Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (29 page)

           
“You’re
thinking of her, aren’t you?” Marvel stood up from her daybed and straightened
out the blue silken folds of her new Egyptian tunic.

           
Rowan
smiled at her. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said.

           
She
waved away the notion with her hand and came to stand next to him. “No, of
course, you’re worried,” she said. “She’s not at the camp. She’s not in Cairo.
So do you believe she is lost in the desert?”

           
“She’s
alive,” Rowan said. “That’s all that I know but I know at least that.”

           
Marvel
frowned. “Then living somewhere in the desert? Perhaps with one of the desert
tribes?”

           
Rowan
looked out the window of Marvel’s hotel suite at the legendary gardens of the
hotel. The sunset created pink steaks of light delicately descending to earth.

           
“Look,
Rowan,” Marvel said, taking his hand in hers. “Why not take me up on my offer?
Be my head of security. Stay here at Shepheard’s for as long as your search
takes. You know she’ll end up here. I mean, even if she is living with some
desert sheik and I’m not saying she is but sooner or later she’ll want a hot
bath and meat that hasn’t been fermented in the bladder of a goat. And she’ll
come to Cairo.”

           
Rowan
gave her a wry grin and carefully retrieved his hand. “You might have a point,”
he said.

           
“I
definitely do. So you’ll let me hire you?”

           
“Turns
out I could use a job. If you’re sure I can be of service to you.”

           
“Oh,
you can,” Marvel said, grinning. “You definitely can.”

           
Rowan
pretended to listen as Marvel chattered happily on about how they would live in
her rooms and how she hadn’t given up on getting into Carter’s camp. From her
balcony view he could see the minarets of the many mosques above the treetops.

 
          
The
fact was, he wasn’t sure if Ella had gone back to 2013 or was still wandering
around the desert. But short of going back to Dothan, Cairo seemed as good a
place as any to wait for her. After his talk with Olna, he was starting to
think—as hard as it was to believe—that this might be a case where
going looking for the thing he wanted was the least effective way of finding
it.

           
As
incredible as it sounded, maybe he really did just need to do nothing.

Chapter Twenty

           
What
Ella knew for sure about her new life was that she was living in paradise. She
was waited on for her every need by gentle and caring hands. A cadre of
Egyptian female servants moved silently about her world. She had spent what
felt like weeks in a dream. She often knew when she was walking—or being
helped to walk—but she felt no urgency to go from one place to another.
She remembered the boat and the hours and days of sunlight and the feeling of
being rocked by the waves beneath the
dahabiya.
She couldn’t remember when she had arrived at the palace. She couldn’t remember
entering it or what the grounds looked like. Halima told her that the palace
belonged to Dr. Zimmerman and that its gardens were very beautiful, a true
oasis of greenery in the hostile desert.

           
The
other thing Ella knew for sure about her new life was that she was a prisoner,
watched and guarded every moment of every day.

           
The
doctor visited frequently. Ella often took tea with him although the visits
were hazy in her memory. Halima served them both, handing Ella her teacup,
delicately spreading a thin linen napkin across her lap, and then recounting
the visits to Ella afterward.
What would
she do without Halima?
The woman was mother, friend, guide and guard all in
one. She was a beautiful woman, older than Ella, with dark, almond shaped eyes
and a wide, generous mouth.
 

           
When
Dr. Zimmerman asked after her health, it was Halima who answered for Ella. Halima
said he was an important physician from Europe. She said he was going to help
Ella have a big, healthy baby and that Ella should be grateful. Not all mothers
in Egypt had happy outcomes.

           
The
baby was growing bigger inside her with each passing week.

           
One
day, as Halima was helping her into her bath, Ella reached out and grabbed the
woman’s arm. Halima looked at her with surprise. “
Effendem
?” Halima said, clearly puzzled. “You are safe. I will not
let you fall.”

           
“Halima?”
Ella said, releasing her and easing herself into the warm tub. “Do you have
children, yourself?”

           
The
Egyptian woman sucked in a quick breath. She reached for the bath sponge and
soaked Ella’s back with lilac-scented soapy water. “I am not a mother in that
sense,” she said.

           
Ella
had skipped her breakfast that morning. Now she found herself more lucid, and
more clear headed than she had felt in weeks. In fact, for the first time since
coming to the palace, Ella noticed her surroundings. The room she sat in now
was constructed of rose marble, it held a wide western-facing window where the
desert sun heated the room and cast a warm glow on the walls. Stacks of thick
towels sat on pristine wooden counters, sanded to a polished sheen. Ewers of
oil and soap and precious water sat on the floor by the tub—a marble basin
that had been painstakingly hand-filled for Ella’s bath.

           
It
was clear to Ella that she had been drugged. A rising panic accompanied the
knowledge and she fought to camouflage it from her servants.
From Halima
. As she sat in the tub, Ella
looked around the bathing room and felt a chill emanate through to her very
bones. “How long have I been here?” she asked.

           
Halima
held the wet sponge to the front of her tunic and stared at Ella in mounting
horror. She turned to glance at the entrance of the bath and then at Ella. “A
month,” she said quietly.

           
Ella
put her hand to her abdomen, astonished at how much bigger she was. She looked
back at Halima who was still staring at her. “
Why
am I here?” she asked.

           
Halima
plunged the sponge into the bath and gripped Ella by the arm. She drew her face
close to Ella’s and whispered fiercely, “Horus is coming. You must not cover
up. You understand?” She shook Ella’s arm, her nails biting into Ella’s flesh.

           
Within
a moment a tall, large black man wearing only a loincloth entered the bath. Ella’s
first inclination was to throw her arms across her exposed breasts but then Halima’s
words leapt into her head:
You must not
cover up
. She forced her hands to stay in her lap as the man strode to the
bath and stood next to Halima. His ebony skin was greased to a high sheen. Ella
vaguely remembered him. He was Horus, the eunuch. Her eyes flickered to his
face and she saw how he ogled her, how he took in every inch of her.
Eunuch, my ass
, she found herself
thinking.

           
Horus
spoke abruptly to Halima and then backed away from the tub. Before he left the
room, Ella realized she was shaking. She grabbed the side of the marble tub to
prevent herself from slipping, and Halima held her gently by the arm.

           
“Come,
effendem
,” Halima said quietly. “He
is gone.”

           
Ella
allowed the woman to help her out of the tub and wrap her in long soft
toweling. Halima led her to a couch by the window where Ella sat, feeling the
strong rays of the sun penetrate the towel and warm her.
 

           
“You
did not eat your breakfast,” Halima said.

           
“I
guess I wasn’t hungry. Why are you drugging me?”

           
Halima
sat down next to Ella and looked out the window over the desert. “Dr. Zimmerman
thought it would be easier this way.”
 

           
“Easier
for whom? Easier to do what? Why am I being held here?”

           
“You
will not be harmed,
effendem
.”
 

           
“And
my baby?”

           
Halima
paused for just a split second. “Your baby will not be harmed.”
 

           
“Am
I here because someone wants to
take
my baby?” Ella asked, her body suddenly flooded with anxiety.

           
Halima
glanced at the door of the bathroom where Horus had disappeared. She did not
reply.

*
                     
*
                     
*
                     
*

           
Marvel
Newton stood at the top of the stairs at Shepheards and surveyed the group of
hotel guests in the lobby. In the crowd of dark and white faces, she was
looking for only one. When she spotted Rowan—tall and
handsome—standing out in the crowd like a movie star among
peasants—a warm feeling started in the pit of her stomach and spread to
her loins. His hair was tousled, worn longer than the fashion but it suited
him. She waited for the moment when he would look up and see her, his eyes
lighting up with pleasure. She knew he cared for her. She even knew he wanted
her. As she watched, he rose from his chair and began to move in her direction.
She loved his confidence and swagger and the way the crowd parted for him as he
moved through. She felt a throbbing between her legs and her face flushed pink
as he bounded up the stairs to her.

           
All
she had to do was wait.

           
“Hey,
Marvel,” he said when he reached her. “You really gonna wear that get-up in
public? Because we’re talking serious riot material here.”

           
“You
like it?”
 

           
“I
do. Being a red-blooded American male, I absolutely do.”

           
Her
dress was a bit showy for daywear, she knew that. Her mother would be appalled
to see Marvel showing so much bosom before eight o’clock. But even Mama would
recognize that special bait was needed to catch a big fish.
And, oh, Mama, this one was definitely big.

           
“You
ready?” Rowan held out his arm and Marvel latched on and leaned into him,
pressing her breast against his arm.

           
“I
am. I’m absolutely famished. Where are we going today?”

           
“Your
dollar, your call,” Rowan said, leading her down the stairs.

           
Marvel
felt a tinge of annoyance at his response. She didn’t enjoy being reminded that
she paid Rowan for the pleasure of his company.

           
Dear Lord
, she thought.
What was it going take to get this man into
her bed
?

           
“Surprise
me, my dear,” she said, batting her eyes.

           
“Well,
if you’re sure, we have had an invitation that might be interesting.”

           
Marvel
practically glowed at the thought that people regarded her and Rowan as a couple.
They had lived in the hotel for over a month now, separated only by one thin
wooden door. They ate nearly every meal together and except for those few times
when he inexplicably disappeared after dinner only to return in the wee hours, they
lived a comfortable, cozy and intimate life of an established couple.

           
“Sounds
fun,” she said as they entered the hotel’s grand dining room.

           
Rowan
knew he was hurrying her and he hated to do that but after a month of sitting
on his hands and making no progress as far as finding Ella, Marvel was lucky he
didn’t drag her into the dining room and fling her into the first available
chair. He decided that investigative work in 1922 was a whole lot harder and
more time consuming than in 2013. Here, you had to build relationships, observe
the proprietary norms, wait for cues and then your moment and then wait again. He
had heard a promising piece of information the night before but winkling it out
of his source had proved frustrating and, in the end, impossible.

           
While
cruising the dark alleys of nighttime Cairo had proved endlessly interesting
(if not downright dangerous), the Intel he gathered there was not usually
trustworthy. Still, even the wildest rumor might have a shred of truth to it.
When Ra told him a confederate was bragging about being robbed and ravished by
a white woman in the desert, Rowan asked to meet the man. Foul and nearly
incoherent from the opium pipe, the fellow had recently lost an ear and there
was something about his outlandish story that rang true. He had been the
dragoman
for a group of English tourists
when they were attacked by a squad of desert bandits. In the melee, (whereupon
the
dragoman
bragged that he had saved
his English charges—and the white women from certain ravishment) he was viciously
attacked by a saber-wielding white woman “
with
hair the color of the sun high in the sky
!” who insisted on straddling him,
her naked breasts bouncing higher and higher as she climbed his pole to her ecstasy.
He showed Rowan the gold coin his English masters had given him to keep his
mouth shut about the
effendim’s
dress
being torn from her shoulders. Even disregarding the rape-by-a-white-woman
element in the story, the man’s tale was hard to credit.

           
As
Rowan seated himself at the dining table and flapped out his napkin, it
occurred to him that there was just enough truth to the story to be believed. And
while Ella wasn’t blonde, Julia,
was
.

           
“Who
is it we’re supposed to be dining with?” Marvel asked, frowning and looking
around the large dining room.

           
“Oh,
you’ve seen her. You know, the one who lost her husband in the hunting
accident.”

           
“Lady
Bowerman?” Marvel looked at Rowan in astonishment. “
Lady Bowerman
asked us to lunch?”

           
“Well,
it might have been more
my
idea,”
Rowan said. “But she said yes. Oh, there she is.” He hopped up, and waited for
their guests to arrive at the table.

           
Lady
Bowerman was a class-A knock out, Rowan decided as he watched her approach. She
was voluptuous and full in all the right places. Her lips were dainty and pink,
pressed into a half-smile. But her eyes were a cold blue that would miss
nothing, of that he was sure.

           
“Mr.
Pierce,” she said as she approached the table. She held out her hand.

           
“Lady
Bowerman.” He turned to Marvel and introduced them. Lady Bowerman’s traveling
companion was a sour-faced older woman named Benson who did an effective job of
making her mistress look even more beautiful by comparison. Rowan nodded at her.