CHAPTER FOUR

Sir Robert glanced out into the hallway and then back at the alabaster cylinder in his hands. He was having a hard time dating the dratted thing and as of yet there was still no sign of Harry. What in God’s name did Desdemona and Harry spend so much time discussing? He blew his cheeks out in self-mockery. Hieroglyphics and chronologies, of course. The tie that binds.

He looked around his environs and sighed. The makeshift library cum office cum sitting room was ugly, granted. But even though cluttered and crammed with artifacts and relics, at least its contents had the virtue of authenticity. The rest of the small, cramped domicile did not.

Narrow, drafty, and in need of repair, the house was outfitted with second-rate furnishings and reproductions, an odd and eclectic conglomeration of English furniture Desdemona had scrounged from English military couples returning to Great Britain and the odd bits and pieces she’d dragged home from the marketplaces, the suqs.

It was not a proper home for a young Englishwoman, though it was more than adequate for his own needs. In fact, he could think of no place he’d rather be than here, among his beloved treasures, a stone’s throw away from a land that had fascinated him since he’d first read of it over fifty years ago.

He didn’t want to leave Egypt.

But if there was one thing he loved more than Egypt, it was his granddaughter. He’d spent the first decade and a half of her life nearly unaware of her existence except for the infrequent mention of her as a child prodigy in some scholastic journal that found its way to his desk or the sporadic letter from his son, a son he knew only slightly more than the granddaughter.

After her parents had died and she’d arrived here, he’d learned more of his son. That knowledge had horrified him. Sir Robert had spent the last five years scrambling for a way to rectify the grave injustices his son and his wife had done to their only daughter.

Desdemona, the protégée, the fascinating linguistic oddity, had never had a childhood. She’d been hauled all over Europe, from city to city, from conference to convention. She’d spent her youth on podiums and in libraries and on stages, amazing brittle scholarly old men with her uncanny ability to translate ancient written languages.

When she’d first arrived here, Sir Robert had asked her what she wanted. He’d never forgotten her response: shy, hesitant, and heartbreakingly brief. She wanted, she’d said, to be a normal English girl.

He’d do anything to see she fulfilled that gentle aspiration, and it certainly wasn’t going to be achieved in Cairo in the company of ex-patriots, obsessed archeologists and dilettantes, politicians and despots. Sir Robert knew his duty and his heart, but he also knew Desdemona. The only possible way she would return to England was if she thought he wanted to go, too. Desdemona was so damn willing to sacrifice herself to others’ needs. She’d never leave him here.

But now—a beatific smile touched Sir Robert’s lips—perhaps there was a way they could both achieve their desires. A footfall in the hallway alerted him and he rose from the desk. As unlikely as it was, Harry Braxton might be the answer to all their problems.

“Braxton!” Sir Robert called as Harry passed by.

Harry reappeared, framed by the door, hands thrust into his pockets, his expression a trifle suspicious. “Sir?”

“Come in, m’boy. Come in and have a seat.” Sir Robert set the alabaster piece aside and smiled.

Looking behind him as if to assure himself there was no other “boy” in the hall, Harry entered. Sir Robert indicated a chair near an empty sarcophagus and Harry lowered himself cautiously into it.

“Well.” Sir Robert steepled his fingers in front of his lips and nodded invitingly.

“Well.”

The silence hung between them.

“Well, then. Anything interesting happening with you, Braxton, m’lad?”

“No.” Harry smiled pleasantly and Sir Robert gave an inward curse. Leave it to Harry to do nothing to help an awkward silence. Casting about for some subtle, ingenious way to introduce the subject he wanted to broach, Sir Robert rifled through the disarray of papers on his desk. He found an article on Aton and monotheism and handed it to Harry. “What do you think of this drivel?”

Harry barely glanced at the pages before handing them back. “Fascinating. Did you have anything in particular you wanted, sir?”

“Oh, no. No. Just haven’t had the opportunity to have a chat with you lately. Man-to-man sort of thing, you understand.”

Harry’s expression grew uncharacteristically grave. “If this is about my being in Dizzy’s room, sir, nothing—”

“Of course nothing happened!” Sir Robert sputtered. “What do you take me for, boy? You and Desdemona!” He snorted. “Most unlikely thing I can imagine. Oh, granted, at one time I know she had rather a tendre for you. Thank God, she grew out of it. ’Spect you were relieved, too.”

“Oh, yes.”

“No. That ain’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I was, er, wondering about this cousin of yours.”

Harry relaxed. He stretched his legs and crossed his ankles, folding his hands across his chest. He raised his brows expectantly. “Yes?”

“A lord, you say.”

Harry nodded.

“Thought your father was a dean or a don or some such thing.”

“He is.”

Sir Robert toyed with a pen, studying the nib as he asked, “But gentry, too?”

“No, sir. I am related to my cousin through my mother’s side of the family.”

“He’s broken-hearted, you say?” This gambit brought no response, and Sir Robert ground his teeth in frustration. “Would he have … been at fault in the matter? Not, you understand, that I’m prying. I just wouldn’t want to expose Desdemona to company unbefitting a young, sheltered girl.”

Harry burst out laughing and Sir Robert stared at him, his ire rising at the thought that Harry would laugh at Desdemona.

“You are really a blackguard, Hairy,” he said tightly. “Have you no sense of what is proper? No nicer impulses?”

“Apparently not.” Harry grinned unrepentantly.

The anger that invariably came whenever Sir Robert thought about how Harry Braxton had wasted his considerable talents and intellect burned hotly to life. “You could have been a premier Egyptologist, Harry,” he said tightly. “You could have achieved something profound. Something lasting. With your abilities and your knowledge, you could have made a name for yourself. But instead, you’ve chosen to squander your talents on”—he cast about for a suitably derogatory term and found one—“grave-robbing.”

“It’s a living.”

Sir Robert rose to his feet, leaning over his desk and slamming his palm down on its surface. “Don’t be impertinent!”

A hard light flashed for an instant in Harry’s pale eyes and then abruptly died away, leaving his expression once more unrepentantly insouciant. “Forgive me.”

“If you would just apply yourself. Just buckle down and start writing—”

“Too much work. But you didn’t ask me here to give me this lecture again, did you, sir?” he asked pleasantly.

With a deep sigh, Sir Robert sank back into his chair. “No. You’re right. I didn’t. Too bad, really. I like you, Harry. If things were different—”

“You mean if I were different,” Harry said flatly.

“Just so. If you were different, I’d even have encouraged Desdemona’s infatuation for you. I can’t help but think you would have learned affection for her. She’s a fine woman.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Deserves a fine, upstanding man. A man of importance, a man of property, a man of higher learning.”

“Yes. I know.”

There was a tension about Harry’s posture at odds with his casual tone, and it occurred to Sir Robert that Harry wanted out of this interview. Well, by God, even if he wasn’t husband material, he and Desdemona were friends—great friends—and solicitude was the responsibility of friendship.

“I don’t think you do. Desdemona deserves the best man in the world. She deserves to have her desires realized. God knows, her parents never heeded her wants.” Normally, he wouldn’t have disclosed such private information, but Harry had pricked him on the raw with his laughter.

Harry’s lids obscured the direction of his gaze. He appeared to be studying his hands. Color rose on his lean cheeks. Good, Sir Robert thought, good. He should feel some shame for his carelessness.

“Sir?” Harry murmured softly.

Sir Robert hesitated. He’d never confided any of the more painful aspects of Desdemona’s childhood to anyone before. Certainly he’d never said anything to Harry. But then, he’d never wanted to enlist Harry’s aid regarding Desdemona before.

“She wasn’t like other children.”

“I would assume not.”

“She could read before she was two years old. My son was afraid her prodigious talent would be wasted.”

“I can imagine his concern,” Harry replied, watching him carefully.

“Concern?” Sir Robert echoed. “Fear. Desdemona scared her parents. Rather than accept responsibility, they hired tutors, scholars, the most prestigious they could afford, and they gave her to them. Old men more interested in dead languages than live children. And when they’d packed her head with all these languages, they carted her about Europe so she could impress the world.”

“Yes?” Harry’s voice was so low Sir Robert had to strain to hear it.

“They forced her to work for hours, these zealous instructors, intent that not one measure of her vast intelligence be wasted or distracted. But every time she learned a new language, there was another to be learned. Every success was met with another challenge. There were no friends. A mind like hers could not be tainted with exposure to normal children.”

“Did she tell you this?” Harry looked stricken.

“In fits and starts. Little pieces she dropped casually over the years. That’s the most piquant part of it, Harry. She doesn’t even know how truly bizarre her upbringing was. She has nothing with which to compare it. Only her books, those romantic adventure stories she thinks I don’t know about. She doesn’t even realize how odd her life here is. But she guesses and she longs for something—”

“—something English and wholesome and romantic.”

“Yes.” Sir Robert leaned over the desk. His face grew warm. “There are few opportunities for Desdemona to meet acceptable gentlemen here. Is your cousin … an acceptable sort of man?”

Harry was silent for so long Sir Robert feared he was not going to answer, but then he cleared his throat and said, “Yes. Inasmuch as I know of Blake Ravenscroft, which is not so much after all, he is an unexceptional and very standard example of the breed.”

“The breed?” Sir Robert’s brows dipped in confusion.

“Worthy, dogmatic, dull.”

“Dull as in unintelligent?”

“No. Dull as in predictable. Blake can always be counted on to do the proper, the honorable thing. Always.”

Sir Robert grinned. “Sounds a fine young man.”

“Does he?” Harry cocked his head mockingly and Sir Robert shook his. Harry would never understand the appeal of integrity, principles, and probity. While Harry was loyal to a degree and trustworthy to another, he was utterly a rogue.

Still, Sir Robert had found out what he’d wanted to discover, and it was gratifying knowledge. He sat down, his gaze falling on the alabaster cylinder on his desk. “What do you think of this, Harry?”

Harry rose and came stiffly across the room. Probably rigid from posing in that insouciant position for so long, Sir Robert thought.

He took the cylinder from Sir Robert and turned it over, his gaze traveling over the smooth surface a minute before he placed it on the desk. “Old Kingdom. Cartouche is blurred. Possibly a seal.”

Sir Robert scowled. “Why would you say it’s Old Kingdom? I see no evidence—” He bent his head and studied the faint carvings in the stone.

Harry turned, his movement mechanical and graceless. “That’s Osiris’ cartouche. Osiris was worshipped from 2200 to 2100 B.C. I think it might be a funerary seal.”

“By heavens, Harry, I do believe you’re right!” Sir Robert looked up excitedly only to find himself alone. Damn waste of a wonderful mind, he thought soberly before returning his attention to the seal in his hand.