The Other Guy's Bride (34 page)

S
UFFOLK
, E
NGLAND
, 1909

“The obvious reason the ibis mummies were the only thing Ginny saw in the tomb was because they had been purposely left behind,” Sir Robert said, pressing a finger along his nose and contriving to look mysterious. “The question remains why? Find the answer to that and you will find Zerzura.”

He peered over his gold-rimmed spectacles at his captive audience. Lord Geoffrey and Haji Elkamal were seated across the wrought iron table from him on the front terrace of the Avandales’ recently renovated farmhouse where the Duke and Duchess of Avandale had decided to reside. They had sold their Mayfair property after the dowager duchess died the previous year, falling down stone steps leading to the Thames. An eyewitness reported the old lady had been trying to kick a stray cat.

And who could blame them for selling it? The Mayfair property had been a cold, unwelcoming place, and the farm was warm and lovely, especially on such a beautiful autumn day. The sun shone in a robin’s-egg blue sky, and a soft breeze ruffled late-blooming wildflowers in the meadow, where a pair of Arabian yearlings played a game of tag. The last diadems of morning dew sparkled in the shade of the magnificent beech tree sheltering the old stone farmhouse, and a spotted spaniel lurked hopefully under the table.

It was a beautiful day but, alas, not a quiet one. A half dozen boys ranging in age from eight to twenty-two, all bearing a pronounced resemblance to one another, had been playing a game called baseball that their brother-in-law, the Duke of Avandale, had introduced them to.

A questionable call at the home plate had resulted in a heap of swinging fists and general mayhem that required paternal intervention. With a long-suffering sigh, Harry Braxton rose from the hammock in which he’d been blissfully swinging and went to extricate the smallest combatants from the pile. The older ones he would let suffer the consequences of hot tempers—though there was, to Harry’s mind, seldom anywhere near enough suffering to balance the gleeful triumph with which his sons sported black eyes and fat lips.

“Mind you get Edward, too!” Dizzy Braxton called out from where she was sharing a blanket with her daughter, youngest son, and granddaughter. “That’s a new shirt he’s wearing, and I won’t have blood on it!”

“Your wish, my command,” Harry said, dutifully plucking twelve-year-old Edward from the heap of wrestling, squirming males.

“Ah, Dad!” protested Edward, his budding masculinity affronted.

“Just take your shirt off,” Harry suggested, winning a grin from his son, who at once shed the culpable garment and dove back into the fray. Harry looked down at sons number five and six and advised them to head to the stables to wash up, then went to join his wife.

“Where’s Avandale?” he asked, settling his tall, lean frame next to Dizzy.

The Duchess of Avandale looked up from where she had been blowing noisily against the bare, plump tummy of her two-year-old daughter, Poppy. “He’ll be up soon. He was hoping to get up on Afreet today.”

Afreet was their two-year-old filly, a gorgeous and capricious sorrel, the first of the Avandale Arabian bloodlines.

“I could use some help keeping your brothers from killing one another.”

“I say let them have at it. Keep the bloodline strong. Last man standing and all that. Right, Poppy?” Ginny said with a mischievous grin and buried her face into her daughter’s tummy again, eliciting gales of laughter.

“I’ll be the last one,” declared Daniel, Poppy’s five-year-old uncle and Harry and Dizzy’s youngest.

“Not if I eat you first!” said Ginny, grabbing his leg and hauling him toward her, shrieking with joy.

“Don’t eat Danny. He’s the only one who Poppy listens to,” a male voice called out.

At the sound, Ginny straightened, her eyes lighting up as she caught sight of Jim, bareback atop Afreet. She sprang to her feet, her hair, already loosened in play, tumbling free down her back.

“You’ve done it!” she exclaimed, her voice rife with admiration, her appreciative gaze traveling over her husband’s lean, athletic physique, his white shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms, his trousers molding to his long, muscular thighs. “Oh, Jim!”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Dizzy,” said Harry, sotto voce to Dizzy. “Avandale is a more than adequate rider, but Ginny tends to exaggerate his skills.”

“I don’t think so, Harry,” Dizzy answered with such blithe assurance that her husband frowned. “I believe he is every bit as skilled as she believes him to be. You are simply going to have to accept that the young man is better at something than you.”

“No, I don’t,” replied Harry. “I shall valiantly continue on in my self-delusion. If you truly loved me, you would support me in my fantasy.”

“But darling, there are any number of fantasies I’d much rather support you in,” Dizzy said, earning a look of such warmth from her husband that her cheeks turned as pink as when she was a girl under his ardent gaze.

“Show off!” Ginny called to her husband with a light laugh. “You know you are dying to!”

With a grin, Jim effortlessly set the filly through her paces, from passage trot to canter to gallop and back. Effortlessly, the youngster switched leads, her gaits as fluid as silk floating on water, her mane streaming back in the soft autumn air, her coat glistening like a starry night, responding instantly to the gentlest pressure of his calf.

When they were done, Jim moved her close to where his wife stood, her expression rapt. His gaze roved ardently over her face, touching her lush lips, her tumbled hair, the bare feet peeking from beneath her light skirt.

“I think your mother wants to go for a ride, my darling,” Jim said to Poppy, though his gaze was on Ginesse. He held a hand out toward her.

She had never been able to refuse him. “Will you mind Poppy, Mom?” she asked.

Dizzy smiled knowingly at her husband. “Of course.”

Ginesse lifted her arms and was swept into Jim’s warm embrace and felt her heart start beating in a wild, untamed response.

“Ready?” he whispered in her ear.

She nodded, the old excitement rising anew as the filly broke into a gallop.

“Hold on tight, Mama!” Poppy shouted gleefully after her parents. “Don’t ever let go!”

And she never did.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: one of the most fun things about being an author is all the stuff you discover while on the hunt. The problem is avoiding “over-sharing” with the reader. As remarkable as it might seem, some people do not care that the first tube flashlight, patented before 1905, was made out of cardboard or that the expression “Give me a break!” was then in common usage.

But for those of you who do and have questions about veracity of the history in this book (or whether a word was anachronistic), I can only assure you that like the
National Inquirer
, I checked, rechecked, and checked again. Which means, of course, there are going to be kerfuffles.

Now some of these mistakes I’m just going to flat out admit to having made consciously and with full volition. To wit: In 1900, the English army would not have considered stationing men at a desert fort in southwestern Egypt, nor is there any oasis in that area which could support one. In fact, the topography I describe doesn’t exist there. However, the huge plateau that Ginesse and her explorers find the very terminus end of does exist. It is called the Gilf el Kebir and can be found at the longitude I suggest.

The huge (and I mean huge—it’s roughly the size of Puerto Rico) plateau was first seen by a European, W. J. Harding King, in 1910. Its long, flat plains were used as an airbase by British troops in World War II. You can still find traces of them in the navigational arrows laid out in stone.

The Tuaregs, a nomadic tribe found primarily in modern-day Libya, were, in fact, slavers until French occupiers banned the trade in 1910. But the Tuaregs would not have been in Egypt—ergo the device of having them enter the country to buy an Arabian horse.

And speaking of Arabians, in the late 1870s almost the entire population of Arabian horses in Egypt was wiped out by the African horse disease epidemic. Ardent devotees of the breed, from many different countries, united to preserve bloodlines that may well have been lost otherwise.

Another place where I took rampant liberties was with poor old Cambridge. They did not accept female students, nor did they offer degrees in ancient history. But in the best of worlds they would have, and as a romance author, the “best of worlds” is my special jurisdiction.

Language, especially slang, presents its own challenges. Especially when you are dealing with two different cultures. Slang used by Brits was not the same as that employed by Americans. While finding usage for single words is relatively easy, finding the first usage for phrases can prove challenging. Where it was impossible to chase down a date, I made informed choices. But many of the words I employed were in popular use like “puppy love,” “floozy,” “ramrod,” and “take a stab at.” If you’re an etymologist, you probably already own
English Through the Ages
by William Brohaugh. Even if you’re just casually interested, I highly recommend it.

Now, about how Ginesse found Zerzura: I’m sure there will be some readers out there casting a jaundiced eye at my device of having Ginesse drop through the sand into the heart of Zerzura. But that’s pretty much how Queen Hetepheres’s tomb was found. In 1925, a photographer setting up to take pictures of the pyramids dinged the ceiling of the staircase leading to the tomb with his tripod.

Finally, Zerzura. A lost city described by the various titles I used in the book has been rumored for centuries. Its location and history are vague, and speculation has ranged from it being simply a caravan outpost to its being a colony of lost crusaders. While there has never been any definitive evidence supporting its existence, many explorers have searched for it, primarily in the location I have described. Which means it’s still out there, waiting to be discovered…

Photograph by Heidi Ehalt

USA Today
and
New York Times
bestselling author Connie Brockway published her first novel,
Promise Me Heaven
, in 1994, and has since written eighteen novels and several anthology stories. Her books have been published in fifteen countries and earned her starred reviews and unqualified recommendations from
Publishers Weekly
,
Library Journal
, and
Booklist
. She is an eight-time finalist and two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award. A regular speaker at both the national and regional level, when she is not traveling, Brockway enjoys reading, gardening, tennis, and cooking. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, David, a family physician, and their two spoiled mutts.