Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [5]
“Well, this is one invitation I can decline with pleasure,” I declared. “Would that all our difficulties were so easily solved. Emerson—”
“Confound it, Peabody, I am not the one who is making difficulties! It only remains for Ramses to make up his mind.”
From Manuscript H
Ramses sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. Another day had passed without his having got the courage to tell his father the truth.
He looked up at the sound of a tentative knock at the door.
“Come in, damn it,” Ramses said.
“Some people might interpret that as less than welcoming,” said David, standing in the doorway. “Would you rather be alone?”
“No. I’m sorry. Come in and close the door before Nefret takes it into her head to follow you.”
“You can’t go on treating her like this, Ramses. You’ve been avoiding her as if she were a leper and snapping back at her whenever she speaks.”
“You know why.”
David sat down next to him. “I know that you love her and you won’t tell her so. I don’t understand why you won’t.”
“You aren’t usually so obtuse, David. How would you feel if a girl you thought of as a dear little sister sidled up to you and told you she was desperately in love with you?”
David smiled his slow, gentle smile. “She did.”
“But you were already in love with Lia when she spoke up,” Ramses argued. “And her announcement can’t have come as a complete surprise; don’t tell me there weren’t sidelong looks and blushes and—well, you know the sort of thing. Supposing you hadn’t returned her feelings—then how would you have felt?”
“Embarrassed,” David admitted after a while. “Sorry for her. Guilty. Horribly self-conscious.”
“And that is exactly how Nefret would feel. She thinks of me as a rather amusing younger brother. You heard her just now, teasing me about that confounded girl, laughing at me…” He propped his chin on his hands. “I’ve got to get away for a while. Away from her.”
“It’s that hard?” David asked. “Being with her?”
“It’s bad enough seeing her every day,” Ramses said despondently. “If only she weren’t so damned affectionate! Always patting and hugging and squeezing my arm—”
“She does that to everybody. Including Gargery.”
“Exactly. It doesn’t mean a damned thing, but I can assure you that it doesn’t affect Gargery as it does me.”
He couldn’t tell David the worst of it—the burning jealousy of every man who talked to Nefret or looked at her—because at one time he had thought she was beginning to care for David. He had dreamed of killing his best friend.
A peremptory pounding on the door brought him to his feet. “It’s Nefret,” he said. “Nobody else knocks like that.”
He opened the door and stood back. “Shouldn’t you be changing for dinner?” he asked pointedly.
Nefret flung herself down in an armchair. “Shouldn’t you? I’m sorry I teased you about that wretched girl, but really, Ramses, you’re losing your sense of humor. What’s the matter?”
Ramses began, “I don’t know why you should suppose—”
She cut him off with a word she would not have used in his mother’s presence. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Ramses Emerson. You and David have been eyeing each other like conspirators—Brutus and Cassius, creeping up on Caesar with daggers drawn! You’re planning something underhanded, and I insist on knowing what it is. Don’t stand there like a graven image! Sit down—you too, David—and confess.”
She was enchanting when she was angry, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide and her slim form rigid with indignation. A lock of hair had come loose; it curled distractingly over her forehead. Ramses clasped his hands tightly together.
Then her eyes fell. “I thought we were friends,” she said softly. “We three, all for one and one for all.”
We three. Friends. If he had had any doubts about what he meant to do, that speech dispelled them. After all, why not tell her? She wouldn’t care. Friendship can endure separation. A friend wants what is best for her friend. Only lovers are selfish.
“I want to go to Germany this year to study with Erman,” he said abruptly.
Nefret’s jaw dropped. “You mean—not