The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [72]
“What were you talking about with his mother?”
“Him. And his father. That’s all she can talk about! She refers to the old boy as ‘my husband, Mr. Albion.’ I thought women stopped doing that fifty years ago.”
Her amusement reduced the Albions to the eccentric nuisances they were and made Ramses ashamed he had let Sebastian rouse his temper. “What does she call the bastard?”
Nefret chuckled. “Well, I don’t think he is, literally. He is always ‘my son Sebastian.’ The way she pronounces the words, they sound like a royal title.”
“When can we go home?”
Nefret squeezed his hand. “Anytime, poor darling. You’ve been a very good boy and deserve a reward.”
He smiled and her heart skipped a beat, as it always did when he looked at her in a certain way. I’m hopeless, she thought. Hopeless, and glad of it.
Emerson wasn’t ready to leave. He still had a few things to explain to Bertie, and then he had to go over the whole thing again with Cyrus, who had joined the group.
“Go on, if you like,” he said amiably.
“May I come with you?” Jumana asked.
“Of course,” Nefret said, reproaching herself for having neglected the girl. In company like this she needed all the support she could get.
Ramses gallantly offered Jumana his arm, and didn’t even wince when she giggled and hung on to it. He was making it up to her for an insult she didn’t know she had received, and his infatuated wife was reminded again of how utterly she adored him.
She took his other arm, and they made their way to the door. Then she felt the muscles under her hand harden. He would have hurried them on if Sebastian had not intercepted them.
“I misunderstood,” he mumbled. “I beg your pardon.”
Whose pardon? Nefret wondered. He had addressed Ramses, hadn’t even looked at her or Jumana.
Ramses nodded brusquely and led his ladies to the waiting carriage.
“Who was that?” Jumana asked curiously. “He was very polite.”
“A tourist,” Ramses answered. “Very boring, as Sennia would say.”
Jumana laughed, and began to chatter, repeating what Emerson had said about Deir el Medina. She had an excellent memory.
Nefret leaned back and let her talk. Young Albion had had to nerve himself for that encounter. Why had he taken the trouble? To ingratiate himself and his family with the Emersons? Ignoring Jumana was probably the most sensible thing he could have done. He certainly couldn’t request an introduction to a girl he hoped to seduce from the man who had warned him off.
At breakfast Emerson droned on and on about his plans. He had arranged to meet Cyrus and Bertie at Deir el Medina so he could go over the whole thing again with them. Nothing Ramses and I had said had had the slightest effect on the stubborn man, and when I realized he meant to go ahead with his ridiculous scheme, I had to take a firm grip on my temper. I had no intention of allowing him to do any such thing, but a loud argument at the breakfast table would have been ill-bred, especially with Sennia present.
“If that is what you plan to do, you won’t need me,” I announced. “I am going to Luxor. Nefret, you had better come with me. Thanks to the selfish demands of certain persons, you haven’t had a chance to purchase anything you need for the house.”
Instead of objecting to the oblique reference to him, Emerson looked relieved. He didn’t want to listen to a lecture from me any more than I wanted to listen to one from him. I had a brief discussion with Miss Sennia, who wanted to join the shopping expedition, but I finally got them all off. Nefret and I then went to her house so that I could make a few useful suggestions about necessities.
Everything appeared to be in order. I knew it would be, since Fatima was in charge, but there was no harm in seeing for myself. Najia was already busy in the parlor, sweeping and dusting. The birthmark was not really disfiguring—only a reddish stain that covered most of one cheek—but she kept her face averted while we conversed. She had tried, clumsily, to conceal it with a layer of whitish paste, which in my opinion was more conspicuous than the birthmark. I reminded myself