Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [97]
“If you apologize I’ll kill you,” Nefret whispered. Her arms went around his neck.
When they left the shop a little later there was only one thing on both their minds, and the few words they exchanged that night had nothing to do with Sethos or corpses. Ramses’s last coherent thought, before exhaustion overcame him, was that she had been right when she told him he didn’t understand women. Obviously he had a lot to learn even about his own wife.
Nefret was in one of her sunniest moods next morning. He woke to hear her clear voice singing little snatches of her favorite melodies—the more saccharine bits from romantic operettas—as she moved around the room. “ ‘When you’re away dear, How dreary the lonesome hours . . . Never again let us part, dear, I die without you, mine own! Hold me against your—’ ”
The high note wobbled. “Wrong key,” Ramses said with a laugh. “You’re a mezzo, not a coloratura.”
“And you are very lazy.” She leaned over him and sang it again, straight into his face. “ ‘Hold me against your heart!’ But not now. Mohammed is heating your bathwater.”
When he came up she was already at the table, and Nasir was nowhere in sight. “I told him we didn’t need him,” she explained. “We’ve a lot to talk about.”
“Yes.” He waited until she had filled his cup and put the pot down. Then he took her hand in his. “Nefret, I—”
“I told you not to apologize.”
“No. I mean, yes, you did. But—”
“I’ve been wanting you to do that for months.” The dimple in her cheek deepened. “You’re adorable when you’re in a temper.”
“I suppose I deserved that,” Ramses said ruefully. “But I don’t understand why—”
“You’ve been treating me as if I were someone you didn’t know very well and were afraid of offending,” Nefret said indignantly. “Do you realize that was the first real, loud, honest-to-goodness argument we’ve had since we were married?”
“An argument’s one thing, and if that’s what you want I’ll do my best to cooperate from now on. But handling you like that—”
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to crrrush me in your arms and overpower me every day of the week! But now and then it makes for an interesting change.”
“Oh.” Still mildly confused but infinitely relieved, he said hopefully, “I suppose if it weren’t spontaneous it wouldn’t be the same? I mean, you couldn’t drop me a hint when you—”
“Absolutely not.” A little gurgle of amusement escaped her lips. “You might give me my hand back; I need it to pour. Drink your coffee and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
It was a lurid story; certain of the details must have come directly from his mother’s letter, they had the ring of her prose. The police had found nothing that would lead them to the killer, but the identification of the body was certain.
“The name wasn’t in the newspaper story,” Nefret added. “You can thank Mr. Russell for that.”
“I’m surprised the newspapers picked it up. An anonymous Egyptian—”
“Discovered in an ancient tomb by a lady who has a certain notoriety,” Nefret finished. “Russell couldn’t keep that information from the press, most of the gaffirs at Giza were on the scene at the time. And there is a journalist presently in Cairo who once specialized in the extraordinary adventures of the Emerson family.”
“Damnation, that’s right. Miss Minton.”
“Mother and Father make wonderful copy,” Nefret said with a smile. “With press censorship so strict, there’s not much in the way of real news. One can hardly blame the woman for exploiting this.”
“I suppose not. Were there any references to curses?”
“Several.” Nefret hesitated, but only briefly. “There was something else in her letter I didn’t tell you about. Miss Minton may be on her way here.”
“I am dense, amn’t I? That’s why you didn’t want to dine at the hotel, you were afraid we’d run into her. Is there any other little detail you’ve neglected to mention? Assault, attempted abduction?”
“Well . . .”
“Good God!” He jumped to his feet. “Who? When? Why the hell didn’t you—”
“I’m sorry,” Nefret whimpered. “She swore me to secrecy.”
Ramses got a grip on himself. “You don’t