Lady Emily's Exotic Journey (28 page)
Read Lady Emily's Exotic Journey Online
Authors: Lillian Marek
London, four years later
What first caught her eye was the way he was striding along Oxford Street, so unlike the languid stroll of most gentlemen, even in the chill of late January. He was turned away, of course, and it was already starting to get dark, so she couldn't be sure. After all, for years now her eye had been caught by glimpses of men who might be him. It had surprised her, the number of tall, broad-shouldered, brown-haired men in the world.
At the corner he stopped and looked to the side, and Lady Elinor caught sight of the high cheekbone, the angle of the jaw. She grasped her mother's arm. “Mama, isn't that⦔ She couldn't finish.
Lady Penworth looked at the young man her daughter was staring at. “Good heavens, it is!” She stepped forward and called out, “Lord Tunbury!”
He had to stop and turn, of course. Even if he hadn't wanted to, her mother's callâher shout, to be bluntâhad drawn attention to him. At first he just stared at them, almost as if he were afraid. As if Harry had ever been afraid of anything. Harry, who had always been the first to race down a cliff or dive into the water or send his horse flying over the hedge. Didn't he recognize them? But he had to know that he couldn't just stand there staring. He finally did move toward them, even if not quite as quickly as she and her mother were moving to him.
He looked the same. Well, no, he didn't. He had the same square, solid face, so familiar, soâ¦reliable, that was it. But different, somehow. The set of his wide mouth was firmer, harder, and there were slight creases at the corners of his eyes, as if he had been squinting a lot. His shoulders seemed broaderâwas that possible? And he looked older.
He was older, of course. After all, it had been almost four years. Still, he seemed to have matured more than Pip had in the same time. But after that first moment of surprise when he just looked blank, he smiled, and she had to smile back. That was Harry, who had been her friend since childhood. She would know that smile anywhere. How she had missed it.
Beaming joyfully, Lady Penworth put out her hands to greet him and he took them in his.
“Lady Penworth, Lady Elinor, what a wonderful surprise.”
His voice was deep, deeper than she remembered. A rich, man's voice. Elinor could almost feel it vibrate in her but couldn't manage to say anything herself. She just stood there, feeling foolishly glad that she was wearing her new blue velvet capelet with the fur lining and the matching bonnet.
Her mother, of course, had no trouble finding her tongue. “Harry, look at you, so brown and handsome! You look like sunshine in this gray London drizzle. When did you get back?”
“Just yesterday, as a matter of fact. I'm putting up at Mivart's Hotel.”
Lady Penworth frowned slightly. “At a hotel? You are not staying with your family?”
Harry seemed to freeze up at that, and his smile vanished. What was the matter? And he spoke almost roughly. “No, no, I am not.”
“Well, in that case, you must come stay with us,” Mama said firmly, ignoring his tone. “No, I insist. We can't have you staying in a hotel. You can come with us now, and we can send someone to collect your things from Mivart's.”
Elinor couldn't hold back any longer. She flung herself at him to give him a hug. “Oh, Harry, I am so very glad to see you.”
Her mother uttered an indulgent “tsk,” but after a moment of hesitation, when Elinor feared he was going to push her away, Harry's arms wrapped around her and he hugged her back. “I missed you too.” His voice seemed a trifle thick, and he held her longer than she had expected.
Lady Penworth took charge, of course. She sent Harry to fetch a hackney, explaining that it would have been ridiculous to bring their own carriage into this traffic, settled them into the cab when it arrived, and had them on their way in no time. Harry seemed to have been struck silent by all of this, and Elinor was struck silent by the amazement of having her friend Harry not just back in England after all his adventures but right here in the carriage, only inches away, so Lady Penworth chattered away, filling Harry in on four years' worth of family doings.
Gentle Reader,
You will, I hope, be relieved to know that the Lion Hunt sculpture was not lost forever beneath the waters of the Tigris. That spectacular find was actually made earlier by Hormuzd Rassam when he was poaching on the section of Nineveh that had been allotted to the French. He uncovered not only the Lion Hunt bas-relief, now at the British Museum, but also a trove of clay tablets that, once translated, turned out to be the
Epic of Gilgamesh
, the great Sumerian tale. (You can understand why the French were annoyed.)
Even though the French were the first to begin serious excavations in Mesopotamia, they continued to be unlucky in their efforts. Not long after Rassam's discoveries, the French archaeologist Victor Place sent two hundred and thirty-five crates downriver from Mosul on four rafts and a barge, all overloaded. The flotilla was attacked by pirates on the river and only two rafts made it through. The other vessels sank, and the crates and their contents have never been recovered.
European archaeologists more or less lost interest in Mesopotamia after that. No serious work was undertaken there until the 1920s, when the British archaeologist Max Mallowan began excavations. You may recognize his name. He was married to Agatha Christie, who set several of her mysteries in that part of the world.
It is hard to know what remains of those ancient cities and palaces after the destruction brought about by the recent wars in that part of the world. Those nineteenth-century archaeologists may have seen more of Ancient Nineveh than will ever be seen again.
I have used the actual names of the British ambassador in Constantinople and the British consuls in Mosul and Baghdad in 1861, but all else about them is the product of my imagination.
With grateful appreciation to all the artists, editors, copy editors, and proofreaders at Sourcebooks for all the work they do to make this book as good as they can. And special thanks to editor Hilary Doda, who not only identifies problems, but offers brilliant suggestions for their solutions.
Any mistakes that remain are entirely my own fault.
Lillian Marek was born and raised in New York City. At one time or another she has had most of the interesting but underpaid jobs available to English majors. After a few too many years in journalism, she decided she prefers fiction, where the good guys win and the bad guys get what they deserve.
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