Mr. Impossible

  Several members of their party had come up from the plain to wait nearby. Though they carried food and water, the lady paid them no heed. A heap of stones a few feet away caught her eye. She wandered thither.

  Tom trotted over to Rupert with the clothes he’d discarded en route. Though it was late afternoon, the air had not yet begun to cool. In any case, Rupert wanted to wash off the layer of sand and sweat first. Shaking his head at the boy, he turned away to watch Mrs. Pembroke.

  Beside him, Segato watched her, too, remarking how unusual it was to find a woman who shared one’s enthusiasm for exploration and who bore hardship so cheerfully.

  There was an understatement.

  She must be at least as hot, dirty, and tired as Rupert was. Like him, she’d had nothing to eat since morning. Yet instead of hurrying to the waiting servants who carried food and water, she crouched to peer at a slab of rock poking out of a pile of rubble.

  She brushed it off, bent close, shook her head, and with an impatient twitch, knelt in the pebbly sand. She dug under, and after a moment, unearthed the two outer corners. She grabbed the edge and lifted it up. It seemed to be a tablet of some kind, for it was covered in writing.

  Rupert saw that, and the shadowy form revealed when she rested it against the rubble heap. He saw the snake rear up, and his heart froze. She sank back on her knees, and, “Don’t move!” he roared.

  He was moving as he spoke. He grabbed the clothes from the boy, discarding all but the tunic while swiftly covering the few feet to where she remained immobile. The snake swayed in its place, still confused perhaps after the abrupt awakening, or not sure where the threat lay.

  Mrs. Pembroke was leaning as far back over her heels as she could, balanced on one hand, her green gaze riveted upon the serpent.

  “Don’t move,” Rupert repeated more quietly. He shook out the tunic, as a bullfighter would shake out his cape. The snake made a quick dart at it without moving farther away from her. The creature was still aware of her, a larger and more solid threat. She was still within its range, and it was fully alert now, waiting. If she moved, it would attack her.

  While gently waving the tunic, to fix the snake’s attention there, Rupert inched nearer to her. When he’d finally got the cloth between her and the snake, he said softly, “Now. Back away. Try to make as little disturbance as possible.”

  She did as he told her, but the snake must have sensed the movement. The striped head darted forward, and the fangs tore into the tunic.

  In the instant the animal was occupied, she edged back quickly. When she’d moved well out of the snake’s reach, Rupert said, “It’s all right. You can get up now.”

  Though aware of her rising and moving out of danger, he stayed focused on the vexed serpent.

  “There, there, my dear,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe now. The naughty lady’s gone away. Sorry we disturbed you.” He went on speaking gently to the creature as he gradually drew the tunic farther away from it.

  When Rupert, too, was out of range, the snake began to settle down. Rupert gently let the tunic fall. The striped head sank down, and after a moment, the creature slithered with remarkable speed into the nearest crevice of the rubble heap.

  Rupert watched until it was safely inside. Then he looked about for Mrs. Pembroke.

  To his surprise, he found she hadn’t run away and down the sand slope. She stood only a few yards away, looking from him to the hole into which the snake had disappeared.

  “You want to be careful around piles of stones,” he said, buttoning his waistcoat. For some reason he felt chilled.

  “Yes.” She brushed sand from her clothes. “How foolish of me. Thank you.” She straightened her posture and started toward the others.

  Rupert joined her.

  It was then he became aware of the eerie quiet.

  Egyptians were never quiet. In his experience, they did not stop talking from the time they woke up to the time they fell asleep.

  He looked about. His and Segato’s attendants had gathered nearby. Mute and motionless, they stood staring at him.

  Segato broke the tableau, hurrying to Mrs. Pembroke. The signora was good? Not hurt?

  She was quite unhurt, she told him.

  He turned to Rupert. “Almost I cannot believe my eyes,” he said. “It was so quick. My mouth is open, to warn the lady — but too late. I see it come up — like this.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Snakes dislike surprises,” Rupert said. To Mrs. Pembroke he added, “You frightened her. She attacked because she thought she was in danger.”

  “Oh, you had time to discern that it was a female?” she said, her voice higher than usual.

  “Might have been,” he said. “She was pretty enough. Did you note the markings?”

  “I know those marks,” said Segato. He turned his gaze to the hole into which the snake had vanished. “I know that sound also. Everyone here knows this sound: the scraping it makes, like a saw. La vipera delle piramidi. What is the English word?”

  “Viper?” Mrs. Pembroke said, her voice rising another half octave. “Of the pyramids?”

  “Si. Very bad temper. And quick it moves, so quick. Very bad poison. Not simply is this the vipera, but of all snakes in the Egitto the most deadly.”

  Her face turned chalk-white, and she swayed, and Rupert said, “No, don’t!”

  But she folded up, and he was already reaching to catch her as she fainted dead away.

  DAPHNE RECOVERED ALMOST immediately. Nonetheless, Mr. Carsington carried her down the sand slope, berating her all the way.

  “How many times have I told you?” he said. “No fainting.”

  “I did not faint,” she lied. “I was a little dizzy. You can put me down now.”

  He did not put her down, and she lacked the moral fiber to put up the struggle she ought. She had so little moral fiber that she was quite happy to be where she was.

  He was so very big and so very strong and warm, so vibrantly alive. He was her genie, carrying her away, and she let herself be a child and believe in the fantasy. She let out a huff, as though defeated, then rested her head upon his shoulder.

  His shirt was damp, and the skin of his jaw was gritty against her face. But he wasn’t cold and rigid, lying upon the ground, as he might so easily have been. The snake could have turned on him. He could have been dead in an instant. That’s what she’d seen in her mind’s eye when Signor Segato spoke of the pyramid viper: Mr. Carsington stretched out dead on the debris-strewn ground. And then she’d heard the buzzing sound and seen the strange wash of bright color before the black wave dragged her down.

  “ ‘I never faint,’ ” he said, mimicking her.

  No, he was very much alive and not in the least subdued by the experience.

  “I don’t,” she said against his neck.

  “You did.”

  “I was dizzy for a moment.”

  “You collapsed into a heap, like a marionette when someone cuts the strings. I know fainting when I see it. You did it, after all the times I’ve warned you not to.”

  “Perhaps I fainted a little,” she said. “But I didn’t mean to.”

  He went on scolding her: she’d done everything possible to bring about a swoon, he claimed. She baked inside a pyramid for half the day. She let herself become overexcited about a lot of falcons wearing hats. She had nothing to eat and little to drink. When at last he and Segato got her away from the confounded falcons, she did not stop talking once, all the way through the miles of passages and stairs. Then, when finally she came out into the air, did she stop to rest and take a bit of refreshment like a sensible woman? No. She went straight for a heap of rocks — and frightened witless a snake who’d been peacefully napping, minding its own business. Poor Mr. Segato. He’d so generously and patiently shown her his wonderful discovery. In return, she’d given him a shock from which his sensitive Italian soul might never recover.

  Daphne didn’t argue. It was all true enough, she supposed. So much had h
appened this day. She wasn’t used to having an eventful life. She was dull. Her life was dull by normal standards. Everything revolved around her work. She was herself then, and in control, her passions — all of them — focused on a lost language.

  She wondered who she was now while Mr. Carsington went on lecturing, striding down the sand slope nearly as rapidly as he’d gone up it, though this time he carried a full-grown and by no means feather-light woman. She meant to ask if he was squeamish about the remains littered about, but she was too tired to interrupt the sermon. She closed her eyes and listened to him criticize her. It sounded like a lullaby.

  RUPERT WAS HOPING her too-complicated mind wouldn’t erupt in a brain fever when her body relaxed in his arms.

  Devil take it, had she fainted again? Or had she sunk into a coma? “No fainting,” he growled. “No comas.”

  She mumbled something, her mouth grazing his neck, and she shifted slightly in his arms.

  Not comatose. Asleep.

  “Well, I hope you’re quite comfortable, madam,” he muttered. “Asleep. Really, you are like a child at times, a complete child.”

  Well, not really. Far from it. He was aware of every diabolical curve of her body while he carried her down the sand slope, bits and pieces of ancient Egyptians crunching underfoot.

  It was easier once they reached the plain. He might have carried her all the way to the Isis if he wanted to completely stun the Egyptians with his prowess.

  But holding a sleeping woman in his arms — one who, moreover, kept nuzzling his neck and murmuring unintelligibly in his ear — was asking too much of his limited store of self-restraint. He knew he wouldn’t be getting her naked anytime soon. She’d built a wall of moral principles he must find a way to get round, along with other, harder-to-identify obstacles. No point in torturing himself.

  He summoned the donkeys, woke her up, and planted her on one. Then, leaving it to the servants to make sure she didn’t fall off, Rupert mounted his donkey and kept his mind off his frustrations by looking out for vipers and villains.

  Chapter 10

  AT SUNSET THE CONTRARY WIND DIED AWAY. BY this time, Daphne was aboard the Isis. She was clean, dressed in fresh garments, and trying not to bore her dining companion out of his wits. This was difficult for a dull scholar like her even in the best of circumstances. After such a day, it was impossible.

  The Ramesses cartouches…the kiss…the stepped pyramid with its wonderful interior and fascinating falcon motif…the kiss…the tablet with its inscription…the snake lunging at her…death so near…the kiss…the strange, dreamlike time of being carried like a sleeping princess in a genie’s arms…the kiss…

  Avoiding the many improper or disturbing subjects on her mind limited her to the dullest of scholarly ones. Now, while they lingered over sweets and coffee, she babbled about the Coptic language, believed to be the modern version of ancient Egyptian. Though no longer in everyday use, she told him, it remained the Egyptian Christians’ church language. It was written using a Greek alphabet with added symbols for sounds that didn’t exist in Greek.

  She explained how one might use it to decipher hieroglyphs.

  Mr. Carsington frowned into his coffee cup.

  She wondered what he was thinking. She knew it was not about Coptic, one of the world’s most boring topics.

  She wondered what she would have talked about if he hadn’t found out her secret.

  “I always go on far too long,” she said. “Miles will cry out, ‘Enough, Daphne! My head is about to explode!’ If you do not speak up, Mr. Carsington, I shan’t know when to stop. I tend to forget how few others, including scholars, find the Coptic language as engrossing as I do. Your cousin Miss Saunders is one of the few. She and I have carried on a most stimulating correspondence. It was she, in fact, who obtained for me several Coptic lexicons many years ago, when I began my study of hieroglyphs in earnest.” Daphne paused and bit her lip. “Well, that is not very interesting, either.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said. “Fascinating. It was my own Cousin Tryphena who obtained these books for you.”

  “As well as a number of papyri in my collection,” she said.

  “I suppose, being so devoted to theology, Mr. Pembroke hadn’t time to hunt up lexicons and papyri for you,” he said.

  “Mr. Pembroke did not approve,” she said, trying for a light tone, with mixed success.

  “Of Egypt altogether?” Mr. Carsington’s dark brows rose. “I can understand wanting to avoid the dangers of travel here, but where’s the harm in studying the language?”

  “Mr. Pembroke, like most of your sex, did not believe intellectual pursuits constituted a proper occupation for women,” she said.

  “Really,” he said. “What evil did he see in it, I wonder? Or was it your devotion to scholarship he found so objectionable? Was he jealous? You did say it was a passion, when we were at the statue of Ramesses. Do you recall? It was moments before —”

  She stood abruptly. “I can hardly keep my eyes open,” she said. “I had better make an early bedtime. Good night.” Face ablaze, she hurried from the front cabin into the passage. It was only a short way to her quarters.

  Not nearly short enough. She heard his footsteps at the same moment she heard his deep voice close behind her.

  “What a nodcock you are,” he said. “We’re on a boat. How far do you think you can run?”

  “I am not running.” She was, though she knew it was stupid and childish. She was not afraid of him.

  It was herself she feared, the self she couldn’t trust, the one who belonged in a room with books and documents, pens and pencils.

  “You’re not a coward,” he said. “Why are you behaving in this cowardly way?”

  She’d reached the door of her cabin. As her fingers closed over the door handle, he laid his palm against the door and rested his weight on it. The passage was narrow, and this was the end of it. His big frame, inches away from her, blocked any return to the front of the boat. His big hand held the door shut. He not only took up most of the space but most of the air, it seemed. She found it difficult to breathe, near impossible to think.

  “You had your turn to talk about Coptic,” he said. “Now it’s my turn. I want to talk about…Ramesses.”

  She knew he hadn’t followed her to discuss the pharaoh’s cartouches. “That is quite unnecessary,” she said. “You already apologized.”

  The passage’s gloom veiled his expression, but she heard his smile when he said, “Did I? That’s unusual. What on earth for, I wonder?”

  “I know it is the merest trifle to you.” She lowered her voice to an undertone while hoping that Leena, inside the cabin, did not have her ear pressed to the door. “However, many people believe it is highly improper to kiss a member of the opposite sex who is not a close relative.”

  “Oh, that kiss wasn’t a trifle,” he said. “I’ve had trifling ones, believe me, and that was another category altogether. That kiss was —”

  “I think we had better pretend it never happened,” she broke in desperately.

  “That would be dishonest,” he said.

  The space was small, and growing smaller and warmer by the second. She was desperately aware of the large hand on the door. She remembered how easily he’d captured her, how gently yet firmly he’d grasped her head and held her while he claimed her mouth and made it his. She remembered his powerful hand on her backside, pressing her so close, and the pressure of his arousal against her belly. She was awash now in the mingled scents of Male: boot polish and shaving soap, pomade and, most intoxicating of all, the combination that was so absolutely and devastatingly him.

  “It was an aberration, a momentary madness,” she said.

  “It was madly exciting,” he said, his voice so low that she felt rather than heard it, on her neck, behind her ear, and deep, deep within, where the devil lurked and made her ache for wild and wicked things.

  She said, her voice taut and a little too high, “But above all, it w
as wrong, Mr. Carsington.”

  She didn’t see him move, but it felt as though he stood nearer, too near.

  “Really,” he said. “What was wrong with it? Which part? Should I have done this?” He laid the palm of his other hand upon the door, boxing her in. “And this?” He lowered his head and lightly kissed her forehead.

  It was the gentlest of touches. The world slowed, and awareness narrowed to the light touch of his lips upon her skin. It was butterflies. Rose petals. The glisten of morning dew. The first note of birdsong. She had no words in any language for the sweetness she felt.

  “And this?” He kissed her nose.

  She was afraid to move, afraid the sweet feeling was a dream. If she moved, if she breathed, it would vanish, as so many dreams had done.

  “And this?” His lips brushed her cheek.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, this is…Oh, I don’t think…”

  “Don’t think.” His lips touched hers, and then she was melting, everything within her dissolving into liquid.

  She leant back against the door, her hands flat against it at her sides, keeping herself still, or trying to. Her knees weren’t there anymore. She was dying of pleasure. It was wicked, but so sweet. The sweetness held her, made her give back in kind, and the pleasure deepened and darkened into longing.

  She knew better than to long for any man, especially this kind. She knew the sweetness was seduction, not affection. This was not the youthful innocence it felt like. She knew this, in some safe, sober corner of her drunken mind.

  Knowing all this, she should have turned away or pushed him away. She couldn’t, wouldn’t.

  She had to have the feel of his mouth hard against hers. She needed the taste of him again as much as the hashisheen needed their drug. She could not get enough of the slow, wicked game he played with his tongue, and the tiny heat shivers he triggered in the back of her neck and in her belly. In some part of her clouded mind she knew she’d suffer for it, but that was far away, and he was near, and the scent and taste of him blocked out everything else. He took her into the darkness, and that, it seemed, was where she was meant to be.