by Nina Bruhns
Good lord. A direct hit. Beautiful, alluring and smart as Isis. There was no way he could let her go now, even if he wanted to. Which he was feeling less and less inclined to do in any case.
“I’m afraid you are correct,” he allowed. “Although it’s not called a cult here. The proper term is per netjer, which means ‘house of the god.’ ‘Cult’ sounds so…sinister.”
“You mean they’re not? Wow.” Her mouth opened then closed again. Fear was creeping back onto her face. “But surely, you aren’t—”
He winked. “Worried I intend to carry you off to some secret underground temple and sacrifice your innocence to Set-Sutekh?”
She blinked. “Don’t be silly. I’m serious.”
“Oh, so am I. Perfectly.”
Her laugh at his mock solemnity crackled with nervousness, so he took pity on her and smiled. “Do I really look so dangerous and disreputable, Miss Haliday?”
Her gaze lowered and skittered away. “Possibly.”
The odd thing was, he got the unexpected feeling she’d meant the assertion more as a compliment than an insult.
As though she, too, realized it, she suddenly developed an interest in the decor, taking in his sumptuous furniture, the luxurious throws and pillows, the fragrant flowers and flickering candles scattered about the room, the artwork and antiquities gracing the walls and shelves.
“You have a beautiful home, Lord Kilpatrick.”
“Rhys,” he said. “Call me Rhys. Thank you.” After the austere, almost severe settings of his childhood, he loved surrounding himself with sensual objects. It was one of the things that had drawn him to his new life in the first place.
“How long have you lived here?”
He drained his wine and refilled it, then strolled over to top hers up, as well. “Seems like I’ve owned the estate forever. But I split my time between here and another residence, a bit farther south.”
She picked up a framed daguerreotype of him and the famous archaeologist Flinders Petrie, taken at the ruins of the temple of Seth in Naqada during the excavations of 1895. The old boy had been an odd duck, but interesting. Rhys had still been in his exploratory phase back then, traveling the country as a spy for Shahin, soaking up the culture, blending in with the steady stream of aristocratic Victorian tourists doing the grand tour. He’d met some fascinating people and learned a hell of a lot. Exciting times.
She squinted at the faded sepia photo. “I don’t believe it. That’s Flinders Petrie! Standing with—” She looked up in amazement. “This must be the original Rhys Kilpatrick!”
He nodded. “Indeed.”
“But—but that’s incredible! This must have been taken ten years after his supposed death. Do you have any idea how valuable this photo would be to the Kilpatrick family?”
He wagged a finger. “Don’t even think about it. Remember, you swore to keep my existence a secret.”
She tipped her head, taking his measure for a long moment. “It appears I may have misjudged you.”
She had no idea.
He eased the photograph from her fingers and set it back on the mantel. “I’m glad you’ve decided to trust me.” Unable to resist touching her, he brushed a damp curl from her cheek. “Honestly, I mean you no harm, nor the Kilpatricks.”
He sensed the fine pulse in her neck pick up speed. Because he was near, practically bending over her? A spurt of hot pleasure shot through his blood at the thought that he attracted her as much as she attracted him.
Her lips parted a fraction. “That’s good,” she said, almost a whisper. “Um, do you have any more?”
It took a second for her question to push past the sudden desire to lean down and taste those tempting lips. “More what?” Lust?
“Old photographs. Of the original Lord Kilpatrick. And your other family members. Father, mother. I’m a historian, you see, and I’d love to—”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” he interrupted, turning away abruptly. He must control himself. There’d be an eternity to enjoy such pleasures later on, after she’d accepted her destiny and joined the immortals of Set-Sutekh. “Come, we’ll open another bottle of wine in my study, and you can look through my photo albums.”
She wouldn’t miss noticing that the man in all the pictures looked exactly like him. Was him. Convincing her to come with him to Khepesh would be that much easier if she’d already seen evidence of his unnatural longevity. Seeing was believing.
He quickly instructed his houseman to fetch another bottle of chilled wine, along with some cheese and fruit, and ushered Gillian down a long hallway to his favorite room in the house.
His study was dark and masculine, smelling of old books and leather furniture, mingled with the sweet spice of cut flowers that always filled an alabaster vase on his desk. Outside double French doors behind the desk was the riad-style home’s enclosed central patio. Because of the skill of his Moroccan architect in angling walls, archways and an overarching pergola to produce ample shade, even on the hottest days Rhys could keep the French doors open and enjoy a cool breeze. Not to mention the lush, sensual colors and earthy scents of the carefully cultivated courtyard garden. Living in the semidarkness of Khepesh made him extra appreciative of the bounties of the sun. Though he’d never shift his allegiance, ever.
Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Gillian, with her exotic golden hair and pale skin. Because she was so different from himself and the dark world he lived in.
Not that he was complaining. Not in a million years. He loved the sensuous, mysterious, dark world of Khepesh, and would not trade it for anything in the universe. Certainly he enjoyed his regular forays up into the light, but he was not blinded by it. The underworld was his true home now. For all time.
Gillian curled up on his soft leather divan and eagerly looked through the old photo album he pulled from behind the leaded-glass doors of a bookcase as old as he. Gingerly, she turned the pages one by one, examining the photos with growing excitement.
“This is incredible,” she murmured over and over as she sipped her wine and nibbled on grapes, studying the evidence of his long, exhilarating life in his beloved adopted country. “Lieutenant Kilpatrick seems to have met everyone who was anyone in those days. Not just Egyptologists, but politicians, writers, even the early movie stars.”
Rhys pulled out the rest of the albums and handed her another one, then topped up her wine up once more. “Back then there weren’t nearly as many foreigners in Egypt. It was pretty much expected that anyone living here would show visiting countrymen the local sights and invite them to dine.”
She looked up. “But the lieutenant had deserted the army, and was supposed to be dead. How did he get away with that?”
He propped a shoulder against the bookcase and crossed one ankle over the other. “By using an assumed name.”
“Ah.” She nodded, leafing through more pages. “That makes sense.” A small frown worked itself across her forehead.
“But…?” he asked, knowing full well what was beginning to bother her.
She shook her head. “It’s just strange.”
He strolled over to stand in front of her. “What is?”
She slanted her gaze up at him again. “The years are obviously going by in the photos, fashions are changing, hairstyles, the automobiles in the pictures. But…your predecessor doesn’t seem to be aging at all.”
“Mmm.” He slid onto the couch next to her and took the album from her hand.
“You know, you look like him, too,” she said, examining his face, feature by feature, with growing disquiet. “Exactly like him.”
“So I look like I’m a hundred twenty-five years old, eh?” he asked, an amused curve to his lips.
“Oh! No, I didn’t mean—”
“You, on the other hand,” he said, tossing the albums onto the stack on the coffee table and leaning toward her, “don’t look a day over twenty.”
She sucked in a breath of surprise.
Her rounded lips were soft and pin
k, her cheeks rosy with a flush that ripped across them. Too much to resist.
Before he thought about what he was doing, he caught her chin in his fingers, closed the scant distance between them and covered her open mouth with his.
He touched his tongue to hers. Instantly, the taste of her surged through his senses. And just as instantly he was hard and thick as a temple column. With a groan of need, he wrapped his hand around her jaw and deepened the kiss, unleashing his sexual powers upon her.
He wanted her. He wanted her now.
She gasped as he deliberately wrapped her in his sensual aura, heating her blood, heightening her body’s sensitivity, caressing her insides with invisible tendrils of pleasure.
She shivered and moaned, and he pushed her back on the divan, sliding his hand up her body, stroking his tongue into her mouth. Wanting to pour his desire into her like a drugging wine. To make her surrender. To claim her. To bind her to him and make her his own for all eter—
By the gods.
No!
He halted. What was he thinking? He could not do this. Not yet. There were things to be settled first. Not the least of which was whether Seth would claim Gillian for himself.
Rhys jerked back, tormented by the thought. He leaped to his feet, knocking the stack of albums on the table pell-mell to the floor in a snowstorm of sepia, black-and-white and Technicolor squares.
She gaped up at him from the divan, her breasts rising and falling with roughened breath, her nipples tight and pointed, her face flagged with embarrassment and confusion. “Wh-what’s going on…?”
For the first time ever, jealousy roared through him. At his friend. At the fact that Seth was also his lord and his leader, and had the power to take whatever and whomever he wanted, and there was nothing Rhys could do about it.
“I—I’m sorry,” he stammered, gathering himself. Tamping down the anger and the frustration. “My behavior was unforgivable.” He backed away from her, knocking even more photos onto the plush Oriental rug.
“But…” Looking dazed and still hopelessly aroused, she sat up and raked her fingers through her long hair, shaking her head. “I don’t underst—”
Suddenly, she froze, giving a strangled gasp. A loose photo teetered on the edge of the coffee table. She grabbed it before he could see much more than that it was fairly recent, showing a group of people gathered here at his estate, in the courtyard, for some kind of party. As she stared at it, her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.
He frowned in surprise. “Gillian, what is it?”
A soft sob came from her throat. The photo trembled in her grip. “Oh, Rhys. The woman in this picture.”
“What? Who is she, darling?”
“She’s my mother!”
Chapter 6
But your embraces alone give life to my heart;
May Amun give me what I have found for all eternity.
—Papryus Harris 500, song 12
“Surely, you’re mistaken,” Rhys said.
But he was wrong. “You think I don’t recognize my own mother?” Gillian whispered.
She wiped her eyes and ran an unsteady finger over the dear face in the photo. Her mother looked so…young. In her memories, Gillian was ever the small child, and Isobelle Haliday was tall and smiling and beautiful. Gillian had always looked up to her and run to her when she’d needed a safe pair of loving, adult arms. Until they’d disappeared forever…
“Let me see,” Rhys demanded with a frown.
Gillian handed him the photo and pointed to the auburn-haired woman sitting on an iron bench next to an attractive Egyptian man. She didn’t look happy. Or unhappy. Her expression was strangely blank. Which was exactly how Rhys’s looked as he peered closer at the picture.
“Do you know that man?” she asked. “The one sitting next to her?”
He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, yes. He was not a good person.”
Alarm sang through Gillian. Could this be the one who’d caused her mother to vanish all those years ago? A killer, or human trafficker? “Who is he? I must tell the police. Maybe they can—”
“The man is dead, Gillian,” Rhys interrupted. “He died shortly after this photo was taken.”
“Oh!” Her whole body sagged with bitter disappointment. She let out a long, slow breath. “Damn. I had hoped…”
The very hardest thing about her mother’s death was that they’d never found her body. For years Gillian and her sisters had hoped and prayed she would come back, alive and well. With amnesia. Or some heroic story of escape from evil slave traders. Or even a bad excuse. Any excuse. They’d just wanted her to finally come back to them. Her father had hunted everywhere, tracked down every possible lead. Presumably the police had, too. But no trace of her had ever been found. After ten years, she’d been pronounced dead.
“What happened to the man?” Gillian persisted.
Rhys handed the photo back to her. “He was killed in a fight.”
She straightened. A fight? “Could the fight have had something to do with my mother? Maybe the people who killed him also—” She swallowed, unable to say the words.
“I very much doubt it,” Rhys said soothingly.
“Still, the police should follow up,” she insisted. “When did it happen?”
“A few weeks after the party. Flip it over. There should be a date.”
She turned over the photo and read the date. Frustrated, she shook her head. “No. It says 1992.”
“That sounds about right.”
“But…” Her heart suddenly seized in her chest. “It can’t be.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“Rhys, she disappeared in 1990.”
His black eyes shot to hers, then back to the photo. His mouth thinned. As though…
My God. He knew something!
He did! She felt it as she saw the tension that swept over his body. The way he glared at the photo, hatred flaring in those expressive, all-seeing eyes.
“What is it?” she asked, jumping to her feet. She dug her fingers desperately into the fabric of his tunic. “Tell me, please!”
“Darling, calm yourself. I don’t know anything.”
For a fleeting instant her mind snagged on the endearment. It was the second time he’d called her darling since their explosive and unexpected kiss—which he’d ended like a man who’d caught himself tonguing a serpent. A situation hardly meriting endearments between them.
She shook off the contradiction and focused on her mother. “But you suspect something.”
He gently pried her fingers from his shirt, holding them between his strong hands. “It was a long time ago, Gillian. I may be way off track.”
“Please, Rhys.” Her voice cracked with the plea. “If there’s any chance at all…any light you can shed on what happened to her, you’ve got to tell me, and go to the police.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “If you want real answers, going to the authorities is the last thing you should do,” he informed her. “Anyway,” he said with a kiss to her forehead, “it’s probably just the wrong date written on the photo.”
He slipped his arms around her and she allowed herself to be pulled into the uneasy comfort of his embrace. Her eyes welled up again as she looked through the French doors onto the patio where her mother had once sat and enjoyed this very man’s hospitality.
Except…the date…
She glanced down at the photo again, which he’d set on the coffee table. Sure enough, Rhys was smiling into the camera, his arm around a beautiful flaxen-haired woman who was laughing up at him. Gillian ignored a spurt of jealousy at their intimacy, and forced herself to look closer at the “Rhys” in the photo. He didn’t appear a minute younger than he did now. Which was a physical impossibility. The man embracing her today would have been a teenager the year the photo was supposedly taken. Was it Rhys’s father? In which case—
Hope flared anew.
“It must have been your parents’ party,” she said. “
Maybe they remember—”
“My parents are dead,” he cut in.
Sympathy tempered her disappointment. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
He released her and stepped away. “Don’t be. It was a long time ago.” He lifted a shoulder. “We never really got along anyway.”
There was that chill in his voice again. She suspected there was a lot more to the story, but no way was she going to pry. Or ask why he had no interest in meeting his long-lost aristocratic family in England to make up for whatever bad blood ran through his relationship with his parents. There might be aunts and uncles, or cousins.
“Mine did,” she said wistfully. “Got along, that is. My whole family. It about killed my father when my mother disappeared. He was never the same. He pretended to throw himself into his scientific research, but he really spent the rest of his life searching for her here in Egypt. My sisters and I got closer because he was so…absent. In the end he took his own life.” She sighed.
“I’m so sorry,” Rhys said. His voice was now warm and soothing. He took another pace away from her. “There may be another way to find out something.” He sounded oddly reluctant to continue.
“Yes? What?” she prodded. Hope sparked in her heart.
“More like who. And you’re not going to like it.” He turned to regard her.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth. “If this person helps me find my mother, I’ll worship the ground they walk on. My sisters will, too.”
He gave her an odd smile. “That’s more accurate than you think. The thing is, the person I’m thinking of is a seer. A priestess in the service of the per netjer of Set-Sutekh.”
She blinked. Set-Sutekh? The ancient god? Something tickled her memory, just out of reach. “A seer? You mean—” She suddenly recalled the tomb inscriptions of Seth-Aziz and the god he served. Set-Sutekh. Good lord, were the rumors that the cult still existed true?
“Yes, Nephtys has very special abilities. She can see things in the past as well as the future. She is rarely wrong. She may be able to discern what happened to your mother, why she was with this man.”