Wicked (27 page)

“Meeting tonight?” she asked.

“Yes.” Brian’s eyes remained hard. She realized that he had heard the reports of her activities yesterday and was both angry and suspicious. But where had
he
been all day?

“Actually, we’re having a dinner,” Brian said. “Thankfully, Alex will be well enough to attend. Sir John will be there, Lord Wimbly, a French envoy, a Monsieur Lacroisse, a few of the gentlemen on the board of trustees. Naturally Aubrey will be invited, as well as Sir Hunter. After the events of the gala, it seems that we needed to regroup, as it were.”

She stared back at him. Regroup, indeed!

“Eggs, dear?” Evelyn asked.

“No, thank you, I’m afraid I’m not very hungry this morning.”

“Well, it will be a very busy place today, lots to do, caterers coming in!” Evelyn said. She looked flushed and pleased, and added hesitantly, “Like the old days.”

“Yes, well, I’d best be off!” Lord Wimbly said. He, too, sounded pleased. “Much to do before I return. Brian, I must say I’m delighted. I was deeply disturbed when I had my man drive me out this morning. Your solution for a quiet dinner to establish some sound conversation regarding the future is brilliant, simply brilliant.”

“I’m glad you approve, Lord Wimbly,” Brian said, rising.

“Until this evening,” Lord Wimbly told them all, and took his exit.

“I believe I’d best retire for more rest, if I’m to appear my brightest and best this evening,” Alex said.

“I’ll sit with you, of course,” Camille said.

“No,” Brian said sharply. “Tristan and Ralph are into a chess tournament of a kind. They intend to keep Alex company and see to anything he might want or need. I’d like to have a word with you myself, my dear.”

She nodded pleasantly, though her heart was pounding.

“So much to do!” Evelyn murmured. “Oh, dear, there are so many eggs left. Ah, well, they are supposedly quite good for Ajax’s coat! Ajax, you come along with me.”

Ajax, who had been sleeping at Brian’s feet, arose.
Don’t go with her!
Camille longed to cry out. But she held silent. The great wolfhound was up, wagging his tail, apparently understanding completely that he was being offered a breakfast treat.

“Camille, if you will be so kind, my dear?” Brian said.

She forced a smile and preceded him out of the solarium, and down the hall. At the entrance to his suite, he opened the door, once again allowing her to move ahead of him. But the second she was in the room, he closed the door and leaned against it. His eyes were ice beneath the mask.

“Where in God’s name were you yesterday?” he demanded.

“Where were
you?”

“I had business. Where were you?”

“I had business.”

“Confession?”

“I do have a great deal to confess,” she murmured.

“Think of me as your confessor, then. Where were you?”

“I went into the museum,” she told him.

“What?”

She took a deep breath and repeated, “I went into the museum.”

“Are you mad?”

“It’s where I work!”

“It’s where a cobra was loose the night before. Whatever made you go in? You knew, obviously, that it was a dangerous thing to do because you lied to Corwin. And he, being the trusting fellow he is, sat outside a church for hours waiting for you.”

“I did go into the church,” she murmured.

“Why did you go to the museum?”

“To find the cobra—the golden cobra. The object that seems to be of the greatest interest to everyone!”

“You will not go into the museum anymore,” he said angrily.

“I will go where I choose!” she told him. “I am not your prisoner. You can’t hold Tristan here any longer, either!” she claimed, but her voice was faltering. He was the Earl of Carlyle. He could make many things happen.

“Are you so eager to go, then? You despise it here so much?” he demanded.

“I make my own choices!” she reminded him. “And you cannot order me around. Where were you? Why do you disappear all the time? What insanity are you playing at?”

“No insanity. Camille, as I told you, this is a dangerous game. I never should have brought you in on it. God knows
I had not even suspected the turns it would take. I had not expected…damn you, Camille!” He took one step toward her, gripping her by the shoulders, looking as if he longed to shake her, fingers remaining tense on her instead.

“Damn you, Camille. Damn you!”

“Damn you!” she cried back.

His fingers tensed anew. He shook his head, gritting his teeth. Then an oath left his lips. Suddenly his mouth was upon hers, filled with the passion and fury of his anger, yet eliciting an instant arousal within her that soared at that mere touch. The fever was greater than ever before, perhaps because she had become so familiar with his touch, taste, perhaps because anticipation was knowledge now. Or perhaps because she could not bear the fact that she had not lain beside him the night before.

Instinct, raw, earthy and sweet, had come to live within her heart. She met his touch, both tender and savage, with a volatile hunger and fury of her own, returning his kiss, falling against him, melting into him, fingers tangling into his hair and trailing with electric energy down his shoulders, tearing at his shirt…. Only one thing caused her to draw away.

“The mask!” she whispered.

For a second, he hesitated. Then it was gone.

In a tangle of fused lips and arms, they shed clothing in a whirl of frantic need, desire overriding anger, breathlessness stealing words, a fire in the blood driving all else. Just a short time ago, she would have mocked such a desperate abandon. But now she needed only to be in his arms, to feel his naked flesh against hers, to know the heat and warmth and power that engulfed him when he touched her. His hands were everywhere, so quickly. Shed clothing was tossed where it lay as he continued to kiss, caress and stroke while inching ever closer to the door separating the
rooms of his suite. Finally they were before the great canopied bed and she was falling against it, feeling the weight of him atop her. There, she discovered her own prowess, lips finding his throat, the expanse of his chest, hands savoring the feel of the man beneath her. She inched against him, body flush with body, breasts pressing against him, skin and muscle and searing heat, lips playing over his flesh in a need both desperate and instinctive. The ragged sound of his breath, the fire of his fingers upon her, all drove her. She touched and licked and teased, and felt the explosion of him beneath. Then his hands turned her to his own will as he coerced and seduced anew, creating the steady rise of magic and lava that she had come to know, yet coveted more each time. Like magic, he brought her higher, and ever more beneath the urgent spell of hunger and fulfillment.

When he touched her, when he was within her, when his arms were around her…there was no world beyond.

There was only the soaring, the ever rampant, thundering rise, and the volatile climax that rocked her, shattering all else.

In the shadow of his arms, she lay for long, sweet moments, with only the feel of him, the music of their hearts, their breathing coming together. It was a moment to cherish, a sweet moment for dreams.

His gentle fingers smoothed her hair. His lips just brushed her forehead. And then, his words.

“You cannot go back to the museum anymore.”

“I
must.”

“You will not.”

“You will not tell me what to do.”

“I am the Earl of Carlyle.”

“This is not feudal England! I am not your subject! I make my own—”

“You will not make your own choice, not in this!”

“Damn you!”

“Damn
you!”

And then she was in his arms again, with his fierce kisses and her own angry response to them.

Much later, he sighed softly. “Regrettably, we cannot do this all day.”

“The argument has not ended!”

“I pray that’s true,” he said, and rose. “There’s much to do. Much,” he murmured. He left her upon the expanse of the bed and began collecting the clothing he had shed. And she knew, though she could not see him, that he re-donned the mask before anything else.

“You must meet at the entry in an hour,” he said.

“But you just said that there’s so much to do!”

“Indeed, there is. But I announced an engagement last night. It’s now Sunday. And since you felt that desperate need for confession and were let off before a Catholic church, I believe that we must make an appearance at the parish church. We wouldn’t want anyone questioning our intentions. And surely you wouldn’t want to waste the pureness of soul you acquired yesterday! An appearance will be expected!”

“But—”

Too late. She heard the outer door open and close, then Evelyn’s voice in the hallway. Camille leaped up in a fury, hastily scrambling around for the clothing she had shed. To repair her hair took some effort. But at last, groomed to respectability, she walked back out into the hall, her heart hammering. But no one was in sight.

She hurried down the hall to Alex’s room and peeked in. Alex himself was back in bed. Tristan and Ralph were at their chess game before the fire, whispering to one another,
glancing over their shoulders now and then to see that Alex slept.

She was about to announce herself when Tristan said, “It’s not insanity. Not with a man dead in the streets, and the Earl of Carlyle right there—well, there disguised as Arboc as it were, following us.”

Camille froze in the doorway, stunned.

“It’s time to get ourselves and the lass out of here, Tristan. I’m telling you.”

“He’s engaged to her!”

Ralph looked sadly at Tristan. “Is he? He risks his life. Now, he is risking hers.”

“He’s looked out for her at the museum, playing at being the old fellow,” Tristan said.

Arboc!
Her blood chilled to ice. He was Arboc, and he had never told her. He had been at the museum yesterday morning, when Sir John had received the wound to his head.

Brian Stirling was Jim Arboc. And according to Tristan’s words, people
died
when he was near.

She closed the door and ran to her room. Inside, she walked fretfully to the mantel and leaned against it, shivering. Alex, with the toxin from the cobra racing through his system, had said,
He wants vengeance. He wants to kill us all.

And though her heart denied it, she was forced to acknowledge that the Earl of Carlyle was always a man in disguise, whether he wore a mask or not.

T
HANKFULLY THEIR TRIP
to church was quick and public. Back at the castle, Camille spent the remainder of the afternoon trying desperately to organize her thoughts and feelings about what she knew. Point one: Brian Stirling was Jim Arboc. And as she kept coming back to it, she became more and more disturbed. Arboc was cobra spelled backward. The name had been an anagram.

Point two: Tristan had become involved in what was going on, and had told her nothing about it. That meant that tonight or first thing tomorrow, she was going to have a good row with Tristan!

Point three: She had found mention of a golden, jeweled cobra while transcribing. There were cases from the expedition in two places, the museum and the castle.

Point four: They had all been there when the late Lord and Lady Stirling died.

But what was her part in this? She knew that she was being used! He had intended to use her, of course, and had openly stated that from the beginning. He could not be accused of taking his actions in more than one direction. And she had made her own choices.

Still, how did she trust him? He questioned her mercilessly, but gave nothing of himself. He wore a mask he did not need. And more than one person thought that he really was insane. God knows, he was bitter enough.

She prowled her room, more anxious than ever to get back to her work. Hethre had been the concubine, the mistress with the power. Hers had been the name used to strike terror into the hearts of would-be tomb robbers. She stopped pacing, suddenly certain that she knew where to find the gold and bejeweled cobra.

She was anxious, desperately anxious, to prove her theory be fact. But there would be no question of her leaving the castle this evening. So she would have to wait. So she went back to her notes.

If the Stirlings had indeed been murdered, it had surely had been for the golden cobra. What better, more sadistic way to kill than with cobras.

That thought was with her when she came down the stairs at last.

C
HAMPAGNE WAS BEING PASSED
about in the entry. Evelyn, who was serving as hostess, handed her a flute. She was instantly hailed by Brian, elegant in attire once again, and summoned to meet a stranger by the doorway.

Brian set an arm around her shoulder. It was a natural move, as if she were cherished, truly the woman with whom he intended to spend the rest of his life. It felt wonderful. And she felt…a little ill. She was in love with him, and she was afraid of him in oh so many ways!

“My dear, I’d like you to meet Monsieur Lacroisse. He is an envoy from France, and a man as dedicated as any at our own fine museum in the pursuit of all things from ancient Egypt. Monsieur, Miss Camille Montgomery, my fiancée.”

The Frenchman was trim, tall and elegant, as well, with lean, aesthetic features, a mustache and a trim little goatee. He bowed elaborately over Camille’s hand. “I am enchanted, mademoiselle.”

Lord Wimbly strode up. “Henri! Congratulations! They have said that you managed to acquire one of the finest pieces in recent history, a mammoth bust of Nefertiti. Was there no difficulty with the department of antiquities in Cairo?”

“I have worked with the department often,” the Frenchman told Lord Wimbly. “The bust has been purchased legally—there were actually many in the cache.” He shrugged. “At least, when the Egyptian scholars deal with us, we English and French, they are paid. Too often, the difficulties lie with their own poor, desperate to sell anything. There is an entire city of grave robbers, you know—families who have survived through the centuries by slipping into ancient tombs and selling what they find to foreigners. But, Lord Wimbly, you and your group of curators, trustees and explorers are far more to be congratulated. There has been no find to rival that made by Lord and Lady Stirling in years and years!”

“Quite right,” Lord Wimbly said. “Ah, and here is our true adventurer, Sir Hunter MacDonald. Hunter, have you met Henri?”

Hunter moved into the group. “No, I haven’t as yet had the pleasure,” he said, shaking the Frenchman’s hand.

Aubrey Sizemore stepped forward. “I believe we’ve met, in the Cairo museum, Monsieur Lacroisse. I’m Aubrey Sizemore.”

Lacroisse looked perplexed for a minute. “Yes, yes…of course. I remember you.” The look on the man’s face implied that he did not, really, but that he was being polite.

“Where on earth is Sir John?” Evelyn demanded. “Lord Wimbly, you did go to his flat and request his presence?”

“Well, of course I did, Evelyn. Sir John wasn’t there, or at least, he wasn’t answering his door,” Lord Wimbly said. “I did, however, slip a note beneath it.”

“Perhaps he didn’t receive the invitation,” Evelyn mused. “But that wouldn’t be like him! When he’s not at the museum, he’s working at home.”

“We’ll hold dinner a few minutes longer,” Brian said.

“He’s brilliant. Just a brilliant man!” Lord Wimbly said of Sir John.

“An incredible speaker,” Hunter agreed.

“Excuse me, please,” Camille murmured. She hadn’t seen Tristan and Ralph as yet, nor Alex Mittleman. And it seemed that the forced enthusiasm of the others for the missing Sir John was a bit on the cutting side, no matter what the words. “I’ll just see if I can find Tristan.”

“Camille,” Brian murmured with a frown.

But she ignored him, and hurried up the stairs.

Alex was not in his room. Neither could she find Tristan or Ralph. However, when she returned downstairs, the diners were gathering in the ballroom. She had no choice but to join them.

The ballroom had been completely transformed. A long table, set more elegantly than even those at the fund-raiser just nights before, had been set out, resplendent with a fine cloth, delicate china and place settings in etched silver. Servers had been hired for the night, and everyone within the household, including Shelby, Corwin, Ralph and Evelyn Prior, had a place set.

Brian was seated at one end of the long table, she was seated at the other. And a number of others had arrived, trustees from the museum she had never met, several with wives and daughters. Two place settings were removed. One, of course, had been Sir John’s.

She searched the company and discovered Shelby, too, was gone.

Talk about the subject filled the room. Arguments about the death of Hatshepsut—had she, or had she not been hastened
to her death by her stepson, Tuthmosis III, who believed that she had usurped the throne at the rightful time for him to become pharaoh? And what of his rule in Egypt? He had been a great warrior, vastly expanding his empire.

Of course there was excitement in the talk because the find the Stirlings had made involved the reign of Tuthmosis III, and the powerful man who had stood behind the pharaoh, followed him into battle and, according to an ancient legend, lent him more than a touch of sorcery.

“No one has identified Hatshepsut’s mummy as yet,” Henri Lacroisse mused. “Now that would be a find!”

“So many were identified from the cache of mummies discovered in the 1880s near Deir el-Bahari, around Thebes,” Lord Wimbly provided for Camille’s benefit, since most of the others—those, at least, who knew what he was talking about—had been to Egypt. “So many pharaohs from the New Kingdom, hidden away by priests two thousand years ago! Still, a mummy is a mummy, and therefore fascinating. And any great tomb that is found intact…well, that is magnificent. Ah, my dear! You can’t imagine the heat, the frustration, the terrible conditions, and then the delight of discovery! Perhaps, once you’re married, your husband will set out on a new expedition, in honor and memory of his parents!”

Camille stared at Lord Wimbly, who apparently had decided that there was nothing odd in the least about Brian Stirling’s startling and sudden announcement of the previous evening.

Brian was watching her down the length of the table. She saw his fingers locked around the stem of his wineglass so tightly that she thought it would shatter.

“Such an expedition would be entirely up to Camille, Lord Wimbly,” he said.

Excited chatter rose about the possibility of a new expedition
being mounted. Hunter seemed bemused, Alex looked ashen. Aubrey seemed fascinated with his food, and Sir John had yet to make an appearance.

Camille wanted to scream. She didn’t believe that the evening would ever come to an end. Brian was being an exceptionally gracious host, drawing their French guest into very polite and animated conversation about different finds and purchases, and French and English relations with one another and with the Egyptians. At last, it was suggested that the gentlemen retire for cigars and brandy, and that the ladies should enjoy their coffee and tea in the pleasantry of the upstairs solarium.

Her mind raced. She smiled and rose, and with Evelyn, tried to be the most pleasant hostess, guiding their guests up the stairs. But it was all a charade, perpetuated by a man with a mask.

At last, people began to leave. Camille was with the others in the entry, but Evelyn Prior had taken over her natural duty, seeking wraps and overcoats, and bidding their guests farewell. With the confusion at the door, Camille thought she might have found her chance.

She walked through the great ballroom where caterers were cleaning, and slipped into the chapel room off the side. The door to the winding stairway to the crypts was closed. She eased it open, and started down. But then she halted. Someone was down there already. No, two people. And they were whispering fervently.

“She knows too much! Something must be done.”

“Good God, you can’t mean…”

“I do!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are too many dead!”

“But there’s a curse, isn’t there? And it’s easy to cause an accidental death.”

How had these two gotten down there? Taken the winding
stairway, as she had done? Or was there another entrance?

Her heart slammed against her chest. There was a chance they had slipped down here, and all she would have to do is wait at the doorway to the chapel, where caterers were moving about, where a scream would bring someone, and the killer…
killers
would be unmasked.

As she stood there, she heard a sudden uproar of horror coming from the front of the house. Shouts ripped through the old stone of the castle, tearing through the very night. Cries rose high in denial. The whisperers stopped speaking. Any minute, they would come up the steps; they would catch her standing there.

She turned, frantic, and headed up. The sound of her own footfalls and the thunder of her heart drowned out the sound of someone coming behind her. She reached the chapel and flew for the door out to the ballroom.

And it was then that she was attacked. Blinded. Something came flying over her head. A sheet. A shroud, she realized, stolen from down below.

She shrieked as loud as she could. She was shoved hard to the ground. Fighting the length of the ancient, stifling fabric around her, she tried to rise. She slammed into something. The altar?

She was dimly aware of footsteps, someone running. In panic she continued to battle the cloth over her head, spinning madly to avoid the next blow that would come at her. Arms came around her, she was lifted. She struggled fiercely as she was carried several steps. And then she was falling.

“S
IR
J
OHN IS DEAD
!”

Tristan had enjoyed the evening incredibly, having found himself seated next to a lovely widow who had been
invited as her son was on the board of trustees. And he had been seeing the widow to her carriage when the announcement was made.

Shelby, who had apparently been sent to discern the whereabouts of Sir John, had returned with his dramatic and horrifying declaration as if on cue, right when everyone was hovering at the door, awaiting their carriages.

Being such a huge fellow, Shelby was able to make the crowd fall back as he walked through it, looking around, seeking Lord Stirling but not seeing him. And he made his announcement because he could not keep the news quiet any longer.

“Dead!” cried the lovely widow.

Someone else demanded, “How?”

“The police have not ascertained that as yet,” Shelby said. Then, for several minutes, he could say nothing else because everyone was shouting out questions and voicing horror and dismay.

“My God! It can’t be true?”

“Was it natural?”

“The police haven’t said.”

“Surely, he was murdered.”

“Maybe another cobra bite.”

“He was cursed!”

“Oh, my God!” cried Tristan’s widow. “Perhaps they’re all cursed in truth, all involved with that dreadful expedition! Oh! Maybe it will fall on all of us to be cursed, all of us associated in any way with the museum.”

“Nothing happened until Stirling became involved again!” someone shouted.

Tristan looked around. Brian Stirling was not there to defend himself. But then he burst out into the entryway, tall and oddly forbidding in his beastly mask and elegant dinner attire.

“There are no such things as curses!” he announced loudly and angrily. “Only men with evil intent.” His eyes shot out like blue fire around the crowd. “My parents were not cursed. They were murdered.”

“My God, he believes it!” someone close to Tristan whispered. “Do you think Lord Stirling could have come out of his mourning and seclusion to kill the rest of them, one by one?”

It was a man speaking, but people were milling tighter and tighter, and Tristan couldn’t see who had let out the explosive suggestion.

“People, there are no such things as curses!” Brian Stirling repeated. He looked around the group. “But there are such things as murderers, and the police will find the truth behind Sir John’s death. When it is discovered, a murderer will face justice and swing from the hangman’s noose!”

C
AMILLE LAY AT THE FOOT
of the winding stairs, stunned and bruised. Then, to her amazement, she realized that everything around her was silent. In panic, she fought her way out of the linen shroud. One small lamp burned on a desk, but for the most part, the room was in shadows and darkness.

She was here alone, trapped if someone were to come down the stairs. She’d be dead now if it hadn’t been for the rise of voices so excited that they had filled the entire castle. Perhaps someone was hoping right now that she’d broken her neck after she’d been thrown down the treacherous stairway.