was sitting and plucked a leaf from her hair. “I believe I
shall examine this closely while Mrs. Pollock ministers to
you.”
Darcy wanted to thank him, but said nothing as he
walked to a chair and turned it so his back was to her.
When Mrs. Pollock began to ask questions about where
she was hurt, Darcy answered quietly. She was glad Simon
had remained, for she hated these suspicions haunting her
mind. She could not imagine a single reason why Simon
would be mixed up with that madness, but she also had
noticed how he would not meet her eyes when he explained
why he had gone outside.
The housekeeper’s face had not regained any color.
Darcy’s attempt to find out how much Mrs. Pollock knew
of the activities in the woods gained her nothing, although
the housekeeper clearly was aware of the danger Darcy
had faced.
The gray-haired woman kept up a light patter as she
washed the blood off Darcy’s hand and foot. Drawing up
Darcy’s skirt, she gasped at the bright red spot revealing
where Darcy’s knee had hit a stone.
“What is it, Mrs. Pollock?” asked Simon, starting to
turn.
“I can tend to this bruise on Miss Kincaid’s limb, sir,”
Mrs. Pollock said in her no-nonsense voice. Her customary
color returned. “Please respect her privacy.”
He muttered something, but looked back at the wall
in front of him.
Darcy smiled. His obvious concern revealed he cared
about her. Maybe there had been more in his kisses than
desire. Maybe he was letting her past that wall he had
built around him.
“Ouch!” She winced as Mrs. Pollock dabbed at her
knee.
“I’m sorry, Miss Kincaid. The dirt and blood must be
cleaned out of it.”
“Blood?” asked Simon, anxiety once more in his voice.
“Do not fret.” Mrs. Pollock grinned at Darcy, but her
voice remained stern. “It is less than was on her hand.”
With quick efficiency, the housekeeper cleaned
Darcy’s knee and draped a hot, wet cloth over it. She told
Darcy to leave the cloth on until she returned to bandage
it. Then she left the room with heavier steps than when
she had come in.
Simon stood and came back to where Darcy sat. His
eyes widened, but she did not draw her skirt back down
over her hurt leg. The heated cloth concealed her injured
right leg, and her skirt covered her left leg.
“May I?” he asked, pointing to the cushion at the end
of the settee.
“Yes, if you don’t lambaste me for being silly.”
“Darcy, you are being silly.”
“I know what I saw.” She adjusted the cloth on her
knee, taking care she did not reveal her leg. “You saw the
lights, too.”
“And I know they were nothing but swamp gas. I know
those woods well. When I was a boy on holiday from
school, I played there in the old ruins. Andrew and I
pretended we were ancient warriors living among the
standing stones. We even built a fort around an old stone
table in one clearing.”
She flinched. “You know about the stone table?”
“Every child who grew up around Halyeyn knows
about that old table.” He paused, then asked, “How is your
leg?”
“The heat is helping.”
“Is it?” His hand settled on her ankle.
She lifted it away and pushed her skirt down over the
cloth. “I think you know how foolish that would be,
Simon.”
“For me to examine your foot?” He cupped her heel.
“Yes.” She locked her fingers together to keep them
from reaching out to curve around his shoulders. “Please
don’t touch me.”
“Just now or from now on?”
The words were bitter in her mouth, but they must be
spoken. “I think from now on would be wiser. It’s clear
that holding me gives you little pleasure.”
“You’re very mistaken, Darcy.” He ran a single finger
along her instep, letting it linger where her stocking was
torn. “Holding you gives me the greatest pleasure.”
“But when you have held me, you turn away from me,
treating me as if I am a pariah.” Even though it sent pain
up her leg and another bolt of sorrow into her heart, she
drew her foot away from him.
“That was not my intention.”
“Then what was your intention?”
“None of this.” He set himself on his feet. “My only
intention was to finish my book and have it published. To
that end, I sought the services of a secretary—a male
secretary. If you’d been a man, none of this would have
happened.”
“I should think not.” Again she pushed herself up to
sit straighter. “Thank you, Simon, for being honest with
me at last.”
“At last?”
“You have made me see your priorities haven’t
changed. That they shouldn’t change. Please don’t touch
me again, for we shall never get your book ready to be
sent to your publisher on time if you continue to seduce
me into your arms and then push me away while you
wallow in whatever guilt you are suffering.”
His mouth hardened into the familiar line. Whether
he would have argued with her further, she did not learn
because Mrs. Pollock returned. This time Simon took his
leave without more than a nod in the housekeeper’s
direction.
Mrs. Pollock looked from the closed door to Darcy,
puzzlement and dismay on her face.
Darcy said nothing as the housekeeper tended to her
knee. Even when Mrs. Pollock gathered up her supplies
and left, saying she would send a maid up to help Darcy
undress, Darcy remained silent.
She had not thought this was how she would discover
why Simon was determined to keep her distant even as he
drew her to him. Simon tried to refuse himself every
pleasure. He was suffused with guilt that had been born at
the moment of the carriage accident which killed his
mother and sister. He felt guilty because he was still alive.
***
~~~ Thoth’s moon had risen higher than the mountains
edging the valley. In its cool, dead light, raw marks revealed
where stone was being torn from the mountainside to create
another incision for a Pharaoh’s tomb.
A collection of small houses hugged the river’s muddy
shore. They were as dark as the sky, for the workers within
refused to waste an hour when they could sleep. Long hours
of working in the merciless sun sucked every bit of life
from those who sought relief in the cool night shadows.
On the road leading from the shore, the light of a single
oil lamp could not fight back the darkness. It huddled
within its small circle, not daring to go beyond to challenge
the night.
Meskhenet guarded each step as she held the lamp
high. The rough road was nothing like the smooth textures
of her garden. Had she
not come here before, she doubted
she would have had the courage to cross the river tonight.
Alone and without a servant or even a boatman, she had
taken a boat to ferry herself to this side of the river.
She knew her destination. A few questions had
obtained her the information she needed. Now all she need
do was reach it.
Tears still burned in her eyes, but she had refused to
let more fall. Weeping would gain her nothing but Onuris’
displeasure. He had made his decision, and it was one he
would not remake, even if she was honest with him and
told him he had been bewitched by the chief architect. Usi
had already gained too much power, with her brother’s
approval. Now his ambition had found him a place within
the Pharaoh’s family.
With a shiver, she wondered if Usi would be satisfied
with that proximity to Pharaoh’s throne. He was a man
who continued to covet more power, and she doubted he
would ever be content.
The streets between the huts were clean, and the smell
of sewer pits was swept away by the wind rising out of the
desert beyond the Valley of Thoth. No rubble being
accidently kicked would alert anyone to her presence.
Hoping she had counted correctly, she paused in front of a
dried mud house that was identical to all the others.
Meskhenet stepped through the door and held up the
lamp. Its light spread across a low table, the only piece of
furniture in a room less than a quarter the size of her bathing
room. Something moved in a corner, and she turned the
lamp in that direction to see Kafele coming to his feet,
tossing aside the blanket where he had been sleeping. Her
breath refused to leave her body as she stared at his body
that was covered so briefly by only a cloth about his loins.
His strongly sculptured muscles gleamed in the lamplight–
the ones she had seen when he came to her garden and
ones she had never seen but wanted to explore so much
more closely.
“Why are you here?” he asked as he paused in front
of her.
“I must speak with you.”
“You must return to Pharaoh’s palace without delay.”
She stroked his cheek. “When I return there, I shall
never be able to touch you again, to know your kisses, or
to imagine you welcoming me into your arms. Do not send
me back there yet. Let me stay here tonight.”
He put his hand over hers on his face. “It is being
whispered you have been given to the chief architect to
show the Pharaoh’s favor.”
“Soon it will be announced.”
“Then you should go.”
Drawing her hand out from beneath his, she slid it
along his naked chest. “I will . . . in the hour before dawn.”
“You dare to gainsay the Pharaoh, who has decreed
you belong to Usi?”
“No.” She did not try to halt the tears spilling from
her eyes at the pain she could see in his. “I shall obey my
brother the Pharaoh. I shall marry the one he chooses for
me, but the one I love is you.”
“You need to return to the palace before you are
missed.”
“I have made arrangements so I shall not be missed.”
Running her hand up his deeply tanned skin, she whispered,
“Open your heart to me.”
His arms enfolded her to him as he whispered, “Open
all of yourself to me, Beloved of Thoth.”
She raised her arms and welcomed him against her
breast. They dropped together to his blanket, and she knew
all that was familiar would never be the same. Every day
to come would be different because of this man for whom
her desire was as powerful as a Nile flood.
It was perfection. ~~~
***
“This is horrible,” Simon exclaimed as he tossed a
typed page on the desk the next afternoon.
“Excuse me?” Darcy asked, unsure if he meant his
work or hers. She had just completed typing page five
hundred of the manuscript. The task had gone far more
quickly now that Simon did as she had requested. He once
again treated her with the reticence he showed the
household’s servants.
“I can’t send this mess to Caldwell.”
She scooped up the paper. The typing was neat and
the margins tidy. “What is wrong with it?”
“It’s drivel.” He laughed coldly. “It was arrogant of
me to think I can finish this book in the time left me and
have it be worth anything.”
“We are so close to being done.”
“‘We?’ I didn’t suspect you had gained the status of
co-author of my work. Perhaps I should turn over the
remaining research to you.”
“Maybe you should!” she snapped back, rising to face
him. “Do you know how many people would be thrilled to
have their obsessions fulfilled as you are? Do you want to
know what I truly think?”
“Do I have any choice?”
“No.” Although she knew she should be silent, keeping
the barrier of polite respect between them, she could not.
“I think you’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“I don’t know. Afraid no one will appreciate your work
maybe, or no one will care. Or maybe you’re afraid you
won’t win your father’s approval even after the book is
published. Or worse, maybe you’re afraid you’ll have to
venture out into life when it’s done instead of hiding here
in your work.”
Fury tightened his lips. She straightened her shoulders,
for she would not cower when he dismissed her.
His curse scorched her ears. “Complete typing the
notes on the desk. I trust you’ll be in a better state of mind
by dinner.”
Darcy flinched as the door slammed so loudly she was
sure it could be heard down in the village. She wondered
how much longer—like Meskhenet and Kafele—he could
hide from the truth he did not want to face.
Thirteen
It was missing . . . again.
Darcy searched around the desk, but found no sign of
the book where she had been writing Meskhenet’s story.
Heat soared up her cheeks as she imagined Hastings
reading the scene of Meskhenet and Kafele becoming
lovers.
Rising from looking under the settee, she rubbed her
knee. It ached less with each passing day of the past week.
The book was not in Simon’s office. She had been certain
she brought it down with her this morning. Maybe she
was confused and thinking of another day. She might have
left it upstairs this morning.
A pulse of relief lessened her dismay when she saw
her notebook on the settee in her sitting room. That dismay
returned as she picked it up to discover the only pages
remaining in it were blank. All her stories, including the
unfinished one, were gone. Gone, too, was her dream of
going to Egypt when she was finished typing Simon’s book.
Then she would have enough money to go to Egypt, but
she needed the money that the publisher had promised her
in order to find lodging and to eat until she could find
some of her family. To begin anew was not impossible,
but it would take weeks to rewrite all the tales Jaddeh had
told her.
As she lifted the book to press it to her chest, a slip of
paper fell from it. Another torn page? It was in her
handwriting, but the word “amaze” had been circled with
a line drawn between the first “a” and the rest of the word.
A maze? She looked out the window at the garden.
Was this a clue to where the rest of her work might be?
She could not guess why anyone would want her to come
to the maze to retrieve it, but she did not have the luxury
of ignoring the invitation. She needed to find her work.
Darcy tied her bonnet under her chin, but did not reach
for her cloak. The past few days had been unseasonably
warm. She suspected, as she went outside and saw the
clouds gathering on the western horizon, the cold would
soon be returning with a storm off the sea.
She had not been near the maze since the night she
had foolishly wandered into the wood and met that thing.
Her steps faltered as she stared at the trees which seemed
so innocent in the bright sunshine. Could she be walking
into a trap? Within the maze, she might not be able to
escape that thing before it captured her again.
Looking down at her notebook, she continued walking.
She had worked too hard on these stories to let some
horrible prankster keep her from recovering them. Her feet
slowed again as she stared at the maze’s outer walls. The
yew bushes stood nearly ten feet tall. Seeing a page lying
on the grass just inside the maze, she glanced back at the
house. Once she entered, she had no idea how long it would
take her to escape again. Yet, if she left the pages of her
story here, they would be lost . . . or found by someone
else.
She stepped into the strange world between the dark
green walls. New growth shone in bright green, but she
paid it little attention as she lifted the page out of the soft
grass and set it in her notebook. Seeing another farther
along, she hesitated again. If she followed the pages into
the maze, she could pick them up in the opposite order
and find her way back out.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. She ran to the next
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