Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

But of course he could not be lost. The indecent embrace yesterday must have disarranged her mind as well as her morals.

The unusual expression quickly vanished, though, and his gaze returned to the mongoose. “I suppose you want me to take the shirt away from her.”

The creature still watched them, garment in her teeth. Her fur bristled.

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Daphne said. “She looks ready to fight about it.”

By this time, Leena having apprised Nafisah of the situation, the young mother approached and asked if she might look.

Daphne and Mr. Carsington moved out of the way. Nafisah looked in. The baby pointed and said something in baby gibberish.

“I think this is my neighbor’s mongoose,” Nafisah said. “She is tame but lately she has become troublesome. One night, I catch her near my chickens. I chase her away with a stick. In a little while, my neighbor comes, and he is angry with me. He says I hurt her foot. Now she limps, he says, and she is worthless to kill snakes, because she is too slow. I think he was the one who hurt her. She came to steal my eggs because it is easier than killing snakes. But my husband is dead and I have no one here to stand up to this man. This makes him bold. See if she is lame,” she urged. “He put her down to show me, and she ran away from him. I could see her foot pained her, and I felt sorry for her. Later I went out again to look for her, but I saw the ghost, and I was afraid. See if she is lame,” she repeated.

The art of brevity was not highly prized in Egypt. Daphne was able to condense the tale to a few English sentences. When she was done, Mr. Carsington crouched down, held out his bit of pastry, and called to the animal, “Come, my dear. Wouldn’t you rather a bit of sweet than that dirty old shirt?”

The creature stared at the pastry without moving.

“She’s Egyptian,” Daphne said. She crouched down beside him. “Ta’ala heneh,” she crooned. Come here.

The creature looked up at her and sniffed.

“Ta’ala heneh,” Daphne repeated.

The mongoose advanced a few steps, dragging the shirt along. Then she stopped, chittered at them, and sat down on the garment, her teeth still firmly clamped on the sleeve. Those few steps showed her favoring the front left paw.

“That’s the way Alistair walks,” said Mr. Carsington.

“Your brother,” she said. “The one who was injured at Waterloo.”

He nodded. “Such a melting effect the limp had on women. They sighed. They swooned. They threw themselves at him. Maybe what I need is a limp.” He shot her a glinting sidelong glance.

It was not merely a glance. It was purposeful and intimate. It conjured the taste of his mouth and the feel of his hands and his hard body and the rush of mad joy she’d experienced when she fired the pistol for the first time, and when she’d kissed him. Her knees softened first, then her muscles, then her head.

While Daphne struggled to reclaim what used to be her brain, Nafisah said, “This is my neighbor’s mongoose. I am sure of it.”

Daphne’s intellect sorted itself into order and her attention reverted to the girl and the crucial words she’d uttered moments ago. “You saw her the night you saw the ghost, Nafisah,” she said. “Tell me about the ghost.”

DAPHNE TRANSLATED FOR Mr. Carsington later, when they returned to the front cabin. He’d already got the gist of it from Leena, though.

Nafisah had seen the ghost last Thursday night. The next morning, she reported the sighting to her neighbor’s wife. Before long, some of the kashef’s men came to her house and questioned her for a long time about the ghost. She described what she’d seen and where. They gave her money and went away. Later, she saw a group of men go out to the tombs. They were strangers and foreigners. They weren’t from her village or from Minya, but most of the villagers seemed to know who they were, and they were afraid of these men.

“Shall we return to the kashef?” Daphne asked. “A large enough bribe will probably elicit the information we want.”

“I’ll deal with him, first thing tomorrow,” Mr. Carsington said. “I’ll take Tom.”

“Tom’s grasp of English is haphazard at best, and his vocabulary is exceedingly limited,” Daphne said.

“That’s all right,” Mr. Carsington said. “I don’t mean to do much talking.”

“But —”

“You’re not coming with me,” he said. “I need you to take charge of the boat while I’m gone.”

“Take charge?”

“I need someone here I can rely upon,” he said. “You must persuade Nafisah to travel with us. It isn’t safe for her to go back to her village. Her neighbor is one of the kashef’s spies, I don’t doubt, and they all seem to be in league with our villains.”

“But you —”

“If anyone attempts to board, shoot them,” he said. “You’re the only one I can count on to keep a cool head if there’s trouble.”

“But I don’t shoot straight!” she cried.

“Hardly anyone does,” he said. “However, men are struck cold with terror at the sight of you cocking a pistol. Just start shooting, and tell Reis Rashad to make sail.”

“But you —”

“If Tom and I run into difficulties, we’ll catch up with you later,” he said.

THEY WOULD CATCH up if they survived the encounter with the kashef, that is. Rupert expected trouble. He was looking forward to it, actually. But he kept his expectations to himself.

The next morning, when he visited the fat liar, Rupert simply offered to teach him to fly. Then Rupert demonstrated his teaching method by picking up the largest of the guards and throwing him against a wall.

Several other guards started for Rupert then.

He told Tom to run, then stood, arms open in welcome, and grinned at the oncoming guards.

A fight was exactly what Rupert was hoping for.

He was not in a good mood.

He’d had a disturbing experience the previous evening, when his gaze had turned from the demented mongoose to the woman beside him. He’d looked into Mrs. Pembroke’s remarkable green eyes and realized he hadn’t endured a dull moment since the moment she’d entered the dungeon in Cairo.

He couldn’t say why, but this made him uneasy.

He was never uneasy and didn’t like the feeling.

Meanwhile, he was still horny and hadn’t spied a single attractive female in this provoking town.

So he’d settle for the next best thing: a fight.

DAPHNE PACED THE deck, rifle in hand. Leena and Nafisah — the latter with naked baby astride her shoulder, Egyptian style — paced alongside her.

“He will return safely,” Nafisah assured Daphne. “The mongoose is a good omen. Everyone recognizes this.”

“The boy will say the wrong thing,” Leena said. “The kashef will take offense and cut off his tongue, maybe his head. You should not have let your Englishman go this morning, mistress. You should have gone to his bed and taken off your clothes. If you had kept him happy in this way, he would not notice or care if the boat set sail. We might have departed this accursed place when the sun came up. What shall we do if the town turns against us and the wind fails? All the men will be killed, and we will be sold in the slave market. Or else they will rape us and leave us in the desert for the vultures and jackals to eat.”

The wind showed no signs of failing. If anything, it had grown stronger in the course of the morning. If the town turned hostile, the Isis could be off at a moment’s notice. Daphne and Mr. Carsington had consulted with Reis Rashad at daybreak. All was in readiness for a quick departure.

If the wind held.

“Be of good heart, lady,” Nafisah told Daphne. “This boat is magical. You have healing magic, and the English master has power over snakes.”

“No one fears snake charmers,” Leena said scornfully.

“But in Saqqara he commanded a wild viper, not a tame snake with no fangs, like those in the snake charmers’ baskets,” Nafisah said. “Everyone here h

as heard of his magic at the Pyramid of Steps in Saqqara. Everyone has heard of his strength, like a genie. Why do you think only one man came to rob your boat the other night? The others feared the magic.”

Daphne paused in her pacing. “Really? How disappointing for Mr. Carsington. He was so looking forward to fighting bandits.”

“He is looking for a fight,” Leena said grimly. “Anyone can see this.” Lowering her voice she added in a still-audible aside to Nafisah, “They desire each other. But they are English, you see, and the English people have strange —”

A shout cut her off.

Daphne’s attention swung back landward.

The man they spoke of was sauntering down toward the landing place, Tom behind him. Yusef, who’d gone ashore, was running to meet them.