He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [174]
“I didn’t. I was afraid she’d do precisely what she did tonight, after she saw us together—lecture, sympathize, advise. She was . . . in fact, she was very sweet. And she told me a few things about her and Father that came as a considerable shock!”
“Did you tell her you and Nefret had . . .” David hesitated delicately.
“Tell my mother we’d been lovers? Good God, David, are you out of your mind?”
“The Professor doesn’t know either, I suppose.”
“Not from me,” said his son grimly. “He’s a Victorian gentleman, and you know how he feels about Nefret. If I’d confided in anyone, it would have been you, but I didn’t think I had the right. Lia shouldn’t have told you either.”
“I’m glad she did. It helped me to understand why Nefret acted as she did.”
“You never showed me that letter she wrote Lia.”
“Lia never showed it to me—nor should she have done, it was meant for her eyes only. She told me enough, though. Ramses, you damned fool, Nefret was head over heels in love with you, and I believe she still is. Why won’t you tell her how you feel? Haven’t you forgiven her for doubting you?”
“I forgave her long ago, and I would trust her with my life. But I won’t trust her with yours, David. She’s been seeing Percy. Secretly.”
David sucked in his breath. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. She’s met with him several times, and he was hiding in the shrubbery while we—er—talked. I spotted him before I lost complete control of myself, but the only way I could keep matters from proceeding further was to say something utterly unforgivable to Nefret.”
“Ah,” said David. “So she was not unwilling? Hang it, Ramses, when are you going to stop making a martyr of yourself?”
“As soon as this is over. Once we’re in the clear I’ll plead with her, humble myself, or drag her off by her hair—whatever it takes. Just now I daren’t risk it. Percy’s on to me, you know. Oh, not the Wardani business, at least I hope to God not, but he suspects I’m involved in something and he’s trying to find out what it is. That’s why he’s been paying me those extravagant and very public compliments. He probably approached Nefret in the hope that he could learn more. She’s the weak link in our circle, or so Percy would assume. He’s such a conceited bastard, he thinks no woman can resist him.”
“And she, in turn, is hoping to learn something from him? That sounds like Nefret, all right. I don’t understand, though. Why should Percy care what you’re doing?”
“Doesn’t a possible reason occur to you?”
“Aside from the fact that he hates you and would stop at nothing to injure you? There’s no chance of that. Even if he found out what you’re doing, which God forbid, he couldn’t use it against you.”
“You don’t understand,” Ramses said angrily. “Even after all the other things he’s done, you don’t realize what he’s capable of. Why do you suppose I wanted Sennia to stay in England this winter? I knew I’d be preoccupied with this other business and unable to watch over her as closely as I’ve done before. Percy hates the lot of us, and the sweetest, neatest revenge he could find would be through that child. Can you imagine the effect on Father if anything happened to her?”
“On all of us.”
“Yes. She’s safe from him, but Nefret is another matter. You may think I’m making a martyr of myself without sufficient cause, but I had to do what I did tonight. Have you forgotten what happened the last time he saw Nefret and me in what he took to be a lover’s embrace? His vanity is as swollen and fragile as a balloon. God knows what he might do to her if he thought she was only feigning interest in him in order to trick him. She’s too brave and reckless to recognize danger, and too impulsive to guard her tongue when a slip could be disastrous, and he’s always wanted her, and he—”
“Stop it.” David put an arm round his shoulders. “Don’t do this to yourself. Not even Percy would injure Nefret to get back at you.”
Ramses felt like Cassandra, howling warnings into deaf ears. He forced himself to speak slowly and calmly.
“He raped a thirteen-year-old girl and left her child