by Lara Temple
‘It would be foolishness to harm me, nadab. If you know aught of my master, you should know he possesses a great deal of influence here. He could have you thrown into one of our prisons. You would not like it, I assure you.’
‘Don’t waste your time threatening me, al-Mizan. You would have an easier time of it if you killed me outright rather than trying to put me in a local gaol. But having failed in that endeavour I suggest you pass along a message to your master. My only interest is in returning Mr Osbourne to England. I have no interest in stolen goods and neither does he. All I want is the man, on a ship.’
‘Why? Of what value is he to you?’
‘I could ask the same of you.’
‘I told you...’
‘You told me a tall tale about some family bible. Now we have each other’s measure, al-Mizan, you know I don’t believe that. Tell me what it is you are really after and I might be able to help you. I don’t believe you have gone to all this trouble for a mere book. As best I understand antiquities in this country, there are no valuable books. All writing was on papyrus scrolls. Therefore, I presume it is the contents, not the book itself, that is of value. I also find it curious that your master apparently didn’t send you in pursuit until Mr Osbourne’s servant defected to his service. Therefore, either he didn’t notice this extremely valuable book’s disappearance, or, more likely, he did not know of its existence until told of it by the servant.’
Al-Mizan’s mouth pressed down hard. Rafe pressed forward his advantage.
‘A more romantic fellow than I might have begun to dream of a book filled with clues to a treasure Mr Osbourne was pursuing in Nubia, but since your master did not give you any instructions to make enquiries regarding Mr Osbourne’s activities there, I can discard that fantasy. He wants this book and only that.’
‘How do you know he gave me no such instructions?’
‘I can count, Mr al-Mizan. I enquired when you passed through Syene on your way south and by my calculation you must have turned around the moment you discovered Osbourne the Younger had been and gone and ridden hard to close the gap. Answer me one question, Mr al-Mizan. Do you know why your master wants this book? Just yes or no will do. No details necessary.’
Al Mizan sighed, his shoulders lowering a little.
‘In my position, it is best not to know all the details. It is enough that he wants it and that he pays me well for my services. But I tell you, for him it is of the highest importance.’
Rafe nodded. He knew truth when he heard it. It was a sensible man who did not seek knowledge that could redound against him.
‘Then perhaps I should have a word with him myself.’
‘I would usually counsel wise men against foolishness, nadab, but in this case I need not bother. Monsieur Boucheron is not in Cairo.’
‘Where has he gone?’
‘He does not inform me. He ordered me to remain alert for Osbourne’s son’s possible return and then he left.’
‘I see. In any case, if we should discover aught of it before we depart Egypt, I will see it is delivered to him. We want nothing of it, merely to return to England now that Old Osbourne is dead. Understood?’
Al-Mizan nodded. It didn’t count for much, but it was the best Rafe could secure at this juncture.
‘Good. Now I think it is best we part ways.’
‘You will not leave me tied to this chair!’ al-Mizan protested and Rafe picked up a discarded cravat and twisted it into a gag, tying it around al-Mizan’s mouth.
‘A few knots won’t hold back someone of your skills, I’m sure,’ he murmured reassuringly as he went towards the door. ‘Clearly you have paid someone in this building to send word to you if anyone enters these rooms. Make enough of a racket and I feel certain they will come running.’
Cleo was waiting in the narrow hallway, her honey eyes wide, her mouth a thin, determined line, and a broom held firmly in her hands. He waved her towards the door just as a loud crash sounded. Clearly al-Mizan meant to dismantle the chair himself. Good fellow.
Chapter Eleven
Within moments they were wending through the narrow alleyways, skirting stalls and laden donkeys, water boys and women balancing baskets and jugs on their heads. Eventually, Cleo stopped looking over her shoulder every few yards, but she did not speak until they were within sight of the river.
‘Why did you tell him I was Dash?’
‘Because while they think you are your brother they will be looking for him in the wrong place, giving him more time to leave Egypt unobstructed.’
‘Of course. I see. Thank you.’
Her voice was brisk and Rafe realised again how grateful he was for her calm, though she had looked anything but calm as she had launched herself at his would-be killer.
The memory still formed icicles in his chest. The blur of movement, the realisation of danger, the shock. He’d made mistakes in the past and they’d cost him and others, but this...
He didn’t want to think about it.
‘Don’t ever do that again, Cleopatra.’
The words were out of him before he could stop them.
‘Do what? Ask questions?’
‘Throw yourself at someone wielding a knife.’
They’d reached the house in Boulaq and with a last glance down the street he ushered her inside. She went, but her frown showed precisely what she thought of his comment. He couldn’t blame her—he wasn’t happy with himself either at the moment, but he couldn’t help it.
‘I would think you would be grateful, Mr Grey. You might now be sporting another impressive scar in your collection if not for me.’
‘I am grateful, but I am also serious. Never do that again.’
‘You prefer I leave you to be skewered?’
‘I prefer you not try to skewer yourself on a trained killer’s knife.’
‘So do I. Very well, if you prefer to play the hero, next time I shall leave you to it.’
He stomped up the steps beside her, not sure he was pleased with her compliance.
‘Do you think he believed you?’ she asked.
He considered lying to her and discarded the notion; his prevarication skills weren’t at their best around her.
‘Men like al-Mizan don’t believe anyone. I rather like the fellow.’
‘How broadminded of you. After all, he only wished to kill us both.’
‘I don’t think he was intent on blood—his brief was to find this book and bring you back to Boucheron so he could ascertain what you, I mean your brother, knew. His attempt at violence right there was sparked by personal pique and was a sore mistake. He is well aware of that. Hopefully once you, or rather your brother, leaves Egypt they will forget all about you. Now I need to find Birdie. I want him to run a couple of errands for me.’
She continued up the stairs.
‘What errands?’
‘I need some new...cravats.’
‘Please don’t bother to lie, or, if you must, at least make an effort at being convincing.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You don’t intend to tell me?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘You don’t trust me.’
‘Like al-Mizan, I don’t trust anyone. For their own good. The more you trust someone, the greater the burden you place upon them. If I don’t trust you, you needn’t worry that you might let me down.’
‘Another truly abysmal philosophy, Mr Grey.’
‘Says the young woman who trusts not a single person on this fair earth.’
Her foot slipped on the step and he caught her elbow, steadying her.
He waited for her to proceed, but she remained where she was, staring at the floor.
‘That is not true,’ she muttered finally.
‘Not true? You told me yourself you never truly trusted your father and we�
��ve established you don’t trust your brother, not when it truly counts. Either tell me who you trust or stop denigrating my hard-earned right to mistrust everybody.’
‘I trust you.’
She had to stop doing this.
He hadn’t earned it; he didn’t want it. Trust like hers demanded trust in return and if he let himself trust her... He had no idea what that even meant except that it had the power to terrify him, as if he held Pandora’s box in his hands with warnings from the gods etched deep on to its surface. There would be no closing this box once opened.
She turned to him, chin raised. ‘And Birdie, though I know you will say I should not trust either of you.’
‘I have already told you precisely that. I don’t enjoy repeating myself.’
‘I trust you to do the best you can. Not for me, but because you think it is right.’
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her, marching her towards her room.
‘Stop this blathering mawkishness and go wash. I’ll see about food. I’m hungry.’
Thankfully she didn’t argue and he hurried away before he followed her. Lurching between lust and embarrassment was putting a strain on his ageing heart. The sooner he put her aboard a ship to England, the better.
* * *
Cleo sat on her narrow bed, listening to Rafe’s receding footsteps. She rubbed her hands on the rough cotton of her robe. They were still shaking. She was still shaking. The sick jingling that had plagued her from Nubia to Syene and then quieted during the long days in the desert was back.
She unwrapped her turban and shoved her hands into her short hair.
Her bonnet...
She’d rescued it from the wreckage of their lodgings. And her dress and books and... They were all still there. Dropped on the floor when she’d seen the shadow move behind Rafe, the arm rising and the afternoon sun glinting off a dagger.
He was right. There hadn’t been a coherent thought in her mind at that moment. Only images—the shadow, the dagger, Rafe holding a book, his back to his attacker. Then her own hands stretched before her as she found herself in mid-air.
It took being thrown against the wall to wake her mind to fear and denial, but by then it was all over.
Rafe’s face had been utterly blank as he administered those two blows which stunned the man. Then he’d looked over at her, a quick look that was like a nail being hammered straight into her heart—sharp, painful, terrifyingly final.
At that moment he’d mattered more than life.
She’d done as he told her. Half her mind had listened to his interrogation of al-Mizan, but the other was still ringing with terror at what might have happened to him.
At some point it would happen. It happened to the best of them, he’d said. A moment’s inattention. A mistake...
Today it had almost happened because of her.
She could not even think it. She was scared for Dash, for herself, but this felt different—almost superstitious. She needed him to exist and she did not even understand why.
‘Supper!’
Rafe’s call penetrated the door and her fog of confusion and her stomach grumbled hopefully.
In the small room that served as salon and dining room Rafe was putting plates on the table.
He glanced over at her, his pale green eyes sharp and alert.
‘Sit.’
‘I shall go bring...’
‘Everything is ready. Sit.’
She was too tired to protest. She sat as he served her from another of Birdie’s mouth-watering stews.
‘Where is Birdie?’
‘Out.’
‘You are not going to tell me where?’
‘It has to do with my brother.’
‘You have news of him?’
He didn’t look up from his plate, but smiled at the excitement in her voice.
‘Only that he did indeed arrive in Egypt and continued south. Either on our trail or to my uncle’s house in Qetara.’
‘Are you not worried for him?’
‘For Edge? No, not now he’s here. He might be as pig-headed as a mule, but he was an excellent officer during the war. Until he was shot, that is.’
Her knife clacked against the plate and he glanced up. She kept her own gaze lowered. She hated how shaky she still felt.
They ate in silence until he spoke again.
‘Thank you.’ His voice was low, resonant, like the rush of the Nile against the felucca’s hull.
‘For what?’
He leaned back, the cane chair protesting.
‘I should have thanked you properly. For coming to my aid.’
‘I’m certain you would have managed.’
He shook his head.
‘Anyone can die, Cleo. I’ve seen skilled men make the most foolish mistakes. You should take credit where it is due.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I know. And that is a bad sign. You can’t go around believing I’m infallible. Until we get you safely on your way to England you need to remain alert.’
‘I was alert. That is why you are sitting across from me and not dead or being stitched by a Cairene surgeon, which is not a fate I would wish on my worst enemy.’
He grinned and tapped the table with his palm.
‘That’s better. Moping does not suit you.’
‘I was not moping!’
‘Blue as a witch’s...never mind. I keep forgetting you are a lady.’
‘And I keep forgetting you’re a grown man.’
‘Excellent. Now throw something at me.’
‘Ladies do not throw things,’ she snapped.
‘They damned well do. They can’t easily throw a punch at me like a man might when riled. Though, like you right now, they might wish to. And my ragged face discourages slapping, so I’ve had the odd plate or tankard tossed at me. Go ahead if it will make you feel better.’
‘Breaking something merely because one is angered or frustrated is childish and serves no purpose.’
‘Says someone who’s never done it. And you’re frightened, not frustrated.’
‘How precisely would breaking something alleviate fear?’
‘I didn’t say it would.’
‘Then why are you telling me to break something?’ Her voice was rising, shedding all pretence at calm.
‘To distract you. It’s working, too.’
‘You. Are. Infuriating!’ She ground her teeth, thumping her fists on the table. Part of her knew his object was not merely to distract her, but to break the strange tension that was binding them and that made her even angrier. She didn’t want him to be flippant now, not when she was still shaking inwardly. She wanted something completely different and he knew that and that was precisely why he was trying to make her angry. Well, he’d succeeded.
If her plate had not still been half full of Birdie’s stew, she might have succumbed and done just what he suggested. Smashed, shattered, razed, crushed it into tiny bits and stomped on them until they were dust. Until fear and need and confusion were consumed in the fireball of her fury. Until she was free of everything, including the most impossible man she’d ever met.
* * *
Rafe leaned back and watched the fire snap and crackle in her. It was there in the rush of colour up her face, in the narrowed gold fire eyes that were stripping layers from his skin, in the white-knuckled fists.
It was magnificent.
It was also singeing him inside and out. He mastered his breathing, but he couldn’t stop his heart from going into a faster gallop than it had when that knife had slashed towards him.
That had been a very different kind of heartbeat. Fear was well and good, but terror was something he could not afford and that was precisely what had slashed through him as he’d watched her launch herself at the man.
/> That had been new. Icy. A shriek of denial.
Now she was sending his pulse out of control once more, except this time he wasn’t cold—he was boiling inside. She looked like a queen about to cast him into the pits of hell and the madness was that he was as hot and hard as if she’d spent the past week seducing him.
Which, to be fair, she had.
If only he could do something about it.
He shifted on the uncomfortable chair, wishing his morals were significantly more flexible. He could only imagine all that fury and heat and frustration and determination in bed...
If only...
‘Do I amuse you, Mr Grey?’
‘Do you...?’ He floundered.
‘If you are going to sit there grinning at me, I will go elsewhere.’
She shoved to her feet, her chair squawking and teetering. He managed to reach the door before her.
‘Cleo, wait, I am trying...’
‘You are trying. I’ve never met a more trying man. If you try me any further, I might...’ She appeared to physically struggle with her unfinished sentence and then tossed up her hands in despair. ‘Kindly move aside, Mr Grey.’
Her glare alone would have been enough to incinerate a stack of papyrus scrolls. He leaned his full weight back against the door, not because he was afraid she would slip past him, but because he very much wanted her to come close enough to try.
‘You are right. I meant well, but...’
‘People always mean well, but—’
‘If you would only listen to me.’
‘I have done little else but listen to you this past week. I know full well what you wish to do. You wish nothing more than to deposit me on the first ship to England and have done with me...’
‘I do not—’
‘Yes, you do and I do not blame you in the least—I am just as tired of my problems as you are. However, that does not mean I will allow you to dictate my actions. Now, kindly step aside.’ She reached past him for the doorknob and the opening door knocked him from behind.
It wasn’t a serious blow, but the devil in him gave a yelp and he stumbled forward. Her hands shot out, steadying him.