Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

making: the way she crooned his name, the way the foreign words sounded in her mouth. His mind conjured harems and concubines and dancing girls and she was all of them, it seemed, all the most alluring women in the world in one.

Oh, he was in a bad way, a sad, sad way.

He went to her. Obediently he looked down at the thing in her hand. His mind revolted, and his gaze shifted away, to her bosom. It was mostly exposed, since she’d neglected to fasten the neck of the crepe shirt.

Except for the obnoxious veils, Egyptians did know the proper way to dress a woman.

“It disgusts you?” she said.

“Certainly not,” he said.

She glanced down at herself, at her barely veiled bosom shimmering gold in the candlelight. “I meant the mummy,” she said. She did not attempt to cover the exposed flesh.

This lack of modesty was perfectly agreeable to him. Still, it did not make it easier to think. He tried, though he wasn’t sure why.

“Not disgusting, exactly,” he said at last.

“The mummies trouble you,” she said. “I remarked it before. They trouble me, too, especially when I find them in pieces, after someone’s torn them apart, looking for amulets and such. But they enchant me as well.” With her index finger she lightly stroked the thing in her hand. “See how beautifully it is wrapped, how lovingly preserved.”

He tried to see the beauty she spoke of, but he couldn’t. Looking at the thing was too upsetting. He turned away.

There was a silence. He could feel her thinking, wondering.

“I saw a mummy unwrapped in London,” he said harshly into the silence. “A great entertainment, with a lot of aristocrats gawking and a physician presiding over the proceedings. It was a woman, naked, the poor creature, once they’d removed her lovingly prepared wrappings. They pretended it was a scientific inquiry, but most of the audience was there for a sensation. It was all a show to them, as though she’d never been a living woman, once, like their wives and sisters and mothers and daughters.” His throat tightened at the recollection. He could say no more. He’d choke.

“I see.” She set down the mummy and rose.

He looked at her, and at the thing she’d set aside. He knew she wanted it. He’d seen the longing in her eyes, the same expression she wore when he found her studying the pictures on the walls. Yet she set the little mummy aside for his sake.

His heart clenched and twisted.

“It’s only a bird or a cat,” he said. “Somebody’s pet or sacred animal. You found it. You might as well keep it. The next person to come along will trample it accidentally or tear it apart on purpose, looking for treasure. At least you will treat it kindly.” He bent and picked it up. The smell made him gag. He held his breath and offered the thing to her.

Her eyebrows went up.

“Yes, yes, take it,” he choked out, resisting the urge to throw it at her.

“Are you sure?” She took it from him though, the gods be thanked.

He retreated a pace. “Of course. Didn’t I tell you I’m easy to manage? A lively bout of lovemaking makes me mere putty in your hands. I vow, I am overflowing with kindness and generosity.”

…and with something else, something different from the sense of well-being he usually experienced. There was an ache, a something not quite right and not quite wrong.

“But it also makes me devilish hungry,” he added quickly. “As I recall, we’ve bread in the saddlebags.”

IT MEANT NOTHING to him, that was clear to Daphne. He’d spoken of feelings, but desire was all he meant. He’d satisfied a bodily appetite, no different from hunger. That was the way he saw it. He’d said so: she was in lust with him, and the logical response was lovemaking. For hunger, the logical response was eating.

In other words, the passionate interlude held no more significance for him than did the simple meal of bread and water they ate a short time later in a corner of the first chamber, surrounded by images of the tomb’s owner and his women and long columns of hieroglyphs.

Meanwhile, Daphne’s world had come crashing down about her ears. She stared blindly at the hieroglyphs wobbling in the candlelight. She felt as though she’d spent her adulthood in a kind of darkness, translating at least one part of her life into the wrong language.

“Any idea what it says?” he said.

She dragged her gaze back to him. He had not put his shirt back on. The faint light glimmered on bronzed skin and traced the outlines of his muscled torso. His eyes were dark, unreadable.

Not that she could have read them easily, even in better light. Rupert Carsington’s eyes were not windows into his soul, as Virgil’s eyes had been. But then, Rupert Carsington seemed to keep very little hidden. His words and actions were plain and direct. His anger, too. He didn’t hide it behind a veneer of gentleness and saintly patience. He spoke his mind…instead of trying to dismantle hers.

“You know I don’t,” she said. “I have explained the difficulties of decipherment to you time and again.”

“Yes, but now that you’ve relieved the terrible lust oppressing your mind, I thought you might have a burst of insight or inspiration,” he said.

“I had an insight,” she said, “but not about hieroglyphs. As to the lust…”

“Ah, yes. Not quite relieved, I daresay.”

“That was not what I —”

“The trick with lust is, you can only eradicate it with steady application,” he said. “Steady, repeated application. So, as soon as it begins to vex you again, be sure to let me know.”

“That is not what I…” But it was part of what was on her mind, and so she said quickly, to get it over with, “Do you find me womanly?”

“Did the sandstorm dry up your brain?” he said. “Do you think I mistook you for a man?”

“I mean, do you find me un womanly?”

He bent closer and peered at her face, scarlet now, she’d no doubt. “Where?” he said. “In what way?”

“Not…feminine. Indelicate. Too…” She recalled Virgil’s gentle admonitions, his infuriating patience, and anger burnt away embarrassment. “Too boisterous,” she said tightly. “In lovemaking.”

“A woman — too boisterous — in lovemaking?” Mr. Carsington said incredulously. “There’s no such thing. Where did you get that fool notion? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I can guess. You shouldn’t have married an elderly man.”

“Virgil was four and fifty when we wed,” she said. “That is not exactly Methuselah.”

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen and a half,” she said.

“You’d have done better with two husbands of seven and twenty,” he said. “As to the late lamented, he should have married a woman closer to his own age, whose animal spirits were of a similar strength. He might have lived longer. More important, he wouldn’t have needed to cover up his lack of vigor by criticizing his handsome, passionate wife.”

“His…lack…of vigor,” Daphne repeated. “Was that —”

“Not that there’s any excuse for him,” Mr. Carsington went on indignantly. “To tell such hurtful lies — and he a clergyman! I hope you made him do without for a long, long time — a fortnight at least — to teach him a lesson. By gad, that was ungentlemanly — and you shackled for life to the brute. He made you feel unwomanly — you, of all women! — when it was he who was unmanly. It makes my blood boil. Come here.”

“Ungentlemanly?” she said. “Unmanly?”

“He was a small man,” he said, “else he wouldn’t have tried to cut you down to size.”

She stared at him, trying to take it in. He said she wasn’t unwomanly — he, a man of vast experience.

“I must have the truth,” she said. “You must not be tactful. This is important.”

“Tactful?” he echoed. “I cannot believe that a woman of your intelligence could not see what he was about. It must be obvious to the slowest of dimwits that he was jealous of your brain, because he knew his wasn’t as big. He was afraid you’d accomplish

something and put him in the shade. That’s why he forbade you to study ancient Egyptian writing. Obviously he was jealous of your passion and energy, too. You were too much woman for him.”

“Too much woman,” she repeated, savoring the words. Not too little. Not too much like a man. Hers wasn’t a man’s brain. It was simply her brain, that was all.

“You may have noticed you are not too much for me.” His black eyes gleamed.

“You don’t mind about my brain,” she said.

“I’m not afraid of your brain,” he said. “Come here. “Ta’ala heneh.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

It was not polite or gentle. It was long and bold, sinfully deep and lascivious, and it melted her muscles, along with the remnants of her morals. She did not even pretend to struggle. She sank back in his arms and let her hands rove over the powerful contours of his chest and shoulders, his arms, his back.

She was not sure she could ever get enough of touching him. She didn’t know how she’d managed to keep her hands off him for as long as she had. He was warm and strong and fiercely alive…oh, and he was beautifully made, on the grand scale, and perfectly proportioned. Her hands slid down to cup his buttocks, so smooth and taut, and he groaned against her mouth, then drew away.

She opened her eyes, dismayed. She’d been too bold, disgusted him. But no, he’d told her she couldn’t be too bold.

“I meant to please you before,” he said. Growled.

“You did,” she said. She’d never been so pleased in her life. She’d never guessed it was possible to be so pleased — and the word was grossly inadequate.

“But I was in a hurry,” he said, “after waiting so confounded long for you to come to your senses.”

“I was perfectly satisfied,” she said. She’d thought she’d die of pleasure and happiness. She’d thought she’d burst from it, from the feelings, so immense.

“What do you know?” he said. “Your previous lover was an old man.” He kissed the special place behind her ear. He kissed her neck, the base of her throat.

She didn’t argue. What did she know? Nothing, apparently, when it came to lovemaking.