CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“I want all my trunks shipped back before week’s end.”

Marta heard Gunter Konrad’s thick accent as she finished penning a note to Lord Ravenscroft at Shepheard’s lobby desk. The huge Austrian strode by her, four bellhops trailing in his wake like pilot fish after a behemoth. He stopped and pointed at a huge pile of luggage at the foot of the staircase.

Apparently Gunter was leaving Cairo, Marta thought. Very odd as the archeological season was barely under way.

She handed a bellhop her note and instructions and then settled back in the chair, catching Gunter’s eye as she did so. He blushed and fidgeted like a naughty little boy who’d been caught leaving the cookie jar with its lid askew.

“Mr. Konrad,” she hailed him, glad for the distraction. Every minute Desdemona was held by Maurice she might be subjected to—no, she wouldn’t consider that. Desdemona was an English citizen. Maurice wouldn’t dare harm her. “I say, Mr. Konrad!”

At the sound of her voice, he heaved a sigh and pivoted with military precision. “Madame?”

“You’re leaving us so soon?” she asked mildly. “You did not receive a concession?”

“Yes, I got a concession. Of course I got a concession. I am Gunter Konrad.”

“I see. No trouble in your family, I hope?” She was being shockingly forward but she really didn’t care. If only Ravenscroft would appear—

“No trouble.”

“Then …?” She let the phrase dangle invitingly.

His florid face grew even brighter. “You are most inquisitive, Mrs. Douglass. But for your own safety, I tell you this. There is a man in Cairo who hires his services out in any number of capacities. I employed him to do some work for me. He … he went above and beyond the intent of my directions.”

“Yes?” Marta prompted, perplexed.

“He is become a nuisance and, more important, I am not at all sure he isn’t dangerous. He comes to me, big Gunter Konrad, and he threatens me, telling me I owe him more money for this thing he has done. He is obviously not right”—Gunter rapped his forehead with his knuckles—“up here. I decide it is better to leave Cairo this season.”

“I see.”

Apparently he did not appreciate her tone. “Certainly I could hurt this little man. But that would make unpleasantness with the authorities. I am not sure if he holds citizenship here and I, Gunter, do not want trouble. It is best I leave. For this little man’s sake.”

“Of course.”

He slammed his fist into his palm. “A rabid dog does not care what the size is of the man he bites, Mrs. Douglass.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t suppose it does.”

His lips compressed and he spun about, barking commands at the attendants hovering over his mountain of trunks. As she watched, Lord Ravenscroft made his way around the luggage, nodding perfunctorily at Gunter.

“Mrs. Douglass.” Ravenscroft inclined his head as he approached.

“Lord Ravenscroft,” she said, “I come to you on a matter of the gravest import—”

“Doubtless. But I am sure whatever your errand, it will not be served by a public scene,” he answered, securing her elbow and leading her out onto the balcony.

“Now, what is this all about, Mrs. Douglass? Flattering though your appearance here is, I must inform you that my attentions have already been engaged—”

“You arrogant fool!” she spat. “I don’t want you! I have come to tell you that Desdemona Carlisle has been kidnapped.”

His features went slack. Any other time she might have laughed, certainly she’d have left him standing there gaping like a fish. But precious time had already been wasted.

Guilt and anxiety, unique emotions for her, impelled her on. “Early today I saw Miss Carlisle forcibly removed from the street outside her home and deposited into a waiting carriage. I heard the kidnapper give instructions to the driver. I know who he is and I think I know where he took her.”

His eyes widened with shock. “We must contact the authorities—”

“What authorities?” she asked in a low, harsh whisper. “The Turks? The French? The English? They’ll run around for days making plans with their usual ineptitude.”

“I see,” he said gravely. “Where has this person taken her?”

“A desolate area on the edge of the Bahariya Oasis. El Bawki.”

“How do I get there?” he asked, his jaw congealing into a tense line of determination.

“You’ll need a guide. And a horse. You can arrange for them in the lobby.”

He looked at her with distaste. “I still say we should go to the authorities. They have the resources necessary. They will know who has the most to gain by—” He left off abruptly. The deep furrows on his forehead cleared. “Tell me, Mrs. Douglass, why would anyone kidnap Miss Carlisle?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Miss Carlisle, by her own admission, is far from wealthy. She is dependent on her grandfather for her livelihood. And it is common knowledge that he is in financial difficulties. If this was a kidnapping, there is simply no one who could pay the kind of ransom such a risky endeavor would demand.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated forcefully. She’d gambled too much of Desdemona’s welfare already. She would not be able to live with herself if her plan brought the girl irreparable harm. “I have to find Harry,” she muttered.

“Let me be blunt,” Lord Ravenscroft said, his tone officiously superior. “England owns Egypt. Regardless of what the penny dreadfuls claim, genteel, well-connected Englishwomen are not plucked from the streets to fill Eastern harems.”

“Your point?”

“Miss Carlisle has a romantic nature. Could she, perhaps in order to induce a …” He trailed off. “Last night,” he said uncomfortably, “I, er, took certain liberties without making clear my intentions. A romantic, sheltered young woman like Miss Carlisle might feel compelled to prompt assurances that she may have felt were lacking.”

Desdemona arranging for her own kidnapping? Impossible. “No, Lord Ravenscroft. It doesn’t make any sense. There were no witnesses. I was only there by chance. And, quite frankly, I doubt Desdemona is that fanciful.”

“Well, whether she has had a hand in this or not, she needs rescuing,” he said, smiling. Whatever she believed, Lord Ravenscroft obviously thought he’d found an answer to Desdemona’s kidnapping. “I can imagine her supreme embarrassment if I were to approach the authorities only to have the situation revealed as a self-orchestrated … tableau.”

The monumental ego of the man! “I should wait about and see if a note arrives. But then again, why? Come, Mrs. Douglass, let us go see about that guide.”

“Bihyatak—” Desdemona started to say. The carriage pitched sideways, throwing her into the door. She righted herself, fighting tears, cursing violently under her breath, only her anger keeping her panic at bay. Twice now in less than a fortnight she’d been kidnapped. She was getting bloody, bloody sick of it!

But this man was infinitely more threatening than Rabi. He terrified her. She gulped and tried again. “Bihyatak—”

“Speak English,” the man, Maurice, said. “I cannot understand one word of your … Arabic, is that?” He gave her a mocking smile and his smooth, hairless skin crinkled like delicate tissue beneath his dark eyes and at the corners of his small mouth.

He looked very young and yet she knew he’d been working the dig sites for more years than she’d had life. With his androgynous features, dark hair, and European accent, it was impossible to tell his nationality. From what Harry had told her, it was his stock-in-trade.

“I was imploring you to return me to Cairo.”

“Imploring. How nice. So few young persons these days have good manners. But”—he shrugged—“I am afraid I must disappoint you. You’ve not yet fulfilled your function.”

“You’re going to cause an international incident, you know, kidnapping me like this,” she said, trying to sound unaffected. Harry would have handled this with so much more élan than she was showing.

Harry. Dear God, let him find her.

“So?” Maurice laughed. “What do I care? I certainly have no love for Egypt. Or France. Or England. Or of any other nation. Let them read political intrigue into my actions. Let each claim me as the other’s agent.”

“And whose agent are you?”

He tipped his head slightly as if acknowledging an accolade. “My own.”

“But—”

He leaned across the carriage and set one knuckle gently on her lips. She jerked her head back, rubbing her mouth with her sleeve. His eyes went flat and reptilian, and she prayed he wouldn’t touch her again.

If he forced her to do with him what she and Harry had done—She could not stand that. She knew too newly, too clearly, what making love was to have it desecrated by him. Love.

Let Harry find her, she thought again, and even as the thought was born she realized she’d not questioned whether he would come but only if he would find her.

Harry would come for her. Harry, she remembered Magi saying, would always come for her. And she knew it was true. She knew it as surely she knew the sun would rise, the desert would burn, and the sea was salt. It was as elemental and irrefutable as the planets’ course across the heavens. Harry would come because he loved her.

She recognized that love now as the simple honesty upon which all of his actions had been anchored. It did not matter when he proclaimed his love. It had been there all along.

They careened along half-obscured roads, through the roan and ocher landscape. Outside, thousands of dragonflies encircled the carriage, their crisp, crystalline wings sparkling in the heat waves as they hovered and dipped disturbed in their flight by the carriage’s passing. As the day wore on, the air within grew hot and weighted with dust, clogging her throat and burning her eyes until finally a shout from outside brought the carriage creaking to a halt.

Maurice kicked open the door and shoved her outside. She stumbled, just managing to keep upright, her legs weak from their cramped disuse. With a sense of déjà vu, Desdemona shielded her eyes from the sudden sunlight as a half-dozen veiled men surrounded her. She squinted past them.

Behind the men sun-scorched ruined buildings gave mute testimony to an ancient, long-abandoned community. Maurice had brought her to an Egyptian ghost town. A narrow crossroad separated crumbling hovels. Only one or two looked capable of any longer providing shelter. The little cluster of ruins, a long-emptied cistern, squatted in decay. A woman, a goat tethered at her feet, crouched in what little shade was afforded by the half-tumbled wall house. She caught Desdemona’s eye and looked away.

The fear that the interminable, nerve-numbing trip had held at bay came racing back. She had no idea where she was. There was nothing familiar here, only the familiarity of the desert, its huge sand apron spreading out for countless miles in all directions. From behind her Maurice grabbed her upper arm, yanking her forward, causing mutters from the men.

“Usskut!” Maurice said.

It was one of the few words Desdemona knew. In no uncertain terms, he was telling them to be quiet. The men fell silent.

She lifted her chin; the worst one could do with such an animal is to show fear. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked. “I am Desdemona Carlisle. I am a citizen of Great Britain and a subject of Her Majesty the—”

The woman with the goat gasped, and Maurice shot her a glare filled with black promise as his fingertips dug painfully into Desdemona’s arm. “Shut up,” he said calmly. “Shut up or I will kill you. It makes no difference to me.”

No one had ever threatened her life before. Her eyes fill with frightened tears. “Why have you kidnapped me?” Good, she could barely hear the quaver in her voice. “Why have you—I want … I want to go home!” The words broke free in spite of her determination to be proud, to be brave. Tears spilled from her eyes and dripped from her chin.

“So sorry.” Maurice shrugged. “Apparently it isn’t Allah’s will and all that. Well, at least it isn’t my will that you go home. And here, my will is all that matters.”

“What is it you want?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “A woman who gets to the point. So English. What do I want? I want you, Miss Carlisle.”

“Why?”

His eyes went dark and lifeless, the oily servility died from his expression. “As bait.”

“Bait for whom?”

“Harry Braxton, may he rot in hell.”