Rowan knew he was hurrying her and he hated to do that but after a month of sitting on his hands and making no progress as far as finding Ella, Marvel was lucky he didn’t drag her into the dining room and fling her into the first available chair. He decided that investigative work in 1922 was a whole lot harder and more time consuming than in 2013. Here, you had to build relationships, observe the proprietary norms, wait for cues and then your moment and then wait again. He had heard a promising piece of information the night before but winkling it out of his source had proved frustrating and, in the end, impossible.
While cruising the dark alleys of nighttime Cairo had proved endlessly interesting (if not downright dangerous), the Intel he gathered there was not usually trustworthy. Still, even the wildest rumor might have a shred of truth to it. When Ra told him a confederate was bragging about being robbed and ravished by a white woman in the desert, Rowan asked to meet the man. Foul and nearly incoherent from the opium pipe, the fellow had recently lost an ear and there was something about his outlandish story that rang true. He had been the dragoman for a group of English tourists when they were attacked by a squad of desert bandits. In the melee, (whereupon the dragoman bragged that he had saved his English charges—and the white women from certain ravishment) he was viciously attacked by a saber-wielding white woman “with hair the color of the sun high in the sky!” who insisted on straddling him, her naked breasts bouncing higher and higher as she climbed his pole to her ecstasy. He showed Rowan the gold coin his English masters had given him to keep his mouth shut about the effendim’s dress being torn from her shoulders. Even disregarding the rape-by-a-white-woman element in the story, the man’s tale was hard to credit.
As Rowan seated himself at the dining table and flapped out his napkin, it occurred to him that there was just enough truth to the story to be believed. And while Ella wasn’t blonde, Julia, was.
“Who is it we’re supposed to be dining with?” Marvel asked, frowning and looking around the large dining room.
“Oh, you’ve seen her. You know, the one who lost her husband in the hunting accident.”
“Lady Bowerman?” Marvel looked at Rowan in astonishment. “Lady Bowerman asked us to lunch?”
“Well, it might have been more my idea,” Rowan said. “But she said yes. Oh, there she is.” He hopped up, and waited for their guests to arrive at the table.
Lady Bowerman was a class-A knock out, Rowan decided as he watched her approach. She was voluptuous and full in all the right places. Her lips were dainty and pink, pressed into a half-smile. But her eyes were a cold blue that would miss nothing, of that he was sure.
“Mr. Pierce,” she said as she approached the table. She held out her hand.
“Lady Bowerman.” He turned to Marvel and introduced them. Lady Bowerman’s traveling companion was a sour-faced older woman named Benson who did an effective job of making her mistress look even more beautiful by comparison. Rowan nodded at her.
He had heard from a very reliable source that Lady Bowerman knew something about the English party that had been attacked. If there really had been an attack, it hadn’t been reported in the news. And no one was talking.
“So, Miss Newton,” Lady Bowerman said, “have you been enjoying your visit to Cairo?” The woman spoke to Marvel but her gaze shifted to Rowan so that Marvel would have no confusion as to what her words really meant.
Rowan watched Marvel blush and stumble over her words and he felt a wave of irritation with their luncheon guest.
Damn Brits, he thought. Every last one of them plays these stupid games. He gallantly leaned toward Marvel and put his hand over hers on the table. “We have had a very enjoyable visit,” he said to Lady Bowerman. “And we were thinking of extending that enjoyment to the surrounding area. Weren’t we, dearest?” He saw that Marvel was staring at him with her mouth open. He knew he wasn’t playing fair and he regretted the hope he saw in Marvel’s eyes. But dammit, Ella’s life was at stake. He’d make it up to her later a hundredfold when he had his wife back.
“Uh…yes, we were,” Marvel said, still focused on Rowan’s face and the startling transformation she saw in him.
“We were planning an excursion to Thebes, actually,” Rowan said. He waved away the waiter who was attempting to pour water into his glass.
“Thebes?” Lady Bowerman said. “Really? That’s certainly adventuresome.”
“And worth your life,” Benson said through pinched lips.
“Forgive my traveling companion,” Lady Bowerman said to Marvel and Rowan. “She listens to gossip when she knows she shouldn’t.” She shot Benson a sharp look.
“Gossip?” Marvel said, clearly taking her hint from Rowan for which he was grateful. He knew that if he did all the talking, it would spook them and they’d clam up.
“Oh, you know,” Lady Bowerman said, smoothing her napkin across her lap. “People talk.”
“I heard a couple from the hotel was attacked last week,” Rowan said.
Benson looked up from her empty plate. “You are referring to the Donaldson’s?” she said.
“Benson! Really!” Lady Bowerman said. “I must ask you to retire to our rooms immediately if you cannot prevent yourself from spreading unfounded rumors!”
Benson looked at her with her mouth open and then clamped it shut. She narrowed her eyes at Rowan as if he were to blame.
“Well, I’m not sure they are unfounded, Lady Bowerman,” Rowan said. “Are the Donaldson’s still at the hotel?”
“They have returned to England. It was a horrifying experience, as you can imagine.”
“Of course,” Rowan said, fighting his disappointment.
“Just terrible,” murmured Marvel.
“And Effie Donaldson,” Lady Bowerman leaned in to the table and dropped her voice to a whisper, “was the last person you could imagine such a thing happening to. The last person, if you know what I mean?”
Rowan nodded knowingly. I have absolutely no idea what you mean, he thought.
“The poor dear!” Marvel said.
“And then, of course, the MacDavies.”
Rowan continued to nod. “The MacDavies,” he said encouragingly.
“Well, surely you’ve heard?”
“I don’t think so. Darling?” he turned to Marvel. “Have you heard anything about the MacDavies?”
“Not a sausage,” Marvel said sweetly.
It was Benson who spoke now. “They were attacked just this week. And again, the Woman in Gold was a part of the attack.”
“The Woman in Gold?”
“The white woman. Surely, you’ve heard that the band travels with a white woman? She is instrumental to their raids—or so I’m told.”
Rowan could feel Marvel physically stiffen beside him. “No, I hadn’t heard that,” he said.
“It will be in the papers soon,” Lady Bowerman said with a sigh. “You know how the Americans love that sort of thing. Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“No offense taken,” Rowan said. “Where was the last attack, do you know?”
“And how, exactly, do you know all of this?” Marvel asked. “It is rumor, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Lady Bowerman sniffed, “I am personally acquainted with Lydia MacDavies. I feel it becomes substantially less rumor and markedly more factual when it is revealed to you from the source.”
“I absolutely agree with you,” Rowan said, delivering a light nudge under the table to Marvel’s shin. “Where did you say the last attack was, Lady Bowerman?”
“I didn’t say. But I have just remembered a prior engagement that I must keep and I beg your forgiveness for my rudeness. Benson? Are you coming?”
Her companion resignedly gathered her gloves and bag and stood up.
“A pleasure, Miss Newton,” Lady Bowerman said coldly. “Mr. Pierce.” She nodded curtly at Rowan and the two left the dining room.
“You tricked me,” Marvel said as Rowan reseated himself.
“I’m sorry. I heard that sh
e might have information and there was no time to fill you in first.”
“You used me.”
“Marvel, I’m sorry. I hope you know how important you are to me and that I have grown to care about you—”
“But to you I am just a means to an end.”
“So isn’t that the total opposite of what I just said? Why is it if you’re not saying exactly what a woman wants to hear, she can’t hear any of it?”
“Is that what your wife does?”
Rowan sighed. “I’m sorry, Marvel. You’re right. I used you. Doesn’t mean I don’t care for you. Just means I’m a jerk.”
Marvel looked away for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “Guess I just got my hopes up for a minute.”
“And for that I am truly sorry.”
“If we don’t find her. If you don’t find her…”
“Let’s take things one step at a time, okay?”
“The desert is a very big place, Rowan. You have no idea of where to begin to look. And The Gold Woman or whatever she’s called sounds like it’s Lady Digby not Ella.”
“I know.”
“I’m not very hungry any more.”
“I’ll walk you to your room.”
“No, you go on. You probably need to ask a few more people about the attacks.”
Rowan reached out to take her hand but she pulled away from him.
“Don’t worry about me, Rowan. Go do what you have to do.”
“Thanks, Marvel.”
“Only, Rowan?”
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t find her, you know I’m here, right?”
“I do, Marvel.”
The following week, Marvel stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom and tugged at the bodice of her new gown. It was one thing to wear nightwear at the hotel, she realized, but it was altogether a brazenly different thing to wear it out in public. Her mother wouldn’t just be rolling in her grave today. If she could see her daughter prancing about in a form-fitting silken sheath cut to just below her knee and her breasts nearly exposed for all the world to see, she would be convulsing in her casket. And Marvel’s plan called not just to wear the provocative outfit out in public but in the most public place she could think of: the Cairo bazaar.
There was no recourse. Strong results demanded strong action. While she could tell by how Rowan looked her up and down this morning when he arrived to take her shopping that he very much appreciated her new outfit, the frock had not been enough to move him off the mark. But Marvel knew how this game was played and it was time she played it.
Since coming to Cairo and setting her cap for Mr. Rowan Pierce, she had lost over twenty pounds. She had gone from chubby matron to voluptuous kitten. Every man at Shepheards had given her an appreciative look and—because she was obviously American—a few inappropriate propositions as well. But Rowan, although making no pretense about the fact that he liked what he saw, had been the perfect gentleman, damn him. Today, she would see how he fared with half the Egyptian male population slathering over her.
“You sure you want to wear that out?” Rowan said as Marvel turned to collect her bag and hat in the hotel room.
“My outfit? Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“That’s just it,” he said. “There’s too much right with it. You’re showing a lot of skin for ten in the morning.”
“Honestly, Rowan, I can’t believe you think you are in a position to give me fashion advice.”
“I think you should change.”
“Well, I’m not going to so may we please go? I’d like to finishing shopping before noon. I don’t want the tops of my breasts to freckle.”
He paused just long enough to give her a look. It occurred to her that he might be trying to decide if he could order her to change. She brushed past him in the hall and headed for the stairs. He probably could, but then they would be right back where they always were. She needed to break his logjam of reserve and discipline. And today’s little outing was just the thing.
They rode to the bazaar in silence. She knew he had been more preoccupied than usual after the rumor about the lady desert bandit had evaporated with no evidence to sustain it. Rowan was clearly becoming impatient with the lack of progress in the search for his wife. She didn’t press him for conversation in the car. Her plan would work much better, she decided, if she established a tiny bit of aloofness first. When the driver pulled up to the front of the gate at the bazaar, she could see that Rowan’s boy, Ra, was waiting for them.
“Honestly, Rowan,” she said. “Do you really think you need Ra’s help to escort me on a shopping trip?”
“He’s got nothing else to do,” Rowan said curtly.
It was then that she realized that the lack of conversation had less to do with Rowan’s preoccupation with his wife and more with his displeasure at Marvel’s low-cut dress and the environment they were about to enter. When she realized this, it was all she could do not to clap her hands with delight. He was cross because he was feeling all cave-man protective of her and didn’t like her showing her bosom to the rest of the male world!
When he opened the car door and helped her out, she bent over a little more than she needed to in order to give him a full view of her breasts nearly falling out of her dress. She felt his hand tighten on hers.
“What is so goddamn important that you couldn’t have sent your maid here to get?”
“It’s not the item, Rowan. It’s the experience. I’ve been needing to get out of that hotel for days now. Oh! Let’s go down that street. Aren’t these shops just so quaint and interesting?” She picked up the pace and marched ahead of him, forcing him to catch up. He took her elbow and smoothly pulled her next to him down the center of the narrow street but she wasn’t going to make it that easy on him.
At the first booth she came to, she made a performance of leaning over the bin of rusty metal pins and dusty brooches. She knew the proprietor, a middle-aged man with sharp weasel eyes, was licking his lips at the prominent display of her bosom but she didn’t care. She could feel Rowan’s arm slip around her waist as he gently pulled her back.
“Come on, Marvel,” he growled. “This is just junk and you know it.”
“I wanted to see it,” she said, affecting a pout but allowing him to steer her back down the street.
“Maybe if you wore a shirt next time, instead of coming out virtually topless, we could visit the shops without your causing a riot.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Every man on this street is knocking over his own booth to get a gander at the white woman with her boobs hanging out. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Rowan, I don’t pay you to tell me how to dress. I pay you to protect me, whether I’m dressed in a nun’s habit or stark naked. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” he said, but his eyes narrowed and Marvel knew he was one minute from taking her by the arm and dragging her back to the car.
She couldn’t let that happen.
She turned and looked behind them. “What is that ridiculous boy of yours up to now?” she said. As soon as Rowan turned to look, she bolted down the street and around the corner. She could hear Rowan cursing and that was just fine. It was the first time she’d gotten any kind of real reaction out of him that involved her.
“Catch me if you can!” she called to him over her shoulder as she ran.
“Dammit, Marvel. Knock it off,” he yelled. She could tell he had picked up his pace. With those long legs, it would just be a few strides before he caught her. She tingled at the thought of his scolding. If she wasn’t directly the focus of his attention before today, she definitely was now.
She paused just around the corner at a produce stand. Her breasts were heaving from the exertion of her run. She knew people were staring at her. It occurred to her that it was one thing to flaunt yourself as a half-dressed white woman. It was quite another to do it alone and unescorted. The thought made her uneasy. Just when she
was about to step into the street to intercept Rowan, a strong hand snaked out from behind her and clapped over her mouth. Startled, she dropped her purse and brought both her hands up to pry the fingers from her face. But another pair of hands grabbed her waist and yanked her off her feet and into the open shop door.
Chapter Twenty-One
Marvel was half carried and half dragged into the store. The door closed behind her. She tried to scream but the hand over her mouth permitted no sound to escape. Her eyes looked wildly around. She could see she was in a darkened store, clearly abandoned. Debris and broken furniture littered the floor. Two Egyptian men stepped out of the gloom at the back of the store. They openly eyed her breasts. She had never felt so terrified or helpless in her life.
Would Rowan find her? Would he know where she had gone?
The man who held her from behind tightened his grip on her and the others spoke in soft tones to one another. They made no move toward her. Suddenly, the two men not touching her both pulled out pistols from their robes. One waved his gun at her and seemed to be asking a question. He had a jagged scar that began at his hairline and zig-zagged all the way down his jaw. He had a cruel mouth and watery blue eyes—unusual for an Egyptian. He grunted out an answer and all of them turned to look out the storefront window, so filthy it was nearly opaque.
Without warning, she saw Rowan stride by the window. His arms were swinging and his mouth was set in an angry line. As she watched him pass, she realized she had finally done it. She had gotten him good and mad. He certainly was in the frame of mind to give her a good talking to. Maybe even turn her across his knee. Trouble was, she wasn’t going to live to enjoy it.
As Rowan vanished from view, the two men dragged Marvel to the opposite wall where there was another door. Outside, Marvel could see the street. Thinking they were going to kidnap her and escape though this door, Marvel was startled when the man holding her turned her so that she was facing the street through the open door while the two men with guns stood nearby out of sight.
For a moment, Marvel was confused. And then she realized, if Rowan kept walking, he would naturally turn the corner. And when he did, he would see the open door and Marvel.
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