There is endless merit in a man’s knowing when to have done.
—Thomas Carlyle
Eastward from the polygon room extended another spacious promenade, decorated with green calico draperies and embellished with twelve allegorical transparencies, among them ‘Overthrow of Tyranny by the Allied Powers’, ‘Military Glory’, and ‘Passage of the Allied Sovereigns from France to England.’ The promenade led to an arbor formed with laurel branches and adorned with rare plants borrowed from Kew. Maddie expressed her admiration. Angel contemplated a thorny monkey puzzle tree with lamps hanging from its branches, and wondered if the poor thing would survive the festivities.
There were twenty temporary structures in the brilliantly illuminated grounds, each overflowing with guests. Angel escorted Maddie into the extensive garden proper, which included bowers and conservatories and marble statuary, beds of the choicest flowers, a cascade designed by Kent; and along a pathway lined with rose-laden trellises that opened into an empty grove where no one could eavesdrop on their conversation but the birds snoozing in the trees.
Maddie touched her gloved fingertips to the trunk of an ancient oak. Angel said, “Have you a proper invitation tonight, Mrs. Tate?”
“Have I— Oh.” She let her hand fall. “I went to Burlington House in place of a friend who could not attend. It was wrong of me, I know.”
So far as misbehavior went, Angel was hardly one to judge. “Two women have gone missing. Sensitive documents are involved.”
Her eyes widened. “Please don’t tell me this involves matters of state.”
Since she asked, he didn’t. “Fanny Arbuthnot is among the missing. She was an emissary between Princess Charlotte and her mother. The implications must be clear.”
“Should you be telling me this?”
He understood her reservations. Sir Owen Osborne ranked high among the Whigs who were so fond of putting it about that Prinny grievously mistreated his daughter. Angel found Princess Charlotte’s tendency toward indiscrimination unsurprising: her mother had no morals than a rabbit while her father, on romantic occasions too numerous to tally, went to the trouble of having his florid complexion bled to a suitably lovelorn hue.
Angel had not, as yet, resorted to such measures. He hoped that an intimacy with leeches was not among the indignities time held in store. “I thought you should know. As far as you confiding in your father — which I believe is what you meant — you cannot make him privy to a part without admitting to the whole. I don’t think in this instance that confession would be good for the soul.”
Maddie said, with feeling, “You can be sure it would not!”
“Have you any further thoughts about whom our pharaoh may be?”
“The only persons he
can’t
have been are you and Tony and the Regent, because you were with me, and Tony was in the supper room, and Prinny is too plump.”
Footsteps approached, accompanied by voices. Angel drew Maddie with him along the pebbled pathway that led from the far side of the grove. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me the name of the friend whose place you took?”
She shook her head. “You will think it naïve of me, but I believe a person should keep her word.”
Naïve, yes, and rather charming. Angel experienced an absurd impulse to snatch up his companion and hide her from the world.
But in that case she would not be safe from him. Already, he had upset her. In atonement, he said, “Here we are, together in the shadows. It is the perfect opportunity, should you care to ravish me.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Well, I don’t.”
“Liar,” Angel replied gently. “You don’t have the knack of telling falsehoods. I thought you should know.”
“You can’t help it, can you?” Her voice was resigned.
“Help what, my goddess?”
“Flirting with every female who crosses your path.”
Angel considered this suggestion. “Probably I cannot, but this is different. I
like
you, you see.”
“You don’t ordinarily like your flirts?”
“Fondness isn’t necessary for, ah, flirting.”
“I find that very sad.”
Angel disliked her reaction. “And were you fond of Mr. Tate?”
Maddie said repressively, “Let us speak of something else, if you don’t mind.”
Angel found that he did mind. “You must have been married right out of the schoolroom.”
She grimaced at this turn of conversation. “I was seventeen. Or almost.”
“And your husband didn’t flirt with you? What a dull fellow he must have been. Don’t bother telling me I shouldn’t make so personal a remark.”
“You do not pay much attention to should and shouldn’t, sir!” Maddie winced. “Now you have provoked me into saying something I should not have.”
“Again,” corrected Angel. “I have provoked you into saying something you should not
again.
Never mind. You may say anything you wish to me.”
She ignored the invitation. “I doubt Mr. Tate knew how to flirt. He was too busy telling everyone else how they should go on.”
“A pompous puffguts, was he? I’ve never understood why we’re not to speak ill of the dead. If someone was unlikeable in life, he is hardly apt to become less so after he dies.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Apropos of which, you will have heard that I spoke with my wife tonight.”
“Every person present must have heard it by now. I gather you do not rub along together well.”
“Not particularly. I left her, you see. It was a blow to her pride. Now Bella aspires to make me mad with jealousy. Whereas I simply desire to make her mad.”
Maddie looked up at him. “Since I may say anything I wish to you— Why did you marry her?”
“Our fathers arranged the match when we were in our cradles. Why did you marry Tate?”
“Because my father said I must.”
Maddie fell silent. Angel wondered if she was pondering the ill-fated match-making efforts of their respective sires.
They reached the pathway’s end, and a temple fashioned of shells. Angel followed her through the door.
Embedded in the walls and ceiling of the cavern-like chamber were shells interspersed with irregular pieces of crystal, marble, minerals and looking-glass. From the middle of the ceiling hung a large mirrored star; from the middle of the star dangled an alabaster lamp. In one far corner, a naiad spilled water from an urn into a pool.
Angel closed the temple doors, shutting out all sound but the water’s trickle and splash. Lamplight reflected from the walls and ceiling, and the tinsel in Maddie’s dress; brought out the glint of russet in her hair.
She gazed, wide-eyed, around the chamber. Angel couldn’t recall that he had ever been so awestruck, unless it was upon his first glimpse of a female breast, courtesy of his father’s then-mistress, at twelve years of age.
“This is marvelous!” gasped Maddie. Her husky voice shivered along Angel’s spine. Not only his toes twitched.
Mrs. Tate was everything that was proper. While he was everything that was not. Angel knew he shouldn’t take advantage of her. But all the same he would.
She noticed his expression. “Are you laughing at me?” she asked.
“No.” Angel took her hand in his. “I am enjoying you. And I give you fair warning that I mean to enjoy you more.”
“Oh?”
“If you will not ravish me, you must at least allow me to further your knowledge of kisses. Since you haven’t a fraction of my experience along those lines.”
She glanced at his hand but didn’t pull away. “You
would
remember that.”
“I remember everything, or at least everything to do with you. Odd in me, I grant you, but there it is.”
Maddie made no protest when Angel peeled off her glove and ran his thumb over the soft flesh of her hand; when he brushed his lips over her fingertips, her knuckles, saluted her palm, the pulse racing in her wrist. She trembled as he leisurely made his way up her arm to her elbow, her shoulder, her neck — but when he nipped her earlobe, she moved closer to him, and threaded her fingers through his hair, and pulled his face down to hers. And when she ran her tongue along the curve of his lower lip, he stopped thinking altogether and allowed himself to simply feel.
Hot and hungry kisses. Explorations conducted with hands, and lips, and tongues. Murmured implorations and breathy exhales—
Her heart beat against his hand. Or maybe his heart beat against hers. They were twined so close together it was difficult to tell. In the Regent’s shell temple. Where any of several thousand other guests could fling open the door to see Angel Jarrow seated on a marble bench with Maddie Tate perched on his lap.
She was flushed and heavy-lidded. One sleeve had slipped off her shoulder to expose a pearly breast. Angel longed to take that rosy nipple in his mouth. Instead, with a brief wistful vision of where he’d like her to place
her
mouth, he restored the sleeve to its proper place.
He was breathing heavily. As was she. Her expression was more than a little stunned.
Angel was accustomed to this reaction. He was
not
accustomed to the object of his amorous attentions pushing him away and leaping to her feet. “We should not— I should not— This was a mistake!”
Angel brushed aside her frantic hands, deftly straightened her gown. “Did you not enjoy yourself?”
“Of course I enjoyed myself.” Maddie tugged up her bodice. “That is not the point.”
“It is precisely the point, my poppet. Life is short, and we poor players are entitled to some pleasure before we shuffle off this mortal coil.” Angel finished tidying her hair. “And now, if we are to preserve your reputation, we must rejoin the other guests.”
“Wait.” She was struggling with the buttons of her glove. “Do you truly believe the pharaoh might wish me harm?”
“I believe it fortunate your name didn’t appear on the guest list. The pharaoh will find it difficult to learn your identity. Still, you must take every precaution until we discover who he is.” And he hadn’t — had he — used the word ‘we’?
Deftly, Angel dealt with her buttons. Watching him, she said, “What do you believe those mysterious missing documents might be?”
“I’d wager they are letters.” He released her hand. “I myself have had experience with epistles gone astray,”
“Everything comes so easily to you, doesn’t it? No wonder you are spoiled.” Maddie sighed. “Neither should I have said that.”
No she shouldn’t, but he had deserved it. Angel opened the temple door. A respectable distance between them, they walked down the pathway toward the distant sounds of revelry.
“You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Candles were placed around the chamber. Light flickered on the stone sarcophagus, the canopic jars. The creator of this eerie ambiance had seated himself in an armchair fashioned from ebonized black beech and gilded wood. A lidded woven basket rested on a table beside the chair.
“Horus avenged the murder of his father by Set, god of the desert,” he said conversationally. “In so doing he lost an eye, which he replaced with an asp. The divine asp became a symbol of Egyptian royalty. It was customarily worn on the pharaoh’s headdress.” He might have added that Horus and Set had an interesting relationship, involving boats made of stone and semen-smeared lettuce and ripped-off testicles, but his companion was watching the basket with horrified fascination and he didn’t care to digress. “According to Plutarch, Cleopatra tested various deadly poisons on condemned prisoners and animals. She concluded that the bite of the asp was the least terrible way to die: its venom resulted in sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain. The asp responsible for her own death was smuggled past her guards in a basket of figs. ‘With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie’.”
“ ‘
All strange and terrible events are welcome’
,
” his companion responded.
“ ‘
But comfort we despise’.”
“Do you?” mocked Horus. “Despise comfort? You were eager enough to accept those diamond earrings, as I recall.”
She turned several degrees paler. Overall, Miss Vaughan did not look well. Her coppery curls were matted, and her fine features drawn. The clothes that had once fitted to perfection now hung on her like a shroud. Suspicious that her food was drugged, she disposed of her meals in various clever ways, for instance hiding them in canopic jars.
The jars were too heavy for her to lift. She could reach nothing that might be used as a weapon, due to the manacles on her wrists and ankles, and the chains that allowed her to move mere inches from her chair. Horus watched her scheme and struggle, through a secret opening in the wall.
Miss Vaughan stood in need of clean clothing, as well as a good meal. Horus had offered her soap and water, but she refused to use the supplies so long as he remained in the room. He’d taken the soap and water with him when he left.
She’d cursed him fulsomely.
Fascinating, this stubborn determination to survive.
Fascinating, and futile. As Shakespeare might have put it, Horus was a man who in his time had played many parts.
He almost believed Miss Vaughan knew nothing of the Burlington House fiasco. A pity he’d lacked the opportunity to question Henry at greater length.
He wondered when the actress would realize he couldn’t release her, and how she’d try and make him change his mind. It made little difference.
The cat will mew, the dog will have its day.
Horus tapped his fingers against the woven basket. “The ancient Egyptians recognized some thirty-seven different snakes, and listed treatments for their bites in medical papyri, the most common ingredient being onion. One of the most feared reptiles was the horned viper, which rasps its coils together before it attacks. The noise sounds like the letter ‘f,’ and the image of the horned viper is the hieroglyph for the sound.”
The basket quivered. Miss Vaughan sucked in a quick breath. “I don’t believe there is a snake. You’ve captured some poor mouse.”
She sought to convince herself. Horus noted the hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Captured as you were captured and imprisoned? You should have been more particular about accepting baubles and dinner invitations from gentlemen you don’t know.”
She glared at him. “Damn you!” she snapped.
It might have been a valiant effort, were her voice not so weak. “Your attempts to match wits with me grow feeble, Miss Vaughan.”
She sneered. The gesture also lacked conviction. Her current performance was far from the most stellar of her career.
Horus glanced at the sarcophagus. So did Miss Vaughan. This was not the first time he had threatened to close her inside and leave her there to wonder how many corpses had rested in that same space, and if she would emerge from it alive. “What is it you want from me?” she whispered. “I’ve told you what I know. There were several Dianas. I don’t know who the others were, I swear.”
“Your word is not your bond, Miss Vaughan.” Horus rose. “I must leave you now. During my absence, I suggest you reflect upon the Bard. ‘I am dying, Egypt, dying.’ Antony died in Cleopatra’s arms. Mayhap you will die in mine.”