Yet she devoured the fava beans and oil mash served up every night for dinner with an appreciative appetite. She never complained about the arid wind that wrung the moisture from eyes and mouth, or the heat, or the stench of the camels. She was unfailingly good-humored and adaptable and engaging. It was as if she had been born to this sort of life.
Pomfrey had chosen well. Damn him. Though it did strike Jim lately that Mildred seldom mentioned her fiancé…But then she might not feel comfortable discussing her lover with him. Thank God. Because Jim didn’t know if he could quite handle being privy to her romantic confidences.
For the hundredth time, he reminded himself that he’d been put in charge of delivering her to Pomfrey and that is what he would do. And because he’d been entrusted with her welfare as well as her safety, if that meant keeping her safe from him, then that is what he would do, too.
“Mr. Owens?” she asked, dragging him back from his thoughts. “Are you alright? You look a bit strange.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “And I’d rather you called me Jim. Jim is a sight easier to yell than ‘Mr. Owens.’”
His carefully bland suggestion garnered an unexpected reaction. Rather than looking affronted or uncomfortable, she smiled at him, as pleased as a colt in spring clover. “You would?”
“I would.”
“Thank you, Jim.” She hesitated and he waited, hoping she would offer him the same intimacy, but then, as if reading his mind, her gaze dropped away.
He hadn’t really expected her to give him use of her Christian name. There were proprieties to be observed, a distance to be maintained, and it seemed she was willing to see to that even if he wouldn’t.
She was squirming now, visibly uncomfortable, and that hadn’t been his aim. “Go on,” he said. “You were talking about a pharaoh who might have been a pharaohess…?”
“There is no such thing as a pharaohess. It’s like the word ‘ruler,’ not gender specific.” She seized on the distraction. “Well, as I was saying earlier, in order to correctly position his, or possibly her, pyramid, its engineer would have made use of two merkhets, aligning the first with the North Star and the second along a north-south meridian.”
She continued on, adopting the slightly dry, professorial manner he’d noticed whenever she spoke about ancient Egypt. He watched her, enjoying the sound of her voice, his gaze drifting around their campsite every now and again, looking for danger, but always coming back to her and always lingering a little too long.
He realized she’d stopped talking and was waiting for him to reply.
“You sure know your ancient Egyptian history,” he said. “I’ve been here seven years and I don’t know half of the things you do.”
She blushed. “Well, I’ve been affianced to Colonel Lord Pomfrey for…for six years, and I knew I would be living in Egypt, so it only makes sense that I’d try to learn everything I could about the country, doesn’t it?” She sounded a little too pleased with this explanation.
“It’s commendable, though I’m not sure many women would take the same attitude,” he said. “Six years, you say?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Bloody hell. She must have been betrothed while she was still in the schoolroom. There was no chance it had been a love match, then. Likely their marriage had been arranged between her family and Pomfrey.
His loathing of Pomfrey grew. What sort of man betrothed himself to a child? And what sort of family allowed it? Still, though she said very little about her family, what she had said revealed nothing but warm affection.
What incentive had they had to marry her off? Money? Land? Or were they simply eager to align themselves with a titled family? Did she wish a different future for herself, or was she content to dutifully fulfill the bargain now that it had been struck?
Like Charlotte.
There’d been a time when the memory of Charlotte’s willing acceptance of Althea’s lies would have summoned up a deep and bitter anger. But that time had long since passed, faded alongside the memory of a desperate puppy love. Poor Charlotte, she’d done nothing wrong. And if Charlotte had been a pawn in her family’s ambitions, hadn’t he been just as readily Althea’s pawn?
He’d been willing to give up everything, his life, his name, his heritage, to defy her and in the end he’d only given Althea what she had wanted from the start: uncontested control. How much easier to throw something away than to stay and fight for it.
His gaze strayed back to Mildred. How long, how hard would he fight to keep her if she were his? Forever.
“Owens!”
At the sound of his name, Jim looked around. Lieutenant Neely, a skinny, middle-aged veteran with a mouthful of broken teeth and a Cockney accent, was approaching. Jim stood up. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Since you’ve drawn the attention of every desert rat within twenty miles by taking that shot, I’m giving you double guard duty tonight.”
He sounded more sullen than commanding, and his gaze kept fidgeting away from Jim’s. He was not a good leader, too anxious and too belligerent. He’d probably made his way up the ranks through pure attrition.
“Sure thing,” Jim said.
The man hesitated, gnawing at his lip.
“Anything else?” Jim asked.
“Yeah,” Neely said, taking Jim’s arm and pulling him a short distance away. “Here’s the thing, Owens. I think we ought to go back to Suhag. Now listen,” he said before Jim could speak. “Hear me out. When we were there I heard some of them trader chap-pies saying as how they’d heard that Mahdists were rising up again and planning to attack caravans. You and I both knows I ain’t got the men or gun power to engage a raidin’ party.”
“Those rumors have been circulating for years, Neely. We’ll be fine.” Jim clapped the man on the shoulder. “Even if someone were out there, the chances they’d stumble on us are about as good as finding a seed in a sandstorm. We’re in the middle of nowhere, at least seventy miles from the Forty Days’ Road.”
That was not by accident. Instead of traveling along the ancient trade route, he’d taken them purposefully on a course south of it. The old caravan trail was still widely traveled and as such the most likely place for bandits and outlaws to seek their victims. Their current route led to a lesser-known oasis some three or four days out.
Neely shook his head violently. “The bloke that just come off guard duty swears he saw a glint in the distance. And last night I seen a fire. The boys are scared shitless.”
Jim didn’t answer because Neely was right; they were being shadowed. Jim had seen the signs three days back and had ridden out at night to see if he could get closer to their elusive escorts. He hadn’t had any luck. But whoever they were, if they’d wanted to do them ill, they’d have done so by now.
Likely as not, they were just traveling in the same direction and wanted nothing to do with them. But trying to convince Neely of that wouldn’t be easy. Better not to say anything at all. The soldiers had already caught the contagion of Neely’s alarm. Their eyes darted nervously and they stood in little clusters, talking in low undertones, clutching their rifles. Recent conscripts, Jim guessed, green and suggestible. Damn Neely, anyway.
“Mirages,” Jim said. “If there were raiders, they would have come after us long before this. I had a look around yesterday night. If there was someone out there, I would have seen them.”
“You’re wrong, Owens. Thing is you may be dead wrong,” Neely said, mopping at his forehead. “They weren’t mirages.” He shot Jim a haunted glance. “You ever seen what those savages do to a man?” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and released it. “You don’t wanta. I wish to God I hadn’t. I been in service twenty years. I have one more year left before I’m discharged with my pension. One year and I’m for England. I don’t want to die before then. We should go back.”
“Listen to yourself,” Jim said. “You’re not making sense. How is going back any better? Bandits can follow us back just as eas
ily as forward.”
“No,” said Neely with dogged insistence. “They’ll be waiting to ambush us at that oasis. We start back now, they’ll never expect it. We get back to Suhag and then we wait there for Pomfrey to send more men. Six ain’t enough.”
For a moment, Jim considered it. But he didn’t believe they were in any danger, and they were halfway to Fort Gordon. To turn back now would be ridiculous. And if they did turn back, he would be honor-bound to stay in Suhag with Mildred until Pomfrey’s reinforcements arrived. Two weeks with her. Maybe more.
And that, he thought with brutal honesty, would be a mistake. Every day in her company put a greater and greater strain on his resolve to act honorably, to do his job and walk away. He was very afraid that if he spent too much time with her, he wouldn’t be walking away. “No, Neely. We aren’t going back.”
Neely stiffened, lifting his rifle. “We do if I say we are. I’m the officer in charge here.”
Jim didn’t say a word. He just stood, meeting Neely’s eyes and letting the other man take his measure. He didn’t want to hurt Neely. The lieutenant had probably never thought he’d make it out of Egypt alive, and now that he could finally see an end to his time here, hope had come hand in hand with fear.
Jim pitied Neely. But they weren’t going back.
For a long few seconds, Neely ground his teeth in frustration, one eyelid twitching as he stared at Jim. Finally, with a sound halfway between snarl and sob, he turned on his heel and left.
“What was that all about?” Mildred had risen and was standing nearby.
“Nothing,” Jim said. “He wanted me to take late night watch, is all.”
“Oh,” she said. “Do you have to go right now?”
No. Yes. Right now. Before it’s too late…if it isn’t already.
“No.”
She flashed him her gamine smile. “Then I suppose you want me to tell you about the building of the step pyramids?”
“I want nothing more,” he answered.
She sank back down to the ground, laughing a little and picking up a feather some high-flying vulture had lost.
He tried to recall Charlotte’s face but it was gone. All he could see was the girl in front of him, leaning forward to draw him a picture in the sand with her vulture feather. Her hair was coming undone, a single strand curling around her neck like a lover’s palm—
The rifle butt caught him hard in the temple.
He felt his knees buckle, and his last thought was that LeBouef would have laughed himself sick that Jim Owens had finally been caught off guard because he was mooning over a woman drawing stick figures in the sand.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You’re coming with us!” Neely shouted.
“I am not,” Ginesse said. She knelt where Jim Owens lay unconscious on the ground, her fingers gently probing the gash in his head, uncertain she would know what a crack would feel like even if she found one.
“Get packed and get those camels loaded! Now!” Neely shouted at his men, and they leapt into action, taking down the camp with a speed they’d never shown setting it up.
He turned back to her, glowering. “Goddammit, lass. Do you want to die?”
“I’m not going to die,” she said.
“Right. Because you’re coming with us and that’s that. Owens can rot out here, since that’s what he wants. But I been charged with taking you to the colonel, and that’s what I aim to do.”
“But you aren’t. You’re taking me back to Suhag.”
“Just until some more men can be sent. Now, get up.”
“No,” she said, her gaze on Jim. “I’m not leaving Mr. Owens.” Though his breathing seemed unlabored, he looked pale.
“Look, Miss Whimpelhall,” Neely said, obviously making some effort to speak in a reasonable tone. “You don’t come with us, and you might as well take Owens’s gun there and shoot yourself in the head. Because you’re gonna die out here sure as there’s a devil in hell.”
He’d struck Jim from behind; she hated him.
“Mr. Neely,” she said in a hard, uncompromising voice, “let me make myself clear. I am not going with you. If you attempt to make me go by force, I shall fight you every step of the way. If you sneak up behind me and knock me senseless,” here Neely had the grace to flush with embarrassment, “I shall take the first opportunity to run away. Because, Mr. Neely, I have more confidence in an unconscious Mr. Owens than I do in an unprincipled scoundrel and his equally dishonorable soldiers.” Her scornful gaze swept over Neely’s men. Not one of them could meet her eye.
They’d finished taking down the camp. The tents were packed, and the camels carrying provisions were already loaded and tethered to a lead line.
Neely pulled himself up. “Owens gave me no choice,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster.
“And I’m not giving you one. I am not leaving him here.”
His lips curled back in a snarl, and he dropped to a squat beside her so they were eye to eye. “Ever seen what them savages do to a man?” he asked, in a low, throbbing voice.
“They make ’im so as he’s not recognizable as man, is what. Sometimes they cut chunks off him, skinning him alive, or taking pieces out of his insides and draping ’em over him. Or sometimes they let the desert do their work. They stake him out in the sun so his skin peels off like the blistered hide of roast pig, slit his eyelids off so he goes blind staring into the sun, and let the ants eat him bit by bit…”
She felt the blood drain from her face though this was not the first time she’d heard such stories. She’d been awake during similar conversations at her father’s camp when no one thought ears that needed protecting would be listening. She’d heard equally horrific stories eavesdropping in on the fellahin’s gossip, too, only the barbarians in their tales wore uniforms.
“I’d hate to think what they might do to a woman,” Neely finished intently.
She swallowed but did not look away. “I am not leaving Mr. Owens.”
They stared at one another a full minute before he surged to his feet, spewing epithets and dashing his hat to the ground. She watched him, unmoved.
“If I show up in Suhag without Owens, no one cares,” he shouted at her. “But how am I supposed to explain how I’m there and you’re not?”
“That’s your problem.”
“Dammit, woman, I don’t care if I have to tie you to the camel, you’re—”
He stopped because she was on her feet with a gun pointing at his chest. Jim Owens’s gun. “I am telling you for the last time, Mr. Neely,” she said. “I am not going to leave Mr. Owens, and since you have already declared you are not taking him with you—”
“It’d be worth my hide if I tried,” Neely said.
“Be that as it may, I am not going without him. And if you take one step closer to me, I will shoot you. I do not know if it will kill you, but at this distance, do you want to take that chance?”
The men shifted uneasily, muttering. The situation had taken an unexpected and unpleasant turn.
“Goddamn you, woman!” Neely exploded, but this time there was more helplessness than anger in his voice.
She kept the gun trained on him. “You’ll leave us a camel and provisions,” she said.
He swore again and made a sharp gesture to one of his soldiers. “Untie that last camel,” he shouted. He turned back to Ginesse as the man hurried to the end of the line to comply.
“Listen. I don’t want to leave you here. I’m a Christian man,” Neely said. “Mostly. Truth is, I don’t know how hard I hit Owens. Pretty hard, I guess. Fact is, he might not wake up, and then where’ll you be?”
A bottomless pit seemed to open up at Ginesse’s feet. She swallowed, refusing to let it suck her down into it. She wouldn’t believe it. Her father had been coshed in the head a number of times and he’d always woken up. Jim would, too.
“I’ll take that chance.”
He regarded her soberly for one last long minute, miserable but
resigned.
“All right, miss. You win. I did what I could to make you come. And if it’s any consolation to you for what I done to Owens, you might know that me and my lads will have to take the French leave because if we don’t, we’re sure to be court-martialed.” He regarded her reproachfully, as if she had willfully done him a great wrong.
“You don’t have to leave us,” she said.
Neely snorted. “First off, that man has a reputation for bein’ a hard customer,” he said, nodding toward Jim, “and I don’t want to learn if it’s warranted. Second, my man saw a fire in the distance no matter what Owens says. So I guess I’d rather flee Egypt with my head on my shoulders than stay and have it lopped off.”
But Jim had said there was no cause for alarm, and if Jim said there was no one nearby, there was no one nearby. “Then there’s nothing more to say,” she said, wishing Neely would go so she could put down the gun and go back to doing what, if anything, she could for Jim.
“I guess not.” The solider who’d untied the camel led it over and handed the rope to Neely. There’d been a reason that particular camel had been at the end of the line. She was old and evil-tempered with a patchy hide and only one eye. She spat, hitting Neely’s trousers. Ginesse decided she liked her.
Neely shouted again and another soldier untied his water skin from his saddle and tossed it to him. He caught it and flung it at Ginesse’s feet. She didn’t look down to where it landed, expecting Neely would try to divert her attention so he could grab for her gun. Once more he swore.
“If I were you, I’d make sure I was gone before Mr. Owens wakes up.”
Neely spun around and started stalking toward his waiting men. He’d gone about five steps before he turned around. In amazement, she saw that his lips were trembling and his eyes brimmed with tears.
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