Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [128]
“Make our excuses, Ramses, your Arabic is better than mine.”
“Yes, sir, certainly. We must go now, Yusuf.”
“Wait.” Bertie caught at his sleeve. “Who’s that?”
Ramses turned. He hadn’t recognized her before; she was wearing European clothing—a divided skirt belted tight around her narrow waist, a neat flannel coat, and a pith helmet that fit much better than the other. It was an old one of Nefret’s, he supposed, like the rest of the outfit. Her black hair had been coiled and knotted at the back of her neck. Ramses wondered if Yusuf had seen her, improperly attired and in the middle of a crowd. Maybe not. She had kept in the background until then, and the clothes made quite a difference in her appearance.
Catching his eye, she drew herself up to her full five feet and gave him a dazzling smile before melting back into the mob.
“Who is she?” Bertie demanded. He had caught only the fringe of the smile, but he looked as if he had been hit over the head with a brick.
“You’ll meet her later,” Nefret said.
“That’s certain,” Ramses muttered. Nefret turned her laugh into a cough, and began issuing orders. “Katherine, you and Cyrus ride with Bertie. We’ll catch you up at the ferry landing. Daoud will bring the luggage on later.”
The carriage drove away. Bertie had twisted round to look back. Lips compressed, Ramses handed his bride into the second carriage. “You gave her the clothes?”
“Yes, why not? I got tired of seeing that pathetic old pith helmet slide down over her eyes. She’s much tinier than I am, of course, but I showed her how to—”
“Did you anticipate this?”
“I expected she’d turn up today, if that’s what you mean. As for Bertie . . . well, Mother told us he needed a new interest, didn’t she? I think he may have found it.”
One of the graceful feluccas took them across the river, to the dock where Cyrus’s carriage was waiting. Nefret firmly declined Cyrus’s pressing invitation to return with them to the house.
“You’ll want to settle in and have a little rest. We’ll see you this evening.”
“Come early and stay late,” Cyrus said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, I reckon.” He drew a long breath. “It sure is good to be back.”
Daoud turned up at the Amelia a short while later, bursting with conversation and questions. They had a good long gossip, mostly about domestic and professional matters.
“When are you coming back to Cairo?” Daoud asked, somewhat accusingly. “The Father of Curses will not finish the excavation of the last mastaba until you return, and the Little Bird misses you. She wept very loudly when they said she could not come to Luxor with us.”
Ramses smiled at that only too accurate adverb, but Nefret said, “You might at least write her a personal message, Ramses. Sit down and do it right now, and Daoud can take it with him. Must you go back tonight, Daoud?”
“Oh, yes. The Father of Curses cannot get on without me. I will spend a little time with Yusuf in Gurneh before I take the train. Is there something I can do for you before I go? Letters to carry back? News to tell?”
There was plenty of news. The question was, how much to tell Daoud? She had posted her letter the day before, but they probably would not receive it until the following week.
“Yes,” she said. “There is news. Important news.”
Ramses looked up from the sheet of paper over which he was frowning. (Why did men find it so difficult to write a chatty, informal note?)
“First,” she said, “Miss Minton is asking questions of everyone in Luxor about illegal antiquities dealings. Second . . .”
“Nefret,” Ramses said apprehensively. He had mistaken the reason for her hesitation. She frowned back at him. Did he really suppose she would inform the parents of Sethos’s reappearance without consulting him? The news about the accident would have to wait too; Daoud would make it sound more alarming than it was. He might even insist on staying in Luxor to watch over them.
“Second,