Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [41]
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you suppose?” She closed the door and came toward him. She wore only a simple shift, sleeveless and low cut, and she had left off her bangles and head scarf. Her hair fell in jetty waves over her bare shoulders.
Ramses snatched up the shirt he had tossed over a chair and put his arms through the sleeves. “If he learns you have come here, he’ll kill you.”
“He sent me.” She stopped a few feet away.
A flood of fury and disgust choked him for a few seconds. “I see.”
“Let me stay—for an hour—or two. Then I can go back and tell him I did my best, but failed.”
He tried to control his anger. It wasn’t her fault, but at that moment he was almost as furious with her as with Newbold. “Let me get this straight,” he said softly. “He told you to offer yourself to me in exchange for information about our plans. And you agreed?”
The contempt in his voice brought a dark flush to her face. “I had no choice. I have told you the truth, instead of the story he ordered me to tell—that I fled from him because he was drinking and would have hurt me. I was supposed to plead for your protection, and embrace you, and…”
She looked very young and helpless and desirable with the warm lamplight stroking her slim curves. Newbold had selected precisely the right woman to appeal to his protective instincts—and to the others that might have succeeded them if he had taken that slender, trembling body into his arms.
Because he was fighting those instincts, he spoke harshly. “What makes you suppose I won’t accept the offer and give nothing in return? I don’t babble to the women I take to bed.”
The color in her face deepened. “You may believe me or not. I have told you the truth.”
“Wait,” Ramses said, as she turned toward the door. Curiosity and a shamed consciousness of his cruelty had replaced anger. “I’m sorry. Sit down—over there, in that chair. You didn’t have to tell me. Why did you? Sit down, please. I won’t touch you, I promise.”
He perched on the edge of the bed, as far from her as he could get. She studied him thoughtfully and then a curious little smile curved her lips and she did as he had asked.
“You don’t have to stay with him,” Ramses said. “My parents will help you.”
“To find a respectable husband, or become a servant?” The pretty mouth hardened. She looked, suddenly, a good many years older. “I have my own reasons for staying with Newbold. He is not unkind. When he twisted my arm today it was to get your attention.”
“I had already deduced that,” Ramses muttered.
She went on in the same detached voice. “I told you the truth because you would not have believed the lie. You are already suspicious of him—as you should be.”
“Who are you?” Ramses demanded. “You’re no village maiden. Where did he find you?”
She rose, tossing the black locks back from her face in a movement as graceful as it was practiced.
“It has been long enough,” she said. “He won’t doubt that you refused me. He said you might take me because you are young and—how did he put it…”
“Never mind,” Ramses said, feeling his face heat up.
“But he considers you weak and a naive romantic, as he expressed it. So he will believe me. Will you tell your parents?”
“What?” The question caught him unawares. So Newbold considered him a weakling, did he? “Yes, I shall. Don’t go yet. You haven’t answered my questions.”
She moved with quick grace, reaching the door before he could rise. She looked back at him over her shoulder, frowning a little. “You wanted me, I could tell. Why did you refuse? Were you afraid of your mother finding out?”
“That’s right,” Ramses said wearily. His other reasons would have made less sense to her.
She was out the door before he could stop her. Just as well, he thought wryly. Newbold hadn’t been so far wrong, damn the man. He had to tell his parents, but the very idea made him cringe; for it would mean admitting that his first, unthinking assumption had been