Christian name, and
they were not even making love. Yet to his ears it sounded like
lovemaking: the way she crooned his name, the way the foreign words
sounded in her mouth. His mind conjured harems and concubines and
dancing girls and she was all of them, it seemed, all the most
alluring women in the world in one.
Oh, he was in a bad
way, a sad, sad way.
He went to her.
Obediently he looked down at the thing in her hand. His mind
revolted, and his gaze shifted away, to her bosom. It was mostly
exposed, since she’d neglected to fasten the neck of the crepe
shirt.
Except for the
obnoxious veils, Egyptians did know the proper way to dress a woman.
“
It disgusts
you?” she said.
“
Certainly
not,” he said.
She glanced down at
herself, at her barely veiled bosom shimmering gold in the
candlelight. “I meant the mummy,” she said. She did not
attempt to cover the exposed flesh.
This lack of
modesty was perfectly agreeable to him. Still, it did not make it
easier to think. He tried, though he wasn’t sure why.
“
Not
disgusting, exactly,” he said at last.
“
The mummies
trouble you,” she said. “I remarked it before. They
trouble me, too, especially when I find them in pieces, after
someone’s torn them apart, looking for amulets and such. But
they enchant me as well.” With her index finger she lightly
stroked the thing in her hand. “See how beautifully it is
wrapped, how lovingly preserved.”
He tried to see the
beauty she spoke of, but he couldn’t. Looking at the thing was
too upsetting. He turned away.
There was a
silence. He could
feel
her thinking, wondering.
“
I saw a
mummy unwrapped in London,” he said harshly into the silence.
“A great entertainment, with a lot of aristocrats gawking and a
physician presiding over the proceedings. It was a woman, naked, the
poor creature, once they’d removed her
lovingly
prepared
wrappings. They pretended it was a scientific inquiry, but most of
the audience was there for a sensation. It was all a show to them, as
though she’d never been a living woman, once, like their wives
and sisters and mothers and daughters.” His throat tightened at
the recollection. He could say no more. He’d choke.
“
I see.”
She set down the mummy and rose. He looked at her, and at the thing
she’d set aside. He knew she wanted it. He’d seen the
longing in her eyes, the same expression she wore when he found her
studying the pictures on the walls. Yet she set the little mummy
aside for his sake. His heart clenched and twisted.
“
It’s
only a bird or a cat,” he said. “Somebody’s pet or
sacred animal. You found it. You might as well keep it. The next
person to come along will trample it accidentally or tear it apart on
purpose, looking for treasure. At least you will treat it kindly.”
He bent and picked it up. The smell made him gag. He held his breath
and offered the thing to her. Her eyebrows went up.
“
Yes, yes,
take it,” he choked out, resisting the urge to throw it at her.
“
Are you
sure?” She took it from him though, the gods be thanked.
He retreated a
pace. “Of course. Didn’t I tell you I’m easy to
manage? A lively bout of lovemaking makes me mere putty in your
hands. I vow, I am overflowing with kindness and generosity.”
…
and with
something else, something different from the sense of well-being he
usually experienced. There was an ache, a something not quite right
and not quite wrong.
“
But it also
makes me devilish hungry,” he added quickly. “As I
recall, we’ve bread in the saddlebags.”* * *
IT MEANT NOTHING to
him, that was clear to Daphne. He’d spoken of feelings, but
desire was all he meant. He’d satisfied a bodily appetite, no
different from hunger. That was the way he saw it. He’d said
so: she was in lust with him, and the logical response was
lovemaking. For hunger, the logical response was eating.
In other words, the
passionate interlude held no more significance for him than did the
simple meal of bread and water they ate a short time later in a
corner of the first chamber, surrounded by images of the tomb’s
owner and his women and long columns of hieroglyphs.
Meanwhile, Daphne’s
world had come crashing down about her ears. She stared blindly at
the hieroglyphs wobbling in the candlelight. She felt as though she’d
spent her adulthood in a kind of darkness, translating at least one
part of her life into the wrong language. “Any idea what it
says?” he said.
She dragged her
gaze back to him. He had not put his shirt back on. The faint light
glimmered on bronzed skin and traced the outlines of his muscled
torso. His eyes were dark, unreadable.
Not that she could
have read them easily, even in better light. Rupert Carsington’s
eyes were not windows into his soul, as Virgil’s eyes had been.
But then, Rupert Carsing-ton seemed to keep very little hidden. His
words and actions were plain and direct. His anger, too. He didn’t
hide it behind a veneer of gentleness and saintly patience. He spoke
his mind… instead of trying to dismantle hers.
“
You know I
don’t,” she said. “I have explained the
difficulties of decipherment to you time and again.”
“
Yes, but now
that you’ve relieved the terrible lust oppressing your mind, I
thought you might have a burst of insight or inspiration,” he
said.
“
I had an
insight,” she said, “but not about hieroglyphs. As to the
lust…”
“
Ah, yes. Not
quite relieved, I daresay.”
“
That was not
what I—”
“
The trick
with lust is, you can only eradicate it with steady application,”
he said. “Steady,
repeated
application. So, as soon as it
begins to vex you again, be sure to let me know.”
“
That is not
what I…” But it was part of what was on her mind, and so
she said quickly, to get it over with, “Do you find me
womanly?”
“
Did the
sandstorm dry up your brain?” he said. “Do you think I
mistook you for a man?”
“
I mean, do
you find me
un
womanly?”
He bent closer and
peered at her face, scarlet now, she’d no doubt. “Where?”
he said. “In what way?”
“
Not…
feminine. Indelicate. Too…” She recalled Virgil’s
gentle admonitions, his infuriating
patience
, and anger burnt
away embarrassment. ‘Too boisterous,“ she said tightly.
”In lovemaking.“
“
A woman—too
boisterous—in
lovemakingT
Mr. Cars-ington said
incredulously. ”There’s no such thing. Where did you get
that fool notion? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I can guess. You
shouldn’t have married an elderly man.“
“
Virgil was
four and fifty when we wed,” she said. “That is not
exactly Methuselah.”
“
How old were
you?”
“
Nineteen and
a half,” she said.
“
You’d
have done better with two husbands of seven and twenty,” he
said. “As to the late lamented, he should have married a woman
closer to his own age, whose animal spirits were of a similar
strength. He might have lived longer. More important, he wouldn’t
have needed to cover up his lack of vigor by criticizing his
handsome, passionate wife.”
“
His…
lack… of vigor,” Daphne repeated. “Was that—”
“
Not that
there’s any excuse for him,” Mr. Carsington went on
indignantly. “To tell such hurtful lies—and he a
clergyman! I hope you made him do without for a long, long time—a
fortnight at least—to teach him a lesson. By gad, that was
ungentlemanly—and you shackled for life to the brute. He made
you feel unwomanly—you, of all women!—when it was he who
was unmanly. It makes my blood boil. Come here.”
“
Ungentlemanly?”
she said. “Unmanly?”
“
He was a
small man,” he said, “else he wouldn’t have tried
to cut you down to size.”
She stared at him,
trying to take it in. He said she wasn’t unwomanly—he, a
man of vast experience.
“
I must have
the truth,” she said. “You must not be tactful. This is
important.”
‘
Tactful?“
he echoed. ”I cannot believe that a woman of your intelligence
could not see what he was about. It must be obvious to the slowest of
dimwits that he was jealous of your brain, because he knew his wasn’t
as big. He was afraid you’d accomplish something and put him in
the shade. That’s why he forbade you to study ancient Egyptian
writing. Obviously he was jealous of your passion and energy, too.
You were
too much woman
for him.“
“
Too much
woman,” she repeated, savoring the words. Not too little. Not
too much like a man. Hers wasn’t a man’s brain. It was
simply
her
brain, that was all.
“
You may have
noticed you are not too much for me.” His black eyes gleamed.
“
You don’t
mind about my brain,” she said.
“
I’m
not afraid of your brain,” he said. “Come here. ”
Ta
‘ala heneh
.“ He pulled her into his arms and kissed
her.
It was not polite
or gentle. It was long and bold, sinfully deep and lascivious, and it
melted her muscles, along with the remnants of her morals. She did
not even pretend to struggle. She sank back in his arms and let her
hands rove over the powerful contours of his chest and shoulders, his
arms, his back.
She was not sure
she could ever get enough of touching him. She didn’t know how
she’d managed to keep her hands off him for as long as she had.
He was warm and strong and fiercely alive… oh, and he was
beautifully made, on the grand scale, and perfectly proportioned. Her
hands slid down to cup his buttocks, so smooth and taut, and he
groaned against her mouth, then drew away.
She opened her
eyes, dismayed. She’d been too bold, disgusted him. But no,
he’d told her she couldn’t be too bold.
“
I meant to
please you before,” he said. Growled.
“
You did,”
she said. She’d never been so pleased in her life. She’d
never guessed it was possible to be so pleased— and the word
was grossly inadequate.
“
But I was in
a hurry,” he said, “after waiting so confounded long for
you to come to your senses.”
“
I was
perfectly satisfied,” she said. She’d thought she’d
die of pleasure and happiness. She’d thought she’d burst
from it, from the feelings, so immense.
“
What do you
know?” he said. “Your previous lover was an
old man
.” He kissed the special place behind her ear. He kissed her
neck, the base of her throat.
She didn’t
argue. What did she know? Nothing, apparently, when it came to
lovemaking.
This man did,
though. He was writing mysterious messages in kisses upon her skin,
along her collarbone and down, across her breasts, and down. He eased
her out of his arms and onto the mat. Her clothing slid away from her
body, and his mouth was there instead, the lightest of brushes,
writing kisses over her skin.
His lips told a
long and complicated tale upon her belly, and then the kisses moved
lower, and his fingers were there, too, tracing the contours of the
most secret of her places. It made an ache in the pit of her belly to
be explored and known so, a sweet, killing ache.
She tangled her
fingers in his hair because she must touch him, do something. The
ache was everywhere, beating in her heart and making a strange
current in her veins and thrumming over her skin. Oh, and there…
the tiny flesh-bud, wicked thing… his thumb teasing…
and then he took her in his mouth.
Oh, no, you
mustn’t. It’s… indecent… lewd. Wrong,
surely. We’ll be damned for all eternity… I don’t
care. Let me be damned. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.
Pleasure, almost
unbearable, swept through her, wave upon wave of a dark joy. Again
and again she trembled on the brink of ecstasy; again and again he
carried her over. Until she could bear no more, not alone. She curled
up, grasped his shoulders. “In me,” she gasped. “Be
in
me.”
He came up onto Ms
knees. She dragged her hands over his chest, down over his taut
belly, and down to his virile member, immensely erect and hot to the
touch. She stroked it, longingly, lovingly, and he gave a strangled
laugh. “Ah, well, then, don’t be so shy,” he said.
He set his big hand on her chest and pushed her down, and remained so
for a moment, looking at her.