“What are you doing up at this time of night?” Claire asked. “And what disgusting thing are you wearing?”
“I’m Salome and I’m supposed to get to dance but he says we don’t have time.”
The skinny man made an elaborate bow to Claire. “Camelot J. Montgomery at your service, ma’am.”
Claire looked about the room, with its stage and its red plush chairs in front and its oddly dressed occupants, and opened her mouth to ask questions. But she didn’t have time. She looked at her sister. “I need you.”
“Can’t find your way back?” Brat asked, smiling. “I charge for guiding. And speaking of garments, what are you wearing?”
Claire ignored the last question. “I need you for more than guiding, and I’ll pay whatever you charge.”
At that Brat’s eyes opened wide and she smiled happily. “I’ll see you later, Cammy,” she called over her shoulder and led Claire into the tunnels.
Claire had no idea how Brat found her way around the tunnels, for they looped and turned every which way, but they were soon at the door that led into Claire’s room.
“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Brat said as soon as they entered the room. There was no need to say who “he” was.
“Help me dress. I’m going to Edinburgh with him.”
Brat’s eyes widened at that. “You’re running away from Harry?”
“Of course not. Trevelyan is in trouble. Someone shot at him tonight and I think it’s that man Powell. Trevelyan is going into Edinburgh to get the Pearl of the Moon.”
Brat gave her sister a sly look. “Do you know what the Pearl of the Moon is?”
Claire paused in taking a wool traveling dress from the wardrobe. “Do you?”
“Maybe. How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. A few days, no more.”
“You’re going to spend the night with Vellie?”
“I told you not to call him that.”
Brat grinned. “Because it’s your name for him?”
Claire was busy pulling on underwear. “Help me fasten this corset and don’t talk so much.”
Brat helped her sister dress as hurriedly as possible. “What are you going to do about Harry?” Brat asked.
“What do you mean, what am I going to do about Harry? I’m not going to do anything. We had a lovers’ quarrel, that’s all.”
“And now you’re running off with another man.”
Claire paused in dressing. “I am most certainly not running off with another man, as you put it. Trevelyan helped me with Leatrice. You know that, you were there. Now Trevelyan needs help and I plan to help him. Besides, Trevelyan isn’t really a man, he’s…he’s an institution. He’s a scholar. He belongs to the world, and it’s my duty as a citizen of the world to help him.”
“Balderdash,” Brat said. “You like him. You adore him. When he walks into a room your whole face lights up.”
Claire finished buttoning her dress. “I think you have him mixed up with Harry. I love Harry. I adore Harry and my face, if it does light up, lights for Harry. Trevelyan and I are friends, or maybe we aren’t friends, since he tends to study me, but—”
“Are you talking about those pictures he draws? He draws pictures of everybody. You should see what he drew of me. He made my face very old but my body is…” Brat grinned. “You never saw such a figure as he gave me! And he drew Cammy and me, and he drew me with Aunt May, and he drew me with the thieving aunts. You should see his pictures of Harry and his mother.”
Claire paused as she put clothes in a leather bag. “Everybody?”
“And he writes about everybody too. Oman says he’s had to add two tables to the room for Vellie’s writings about our family. Oman says Vellie is now fascinated with Americans.”
Claire put her hairbrush and bottles of creams in the case, and, as an afterthought, she slipped a large bottle of MacTarvit whisky into the case. Since her first hunting expedition, the butler had kept her supplied with the whisky. “I think you talk to too many people. I think this house is a bad influence on you.”
“This house and these people are perfect for me.” Brat smiled at her sister. “Can you say the same thing? Do you fit in here? Or do you fit in better with those people living in those nasty little white cottages? Do you fit with Harry or with Trevelyan?”
Claire snapped the case shut. She had no intention of answering her sister. “I think you know what to do while I’m gone. Lie to the best of your ability, which I must say is stupendous in its magnitude. Perhaps you should take up writing fiction. Lying comes so easily to you. Now come and give me a kiss. I won’t see you for a while.”
Brat quickly kissed her sister’s cheek, then, on impulse, she hugged her fiercely. “Be careful. I wouldn’t like for you to be shot. There are bad things in this house as well as good.”
“If you mean Harry’s mother, I’m sure I’m safe from her. After all, she wants my money.”
“A lot of people want your money.”
Claire was at the door. “Including you. Now behave yourself and don’t wear all of my jewels at once.”
Brat stood and looked at the closed door once her sister was gone. “I don’t want your money,” she whispered. “I want you to stop crying.” She turned away, went to the box that held Claire’s jewels, and withdrew a ruby necklace. “And maybe I’d like to stop being the poor one,” she whispered, holding the jewels up to the light.
“No,” Trevelyan said from inside the carriage, then banged on the roof with his cane.
The carriage didn’t move and Claire climbed inside. “I’m going with you and that’s final. You can’t stop me without raising a great fuss and waking people up and letting them know you’re here.”
“Half of the household knows where I am. Thanks to all the people who troop in and out of my rooms there’s no possibility of keeping my presence a secret.”
Claire settled herself on the seat across from him, noting that for once he was dressed, rather surprisingly, in perfectly cut, fashionable attire. “Then that’s more of a reason for me to go with you. I can protect you.”
At that Trevelyan gave a derisive laugh. “You protect me? You can’t even protect yourself from one crippled old woman.”
His barb hurt, and Claire looked away from him.
Trevelyan was silent for a moment. “All right, maybe no one can protect himself from her. But you won’t need to protect me from Jack Powell. He wasn’t the one who tried to kill me.”
“Then who was?” As she said this Claire stuck her head out the carriage window and told Oman to drive. When the carriage started, Claire leaned back in the seat and smiled at Trevelyan.
Trevelyan watched her for a moment. It was quite dark in the carriage, the only light coming from the lanterns on the outside. “You’re not going for me, you’re going because you’re bored.”
“I am not bored. Well, maybe just a little. With Harry gone I—”
“With Harry gone you’re free. You can slip out of the house and no one else will notice. Actually, even if Harry were here he probably wouldn’t notice where you were. I hear you’re getting shotguns for a wedding present.”
“I’d prefer not to talk about me and I’d definitely rather we didn’t talk about Harry and me. Why don’t you tell me about finding the Pearl of the Moon? Is it a very large pearl?”
“The Pearl of the Moon isn’t a thing, it’s a person. To be specific, it’s a she. She’s the head of the Peshan religion.”
“You mean a sort of priestess?”
Trevelyan gave a one-sided grin. “Rather more like a princess. Or possibly a goddess, from the way she’s treated.”
Claire blinked at him.
Trevelyan smiled. “You want me to get Oman to stop the coach? Let you out? You don’t look as though you like the idea of rescuing a woman. Would you rather it was the largest pearl in the world? I wouldn’t risk my neck for a pearl of any size.”
Claire was trying to absorb what he was s
aying. It certainly made no difference to her that they were going to rescue a woman rather than a rare jewel. “She must be very venerable. Did you bring her out of Pesha to prove to the world you had been there?”
“No. Nyssa came of her own accord. She left the city with me because she wanted to. Nyssa does whatever she wants.”
“I see. I guess she’s earned that right. She must have been a priestess for a long time.”
Trevelyan didn’t answer.
“Why is she called the Pearl of the Moon? Pearly hair, maybe?”
Trevelyan smiled at her in the darkness. “She’s called that because it’s believed she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Oh” was all Claire could say. “Oh.” She looked out at the dark scenery they were passing. “Has she been a priestess for long?”
When Trevelyan didn’t answer she looked back at him. He was smiling at her in a knowing way. “All right,” Claire said, disgust in her voice. “You can stop laughing at me. I want to know all of it. I want to know the whole story from the beginning. How did you get this perfect beauty and why are we traveling in the middle of the night to go get her?”
“You can get out at any time.” He laughed when she gave him a look of obstinacy. “All right, I’ll tell you. It’s a Peshan ritual and it’s been going on for centuries. Every fifty years the Peshan priests leave their walled city and go out into the surrounding countryside and search for the most beautiful young woman in the world. They try to find girls who’re about fourteen or fifteen, then they take them all back to Pesha and the people choose the prettiest to become the priestess.”
“Oh, I see. And she’s the priestess for her lifetime, then they choose someone else.”
“Not exactly. They allow her to be the priestess for five years, then they kill her. Forty-five years later they begin looking for someone else.”
“They what?”
Trevelyan shrugged. “It’s their religion. Religions around the world are different. They have different rules.”
“But this rule is hideous. It’s awful. I hope you made a protest.”
Trevelyan laughed. “I was one infidel alone in a sacred city. I wasn’t in any position to stand in the town square and preach Buddhism.”
“Christianity.”
“What? Oh, right. The true religion. Did you know that all people believe their own religion to be the true one?”
She smiled at him. “Play the cynic all you want, but you did save her. When was she to die?”
“This year.”
Claire let out a sigh. “But you took her away from that dreadful place and saved her life.”
“Not actually. Nyssa and her maidens were walking through the streets and just as she passed, I fell down at her feet. Malaria. But Nyssa thought that I’d fainted at the sight of her beauty. She had me carried to her chambers, and when she found out that I wasn’t dark skinned all over, she hid me.”
“And she left the city when you did. Did no one try to stop her?”
“For the five years the girls are priestesses, they’re allowed to do anything they want. They’re given anything they want. Nyssa wanted to leave with me, so she did.”
Claire leaned toward him. “Why did she want to leave with you?”
Trevelyan gave a crooked grin. “Did I tell you about the time we made camp on a village of stinging ants? They came out at night and were all over us before someone woke up and gave the alarm. Six men came down with fever after that and—”
“How did this woman find out you weren’t dark skinned all over?”
“She looked,” he said simply. “Jealous?”
“Don’t be absurd. I was merely curious. You should understand that concept, as curiosity seems to be the ruling force of your life.”
“Nyssa was curious too.”
She looked out the window. “Did she fall in love with you? Is that why she left with you?”
“I think she wanted to see the world. She grew up in a farm village, very poor, and she wanted to see something besides Pesha.”
“Not to mention the fact that they planned to kill her within the year.”
“I’m sure that had something to do with it.”
She looked back at him. “So she left Pesha with you and traveled across the country. But then you died, or Powell thought you were going to die, and he took all your papers and your Pearl of the Moon. Is that right?”
“More or less.”
When she spoke her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Are you going to rescue her now because you love her? Is that why you were so upset when you thought Powell had her?”
“I was upset because I thought Powell might be holding her against her will. On the journey back from Pesha Jack had a tendency to look on Nyssa as something we had caught, something in the vein of a museum specimen. I wouldn’t like for Nyssa to be held prisoner in a stuffy drawing room somewhere.” He gave her a piercing look. “Some women can stand that, but others can’t.”
She ignored his last remark. “How did you view her?”
“As often as possible,” he said, grinning, then frowned. “What is wrong with you? If anyone should hear this conversation they’d think you and I were the lovers and that you were eaten with jealousy over something I did months ago.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m not jealous. I am…I’m a scholar of Captain Baker, that’s all. Maybe I’ll still write that biography even though you aren’t actually dead, so I need to learn all that I can about you. It would interest my readers to know if you took a beautiful young woman from a sacred city because you were in love with her. Readers would like that story, of the handsome young explorer with the beautiful maiden.”
“When I first met you, you said I was old and ugly. Besides, Nyssa is far from being a maiden.”
“Oh? Promiscuous, is she?”
“You can stop looking down your nose at her. You might behave differently if you thought you had only five years to live.”
“I’m sure that I’d do just what I am doing. I’d marry the man I love and live happily ever after.”
“At a silent breakfast table. In a house where you aren’t allowed into the library and where you’re supposed to supervise everything that a horse like Harry eats.”
“Stop it! I’m sick of hearing you say terrible things about the man I love. Did you love this Nyssa?” She shouted the last.
“When you tell me the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.”
Claire looked away from him. He was such an infuriating man. He could drive a person insane. No wonder someone shot at him, tried to kill him. She looked back at him. “Is your arm all right?”
“I’ve had worse.”
She smiled at him and suddenly all her anger evaporated. Sometimes when she was with him she forgot that he was Captain Baker. She almost forgot all the things that he had done and written, all that he knew. “Tell me about your journey into Pesha.”
“So you can put it in your biography of me?” he asked angrily.
“Because I want to hear. Brat said that you’d told her stories of Pesha. What really happened? Did Powell enter the city with you?”
“No. I went alone.” She smiled because she had been correct about Powell’s lack of participation.
She turned to watch him as closely as she could. He was becoming so familiar to her that she could sometimes read his expressions. Those dark, almost black, eyes of his didn’t seem to change but she knew that he was pleased by her questions. Then, quite suddenly, the atmosphere became charged. He was a man and she was a woman and they were alone together.
Claire wasn’t sure why, but her heart began to flutter within her breast. She looked out the window of the carriage. “Tell me a story,” she whispered.
She didn’t look at Trevelyan when he gave a deep sigh.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Three days before you entered Pesha.” She took a breath and looked back at him. She had to make him talk.
“What were you wearing? How did you disguise yourself? How did you learn to speak Peshan? What do the other women in Pesha look like—besides this Nilla, that is?”
“Nyssa,” he said with a smile, then began to tell her of his journey.
Trevelyan was a good storyteller, having an actor’s sense of timing, of where to leave the listener wanting more. He told of finding a man who had once been a slave in Pesha and taking the man with him on the long journey in search of the sacred city. He told of talking with the man and studying the Peshan language.
When Trevelyan started to tell of entering the city, Claire held her breath. Even though she knew the ending of the story, the way Trevelyan told it made her fear for his life. She could tell from what he said that the city was not made of gold, as fable had it, but was just a small, enclosed city, ancient beyond words, filled with old stone houses and, from Trevelyan’s description, even older men.
“And what of the women?” she asked.
“The only women in the city are Nyssa and her eight maidens. The maidens serve the Pearl of the Moon for her five years as priestesses, then, after her death, they’re sent back to their families. While they’re in Pesha the maidens aren’t allowed to consort with any of the men.”
“Consort?”
“Sleep with them. Make love with any of them. Cohabit,” he said.
“But Nialla is?” Claire asked quickly. “Allowed to consort, that is?”
“Nyssa may do anything that she wants. Do you want to hear more about the city or are you only fascinated with Nyssa’s love life? Perhaps your fascination is caused by the barrenness of your own love life.”
“Ha!” Claire said. “Go on with your story.”
He told of Nyssa’s having rescued him, having saved his life, for if he had been discovered he would have been killed. He told of staying with her in her private apartments. He described the apartments, telling how they were filled with the stolen treasure of hundreds of years. He described swords taken from medieval Spaniards, jewels taken from around the necks of Crusaders. He described silks and furniture and paintings. “Only the best is good enough for their priestess.”