He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [127]
“You know of Lia’s situation,” Nefret said. “A friend would wish to avoid worrying or frightening her. You’ve written her a pack of gossip, most of it untrue and all of it malicious. If I hear of your doing it again I’ll slap your face in public and—and—”
“Proclaim your perfidy to the world?” Ramses suggested. The corners of his mouth were twitching.
“Not quite how I would have put it, but that’s the idea,” Nefret said.
Sylvia burst into tears and was removed by her twittering companions.
“Good Gad,” Emerson said helplessly. “What was that all about?”
“You were very rude, Nefret,” I said, trying to sound severe and not entirely succeeding. “What was it she told Lia?”
“Something about me, I presume,” Ramses said. “No doubt you meant well, Nefret, but that temper of yours—”
Nefret shrank as if from a blow, and he stopped in mid-sentence. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”
“You shouldn’t have reproached her, Ramses,” I said, watching Nefret hasten toward the door of the hotel, her head bowed. “She had already begun to regret her hasty speech, she always does after she loses her temper.”
“I didn’t mean what she thought I meant.” He looked almost as stricken as Nefret. “Damn it, why do I always say the wrong thing?”
“Because women always take everything the wrong way,” Emerson grumbled.
When Nefret came back she was smiling and composed, and accompanied. Lieutenant Pinckney, looking very pleased with himself, was with her. Naturally, with a stranger present, none of us referred to the small unpleasantness. Emerson would not have been deterrred by the presence of a stranger, but he still had no idea what the fuss had been about.
After greeting Lieutenant Pinckney I allowed the young people to carry on the conversation. As my eyes wandered over the faces of the other patrons, I was reminded of something Nefret had said: “I feel that everyone I see is wearing a mask, and playing a part.” I had the same feeling now. All those vacuous, well-bred (and not so well-bred) faces—could one of them be a mask, concealing the features of a deadly foe?
There was Mrs. Fortescue, clad as usual in black, surrounded as usual by admirers. Many of them were officers; many of them were highly placed. To judge from her encounter with Ramses, the lady (to give her the benefit of the doubt) was no better than she should be. Philippides, the corrupt head of the CID, was also among those present. Was he a traitor as well as a villain? Mrs. Pettigrew was staring at me, and so was her husband; the two round red faces were set in identical expressions of supercilious disapproval. No, surely not the Pettigrews; neither of them had the intelligence to be a spy. The swirl of a black cloak—Count de Sevigny, stalking like a stage villain toward the entrance of the hotel. He did bear a startling resemblance to another villain I had once known, but Kalenischeff was long dead, killed by the man he had attempted to betray.
Ramses excused himself and rose. I watched him descend the stairs and plunge into the maelstrom of howling merchants who immediately surrounded him. Since he was a head taller than most of them, it was not difficult for me to follow his progress. He examined the wares of several flower sellers before approaching another man, bent and tremulous with age. As soon as Ramses had made his purchase, the fellow ducked his head and withdrew.
The pretty little nosegays were rather wilted. Ramses presented one to me and the other to Nefret. She looked up at him with a particularly kindly expression; it was clear that she had taken the flowers as a tacit apology and that all was forgiven. Since she had been deep in conversation with young Mr. Pinckney, I felt sure she had not seen the exchange.
Emerson was fidgeting. He had only agreed to come to Shepheard’s to enable Ramses to communicate with David; now that that was done, he allowed his boredom to show.
“Time