The Price of Temptation

by Harmony Williams

  “Ah.” He nodded his head. “Out for some fresh air, were you? Well, I trust you found your way?”

  Lily nodded, but he didn’t appear to be paying attention to her.

  He gestured to the receiving room with the journal in his hand and adjusted his spectacles. Lily, forgetting until that moment the pair perched on her nose, mirrored him.

  He let her precede him into the room. “I must admit, I owe you an apology. I didn’t believe you had contributed to the Antiquities Review. I didn’t know they allowed women into their ranks.”

  They likely didn’t. Lily gritted her teeth. What should she say to that?

  Adam would know. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder.

  “My mistake. I hadn’t recognized the name, since you used only your initial. But that’s to your advantage,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know if I would have read the article if it had your full name attributed. It’s not often—or ever—that we find a woman so shrewd and knowledgeable regarding Egypt. Even my dear wife doesn’t compare to true scholars.”

  Lily’s fingernails bit into her palm. She pressed her lips tight to swallow a caustic remark. Lily abhorred narrow-minded men like him. She could dance circles around him with everything she knew, everything she could do. She made jewelry as masterfully as her father had. She ran a business. What did this dullard do with his time, other than indulge his mediocrity?

  “You have some wonderful insights, Mrs. Darling. I do hope I’ll be able to get a moment or two alone with you to speak more about your paper on the prevalence of turquoise.”

  Lily seethed. She didn’t know if the smile she offered him was polite or murderous. “I hope so as well.” Her voice was wooden, but as little opinion as Lord Ednam had of her gender, he didn’t pay her enough mind to notice.

  Another guest caught his attention and the little man made his excuses. She ensconced herself next to the door, gulping slow, deep breaths to soothe the hot, churning sensation in her chest.

  Her task wasn’t over yet.

  Without a word of greeting, Reid claimed the space next to her. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the sarcophagus in the middle of the room. He said nothing, his gaze intense, a lock of his hair falling across one cheek. His mouth was turned down in a frown, a look he got when deep in thought.

  The tinkle of glass sounded and the room fell silent, every eye turning to the host. Although short, he commanded the room with his enthusiasm and the sparkle in his eye. He still held the journal in one hand.

  “You all know why I’ve called you here today. Perhaps you’d like to get on with the unwrapping before we all die of old age?”

  Polite laughter circulated the room. Lily smiled but didn’t join in. Reid didn’t even bother to smile.

  Under his breath, he whispered, “At one time, I would have been welcomed in this room wholeheartedly. I would have been the center of attention.”

  Lily glanced at him before turning her face toward Lord Ednam, who regaled the room with the origin and unearthing of the mummy housed in the sarcophagus. As he methodically listed every hand involved in discovering and shipping it, she whispered back to Reid.

  “I recall. What happened?”

  She hadn’t meant to ask. The topic seemed raw and forbidding, like the change in him.

  Reid spoke in a growl. “Your husband happened. My father’s death happened. Without money, I haven’t been able to invest in the recovery of artifacts of my own, which stalls research. I haven’t contributed to any of the journals of late, and so they think I’ve fallen into disgrace.”

  Have you? Lily’s lips trembled with the question. She pressed them together hard.

  Her heart ached for him. Not for the jaded, acerbic man who had stalked back into her life with ulterior motives, but for the soft-hearted, dreamy-eyed young man she’d known before her marriage. They’d been friends. She’d cared about him.

  She’d thought he’d cared about her.

  He no longer existed, but maybe if she was able to remind Reid of their past friendship, he would stop trying to punish her for ignoring his advice and marrying a confidence man. “You deserve the accolades. You were brilliant— You are brilliant,” she corrected.

  He glanced down at her, his expression open and vulnerable with shock. For a moment, she saw her friend again.

  Something flashed across his eyes and he turned his face away. Softly, he admitted, “A small part of me feels they’re in the right. If I conduct no new research, am I still a scholar?”

  He could be, if he stopped wallowing in his misfortunes and instead looked for solutions. Men of lesser means than he were able to carve out careers as scholars. They found wealthy patrons, joined expeditions funded by other people, relinquished the artifacts they found into the care of those who had paid for them. But in order to do that, he would have to swallow his pride.

  Somehow, she sensed that he wouldn’t look favorably upon her if she pointed out the obvious.

  “Mrs. Darling, would you do the honors?”

  She returned to herself with alacrity at the sound of her name. She blinked several times, realigning with the name she hadn’t associated with herself for several years. It felt…foreign.

  It is a means to an end.

  Her persona. Her task. She wasn’t here tonight on pleasure.

  “Me?”

  Eagerly, he gestured at the sarcophagus. Two footmen stood on either edge of the heavy stone lid, ready to lift. Thankfully, neither of them was Adam.

  “But of course,” Lord Ednam exclaimed. “You are our guest of honor tonight.”

  Half an hour ago, he and his wife had been attempting to tear her reputation to shreds for their own amusement. What had changed…the journal?

  It must be. Adam’s instincts and planning had worked to their benefit.

  Of course it did. This is what he does. He manipulates people.

  Including her?

  Again, her thoughts circled back to his confession of fidelity these past four years. Again, she shoved the thought aside. The host was speaking.

  “…my pleasure to give the honor of the first unwrapping to you.”

  She would have to touch the mummy? Lily’s curiosity shriveled and died. She gasped for words. “Shouldn’t a doctor or surgeon…someone more experienced with anatomy…do the honors?” Her voice was high and tight, not at all the voice of a distinguished scholar.

  Lord Ednam refused to hear a word. Affably, he batted his hand through the air, waving the journal at the same time. “I’ll have Dr. Turner pick up where you leave off, of course.”

  In the far corner, a surly, potbellied man crossed his arms. He certainly looked robbed of his duty.

  The host spoke for the room. “But we feel the first find of the evening should be yours. After all, you wrote such a lovely piece about the symbolism in gemstones in last month’s Antiquities Review. This is your area of expertise.”

  Next to her, Reid stiffened. He seemed to be fighting with himself, that dark expression she loathed contorting his features. Under his breath, he whispered, “You didn’t write that article. My friend Carl Harland did. What did you do?”

  He wanted her to steal a priceless Egyptian artifact and yet he was quibbling about the means she used?

  Quickly, she hissed back, “I needed credibility. This is how I will secure an invitation to Lord Granby’s house. Or have you given up on the armband?”

  He said nothing, leaving her the victim of every eye in the room.

  She cleared her throat, stepping forward on shaking legs. “It would be my honor.”

  I cannot do this. Acting demure or mysterious would not help her analyze a corpse that had been dead for a thousand years.

  The grating sound of the stone lid lifting from the coffin drowned out her panicked inner voice. As she drew in a deep br
eath, a familiar stench caught her in the back of the mouth. She spluttered before catching herself. Eyes watering, she fought the urge to cover her mouth and nose. She must remain composed. Save for an initial murmur and the discomfort of bodies moving farther away, everyone in the room seemed to be doing the same. The smell must come hand in hand with grave robbing, because the guests each attempted to appear to ignore it.

  “It has nothing on the smell of the Thames in August,” a man quipped. The whispered voice was joined in a low chuckle, quickly swallowed by silence.

  Must she? Lily tightened her grip on the case with her tools. She would need them to impress, but they would be of no use to her with flesh and bone. The footmen had stoically removed the lid of the sarcophagus from the table, propping it upright against the rest of the heavy coffin.

  Bracing herself, the painted eyes of the lid watching her progression along with everyone else, Lily peered over the lip at the gruesome body wrapped in dirty bandages. The stench made her eyes water. When she gagged, she gave in to the urge to pull a perfumed handkerchief out of her bodice and lay it over her mouth and nose. She peered over the rim of the sarcophagus again, cringing at the layer of moisture at the bottom. Should a mummy be leaking?

  She reached in, starting at the hand and fumbling with the end of the wrapping. The mummy’s fingers were wrapped individually, and it took her a moment to peel the edge away one-handed. Inch by inch, she unraveled the length of stiff cloth, which crackled as it came free and exposed a blackened, shriveled digit.

  The cadaver was revolting. She glanced up, blinking away the moisture in her eyes, and spotted Adam hovering in the doorway. Their gazes locked, his expression open for once. She saw the faith in his eyes as he nodded, encouraging her. Without words, he renewed her strength and faith in herself.

  You can do this.

  She had to. She looked down, gingerly unraveling another digit, then another. Something caught her eye at the bottom of the sarcophagus. Frowning, she reached in. Her fingers slipped in the slimy residue, but she recognized the shape. A cufflink?

  As she drew it out, she recognized the craftsmanship, the small stamped lily in the silver.

  “What have you found?”

  She wrapped the cufflink in her handkerchief, holding the ball wadded to her nose again. Her heart raced. Why was Adam’s cufflink in the sarcophagus? Using the handkerchief to obscure her expression, she mumbled, “Nothing. A delightful specimen you have here. Would someone else like to take over?”

  The host chuckled and batted his hand. “Carry on. I’ll let you make the first find before we turn over the mummy to someone else.”

  What find did he believe she would make? She continued to unwrap the hand, moving gingerly so she didn’t disturb the corpse. She was afraid to touch that wrinkled skin, afraid to brush too hard against the hand and snap a digit clean off. This had been a person. Why was she desecrating it with her touch? Swallowing back revulsion, she continued.

  When she reached the wrist, she paused. “There is something bulky in here.”

  Lord Ednam took a step closer, his eyebrows rising toward his thinning hairline. “Oh? What is it?”

  She filled her lungs, then laid the wadded handkerchief next to the sarcophagus. Holding her breath, she moved quicker, pulling the delicate strands of bandages from around the arm in layers until she exposed what looked to be a thick metal circlet. “It’s a bracelet. May I remove it? I’d like to take a closer look.”

  “But of course! Feel free to pass it along to everyone else once you’re finished. That is the point of this evening, to make deductions about this fine mummy and who he was in life based on the artifacts that were buried with him.”

  It took her several moments to undo the clasp and pull it wide enough to leave the shriveled wrist. As she brought it into the light, the markings surprised her. Deep grooves were carved along the metal, but they had been crudely cut. She crouched and groped for her case, opening it wide and pulling out her monocle. As she fixed it to her eye, she examined first the grooves, then the red gemstone set into the middle.

  The grooves looked gouged, not worn by time and touch as she would have expected based on the other artifacts in the room. And the gem… It was clouded.

  “Curious.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  She jumped, not realizing that Lord Ednam stood so close. He leaned over her shoulder, his hot breath making her skin crawl.

  Her smile felt queasy. “This jewel is of surprisingly inferior quality. I didn’t expect to find a flawed gem buried in so lofty a sarcophagus. And these markings.” She turned the bracelet, examining the gold band. “They look to have been made recently. Within the last year, at my guess.” And not by a jeweler as skilled as she or her father. She turned her face up to Lord Ednam’s. “I’m afraid you’ve been robbed.”

  A gasp circled the room. From the door, Reid looked like he had swallowed a thundercloud. He looked ready to spit lightning. She turned her gaze away from him and offered the bracelet to Lord Ednam. “It’s gold plated, not pure gold. See how the center of these grooves show a darker color? That’s copper beneath. Both, I believe, were common in Egyptian jewelry, but if this bracelet were as old as we anticipate, I would expect for the plating to wear thin in other places, not simply where a jeweler has carved the grooves. The gem is clouded, too, and if that’s meant to be a scarab, it isn’t very well carved.”

  Lord Ednam frowned. “What are you saying?”

  Lily stuffed everything back into her case, including the handkerchief with Adam’s cufflink. She closed it with a snap. “I’m saying this mummy was not dead two thousand years ago. You were sold a fake.”

  The physician, Dr. Turner, bustled forward with a frown and examined the arm she had exposed. He took out a knife and delicately cut into the flesh, dropping it in disgust as he straightened.

  “She’s right.”

  Another symphony of gasps ringed the room, and Lord Ednam turned a mottled purple. “I cannot believe I’ve been so misled!”

  Exclamations rang around the room. Gossip eddied, the layers of voices rendering each indistinct. Lady Ednam swooned, attended by a knot of her friends as they attempted to revive her. Lord Ednam fumed, his unimposing stature dissolving beneath his fury. Lily had no doubt that the men who had sold him tonight’s entertainment would regret the deceit.

  Stroking the whiskers along his left cheek in contemplation, Lord Granby joined her beside the sarcophagus. He peered into the case, then returned his attention to her. His look was one of bald admiration. “That’s a very good eye you have, Mrs. Darling.”

  His praise made her blood sing. She’d done it. The disappointment of the mummy gave her ample excuse to leave before her persona slipped. It was only a matter of time before she received the invitation she needed in order to finish the task Reid had set and thereby save her family from disgrace.

  She had done it.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day, Lily stood in front of Reid’s door. She squared her shoulders, fighting the urge to fidget. The patter of her heart echoed in her ears. Reid was right. The mantra encircled her mind like a cyclone after the events of last night. And here she was, in dire need of a means to complete this nauseating task without the help of her scheming husband. In a moment of weakness, she’d chosen to turn to a man every bit as untrustworthy. Who was she fooling?

  Only herself.

  Still, she stayed her course. She held her breath as she counted the seconds before Reid’s valet opened the door. The moment he did, she raised her eyebrows at his inquisitive look. “Is your master in?”

  “Let me check.”

  She stepped into the house. From the hasty way he gave way, she’d taken him off guard. Thus, she was halfway into the foyer before he realized that he should have barred her entrance.

  “Don’t bother. I’ll check myself.”
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  He shut the door. “Madam, this is highly irregular—”

  Lily paused on the first step to the stairs leading above. She turned, lifting her chin. “Reid and I have been intimate since childhood. He will want to speak to me. Unless he happens to be entertaining someone else?” She cocked one eyebrow, the embodiment of disdain.

  Inwardly, she quaked. She didn’t enjoy being put in this position—asking for help. However, her choices were to turn to Reid or to Adam.

  Adam, who should not have infiltrated Lord Ednam’s house, thereby jeopardizing the very thing they were working toward.

  Adam, whose cufflink had been found in the sarcophagus of a forged mummy. Had he been responsible for that fakery?

  Don’t be ridiculous. When would he have had the opportunity?

  Nevertheless, Lily had her doubts.

  Last night, she had reigned triumphant, not because of the falsified journals, but in spite of them. After being put on the spot in front of the gathering, she had earned their admiration not from her sparse knowledge of ancient Egypt, but from her expertise with jewels and metals. Last night had been a triumph because of her.

  But if she were to impress Lord Granby when the inevitable invitation arrived to join him at his residence, she needed more. She needed a greater knowledge of Egyptian history and antiquities to draw upon. For that, she needed Reid.

  “He does not have any other visitors this morning.”

  Lily nodded briskly, accepting the man’s words as truth and storming up to the study, where she’d last found Reid. When she reached the room, she halted. It was empty.

  Unoccupied, it looked like a hollow shell. When she’d first stepped inside, she’d noticed the lack of books on the shelves. Now they seemed even sparser, as if some of the volumes had evaporated in the interim. When he’d lived with his parents, she couldn’t have walked into any room of their house without tripping over a pile of books, most on Egyptian history.

  Lily rounded on the valet, who had followed her.

  He inclined his head. “Wait here, madam. I will fetch him for you.” His brisk, retreating footsteps echoed in the silence.