Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

“Mrs. Pembroke?”

She heard laughter in his voice. Her face caught fire. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You said…” What had he said?

“Your mind is elsewhere, it seems.” His dark gaze went past her to the papers strewn about the divan. “Ah, of course. Ramesses. The cartouches. Have you worked out the lady with the feather on her head?”

“A goddess,” she said.

“And the feather?”

“That would tell me which goddess she was,” she said. “But at present I am altogether in the dark about her.”

He bent nearer to look over her shoulder, and she caught a whiff of shaving soap.

“Light as a feather,” he said. “Light-fingered. Light-headed. Lighthearted. Wait.” He closed his eyes. “I saw it somewhere. That feather of hers on a scale. What was on the other side? Something weighed in the balance. A judgment scene of some kind, it looked like. You smell like a goddess, like incense.”

He opened his eyes and gazed straight into hers.

She stared into those dark depths, wondering if she’d heard aright.

“I must have seen it in one of Tryphena’s picture books. One of the French lot.” He stepped back. “Where do I find the pistols?”

She was still reeling from the smell-like-a-goddess remark. It took her brain a moment to attend to the other revelation. Picture books. French lot. “The Description de l’Egypte?” she cried. “You studied it?”

“There is no need to become hysterical,” he said. “It was wonderfully popular with the ladies, who liked to sit close and comment on the pictures.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I don’t remember where I saw the scene. Tryphena has countless books and drawings. Maybe the feather-headed goddess herself sat on one scale. Weighed against…” His brow knit. “I think a jar or vase stood on the other.”

He was playing battledore and shuttlecock with Daphne’s brain.

Still, habit and obsession soon reasserted control. She quickly thrust to the back of her mind his familiarity with Miss Saunders’s Egyptian collection and its usefulness in luring women to his side.

“Scales like the scales of justice, you mean?” she said eagerly. She turned away, hurried to the divan, and snatched up one of her pictures. “The Egyptian goddess of justice, do you think?”

“No, Mrs. Pembroke,” he said. “I don’t think. You do. But I am happy to see you so…excited. If, however, I might have a moment — a mere moment — of your attention? The pistols? The fine Manton pistols?”

Chapter 11

Zawyet el Amwat, Thursday 12 April

A FEW MILES SOUTH OF MINYA, A ROW OF ROCK tombs had been carved into the Arabian hills on the Nile’s eastern bank. Miles had taken refuge in the first one he reached. He’d expected to die there.

But three days after crawling in more than half dead, he was beginning to recover. He waited until the sun was setting before exploring his surroundings, though. Superstitious Egyptians, fearing ghosts and ghouls, avoided tombs and burial grounds after dark.

Most of the tombs, he found, were ill-preserved. Some were destroyed, the locals having carried away the stones for building elsewhere. He decided to move to one of the better ones, the next to last toward the south. Its walls contained scenes of agriculture, fishing, shipbuilding, and weapon-making.

By the time night fell, he was starved. The food scenes reminded him that he’d eaten almost nothing in the last few days. He’d nothing in the tomb to eat. Something had eaten his stale bread. He was down to his last mouthful of water.

And so, as the stars came out, Miles took up his basket and made his way in the moonlight to the river, to the place where he’d hidden the little boat.

It was gone.

No great surprise, really. The region was notorious. Why shouldn’t someone steal his boat? He’d return the favor and steal someone else’s. Tomorrow.

Tonight, though, he wanted a proper dinner.

He set about fashioning a fishing line.

IN THE EARLY morning hours, he sat in his tomb by his little fire, cleaning a sad assortment of very small fish. A faint sound made him look up.

A pair of beady eyes reflected the firelight.

“You’ll have to fight me for them, friend Rat,” Miles said.

The creature drew nearer. It was not a rat.

It had long, bushy grey fur and a black tail and reddish legs and feet.

Miles smiled. “A mongoose, by gad.”

They could be pests, killing poultry and stealing eggs. On the other hand, they were also partial to rats, snakes, and other vermin. As a result, they were not unpopular. Some natives domesticated them. This appeared to be one of the tamer ones. It was small, a female or an adolescent perhaps. As it came closer, he noticed it limped.

“That had better not be an act,” he said. “I had a dog once who used to do that whenever he’d done something deserving a scold.”

The mongoose eyed the fish.

“No,” Miles said firmly. “I worked hard for these. Go find yourself some rats. Lots of them about. Snakes, too.”

He watched it warily. Mongooses were very quick. That was how they survived their battles with venomous snakes.

But this one couldn’t be as quick as its fellows, given the wounded foot.

It looked at him. It looked at the fish.

“Rats,” Miles said. “Lots of nice, tasty rats down by the river, I’ll warrant. Oh, and big, delicious snakes.”

The creature regarded him with sad, glistening eyes.

“I’ll wager anything you’re a female,” Miles muttered. He scooped up one of the uncleaned fish and tossed it to the mongoose. “The rest are for me,” he said. “Big journey ahead. Fraught with peril. Need my strength.”

He finished preparing the rest of the fish and cooked them. She ate hers and didn’t beg for more. But she didn’t leave, either. She was still there when he woke up the next morning, just as the sky was beginning to lighten.

But later in the day, when the men came for him, one of them kicked her, and she ran away.

Sunday night, 15 April

CONTRARY TO RUPERT’S hopes and Leena’s predictions, the Isis and all aboard it passed the two nights after leaving Beni Suef without mishap. Thanks to a strong and steady north wind, they reached Minya on the third.

Darkness had already fallen by the time they moored, and stars winked in the deep blue sky. Yet in the west, a beam of light lingered on the horizon for an hour or more. Long after this light was altogether gone and the party had supped and gone to bed, Rupert lay awake.

He vowed he wouldn’t do it again. Minya was a large town, the largest until they reached Asyut, nearly a hundred miles away. They must spend all of tomorrow here, replenishing supplies. While the others haggled in the marketplace and Mrs. Pembroke looked at rocks, he would go to one of the cafés where a man could find dancing girls and other women untroubled by morals.

A short celibacy wouldn’t kill him, he knew, but he couldn’t go on like this. He hadn’t enjoyed a good night’s sleep since the night he’d made the tactical mistake outside Mrs. Pembroke’s door.

He was a man of the world who could tell when a woman wasn’t ready. But once he got close enough to inhale her tantalizing fragrance, once he touched his lips to her skin, he didn’t know what he knew anymore.

All the same, you’d think he’d have settled down by now. But no. It was worst at night, when he’d nothing else to do and no warm body to take his mind off hers. Six days had passed, and the restless nights were making him short-tempered and dull-witted.

First thing tomorrow, then, he’d find himself a warm, willing body, and get his humors back in balance.

He was trying to remember the Egyptian word for dancing girl when he heard the splash.