• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1589 0

not think I would have hit him if—quite unintentionally, I feel sure—his violent shaking had not brought my head into painful contact with the wall behind me. I had lost my hat during our flight and my hair had come down, so there was nothing to cushion the blow. It hurt enough to remove any inhibitions I might have had about hurting him back. All the same, if I had not been in a state of considerable emotional excitability (for various reasons) I would not have done it. Except for playful gestures of quite another nature (which are irrelevant to this narrative) I had never struck Emerson. It would not have been playing the game to strike an opponent who is unable to hit back.

I certainly did not intend to hit him on the face. My wild blow landed square on his bandaged cheek.

The effect was remarkable. With a long gasping intake of pain (and, I presume, fury) he shifted his grip. One arm encircled my shoulders, the other my ribs. Pulling me to him, he pressed his lips to mine.

He had NEVER kissed me like that before. Between the steely strength of his arm and the pressure of his mouth, my head was bent back at an angle so acute that I felt my neck must snap. Between the unyielding barrier of the wall at my back and the hard muscles of his body, mine was crushed as if in a vise. What with constant practice and assiduous study, Emerson’s natural talents at osculation had been honed to a fine pitch; but he had never kissed me like THAT before. (And I certainly hoped he had never kissed anyone ELSE like that before.) My senses were not gently wooed; they were assaulted, mastered, overcome.

When at last he let me go I would have fallen had it not been for the wall against which I leaned. As the roaring of blood in my ears subsided, I heard other voices, crying out in question and alarm. Rising above them all was a voice I took to be that of Cyrus, for it called my name, though I would scarcely have recognized it otherwise.

“We are here,” Emerson shouted through the opening. “Safe and unharmed. Stand by, I will hand her out.”

Then he turned to me. “I beg your pardon,” he said quietly. “That was an unforgivable action for a gentleman— which, despite some eccentricities of behavior, I like to consider myself. You have my word of honor it will never happen again.”

I was too shaken to reply, which is probably just as well; for if I had, I would have blurted out what I was thinking: “Oh, yes, it will—if I have anything to say about it!”

CHAPTER 12

“Once a man has taken refreshment in your home and a chair in your sitting room, you are less likely to pitch him into a pond.”

THERE was nothing for it but to take Cyrus into my confidence.

“It was Kevin O’Connell I had to see,” I explained. “I told you he would turn up, and so he has. Selim delivered a message from him yesterday.”

I sat on a camp stool drinking tea, for I felt myself entitled to a mild restorative. Emerson, of course, had immediately returned to work. Cyrus had not followed him; he now lay sprawled on the rug at my feet like a fallen warrior, his face hidden in his arms.

I nudged him gently with my toe. “What you need,” I said, “is a nice hot cup of tea.”

Cyrus rolled over and sat up. His face was still flushed, though the livid color it had originally exhibited had faded somewhat. “I have never been a drinking man,” he said, endeavoring to control his voice. “But I am beginning to understand how a man can be driven to drink. Never mind the darned tea. Where is that bottle of brandy?”

He was only joking, of course. I handed him a cup of tea. “Give me the benefit of your advice, Cyrus. What am I to do about Kevin?”

“Amelia, you are the most… You have an absolutely unparalleled… You—you—”

“We have already had that conversation, Cyrus. I said I was sorry to have worried you, but as you see, it has all turned out for the best. We have captured Mohammed! One enemy the less! And as soon as his broken nose heals we can question him and find out who hired him.”

“One down,” said Cyrus gloomily. “How many to go? If you are going to take risks like that to