The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [184]
“You know better than that,” Ramses said sharply. “People would talk.”
“You needn’t sound so cross. I know they would and I don’t care if they do. Goodness, what nuisances ‘people’ are.”
“True,” Ramses conceded. “I expect we’ll leave for home earlier than usual. That will make one person happy, at any rate.”
David hadn’t even been listening. Eyes half closed, lips curved, he was in a happy trance of his own.
“Wake up,” Ramses said affectionately. He stretched out a booted foot and nudged David’s shoulder.
“I heard. Do you think we will? Really?”
Nefret laughed. “Leave it to me, David. How many times have you written her since she left?”
“Every day. But letters aren’t very—” He broke off, staring. “Where did you get that?”
Nefret struck a match and held it to the end of the long thin cigar she held between her teeth. Her cheeks went in and out like a bellows as she puffed.
“Mr. Vandergelt?” Ramses suggested, taking firm hold of the arms of the chair and trying to control his voice.
“I wanted to try it,” Nefret explained, after four matches and a fit of coughing.“I don’t see what’s so funny. Mr. Vandergelt laughed too, but he swore he wouldn’t tell Aunt Amelia. I don’t know, though. Why do they smell so much nicer than they taste?”
“You aren’t supposed to inhale,” Ramses said.
“Oh, really? Hmm.” She blew out a cloud of smoke. “I think I’ve got the hang of it. May I have a glass of wine, please?”
“So you can be thoroughly depraved?” Ramses said. He let David hand her the wine, though. He was afraid to get any closer.
“This isn’t depraved, it’s nice.” Nefret leaned back against the head of the bed and beamed at them. “It’s glorious. I don’t want anything to change. I want it to be like this forever.”
“What, drinking wine and smoking cigars? You’ll get painfully drunk if nothing worse,” Ramses said.
“I’ve never been drunk. I’d like to try it sometime.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” A picture formed in his mind, of Nefret laughing and a bit unsteady on her feet, her hair coming down and her lips parted . . . He gave himself a hard mental kick.
“You know what I mean,” Nefret said. “I like us the way we are, all of us. I could almost be angry with you, David, for changing things, but I’m not really, because Lia is a darling and she won’t take you away from us. It’s different for men. They bring their wives home, just as they’ve always done. Women have to give up everything when they marry—their homes, their freedom, even their names. So I’m not going to.”
Ramses was speechless. It was David who replied, after a nervous look at his friend. “Not marry? Isn’t that a biter—dogmatic? What if you fall in love with someone?”
Nefret waved her cigar. “Then he’ll have to take my name and do what I want to do, and come and live with you and Aunt Amelia and the Professor.”
“I’m not at all sure Mother would agree to that arrangement,” Ramses said. “She probably looks forward to the day when she can be rid of the lot of us.”
“You’ll bring your bride home, won’t you?”
“No,” Ramses said. “Not home to Mother. Not . . . Can we please talk about something else?”
David gave him a quick glance and asked Nefret where she thought they ought to work next season. The cigar was a help too; she was a little green in the face by the time she had finished it, and declared she was ready for bed. David went with her to the door and closed it carefully after her.
Ramses was sitting upright, with his head in his hands. David jogged his elbow. “Have another glass of wine.”
“No. That just makes it worse.” He went to the wash-basin and splashed water on his face, then stood dripping over the basin with his hands braced on the table.
“She didn’t mean it,” David said.
“She bloody well did.” Ramses swiped at his face with the towel, dropped it onto the floor and went back to his chair. “She’s such a child,” he said helplessly. “What happened to her, during those years, to make her so—so unaware? She’s never talked about it. Do you suppose someone . . .”
“Is that what’s been tormenting