She was younger than he’d expected, too. From what little Pomfrey had written in his letter of instruction, Jim had assumed the fiancée would be well past the first blush of youth. This girl’s skin was silky and fine-grained, her bosom high, and her hips…It wasn’t his heart that tightened this time.
“Miss Whimpelhall,” he said, stepping forward. She was taller even than he’d first thought, the top of her head on a level with his eyes. “I am—”
“Mr. Owens,” she said, stopping and looking him over in a most frank manner. “Yes. I have your description. You are exactly as I imagined. I would have known you anywhere.”
She looked at Haji, tensing. The Egyptian made her visibly nervous.
“Welcome to my country, Miss Whimpelhall,” Haji said, trotting out his most unctuous smile. “Haji Elkamal, at your service.”
She didn’t answer straightaway. She just stared at Haji from behind her dark glasses before abruptly thrusting her carpetbag into his chest. “Excellent. You may carry this. There’s a good fellow.”
Haji stumbled backward, grabbing the valise before it fell to the ground.
“Do be careful of that,” she chided him. “There’ll be no tip for you should you drop it.”
Haji, in his European jacket and trousers, his black hair gleaming with pomade, simply gaped at her.
“Mr. Elkamal isn’t a porter,” Jim said, wryly amused. For a few seconds there, he’d felt something unfamiliar, dimly recalled, like thread sewn fast to some organ deep within had been pulled taut…But she was simply another xenophobic English tourist, after all. “He’s an associate of mine.”
“Really?” she asked. Eying Haji, she beckoned Jim forward with a single, calfskin-encased finger. He leaned in and caught the scent of travel on her but also something sweet, soft, and feminine.
“Do you think that wise?” she whispered loudly. “He looks downright villainous to me.” She straightened. “But then I’m told you’re an American cowboy. I expect you’re familiar with his sort.”
He had to give her credit. In less than three minutes, she’d managed to insult him, Haji, and America. She’d out-Pomfreyed Pomfrey. She beamed at him, as unconscious of giving offense as the sun was of shining. That beautiful siren’s mouth was ripe with secret humor.
“Though I must say, your accent doesn’t sound very much like a cowboy’s.” She seemed disappointed.
“Just trying to improve myself, miss,” Jim replied. “If you’ll wait here a minute, I’ll fetch the rest of your luggage and have it sent on to the hotel.”
“That won’t be necessary. My luggage was lost during a storm at sea. That,” she said, pointing at the carpetbag Haji cradled in his arms like a fat baby, “is all I have.”
“Do not worry, honored sitt,” Haji said, fumbling with the valise. “There’re a number of places on El-Muski Street where you can buy clothes. European establishments. They’ll have you—”
He trailed off as she held up that single finger again, silencing him.
“I was not worried, my good fellow. You have misunderstood.” She spoke to him in the distinct syllables one used with the mentally challenged. She turned toward Jim. “I only meant that there is no luggage forthcoming, and as such we can proceed to Fort Gordon at first light tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Jim echoed, thinking. The sooner he fulfilled his promise to Pomfrey, the better. But then he looked down at her travel-stained dress, with its heavy material and layers of petticoats. “You can’t cross the desert in those things. You’ll roast.”
She scowled as she followed his gaze. “I suppose you are right. I shall have to buy some new clothes. But I must do so at once. I don’t want to dilly-dally in Cairo when I ought to be making my way to Colonel Lord Pomfrey.”
“If sitt will allow me?” Haji had recovered his aplomb and was once again smiling. “Perhaps I can be of assistance?”
She turned her head in his direction, her brows climbing above the upper rims of her dark glasses. “You?”
He bowed. “If you please. My cousin is a dressmaker of considerable talent who creates beautiful gowns at a most reasonable price. English-styled gowns. His clothing is much sought after by the European ladies of the city, and his shop is but a few minutes from here.”
“First a tyrannical aunt and now a dressmaking cousin. You’re full of all sorts of surprises today, Haji,” Jim said in Arabic, his tone bland.
Haji smiled sunnily. “You know very well that I have no such cousin,” he replied in the same language. “But I know a man who will sell this terrible woman a made-over cast-off for an exorbitant price of which I will receive ten percent. If she continues to stare down her long nose at me, I shall tell him to make sure it has fleas.”
“What is he saying?” Mildred Whimpelhall demanded.
“That it will be a great honor for his cousin to clothe Colonel Pomfrey’s fiancée,” Jim answered.
She nodded, apparently satisfied. “Very well, you may show me to your cousin’s shop. It had better be clean. No lice or fleas,” she said, drawing Haji’s startled glance. She continued, “And no more speaking that foreign language in my presence. It is rude and unnecessary. Especially given that you speak English.” Haji, who was immensely conceited about his public school British accent, preened. “At least passably enough to make yourself understood.”
Startled, Jim almost broke into laughter.
“Oh, there will be fleas. Many fleas, you female dog,” Haji muttered under his breath.
“What are you saying now?” She turned to Jim. “What is he saying?”
“He’s begging your pardon for being rude,” Jim said.
“Yes,” Haji said. “I am sorry that my vocabulary is inadequate to express my feelings for you. But it is. I simply have no words.”
“To you, not for you,” Mildred corrected graciously.
Haji’s face registered feigned surprise. “Thank you for the kind instruction. Unfortunately, I am not free to accompany you at this moment,” he said. “Perhaps this afternoon?”
“What is wrong with right now?”
“I am to meet a young lady,” Haji explained.
“Oh? Is it a harem girl?” she asked in shocked tones. Jim should have probably pulled her away, but this exchange was the most amusing thing he’d seen in months.
“No. She is a Miss Braxton,” Haji replied, his sangfroid finally growing thin.
Mildred’s gloved hand flew to her heart. “Miss Braxton, you say? But Miss Braxton was aboard the same ship as I! A lovely girl. Utterly charming.”
Haji peered at her disbelievingly. “Miss Ginesse Braxton?”
“Yes, yes. Ginesse. A pretty, petite blonde angel of a girl. So sweet. Delightful company,” she said. “I am sorry to be the bearer of such sad news, but Miss Braxton was afflicted with a terrible case of seasickness. Indeed, there were times she was so violently ill I feared for her life. She left the ship in Italy with the intention of continuing her journey by overland routes once she’d recuperated.”
“She left the ship early?” Haji asked.
“That is correct.” When Haji continued to stare at her in seeming incomprehension, she sighed in exasperation and said in a very loud voice, “Missy. Braxton. Not. On. Ship.”
Haji blinked.
“I believe she left a letter with the captain—” Mildred broke off, gazed at Haji’s still-dazed expression, sighed again, and continued. “She. Leavie. Letter,” she made a scrawling motion in the air, “with El Captain.”
“This is terrible,” Haji muttered in Arabic. “I knew that afreet’s return would be a plague on me! Magi will kill me if I do not return with the brat. Mark my words, my aunt will find a way to blame me for this.”
“You’re speaking that mumbly-humbly again,” Mildred placidly pointed out.
In a clear sign of his distress, Haji barely noted the insult. “I must go.” Without another word, he dropped the carpetbag to the ground and hurried off into the crowd.
&nbs
p; Jim turned to Mildred Whimpelhall. She was biting her lower lip, and oddly enough, it looked as if she was trying to hold back laughter. She caught his eye and cleared her throat. “What appalling behavior. Quite unconscionable.”
“He’s usually better mannered,” Jim said, scooping her bag up. “Let’s see about getting you to your hotel.” He waved her ahead of him, and when she obliged, he fell in step behind her.
Outside the station, he caught the eye of a carriage driver parked on the far side of the street and raised his hand. The man snapped his reins over his horses’ rumps. “We’ll take a—”
“No,” she interrupted him. “No, thank you. I believe I’d rather ride one of those little donkeys.” She pointed to a clutch of tourists being hoisted aboard some long-suffering beasts.
“A donkey?” Jim asked dubiously. The donkey boys of Cairo were ubiquitous, the Egyptian counterpart of London’s hackneyed cabs. For pennies, you could clamber aboard a donkey and be taken wherever you might want to go. It was the tourists’ favorite way of visiting the bazaars. But it was also dusty and malodorous. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take a carriage?”
“Yes.” She bit her lip, looking uncomfortable. “I…Well, to be frank, the idea of being in closed quarters with you…That is, I’m reluctant to…” She trailed off, blushing profusely.
Jim looked at her, at a loss. He couldn’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t wish to share a carriage with him unless—Good God. She couldn’t seriously think that she was in any danger from him? She was Pomfrey’s bride-to-be. Even if he were the sort of scum who took advantage of closed quarters to impose himself on a woman, there was no one on earth he’d be less likely to do so to than her.
He muttered an Arabic curse, appalled.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Owens?” she asked stiffly.
“Listen, Miss Whimpelhall,” he said. “We’re going to be traveling a long way together through some pretty harsh land. And while we won’t be traveling alone, we will be in close quarters. You are going to have to believe me when I say your reputation and, er, your virtue are as safe with me as if you were my own sister.” His couldn’t help glancing at her hair. “Safer.”
“Oh!”
Apparently he shouldn’t have said that. “May I help you into a carriage now?”
“I prefer the donkey,” she replied coldly.
“Suit yourself.” He shouted a few words in Arabic, and within seconds three donkey boys had surrounded them, vying for the fare. He picked a likely looking mount, giving directions and a piaster to its owner. Then without really giving it much consideration, he turned around and, putting his hands around her waist, hefted her up.
It took less hefting than he’d expected. She didn’t weigh much under all that material, and the impetus threw her above his head, catching her off guard. She pitched forward, flinging out her hands to clutch his shoulders and brace herself awkwardly above him. His hands closed more tightly around her waist.
It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman, and then it had been more a matter of expedience than desire, a brief physical union that had left him feeling empty rather than sated.
That woman had been round and pillowy. Mildred Whimpelhall was not. She was taut and supple. Even through layers of thick gabardine, he could feel where her small waist flared gently into a sweet hip. A ripple of pure desire shot through him, stealing beneath his awareness and quickening his blood.
“Oh. Oh, my.” She sounded breathless. He’d probably offended the hell out of her again. Small wonder, he’d been holding her aloft longer than necessary by half.
He dropped her atop the donkey as if his hands were scalded. He’d planned to accompany her to the hotel, but decided he’d better keep his distance from for now.
Pomfrey’s bride, for God’s sake. “I’ll be at the hotel later tonight. Seven o’clock.”
“I shall expect you,” she said, her chin lifted to a haughty angle. She may have a delectable body, but it looked as if she had a temper to match that violent red hair.
The boy tapped the donkey on its rump, and the animal moved forward, Mildred Whimpelhall perched like an oddly elegant crane on its back. They had only gone a few steps before she turned round to look back at him.
“Just so we understand one another, Mr. Owens,” she said, “I wasn’t worried about my virtue being assailed. I was worried about my nose.”
“Pardon me?” he asked.
“You, Mr. Owens, smell.” And with that parting salvo, Mildred Whimpelhall bounced off into the crowds.
CHAPTER FIVE
Well, he had smelled, Ginesse thought as she jounced along on the back of the donkey through the winding alleys and narrow streets of Cairo. She pictured with satisfaction the startled look on Mr. Owens’s face when she’d delivered her coup de grâce and refused to feel guilty.
How could James Owens believe she thought she was in danger of attracting his grimy—and thoroughly unwanted—attentions? It was embarrassing. She would never imagine he would…that she was the sort of woman he’d…Oh! She understood perfectly well she was not the sort of woman who inspired men’s animal passion. And she did not want him thinking she had any misconceptions about herself in that regard.
She could still hear the horror—yes, horror!—in his voice as he’d breathed the Arabic equivalent of “Holy Mother of God.” It was mortifying.
Not to mention disappointing. She had been so pleased with her initial impression of Mr. Owens. He’d looked like the exemplar cowboy: a lone wolf with the soul of a poet…She frowned. That sounded awkward. She would have to work on a better metaphor.
But his face had seemed intelligent; his manners, circumspect; his bearing self-possessed but without a trace of arrogance. She’d even glimpsed a touch of humor in his light gray eyes when she’d been taunting Haji.
And she refused to feel a twinge of guilt about that, either. As a girl, she’d suffered far worse at Haji’s hands. He’d been a telltale and a bully, the first to catch her in some minor transgression and then tell others about it. He’d even been the originator of that nasty nickname, Afreet. It had felt good to get a bit of her own back.
And Mr. Owens had nearly laughed, she thought with a slight smile. She would bet her last pound on it. His wide mouth had curled up at one corner, and he had had to look away to recover his gravitas. All cowboys, she decided, ought to have humor as well as gravitas.
If he was a cowboy. There had been a slight but definite English public school flavor to his deep, soft voice. She sighed. More likely, he was some clerk from Liverpool. He’d probably never even held a six-shooter. That would account for his tasteless comment about her virtue being as safe with him as his own sister’s. The cowboys in the books she’d read would never be so familiar. They had a deeply embedded respect for womanhood. Even the dastardly ones. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine an Englishman throwing her on a donkey and sending her off alone to a hotel. So perhaps he was an American.
By the time she arrived at Shepheard’s Hotel, it was just past four o’clock and the streets were quiet. Few people ventured out into the oppressive afternoon heat, but there were some intrepid souls on the balcony. An elderly Copt with a trained monkey was entertaining them from the street below, the poor dispirited beast doffing his little fez and holding his paw out for baksheesh. A gentleman laughed and leaned over the rail. Ginesse glanced up and promptly blanched.
Of the half dozen people on the balcony, she knew three. Or rather, they knew her. An idly chatting couple, Baron and Baroness Heissman, had once found her after she’d wandered away from her family into a less-than-salubrious suk. The gentleman sharing their table, Dr. Younterville, had set her arm—both times it had been broken.
Why hadn’t she thought about how small the expatriate community was in Cairo? She should have realized she might encounter people she knew. Though the food was notoriously bad, Shepheard’s still maintained its reputation as the premiere meeting place for Cairo’s
luminaries—archaeological and otherwise. It was bound to be full of family friends and acquaintances.
“We are here, sitt.”
Ginesse slid off the donkey’s back, keeping her face carefully averted from the balcony, opened her purse, and pressed a couple of coins in the donkey boy’s palm. True to form, the boy immediately began to harangue her for more until a turbaned and uniformed doorman well into his middle years came racing down the hotel steps. She even recognized him; his name was Riyad, and he’d been a doorman at Shepheard’s since she could remember. He shooed the raggedy lad and his donkey away at the same time as he secured her carpetbag and offered her an obsequious welcome in at least a half dozen languages.
Praying he did not recognize her as well, she readjusted her dark glasses and schooled her face to an impassive expression.
“May I inquire as to your name, sitt?” he said.
“Mildred Whimpelhall,” she answered, half expecting him to cry out that she was an imposter.
But he only smiled warmly and said, “Ah, yes. Miss Whimpelhall. You are expected.”
He escorted her into the hotel’s massive lobby. Her heart sank further. The lobby was full of people congregated in little clusters taking their afternoon tea. And once more, she was familiar with many of them. Lady Sukmore was ensconced on a divan with two of her cronies, Mrs. Paurbotten and Miss Dangleford. The three comprised the worst snobs in all of Egypt and had ruled the women’s social scene at Cairo’s legendary Turf Club for decades. She’d been banned from attending any of the club “socials” since she was six years old and found trying to set Countess Munter von Halwiener’s leopard free on the golf course.
“I won’t have it!” a shrill masculine voice declared, drawing her attention to the reception desk. “You will find room for me and my entourage!”
The Other Guy's Bride Page 4