“I SEE I’M not the only one who enjoys watching the sun rise over the ocean,” Harry said in his most cordial manner. It wasn’t easy. This was the first dawn of their voyage and cordial was the last thing he felt this morning toward this interloper.
“Good day, Mr. Armstrong.” Mrs. Gordon’s gaze remained on the horizon.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for such an early riser.” Perhaps she would scurry back to her cabin once she had fully absorbed the sunrise.
“What a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Armstrong,” she said coolly. “I would not have thought to encounter you at this time of day either.” She glanced at him. “Especially not with a bottle of champagne in your hand.”
“If I had known you were going to be here, I would have brought two glasses.”
“I never indulge in spirits before breakfast, Mr. Armstrong.”
“Perhaps you should, Mrs. Gordon.” He paused. He’d been trying for nearly a year now to be the kind of man he was expected to be—the kind of man an earl was supposed to be—and, even though she didn’t know of his title, he had decided not to reveal too much of his questionable past. Still, this was a fairly innocuous revelation. “When my friends and I first set off for Egypt, nearly twenty years ago, we marked the first sunrise of the first day with a bottle of the best champagne our collective resources could afford. Every voyage to Egypt after that, regardless of whether one or all three of us were traveling, we always greeted the first dawn with champagne. This bottle was delivered to my quarters before we left port from one of those friends.”
“That’s really quite charming.” She considered him thoughtfully. “I would not have thought you so sentimental.”
Rubbish. “I don’t think sentimental is the right word—”
“Habit, then.”
“I tend to think of it more in the manner of tradition.”
“Regardless, I do not wish to interfere.” She smiled. “I shall leave you to your tradition.” She turned to go.
“Join me,” he said without thinking.
She turned back to him, her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Why?” He grinned. “Are you always so suspicious?”
“No. In fact, I am quite trusting of most people. Trusting you, however—”
He winced. Not that he didn’t deserve her distrust.
“—does not strike me as especially wise. I would be remiss if I did not question your motives. We are here after all because you are determined to prove me a fraud and I am determined to prove you wrong.” She shrugged. “Under these circumstances, suspicion does seem the wiser course.”
“I’ll grant you that. However, just for the span of the sunrise, let us forget we are at odds. Do me the honor of joining me in the tradition of myself and my friends in a salute to what lies ahead. There is nothing as inspiring as watching the sun rise up out of the sea.”
“Very well.” Her eyes twinkled. “But you have only one glass.”
“Which I shall gladly sacrifice for the pleasure of your company.”
“How very gallant of you.”
“I can be very gallant. You should make note of that.” He opened the bottle, filled the glass and handed it to her, then raised the bottle toward the sun. “To the new day and the adventures it will bring.” And to those who are no longer with us, he added silently. He took a long drink from the bottle and sent a prayer of thanks to Ben. It was an excellent vintage, even straight from the bottle.
“To the adventures that lie ahead.” She raised her glass and took a sip, then wrinkled her nose.
“Is it not to your liking?”
“Oh no, it’s quite lovely really but the bubbles tickle my nose.” She fluttered her fingers in front of her nose. “Which is perhaps part of the enjoyment. I will confess I rarely have champagne and never in the morning. But it is delightful.”
“There is no better way to start a trip than with a glass of France’s finest.”
“And there is something both optimistic and invigorating about watching the sun make its first appearance of the day over the ocean. I agree with you, Mr. Armstrong.” She sipped her wine and turned her attention back to the sunrise. “The champagne makes it even better. I shall have to remember that. This is indeed an excellent way to start a grand adventure.”
“I must say I’m impressed. From reading your stories one would assume that the first dawn of a new journey toward Egypt would be rather commonplace for you. And yet you seem quite enthusiastic.”
“Would you prefer I be jaded and cynical as you appear to be?”
“I believe older and wiser a more accurate description,” he said coolly. “And I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you—”
“I daresay, Mr. Armstrong, you know nothing about me except for those details I have put in my stories.” She glanced at him. “And I try not to focus on my personal habits.”
“Why?” Curiosity sounded in his voice. “You are writing about your own adventures after all.”
“It’s very simple.” She turned toward him. “Regardless of whose adventures they are, my purpose isn’t to make readers admire the author but rather to become the hero or the heroine. Precisely why I chose to give the heroine of my stories a name different from my own. People cannot lose themselves in the story if they are too busy contemplating the author. Whether she is an early riser or prefers lemon to milk in her tea, it’s of no importance. All that matters is that people who read my stories forget the tedium of everyday life and lose themselves for an hour or an afternoon in another world.”
He stared at her for a long, disbelieving moment. “Rubbish, Mrs. Gordon. You can’t possibly be serious.”
“I most certainly am.”
“People don’t want to be swept away.” He scoffed. “People want to be informed and educated and enlightened.”
“Good Lord.” She laughed. “What utter nonsense. While indeed many people read newspapers, as well as books, to be informed and educated and enlightened, the vast majority of readers want nothing more than enjoyment.” She turned back to the sunrise.
“People want facts, Mrs. Gordon,” he said firmly. “Indisputable facts.”
“Do you really think people want to know that the Great Pyramid at Giza stands four hundred and eighty feet, nine inches high with a base very nearly square of 764 feet per side?”
“I find that extremely interesting.”
She ignored him. “Or would they prefer to read how the Great Pyramid rises into the heavens, dwarfing its companions as if they were insignificant interlopers and casting an ever growing shadow in the late afternoon sun, the hands of long-ago pharaohs, even in death, refusing to release their grip on their land and people and the Nile itself?”
“I will admit your way is certainly more inventive. It is not however, especially accurate.”
“No?” She heaved a resigned sigh, cast a longing look at the sunrise then faced him again. “Tell me, Mr. Armstrong.” She held out her glass. “Do the pyramids not cast a shadow in the setting sun that grows as sunset approaches and stretches toward the Nile?”
“One could say that, I suppose,” he said and filled her glass.
She raised a brow.
“I admit, the Nile is to the east of the pyramids.” He took another pull from the bottle. “And the setting sun does cast a significant shadow.”
“And does the Great Pyramid not tower over the others?”
“Yes, of course.”
“So what exactly was inaccurate?”
“Admittedly, inaccurate might have been the wrong word.” His jaw tightened. This was exactly the kind of problem he had with her writing. “Fanciful is perhaps a better word. The pyramids are tombs, not the fingers of the hands of the pharaohs reaching out from death.”
“My, you are stuffy.”
He stared at her. She was right—he did sound stuffy. He laughed.
“You find that amusing?”
He grinned. “No one has ever called me stuffy before.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps no one had the courage.”
“Entirely possible.” He chuckled. He never used to be stuffy. But then he’d never been an earl with property and wealth and responsibility before either.
“In spite of the imposing rhetoric in your uncle’s letters to The Times, and the threatening manner he used, you do not scare me, Mr. Armstrong.”
“Does my uncle?”
She met his gaze firmly. “No.”
“I don’t believe he intended to scare you, nor do I.” Although he certainly had expected her to retreat or even ignore his letters rather than respond to what he could now see might well have been construed as intimidating.
Mrs. Gordon cast him a knowing smile—although he wasn’t at all sure what she thought she knew and it was rather annoying—then returned to her perusal of the sunrise. As much as he had expected and wanted to be alone, he had to admit he was enjoying this bit of sparring with the lovely widow. He took another sip from the bottle. All things considered, this was probably a better way to begin this journey than drinking alone on deck accompanied only by the memories of friends who were gone or had moved on with their lives. The past was the past and both good times and bad were best left behind where they belonged.
“You must be pleased to be returning to Egypt,” he said in an offhand manner.
“Must I?”
“As much as I disagree with your manner of writing as well as dispute your depiction of, well, very nearly everything, I will not deny you do appear to have a certain passion for Egypt. So, I simply assume you are happy to be returning.”
“Indeed I am. It has been some time since I was last there.”
“How long?”
“Quite some time. Years, in fact.”
“How many?”
“A number of years.”
“Specifically?”
“Specifically? Come now, Mr. Armstrong.” She shook her head in annoyance. “It’s obvious that you are trying to solicit information from me although I must say you are not especially good at it.”
His brow furrowed. “Was I that obvious?”
She cast him a disbelieving look. “Yes.”
“Not subtle, then?”
“Not even a bit. Subtlety, Mr. Armstrong, is an art.”
“One I apparently need to work on.” He paused. “Although soliciting information was really not my intention. I intended nothing more than idle conversation, the same as one would have with any fellow passenger. The kind of thing people do when they’re sharing a sunrise and becoming better acquainted.”
“I have no desire to become better acquainted and we are not sharing a sunrise.”
“Oh, but I believe we are.” He nodded toward the east.
“Regardless, as your declared purpose is to prove me disreputable, I am not inclined to share even the most innocuous detail with you. Furthermore, you did say that for the length of the sunrise, we would ignore the dispute between us.”
He grinned, he couldn’t seem to help himself. “I believe the sun is now fully up.”
“Then there is no need for me to remain and be plied with champagne,” she said in a lofty manner.
He nodded and reached over to top off her glass. “No need at all.”
“It is, however, excellent champagne.”
“I can afford excellent champagne.”
“Do you have a great deal of money?”
“Enough.”
“But you haven’t always had money.” She studied him curiously. “You said on your first trip you had the best champagne you could afford.”
“True.”
“But you are now a wealthy man. Did you make your fortune in Egypt?”
“Now you too are trying to solicit information.”
“What a shocking coincidence.” She smiled pleasantly. “But it does seem only fair.”
“Very well.” He thought for a moment. Her queries were fairly harmless. “The response to your first comment is yes and the answer to the second is no.”
“Oh.” She considered him thoughtfully. “Mr. Corbin said you were well-known among Egyptologists and yet I have never heard of you.”
He bristled. “Have you heard of every Egyptologist?”
“Yes.”
“Surely not.
She raised a shoulder in an offhand shrug.
He stared. “You’re extremely outspoken, Mrs. Gordon.”
“Am I?” Surprise widened her eyes.
“Indeed you are.”
“Oh.” Her brows drew together, then her expression cleared and she cast him a brilliant smile. “Thank you.”
He shook his head in confusion. “For what?”
“For your assessment of my nature. I’ve never considered myself to be outspoken. I’m really quite flattered. You did mean it as a compliment, did you not?”
Why not? “Of course.”
“You do not lie well, Mr. Armstrong. It’s good to know.” She nodded. “But you do have my thanks for the champagne.” She leaned closer in a confidential manner and the merest hint of a scent at once exotic and welcoming wafted around him. “Did I tell you that I am not at all used to champagne?”
“Not directly but I suspected as much.” He bit back a grin. “Although I do find it difficult to believe that the celebrated Mrs. Gordon is not used to champagne.”
“Nonsense, I’m not the least bit celebrated. A bit well-known perhaps.”
“You are the Queen of the Desert after all.”
“Well yes, there is that.” She sipped her wine. “I do try to be circumspect.”
“But you are a member of the Antiquities Society.”
“I have not yet had the opportunity to attend any of the society’s gatherings. And if your uncle has his way, I never will.”
“Why not? The society is most prestigious.” So prestigious, it had never offered him membership.
“And membership is a great honor but I am far too wrapped up in my work to frequent social gatherings.”
“What? No literary society fetes? No grand balls in your honor?” He shook his head in a mournful manner. “I daresay I expected more from the Queen of the Desert.”
“I am sorry to disappoint.” She frowned. “And you needn’t keep calling me that.”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“Not especially.”
And wasn’t that interesting? “If you’re not indulging in London society, how do you spend your time?”
“I write, Mr. Armstrong. I have no time for anything else.” She pinned him with a firm look. “And what do you do? Other than play errand boy for your uncle. Which does seem to me to be the mark of a man with nothing else to do.”
“I have a great deal to do,” he said staunchly.
“For example?”
“I have not been back in England for very long. I have any number of ideas as to how to spend my time. I am simply trying to decide my next course.”
“Come now, Mr. Armstrong,” she said skeptically. “You’re the wealthy nephew of an even wealthier earl. You have no need to do anything productive at all.”
“A life of boredom is no life at all.”
“I wouldn’t know.” She tilted her head and studied him. “How long since your last trip to Egypt?”
“It’s been some time.” He grinned. “Quite some time.”
“Why did you leave Egypt?”
“Why did you?”
“I believe you’re hiding something, Mr. Armstrong.”
“Yet another coincidence, Mrs. Gordon. I know you’re hiding a great deal.”
“Do you?” She considered him for a long moment. A slow, decidedly wicked smile curved her lips. Her exceptionally fetching lips. “This should be fun, Mr. Armstrong.”
“Fun?” His gaze slipped to her mouth. He suspected her definition of fun at the moment and his were decidedly different. He cleared his throat. “Do you really think so?”
“Oh my, yes.” A definite glint of challenge shone in her eyes. “There is nothing more fun than putting an arrogant man in his place.”
“Then the game is afoot, Mrs. Gordon. And you’re right.” He leaned in, trying to ignore her scent, the long length of her lashes, the distracting nearness of her. “It will be fun. Although I have no doubt as to the ultimate winner.”
“Nor do I, Mr. Armstrong.”
His gaze meshed with hers and for a moment something one could only call awareness sparked between them. Not what he expected. Or wanted. But then Harry Armstrong had always been willing to adapt to new circumstances.
“There you are,” a female voice sounded behind him. Before he could turn, someone short and determined nudged him out of the way as efficiently as a collie cutting a sheep from the herd, and Mrs. Gordon’s band of determined elderly watchdogs surrounded her.
“Good day, Sidney,” Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore said brightly. “And Mr. Armstrong as well. What a lovely surprise.”
“And greeting the new day with champagne.” Lady Blodgett cast an assessing eye at the bottle in his hand. “I never would have thought of such a thing but it is a charming idea.”
“And how very thoughtful of you.” The dragon plucked the bottle from his grip and smiled innocently. “Only one glass?”
“I’m afraid so,” Sidney said with a shrug.
“Then there’s nothing to be done about it.” The dragon shook her head reluctantly. “We shall simply have to adjourn to Mrs. Gordon’s stateroom and request additional glasses from the charming Mr. Gilmore.”
Mrs. Gordon bit back a grin. Why shouldn’t she smile? She had invaded his solitude—he ignored the fact that she had already been on deck when he arrived—commandeered his tradition and was now absconding with his champagne.
“Thank you, again, Mr. Armstrong,” she said pleasantly. “Do enjoy the rest of your morning.” She took the dragon’s arm and they strolled down the deck.
“We would ask you to join us, Mr. Armstrong, but Sidney’s room simply isn’t big enough for everyone. Why, the four of us can scarcely squeeze in together. Although it is an exceptionally nice room.” Lady Blodgett smiled. “Besides, it did look to me as if there was barely enough champagne left for a handful of glasses at the most and I am certain you would wish for us to have it.”
What could he say? “With my sincerest compliments.”
“I thought you would agree. This really is quite delightful. I might have to put the idea of starting the first day of any new journey with champagne at sunrise in a Lady Travelers pamphlet.” Lady Blodgett turned to go then turned back. “Oh, and as it seems to me, to all of us really, as your purpose in this trip is the complete opposite of Sidney’s, it might be wiser for all concerned if you avoided those occasions when it was just you and Mrs. Gordon alone. Besides, people being what they are, appearances are important. I’m certain you understand.”
“Are you afraid I might attempt to ply Mrs. Gordon with spirits in an effort to wring a confession from her?” he said lightly. “Or do you think my intentions might be even more dishonorable? Seduction perhaps?” At once, the image of her delightfully inviting lips came to mind.
Lady Blodgett glanced at Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore, and then leaned closer to him. “Mr. Armstrong, my husband and his friends were explorers and adventurers. I have spent the better part of my life around such men as have Poppy and Effie. Men very much like you. I assure you, we are quite good at recognizing those who are honorable gentlemen and those who are not.”
“And where do I fall in your assessment?” he said slowly.
“I haven’t decided yet.” She smiled sweetly but there was no misunderstanding the look in her eye. Regardless of whether she decided he was indeed an honorable gentleman or a despicable cad, the opportunities to be alone with Mrs. Gordon again, particularly with champagne, would be nonexistent. Were the ladies trying to keep her secrets or simply protect her? He could certainly understand the former if indeed he was right about her but the latter made no sense. A widow had no need of constant supervision and from his brief conversation with her it was apparent Mrs. Gordon—Sidney—could certainly hold her own.
“Good day, Mr. Armstrong.” Lady Blodgett started after the others. Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore nodded, and then trailed after her friend.
“Do you always travel in packs, Mrs. Fitzhew-Wellmore?” he said mildly.
She turned back to him. “Goodness no, Mr. Armstrong. Not always.” She smiled in a friendly manner. He wasn’t sure he believed it. “Only when necessary.” The older lady’s eyes twinkled and she headed toward the others.
The game was indeed afoot. Harry thought he’d be playing with Sidney alone. Now, it appeared he was facing an entire team.