A Treacherous Curse

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  The interior of the Hall was much the same as the outside, all Egyptological paintings and terra-cotta-colored walls. Here and there potted palms gave the impression of the out-of-doors, and the carpet was the color of stone.

  “Most atmospheric,” I agreed.

  “Naturally, we have attempted to improve the decorations,” she added, indicating the long linen banners hung at the main doorway into the Hall. “Poor Mr. Fairbrother only just finished supervising the hanging of the banners before the doors were opened.” The banners were decorated with the cartouche of Princess Ankheset and images of lotus flowers and gods, all rendered in gilt paint and brilliant reds and ochres and blacks.

  “I could almost fancy myself in ancient Egypt,” I said, nodding to Mr. Fairbrother.

  He smiled down at me. “Your praise is more than I deserve, but I will accept it with pleasure.”

  “The banners are lovely, Mr. Fairbrother,” I assured him.

  “They were devilishly difficult to install,” he said, bending his head close to mine. “I had to strip to the waist and climb like an athlete to get them into place. I only wish you had been here to see it.”

  With a rush of pleasure, I realized Patrick Fairbrother was flirting with me. I tipped my head and made good use of my lashes. “I regret that I was not,” I said in a low voice.

  He grinned at me. “Come and see the exhibition,” he urged. “It really is quite astonishing.” Stoker had fallen into conversation with Sir Leicester, and Lady Tiverton was welcoming another party, so I accepted the arm that Patrick Fairbrother offered. He guided me through the doorway into the expanse of the Hall itself. I stood on the threshold for a moment, dazzled by the brilliant blue gleam of faience, the warm glow of the gold. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” His breath stirred the slender gold ribbon at my ear.

  “Entirely magnificent,” I said in perfect honesty. Like the foyer, the inner Hall had been furnished with potted palms and hung with linen banners to conjure a scene out of ancient Egypt. With Fairbrother as my guide, I was introduced to the Tiverton collection. He pointed out simple things, like gilded wooden chairs and screens, noting the workmanship and explaining the symbols. But his real enthusiasm was for the jewels—startlingly bright beaded strings in delectable colors: carnelian red, lapis blue, jade green, and everywhere the burnished brilliance of gold. He showed me a tiny gazelle, poised midleap, and a set of hair combs fashioned with such delicacy they would have suited only a royal head.

  “But here is the piece that made me think instantly of you,” he said, pointing to a necklace that had been displayed outside of any case, hung almost carelessly upon the neck of a pottery vase. It was a slender strand of beads, rather short so that it must fit close at the base of the throat, and composed of alternating materials, gold and lapis. From the center, a single charm depended, a graceful butterfly, its lapis wings unfurled, the delicate veins marked with fine threads of gold.

  “Remember what I told you about butterflies in the tombs of the pharaohs,” he said in a low voice. “Resurrection and beauty.”

  “Exquisite,” I breathed. I put out a fingertip as if to touch the cartouche, but he grabbed my hand.

  “Miss Speedwell, you mustn’t,” he cautioned with a smile. “Look, but do not touch.”

  As if to ensure my compliance, he kept my hand clasped in his as I admired the necklace. After a long moment, he stopped a passing waiter to secure two glasses of champagne. “It has cost us much to bring these treasures out of Egypt, but tonight is our triumph. Drink a toast with me, Miss Speedwell.”

  “Very well. What are we toasting?” I asked, accepting the glass.

  “To unexpected adventures,” he said, holding my gaze as he touched his glass to mine.

  “To Princess Ankheset,” I added, gesturing to the draperies which concealed the sarcophagus on the dais. “May she rest in peace.”

  He smiled a wary smile. “You do not approve of the public display of the coffin?”

  I shrugged. “Not exactly. I understand the need for knowledge, but perhaps in a more private venue, for scholars only,” I suggested. “Rather less of a fairground attraction.”

  The smile warmed. “Well, perhaps you have a point,” he began.

  Suddenly, something brushed my leg, and I moved quickly to the side, pressing myself inadvertently against Mr. Fairbrother’s muscular form.

  “It’s only Nut,” he said, coaxing the dog out from behind my skirts. “But I shall thank her for that,” he added with a meaningful glance.

  Lady Tiverton approached then, her expression slightly harried. “Patrick, I’m afraid Nut will make a nuisance of herself. Figgy was supposed to keep her close at hand, but she must have forgot.” I had glimpsed Figgy darting behind the dais as her stepmother approached, her expression mulish. She was dressed in a youthful frock of yellow dimity, a dreadful color on her, and she had spent the better part of the evening skulking behind the potted palms, staring balefully at the crowd. Parties, it seemed, were not her favorite diversion.

  Fairbrother downed the rest of his champagne in one swallow and took the dog by the collar. “Come along, little brute,” he said with some fondness. “Let’s go and find you a chicken to eat.”

  “Thank you,” Lady Tiverton called after him. She gave me a small smile. “I am sorry to have interrupted,” she began in a faltering voice.

  “There was nothing to interrupt. Mr. Fairbrother was simply being hospitable,” I assured her.

  “I apologize if Nut alarmed you. She’s a dear, really, but she can be terribly excitable, and Figgy will forget to look after her.” She touched me lightly on the arm. “About her visit, I do hope she did not make a nuisance of herself.”

  Poor Figgy! I thought. Little wonder the child felt suffocated if her call had already occasioned such interest. I repeated what I had told Sir Leicester, and Lady Tiverton nodded.

  “She scarcely knows Lady Wellingtonia. Calling upon her was merely a pretext.” She hesitated, then darted a glance to where Stoker was still in conversation, his manly form shown to advantage in the stark perfection of his evening clothes, his expression serious. In spite of his untamable hair and his earrings, he looked like a master of creation. “He is a difficult man to ignore, and Figgy is an imaginative creature,” she said, leaving the statement hanging in the air.

  “You need have no fear, my lady. Miss Tiverton is as safe with Stoker as with a monk. His manners may be occasionally rough, but he is every inch a gentleman, cradle-born.”

  The grave eyes rounded in horror. “Miss Speedwell, you must not think for a moment I meant to suggest otherwise. No, no. The lack of propriety would originate with Figgy. I am fond of my stepdaughter,” she said in a rueful voice. “But it has been difficult to be a true mother to her. She has resisted my efforts. She does not confide in me.”

  “Perhaps if she were a little more at liberty,” I suggested.

  “But how can one give liberty to a child so ill equipped for it?” she asked gently. “She is clever, like the Wards, but in temperament, she is not like her mother. The first Lady Tiverton was a scholar, very lively and merry, but serious about her interests. As Figgy has matured, I have begun to worry about her. She has demonstrated a certain wildness of temper, an intractable will of her own. It tasks her father greatly,” she confided. “We do not know exactly what to do with her.”

  If it tasked her father, he had only himself to blame, I reflected. Figgy was nothing less than his spitting image in this regard. “Have you considered educating her?” I asked. “She is not unintelligent. Perhaps she just needs a bit of schooling to get her out of the habit of being useless.”

  Her eyes took on a shuttered expression. “She longs to go to school, but my husband cannot bear to be parted from her. He is a devoted father,” she said with a touch of defensiveness.

  “I am certain of it,” I told her. “But perhaps for h
er own good, he might be persuaded to let her go.”

  She spread her hands. “I am sometimes at a loss, I do not mind telling you. He does not discipline her as he ought, and I cannot. A stepmother must naturally tread softly.”

  “I think,” I said slowly, “that Figgy will make her own way in the end.”

  Lady Tiverton roused herself. “I must beg your pardon, Miss Speedwell! What must you think of me? Prattling on about our family troubles in such a fashion?”

  Before I could make a suitable response, Sir Leicester mounted the dais in front of the curtains screening the sarcophagus of the Princess Ankheset.

  “Pray, silence, friends!” he called. The dull roar of the assembled crowd fell to a muted buzz. Sir Leicester went on. “I am no great maker of speeches,” he began. “But I must welcome you all here to Karnak Hall upon this grand occasion.” He went on to talk about the expedition, glossing over the difficulties and heaping praise upon the members of his team. He recounted the thrill of discovering the cave for the first time, the slender crevice in the rock which was to answer the hopes of a lifetime for him. He spoke briefly of Jonas Fowler, the late expedition director, and not at all of John de Morgan. Instead he lifted his glass and said, in ringing tones, “She has lain in silence and in dignity for millennia, but tonight I give you, with all her treasures, the Princess Ankheset!”

  The crowd responded, glasses lifted high. “Princess Ankheset!” Lady Tiverton went to her husband then to share in receiving the accolades of the guests, while I drifted off. Stoker was nowhere to be found, doubtless following a trail of his own, and I allowed myself to be caught up in admiration of the finds. I was particularly taken with a set of sandals made of beaten gold, thin as a sheet of paper. Grouped with them was a set of twenty hollow golden pieces, shaped like thimbles but much longer, and clearly meant to cover the ends of the fingers and toes.

  “They look devilishly uncomfortable, don’t you think?” asked a young woman who appeared at my side. Instantly, I recognized her as the person who had been in close conversation with Inspector Mornaday upon our arrival. Unlike the other ladies who had come in their finest evening gowns, wearing jewels to rival the princess’, this lady was quietly dressed in a sober gown of dark blue. Her hair was reddish and coiled in a heavy, serviceable knot at the nape of her neck. A governess or companion attached to one of the more illustrious guests?

  “I should think them uncomfortable in the extreme,” I agreed.

  “Well, perhaps it is worth it to suffer a little to be a princess.” She peered into the case for a moment, then slanted me a curious look. “I find it odd that Sir Leicester did not mention the mummy’s curse with regard to the death of Jonas Fowler, don’t you? Nor the disappearance of John de Morgan.”

  I shrugged. “No doubt he wished the attention to be fixed on the success of the expedition, not sensationalist superstition.”

  “I should think misplacing a staff photographer and a priceless diadem would be something more than a superstition. And to lose the expedition director in such a dramatic fashion . . .” She let her voice trail off suggestively, cocking her head to scrutinize the coronet on my head. “Half the women here are wearing Egyptian jewelry, but I rather think yours is something special,” she said, giving me a narrow look as she extracted a slender notebook and pencil from her pocket. “Would you care to make a statement for the press?” My mind whipped back to the shadowy pavement outside Bishop’s Folly.

  “You! You were the woman who followed us,” I hissed.

  She grinned broadly and thrust out her hand. “I do not believe we have met. J. J. Butterworth. I said, would you care to make a statement, Miss Speedwell?”

  I ignored the hand. “I most certainly would not. Does Sir Leicester know that you are here?”

  She tipped her head. “Not precisely. He issued an invitation to my newspaper and it happened to fall into my hands.”

  “You mean you stole it.”

  She shrugged one slim shoulder. “A woman must make her own opportunities in this world, don’t you agree?”

  “If I did, would I find it in print?”

  She laughed outright. “I think, under other circumstances, Miss Speedwell, we might be friends.”

  “I should sooner befriend a barracuda,” I told her evenly. “And let us be perfectly clear with one another. I despise you and the dirty little fictions you concoct. And if you print one word about Revelstoke Templeton-Vane that is not true—”

  She held up a hand. “I know. You will sue me for libel.”

  “My dear Miss Butterworth, there will be nothing left to sue when I have finished with you.”

  To her credit, she was still smiling when she walked away, head held high. I stood for a moment, staring after her and seething at Mornaday’s duplicity. Having seen them together outside, I had little doubt he was the one feeding information to her like a mother bird dropping tasty morsels into the waiting beak of a chick. At least I could remove any suspicion from Figgy on that score, I thought darkly. I spotted Stoker in the crowd and wove a circuitous path towards him, eager to get him away before Miss Butterworth noticed him.

  Suddenly, a voice, distinctly American, rang out through the Hall.

  “Well, goodness me, but isn’t this a sight!” All eyes turned to the doorway where Horus Stihl stood, hands on hips, surveying the room. His son, Henry, stood awkwardly behind him, as disheveled in his evening suit as he had been in his more casual clothes.

  Sir Leicester broke from a group of guests, striding towards his former partner as a hush fell over the assembly. Henry, looking distinctly miserable, slipped to the edge of the displays, nearly flattening himself behind a potted palm in his desire to be invisible. I sympathized with him. His father had the heightened color and bright-eyed mischief of a seasoned provocateur, and Sir Leicester was not the sort of man to back down from a fight. He approached Horus Stihl as a bull will charge a red flag, not surprising, considering their last encounter had ended in threats of violence from a distinctly enraged Stihl.

  “What do you mean in coming here?” Sir Leicester demanded.

  Mr. Stihl touched the band of black crepe pinned to his arm. “I came to offer my condolences,” he said with a touch of reproof. “I worked with Jonas many a year, and it seemed only fitting to pay tribute to his last expedition.”

  Sir Leicester purpled a little. “Oh, em. Of course, of course. Rotten business.”

  “Indeed.” They stood, Sir Leicester squared off as if to prevent Mr. Stihl from entering further. Mr. Stihl indicated the displays. “I see you are still going ahead with the exhibition.”

  “Naturally,” Sir Leicester said, puffing out his chest. “It is what Fowler would have wanted.”

  “He would at that,” Mr. Stihl agreed. His tactic of aggressive agreeability seemed to have thrown Sir Leicester off his stride. With nothing but perfect politeness and gentility from the American, the baronet could not very well throw a scene without appearing churlish. They seemed to be at an impasse until Mr. Stihl noticed Lady Tiverton and bowed.

  “My lady,” he said with a courtly gesture.

  Her eyes were enormous, wide and unblinking. “Mr. Stihl. This is unexpected,” she said, her normally low voice even softer than usual.

  Mr. Stihl smiled thinly. “As was Jonas Fowler’s sad demise.”

  “Hardly. The fellow had a heart condition, as you well remember,” Sir Leicester added sharply.

  “Certainly. Why, I remember one time he took a fright at a jackal roaming too close to the camp. It howled so loudly you’d have thought it was carrying off a human soul. Poor old Jonas turned white as a sheet and collapsed. But I expected he’d have years left in him. Years,” he said, stressing the word. “Still, not much a man can do against a mummy’s curse, is there?”

  It was masterfully done. The Tivertons could speak publicly neither for nor against the curs
e. They might privately deplore it, but the story was driving sales, and Sir Leicester gave every impression of a shrewd businessman who would press every advantage.

  He pressed his lips together as Mr. Stihl went on. “Yes, that curse is a curious thing. From the mummy of Princess Ankheset, you say?”

  “Yes. She was left in a cave in a remote wadi with some of her grave goods,” said Patrick Fairbrother as he approached. “You can see her cartouche for yourself,” he added, throwing back the curtain in front of the sarcophagus with a flourish.

  Taking this as an invitation, Mr. Stihl stepped neatly around Sir Leicester. He peered at the sarcophagus, stroking his moustaches thoughtfully. “Very interesting,” he said quietly. “So, this is your princess,” he added, touching the scorched and gilded wood with a fingertip.

  Sir Leicester hurried to put himself between Horus Stihl and his beloved princess. “It is. She is not to be disturbed.”

  “I shouldn’t dream of it,” Stihl said, giving Sir Leicester a long speculative glance.

  Something in that glance angered him, for the baronet curled his hands into fists. “This exhibition will be the making of the Tiverton name. It will go down in the annals of Egyptology, and you will be nothing more than a footnote,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Lady Tiverton started, her hand to her throat, but Mr. Stihl merely smiled. “Do not trouble yourself, my lady. I understand your husband very well. Better than anyone, I daresay.” He turned to Sir Leicester. “Don’t fuss. I did not come to make a scene,” he said with every appearance of sincerity. “I simply wanted to see the collection for myself, and I knew better than to expect a proper invitation since we are not as close as once we were.”

  The shot hit home, for Sir Leicester flushed and his hands unknotted themselves. “Of course. Look around, if you must. Have some champagne. I must attend to my guests. The Prince of Wales is expected shortly.”

  He stalked off, followed by Lady Tiverton. I stood rooted to the spot, hardly feeling Stoker’s hand where it gripped my arm. “Steady,” he murmured into my ear. “We can leave now if you like.”