Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

RUPERT STOOD SO near that she didn’t need to stumble. She’d only to tip slightly in his direction and some part of her heavily camouflaged anatomy would touch his.

He loved this boat. It was a brilliant idea. Close quarters. Narrow, dim passage. And a shifting deck where she might easily lose her footing and need catching.

She edged away and started toward the front of the boat.

“This is my cabin,” he said, indicating the door.

“I deduced as much,” she said, and hurried past it to the front cabin.

He ducked under the frame and followed her inside. “This is the salon, as you see,” he said. “Like the whatsit in the house. The room where you receive visitors.”

“It is called the qa’a,” she said.

“Say it again,” he said.

While she did, he gravely studied her mouth. The lower lip was a trifle fuller than the upper, making a tempting hint of a pout.

“It isn’t complicated,” she said. “You can say it if you try.”

“Kah,” he said.

She pointed to her throat. “More syllables. You make the sound here, in the back of the throat.”

He looked at her throat — the bit one could see, a tantalizing inch or two of creamy skin above the prim collar of her black dress. It would be so smooth against his tongue. And her skin would touch his face…and he would drink in her scent. He leant in.

The boat lurched. He fell against her, and she fell back, onto the divan.

For one glorious moment she lay under him, her magnificent bosom crushed against his chest. His heart leapt into a gallop and his privy councilor leapt to attention. He lifted his head and looked down at her. She looked up at him, eyes wide and dark as an evergreen forest. He felt her breath on his skin, and heard it, too, soft and hurried. Her lips parted. He lowered his head.

She shoved her fist against his chest, and “Get off!” she snapped. “Get off, you great lummox! Someone’s coming!”

That was when he noticed the clamor of voices and footsteps outside. He scrambled to his feet and pulled her up to a sitting position. He left the cabin, closed the door behind him, and took a few calming breaths. Patience, he counseled himself. This wanted a slow siege, not a sudden assault. After giving his reproductive organs another moment to compose themselves, he went outside.

He found a smiling Sheik Salim awaiting him.

THE SHEIK HAD come to inspect the boat and wish them a safe journey. He’d brought two large cats — which Mr. Carsington promptly named Gog and Magog — for rat control. He’d brought other gifts as well as a feast. He was sorry to have to part from his learned (!!!) English friend, he said. To cheer his heart, he had decided to make a fête, which they would enjoy together until the Isis reached Old Cairo, where he must take his leave of them.

Daphne was surprised when the sheik invited her to the party, since women were usually excluded. However, someone had informed him that “the English custom is different,” he explained. He behaved most graciously, including her in the conversation, and complimenting her Arabic.

This was no small gesture, Daphne well understood. Deeply touched, she decided upon a more munificent than usual farewell gift.

She had Mr. Carsington present Sheik Salim with a fine set of pistols.

He remained on deck after the sheik had disembarked. Daphne returned to the front cabin. Then she left it and went to her own cabin. Then she returned to the front cabin. She sat down. She got up. She sat down again.

She could not decide what to do.

Was it cowardly to spend the rest of the day and night hiding in her cabin?

She could not hide from him forever.

But she was hotly aware that at the first opportunity, she’d very nearly run amok.

You are a little impetuous, Daphne, I am afraid.

I’m sorry.

It is your youth. In time you will learn to govern your passions, I know.

She hadn’t known until Virgil told her. No one before had told her they were unnatural, and must be strictly governed. No one could have guessed how ungovernable they’d prove to be, wicked things: the temper…the restlessness…the mad longing, as urgent as hunger or thirst.

For one terrible instant, the longing was more than she could withstand.

It had felt so good, that big, hard body on top of hers. It wasn’t good, she knew. It was animal feeling, animal urges: every instinct poised to attack…her hands a mere pulse beat from reaching up and bringing his handsome face down to hers and —

The door flung open.

“You’ve done it,” came the deep voice. “I’d thought I was unshockable, but you’ve done it.”

Heat washed over her. A wave of cold shame instantly followed. “I —”

“Those were John Manton’s work.” Mr. Carsington dropped onto the divan beside her. “I nearly wept.”

“You — Those — I don’t —” She took a calming breath and ordered her brain back to work. “Who is John Manton?” she managed to get out.

His eyes opened very wide. The dappled sunlight trickling through the shutters softened his features. This and his incredulous expression combined to make him look for a moment like the innocent boy he must have been long ago. Very long ago.

“Who is Manton?” he repeated. “Who is Manton?”

“Ought I to know him?” she said.

He stared at her for a time. “You said you lived a quiet life,” he said. “Was it in a cave, by chance? A monastery?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “I told you I was bookish,” she said. “I do not go about much.”

“Have you ever been to London?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum, is it not? And the head of Young Memnon. Naturally I went often to London to attend lectures as well. That is how I met your cousin Miss Saunders.”

He shook his head. “Your ignorance surpasseth all understanding. Even Cousin Tryphena knows that the brothers Manton of Dover Street are the finest gun makers in all of England, perhaps in all the world. I hope those weren’t your brother’s. He may disown you — and I shan’t blame him a whit.”

“Before we left England, we bought a great many gifts,” she said. “Mr. Belzoni was quite clear on this point. One of his rivals, you know, lost his chance to obtain for France the head of Young Memnon because he’d insulted the local chief with a paltry gift of bottled anchovies.”

Mr. Carsington’s expression became tragic. “It’s a good distance from a bottle of anchovies to a pair of Manton’s best.”

“I know that,” she said. “Miles did tell me the pistols were for persons who performed services above the common. Sheik Salim spared us a stay in a dungeon at the very least — and possibly a short trip to the headsman. He found this boat and moved heaven and earth to help you make it ready. Furthermore, it was most kind and gracious of him to invite me to the fête and actually converse with me.”

He shrugged. “He would have talked to you from the first, but he thought it improper. Once he understood that English custom permitted him to talk to a lady, he was more than happy to do so. He said he’d never realized a woman’s brain could be so large. I’d never realized it could have so many great, gaping holes in it.”

“Really, such a fuss you make about a set of firearms,” she said. “Could you not see how pleased he was?”

“Of course he was pleased. Who wouldn’t be? Those are Manton’s finest. I have coveted them this age.”

“Then I should think you’d already have a pair. Or do you want more? How many pistols does a man need, exactly?”

He let out a sigh. “My finances haven’t been flourishing lately.”

“Oh,” she said. She wanted to say a great deal more. Or ask, rather. She realized she knew next to nothing about him. But one did not discuss money, except with one’s man of business. She looked down at her hands, hoping her vulgar curiosity didn’t show.

“One of those dreaded

summons to my father’s study,” he said. “He told me if I couldn’t live within my means, I was welcome to live within a debtors’ prison. He meant it. All the world knows Lord Hargate never utters idle threats. I thought debtors’ prison might prove rather confining.”

“So you learnt to economize,” she said. “I wish I had some lessons. Miles, too. He is even worse than I. No notion of what’s reasonable and what isn’t. If he had any notion, we mightn’t be in this fix.”

Mr. Carsington was studying her again. “I see,” he said, and she wondered uneasily what, exactly, he saw. “That explains. Everyone knows the local bigwigs prefer gifts of European firearms. It didn’t occur to your brother that a merely serviceable weapon would do.”