‘He might be a snake, but I have no wish to dissect him, nor do I want to spend the afternoon crushed between fainting matrons and gaping layabouts while someone’s body is desecrated for their base entertainment.’
‘Poppy has unwrapped mummies.’
‘To my knowledge he only did so twice and has long since desisted. I told him at the time I thought it thoroughly disrespectful of a culture we otherwise esteem. If someone went around the English countryside digging up graves and pulling out bodies...’
Sam had never seen that look on Edge’s face before. The hard, handsome carapace cracked for the briefest moment, vivid pain turning his eyes from ice to molten lead. It slashed through her and without thinking she pressed her palm to his cheeks, but he drew back just as swiftly.
‘Don’t. I don’t want your pity.’
‘It isn’t pity, Edge...’
‘I said don’t! If you wish to stay, stay. I’ll be in the carriage.’
Sam wanted to rush after him and hug him. Or rush after him and kick him. Well, she wouldn’t rush after him at all. As devastating as that glimpse of his pain was as he thought of his dead son, she was tired of having every gesture of affection or empathy that did not suit his particular mood flung back in her face.
If he wished to suffer alone, then let him suffer alone.
* * *
Not twenty minutes later Sam was regretting her stubbornness. Not that she would tell him so, but she really didn’t want to watch this.
The exhibition rooms were large and airy, painted in improbable pink and green and gold, and filled to the brim with exhibits that ranged from absurd to oddly impressive. But the theatre resembled paintings she had seen of a medical theatre, benches encircling a stage dominated by a long wooden table surrounded by smoking torches. A body lay on the table under a sheet, a landscape of white peaks and planes. It might have been deceased for hundreds of years, but there was something about this which was...wrong.
The crowd, however, evidently found the spectacle the peak of titillation. Mr Pettifer was, as he would be the first to admit, an expert at pacing his ‘Grand Reveal’. Despite her own distaste, Sam wished Edge was there after all because Pettifer’s presentation of Egyptian culture was so fantastical Sam found it hard not to laugh even as she squirmed at the thought of what was to come.
‘No wonder people swoon in here,’ a voice grumbled just beside her and Sam managed to just barely choke the small exclamation of relief at Edge’s appearance. It wouldn’t do to show him how grateful she was he’d relented.
Pettifer reached a pitch in his presentation, clasping the sheet shrouding the mummy and with a practised flourish unveiled ‘The Horror’. The communal gasp was punctuated by a few highly satisfied shrieks, the benches creaking as people craned for a better view. Sam leaned back to allow a portly couple to shuffle down to gain a better view and Edge’s arm went about her waist, holding her against him.
‘Careful,’ he muttered, but he did not let her go and she remained there, her hip pressed against him, his hand on her waist. His voice was abrupt, but his hands were gentle, his hold as natural as if they did this every day, with just a quiver of tension as if he, too, was holding back from pulling her more firmly to him.
More likely it was just indignation about to boil over as Mr Pettifer launched into a reverberating speech about the dangers of the ‘Mummy’s Curse’ as he peeled away frayed strips of greyish-brown cloth. The crowd was quivering, too, though from a different kind of passion.
‘Look at them. It’s like feeding time in a barnyard,’ Edge grumbled, but his hand slipped further around her and she wondered if he was even aware of it. Probably not.
‘When was the last time you were in a barnyard? I think you’re just worried about the curse.’
‘If I believed in curses, I would wish it on the charlatan about to desecrate that poor mummy. I am more worried I will start cursing. Imagine anyone walking into your family’s crypt, taking out one of your ancestors and de-coffining him in front of a titillated audience. It’s obscene!’
The contrast between his words now and his reaction earlier in the corridor made her heart sink a little. He was determined to show her his emotional wall would not be breached again. Well, she could stick to form, too.
‘True. Though most Sinclairs were obscene even before they were buried. In fact, dying was probably their most valued contribution to the world.’
Another quiver ran through him, this time of suppressed laughter, and she relaxed a little, leaning more firmly against him. She wished Pettifer would get on with it—she was suddenly quite anxious to leave.