The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [34]
The attempt might have succeeded by its very audacity. What else could the audience assume but that my notoriously eccentric spouse had entered into the spirit of the masque and was playing the role his costume had inspired? I heard one idiotic woman shriek, “How romantic!” My struggles were taken for part of the charade, and they weakened as I grew faint from lack of oxygen.
Then a voice rang out—a voice famous throughout the length of Egypt for its resonance and audibility. It reassured, it inspired me; my strength returned, my struggles were renewed. The grip that held me loosened. I felt myself flying through the air; reached out, groping and blinded; braced myself for the impact I knew must follow… And struck a solid but yielding surface with a force that drove the last of the straining breath from my lungs. I clutched at it; it recoiled from me with a grunt of effort and then, recovering, caught and held me.
I opened my eyes. I had not needed to see him to know whose arms enclosed me, but the sight of the beloved face—crimson with choler, eyes blazing like sapphires—left me too weak to speak. Emerson drew a deep, shuddering breath.
“Damnation!” he roared. “Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes, Peabody?”
CHAPTER 4
“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.”
WHY didn’t you pursue the fellow?” I demanded. Emerson kicked the bedroom door shut and dropped me unceremoniously onto the bed. He had carried me straight upstairs and he was breathing rather heavily. Our rooms were on the third floor, but I fancied it was exasperation rather than exertion that had quickened his breath. The tone in which he replied further strengthened this theory.
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Peabody! He threw you straight at me, like a bundle of laundry. Would you rather I had let you fall to the floor? Even if I had been so coldblooded, I reacted instinctively; and by the time I had recovered myself he was long gone.”
I sat up and began to straighten my disheveled hair. Somewhere along the way I had lost my pith helmet. I reminded myself to search for it next day; it was a new one and very expensive.
“The implied reproach was unfair, Emerson. I apologize. It would take him only a minute to achieve anonymity by divesting himself of his robes. They were not an exact copy of yours but they were close enough.”
“Confounded fancy dress!” Emerson had divested himself of his robe; he tossed it into a corner and plucked the headdress from his head. I let out a cry.
“Is that blood on your face? Come here and let me see.”
After some masculine grumbling he consented to let me have a look. (He likes being fussed over but refuses to admit it.) There was only a small trace of blood on his temple but it marked a tender spot that would no doubt blossom into a purple bruise before morning. “What the devil have you been up to?” I asked.
Emerson stretched out on the bed. “I had a little adventure of my own. You don’t suppose it was Divine Guidance that brought me to your rescue in the traditional nick of time, do you?”
“I could believe in Divine Guidance, my dear. Are you not always at my side when danger threatens?”
Leaning over him, I pressed my lips to the wound. “Ouch,” said Emerson.
“What happened?”
“I had gone out for a smoke and some intelligent conversation,” Emerson explained.
“Out of the hotel?”
“No one in the hotel—saving your presence, my dear—is capable of intelligent conversation. I thought Abdul or Ali might be hanging about. As I strolled innocently through the gardens, three men jumped me.”
“Three? Was that all?”
Emerson frowned. “It was rather odd,” he said. “The fellows were, I believe, ordinary Cairene thugs. If they had intended to murder me, they might have done some damage, for as you know, they all carry knives. They never used them, only their bare hands.”
“Bare hands did not inflict this wound,