Читать книгу Beguiled by Her Betrayer - Louise Allen - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Queen of the Nile? Yes, very appropriate, Quin wanted to say, throwing her bitter jest back at her. You look like a queen with that patrician nose and those high cheekbones, that air of aloofness. A queen in exile, in disguise, in servitude. He was saved from answering by Sir Philip emerging from the tent, fastening a clean shirt with one hand and running his hand through his wet hair with the other.

He sat without a word and reached for the platter of what appeared to be cubes of meat. Madame... No, Cleo, Quin decided, slid a plate in front of her father and passed one to Quin, then gestured to him to help himself. He realised his mouth was watering.

‘You should try to eat. It has been a while since you did, I imagine.’

‘Yes. I was hungry at first and then that vanished.’ He had been on foot and without anything but a small flask of water for two days after his camels were taken. Before that he had been eating sparingly, moving too fast to settle down in one spot and cook himself a proper meal.

‘It seems to with heat prostration. You must rest tomorrow.’

‘I will rest tonight. Tomorrow I will acquaint myself with your military neighbours.’

‘That is foolish. I can ask them what is the best thing to be done with you.’

They would shoot me as a spy, if they knew who I was. ‘If I am to be disposed of, Madame Valsac, I prefer to organise it myself.’

‘Very well. I will not go and you will not be able to find them by yourself.’ She bit down sharply on a piece of flatbread as though to cut off all discussion.

Confound the woman. Is she trying to keep me away from the military because of her own compromised situation or is she merely being inconveniently protective of an injured man?

‘No, I want you to go, Daughter,’ Sir Philip pronounced, reversing his earlier opinion without a blink. ‘I need you to take my correspondence for them to send north. I have finished my letter to Professor Heinnemann.’

Correspondence? ‘The French are obliging enough to act as postmen for you, Sir Philip?’ Quin asked casually as he spread goat’s cheese on his bread.

‘Indeed they are.’ The older man put down his fork. ‘A fine example of the co-operation amongst scholars. As soon as Général Menou realised I was having problems receiving my letters he arranged for them to be handled through Alexandria.’

And how did the general know? Quin shelved that question for the moment. He thought he had hold of the tail of the matter now and he had no intention of letting it wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You have an international correspondence?’ he asked, injecting as much admiration into his tone as he thought was plausible.

He need not have worried about arousing suspicions. Sir Philip was smugly confident of his own importance. ‘Of course. England, France, Greece, Italy, Germany, India, Russia. Spain and Portugal...’ He droned on, complaining about the paucity of news from the Scandinavian countries.

England, the Mediterranean, continental Europe—news from dozens of pens flowing into Alexandria, into the hands of the French. Traitors, agents and innocent scholars all writing to this man who was either so blinded by his obsessions that he had no idea how he was being used or was a willing participant in his French masters’ games. Every scrap of intelligence was like gold to skilled spymasters who could fit it all together from dozens of sources.

‘India,’ Quin said out loud. India, the real reason the French wanted Egypt. If they controlled the Red Sea and the overland route to the Mediterranean, then Britain’s vital link to its most important trading area was lost. And troops were on their way now from India to land on the Red Sea coast and march across the desert to the Nile, then downstream to join the British and Turks in the delta.

Had letters from French agents in India already reached Menou in Cairo on their way to this man? A cold finger trailed down his spine, chilling the perspiration. If the French marched out to cut off General Baird’s long, desperate march through the desert, then the entire tide of the war in Egypt could turn.

‘Yes, India. I think I may well move on there next,’ Woodward said. ‘Fascinating country by the sound of it.’

Quin was aware of the tension in Cleo’s still form. Yet another move where she was taken along like a piece of furniture with no choice and no opinion? She would be much better off back in England where she belonged than dragged around at her father’s heels like so much luggage.

‘I will go with you to the army camp tomorrow, madam,’ Quin said and turned to look her in the face. ‘I want to find out if they have news from any other engineers.’ And I want to get my hands on your damned correspondence, Sir Philip. I may yet be finding a hungry crocodile for you.

‘As you wish.’ If Cleo Valsac had any worries about letting him observe the exchange of letters, she hid it perfectly. ‘I will be taking the donkey so if you collapse we can load you on him,’ she added with a sweet smile that did not deceive Quin for one moment. She thought him a nuisance and she rated his strength, endurance and, probably, his brains very low indeed.

We will see who is right, Cleo my lovely, he thought, meeting her cynical grey-green eyes. To his amazement she blushed.

* * *

And do not pretend you don’t know what is the matter with you, my girl, Cleo chided herself and bit so hard on a date that she almost broke a tooth. Lust. An intelligent man with a magnificent body ends up naked in your bed space, at your mercy. And then when he regains his wits he looks at you with those blue eyes and you don’t know whether he is pitying you or mocking you or desiring you.

Or all three, perhaps. Two of those were unwelcome and one was improbable, unless the American had a fancy for skinny, sun-browned widows with calluses on their fingers and not a social grace to their name.

But the widow... Ah, yes, the widow could have a fancy to discover whether those eyes became a darker blue with passion and how those long fingers he was so careful to keep still and inexpressive felt on her body. Quin. She indulged herself by trying out his name in her head. Quintus.

He was looking at her father now, listening politely to another lecture on hieroglyphs and the importance of measuring the monuments. His face in repose, or when he was guarding it, was all straight lines. Level brows, narrowed eyes, that nose with its arrogant jut in silhouette. His lips were straight until he spoke and the lines of cheekbone and jaw showed strong and regular under the growth of beard, a shade darker than his hair. He looked severe and impenetrable—and then he spoke or smiled and the lines shifted, the angles changed and his face was alive and charming. And still just as unreadable, she realised.

But then I am not a very good judge of men. Look at Thierry.

Cleo rose and began to gather up platters. Mr Bredon...Quin...immediately began to clear the table, ignoring her shake of the head. He followed her and dumped the scraped dishes into the pot of water that was sitting in the hot ashes and looked round, for a dishcloth, she supposed.

‘Leave it,’ Cleo said, more sharply than she intended.

‘You are tired. Bone weary.’ He stood there, arm still in the sling, an improbable kitchen lad.

‘I know what I am doing, you will only be in the way.’ Ungracious but true. He made her feel clumsy, off balance.

‘Then promise me you will come to bed as soon as it is done,’ he said softly.

It sounded like an invitation. Oh, my foolish imagination. She bent over the water and felt the brush of his fingertips as he lifted her heavy braid over her shoulder and clear of the surface. His hand lingered a moment at her nape, then was gone, leaving her shivering as though a warm cover had been removed in the chill of the night.

‘You work too hard, Cleo.’

When she turned, he was gone and there was only her father, a book open on the table in front of him amidst the crumbs, taking advantage of the waning light.

* * *

Quin Bredon came out of the tent as soon as Cleo had finished bathing the next day. ‘Good morning!’ He looked well rested, the haggard hollows had gone from beneath his eyes and his arm was not in the sling.

Cleo returned his greeting with less enthusiasm. She had not had a good night, waking every few minutes, it had seemed, listening for Quin’s breathing in the stillness, then cursing herself for a fool and trying to fall asleep again. It was unsettling the way in which he had just appeared, the moment she was dry and dressed and had combed out her hair. He could not have seen her, but it felt uncomfortably as though he had been listening, alert for what she was doing.

‘There is water warming by the fire and a linen towel in there. And my father’s spare razors.’ She gestured towards the makeshift bathing area and went on with preparing a breakfast of coffee, dates, honey and the toasted remains of the flatbread. There would be bread to buy in the village today, and dates and oranges, and the officers might have coffee to spare. With luck she would be able to buy a scrawny chicken to stew into soup with beans and lentils. Another mouth to feed put a strain on supplies.

Her father, dressed in an abeyah tied with a sash, his nightcap still incongruously perched on his head, wandered out of the tent with a book in his hand. ‘Where’s my shaving water?’

‘Mr Bredon is bathing and shaving, Father. I have put on more water to warm for you.’

‘Humph.’ He sat down and reached for a date without taking his eyes from the book. ‘This man is an idiot.’

‘Who, Father?’ The question was automatic. He could reply King George or the Great Chan of China for all she cared, but Cleo had an instinct that, if she stopped responding to every remark, her father would simply cease to communicate altogether. It had been a relief, she realised, to have Quin there to talk to him last night.

‘James Bruce. He let himself be ordered around by his guides, listened to fairy stories and was frightened away by rumours of bandits. This is all nonsense.’ He jabbed a finger at a densely written page of text.

‘But he was writing over forty years ago, Father,’ Cleo said reasonably. ‘And there are bandits, as Mr Bredon discovered to his cost.’

‘What have I discovered to my cost?’ Quin strolled round the corner, his hair on end from a vigorous towelling, his face shaved clean of the dark week-old beard. His jaw line was as sharp and firm as she had thought it would be.

Cleo tried to read his face. There had been an edge to that question she did not understand. ‘That there really are bandits out there,’ she replied and saw an infinitesimal relaxation around his mouth. ‘How is your arm?’

‘I took the dressing off. It seems to be healing.’

She put down the honey jar and followed him into the tent. ‘Let me look at it. It will need redressing, you cannot take any risks with wounds in this climate.’

He had made his bed. Army-neat, she thought, recalling Thierry’s habits of order, as Quin rolled up the loose sleeve of his galabeeyah to the shoulder.

‘It will not be a tidy scar,’ Cleo observed, more to distract herself as she wrapped a fresh strip of cotton over the wound than to make conversation. It was healing well, she saw.

‘That amuses you?’ Bredon asked and she realised she must have smiled.

‘That you will be scarred? No. But it was an unpleasant task, cleaning that, and I have no liking for causing pain, so I am glad it is healing.’ She secured the knot and began to roll down his sleeve again. ‘I could wish I had made a neater job of it. It is not as though you have a soldier’s collection of scars already.’ And that is what happens when you let your tongue run away with you. He knows you are thinking about his naked body. You know he knows. She took refuge in setting her medicine box in order.

‘I compare badly to your warrior husband, no doubt.’ He picked up the cotton strip and worked it deftly into a turban.

‘Are you fishing for compliments, Mr Bredon?’ Cleo said over her shoulder as she picked up the box and ducked under the flap. ‘There is nothing amiss with your physique, as you are perfectly well aware, and it gives me no pleasure to see the damage one fool man can inflict on another.’

She bundled her father’s letters together and tied them securely into a neat package almost as large as one of the local mud bricks. She dropped it into one of the panniers, added two large goatskins of water, her sharpest kitchen knife, a money pouch and a small sickle for cutting greens. When she bent to lift the two baskets on to the donkey’s saddle Quin Bredon slipped in front of her, hefted them into place one-handed and tightened the straps.

‘Are you certain you do not wish to ride?’ she asked him. ‘It is three miles at least in each direction and we can attach the various objects some other way.’

Quin looked down at the long skirts of his galabeeyah. ‘Side saddle?’ he enquired. ‘Or do I hitch up my petticoats and expose my hairy legs to the alarm of the populace?’

‘I could find you a spare pair of my father’s breeches,’ Cleo offered and bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself laughing. There was something not quite right about Mr Bredon, something that made her uneasy, and she was not going to allow him to charm her into letting her guard down. It would be interesting to see what Capitaine Laurent made of him.

‘I think not. The poor beast is so small that my feet would trail along the ground.’

Cleo shrugged one shoulder and started walking. It was up to him and he would look considerably less dignified if he had to return stuffed in a pannier. ‘We are going now, Father,’ she called as she passed the shaded writing area. He grunted and waved his hand without looking up. ‘There is food under a cloth near the water jars. Please don’t let the fire go out.’ There, that was as much as she could hope he’d take notice of.

‘You do not have to dawdle on my behalf,’ Quin said.

‘Hmm? No, I wasn’t.’ She took a firmer hold on the leading rein and lengthened her stride. ‘We will take the path along the water’s edge, it is easier going than through the sand and there is some shade.’

‘Your father has a wide circle of correspondents, he must be greatly respected,’ Quin said after five minutes of silent walking.

‘His interests are wide-ranging, Mr Bredon. It stimulates him to exchange views with scholars from many countries.’

‘Quin,’ he said. ‘It seems ridiculous to observe drawing-room manners in the middle of the desert.’ Cleo opened her mouth to demur, but he kept talking. ‘And he writes to scholars from both sides in the present conflict and neutral countries, too. I’m amazed that the French authorities are so complacent about assisting him.’

It had puzzled Cleo, too, but she was not going to admit it. ‘They are intent on assisting all of les savants. They appear to consider my father as one of their own. After all, he had a French son-in-law.’

‘Positively Romeo and Juliet,’ Quin observed. She glanced at him sharply, but he was studying the temple now they were close. ‘And this is currently the subject of your father’s study?’

‘He copies the inscriptions and measures it.’ Father measured everything obsessively, as though the figures could unlock some key to the mysteries of the past.

‘And that is helpful?’ Quin stopped and studied the great golden columns rising from the piled sand.

‘Apparently. I like to look at the wonderful pictures on the walls—you can just see the top of some of them if you climb right up. The soldiers have carved their names along the topmost frieze. I wish they would not.’ She shivered. These things had stood here for millennia, so some scholars said.

‘Sacrilege,’ Quin murmured and touched her arm. ‘I think you have a greater sympathy for these monuments than your father has, for all his scholarship.’

‘For the people that created them, perhaps.’ She made no move to shake off his hand. Men and women had stood and looked at these buildings since time immemorial, perhaps touching as she and Quin were, supporting each other, perhaps in fear, perhaps in awe. It seemed a small miracle that she had found someone who understood that.

The donkey moved, tugging the rein and with it, her arm. The moment was gone into the hot air, just like every moment evaporating in the heat and dust of this place.

‘Come, we need to get to the camp before the sun gets too high.’ She began to walk without looking back, listening to the familiar soft footfall of the little donkey and the faint slap of the leather sandals worn by the man who walked with her. It had been a long time since anyone had kept her company. It was strange that it should make her feel lonelier than ever.