Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [131]
“Why?”
He showed her why, drawing her into his arms and holding her while his mouth drifted across her face until it reached her lips. They parted, welcoming and warm, and her hands slid into his hair. After a long moment she whispered, “Don’t start something unless you’re prepared to finish it.”
“I can finish anytime, but let’s sit here for a while. It’s a beautiful night, and Lord knows we don’t have many chances to be alone.”
He picked her up and sat down on a nearby bench, holding her on his lap. The breeze lifted a strand of her hair. It brushed his cheek like a caress. Between kisses he told her all the things he felt but seldom said, and she responded with the murmured endearments only he had heard.
The cry that broke the spell was sharp and high and human. Ramses sprang to his feet and lowered Nefret to hers, pushing her behind him as he turned to face the thrashing in the shrubbery.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, reaching for his knife and realizing he didn’t have it.
“Don’t, don’t hurt me! I’m sorry!”
She came out from behind a rosebush, an unidentifiable shadow in the darkness—but he had recognized her voice. At his shoulder Nefret said, “Hell and damnation!”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Ramses said in a strangled voice. He would almost have preferred armed attack to the embarrassment that flooded hotly through him. How long had the wretched girl been hiding and listening?
“It was the cat,” Maryam said apologetically. “I was just taking a walk, it’s such a beautiful night, and he jumped at me, and I was startled and . . . I’m so sorry.”
The Great Cat of Re had followed her, his tail waving triumphantly. He had flushed an impressively large prey this time.
“No harm done,” Ramses said. “But you shouldn’t wander round alone at night.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t. I only wanted—”
“Good night,” Nefret said.
“Good night.” She fled, stumbling, her hands covering her face.
The Great Cat of Re brushed against Nefret’s foot, inviting admiration and praise. “Oh, yes, well done,” she said. “How much did she hear, do you suppose?”
“She’d have heard more if the cat hadn’t taken a hand,” Ramses muttered. “And seen more. I feel like a blithering idiot.”
“You didn’t sound like a blithering idiot, darling,” Nefret said. “But we may as well go in now.”
“Yes. Damn cat,” he added unfairly.
“He is a gorgeous creature, though.”
The Great Cat of Re preceded them into the house, taking his time, so that they had to wait, holding the door for him, and then headed toward the kitchen.
“Yes, he’s beautiful. And the most useless cat we’ve ever owned. D’you want a nightcap or a glass of milk?”
A yawn was his answer. He laughed and encircled her waist with his arm. “Come to bed, then. I’m ready to finish what I began, despite the interruption, unless you’re tired. I almost wish you hadn’t opened the clinic, you’ve been working too hard.”
“I love it, you know that. But dear old Uncle Sethos wears me out.”
“I thought you liked him.” He closed the door of their room. Nefret sat down at the dressing table and began taking pins out of her hair.
“I do. But when he’s around I feel like a cat in a Cairo alley, trying to look in all directions at once. What was that saying of el-Gharbi’s? He walks among naked daggers—and they follow him wherever he goes.”
“The same could be said of us. He’s walked into our nest of daggers this time.”
She didn’t answer. The quick, hard stroke of her hairbrush, and the way the long golden locks clung to her fingers told him she was in no mood for reassurance or reason.
“When this is settled,” he began. A small silent voice in his head jeered, Oh, no trouble at all. Solve the murder of Martinelli, locate the missing jewelry, identify the bastard who sank Daoud’s boat and the crazy woman who thinks she’s Hathor . . .
“When all this is settled,” he went on, after a slight pause, “why don’t we get away for a few days, just the two of us?”
“And leave the children?” Nefret opened a drawer and took out a nightdress.
“They’ve got a dozen people looking after them.”
At that inopportune moment