Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [40]
“Precisely, Mrs. Emerson. It is still early in the year, but I am expecting a group of gentlemen from England in two months’ time. I have some…personal business to carry out before I meet them in Cairo.”
Ramses’s tight lips parted. “Isn’t the young lady dining?”
“As a proper young Moslem lady, she prefers to dine in our cabin,” Newbold said smoothly. “Naturally I respect her wishes.”
Ramses did not reply; after a moment Newbold went to take a seat at the far end of the table.
“Curse it,” said Emerson. “Has the bastard got a woman with him? What’s she like, Ramses?”
“Young” was the curt reply.
“Pretty?” Nefret asked.
“Yes.”
“Shameful,” I declared. “Perhaps if I were to have a word with her—”
“Leave it alone, Mother,” said Ramses. “She’s no helpless innocent.”
“How do you know that?” Nefret demanded. Color rushed into her cheeks. “Have you met her before? Surely you didn’t—”
“Encounter her during one of my frequent visits to the Cairo brothels?” Ramses snapped, his face as flushed as hers. “No. And I didn’t try to seduce her either, if that’s what you meant.”
“For pity’s sake, Ramses, lower your voice,” I exclaimed. “You too, Nefret. I cannot understand why you are both getting so worked up. Nefret, your implied accusation was unjust, as you must be aware. Ramses, you ought not have let it upset you. You know she didn’t mean it. Apologize, both of you.”
As usual, Nefret was the first to respond. She was quick to lose her temper and just as quick to repent—whereas the reverse was true of Ramses. He sat with his head bowed, refusing to meet Nefret’s eyes. She put her hand on his.
“I do apologize, Ramses,” she said sweetly. “It’s just that I get so angry about the filthy game of prostitution and the poor women who are forced to practice it. I was lashing out at random—not at you, my boy.”
“I beg your pardon for being unable to tell the difference,” said Ramses.
“Ramses,” I said warningly.
“It’s all right, Aunt Amelia, it was my fault,” Nefret declared. She gave his taut, unresponsive hand a little squeeze. I couldn’t help wondering what the girl had done to crack that impenetrable self-control of his.
From Manuscript H
After dinner his mother convened an emergency council of war. Ramses had thought he was the only one to question the presence of so many unusual passengers, but he might have known his mother would be equally suspicious.
“Any or all of them could be following us,” she declared. “It looks as if we must go on to Meroe after all.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind about Newbold’s intentions,” said Emerson, chewing on the stem of his pipe. “He’s after us, all right. What precisely did he say to you that day at the club, Ramses?”
Ramses had no choice but to repeat the conversation in its entirety. His hearers reacted precisely as he had expected, but once Emerson had got over his outrage at Newbold’s implications about Nefret (“You didn’t punch him in the face? Why the devil not?”), he was able to bring his keen intelligence to bear on the more dangerous implications.
“Between what he picked up at Wadi Halfa and what he undoubtedly learned in Cairo, he’s got enough—by his filthy standards—to justify following us. He won’t get far,” Emerson added smugly. “I have a plan—”
“I trust,” said his wife, giving him a baleful stare, “that it does not involve putting Mr. Newbold in hospital. You could get yourself in serious—”
“Kindly refrain from interrupting me, Peabody,” Emerson growled. “If worse comes to worst I would have no compunction about—er—temporarily immobilizing the fellow. But I do not believe it will prove necessary.”
“What about the girl?” Nefret asked. Her only reaction to Newbold’s insult about her had been a shrug. “Why would he bring her along?”
“To satisfy his own filthy appetites,” said Emerson, with a snap of his teeth.
He was only partly right.
Ramses was reading in bed later that night, or trying to; the lamp flame swayed distractingly with the movement of the boat. The soft creak of