He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [12]
“Do you need medical attention, Ramses?” Percy asked solicitously.
“No.”
As he followed Cecil and the others at a discreet distance, Ramses knew he had lost another round to his cousin. There was no doubt in his mind that Percy had prodded Simmons and the others into that “ungentlemanly” act. He was good at insinuating ideas into people’s heads; the poor fools probably didn’t realize even now that they had been manipulated into punishing someone Percy hated but was afraid to tackle himself.
Ramses went round the clubhouse and stopped at the front entrance, wondering whether to go in. A glance at his watch informed him it was getting on for half past ten, and he decided he’d made a sufficient spectacle of himself already.
He let the doorman get him a cab. Recognizing him, the driver laid his whip aside and greeted him enthusiastically. None of the Emersons allowed the horses to be whipped, but the size of the tip made up for that inconvenience. “What happened to you, Brother of Curses?” he inquired, employing Ramses’s Arabic soubriquet.
Ramses put him off with an explanation that was extremely improper and obviously false, and got into the cab. He was still thinking about Percy.
They had despised one another since their childhood days, but Ramses hadn’t realized how dangerous Percy could be until he’d tried to do his cousin a favor.
It only went to prove the truth of his father’s cynical statement: no good deed ever goes unpunished. Wandering aimlessly through Palestine, Percy had been taken prisoner and held for ransom by one of the bandits who infested the area. When Ramses went into the camp to get him out, he found his cousin comfortably ensconced in Zaal’s best guest room, well supplied with brandy and other comforts and waiting complacently to be ransomed.
He hadn’t recognized Ramses in his Bedouin disguise, and after watching Percy snivel and grovel and resist escape with the hysteria of a virgin fighting for her virtue, Ramses had realized it would be wiser not to enlighten him as to the identity of his rescuer. Percy had found out, though. Ramses had not underestimated his resentment, but he had not anticipated the malevolent fertility of Percy’s imagination. Accusing Ramses of fathering his carelessly begotten and callously abandoned child had been a masterstroke.
Yet tonight Percy had defended him, physically and verbally. Spouting high-minded sentiments in front of Lord Edward Cecil was designed to raise that influential official’s opinion of Captain Percival Peabody, but there must be something more to it than that—something underhanded and unpleasant, if he knew Percy. What the devil was he planning now?
:
I looked forward with considerable curiosity to our meeting with Mr. Russell. I had known him for some years and esteemed him highly, in spite of his underhanded attempts to make Ramses into a policeman. Not that I have anything against policemen, but I did not consider it a suitable career for my son. Emerson had nothing against policemen either, but he was not fond of social encounters, and, like Nefret, I suspected he had an ulterior motive in proposing we dine with Russell.
Russell was waiting for us in the Moorish Hall when we arrived. His sandy eyebrows went up at the sight of Nefret, and when Emerson said breezily, “Hope you don’t mind our bringing Miss Forth,” I realized that the invitation had been Russell’s, not Emerson’s.
Nefret realized it at the same time, and gave me a conspiratorial smile as she offered Russell her gloved hand. Emerson never paid the least attention to social conventions, and Russell had no choice but to appear pleased.
“Why, uh, yes, Professor—that is, I am delighted, of course, to see—uh—Miss—uh—Forth.”
His confusion was understandable. Nefret had resumed her maiden name after the death of her husband, and Cairo society had found this hard to accept. They found a good many of Nefret’s acts hard to accept.
We went at once to the dining salon and the table Mr.