Suzanne Robinson (27 page)

No, she wanted him gone. But he wouldn’t go like a kicked mongrel. He’d go with refinement and grace, and show her he didn’t care that she considered their lovemaking a dirty secret best forgotten. Or maybe he should show her what she’d be missing. He had a little time to decide, but one way or another, Georgiana was going to regret what she’d done to him.

Despite his preoccupation with revenge, two o’clock was a long time coming for Nick. While the ormolu clock in his chamber struck a chime at a quarter past one, he was holding a lamp and gliding down the chilly, curved corridor outside the Egyptian Wing. Rather than appear to obey Her Royal Highness’s summons, he had set out early. He was going to find a good hiding place. Then he would watch her arrive and let her wait for him a good long time before he suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She would be nervous
after the wait in that black morgue of a place, and she would be mad. But he would play the gentleman, pretend surprise that she’d had to wait.

Nick hesitated as he entered the long hall of the Egyptian Wing. Glancing aside at a tall display case, he caught sight of his formal evening clothes, a black and white reflection in the glass. His gaze fell to a row of linen-wrapped bundles. Georgiana had told him what they were, the mummies of a cat, two falcons, a dog and a baboon, all carefully preserved for the afterlife in swaths of bandages darkened with age. Beneath the mummies lay a shelf filled with the amulets of carnelian, malachite, alabaster and lapis lazuli. Egyptian embalmers placed the amulets between the layers of bandages to protect the dead in the journey to the netherworld. Nick figured that the way his luck was running, he could use a few hundred amulets himself.

He moved on, searching the darkness for a suitable place to hide. He wouldn’t lurk inside a mummiform coffin. Furious as he was with Georgiana, he didn’t want to see her frightened and crying. Besides, most of those standing against the walls were too small for him. And jumping out at her wouldn’t produce the polished and reserved impression he desired. Perhaps he should wait in the workroom.

Nick shoved open the door and held his lamp high, noting the table littered with archaeological tomes, small statues and the mummy of a small crocodile. Closing the door, he dragged an armchair from the table and placed it facing the portal with his back to the library door. He set the lamp on the floor and dropped into the chair.

He took out his pocket watch and saw that he still had a good twenty-five minutes to wait. Replacing
the watch, he straightened his coat. It was of fine black Saxony and set off his white waistcoat with embroidered border. The diamond studs in his cuffs flashed even in the dull lamp light.

It was so quiet he could hear the ticking of his watch. He got up and plucked a book from the table. Holding it near the lamp, he tried to read, but he was too tense. He set the book on the floor. The place was beginning to irritate him—all the dead bodies, the strange objects made by people who had lived three thousand years ago, the coffins.

Nick’s brow furrowed. Something wasn’t right. He picked up the lamp and strolled over to the table again. Surveying the stacks of books, he hesitated. Slowly, a frown dragging at his lips, he turned around and held the lamp high. He hadn’t noticed before. The space next to the table, it was empty. What had happened to the red granite sarcophagus?

He swept the lamp at arm’s length and walked farther into the darkness. No sarcophagus. Then he whirled around as he heard a long, loud creak. The library door opened, sending a flood of light into the room. Nick scowled, set down the lamp and stalked over to the newcomer, who was holding a candelabra.

“Bleeding hell, what are you doing here at this time of night?”

Georgiana was early for her meeting with Nick. She threaded her way through the cluttered hall of the Egyptian Wing holding a candle aloft in the dusty darkness. Her spectacles had slipped down the bridge of her nose. Her hands shook as she shoved them back with a finger, and she tried to fight her dread that Nick would insist that he’d discovered Evelyn’s guilt when she was certain that Prudence was the murderer. She wanted no more arguments, especially ones in which he taunted and tempted her.

Was it only agitation that made her turn sharply to look behind her, or had she really heard a footfall? Nonsense. There was no one behind her. Coming to the large workroom, she lowered her candle, for a bright glow spread forth from the threshold. The room was deserted. Inside Georgiana stopped in amazement to behold an avenue of light formed by two parallel lines of candelabra on stands almost as tall as she was.

The avenue led across the workroom and disappeared
into the library. She walked between the two rows, noticing as she went that the red-granite sarcophagus had vanished. Ludwig must have had it moved, but he wouldn’t have left all these candles alight. This bit of theatrics was Nick’s doing.

Georgiana set her jaw and marched down the golden path into the library. There a shelf with cubicles designed to house papyrus rolls had been moved from its place against the wall, and the rows of candelabra continued through an opening. Georgiana stepped through it to find herself on a small landing. Growing more and more curious and mystified, she descended a short staircase, her way still lit by tall candle stands. From below she could hear a light tapping noise.

At the bottom of the stairs lay an open door beyond which she could hear the tapping. Georgiana walked into a rectangular chamber alight with brilliant color. She paused in the doorway and blinked hard, for the room had been plastered and painted in registers to imitate an ancient Egyptian tomb. Pushing back her spectacles again, she found the chamber’s only occupant. At the far end of the room Ludwig was working on one of the dozens of coffins in the collection. The mummy case rested on the red-granite sarcophagus.

Standing on a stepladder with his back to her, Ludwig was hammering slender nails into wood near the foot of the coffin. Speechless, Georgiana glanced around the chamber. Another sarcophagus rested beside the one on which Ludwig worked. Inside it lay a series of nested coffins. The sarcophagus lid leaned against a wall.

In various neatly disposed collections lay the accoutrements
of the Egyptian afterlife. Magical shabti figurines stood in a group ready to do the labor required of the deceased in the afterlife. Baskets and boxes of food insured the soul’s sustenance. Ludwig had also included the furnishings of a well-equipped tomb—low gilded couches with legs in the form of lion paws, cedar and ebony chairs, stands that would hold wine jars, alabaster jewel caskets. Near the coffins sat a shrine that contained canopic jars that held the internal organs of the deceased. There were even personal possessions, mirrors, shaving razors, scimitars, and bows.

Georgiana turned around in a circle, marveling at Ludwig’s attention to detail. “Ludwig, how marvelous.”

Ludwig cried out and dropped his hammer.

“Georgiana, you’re early!”

“Was this supposed to be a surprise? I’m sorry.”

Ludwig came down from the stepladder as she approached and smiled at her shyly. “Do you like it?”

“It’s amazing.” Georgiana looked around the room at the painted scenes that decorated the walls. “You’ve copied some of the best tomb paintings.”

One wall was devoted to a scene of a man watching his servants harvest a field of grain; another depicted the Day of Judgment in the Hall of Osiris, where the dead man’s heart was weighed against the feather of truth. All of it was done in brightly painted red, black, blue, yellow, and green.

“It’s all so authentic,” Georgiana breathed. Then she remembered why she was there and frowned. “Have you seen Mr. Ross? I was supposed to meet him in the workroom.”

“Oh, my heart, no. I haven’t seen him. Why
would he wish to meet you at such an unseemly time, and alone? It’s not done, my dear.”

“It’s a private matter. I’ve misjudged the time, I suppose.”

Ludwig produced a pocket watch. “Oh, my, it’s a quarter past two.”

Turning away, Georgiana said, “I’ll go back to the workroom. He’s probably there by now.”

“Wait. He’ll find us by the candelabra. Don’t you want to see what I’ve done?” Ludwig trotted over to a table beside the coffin he’d been mending and picked up a roll of papyrus. “I’ve made an exact copy of the
Book of the Dead.
”

Georgiana wandered over to the table. “That’s lovely, but I’m quite distracted at the moment, Ludwig. Perhaps tomorrow you could show me.”

“This will only take a moment.” Ludwig picked up a ceramic flagon and poured wine into a faience goblet. “I’ve even provided wine as it would have been stored for the deceased. See those jars over there? They all have clay seals bearing the name of Ramses II.…”

While Ludwig chattered, Georgiana tried to think of a way to extricate herself without hurting his feelings. Ordinarily she would have been fascinated by Ludwig’s replica, but all she could think of was what Nick might do to her when she told him their wager was off. As she worried, her gaze wandered from the wine Ludwig was offering her to the coffin.

The lid to the red-granite sarcophagus had been put in place, and the coffin rested on top of it. The coffin was that of a man and had been fashioned in the New Kingdom anthropoid shape. Painted black and gilded with gold, it bore the features of some Egyptian
nobleman who had died thousands of years ago. His arms were crossed over his chest. His hands held magical amulets.

Near the other end of the coffin the wood had split, and Ludwig was attempting to mend it with new wood, which added at least a foot in length. Georgiana frowned and moved nearer the coffin. She was wrong. The wood hadn’t split with age; it had been cleanly sawed. Ludwig was adding length to what were essentially the legs of the coffin. Setting her goblet on the floor, she touched the new wood, and Ludwig stopped chattering.

“What have you done to this coffin?” Georgiana asked.

“It was about to break, so I thought that as long as I had to repair it, I would make it fit the new sarcophagus.”

“Make it fit?” Georgiana stared at Ludwig. “This isn’t like you, to tamper with an important piece. This is a fine example of a New Kingdom—what was that?”

Ludwig walked away from her and around the other sarcophagus. “What?”

Georgiana was glancing around the chamber.

“I heard something.”

As she searched the room, the sound came again, this time from the coffin. A short groan issued from it, and she gaped at the painted features of the nobleman, the black eyes, the full mouth and long, straight nose. There was a loud rap against the wood. Then the face seemed to jump at her.

Gasping, Georgiana jumped away as the coffin lid burst up from the base and clattered to the floor. Nick
sat up, then lowered his face to his hands. Georgiana crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“What a foul trick, Mr. Ross. If you’ve damaged that lid, you’ll be sorry.”

While she chastised him, Nick looked up and glared at her, then winced and touched the back of his head. His hand came away bloody, and Georgiana’s tirade faded as she watched him stare at his hand.

“He wouldn’t drink any wine either, so I had to hit him.”

Ludwig stepped around the second sarcophagus holding a pistol. Her mouth falling open, Georgiana drew nearer to Nick. He swore and got to his knees inside the coffin.

“The fat little weasel lured me down here and hit me from behind.”

Georgiana took a step toward Ludwig, who raised the pistol higher. As he got out of the coffin, Nick grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him.

“Ludwig, have you gone mad?” she asked.

Ludwig drew a black-bordered handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped a tear from his eye, all the while keeping his pistol aimed at them. “No, I haven’t gone mad. Oh, my heart, no, but you’ve both refused to accept Uncle’s death. I heard you asking questions. I even saw you searching, prying into the game larder.”

“You followed us?” Georgiana asked weakly.

“I was so frightened you would expose me,” Ludwig said with a sniffle into his handkerchief. “Until I got the idea of using the tomb. You both will vanish, elope, and no one will ever think to look inside the coffins. No one comes here but me now that Uncle is dead, and you’re going to be.”

Nick began to edge around the granite sarcophagus as Ludwig spoke, pushing Georgiana with him.

“So you poisoned old Threshfield,” he said.

Ludwig cocked the pistol. “Please don’t move anymore, Ross.”

Nick stopped. “Why did you do him, Hyde old chap?”

“Yes,” Georgiana said in bewilderment. “Why?”

A tear rolled down Ludwig’s nose and dropped off the end. “I didn’t want to, but he said he was going to give my beautiful artifacts to Georgiana, and—and he disparaged her honor!”

Georgiana tried to move from behind Nick, but he yanked her back.

“Bloody hell,” Nick said. “You don’t care about Georgiana’s reputation. You were just worried about your moldy old pots and coffins.”

All at once Ludwig stopped snuffling. “That’s not true. I would have asked for her hand to save her honor, but you,
you
ruined her.”