The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [55]
The shutters were closed and the room was warm. She lay on her side, facing the door, one hand under her cheek. The lamplight burnished the damp curls on her temple to copper, and brushed her quiet lashes with gold. As a concession to his mother’s notions of propriety she had put on a dressing gown, if that term applied—it looked more like a bridal dress, translucent white silk and lace ruffles and bits of ribbon.
A sharp pain in his chest reminded him he hadn’t breathed for a while. He let the air slowly out of his lungs, remembering a particularly asinine statement he had heard from one of the asinine young officers at the Turf Club. “One doesn’t behave like a cad with a lady.” The permutations had entertained him off and on for days. Was it permissible to behave like a cad with a woman who wasn’t a lady? What was the precise definition of “lady,” and, for that matter, “caddish” behavior? To behave like a cad with a sleeping lady must be even more reprehensible. However, considering he was in for an extremely unladylike tongue-lashing when she woke up, some small degree of caddishness might be allowable. He bent over her and laid his palm lightly on the curve of her cheek, brushing the coppery curls with gentle fingers.
Her eyes popped open.
“Caught in the act,” she said.
“Dead to rights,” Ramses admitted.
He removed his hand and watched her pull herself to a sitting position.
“I had to come here to find your message,” she said accusingly. “The conventional method would have been to slip it under my door.”
No use asking why she had gone to his room. She did that sort of thing all the time, whenever an inspiration or an idea or a worry struck her.
“This wasn’t your first expedition, was it?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“Thank goodness. You look exhausted. Lie down, why don’t you?”
She moved over, in a flurry of filmy white, to make room for him.
“No,” Ramses said. “Kind of you, but … What are you doing, softening me for the slaughter? Get it over, Nefret, so I can lick my wounds and go to bed.”
“I’m not going to scold you. I understand why you couldn’t take me with you.”
“You do?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I have sensible moments, you know. You can save the detailed report until morning; just tell me whether Wardani admitted … said it was David who …”
Her wide, imploring blue eyes met his as if she expected him to know how the sentence should end. Physical fatigue and other distractions muddled his thinking. It took him a few seconds to comprehend.
“You wondered? Then I wasn’t the only one who …”
“What fools we sound,” Nefret said ruefully. “My poor dear, I knew you’d feel guilty, you always do, and you mustn’t. I love David, too, and I had my doubts as well. It didn’t really dawn on me until the other evening, when Aunt Amelia was coolly discussing her suspects, and you pointed out that they were all friends, people we would ordinarily trust and admire, and then I realized that David was the most obvious suspect of all, and that although he would never be dishonest on his own account, he might consider his cause more important than his principles, and … I hated myself, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.”
“Neither could I. I think we can now, though.”
“Really? Truly?”
He laughed a little at the childish questions. “I said I think. But Wardani insisted he knew nothing about the forgeries, and if he was lying he did a damned convincing job of it.”
“You asked him point-blank?”
“I had to be fairly direct, there was no other way. He seemed to be completely thunderstruck. I only hope I didn’t put ideas into his head. However, he was quick to agree when I pointed out that if David were accused of dealing in forgeries it would damage not only David’s reputation but that of all Egyptians, and of the movement and its leader. He’s frightfully self-conscious about honor and that sort of thing. So I decided I might as well tell him everything.