughing as Bashea did. But when Radeem began to dance with Bashea, his laughter faded and was replaced with a sort of sick feeling in his stomach. At the beginning, when Bashea whirled about, a blur of white and gold, and tan skin, he was captivated, barely able to breathe. But when she wrapped her scarf around Radeem and seemed to be dancing only for him, he quickly sobered, remembering the intimate moment he’d witnessed between them that morning. He felt like he had been punched in the gut.
When she talked to Faraz, after dancing, Tahj watched her face in the firelight. Like a sunset, each instant it was more beautiful than the next.
In frustration, Tahj turned back to face the fire. None of it really mattered. Clearly she was attracted to Radeem and had no interest in him, so it was better if he just learned to deal with that right from the start and quit letting his heart have these little flights of fancy. He pushed thoughts of her from his mind and sat down again, but he couldn’t sleep. He watched the fire burn down, the embers turning into that lava-like, red-gold glow, pieces breaking off and spilling onto the hearth. He got up again, restless, and kicked at the pieces of log which had fallen farthest from the fire, pushing them back into the stone fireplace.
“Tahj?” Bashea murmured.
Surprised, he spun to look at her. She had a dreamy sort of smile on her face but her eyes were still closed. Finding his voice, he answered her. “Yes?”
“Do you…find Faraz’s daughters…pretty?”
Tahj believed she was asking out of jealousy for Radeem and so answered spitefully, “Yes. They are stunning, actually.”
Without another word, she roughly twisted her body with a loud exhale of breath so her back was to him. She was mad then. Good. Just then, the low murmur of Radeem’s voice came through the wall, coupled with at least two of the girls’ giggles.
“Oh, heaven’s mercy!” Bashea threw the pillow over her head. Tahj heard her muffled scream of rage and took a certain sick satisfaction in it. He returned to his chair, but what sleep did come was short and riddled with nightmares.
CHAPTER NINE
Somewhere in the middle of the night, Tahj woke with a start knowing something was wrong. He jumped to his feet and was alarmed to see the bed was empty. Cursing, he grabbed his sword from where he had hooked it over the back of his chair, jerking it from its scabbard, and marched out into the main room. It was dark except for the red glow of the dying fire.
“Bashea?” he whispered loudly. Getting no response, he peered into all the corners of the room to see if some shadow had swallowed her, but found he was alone.
He grabbed a candle from the mantle and bent to press its wick to the hottest part of the fire. After a few seconds he was rewarded when it burst into flame. He turned from the fire and clomped in the direction of the front bedroom, which was Radeem’s. The door creaked as it opened, and the light fanned out to reveal the sleeping form of his captain with one girl slung over his chest, completely nude, from what Tahj could tell, the other two, in various stages of undress, within his outstretched arms on either side of him. Radeem had his hand on the naked hip of one—Tahj couldn’t say for sure who it was in the dark—and the opposite arm curled around another’s breasts as they were pressed against his far side.
Feeling like a voyeur, Tahj quickly closed the door. He felt a draft and turned to find the front door slightly ajar. “Oh, no, Bashea, you didn’t.” He stepped outside and immediately heard her piercing scream coming from somewhere in the forest behind the house. Tahj blew out the candle and dropped it at his feet; it was lighter outside with a three-quarter moon shining down. He tore off around the side of the house, calling out her name.
Again a shriek ripped through the air, followed by the all-too-familiar feline wail of a wild cat. Panicked now, Tahj ran forward, attempting to pinpoint the location the cries came from. Clumsily, he tried to draw his sword as its scabbard banged against his thigh, stumbling every now and then over tree roots and vines as he ran. After about twenty seconds he tripped into a clearing and saw Bashea several yards away, outlined by the moon as she swung a large branch threateningly in front of a pacing panther.
As Tahj watched, the panther sprang. With a mighty swing Bashea clubbed it, sending it flying back several feet. But the branch broke on impact, causing Bashea to lose her balance and tumble to the ground not far from the injured cat. It was evident by the yowl which issued from the animal’s throat Bashea had inflicted some major damage, but, at the same time, it was clear the panther wasn’t done with her yet.
Bashea searched frantically on the ground for another stick as the animal rose slowly to its feet. Tahj ran forward and Bashea, catching his motion, glanced in that direction just as the animal leapt. But before the cat could land on her, claws extended and teeth ready to rip her apart, Bashea’s quick reflexes had her rolling out of the way. The cat took a swipe at her but missed and was about to advance when Tahj came running, yelling to distract it. The panther took one look at Tahj, flailing and screaming, and took off into the brush, leaving Bashea quaking on the forest floor.
Tahj fell to his knees beside her. “Are you all right? Are you all right?”
“Y-yes,” she said, her voice trembling.
When he saw she had all her limbs attached, Tahj’s adrenaline suddenly turned to rage. “What, in the name of all that is good, were you doing out here? Huh?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Her hands shook uncontrollably as she held them in front of her face.
Tahj stood and paced in front of her. “You c
ould have been killed, Bashea! Has it really been that bad with Radeem and me you had to run away? We were going to take you home for goodness’ sake.”
“Home?” she suddenly screamed, her voice rising hysterically. She lifted her tearstained face to him. “Home? Do you really think I have a home, Tahj?”
“What?”
“They don’t welcome women home who have been used by Avistad men, Prince Tahj,” she said through gritted teeth.
Forgetting himself, Tahj responded, “What? I never touched you.”
“Did you really think they brought you a virgin?” she exploded. “That they wouldn’t have their way with me first?” Her voice caught as she stared into his shocked eyes. “Oh! I didn’t just say that!” She collapsed in a heap, her earlier fright turning to horror and humiliation. “Oh, why did I say that?” she mourned.
“Bashea?” Tahj knelt again and put a hand on her back.
“Don’t!” She threw back her head with a jerk. “Don’t touch me!” Her words echoed in the night. Bashea focused on his eyes and rose, unsteadily, to her feet. “Don’t pity me, Tahj! Don’t you pity me!” She spun around and leaned with one hand against the tree, the other wrapped around her middle as she was again wracked with sobs.
Tahj stood dumbfounded, wondering what to do. He wanted to sweep Bashea up into his arms, but he was afraid to touch her again. He circled around her, trying desperately to come up with something to say to comfort her. He reached out to touch her again but she batted his hand away.
“Don’t, please,” she said more weakly.
Taken by Storm (ROMANTIC REALMS COLLECTION) Page 7