The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [56]
“No, you did the right thing. Are you going to tell the Professor and Aunt Amelia?”
“I expect I had better, don’t you? Mother may have had doubts as well. She can be awfully coldblooded at times.”
“She’s cold-blooded about some things and hopelessly sentimental about others. I think David is one of the others—along with you and me and the Professor.”
“Me?” Ramses repeated, in surprise. “Good Lord, over the years she’s suspected me of every crime in the calendar. With good and sufficient reason, I admit.”
She moved with her habitual decisiveness, swinging her feet onto the floor and rising.
“Get some sleep,” she ordered. “And, Ramses …”
“Yes?”
She put both hands on his shoulders and looked up at him. “I know how much you miss David. You can’t confide in me as you do in him—men have their little secrets, just as women do!—but I wish you’d share some of your worries with me.”
“I shared this one.”
“After I caught you red-handed.” But her smile was very sweet and her face was very gentle. “I can always tell when you’re bothered about something, you know. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Admit you feel better now that you’ve told me.”
“Yes, I do.” He smiled at her. “Thank you, my girl.”
A rather odd look passed over her face.
“You’re tired, too,” Ramses said. “We’ll break the news at breakfast, then. After Father has had his coffee.”
When she had gone, he undressed, swearing when he saw the small hole and spot of blood on the back of his shirt. Perhaps Fatima could mend it before his mother noticed. That was unlikely, though, she noticed everything, and she would have something to say about ruining another shirt.
Tired as he was, he lay awake for a while thinking, not about David’s difficulties, but about Nefret. He wanted her as he had never wanted another woman, but he had resisted the temptation to demonstrate his feelings because he didn’t want to risk losing what she had given him that night—sympathy and affection and an understanding so complete it was like communicating with part of himself. Anyhow, there was no way of forcing that kind of love, especially with someone like Nefret. It came or it didn’t, sudden as a bolt of lightning, unpredictable as English weather.
Eventually he fell asleep.
FIVE
Surrounded by a circle of swords, I fought on. Had it not been for the girl…
My decision to find larger quarters had been taken none too soon. Tempers were becoming strained. Various persons were getting on other persons’ nerves. Horus always got on everyone else’s nerves, and confinement—for Nefret would not allow him to roam the noisome streets of Cairo—got on his nerves. Emerson grumbled and procrastinated when I asked him to pack his books and complained bitterly when I got Mahmud to do it; Ramses went about looking like a ghost, with dark circles under his eyes; Nefret brooded. When I asked if she was worried about something, she said she missed Lia and David.
We had all been disappointed to learn they did not mean to join us until after Christmas. David had been offered a wonderful opportunity to assist in restoring the frescoes of the palace of Knossos in Crete. He had always been interested in the Minoan influences on Egyptian art, and this invitation from Sir Arthur Evans, one of the most distinguished names in archaeology, was a tribute to David’s growing reputation as a skilled copyist. Lia, it was clear, did not care where she was so long as she was with him.
In my opinion, this news was not enough to account for Nefret’s uncharacteristic behavior. Hers was not a temperament given to gloomy introspection. With a young unmarried lady one particular explanation for mental perturbation comes to mind, so I set myself to determine whether a particular young man was responsible. Jack Reynolds and Geoffrey Godwin were the most likely suspects, I thought. Both were nice-looking, young, gentlemanly, well-educated, and professionally