Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

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.