Mr. Impossible (The Dressmakers 2)

“Clear as a bell,” he said.

“Good.” She indicated the divan opposite. “Kindly sit down. I have a great deal to say, and it is tiring to look up at you. You needn’t take off your shoes first. Eastern custom is inconvenient for those wearing European dress. Not that I am at all sure why people here go to the trouble of taking off their shoes before stepping on the rugs, when the sand easily covers rugs, mats, divans, and everything else with no help from us.”

He took the seat she indicated, plumped up a cushion, and leaned back on it. As she settled onto the divan opposite, he noticed that she had shed her shoes. He caught a glimpse of slim, stockinged feet before she tucked her legs under her.

He doubted she’d done it on purpose. She was not that type of female at all. But those nearly naked feet teased all the same, and the usual heat started down low.

The lady opened her mouth to start lecturing, or whatever she had in mind, and he was turning his mind to imagining the view from her ankles up when Leena burst in. She pulled in after her the sturdy, cheerful fellow Rupert had waved to in the courtyard a short while earlier.

“Drugged!” the maid cried. “Look at him!”

Everyone looked at Wadid. He smiled and salaamed.

“All day long he has been smoking hashish — or perhaps it was opium — mixed in his tobacco,” Leena said. “I could not tell what it was, because a perfume disguised the smell. But anyone can see that Wadid is in a heavenly place, and looks kindly upon everyone. He can tell us nothing.”

Rupert got up, walked up to within inches of the gatekeeper’s face, and peered down into his half-closed eyes. Wadid smiled and nodded and said something in singsong.

Rupert grasped him by the upper arms, lifted him off the floor, and held him aloft for a moment. Wadid’s eyes opened wide. Rupert gave the man a shake, then set him down.

Wadid stared at him, mouth opening and closing.

“Tell him, the next time I pick him up, I’ll pitch him out the window,” Rupert said. “Tell him, if he doesn’t want to test his flying skills, I recommend he answer a few questions.”

Leena spoke rapidly. Wadid stuttered an answer, occasionally darting a frightened look at Rupert.

“He says thank you, kind sir,” Leena said. “His head is much clearer now.”

“I thought it might be,” Rupert said. He looked enquiringly at Mrs. Pembroke.

Her remarkable eyes, too, had opened very wide. Her mouth, previously taut with disapproval, shaped an O. The prim expression had acted, apparently, as a sort of corset. Freed of it, her mouth was soft and full.

He would like to pick her up, too, and bring that amazing face close to his and test the softness of those lips….

But he was not that stupid.

“You wished to interrogate him, I believe?” he said.

She blinked, and turning to Wadid, launched into a stream of foreign talk.

Wadid answered haltingly.

While they went back and forth, Rupert departed, in search of coffee.

After a few wrong turns in the maze, he found the stairway, and soon, on the ground floor, what looked like the cooking area.

Its occupants had apparently deserted the place in great haste. He saw evidence of a meal in preparation. A bowl of chickpeas, partly mashed. Wooden implements on the floor. A ball of dough on a stone. A pot on the brazier.

He found the silver coffee service with its tiny, handleless cups, but discerned no signs of coffee.

He stepped into a small, adjoining room, which looked to be a sort of pantry. He started opening jars. Then he became aware of movement. A faint rustling. Rats?

He looked in the direction of the sound. Several tall crockery jars stood in a dark corner. He saw a fragment of blue cloth.

He crossed the room. The lurker attempted to dart past him, but Rupert caught the back of his shirt. “Ah, not so quick, my fine fellow,” he said. “First, let’s have a friendly chat, shall we?”

Chapter 3

THOUGH ONE COULD NOT TELL BY LOOKING AT her, though she seemed her usual controlled self, it took Daphne a good deal more time than it did Wadid to recover from Mr. Carsington’s demonstration of brute strength.

She had felt, for a moment, like a character in The Thousand and One Nights who’d inadvertently let a genie out of a bottle. A large, powerful, and uncontrollable genie.

She tried to concentrate on her few clues, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. It produced, too clearly, the look on Mr. Carsington’s face when she raised her veil.

She had no name for the look. He was a man far outside the narrow bounds of her experience. She could hardly name her feelings, either: a wild hammering within and a chaos of thoughts and no way to make sense of a single one. There was only a powerful awareness — of the world having turned wild, unpredictable, and unrecognizable — and the sense of something dangerous let loose.

This was irrational, she knew.

But she was too overset to think clearly: Miles gone, the fine papyrus stolen, the house abandoned, the doorkeeper drugged.

When her mind worked in the proper manner, Daphne did not believe in genii, good or bad.

She made herself examine matters logically.

Mr. Carsington was merely an English male of above average but by no means unusual height, she reminded herself. He appeared larger than life because (a) the average Turk or Egyptian was several inches shorter, and (b) he had the muscular physique more commonly associated with certain members of the laboring classes, such as black-smiths — and boxers, possibly, although she couldn’t be certain, never having seen a boxer in the flesh.

Furthermore, the demonstration of brute strength proved how well Mr. Carsington suited her purposes. With him about, no one would dare intimidate her or stand in her way or refuse to cooperate.

True, he was a blockhead, but that, too, was to her advantage. He could not confuse or cow her as her erudite husband had done so often and easily. Mr. Carsington would not assume, as Miles did, that she was too intellectual and unworldly to comprehend everyday life’s coarse realities.

Considered calmly and rationally, in short, Mr. Carsington was perfect.

Her mind once more in proper order, she focused on Wadid.

He was more than willing to talk now. The trouble was, he didn’t know anything.

He didn’t know which coffee shop boy had delivered the drugged tobacco. How could he? There were scores of such boys in Cairo, he said. They ran away. They died of plague. They found work elsewhere. Who could keep track of them? He had no idea where the tainted tobacco had come from — assuredly not from Wadid’s usual source, one of Cairo’s more respectable coffee shops.

As to who had invaded the house and driven the other servants away, Wadid was equally in the dark. He’d been in a beautiful dream, he said. People came and went. Dream people or real people, he could not say.

On learning that someone had stolen the master’s beautiful papyrus, he wept and blamed himself. He hoped the master would return soon and beat him, he said.

But please, he begged, would the good lady tell her giant not to tear him limb from limb? The lady was kind and merciful, everyone knew. Had she not brought Akmed back from the dead? The men carry him in, and all the breath is gone from his body. Then she gives him a magic drink, and behold, he breathes again.

Akmed had in fact been breathing, and the “magic drink” was tea from Daphne’s precious stores, the sovereign remedy for every ailment, physical, emotional, or moral. But having started talking, Wadid showed no signs of stopping. She let him carry on his monologue while she wondered what had become of her “giant.”

He’d been gone rather a while.

Gone back to the consulate, no doubt, she thought grimly. And who could blame him?

She had a man’s mind in a woman’s body. The feminine arts were a far greater mystery to her than Egyptian writing. She had at least a rational hope of solving the latter. But when it came to femininity, her case was hopeless

. Virgil’s efforts to change her had only infuriated her — quite as though she were a man.

Had she learnt those mysterious arts, had she behaved more prettily with Mr. Salt, he might not have been so quick to dismiss her concerns and fob off on her his aristocratic lummox of an aide.

She had behaved even less prettily with Mr. Carsington. A proper woman would have exercised more tact. Even dumb beasts had feelings, and men could be sensitive about the oddest things.

She rose. She would have to find him. She would return to the consulate, if necessary, and apologize.

“We’ll speak more of this later, Wadid,” she said. “Go back to your place. Perhaps while you sit quietly, you’ll remember more.” She hurried across the room and out of the door through which Mr. Carsington had vanished.

“Mistress?” Leena called behind her.

Daphne turned her head to answer.

And collided with something big, hard, and warm. Very big. Very hard. Very warm. Physical sensation knocked out thought, and she tottered, unbalanced.

A large hand clamped on her upper arm and steadied her.

“What a dervish you are, always hurrying this way and that,” Mr. Carsington said. “Pray consider the heat and the possibility of a brain fever.” He released her arm.

The warmth lingered, and she still felt the impression of long, strong fingers on her skin.