“Is that all? Damn!” he cursed when the beard threatened to take some of his skin away with it. “I’m a Master Sufi, remember? Would you like to see my diploma? It’s fourteen feet long and quite beautiful.”
“Yes,” Claire said before she thought. “I mean, no. We have to get them married. Properly married.” She couldn’t bear another moment of seeing him struggle with the beard. “Sit down and let me do that,” she said, pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed.
Trevelyan went to sit on the chair and Brat climbed on the bed, sprawling on her stomach, her chin propped in her hands as she stared at Trevelyan, who was no more than a couple of feet from her. Claire poured hot water into the basin, put a cloth in, wrung it out, then placed the cloth on Trevelyan’s face over the false whiskers.
“We have to get them a proper vicar. They have to be married properly.”
“Religion is a matter of opinion,” he mumbled through the cloth.
“It is not,” she said, then continued before he could say another word. “There’s God and that’s it.”
“I guess it’s how you interpret God that matters.”
She took the cloth from his face, then slowly peeled the whiskers away. “What did you put this on with?”
“Something Oman made.” When the whiskers were off he turned to look at Brat, who was watching him like a snake watching its prey.
“Claire,” Brat said, her voice absolutely serious. “I think he is possibly the most handsome man in the world.”
“What a delightful, intelligent child,” Trevelyan said.
Claire groaned then turned a stern face to her little sister. “Don’t say anything to him. He isn’t what you think he is. He’s different from other men. He…he goes around the world doing things with women. He hasn’t any heart or soul. He isn’t involved in life. That’s why he can pretend to be a vicar and pretend to marry someone. It’s all a joke to him. All of life is a joke to him. He doesn’t participate in life; he just observes.”
This speech seemed to have no effect on either Trevelyan or Brat. They kept looking at each other.
“You’re the explorer,” Brat said at last.
“I’ve seen a few things.”
“Yes, I’ve read—” Sarah began.
“Brat!” Claire said, but her sister didn’t jump at the sharp sound. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes from Trevelyan’s. Claire placed herself between the two of them. “My sister has never read anything in her life. She terrifies her governesses and they don’t dare demand anything of her. She—”
“I’ve read the dirty parts that were written in Latin in the back of your books. Claire translated the chapters and I, ah, found the translations.”
At that Claire turned to look at her sister, horror in her eyes.
Brat looked around her to Trevelyan. “What is infibu…”
“Infibulation.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Why don’t you come and sit on my lap, you pretty child, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
When Brat started to get off the bed, Claire twisted her arm so she yelped in pain. “Trevelyan, stop it. She’s just a little girl.”
“Of course she is,” Trevelyan said in a sarcastic way, then looked back at Claire. “Did you come here to complain to me? I don’t know what made me think so, but I thought you might have come to thank me. MacTarvit said you wanted Lee and Kincaid married and they are.”
“They aren’t really married. They’re just living together. Tomorrow you have to go to them and tell them the truth, that it was you who performed the ceremony—if it can be called that—and that they must go to a proper man of God.”
Trevelyan’s face lost its good humor. “I’ll do no such thing. I am as qualified to marry people as anyone is. I daresay more so. I doubt that your average country vicar has been through what I have to earn his certification.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then you explain it to me. What is the point?”
“They have to be married properly. By a man with a proper religion.”