Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [134]
“It’s not as pretty as some of the others,” remarked Sennia, who had also had the two under close observation. “I like this one, with the carnelian cat. But I would never try it on.”
“Why not?” Cyrus exclaimed suddenly. “Why the dickens not? Try ’em all on! Amelia—Lia—all you ladies. They’ll be stuck away in dusty museum cases from now on, never again gracing a pretty hand or neck. Give ’em a last treat.”
“Cyrus, you are a sport,” Ramses said.
“And a poet,” Bertie declared. “Sennia, here’s your cat. Mother, what’s your choice?”
Ramses supposed that for Cyrus it was an act of defiance, a final gesture of possession. The women converged on the table, behaving as if they had been suddenly and simultaneously infected with the same benign fever, one that brought color to their cheeks and a glitter to their eyes. Even his mother, who claimed that baubles did not interest her, bent her head and allowed Cyrus to hang a magnificent pendant around her neck; it was a three-dimensional lapis ram, crowned with gold and reclining on a golden plinth. He’d noticed that jewels had a strange effect on women . . .
. . . Noticed, and forgotten. How long had it been since he gave Nefret a piece of jewelry? She had her own money and could buy whatever she wanted, gems more expensive than anything he could afford. But from time to time she still wore the cheap gold bangle he had given her when they were children, and there had been her little joke the other night about the bracelets . . . If it was a joke. In vino veritas? She seemed particularly interested in several of the remaining bracelets, and he went to help her fasten a massive hinged cuff around her wrist. David was laughing as he bedecked his wife with pectorals and bracelets. Then he insisted she and the others pose for photographs.
“We’ll never dare show them to anyone outside the family, though.”
“Never mind,” Lia said. “We will gloat over them from time to time, and remember a wonderful experience. Thank you, Cyrus.”
The fever had passed. Slowly and with obvious reluctance the women began to divest themselves of the jewelry. Though the pieces had been skillfully restored and mended, they required to be handled gently. Ramses went to help his mother remove the heavy pendant, which depended from a necklace of gold barrel beads.
“Suitable for a God’s Wife—the ram is Amon-Re, of course—but I wonder if she ever wore it in life,” she remarked, rubbing the back of her neck. “I wouldn’t care to do so. Well, we have enjoyed a jolly time, but we had better get to work. We must stop early today in order to prepare for the fantasia.”
THEY HAD DISCUSSED WHETHER OR not to take the children. The very idea of the three younger hellions running around in the dark, among open tomb shafts and blazing torches and half-savage dogs, made Ramses’s hair stand on end, and he was relieved when his mother put an end to the discussion with a decided, “Out of the question. Dolly will accompany us, but not the others.”
“Isn’t that a little unfair?” Nefret asked, while Lia looked apprehensive—no doubt picturing Evvie’s response.
“It would be unfair to Dolly to do otherwise. He should not be punished because the younger children cannot be controlled. It is not their fault, they are just like little animals at this age.”
This appraisal did not go over well with either Lia or Nefret.
His mother had invited the Vandergelts to come by the house beforehand. No alcoholic beverages would be served at the fantasia, and Cyrus enjoyed a preprandial nip of whiskey. They drove up in style, behind the matched grays that drew Cyrus’s carriage. Cyrus and Bertie and Walter were on horseback, dressed in their best to do Selim honor. That left room in the carriage with Katherine for several of the ladies, as Cyrus pointed out, adding a delicately phrased compliment