Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

Some of the men tried to push the woman away.

Mr. Carsington’s arm went around Daphne’s shoulders.

“Her baby’s sick,” Daphne said.

“I can see that,” he said. “But they’re all sick, and I don’t trust anybody. Tom, get a coin from my coat, and give it to her.” He drew Daphne closer. “Come away.”

Daphne started to go with him but glanced back. The woman was young, little more than a girl. She shook her head at Udail/Tom, who was holding out a coin. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “My baby,” she cried. “Please, English lady.”

Daphne glanced up at Mr. Carsington.

He wore a pained expression.

Then to the woman she said, “Come with us.”

RUPERT COULD SEE that the mother was young, poor, and desperate. He didn’t want to turn his back on her. But it might be a trap. Or it might lead to trouble. If the babe died — and it looked very near to drawing its last feeble breath — any of a number of things might happen, none of them good. Tom and Leena had agreed that blood feud was popular in the countryside.

Rupert had enough to do, protecting Mrs. Pembroke and her entourage from villains. What the Isis did not need was a lot of vengeful villagers in pursuit as well.

The sensible thing to do was give the girl a generous baksheesh and get away as quickly as possible.

He would have been sensible, would have carried away Mrs. Pembroke bodily if necessary — if the confounded Egyptian female had not commenced weeping.

As the first tears trickled down, he knew he hadn’t a prayer.

He got everyone safely aboard and kept vigilant watch as they crossed to the Isis. There he spent his time on deck with the men. Occasionally, Leena would emerge from the middle cabin, which had been quickly transformed into the Isis’s infirmary. Her reports on the infant’s progress were invariably pessimistic. The child suffered from a bilious fever, perhaps the typhus fever or something even worse. Fevers killed strong, healthy adults. They’d brought the consul general to death’s door more than once, she’d heard, and he had proper doctors, not shamans and village hags. What hope was there for a weak, ill-fed baby who’d been treated with nothing but charms and magic spells for days? Now they would all catch the fever and die in one of the filthiest and ugliest places in all the world, and when they were all dead, the peasants would come and pillage the boat and throw their bodies in the river for the fish and the crocodiles to eat.

After Leena returned to her mistress — and certain death, by the sounds of it — Rupert could spend the next several hours cursing himself for once again falling victim to feminine tears.

He was an idiot. No, worse, he was a cliché.

Women wept. Easily and often. An adult male ought to be able to remain sane while they did so. Had he remained sane, Mrs. Pembroke would be in no danger — or no more than the usual danger — of contracting some unspeakable foreign disease.

They were miles from civilization and anything remotely resembling medical care. All she had was her medicine case, whose contents were shrinking, thanks to the crew members’ frequent accidents. She’d treated with success someone’s bruised foot, someone else’s swollen thumb, and one case of sunstroke. Rupert had no idea how much she knew about treating fever. More than he did, beyond question. If she fell ill, he wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.

From sunset until the last streak of light faded from the sky and the stars arranged themselves in the familiar constellations, Rupert paced the deck, growled when spoken to, and repeatedly waved away Tom’s attempts to lure him into the front cabin to take some supper.

When he heard the footsteps behind him, he assumed it was Tom again, come to plague him.

“No, I don’t want any supper,” Rupert said. “No. Is that not clear? I thought you had mastered the English term. Clearly, I was wrong. What is the Egyptian word for no? How about bokra? Not today.”

“No is la,” came an amused feminine voice. “The polite refusal would be la shokran.”

He turned quickly, and his heart slammed into his rib cage. He managed to keep from reaching for her and pulling her into his arms. But he couldn’t suppress the moronic smile or the laugh of pleasure that it turned into.

All this, at the sound of her voice.

But she sounded happy. He was relieved, naturally. The child wasn’t dead. The prognosis must be hopeful, else he’d have heard the disappointment and sorrow in her voice.

“The babe?” he said. “It’s well?”

“It’s a she, amazingly enough,” she said. “Girls are not very important and normally wouldn’t be worth the trouble. But Sabah’s mother deems her exceedingly valuable. The name means morning, you know. We got some liquids into her, which seemed to help. We gave her a cool bath, and she bore it well, unlike her mama, who was terrified. Then I tried a decoction of Peruvian bark. The fever seems to be declining. Quite rapidly, in fact.”

Rupert let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

“You can have no idea how relieved I am,” she said.

Not nearly as relieved as he, he’d wager.

“I have no experience of children,” she went on. “Still, I did care for my parents and Virgil, and must have absorbed some doctoring wisdom. It is little enough, but these people have none. A compress, a bath, a poultice — the simplest remedies are great miracles and magic to them. Good grief, what a world this is.” Her voice caught.

“You’ve had a long and trying day,” he said quickly. “Come inside and help me eat the supper Tom’s so frantic about.” He paused and added, “Dr. Pembroke.”

She laughed at that, but he heard the strain in her voice.

“Come, I’m starved,” he said. And then it was simple instinct to put a protective arm about her shoulders and lead her inside.

They had a quiet, companionable meal, and Rupert was reaching for his third helping of sweet pastry when Leena screamed.

Chapter 13

EVERYONE IRRUPTED INTO THE PASSAGE AT once: Daphne, Mr. Carsington with a piece of pastry in his

hand, the mother Nafisah with the baby clutched to her bosom, and Leena, who slammed the door to Daphne’s cabin shut behind her.

She ended the barrage of questions with the grim announcement, “Mongoose.”

“Is that all?” said Mr. Carsington. He made his way through the gantlet of females and grasped the door handle. “I thought someone was cutting your throat.”

“He showed his teeth at me,” Leena said.

Mr. Carsington opened the door and smiled. “Gad, it’s only a baby. Well, not fully grown at any rate.” The smile faded. “But he’s got — or is it a she? I think it’s a she, actually.”

“What’s it got?” Daphne said. She edged round Nafisah and baby and past Leena and on tiptoe looked over Mr. Carsington’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s Miles’s shirt.”

The creature had a clump of sleeve in her teeth. She gazed balefully at the humans in the doorway.

“They’re good with rats,” Mr. Carsington said. “And snakes. She could come in handy, Mrs. Pembroke, when you’re dismantling temples and pyramids.” As he spoke, he turned to meet her gaze, his as black as midnight. His mouth was mere inches away, a smile teasing at the very corners. She wanted to bring her lips to that hint of a smile and kiss it away from him and into her. She needed the smile, the secret joke, the humor that was so much a part of his fierce aliveness.

She inched back and told herself to calm down. “We have two cats,” she said.

“Killing venomous snakes is not their specialty,” Mr. Carsington said. “Recollect, you do like to poke about places where short-tempered vipers like to sleep.”

“I am not at all sure the cats will be happy about her,” Daphne said. “Besides, she might be wild. Or rabid. I cannot think why any rational mongoose would wish to eat a dirty shirt. It is not as though there is any shortage of rats hereabouts.”

“Yes, it’s very interesting,” said Mr. Carsington. “Such interesting things happen in your vicinity.” His amused expression faded. He looked…puzzled? Lost?