Mr Impossible (42 page)

“
Love songs,”
he said. Then he remembered. The reason he’d come. The excuse.
“Yusef is sick with love for Nafisah.”

“
That would
explain the choice of song,” she said. “All the burning
vitals and misery and ‘alas’ this and that.” She
started to untangle herself from him.

He drew her back.

“
We need to
be sensible,” she said. “
I
need to be sensible.”

“
Another
moment,” he said.

“
Mr.
Carsington.”

“
Rupert,”
he said.

“
I need to
keep a distance,” she said.

“
It’s a
bit late for that,” he said.

“
I know it is
hypocritical,” she said, “but I must try to maintain an
appearance of decorum. For Miles’s sake.”

He kissed her
forehead. “If he finds out, will he have my liver on a spit?
Will he insist upon pistols at twenty paces?”

She pulled away and
sat up. “Good grief! A duel? Over me? If he even contemplated
anything so deranged—But no, he would not be so idiotish.”
She wrestled her bodice back into position, and turned her back to
him. “Do me up, please,” she said. “I can hardly
call for Leena.”

Reluctantly Rupert
sat up. Reluctantly, he fastened the garment.

“
Have you
spoken to Nafisah?” she said.

“
Can we talk
about Nafisah later?” he said. “We’re not done
talking about us.”

She turned back to
him. “Please don’t,” she said. “We can’t
continue this. I don’t regret what I’ve done. But the
rest of the world will never understand, and the rest of the world is
what Miles must contend with. I cannot embarrass him. I could not
live with myself if I did. You can have no idea what he’s done
for me. Without him, I should have gone mad.”

“
He’s
taken care of you,” Rupert said.

“
Far beyond
what most brothers would do for their sisters.”

“
Then I
shouldn’t wish to injure him for the world,” Rupert said.
He pulled on his shirt. He wished wisdom were a garment, that he
might put it on so easily. He’d been so happy for a time. Now
he was unhappy and growing un-happier by the minute. He had to leave.
He would have to sleep alone this night.

He was not a
monster. He did have self-control. He didn’t wish to disgrace
her. He didn’t wish to shame the brother she loved, the brother
who’d protected her from who knew what.

It shouldn’t
be so hard to leave. It shouldn’t be so hard to tell himself
they’d find her brother in the next few days. They’d
rescue him or die trying. And if they died, it would be over. And if
they succeeded, it would all be over between Daphne Pembroke and
Rupert Carsington.

He’d never
expected matters to end any differently, and he’d never had any
trouble with endings.

He’d had
other women.

When it was time to
go, he went.

Whether it was his
decision or—on the very rare occasion—hers, he said
good-bye graciously and kindly. With gratitude, perhaps. Never with
regret.

He told himself
this day had brought more than he’d dared hope for. He’d
come to the cabin on family business.

He’d come on
behalf of the lovesick boy who’d looked at him with that
pathetically hopeful expression.

“
I’d
better settle the matter I came to settle,” Rupert said.
“Otherwise it will be obvious to everyone what we were doing
here with the door closed.”

“
Yusef wishes
to marry Nafisah, it appears,” she said, rising up on her knees
and twitching her skirts back into place.

“
Yes, but
he’s very young. Fourteen, I think.”

“
Most
Egyptian boys his age have a wife,” she said. “I believe
his countrymen employ the principle that it’s better to marry
than to burn. Fathers usually provide wives for their sons by
puberty.”

Rupert frowned.
He’d never thought of marriage in that way. Well, he didn’t
need to, did he? The English didn’t keep their women hidden
behind veils or shut up in harems.

“
It’s
easy enough to do, if she’s agreeable,” Daphne said. “A
maiden’s marriage is as elaborate an affair as the family can
afford. For widows and divorced women, the business is much simpler.
I made some notes on the subject. I intend to write a paper on
several aspects of modern Egyptian culture.”

She pushed the
cushion they’d lain upon back against the cabin wall. She
crawled over the divan and rummaged in a small chest in a corner of
the cabin. While she searched, he gazed at her handsomely rounded
backside. He suppressed a sigh.

She took out a
notebook like the one in which she’d drawn the cartouches. She
flipped through the pages. “Here it is. Quite simple. The woman
says to the man, ‘I give myself up to thee.’ This is
usually done before witnesses, but they are not necessary. The dowry
is a fraction of that for a virgin. Naturally, I should provide a
generous dowry, so that is not an issue.” She looked up from
the notebook. “It only remains for the girl to agree.”

“
That’s
all?” he said. “‘I give myself up to thee’?
No banns? No license? No parson?”

“
We might
give them a fete,” Daphne said. “It’s a good excuse
for a celebration.”

He rose. “Yes,
well, I’d better find out what Nafisah thinks of the
prospective bridegroom, then.”

“
Send her to
me,” Daphne said.

“
No, no, I’ll
use Tom as interpreter,” he said. “They want me to do it.
I’m the father.”

“
The father?”
He gave a distracted nod and went out.

HE RETURNED FIVE
minutes later.

Daphne had not had
time to put her feelings in order. She’d barely had time to
wash herself. She hastily dabbed her face with the towel so that he
wouldn’t know the wet was from tears!

Making love with
him again had only made everything worse. She knew it had to be the
last time, but she wasn’t done with him. She wasn’t ready
for it to be over.

She was acting like
a romantic, emotional schoolgirl. It was as though the ten years
since her first blind infatuation had never happened.

But it had, and she
needed to remember what had happened, every miserable detail, all the
consequences of trusting feelings.

Thus she counseled
herself, but when he was near, it was very difficult to be logical
and sensible.

He stood in the
doorway, his head tipped to one side.

“
We could
marry,” he said.

She took the towel
away from her face and clutched it to her stomach. She said nothing.
She couldn’t have heard aright.

“
We could
marry,” he said. “The way you said. You’re a
widow.”

Her heart was a
great pickaxe inside her chest: one heavy blow after another.
Something would break, something vital.

“
Marry?”
she said. “Did you hit your head on the way out?”

He smiled. “You
see? That’s one of the things I like about you. Your sense of
humor.”

“
I have no
sense of humor,” she said.

“
Maybe you
don’t notice because your mind is so taken up with scholarly
matters,” he said.

“
No, the
trouble is, you don’t know the real Daphne.” she said.
“You think I’m dashing and interesting, but I’m
not. Circumstances have forced me to behave differently. But as soon
as everything returns to normal, I shall revert to the unamusing and
unamiable person I really am.”

“
You believed
you were unwomanly, recollect,” he said. “You can’t
judge yourself by a fussy old man’s standards.”

“
You don’t
understand!” she cried. “I have no hobbies. I have no
other interests. I eat, drink, and breathe lost languages. My idea of
a grand time is counting the number of hieroglyphic signs on the
Rosetta Stone. One thousand four hundred nineteen. The corresponding
Greek text has four hundred eighty-six words. Would you like to hear
the conclusion I draw from these figures?”

“
Of course,”
he said. “I love to listen to you talk.”

“
Even when
you don’t understand it.”

“
Is it
necessary?” he said. “Do you understand cricket? The
finer points of boxing?”

“
Of course
not,” she said.

“
My mother
has said that it’s often better for a husband and wife not to
understand each other too well,” he said. “A little
mystery keeps a marriage more interesting, she says.”

“
With you and
me it is more than a
little
mystery,” Daphne said. “We
have nothing in common.”

His dark eyebrows
went up.

“
Lust doesn’t
count,” she said. “It is no basis for a union that must
last a lifetime. We are not Egyptians. We cannot divorce with a
handful of words, and without disgrace. I can’t, at any rate.”

He appeared to
think this over. Then, “You’re telling me the answer is
no, in other words,” he said.

“
It’s
for the best,” she said. She tried desperately to remember what
one ought to say in such circumstances. She must have read about it
somewhere. “I fear we should not suit… over the long
term. But thank you for making the offer. It was… kind.”

“
Kind,”
he repeated. He gave a short laugh and left.

BY NIGHTFALL,
DAPHNE had herself in hand. It was not as though she had any choice.
The wedding business quickly occupied everybody.

Not long after Mr.
Carsington left, Leena and Nafisah hurried in with the happy news.
Nafisah had agreed to have Yusef. She was very pleased. She wished to
have more babies. Yusef was young and strong and would give her many
children. He was handsome, too, and kind. She kissed Daphne’s
hand repeatedly, thanking her.

“
What have I
to do with it?” Daphne said. “It was you who stole his
heart.”

“
If you had
left me in my village,” the girl said, “my Sabah would be
dead, and I would be the fourth wife of an ill-tempered man.”

Like Virgil, Daphne
thought. He’d looked so saintly and serene, but it was a mask,
and it had fooled her. She’d thought she was at fault and
hadn’t realized she was at the mercy of a moody, discontented
man.

But she’d
been so young then, older than Nafisah in years, but much younger in
experience. She’d no experience of the outside world. Girls,
even very clever girls, didn’t go to public school. They didn’t
go to university. She’d studied at home, with her father. She’d
lived a quiet, cloistered existence.

Were her feelings
never to be trusted simply because they’d fooled her all that
long time ago?

Was her judgment
about men fatally flawed, or had she simply made a youthful error?

She was not sure,
and she hadn’t time this day to work out the riddle. Though the
wedding was a simple affair, it ought to be a festive occasion. She
busied herself with arranging it. By the time the boat moored for the
night, the meal was in preparation and the bride dressed in a set of
Daphne’s Arab garments.

The bride-to-be was
applying kohl to the baby’s eyes when the mongoose raced into
the room, cluttering excitedly.

“
What on
earth is the matter with…” Daphne trailed off as she
became aware of unfamiliar voices outside.

Leena peered
through the shutters. “Officials, from the town,” she
grumbled. “They will steal all our food, and call it a boat
tax.”

Marigold dashed out
again. Daphne nudged Leena away from the shuttered window. The
mongoose ran out onto the deck and instantly went up on her hind
legs, fur bristling as though she’d spotted a cobra.

Daphne went to the
chest where she kept the pistols, took them out, and loaded them, her
hands shaking.

The voices outside
sounded calm, but she didn’t trust the calm. If she’d had
fur, it would have bristled, too. She didn’t know what was
wrong, only that she was absolutely certain something was.