Mr Impossible (15 page)

Not until a long
time after he’d left Lord Noxley’s abode and was
composing himself to sleep in his own lodgings did Rupert wonder why
he’d been so unaccommodating. After all, dusky beauties did not
fall into one’s lap—literally—every day. When
heaven bestowed such gifts, only a churl would decline them. While
Rupert was by no means lacking in faults, churlishness was not among
them.

It must be a touch
of plague, he told himself. Then he turned over and fell asleep. He
dreamt of angry green-eyed goddesses in turbans.

WHILE RUPERT WAS
dreaming, Ghazi and his men were setting out into theEasternDesert.

They had found two
of the men who’d robbed Vanni Anaz, relieved them of the papyri
and other artifacts they’d stolen, and beat them until they
revealed what little they knew.

They were mere
common thieves hired, Ghazi soon understood, to divert suspicion from
Duval by making the previous papyrus theft appear to be one among
several, an ordinary crime. Since the thieves knew almost nothing,
Ghazi might have let them live. But they’d made a fatal error:
they’d panicked and killed Vanni Anaz, a useful and valuable
man. Ghazi garroted them.

Based on that
interview, he soon found other informants. Within a few hours, Ghazi
had all the information he needed.

The kidnappers had
set out with their captive in a nondescript boat. The papyrus
traveled separately by land. The rendezvous point was a village south
of Minya, more than a hundred fifty miles upriver.

Ghazi divided his
men accordingly: one group to pursue the kidnappers and another to
follow the papyrus. He led the papyrus team. The kidnappers, clearly,
were not the most intelligent or efficient of Duval’s
underlings. On the other hand, Faruq, who carried the papyrus, was as
clear-eyed, cold-blooded, and sharp-witted as Ghazi himself.

Ghazi looked
forward to their encounter.

Chapter 7

Friday 6 April

“
GONE?”
MRS. PEMBROKE SHOT UP FROM THE divan in a flurry of black silk,
knocking aside the silver tray containing their breakfast.

The coffee sloshed
in the cups, and the
fateerah
started sliding from its plate, but Rupert caught the tray in time,
saving its precious cargo.

While she strode to
the shelf of wooden figures, Rupert helped himself to a piece of the
buttery pastry, doused it liberally with honey, and sank his teeth in
with a quiet sigh of pleasure.
Fateerah
was so far his favorite Egyptian food. But that was only one part of
the present moment’s deliciousness.

Mrs. Pembroke was
taking a fit. And every abrupt movement gave him a glimpse of her
slim, stockinged feet and perfect ankles.

“
Of all the
presumptuous—” she began. “I can scarcely credit—”
She broke off, and he lifted his gaze from her feet to her face, to
watch her try to contain the tempest within… and fail, praise
be.

Few sights stirred
his senses as did that of Mrs. Pembroke flying into a passion. She
glared green fire at the little Egyptians. Her fine bosom—whose
perfect contours the dull mourning could not completely
camouflage—rose and fell like a stormy sea.

“
I daresay
Noxious hadn’t time for tender farewells,” Rupert said.
“He had a villain to lure out of hiding.”

“
He knew who
it was,” she said tightly.

“
I said only
that his servant mentioned a Frenchman named Duval,” Rupert
said. He’d told her of the late-night visit to Noxious’s
house, but not in unnecessary detail. The word “servant”
discreetly covered a multitude of scantily clad dusky beauties.

“
I spoke to
Salt and Beechey about him this morning,” he went on. “Their
description fits our portrait of the villain. Duval is one of the
French consul’s dearest friends. He despises the English. Salt
says the man’s still nursing a grudge about the Rosetta Stone.
Believes it properly belongs toFrance, it seems.”

“
Duval,”
she said. She paced for a short time, the black silk whispering
against her legs. “I met him once. A dinner at the Swedish
consulate. Medium height, dark, elegant— or perhaps
sleek
is the apter word. Polished manners.”

“
Salt and
Beechey say Duval’s generally reckoned a canny fellow,”
Rupert said. “But lately he’d suffered a series of
reverses in the antiquities line.”

“
Setbacks
seem to sour and deform some men,” she said. She turned toward
him, her countenance clouded. “They become angry, anxious,
suspicious. They brood. They lose their sense of proportion. They
grow resentful of others’ accomplishments and happiness.”

Rupert nodded. Her
troubled countenance, as much as the words and grim tone, told him
she spoke from experience.

He’d already
guessed that she was not mourning quite so much as her costume
declared.

She came back to
the divan. “It is not a state of mind that makes for clear
thinking.”

“
This would
help explain Duval’s jumping to conclusions about your brother
and the papyrus,” Rupert said. “There Duval was, seething
about this and that. He certainly mistrusts the English. Easy enough,
then, to believe an English scholar knew more than he was telling.”

She settled onto
the divan, this time only an arm’s length away. “Three
people are dead so far—that we know of. All innocent
bystanders. The man must be mad.”

“
He’s
dangerous, at any rate,” Rupert said. “I suppose that’s
why Noxious wasted no time. He set out in his boat yesterday morning.
The
Memnon
. A grand vessel, distinctive and quite famous, I’m
told. He made sure everyone at the port knew he was going to search
for your brother. No doubt he meant to get the Frenchman’s wind
up. It worked. I stopped by Duval’s house on my way here. It
seems he leftCairosuddenly yesterday afternoon.”

She said nothing.

Rupert poured her
coffee. She took the cup and only stared at it.

“
You do know
it’s best to have Duval out ofCairo, I hope?” Rupert
said.
And Noxious, too
, he silently added. “You don’t
want to risk his taking you hostage. Your brother wouldn’t dare
try to escape then.”

She looked up at
him. “I understand that. The trouble is, now I know Miles is
not
inCairo—and I cannot ask Lord Noxley where these horrible men
might have taken my brother, because Lord Noxley is gone, too. I’ve
been running about in circles, wasting time, when, given a little
information, I might have made progress.”

“
That’s
hardly likely to occur to him,” Rupert said. “He’d
assume you were waiting safely and dutifully at home, with a great
dumb ox from the consulate as bodyguard. Meanwhile, put yourself in
Noxious’s place: brilliant scheme—waste no time—solve
the mystery, race to the rescue. Return with the brother and the
valuable item to universal applause. The lady weeps with gratitude…
and bestows her—um—heart upon the gallant knight.”

She stiffened.
“Another lady, perhaps,” she said. “Not this one.”

“
Ah, I rather
thought not,” he said. He’d certainly hoped not. He’d
hoped she was too intelligent and spirited to accept the passive role
Noxious assigned her.

Rupert watched her
tense for battle. She thought he, too, underestimated her.

“
We’re
going after them, then, I take it?” he said.

She blinked once,
and the tension was melting out of her, and her mouth was shaping a
crooked smile when she caught herself. She lifted her chin. “Of
course we’re going after them.”

It was what he’d
expected of her. All the same, his heart gave a mad leap, because it
was what he’d most hoped for as well. And because he’d
surprised and pleased her enough to make her almost smile.

“
I thought
so,” he said coolly. “Well, then, what’s your
pleasure, madam: boat or camel?”

Sunday 8 April

TWO DAYS LATER,
Daphne stood in the doorway of her boat’s stern cabin, acutely
aware of Mr. Carsington standing close behind her.

“
Well?”
he said.

“
It’s
quite… spacious,” she said.
It’s
too small
, she thought,
too
crowded
.

The boat was
a
dahabeeya
, theNileversion of a yacht. Mr. Carsington—surprising her by
knowing something of ancient mythology—had named it the
Ms
, after the Egyptian goddess who’d searched the world for her
husband’s body.

TheIsiswas large
and luxurious, boasting six cabins under an unusually tall roof.
Sheik Salim had commandeered it for his learned (!!!) friend Mr.
Carsington. The sheik did not want his tall English friend to get a
stiff neck from constantly bending over.

Viewed from the
landing place, it had seemed impress sively large, especially
compared to the other boats. Within, though, was another story.

Too late Daphne
realized it was a limited space, which she’d be sharing with
Mr. Carsington for an indefinite span of time.

She’d made a
mistake, choosing a river journey.

By land she need
only cope with sandstorms, temperamental camels, and marauding
Bedouins. It was too late to change her mind, though, and reason
told-her this was the wiser choice. She would do Miles no good if she
got killed, and desert travel was a good way for foreigners to get
killed. A large, armed escort might make it a degree safer, but this
would take far too long to arrange.

As it was, Mr.
Carsington had accomplished miracles. Hiring and provisioning a boat
ought to take weeks. He’d done it in two days, though Friday,
when he’d begun, was the Mohammedan Sabbath, when it was
impossible to get anything done.

Unless you happened
to be a genie.

“
The
cupboards hold your books and notebooks,” the genie was saying.
“Leena’s stowed most of your wardrobe and other
necessaries in her cabin next door. The other trunks and boxes we’ve
put in the cabin after. I hadn’t guessed you’d need so
many. Perhaps your collection of masterful disguises is more
extensive than I imagined?”

“
Miles and I
were planning a trip toThebes,” she said. “We’d
already packed for it: medicines, rugs, mats, mosquito net, umbrella,
lantern, broom, and candles—the everyday needs. But the other
trunks’ contents are mainly his.”

She turned
carefully in the narrow passage and started back. She glanced into
the maid’s crowded cabin. Leena would sleep in Daphne’s
room. However, Daphne could not share one room with her or anyone
else the rest of the time, day in and day out. Deprived of solitude,
Daphne would turn into a caged beast. The two women could not wander
about outdoors on deck all day, either. Both custom and themiddayheat
forbade it.

I’ll work day
and night, Daphne told herself. Hieroglyphs demanded one’s
total attention, blocking out troublesome feelings and urges. She
would not make herself sick with worry about Miles. She would not
fret about the time passing. And above all, she would acquire a
suitable detachment regarding Mr. Carsington’s…
attributes.

She wished she
could do it now, but the task was beyond mortal abilities.

Technically, he was
fully dressed. However, he’d untied his neckcloth and undone
his coat and waistcoat buttons. Her gaze kept straying to his throat
and the V of bronzed skin below it. She remembered the heat and
weight of his body against her back in the pyramid.

It was impossible
to subdue her vibrating awareness of the tall figure standing inches
away. It took all her concentrated will to keep her hands to herself.
A step would bring her against that muscled frame.

She edged past him
to the door of the cabin assigned to storage. “We’d
planned to spend some time inThebes, making a study of the monuments
and tombs,” she went on hurriedly. “These trunks hold
Miles’s sextant and artificial horizon, chronometer, large and
small telescopes, siphon barometer, thermometer, and measuring tape.
And his clothes. His kidnappers did not give him time to pack,
recollect.” Her voice shook a little at this last.