He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [104]
“Don’t say it!” I exclaimed.
“I wasn’t going to,” Emerson said, giving me an injured look.
“I don’t see how he could know,” Ramses said. The only light came from a lamp that hung beside the grilled arch behind us. I could not make out his features, but I could see his hands. He had taken the handkerchief from me and was methodically tearing it into strips.
“Let us assume the worst,” I said. “That he suspects—er—the truth about you and—er—the other one. It cannot be more than a suspicion, and he cannot have passed it on to his—er—employer, or he would not—”
“Curse it, Peabody, don’t stutter!” Emerson snarled. “And don’t assume the worst! How can you sit there and—and assume things, in that cold-blooded fashion, when she is . . . When she may be . . . What time is it?”
“Father, please don’t look at your watch again,” Ramses said, in a voice so tightly controlled I expected it to crack. “It’s been less than half an hour. I don’t believe we need assume anything other than the obvious. The proposition was as direct as he dared make, and Nefret obviously understood his meaning too. She was with you when Russell told you he believed Wardani was collaborating with the enemy. The question of my identity is another matter altogether. There is no reason to believe Farouk knows about that, and Nefret certainly does not.”
“I wish we could tell her,” I murmured.
“You know why we cannot.” His eyes remained fixed on the gateway across the street. “Mother, she walked straight into that filthy den, with a gun pointing at her. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t stop to think before she acted. She has always been guided by her heart instead of her head; she always will be. If she lost that fiery temper of hers she might say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and—”
His voice did crack then. I put my hand over his. “There is something more,” I said. “Isn’t there? Some particular reason why you don’t trust her to hold her tongue. You never told us how Percy learned it was you who got him out of the bandit camp. Was it Nefret who gave you away?”
The hand under mine clenched into a fist. “Mother, for God’s sake! Not now!”
“Better now than later, or not at all. You said only three people knew—David, Lia, and Nefret. It could not have been David or Lia, they did not arrive in Egypt until after Percy had concocted his dastardly scheme to have you accused of fathering his child. Percy had been pursuing Nefret—”
“She didn’t mean to.” He spoke in a ragged whisper, his eyes still on the dark entrance to the Khan. “She couldn’t have known what he would do.”
“Of course not. My dear boy—”
“It’s all right.” He had got his breathing under control. “I don’t blame her; how could I? It was one of those damnable, unpredictable, uncontrollable sequences of events that no one could have anticipated. All I’m saying is that there’s no need for her to know more than she does already. What could she do but worry and want to help? Then I’d have to worry about her.”
“You are being unfair,” I said. “And perhaps just a little overprotective?”
“If I had been a little more protective or a little quicker, she wouldn’t be out there in the dark alleys of Cairo with a man who is approximately as trustworthy as a scorpion.” He lit another cigarette.
“You are smoking too much,” I said.
“No doubt.”
“Give me one. Please.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, but complied, and lit it for me. The acrid taste was like a penance. “It was my fault,” I said. “Not yours. You didn’t want her to come tonight. I thought I was being clever.”
“I can’t stand this any longer,” Emerson muttered. “I am going to look for her.”
“It’s all right,” Ramses said on a long exhalation of breath. “There she is.