“The more fools they.”
“No,” she cried out impatiently. “You must listen. You have a career to make in the diplomatic service. Sir Henry spoke highly of you, and Lord Penworth also thinks highly of you. But what will happen if you appear with a scandalous wife?”
“What nonsense, Julia. You hear Lady Bulwer talk about filthy Arabs. Do you think that was the first time I ever heard such remarks? Do you have any idea how often I hear comments about ‘a touch of the tar brush’? If that doesn’t bother you, how can you think I would care about your mother’s misbehavior? Do you really think the Ottoman pashas care two pins for the scandals of London society?” He laughed, which only served to anger her.
“The Ottoman pashas may not care, but I assure you that there are many in the Foreign Office in London who will care.”
He laughed again, a gentle chuckle, and pulled her into his embrace. “My dear, I know more about this part of the world, I know more people in this part of the world, than any dozen men in Whitehall. They need me, I do not need them to make my way. Marry me, and forget that gossip. If you like, we can live out our lives without ever setting foot in London.”
Melting into the safety of his arms, she leaned into his embrace until she called herself to reality and started to pull away. “No. You must think about this.”
He pulled her back. “What is there to think about? I love you, and you love me. Can you deny it?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“Well then…” he said.
“No. I insist. You must consider what I have said. Three days.” She backed away. “You must think about this for three days.”
With an exasperated sigh, he shook his head. “You cannot possibly think that will make a difference.”
“Three days,” she insisted. “You must consider the damage my family could do to your career. Do not come near me for three days while you think on it.” She turned and fled.
*
Emily found her mother sitting in the inner courtyard at a table that had been set up in the loggia. She had her watercolors out and was making a sketch of the fragrant flowering plants arrayed in pots by the fountain. It was an idyllic scene, completely unsuited to Emily’s mood.
“Hello, dear. Are you feeling at loose ends?” asked Lady Penworth. “I know your father and Mr. Oliphant are off somewhere trying to make arrangements with boatmen. Those carvings of M. Carnac are occupying an excessive amount of everyone’s attention. I almost wish we had never seen them.”
Emily made a noise that could have been construed as indicating agreement, and it drew a sharp glance from her mother. It did not, however, draw a question.
That was one of the more annoying things about her mother. She rarely asked questions. Emily’s friends were always complaining about how their mothers quizzed them about every little thing—where they had been, who they had seen, what everyone had been wearing, what everyone had said. And those were the impersonal questions.
Lady Penworth never asked about such things. She never asked why you were upset. She waited until you told her, and she seemed to always know whether you told her or not. It was quite infuriating.
“Julia has told Mr. Oliphant about her mother and insisted that he think about it for three days before he comes to see her again,” Emily said abruptly.
Lady Penworth nodded. “I see. Are you surprised?”
“Well, yes. She’s utterly miserable with worrying, and, as far as I can tell, it’s completely unnecessary. Anyone can see that he’s mad for her.”
“Mmmm.” Lady Penworth frowned at her sketch, washed off her brush, and tried another color. “Why do you suppose Mr. Oliphant took you all out into the desert to meet his mother’s family?”
Emily blinked. Was that a change of subject? She considered. No. It wasn’t. “Julia—none of us, really—had ever met any of the desert Arabs. He wanted to be sure Julia knew what they were like. Is that it?”
Lady Penworth smiled slightly as she concentrated on her sketch.
“But that’s ridiculous,” said Emily. “No one would judge him on his family.”
Lady Penworth turned a skeptical look on her daughter. “Really? Aside from Lady Bulwer, I can think of at least half a dozen families in London that would hesitate to let him through their doors.”
Emily flushed. “Well, all right. I do know that. But Julia isn’t like that. How could he think she is?”
“I am not, of course, privy to Mr. Oliphant’s thoughts. However, I imagine that he wants Julia to know precisely what his situation is before she commits herself, recognizing that she would be too honorable to cry off afterward. Hence the visit to his Arab relatives.”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Julia, in turn, wishes to be completely honest about her own situation. They are both far too honorable to mislead someone they care about. It is that very sense of honor that doubtless drew them to each other in the first place.”
Emily slumped back in her seat. “You’re probably right. But I still think he should say something to her. How can she be expected to know what he thinks if he doesn’t say anything? Why are men so hesitant to say how they feel?”
“You are speaking of Mr. Oliphant?”
“Yes, of course.” Emily could feel herself blushing. Of course she was speaking of Mr. Oliphant. She certainly wasn’t talking about Lucien. Was she? She snuck a sideways glance at her mother, who was looking quite uninterested. At least she wasn’t smiling.
Without missing a beat, Lady Penworth redirected the conversation. “What is Julia doing now?”
“She is going over fashion plates with Mélisande, trying to convince her that what is suitable for the Empress Eugénie and her ladies is not suitable for a schoolgirl.”
“That should provide Julia with a distraction. I hadn’t realized Mélisande was visiting us again. She seems to be here quite frequently.” Lady Penworth was frowning, probably at her sketch.
“Yes, M. Chambertin brought her over a while ago.”
“Ah, M. Chambertin. Is he here as well?”
“No, he left almost at once.” Emily tossed her head with an air of indifference. “He seemed to be suffering from a fit of the sulks as well.” Why that should bother her, she could not imagine. Lucien, M. Chambertin, had not had any private conversation—had not even made any effort to have any private conversation—with her since their visit to the Nineveh excavations. Not that she cared, of course. He was an adventurer, not at all the sort of person she should be thinking about. Not the kind of man who should be making her think the kind of thoughts she should not be thinking. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Lady Penworth raised a brow at her daughter. “You cannot order other people’s lives for them, no matter if you think you can do a better job of it than they are doing themselves.” Ignoring Emily’s look of outrage, she returned to the contemplation of her sketch. “Something is seriously wrong with this.”
With an irritated sigh, Emily got up to look. “You’ve drawn the pots a bit lopsided,” she said, “and you made the front one much too big. In your picture it’s taller than the fountain.”
“You’re right. My draughtsmanship leaves much to be desired. Oh well, it will suffice as an aide-mémoire when I look back over our visit here.” She began to collect her paints and brushes. “And Mélisande, is she at least cheerful?”
“Hardly. She is distraught because her father has said she will not be going to school in Paris because he will need all his money for his excavations.”
“Pshaw.” Lady Penworth shook her head in disgust. “I do not know which is more tiresome, the daughter with her histrionics or the father with his myopic selfishness. If that find of his were not so truly extraordinary, I would never let your father have anything to do with him.”
Her mother’s departure left Emily alone with her thoughts. They turned to Lucien. Her thoughts turned to Lucien whenever she was alone and in an uncomfortable fashio
n. She didn’t want to think about him, at least not this way. It would be fine if she just thought of him as she did of any friend. That was all he was. Soon they would all be leaving Mosul. She would continue on the journey with her parents, on to Baghdad and then Cairo. He would go off to Samarkand or wherever.
This unfamiliar heat that flooded her body whenever she thought of him—it should not be happening. She should not feel this longing. This yearning sensation should not keep overpowering her. She should not let it happen, but she did not seem to have any control over it.
She must keep reminding herself that soon they would all leave and she would never see him again.
Why did that thought hurt so much?
*
Lucien had spent the best part of the day—or the worst part, given the increasing heat—pacing about the town, downing innumerable cups of coffee, and visiting the waterfront where the rafts were being collected to transport Carnac’s finds down the river to the port at Basra. Usually he enjoyed watching people go about their business, chatting with them, listening to their conversations. Today he simply felt like a stranger, an outsider.
Well, that was what he was, wasn’t it? That was what he wanted to be, the outsider who observed but was never drawn in to the point where he had any obligations in a place. If that meant that he never belonged anywhere, that there was no place that he could call home, well, that had been his choice, had it not?
He had made friends in many places. Not friends, perhaps, because friendship carried with it obligations that could not be fulfilled by someone who would soon be leaving for another place. But if he had not made friends, he had at least made friendly acquaintances.
This place was different. Perhaps he had been here too long. Down along the waterfront the boatmen and captains had kept hailing him and asking him questions. Expecting him to know the answers. How soon did Carnac expect to be finished? What did Penworth think of the arrangements? Was Oliphant pleased with the packing? Would he be sailing with them?
No. He had nothing to do with this. He had started to suggest a better, more balanced arrangement of crates on one of the rafts before he caught himself. It was not his place to make suggestions or approve arrangements. None of it was his responsibility.
He fled the heat of the waterfront for the shadowy coolness of his favorite cafe. Everyone knew of his connection to Carnac and to Lord Penworth, so he found himself bombarded by questions about the shipment. One group of men wanted to know if it was true that the crates were filled with gold and precious jewels. He scoffed at that notion, but someone else insisted that it was true.
“The Cadi himself saw the gold,” said one fellow, “and insisted on his share before he would allow the crates to be packed.”
“Not just gold, but precious gems—rubies and emeralds,” said another.
But there were others who dismissed such talk as fantasy. Lucien was about to agree when one of them said that it was not gold but demons that filled the crates.
Lucien laughed incredulously.
“No, no,” insisted an old man. “There are ancient genies and afreets that inhabit the stones. Their cries and curses have been heard at night.”
When he laughed at that, several of the men in the cafe assured him that there was great danger in removing such things from the place where they had been buried. “The demons, they have been let loose now,” one man insisted. “There will be great danger for those who travel with them.”
The bazaars and the coffee houses were filled with talk of Carnac’s shipment, and the town seemed divided between those who believed the tale of gold and jewels and those who were convinced by the warnings of demons and afreets.
Neither logic nor scorn made any impression. Finally Lucien could take no more of such nonsense and stalked away. He wandered around for a while, but the heat of the day had been absorbed by the stone walls and the narrow streets seemed airless, suffocating. It was time for him to leave this place.
He should decide where he wanted to go next. Did he really want to travel the Silk Road? Perhaps he had enough of arid deserts and bare mountains. He could go to… He could go to any place on earth, but he was finding it difficult to think of a place he wanted to be.
That accursed letter from Bouchard. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, it kept returning to his mind. Was it not enough that La Boulaye had killed his father? It had been a succubus, draining him first of hope and then of life. Was he to be its victim too? He had escaped once. To return would be insanity. Nothing could be done so long as his grandfather ruled there, and his grandfather was inexorably draining the estate, feeding his vanity. Perhaps the old man was weakening now, perhaps he was dying.
And perhaps he would rally the instant Lucien appeared and trap him there forever to serve the glory of La Boulaye.
He did not want to think about it. Besides, it was doubtless time for him to collect Mélisande. Another who wanted to be a responsibility, and another situation where he was powerless to help. At least he could see her safely through the streets.
Perhaps he would see Emily. He had not had an opportunity to talk with her since the visit to Oliphant’s relatives. No, that was not true. He had been avoiding her. Why had he been avoiding her?
Because she had become a problem, he thought, disgusted with himself. He was afraid to see her, afraid to face her. She was his friend, and he had liked being with her. All through their journey it had made him happy to be with her. But something had changed.
Not Emily. She was still forthright, honest. She made no demands.
No, that was not quite right. She never told him lies. That was it. Not even polite lies. Was there anyone else who never lied to him? Anyone else he could trust this way?
But there was more than that. She had begun to haunt his dreams. He would awaken in the middle of the night, tangled in a sheet, thinking she was there beside him, naked and welcoming. Even now, walking down the street, he could close his eyes and see that dark honey hair spread out across a pillow.
He burned for her. He wanted to sink his hands in that hair, drown in those blue, blue eyes, bury himself in her.
He stopped and slammed his hand against a wall. An Arab who had been coming in the opposite direction looked warily at him and crossed to the other side of the street.
What was he going to do?
Fourteen
The view was spectacular. As the sun sank behind the mountains, the sky turned to gold and the mountains themselves deepened into purple. From her seat under the awning on the rooftop, Emily feasted her eyes on the magnificent sight. It was more glorious than anything she could have hoped for, infinitely more dramatic than any sunset she had ever seen at home.
On a nearby rooftop, someone was singing, one of those chants that sounded full of mournful longing. A girl longing for her lover? More likely a woman preparing the evening meal. But still, the music seemed full of meaning.
She tried to give herself over to the enjoyment of the moment, to empty herself of all thought and simply lose herself in sensation.
It wasn’t working.
Admiring the scenery was no more useful than worrying about Julia’s romance with David. No matter what she tried to think about, she always ended up thinking about Lucien. Blast the man. It wasn’t as if thinking about him clarified anything. Her thoughts kept ending up in utter confusion.
She had enjoyed his company on their trip to Mosul, more than she had ever enjoyed the company of a young man. That much she could safely acknowledge. She could even understand it. He had talked with her as an equal, never assuming she was a helpless ninny. If he asked her a question, he listened to her answer, as if he were interested in her thoughts. And if she asked him a question, he answered her. He did not pat her on the head and tell her she need not worry about such things.
He had not been cautious, as if fearing to offend the daughter of the powerful Marquess of Penworth, or obsequious, hoping for some benefit from the acquaintance. He had not
been deliberately charming or flirtatious, assuming that a few compliments would dazzle her, enabling him to get his hands on her dowry.
In short, he had treated her like a friend, rather the way her brothers treated her, although they were apt to be more patronizing than he was.
Had she been thinking of him as a brother? Was that why she had not been aware of him as a man at first? She knew he was a man, of course. She wasn’t a complete idiot. But that knowledge had been submerged somehow.
Perhaps it was because she had not considered him as a potential suitor.
He wasn’t, of course. She knew that. She could hardly marry a penniless adventurer. Her parents would never allow it. More importantly, and, humiliating as it was to admit, he had never behaved like a suitor. He had never given the slightest indication that he was looking for a wife. Well, of course he hadn’t, because he wasn’t. An adventurer went off adventuring. He didn’t settle down with a wife.
He never even gave any indication that he thought of her as a woman. For that matter, she hadn’t felt much like a woman while she was wrapped up in all those Turkish garments, completely enveloped in one of those ubiquitous blue capes.
Now she was dressed in her own clothes, so naturally she felt like herself again, like a woman. Only not quite like herself. The memory of a hard body pressed against her, the memory of his leg between hers had changed the way she saw herself. Her own reactions surprised her. She was noticing things about herself, about her body, that she had never realized. She was feeling things in places she had never thought about before.
It was more than those few minutes, seared into her memory though they were. Ever since then, her awareness of Lucien had changed as well. On the way to the excavations, she realized how well he rode, almost as one with his horse. When he lifted her from her horse, she realized how surprisingly strong he was. When he dined with her family, she could see the lively intelligence in his face. She knew that he was not particularly handsome. She was not blind. That did not matter. He seemed so vital, as if he were more alive than anyone else in the room, and that was far more attractive than mere handsomeness could ever be.
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