Wrapped

by Jennifer Bradbury

  Though I’d have given anything just to sit next to David and take comfort in how near he was to us, it fell to me to entertain Showalter. We strolled the garden path, exchanging a comment with Mother or Father when we came near, sometimes pausing to listen to one of David’s friends recount some mischief they stirred up at school.

  “May I say again how lovely you look tonight, Agnes?” Showalter asked me.

  I smiled as sincerely as I could. “You may,” I said, but I was painfully aware that he was simply saying so because he had run out of conversation. Still, it never stopped him from nattering on. He truly did love the sound of his own voice, truly did appear to love an audience, even if it was only an audience of one. His chatter was diverting enough—his observations on the plants in the garden were astute, his musings on the stars we could see through the treetops overhead were entertaining, but they required nothing of me but an appreciative expression and perhaps a well-timed question here or there to keep him going.

  I was doing as David asked, giving Showalter as much of the benefit of the doubt as I could. And I found him as agreeable as ever. But something was missing.

  It was so very different talking with this man—a man who’d known my family for years—than it was talking to Caedmon, whom I’d known barely a week.

  It was not the first unbidden comparison that sprang to mind wherein Lord Showalter fell short of his unknown rival.

  “I do hope you’ll allow me the pleasure of the first dance at the ball next Saturday?”

  I looked down. “It’s over a week away,” I said. “I hardly think my card will be full. . . .”

  He smiled. “Just so. You promise you’ll save me at least one?”

  I nodded, again a little pleased about how it felt to be pursued. Even if I sat out half the dances that night, someone had already asked me for the first. But Showalter was not done with his compliments.

  “First balls, then the world!” he said grandly. “You’ll steal the heart of every man on the Continent when you finally make the tour one day.”

  “I’d rather they simply understand me. I do so hope that my Greek proves adequate. I’ve had no practice speaking,” I told him. While I was confident in my reading and writing abilities, having taught myself after exhausting my language tutors in German, Italian, French, and Spanish and that kindly old rabbi Father unearthed to help me with Hebrew, there had been no suitable tutors for Greek or Hindi, and my progress suffered for it.

  “I’ll never understand the point of learning all those languages,” Lord Showalter said. “You can easily pick up a translator anywhere we might go.”

  My toe caught on a corner of one of the flagstones. But the word I’d just heard him utter was even more jarring. We. It was the closest he’d come to declaring himself. My heart made an odd flutter, but for all the wrong reasons—I felt as though the garden was closing in on me, and something like panic rose in my chest.

  What was I doing? It had been fun to play the debutante, to flirt a bit, to think that I had managed (with Mother’s help, of course) to win the affections of someone as perfect as Showalter. But now that it appeared I’d succeeded, now that he was signaling me so openly, it made me acutely aware of what I really was: a girl in a lady’s dress, a girl who’d been pretending too well, a girl who would now suffer for it, and possibly cause a perfectly good man to suffer in the bargain.

  I silently prayed that Mother hadn’t overheard his slip.

  Showalter offered me a steadying hand as he went on, “I hear that even in Egypt, most of the natives speak enough English or French to translate for outsiders.”

  “Translators muddy things,” I said, unable to voice what I really meant. I resented that the life I lived—that the world women were allowed to live in—was often little more than a translated, simplified version of the world belonging to my brothers, my father, to Showalter.

  “All this assumes anyone will even be able to make the tour as before,” I added.

  He sighed. “I’m sure your husband, whoever the lucky man might be”—he paused and smiled sideways at me—“will be unable to deny you such a trip, whether Napoleon is firing cannon shot over Vienna or not.”

  I flushed, then sought refuge in safer topics than possible marriages. “The war does seem interminable, does it not?”

  “Yes, well, I have a feeling all that unpleasant business of war will sort itself out very soon somehow.”

  I almost laughed aloud. If only he knew just how unpleasant things threatened to become. Resurrected armies of the dead . . . domination by Napoleon.

  “Then perhaps we can rest easier knowing that David won’t be hurling himself aboard enemy ships.”

  He laughed. “And the trade routes will open back up properly. It will be better for all of us—on both sides of the Channel,” he said. “And some even suggest that a peace—however it is achieved—would result in shared scholarship on Egypt and the artifacts.”

  “For now, I suppose we’ll have to settle for our unwrappings and visits to the museum,” I said, feeling compelled to respond in some way.

  “And we’ll make that trip very soon,” he supplied. “Your mother and I settled on Thursday morning. You’ll luncheon with me at my home afterward.”

  A whole morning? With just my mother and Lord Showalter? Then lunch? We’d be hours, hours I should have been using to sneak away and see to the search for the standard. Hours wherein I’d feel the same mixture of nerves and regret that I felt now. “How nice,” I managed to say.

  “There are a number of new acquisitions at the museum,” he said genially. “When was the last time you visited?”

  I hesitated before letting the lie slip past my lips. “Years ago. Even then I found myself torn—”

  “Torn?”

  I nodded. “As marvelous as the museum is, part of me can only wonder if the items belong in the places they originated, to the people whose ancestors created them.”

  “Agnes Wilkins!” he teased. “You harbor dangerous sentiments!”

  I looked at him, alarmed. But he grinned, then leaned closer to whisper. “If it comes to light that the daughter of a prominent member of the House of Lords harbors such anti-imperialist views . . .”

  “You are mocking me,” I said, smirking. So he had a sense of humor after all. I realized that I couldn’t stop myself from checking off his attributes, that I couldn’t keep from cataloging what I liked and didn’t like about the man, that despite my reservations, I couldn’t think of him as anything other than a suitor.

  He shrugged. “Think what you like, Miss Wilkins. But politics aside, I rather believe having the place brought to you rather than enduring the dust is infinitely better. Did you know that one of my associates just made a journey to a dig site outside Memphis and was forced to ride a camel? Really, I can’t imagine perching atop one of those spitting beasts.”

  “Riding a camel? I think it sounds marvelous,” I said, adding with another smirk, “provided I was clear of the spitting end.”

  “I’d like to see some of those curators at the museum on a camel.”

  “Have they been quite cross with you?” I asked as casually as I could manage, avoiding his eye, looking toward the tree line, where the first of the evening’s fireflies had begun to flicker.

  “Hmm?”

  “About the mummy we unwrapped by mistake?”

  “Oh, that! Well, they worked themselves up, as if I’d intentionally taken the wrong specimen. But I paid for them both, so they can’t be too indignant. Unless they start charging admission in that place, they need men like me to keep them going.”

  I watched one light blink on and off, tracing its slow path across the shadow of an elm. It felt dangerous, this questioning, even if there was no way Showalter could know the real reason for my curiosity. I took a steadying breath and asked my next question.

  “And were they quite satisfied that all the items from the wrappings had been restored?”

  I felt the arm he’
d extended to me at the outset of our stroll stiffen ever so slightly. “I believe so,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  The firefly I’d been following with my eye seemed to hover in place, flashing more rapidly now, not moving across the trees, as if it were stuck fast in a spiderweb. I hesitated, wishing I had Deacon or even my father to advise me on how to proceed. I chose my words carefully.

  “I only ask because I wonder if your guests were the only ones with access to the body.”

  “What are you suggesting?” he asked, leaning around to try and catch my eye. I looked quickly to his face and then back to the firefly stuck in the web.

  “Simply that even in the finest households, servants are tempted by the attractions of wealth.”

  He stopped to stare at me. “You really are a curious girl,” he said.

  I realized that I might have pushed too far. That the limb I’d decided to venture out on was growing less sturdy the farther I climbed. Over my shoulder, I heard Rupert snort at something David said and found my excuse. Widening my eyes to look as innocent as possible, I turned my face to Showalter. “At breakfast this morning, Rupert and I were talking. And he’s always accusing our servants of misconduct. I suppose his suspicion is catching. Particularly with things as they’ve been lately.”

  “Doesn’t hurt to be careful, I suppose.” His tone was once again cheerful.

  “Thank you, sir. But I must confess something. Your valet, Tanner—”

  “Don’t let that buggy eye put you off. He’s as loyal as they come.”

  “It’s just that . . . ,” I began, faltering in order to appear distraught at conveying such bad tidings, “I’ve been wanting to tell you . . . I think I saw him follow that murdered man from the party.”

  Showalter’s expression was unreadable, distorted by the shadows cast from the lamps and the rising moon. Past his shoulder I could see that same poor firefly winking in the distance.

  Finally he laughed. A sure, satisfied laugh that rang around the garden like music. “You’re a jewel, Agnes Wilkins,” he said, taking a breath and sighing, “such an imagination . . .”

  I started to protest, to assure him that it was not my imagination. But a flurry at the patio caught my eye.

  Clarisse burst onto the terrace and hastened to my mother’s side, panting and near tears. I watched her whisper furiously to my parents. My father stood, spilling half his drink in his haste. Mother sat frozen in her chair.

  “Assemble the servants in the hall,” Father ordered.

  The rest of us sped to him from our various positions within the garden.

  “What’s happened, Father?” David asked, grasping his arm.

  “Lord Showalter, would you be so kind as to escort Mrs. Wilkins and my daughter to the drawing room? You boys come with me,” he said to my brothers and our other guests.

  Showalter helped my mother to her feet and guided her into the house and toward the sofa in the drawing room. I lingered behind, peeling away when we reached the hall.

  “Father ordered you to the drawing room,” Rupert hissed as I followed the men thundering up the carpeted stairs. I ignored him and trailed the party to my brother’s open door.

  “What the devil?” Rupert cried out as he shot past my father and into his room. I stopped short of the doorway. It looked as if David’s ship had opened up its cannons and fired in. Rupert’s clothes were pulled from the wardrobe; desk drawers had been emptied, their contents spilled into drifts of paper. The linens had been stripped from the bed, the washbasin, overturned, left water puddling on the rug.

  “Capital,” Rupert cried, kicking at the chamber pot.

  “Is this what happened to the other party guests?” David asked quietly as he crossed the room to the open window. Despite Mother’s insistence that we confine our conversation to lighter matters for the hours we had David with us, Rupert must have at some point told him of the events in our neighborhood of late.

  My father nodded. “Clarisse discovered the mess and the man who made it when she came in to light the lamps.”

  “She saw him?” I exclaimed.

  My father started at hearing my voice. “Agnes, I asked you to wait in the drawing room.”

  “Clarisse saw him?” I demanded again.

  “Only for a moment. She was carrying a candle to light the wicks. He leaped from the window when she entered,” he said.

  “He could have used the trellis here to climb in,” David said, crossing to the window.

  I surveyed the disorder, and the thought struck me that if Rupert’s room had been burglarized, then—

  I turned abruptly and fled up the hall to my own chamber. Clarisse always lit the lamps on Rupert’s side of the hall first. My door was shut fast, no light creeping from beneath it. I scooped up a lantern from the table in the hall and pushed open my door.

  Inside, dresses and hats and hair ribbons littered the floor like scattered leaves. My books, too, had been disturbed, the spines uneven as they lined the shelves.

  I took a few cautious steps in, picking my way through the debris. A glint from the floor beside my dressing table caught my eye, and then broke my heart.

  My jade butterfly lay shattered. I’d tried to wear it tonight, but Mother had forbidden it, had said the green was garish next to my dress, had complained that I wore it too often as it was.

  It was the only thing in the room that I could see that had been damaged in some way. It made me wonder if whoever had done this might have somehow known how precious the item was to me. Had the burglar sought and found the most readily available means to injure me?

  A fury I’d never known threatened to choke me, but out of the cloud of anger emerged another thought.

  My heart hammered, and I grasped the door frame to steady myself. The burglar, perhaps the very one who’d been meant to intercept the message, had been here moments ago. Now he’d made complete his inventory of the people at the mummy—

  But he still hadn’t found the jackal’s head.

  Caedmon had it and the message safe. My instincts had proven out!

  And if the burglar was the agent of some evil curse, had it passed us by as well? I hoped so.

  I hurried back up the hall to rejoin Father and the others to tell them that my room had also been ransacked. I now realized there would likely be no better moment to tell Father what I knew, what I’d done.

  I expected he’d be proud of me, after all. And there was little lovelier than Father’s praise.

  The men still gathered at the window.

  “Father, I—,” I began.

  “Not now, Agnes,” he said.

  “I really must tell you something—”

  “Agnes, you have already disobeyed me by following us upstairs. Do not incense me further by ignoring—”

  “But Father—”

  “Not now, Agnes!” he said without turning.

  Well.

  I stared at the back of Father’s head as he conferenced with the men by the window. If he did not wish to hear from me, I could oblige him. I fumed, thinking of all the trouble I’d gone to, all the very useful things I’d already learned, but even Father was ready to dismiss me out of hand. So, if he wanted my silence, he could jolly well have it.

  On all points.

  I’d had more than I could stomach of people assuming I was incapable of handling life’s challenges because of my sex. Even Father, the most open-minded man I knew, thought I belonged downstairs, protected from the unpleasantness in my own home.

  Perhaps it was time to demonstrate how capable I was.

  Perhaps I would ignore Deacon’s order to tell Father. Perhaps Caedmon and I would continue our own search. Perhaps the best time for Father to hear of it would be when all was settled, when Caedmon and I had secured the standard. After all, the burglar had come and gone empty-handed; the greatest of any danger had passed.

  It would serve them all right.

  So resolved, I stooped to collect up a handful of Rupert’s book
s that had been knocked to the floor. I placed the volumes back on the shelf, but hesitated as I discovered among them a small notebook bound in soft leather. It bore no title on cover or spine, and when I flipped it open I found the pages covered with Rupert’s handwriting, arrayed in careful columns and stanzas. Poems, I realized as I glanced at the title of the one I’d landed on. “To Emmaline.” Emmaline? The only Emmaline I knew was Julia’s chaperone, Mrs. Perkins.

  Rupert was on me in a moment. “What are you doing?” he yelped, snatching the book from my hand.

  “Nothing,” I managed, “I was merely—”

  “Isn’t it enough my room has been vandalized by a stranger? Must I endure your invasion of my privacy as well?” he fumed, placing the book in the drawer of his writing desk and turning to find us all staring at him.

  Father broke the silence at last. “Rupert is right,” he said. “We should avoid disturbing the room further until it has been thoroughly examined.” He motioned us all toward the door, dispatching David’s friends to fetch a constable.

  “Let’s speak no more of this tonight,” he said, clapping a hand on David’s shoulder. “We’ve precious few hours left with our young captain. We’ll go down to the drawing room and collect Mother and Lord Showalter and salvage what we can of this evening.”

  “You’ll want to have a look at my room before that, I think,” I said coolly.

  Father turned to me. “Your room?”

  “Rupert’s wasn’t the only one disturbed,” I said, leading them up the hall.

  Father hurried past me.

  “I tried to tell you,” I said as I pointed toward my open door. Father and the others looked in.

  After a long moment, Father reached for me. “Agnes, come here,” he ordered. I let him fold me into his arms.

  “Forgive me for being so curt with you before,” he said. “I didn’t realize—”

  “It’s all right, Father,” I said evenly.

  “You are an unusual girl, Agnes,” he said, holding me at arm’s length. “Sometimes even I manage to forget that.”