It had been years since he had been in this study. It looked exactly the same, wonderfully familiar with its shelves of books, the tattered oriental carpet, the scarred and ink-stained old mahogany desk, the carefully rolled papyri and small clay figurines. And even though the reason for his being here was unpleasant, he could not help the feeling of, well, homecoming it inspired.
“It is time to send a telegram to Mr. Braxton,” Magi said.
He’d known he would somehow be held accountable for the afreet’s absence that now looked like it was becoming a disappearance. “Aunt Magi, I am sure—”
“You are sure of nothing.” Magi, a slight, dark-haired woman whose smooth face belied her age, swung toward him. “If anything happens to that girl—”
“Now, Magi, I am sure Ginesse is capable of navigating the foreign rail systems without incident,” Sir Robert said soothingly from behind the great desk. Though his white hair was a bit thinner and his brows a bit bushier, and the hands folded on the ink blotter wore more liver spots, at eighty-five he looked much as he had at seventy. “It is too soon to worry her parents. Perhaps she took a tender to Greece? It would have—”
“And perhaps she did not,” Magi cut in. “Why did she get off the ship in the first place? She does not say. This does not say.” She slapped the telegram she held with an angry hand. “We know nothing except she is not here and we do not know where she is.”
“She will doubtless tell us when she arrives.” Sir Robert tried again. “You ought to have more faith in the girl, Magi. She has always reminded me of her mother, an extremely prudent, conscientious young woman.”
Magi and Haji stared at Sir Robert, Haji because no one who knew her had ever considered Ginesse Braxton either prudent or conscientious, and Magi, if he read her expression correctly, because she was thinking the same about her one-time charge, Desdemona. Haji would have ascribed this opinion to the fading faculties of advanced age, but Sir Robert had always believed the unsubstantiated best about everyone of whom he was fond. He thought Magi was a paragon of serenity.
They were still staring at him, unsure how to respond, when Hasima, the household’s lone maid, appeared in the library door. “There’s a lady and gentleman here to see Miss Braxton.”
All three of them turned and stared at Hasima.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said defensively. “Always in the past when Miss Ginny does something and the authorities came you said I should act like I didn’t know anything. So that’s what I did. Should I tell them to go away?”
The three of them looked at one another.
“No, bring them here,” Magi finally said.
Hasima disappeared and returned a few minutes later leading an English lady and gentleman. She waved them into the library ahead of her and then backed out again, closing the doors.
Haji studied them as the gentleman came forward and offered his hand to Sir Robert. He was a slender young fellow in his early twenties, fair-skinned with light hair and eyes, and an intelligent, mobile face. His companion was an unremarkable brown-haired woman with sloped shoulders and a diffident manner.
“Sir Carlisle,” the gentleman said, reaching across the table to shake Sir Robert’s hand. “This is indeed an honor, sir. I read your monogram on wine production and its relation to population surges in the third dynasty with great interest.”
“You did?” Sir Robert said, brightening.
“Yes, indeed,” the man said, straightening. “An inspired piece, sir.”
Sir Robert puffed out his chest and preened a bit, stroking his luxuriant white moustache. “Good of you to say so.” He frowned. “Who are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Excuse me. Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said, bowing. “I am Geoffrey Tynesborough, professor of ancient history at Hart’s College, Cambridge.”
Haji frowned. That was the college where Ginesse had been studying. He looked over at Sir Robert, but he was not paying attention, rifling through the over-heaped contents of his desktop, muttering. “I have the original somewhere around here. Suppose you’d like to see it. Let me see…”
After waiting a moment, Professor Tynesborough cleared his throat and extended his hand in the direction of his companion. “And this lady is Miss Mildred Whimpelhall of Paxton-on-Tyne, Somer—”
“What?”
The Englishman looked around, startled by Haji’s outburst.
“Did you say this is Miss Whimpelhall?” Haji asked.
The lady blushed profusely.
“Yes,” Professor Tynesborough answered. “Miss Whimpelhall.”
“But…but she can’t be,” Haji stammered.
“Excuse me?” the gentleman asked, his perplexity deepening.
“I was introduced to Miss Whimpelhall five days ago at the Misr train station by James Owens, a friend of mine who had been charged with guiding her across the desert to her fiancé, Colonel Pomfrey.”
Miss Whimpelhall’s eyes grew round, her mouth formed a little “o” of distress, and with a soft moan she pitched forward in a dead faint. Professor Tynesborough caught her before she hit the ground. Beneath the window one of LeBouef’s little birds took flight, heading straight to his master’s hand.
“But whatever reason would Miss Braxton have for impersonating me?” Miss Whimpelhall asked some time later from where she rested on the battered old settee in Sir Robert’s library. He’d never been one to exchange old comforts for new ones just because he could afford them. Though Sir Robert was a very wealthy man, the only time he ever used any of that great wealth was when he was entertaining, something he did infrequently but enjoyed immensely.
“Because she is a demon,” Haji answered through clenched teeth. “And that is what demons do. Make one’s life a living,” he glanced at Miss Whimpelhall, “inferno.”
“But it makes no sense. I am loath to admit it, but yes, Miss Braxton did seem taken with my descriptions of Colonel Lord Pomfrey. But not to the point where one would suspect some sort of mania had taken hold of her.” She looked slightly repelled by the notion.
“I should hope not. The Braxton women are known for their levelheadedness,” Sir Robert said.
At this Magi gave a small snort. Sir Robert looked at her, brows raised. She looked back, brows lowered. Some silent form of communication was exchanged until, finally, Sir Robert sighed. “Fine. We’ll send Harry a telegram.”
It took a while, but they strung together a chronology of the events prefacing the professor and Miss Whimpelhall’s arrival:
The lady, the real Miss Whimpelhall, had disembarked due to seasickness in Italy just as Ginesse Braxton was supposed to have done. But after a single day of recuperation, she had decided she could not allow herself to succumb to what she considered a character weakness and so had boarded the next ship bound for Alexandria. In the interim, she had discovered that through what she took to be a clerical error, Miss Braxton’s luggage had been removed alongside hers from the Lydonia and delivered to her.
En route, Miss Whimpelhall had made the acquaintance of Professor Tynesborough, who was also on his way to Cairo. During the course of their conversations they had discovered a mutual friend in Miss Braxton, whom he was hoping to visit. He had been delighted to escort Miss Whimpelhall, along with Miss Braxton’s luggage, to Sir Robert’s house, where Miss Whimpelhall remembered Miss Braxton had been bound. And thus here they were.
“But why would she do such a thing?” Miss Whimpelhall asked again. “I thought we’d become friends. I was looking forward to thanking her again for her tender care of me.”
“Perhaps I can shed some light on that,” Professor Tynesborough said. He had been quiet during Miss Whimpelhall’s recitation, but now he stood up from the chair he’d taken, clasping his hands behind his back. “Miss Braxton is one of my students.” This caused Sir Robert’s brows to climb.
“I met her during her first year at college. She wasn’t like the other students, certainly not like the other wom
en. I suspected her reasons for pursuing her degree were not entirely founded in her fascination with the subject. Mind you, she was a very good student. But no matter how well she did, she was always unsatisfied and looking for some other way to excel. There was a sort of desperation about her ambition that awoke my sympathy. So, I asked her to aid me in some of my research.”
Why would Ginesse Braxton be desperate? Haji wondered, frowning. If she did not want to study Egyptology, she could have gone off and done whatever she wanted. Spoiled brat.
“About six months ago, she came to me with something she’d found that she claimed to be a transposed map. I discounted it as wishful thinking. Shortly thereafter, she resigned from my employ. I believe,” he said gravely, “that at that point Miss Braxton felt that she’d fulfilled any obligation she had towards me and decided to continue her research alone.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, sir,” Sir Robert said.
“A few months ago, troubled by our estrangement, I began to follow her research trail. I was amazed by what I—or rather, she—had discovered. I think she has identified the location of the lost city of Zerzura and that she has impersonated Miss Whimpelhall in order to gain access to the vicinity where she believes the city to be found: near Fort Gordon.”
“But why would she do such a thing? Why wouldn’t she tell her father or me so that we might help her?” Sir Robert asked.
Tynesborough hesitated before answering, and when he did so, his expression was gentle. “I believe she wishes to earn through her own endeavors a place in the annals of archaeology alongside the rest of her exalted family.”
“What?” Sir Robert asked, bewildered. “That’s ridiculous. She doesn’t have to earn a place. She has one by merit of her birth.”
“Perhaps it is not something you asked of her, but something she has asked of herself.” Tynesborough’s smile was sympathetic.
Blessed Allah, Haji thought, the man is in love with the afreet.
“I don’t believe it,” Sir Robert said.
“Can you come up with any more plausible explanation of why she would assume Miss Whimpelhall’s identity? Ask yourself this: would she have been able to arrange to get to Fort Gordon by herself?”
“Bah!” Magi, who had been quiet during all of this, suddenly said. “That Ginesse has headed to Fort Gordon under another lady’s name seems incontestable. Why she has done so will only be answered once she has returned.” She pointed a finger at Haji. “You will fetch her.”
Haji recoiled, horrified. “But, Aunt Magi, I have businesses to run. I cannot simply leave.”
“Yes, you can. You were given a charge to bring Ginesse Braxton here. You have not fulfilled that charge.”
He ground his teeth in frustration. Hard experience had taught him that his life would be intolerable if he refused. “As you wish.”
“How wonderful!” The soft cry of delight came from Miss Whimpelhall. “Perhaps…that is, I am loath to suggest it, but I would be most grateful if I might join your expedition, Mr. Elkamal.”
“No,” Haji said. The last thing he wanted was to add another burden to an already onerous one. This fainting, waxy-faced woman was the worst sort of traveler.
“Yes,” said Sir Carlisle. “If Ginesse has inconvenienced this lady, we owe it to her to do what we can to see that she is reunited with her fiancée as soon as possible. And I shall go, too.”
“What?” both Magi and Haji exclaimed.
“She’s my great-granddaughter, and if she needs rescuing, I daresay I should be the one doing it. Besides, if the girl finds Zerzura, I want to see it.” He smiled suddenly as an idea occurred to him. “Why, we’ll make a party of it!”
Once Sir Robert had set his mind on a thing, he did not change it. The years had only amplified this trait. It would do no good arguing.
“I will go, too,” Magi announced, and when Sir Robert opened his mouth to protest, the look she gave him had it snapping shut again. Silently, Haji ran through a litany of Jim Owens’s more colorful expletives.
“And I,” the professor declared, then quickly amended, “That is, if I might impose upon you?”
Sir Robert peered at the professor suspiciously.
“No, sir,” the professor said with commendable dignity. “I would never attempt to commandeer Miss Braxton’s discovery. I wish to go for personal reasons.”
“Those being?” Magi asked, haughtily.
The professor looked uncomfortable. “I feel responsible. Had I listened to her, this entire situation might have been circumvented. Now, if I may make a suggestion?”
“Go on,” Sir Robert prompted.
“We should leave as soon as humanly possible.”
“And why is that?” Magi asked, frowning. “From what you say she is well tended.”
“Do you know Miss Braxton well?”
Everyone except Miss Whimpelhall nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
“Then can you imagine the sort of trouble she will get into without someone who is aware of her, um, proclivities to protect her?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE EGYPTIAN DESERT, TEN DAYS LATER
The pistol shot rang out across the desert floor, and Pomfrey’s soldiers dove for cover, including Neely, their grizzled lieutenant.
On the far side of the camp, Miss Whimpelhall started and looked down at the newly minted hole in the sand beside her and at what remained of the large, yellowish scorpion that had been sitting in it a second earlier. Then she looked at the rock in her hand, the one she’d just lifted from that same place.
“I fear I am once more in your debt, Mr. Owens,” she said, her voice shaking just a bit.
“Think nothing of it,” Jim said, calmly replacing his pistol in its shoulder holster and leaning back on his bedroll. He no longer got rattled at having to shoot things, climb things, chase things, or dive into things to snatch her back from the precipices she seemed always to be leaning over. It was all in the day’s work. “Please. Continue with what you were saying.”
“Are you really interested?” She sounded both doubtful and hopeful, and the combination was incredibly winsome. Added to which, he really was interested. She was an encyclopedia of the obscure and unusual. The theoretical finishing school she’d attended might not have tamed her vivacity, but it had definitely honed her intellect.
“I am.”
She replaced the rock over what was left of the scorpion and edged away. “Where was I?”
“You were explaining how Akhenaten’s name was expunged from the historic record. That rock you were holding was going to illustrate the expunging, I believe.”
“Oh, yes,” she said and began again. He listened, but his mind drifted. He found Egyptian history interesting enough, but not half so interesting as her. Ten days under the desert sun had bleached most of the plum color from her hair, turning it a soft cinnamon, and toasted her skin a light golden brown so that her blue-green eyes shimmered like a turquoise oasis in a bed of warm sand.
She still wore those damnable trousers, but at least they were hidden under an enveloping white tob, a robe that he’d bartered off a trader in Suhag. For the most part, it had been an uneventful seven days. Oh, there’d been a bit of food poisoning, a tent had caught fire, here and there a runaway camel, and now the scorpion, but nothing wholly unexpected.
It wasn’t her fault that trouble dogged her steps. Take, for instance, the scorpion. A hundred people could have picked up that rock and nothing would have been under it; yellow scorpions were as rare as they were lethal. But if Mildred Whimpelhall picked up a rock, there would surely be a scorpion lurking beneath it.
But while she was seldom to blame, she wasn’t entirely inculpable. She was impetuous and impulsive and headstrong. Somehow she always managed to tempt Fate, and Fate never managed to resist.
Most times, it wasn’t too onerous a task keeping her safe, and most times she courted nothing more than a few bumps and bruises—not always her
own. But there had been times his blood ran cold. Like when she’d been hanging out over the Nile straight in the path of that oncoming dahabiya.
She could have died.
He’d never been so terrified. Not even when he’d crawled into the Mahdist camp seven years ago, certain any second the side of his head would be exploded by a bullet. So afraid that when he got her back on deck, he’d lost every scrap of composure and shouted at her. He never lost his temper. And it was while he was shouting at her and she was shouting back that a strange, unwelcome notion had stolen into his imagination, and moments later, when she’d flung her arms around him, that notion had taken root, and no matter how much he wanted it to, it would not be dislodged: he was besotted.
He told himself it was just an infatuation. It had been years since he had spent time in the company of a young lady. He was susceptible. And what of it, really? Many men had fallen under the spell of a siren; the essence of their allure was the very fact of their unattainability. And if he had a hard time imagining this forthright, ingenuous, outspoken girl in the role of a siren, what other term better identified her? She was unattainable and he was besotted.
So, he watched her, and remarked all her many grace notes, hoarding up every impression, every detail without hesitation or guilt, storing them up for a long future without her.
Yes. It was harmless, a blameless way to mark time. Almost innocent. Almost…
“—and the really juicy part of this is,” she leaned forward as if she were divulging the name of her neighbor’s paramour rather than a scandalous bit about a king who’d been dead for three thousand years, “there is some evidence in the written record that indicates he may well have been a she.” She straightened, her expression delightedly scandalized.
“You don’t say.”
“I do!” she replied, nonchalantly swishing her horsetail swatter around her face to chase away the battalion of flies that accompanied them. They didn’t bother her as much as he would have expected. Though Pomfrey had made sure they were well provisioned, even sending a mattress and china, it still had to be a far cry from what she was used to.
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