by Louise Allen
‘Patrolling a considerable length of bank. No one seems very alert to dangers from the river. If I had designs on robbing these vessels, I would swim and haul myself over the side.’
‘That is reassuring,’ Cleo muttered.
‘That is why I am here.’
‘Across my threshold like a slave in some ancient palace?’
‘Of course. Are you not Queen of the Nile?’
Cleo snorted. ‘And you were awake, you must have been, to know about the sentry and to react so fast when I woke. You should be asleep.’
‘I can sleep during the day. I am cat-napping now. Close your eyes and let go, Cleo, don’t be afraid.’
‘I am not at all afraid.’ She dropped the flap and slid back under her sheet. The loud slap of something large hitting the water had her sitting up again the next moment.
‘Fish jumping.’ A hand appeared under the hanging and touched her arm. ‘Sleep.’
* * *
As dawn began to break Quin had closed his eyes and let sleep take him. Half an hour, perhaps, he thought as he drifted down, ignoring the stiffness in his right arm. Cleo had gone to sleep holding his hand and he did not have the heart to risk waking her by pulling it free.
He surfaced again to find the sun just up and his hand empty. Small scuffling and splashing noises told him that Cleo was awake and washing in the bucket of water she had taken into the cabin the night before. When he sat up the goat bleated at him. Quin eyed the evidence that the creature was not boat-trained, dealt with it and then lifted the protesting animal over the side into the shallow water.
‘Stay there and have a drink and we’ll go for a walk in a minute when I’ve got my gear.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ Cleo called.
‘Delilah. We are going for a stroll, a wash and, if there’s some hot water to be had, a shave.’ The goat bleated. ‘You be quiet or I’ll shave your beard off.’
Cleo laughed, the first time he had ever heard her give way to amusement without some edge to it. It was a rather nice laugh, although he suspected she didn’t let it escape very often.
‘Come on, Delilah.’ He climbed over the gunwale, took the goat’s rope in one hand and the shaving kit Cleo had found for him in the other, and splashed ashore to look for hot water and some grazing for the goat.
He stripped off, washed in the river and dressed again, then found the angle of a branch to wedge the small mirror into while he shaved and Delilah grazed placidly around his feet.
‘Someone is going to have to milk you,’ he told her, eyeing the heavy udder as he rinsed the razor and poured away the water. The goat raised her head and peered at him down her formidable Roman nose and the recollection of the only other Delilah he knew, the Dowager Marchioness of Dawlish, came to him. Other than the fact that the old battleaxe was as flat-chested as a plank the resemblance was irresistible. Quin sat down and laughed until he cried.
‘Bredon? What the devil’s the matter with you, man?’ Sir Philip, clad in a blue-and-yellow banyan, his own shaving tackle in this hand, stared at Quin as though he had just encountered a lunatic.
Perhaps he has. Perhaps all this had addled my brain. Oh, lord, what am I doing, goat-herding in the heart of Egypt when I could be drafting communiqués, planning dinner parties or deciphering code letters? Obeying orders, he answered himself.
‘Just something that occurred to amuse me, sir,’ he said as he got to his feet and found the goat’s trailing rope. ‘Come on, Delilah. Let us hope Madame Valsac knows how to milk you.’
‘There you are,’ Cleo greeted him. ‘You haven’t milked her?’
‘I have no idea how to. Do you?’
‘Of course.’ Cleo tied a bow to secure her long braid and tossed it back over her shoulder.
That was a pity, Quin thought as he lifted the protesting animal back on board. He would have liked to see her hair loose around her shoulders.
It seemed Cleo had been preparing breakfast as well as getting dressed. ‘Here.’ She thrust a platter and a beaker into his hands as he stood up to his knees in water. ‘Can you give those to my father, please?’
The older man still was not back, so Quin laid the food on the cross-bench and splashed back to haul himself on board, conscious of Cleo’s intent gaze on him while her hands worked rhythmically, sending milk hissing into a bowl. The half-healed wound on his arm pulled painfully, but the muscles held.
‘You are very fit,’ she observed. ‘Is that because of your work?’
Diplomacy was hardly a physically strenuous activity under normal circumstances and Quin almost said as much before he remembered who and what he was supposed to be. ‘I fence, box, ride and swim,’ he answered truthfully. ‘That helps. But engineers must be capable of climbing tall structures and scrambling about half-built machinery, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Cleo agreed. Her face was expressionless as she turned her attention back to the goat. ‘I’ve almost finished—we can have milk with our breakfast.’
* * *
They reached Kene on the great bend where the river turned sharply west just as the sun was going down that night. Cleo was hanging on to her temper by her fingernails and her father was complaining that they had swept past Thebes without stopping.
For once Laurent and Quin had been in perfect accord. The captain had announced that he did not care how many of the savants were at work on the ruins that were said to have stopped the army in their tracks with wonder, Quin had declared flatly that they had no time to go chasing up the Valley of the Kings in order to sneer at James Bruce’s book about one of the tombs and, when the furious baronet offered the felucca’s owner a ridiculous amount to stop, both men agreed they would sail on the moment Sir Philip got on the shore.
Her father had to be content with glimpses of the temples at Luxor and Karnak as they had swept past.
‘You should have let him go ashore,’ Cleo said to Quin while the men were mooring for the night. ‘And left him. The villager who owns this boat would have benefited from the money and Father would have been perfectly all right with the savants and their escort.’
‘Leave your own father?’ Quin asked, his voice gently mocking.
‘He was prepared to leave me.’ Cleo did not feel in the mood to be mocked, however mildly. ‘You heard him—Laurent said he would not permit me to go with Father and he replied that I would be in the way and I could go to Cairo with you.’
‘I could not square it with my conscience to leave him here. It is better that he is in Cairo.’ Quin stood on the gunwale to help pass ropes.
Cleo shifted so she could watch him. There had been something in his tone just then that she could not understand and she was still absolutely convinced that whatever Quin Bredon was, he was not an engineer. That morning when she had commented on his fitness he had answered with a general statement about engineers, nothing personal, no example from his own experience as she would have expected. Men liked to talk about their own lives and interests. But not this one.
Capitaine Laurent came down to inspect what they were doing and nodded amiably at Quin. Apparently their mutual tussle with her father had muted the antagonism between them somewhat. Should she say something to Laurent? But what? That she was certain Quin was not an engineer? But if he was not, then surely the only thing he could be was a spy and Laurent would have no option but to shoot him.
‘Look out below!’ Quin swung down to catch the tumbling sail before it covered her. ‘Daydreaming?’
‘No, just undecided about something.’ Cleo began to gather the sail up so Quin could tie it from one end while the boatman began at the other. He worked his way along, knotting as he went, until he was opposite her. She looked into the deep blue eyes that were so friendly, looked at the relaxed curve of his mouth and the dextrous hands. ‘I will sleep on it.’
* * *
Sleep proved impossible. Cleo lay staring up, sightless in the stuffy darkness. If Quin was a spy, then who was he damaging? The French,
presumably, and she was a Frenchwoman by marriage now. But she did not feel French, any more than she felt English. And what had the French ever done for her? Married her off to a man who lied, who was unfaithful and who hit her.
If she went to Laurent, told him her vague suspicions, then he would want to know Quin’s mission and that meant only one thing. He would use torture and somehow she could not imagine Quin simply giving in at the first glimpse of a hot iron or whatever hideous methods Laurent would employ. So it would be prolonged and appalling and then they’d shoot him and she would never get it off her conscience.
‘And I like you, you infuriating man,’ she murmured to herself. More than liked, if the truth be told. She desired him. Her experiences of physical love had not been very satisfying, but she knew enough to suspect that it had been her ignorance and Thierry’s lack of care that contributed to that. Quin with his hugs and his humour, and his beautiful body, she admitted to herself, he would be different.
But it would be madness, even if he wanted her, even if they found somewhere to make love. No man was trustworthy, not deep down. He would be good to her while it lasted, then his own needs, his own interests, would emerge and he would leave her without a backwards glance. That was what men did.
She curled up on her side, her nose inches from the hanging panel that separated her from the open deck and Quin on his self-appointed guard duty outside her door. The boat rocked in the current, fish splashed, a jackal gave its harsh call. None of that was strange now, but something was keeping her awake beyond worry and lust. Someone was whispering.
‘I do not give a damn.’ That was Quin and the whispering voice had been him, too. His voice rose. ‘Don’t care. Why should I?’
Cleo parted the flap and looked out. Quin was flat on his back, eyes closed, the light rug that had covered him tossed aside. He was clad in only the thin cotton drawers that all the local men wore under their robes and in the moonlight she could see the faint trace of sweat glistening on his chest.
‘Quin?’ Cleo murmured as she touched his arm. He was deeply asleep and dreaming, but if his voice became any louder it would bring the guard and she imagined he would hate that.
He quietened at her voice, or perhaps it was her touch. ‘Not like my father. Either of them.’
That made no sense. He moved his head, restless. Cleo reached over and pulled the cover back over his body, concerned he would take a chill. Quin began to mutter again. She could not make out the words, but he sounded bitter and unhappy. For a moment she hesitated, wondering if it was his conscience speaking, and then decided she did not care. A hug had made her feel better, she would see if she could work the same magic for him.
Cleo slid down to lie close to the long, hot body, put her head on his chest and her arm across to hold him. ‘Shh, I am here,’ she said, echoing his reassurance of the night before. ‘Sleep, Quin. Just sleep.’
With a sigh he put his arm round her and held her to him, then fell silent, his breathing deep and steady on the still air.
* * *
Quin woke and opened his eyes on to the darkness that heralded the dawn. Everything was still, the only sounds the single calls of birds anticipating the sun, the gurgle of the river against the boat, the creak of ropes and the breathing of the woman in his arms. Comfortable, he closed his eyes to drift down into sleep, the memories of the old nightmare dissolving like mist in the morning.
Woman? Hell’s teeth! It was Cleo, he would know the scent and the shape of her anywhere, even after the fleeting physical contact they had shared. ‘Cleo,’ he whispered as he shifted to face her. The last thing they could afford was for her to wake up with a shriek to find a man in her bed. Although she was in his and how the blazes she got there...
‘Hmm?’ She curled up tighter against him, her head burrowing into the angle between his shoulder and neck.
‘Wake up. Quietly.’ Her hair tickled his nostrils and he had to control the urge to kiss the top of her head. Or let his hands stray. Or shift his aching groin any closer to her soft, warm mysteries.
‘Quin!’ It was a shriek, but a whispered one, muffled against his bare shoulder.
Quin grabbed for the sheet as he pushed her gently back into the cabin, offering up silent thanks for the darkness. He was three-quarters naked and as aroused as any man who wakes up wrapped around an attractive woman at that time in the morning could expect to be.
‘I fell asleep,’ she whispered through the crack in the hangings. ‘I’m sorry, I meant to creep back in here once you’d settled.’
‘Why? What was I doing?’ Talking in his sleep, he supposed. How damned embarrassing.
‘Talking in your sleep,’ Cleo confirmed. ‘You were saying that you did not give a damn and that you didn’t care. And something about your father.’
‘And I woke you, I’m sorry. It was just an old dream.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Only your voice was getting louder and I didn’t think you would want the guard to come over to see what was happening.’ He could hear her shifting round inside as though uncomfortable. ‘So I thought a hug might quieten you. And it did.’ They sat there in silence for a minute, on each side of the barrier as the darkness began to break into shimmering grey.
‘You said something about not being like your fathers. But that doesn’t make sense,’ Cleo said eventually. It wasn’t quite a question.
Oh, hell. Quin dropped his forehead on to his bent knees. He supposed he had better tell her, because if he was going to spend the next few nights prattling about his sordid history goodness knows what she would make of it. And he had discovered, on the very few occasions he had confided in anyone, that the nightmares stopped for months.
‘Put on a robe and we’ll talk on the river bank,’ he said, pulling on trousers and a shirt. He lifted the protesting goat over the side and tethered her to a tree as a convenient excuse for being out at that hour, then went back to help Cleo, who was sitting on the side of the boat, legs dangling.
She put her hands on his shoulders and let herself be swung to dry land with a soft chuckle. ‘You are strong.’
‘You are easy to lift. You should have more flesh on your bones, but you work too hard.’ Not that the flesh that did cover her lovely, lithe body was not soft and curved and enough to ruin a man’s sleep for months.
‘You smell better than Delilah,’ he added in an attempt to lighten the conversation. The goat bleated at him when he untied her rope and set off along the path, upstream to where the current had carved a tiny crescent of beach. ‘Go and have a drink,’ he told her and let the rope drop.
Cleo came and sat beside him on a water-washed tree trunk. ‘I will get fat and lazy, lying about on the boat all the way to Cairo.’
‘Good.’ Quin leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs, and contemplated the sand between his feet. ‘The lazy part, at any rate. You deserve a holiday.’ And she would need her strength when they reached Cairo because whatever happened, it was not going to be easy on her. It was the right thing, but even so...
‘Tell me,’ she said and, to his surprise, turned sideways on the log, put her feet up and rested back against him. ‘Tell me why you have two fathers.’
Quin had no idea whether it was instinct or if she realised that she was making it easier for him by creating some distance and yet giving him the comfort of her touch. When she discovered the truth about his birth she might well decide to move away. He took a deep breath and put it to the test.
Chapter Nine
‘When I was eight years old and my eldest brother was seventeen and about to go off to university, my...father called all of us, all five boys, into his study and said there was something he had to tell us because Henry was probably going to hear rumours.
‘I was, he informed us, the son of our mother and another man, now dead. He had chosen to acknowledge me in order to spare the family scandal, especially as he had four legitimate sons between me and the title. He told us that the reason I looked so unlike my bro
thers was that I resembled my true father closely and was coming to do so more with every passing year. For all the emotion he showed he might have been discussing the sale of land or an unsatisfactory servant.’
Cleo had gone completely silent, but she drew a deep shuddering breath as though she had been holding it in tightly.
‘He would not neglect my education, he said, and he would settle land on me so that I would not bring further shame on the family by ignorance, bad manners or a display of poverty, but he did not expect my brothers to associate with me. He certainly hardly spoke to me again.’
She did speak then, still facing the river. ‘Oh, poor little boy! What did your mother say to you?’
‘Nothing. She was dead by then and even before, we hardly saw her. I realise now that they were living separate lives. It was...a shock.’ That was a simple word for the mixture of shame, anger and the strange relief of knowing that the man he had thought was his father ignored him for what he was, not who he was. ‘I knew my father did not like me, let alone love me, but I had no suspicion why. I had nightmares from then on.’ He leant a little against Cleo’s warmth. ‘I grew out of them, of course, but they still come back when I am very tired, or anxious about something.’
‘And you have been sick. No wonder you are dreaming.’
At least he had not been ranting about the rest of the dream, the obsession to make good on his own terms, to follow his own path, become a leading diplomat or a high-ranking government minister in the Foreign Office. I will be the best. He would repeat that over and over, when his head ached from studying, or his tutor whipped him or the marquess swept past without a flicker of acknowledgement. He would succeed. He would earn his own wealth, his own title, his own reputation as a man of honour, a man who did his duty, come what may.
He was here because of that duty and he was here because he would demonstrate his skills with languages, show initiative, pull chestnuts out of the fire and lay them before one of the most powerful men in government. What he had been doing would have to be secret, of course, but the fact that he had accomplished a tricky mission well would be known to Lady Caroline Brooke’s father. When he got back to London he would ask for leave of absence and embark on some serious courtship.