Mr Impossible (21 page)

She did as he told
her, but the snake must have sensed the movement. The striped head
darted forward, and the fangs tore into the tunic.

In the instant the
animal was occupied, she edged back quickly. When she’d moved
well out of the snake’s reach, Rupert said, “It’s
all right. You can get up now.”

Though aware of her
rising and moving out of danger, he stayed focused on the vexed
serpent.

“
There,
there, my dear,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe
now. The naughty lady’s gone away. Sorry we disturbed you.”
He went on speaking gently to the creature as he gradually drew the
tunic farther away from it.

When Rupert, too,
was out of range, the snake began to settle down. Rupert gently let
the tunic fall. The striped head sank down, and after a moment, the
creature slithered with remarkable speed into the nearest crevice of
the rubble heap.

Rupert watched
until it was safely inside. Then he looked about for Mrs. Pembroke.

To his surprise, he
found she hadn’t run away and down the sand slope. She stood
only a few yards away, looking from him to the hole into which the
snake had disappeared.

“
You want to
be careful around piles of stones,” he said, buttoning his
waistcoat. For some reason he felt chilled.

“
Yes.”
She brushed sand from her clothes. “How foolish of me. Thank
you.” She straightened her posture and started toward the
others.

Rupert joined her.

It was then he
became aware of the eerie quiet.

Egyptians were
never quiet. In his experience, they did not stop talking from the
time they woke up to the time they fell asleep.

He looked about.
His and Segato’s attendants had gathered nearby. Mute and
motionless, they stood staring at him.

Segato broke the
tableau, hurrying to Mrs. Pembroke. The signora was good? Not hurt?

She was quite
unhurt, she told him.

He turned to
Rupert. “Almost I cannot believe my eyes,” he said. “It
was so quick. My mouth is open, to warn the lady—but too late.
I see it come up—like this.” He snapped his fingers.

“
Snakes
dislike surprises,” Rupert said. To Mrs. Pembroke he added,
“You frightened her. She attacked because she thought she was
in danger.”

“
Oh, you had
time to discern that it was a female?” she said, her voice
higher than usual.

“
Might have
been,” he said. “She was pretty enough. Did you note the
markings?”

“
I know those
marks,” said Segato. He turned his gaze to the hole into which
the snake had vanished. “I know that sound also. Everyone here
knows this sound: the scraping it makes, like a saw.
La vipera
delle piramidi
. What is the English word?”

“
Viper?”
Mrs. Pembroke said, her voice rising another half octave. “Of
the pyramids?”

“
Si
.
Very bad temper. And quick it moves, so quick. Very bad poison. Not
simply is this the
vipera
, but of all snakes in the
Egitto
the most deadly.”

Her face turned
chalk-white, and she swayed, and Rupert said, “No,
don’t
!”

But she folded up,
and he was already reaching to catch her as she fainted dead away. *
* *

DAPHNE RECOVERED
ALMOST immediately. None-theless, Mr. Carsington carried her down the
sand slope, berating her all the way.

“
How many
times have I told you?” he said. “
No fainting
.”

“
I did not
faint,” she lied. “I was a little dizzy. You can put me
down now.”

He did not put her
down, and she lacked the moral fiber to put up the struggle she
ought. She had so little moral fiber that she was quite happy to be
where she was.

He was so very big
and so very strong and warm, so vibrantly
alive
. He was her
genie, carrying her away, and she let herself be a child and believe
in the fantasy. She let out a huff, as though defeated, then rested
her head upon his shoulder.

His shirt was damp,
and the skin of his jaw was gritty against her face. But he wasn’t
cold and rigid, lying upon the ground, as he might so easily have
been. The snake could have turned on him. He could have been dead in
an instant. That’s what she’d seen in her mind’s
eye when Signor Segato spoke of the pyramid viper: Mr. Carsington
stretched out dead on the debris-strewn ground. And then she’d
heard the buzzing sound and seen the strange wash of bright color
before the black wave dragged her down.

“‘
I
never faint,’” he said, mimicking her.

No, he was very
much alive and not in the least subdued by the experience.

“
I don’t,”
she said against his neck.

“
You did.”

“
I was dizzy
for a moment.”

“
You
collapsed into a heap, like a marionette when someone cuts the
strings. I know fainting when I see it. You did it, after all the
times I’ve warned you not to.”

“
Perhaps I
fainted a little,” she said. “But I didn’t mean
to.”

He went on scolding
her: she’d done everything possible to bring about a swoon, he
claimed. She baked inside a pyramid for half the day. She let herself
become overexcited about a lot of falcons wearing hats. She had
nothing to eat and little to drink. When at last he and Segato got
her away from the confounded falcons, she did not stop talking once,
all the way through the miles of passages and stairs. Then, when
finally she came out into the air, did she stop to rest and take a
bit of refreshment like a sensible woman? No. She went straight for a
heap of rocks—and frightened witless a snake who’d been
peacefully napping, minding its own business. Poor Mr. Segato. He’d
so generously and patiently shown her his wonderful discovery. In
return, she’d given him a shock from which his sensitive
Italian soul might never recover.

Daphne didn’t
argue. It was all true enough, she supposed. So much had happened
this day. She wasn’t used to having an eventful life. She was
dull. Her life was dull by normal standards. Everything revolved
around her work. She was herself then, and in control, her
passions—all of them—focused on a lost language.

She wondered who
she was now while Mr. Carsington went on lecturing, striding down the
sand slope nearly as rapidly as he’d gone up it, though this
time he carried a full-grown and by no means feather-light woman. She
meant to ask if he was squeamish about the remains littered about,
but she was too tired to interrupt the sermon. She closed her eyes
and listened to him criticize her. It sounded like a lullaby.

RUPERT WAS HOPING
her too-complicated mind wouldn’t erupt in a brain fever when
her body relaxed in his arms.

Devil take it, had
she fainted again? Or had she sunk into a coma? “No fainting,”
he growled. “No comas.”

She mumbled
something, her mouth grazing his neck, and she shifted slightly in
his arms.

Not comatose.
Asleep.

“
Well, I hope
you’re quite comfortable, madam,” he muttered. “
Asleep
.
Really, you are like a child at times, a complete child.”

Well, not really.
Far from it. He was aware of every diabolical curve of her body while
he carried her down the sand slope, bits and pieces of ancient
Egyptians crunching underfoot.

It was easier once
they reached the plain. He might have carried her all the way to
the
Isis
if he wanted to completely stun the Egyptians with his prowess.

But holding a
sleeping woman in his arms—one who, moreover, kept nuzzling his
neck and murmuring unintelligibly in his ear—was asking too
much of his limited store of self-restraint. He knew he wouldn’t
be getting her naked anytime soon. She’d built a wall of moral
principles he must find a way to get round, along with other,
harder-to-identify obstacles. No point in torturing himself.

He summoned the
donkeys, woke her up, and planted her on one. Then, leaving it to the
servants to make sure she didn’t fall off, Rupert mounted his
donkey and kept his mind off his frustrations by looking out for
vipers and villains.

Chapter 10

AT SUNSET THE
CONTRARY WIND DIED AWAY. BY this time, Daphne was aboard the
Isis
. She was clean, dressed in fresh garments, and trying not to bore
her dining companion out of his wits. This was difficult for a dull
scholar like her even in the best of circumstances. After such a day,
it was impossible.

The Ramesses
cartouches… the kiss… the stepped pyramid with its
wonderful interior and fascinating falcon motif… the kiss…
the tablet with its inscription… the snake lunging at her…
death so near… the kiss… the strange, dreamlike time of
being carried like a sleeping princess in a genie’s arms…
the kiss…

Avoiding the many
improper or disturbing subjects on her mind limited her to the
dullest of scholarly ones. Now, while they lingered over sweets and
coffee, she babbled about the Coptic language, believed to be the
modern version of ancient Egyptian. Though no longer in everyday use,
she told him, it remained the Egyptian Christians’ church
language. It was written using a Greek alphabet with added symbols
for sounds that didn’t exist in Greek.

She explained how
one might use it to decipher hieroglyphs.

Mr. Carsington
frowned into his coffee cup.

She wondered what
he was thinking. She knew it was not about Coptic, one of the world’s
most boring topics.

She wondered what
she would have talked about if he hadn’t found out her secret.

“
I always go
on far too long,” she said. “Miles will cry out, ‘Enough,
Daphne! My head is about to explode!’ If you do not speak up,
Mr. Carsington, I shan’t know when to stop. I tend to forget
how few others, including scholars, find the Coptic language as
engrossing as I do. Your cousin Miss Saunders is one of the few. She
and I have carried on a most stimulating correspondence. It was she,
in fact, who obtained for me several Coptic lexicons many years ago,
when I began my study of hieroglyphs in earnest.” Daphne paused
and bit her lip. “Well, that is not very interesting, either.”

“
Yes, it is,”
he said. “Fascinating. It was my own Cousin Tryphena who
obtained these books for you.”

“
As well as a
number of papyri in my collection,” she said.

“
I suppose,
being so devoted to theology, Mr. Pembroke hadn’t time to hunt
up lexicons and papyri for you,” he said.

“
Mr. Pembroke
did not approve,” she said, trying for a light tone, with mixed
success.

“
Of Egypt
altogether?” Mr. Carsington’s dark brows rose. “I
can understand wanting to avoid the dangers of travel here, but
where’s the harm in studying the language?”

“
Mr.
Pembroke, like most of your sex, did not believe intellectual
pursuits constituted a proper occupation for women,” she said.

“
Really,”
he said. “What evil did he see in it, I wonder? Or was it your
devotion to scholarship he found so objectionable? Was he jealous?
You did say it was a
passion
, when we were at the statue of
Ramesses. Do you recall? It was moments before—”

She stood abruptly.
“I can hardly keep my eyes open,” she said. “I had
better make an early bedtime. Good night.” Face ablaze, she
hurried from the front cabin into the passage. It was only a short
way to her quarters.

Not nearly short
enough. She heard his footsteps at the same moment she heard his deep
voice close behind her.

“
What a
nodcock you are,” he said. “We’re on a boat. How
far do you think you can run?”

“
I am not
running.” She was, though she knew it was stupid and childish.
She was not afraid of him.

It was herself she
feared, the self she couldn’t trust, the one who belonged in a
room with books and documents, pens and pencils.

“
You’re
not a coward,” he said. “Why are you behaving in this
cowardly way?”