Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

Rupert had no trouble estimating the height and width. He’d done that automatically as he entered, and was estimating the angle of descent even while he watched the uneven sway of her handsome backside as she preceded him.

Watching her derrière was no small feat, considering he walked folded almost in half on an uneven surface and had his hands on the walls to maintain his balance and keep track of the passages’ features.

In any event, he hadn’t as clear a rear view of the lady as he could wish. The guides’ torches were fighting a losing battle against the darkness.

They’d gone about fifty feet when Mrs. Pembroke enlightened him about the dimensions.

“You’ve measured it, then?” he said.

“I quote Mr. Belzoni’s calculations,” she said. “At the end of this passage, he encountered the portcullis. You can imagine the labor in this constricted space of raising a granite block nearly as tall as you are, five feet wide and fifteen inches thick.”

Though Rupert could work out how it might be done, he let her explain how Belzoni had analyzed and solved the problem, using a fulcrum and levers, and stuffing stones in the grooves to support the block as they raised it by slow, slow inches.

When they came to the portcullis, Rupert didn’t have to feign admiration. Raising it in this small space was no negligible feat. He paused and ran his hands over the sides of the opening and the bottom of the stone.

Then he huddled under and continued for a few more feet until she stopped to turn toward him.

“We must descend the shaft next,” she said. “Belzoni used a rope and later piled some stones to one side, but someone brought a ladder recently, and left it.”

“Much more civilized,” Rupert said. He noted a hole overhead while watching how gracefully she turned, though she was obliged to move in the same hunched-over style as he.

They descended the shaft in the civilized way, continued down another passage, then up, then straight on. The way grew easier. It was high enough to allow Mrs. Pembroke to walk upright, though Rupert still had to keep his head down.

At last they entered the great central chamber, where he could easily stand straight. The tall room’s ceiling tapered to a point, the angle mimicking the pyramid’s.

The guides stood by the door, holding their torches aloft. On the south wall, large letters — proper Roman letters, not the curls and squiggles of Arabic nor yet the curious little hieroglyphic figures — proclaimed, “Scoperta da S. Belzoni 2 Mar. 1818.”

“ ‘Opened by Signore Belzoni,’ ” Mrs. Pembroke translated, though even Rupert could deduce the meaning.

“The sarcophagus in Cheops’s pyramid stands on the floor,” she said, walking toward the west wall of the chamber. “But here, as you see, it is sunk into the ground.”

It was not so easy to see. The darkness was so thick one could practically feel it. The torches made little headway against it.

Rupert gazed about the room. “So many secrets,” he said.

He knew little more of ancient Egypt than what he recalled from the works of Greeks and Romans. There was the ancient Greek traveler Herodotus, for instance, whose Histories comprised a hodgepodge of facts, figures, and myths.

“This tomb may keep its secrets for all eternity,” she said. “No hieroglyphs. Do you see why Miles’s reasons for coming are so puzzling? Besides, the papyrus allegedly came from Thebes — hundreds of miles away in more mountainous terrain.”

Rupert studied the gap between the granite stones surrounding the sarcophagus. What went there? he wondered. An effigy? Treasure chest? Or simply another stone?

“Allegedly,” he repeated. “Is there anything about the papyrus we can be sure of?”

“It’s truly old,” she said. “It took several days to unroll. You can’t be impatient with such things or you end up with a lot of charred crumbs — and sick from the fumes of the chlorine gas.”

She spoke quickly, her voice a note or two above the usual pitch.

But she’d talked that way since they entered the pyramid, Rupert realized. She’d been exceedingly talkative.

He looked up from the puzzling sarcophagus. She seemed to be looking down into it. He couldn’t be sure. It was hard to read her expression in the dim, wavering light.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

“Not everyone would be,” he said. “Some people have a morbid aversion to closed spaces.”

“It is an irrational reaction one must overcome if one hopes to learn anything,” she said. “We shall be exploring tombs in Thebes. They do have writing inside. That was the main point of coming to Egypt: to study the hieroglyphs in the temples and royal tombs. To compare names. We know what hieroglyphs form the name Cleopatra. We’ve deduced some other royal names. With enough pharaohs to compare, we should be able to deduce the alphabet.”

We. Rupert noted the choice of pronoun. Not he or Miles.

“Meanwhile, you’d rather not be here,” he said.

“I wouldn’t mind so much, but we’ve wasted our time,” she said. “There’s nothing. This was a stupid mistake. I should have listened to Lord Noxley. I could have been questioning others in Cairo. What did I think I’d learn from a heap of stones?”

The edgy tone of her voice had softened into despair.

Rupert rose and started toward her, while trying to think of some stupid thing to say to irritate her and rouse her spirits.

From somewhere in the bowels of the pyramid came a bone-chilling scream.

“NO!” Rupert roared, turning toward the door.

Too late.

He had one last, faint glimpse of swiftly retreating light as the guides fled. Then there was nothing. The darkness swallowed them utterly.

Chapter 5

“DON’T FAINT,” RUPERT SAID IN AN UNDERTONE. “I can’t see you to catch you, and a concussion would be a problem.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “I never faint.”

If her voice hadn’t risen a notch above her normal pitch, he might have believed she was perfectly composed. But he was learning the changes in her voice, and he’d noticed her propensity for hiding things. Her body, for instance. That wasn’t all.

He’d work on the other secrets once they got out of the present difficulty.

“Stay put and keep talking, but softly,” he said. He was listening. The guides’ footsteps had faded. Outside the chamber silence reigned. He didn’t trust it. Someone was there, he was certain.

Meanwhile he needed to get his bearings. The dark was prodigious. He’d never experienced anything quite like it.

“I shall not faint,” she said. “I freely admit, however, that our present situation is not conducive to an easy frame of mind.”

Cautiously Rupert inched toward her. He did not want to stumble over one of the stones ancient tomb robbers had pried loose from the floor, or into any of the holes where the stones had been. Broken limbs or a cracked skull would not only slow their progress but hamper his ability to break villains’ heads.

“The circumstances are far from propitious,” she went on in the same high-pitched, pedantic tone. “We hear an unearthly scream. The guides instantly decamp with the only source of light. This leaves us to the tender mercies of whoever caused the screaming.”

Her voice was very near now. Rupert put out his hand, and it slid over a fabric-covered curve.

With a sharp gasp, she stiffened. Then her cold fingers curled about his and lifted his hand away.

“I cannot see my hand when I hold it an inch from my face,” she said, “yet you had no difficulty locating my breast.”

“Was that the part I found?” he said. “What amazing luck.” What a splendid bosom!

“When we get out of this,” she said, “if we get out of this, I shall box your ears.”

“We’ll get out of it,” he said.

“My mind reverts, repeatedly, to the portcullis,” she said. “If they remove the stones holding

it up, we’ll be trapped here.”

“That’s too much work,” he said. “It would be easier to wait in the dark and stab or shoot us as soon as we come close enough.”

“I had not thought of that,” she said. “I was preoccupied with the prospect of being buried alive. With you. I could not imagine what we would find to talk about while we died slowly of starvation and thirst.”

“Talk?” he said. “Is that what you’d want to do during your last hours? How curious. Come, take my hand. So far, no one appears to be hurrying to cut our throats. I think we might risk setting out.”

“Where is your hand?” she said.

There was some fumbling, during which he found the other breast, eliciting another sharp gasp and uncomplimentary muttering under her breath. But at last he had her slim hand in his. It fit perfectly. His spirits rose another few degrees while his heart went faster than before.

“Your hand is warm,” she said accusingly. “Does nothing alarm you?”

He was starting toward where he estimated the doorway was. “Not this,” he said. “I am armed, you know, and it’s simple enough to find the way out.”

“It is simple enough if you can see where you’re going,” she said.