Louise Allen - Beguiled by Her Betrayer

The arched brows lifted in silent reproof at his ill manners, but this time she did not evade the question. ‘Augusta Cleopatra Agrippina,’ she said evenly and waited for his response.

Quin did not disappoint her. ‘Good God! What were your parents thinking of?’

‘We were in Greece at the time apparently, but Father was still in his Roman phase. I doubt Mama had any say in the matter. Look at it this way, I am fortunate that he had not become interested in Egypt then or I would probably be called Bastet or Nut.’

He had heard of Bastet, the goddess with the head of a cat, but, ‘Nut?’

‘The goddess of the sky who swallows the sun every evening and gives birth to it each morning. Father!’

Quin decided he did not want to contemplate the mechanics of that. ‘So which of your imposing names are you known by? What does your father call you?’

‘Daughter! Where are my towels?’

‘On the end of your bed,’ she called back. ‘He does not remember it most of the time, as you hear,’ she said to Quin. ‘He is in his head, in his own world. I doubt he recalls that Mama is dead, or my husband, most of the time. My husband called me Cleopatra, it appeared to amuse him.’

‘Queen of the Nile,’ Quin murmured.

‘Exactly. So appropriate, don’t you think?’

Chapter Three

Queen of the Nile? Yes, very appropriate, Quin wanted to say, throwing her bitter jest back at her. You look like a queen with that patrician nose and those high cheekbones, that air of aloofness. A queen in exile, in disguise, in servitude. He was saved from answering by Sir Philip emerging from the tent, fastening a clean shirt with one hand and running his hand through his wet hair with the other.

He sat without a word and reached for the platter of what appeared to be cubes of meat. Madame... No, Cleo, Quin decided, slid a plate in front of her father and passed one to Quin, then gestured to him to help himself. He realised his mouth was watering.

‘You should try to eat. It has been a while since you did, I imagine.’

‘Yes. I was hungry at first and then that vanished.’ He had been on foot and without anything but a small flask of water for two days after his camels were taken. Before that he had been eating sparingly, moving too fast to settle down in one spot and cook himself a proper meal.

‘It seems to with heat prostration. You must rest tomorrow.’

‘I will rest tonight. Tomorrow I will acquaint myself with your military neighbours.’

‘That is foolish. I can ask them what is the best thing to be done with you.’

They would shoot me as a spy, if they knew who I was. ‘If I am to be disposed of, Madame Valsac, I prefer to organise it myself.’

‘Very well. I will not go and you will not be able to find them by yourself.’ She bit down sharply on a piece of flatbread as though to cut off all discussion.

Confound the woman. Is she trying to keep me away from the military because of her own compromised situation or is she merely being inconveniently protective of an injured man?

‘No, I want you to go, Daughter,’ Sir Philip pronounced, reversing his earlier opinion without a blink. ‘I need you to take my correspondence for them to send north. I have finished my letter to Professor Heinnemann.’

Correspondence? ‘The French are obliging enough to act as postmen for you, Sir Philip?’ Quin asked casually as he spread goat’s cheese on his bread.

‘Indeed they are.’ The older man put down his fork. ‘A fine example of the co-operation amongst scholars. As soon as Général Menou realised I was having problems receiving my letters he arranged for them to be handled through Alexandria.’

And how did the general know? Quin shelved that question for the moment. He thought he had hold of the tail of the matter now and he had no intention of letting it wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You have an international correspondence?’ he asked, injecting as much admiration into his tone as he thought was plausible.

He need not have worried about arousing suspicions. Sir Philip was smugly confident of his own importance. ‘Of course. England, France, Greece, Italy, Germany, India, Russia. Spain and Portugal...’ He droned on, complaining about the paucity of news from the Scandinavian countries.

England, the Mediterranean, continental Europe—news from dozens of pens flowing into Alexandria, into the hands of the French. Traitors, agents and innocent scholars all writing to this man who was either so blinded by his obsessions that he had no idea how he was being used or was a willing participant in his French masters’ games. Every scrap of intelligence was like gold to skilled spymasters who could fit it all together from dozens of sources.

‘India,’ Quin said out loud. India, the real reason the French wanted Egypt. If they controlled the Red Sea and the overland route to the Mediterranean, then Britain’s vital link to its most important trading area was lost. And troops were on their way now from India to land on the Red Sea coast and march across the desert to the Nile, then downstream to join the British and Turks in the delta.

Had letters from French agents in India already reached Menou in Cairo on their way to this man? A cold finger trailed down his spine, chilling the perspiration. If the French marched out to cut off General Baird’s long, desperate march through the desert, then the entire tide of the war in Egypt could turn.

‘Yes, India. I think I may well move on there next,’ Woodward said. ‘Fascinating country by the sound of it.’

Quin was aware of the tension in Cleo’s still form. Yet another move where she was taken along like a piece of furniture with no choice and no opinion? She would be much better off back in England where she belonged than dragged around at her father’s heels like so much luggage.

‘I will go with you to the army camp tomorrow, madam,’ Quin said and turned to look her in the face. ‘I want to find out if they have news from any other engineers.’ And I want to get my hands on your damned correspondence, Sir Philip. I may yet be finding a hungry crocodile for you.

‘As you wish.’ If Cleo Valsac had any worries about letting him observe the exchange of letters, she hid it perfectly. ‘I will be taking the donkey so if you collapse we can load you on him,’ she added with a sweet smile that did not deceive Quin for one moment. She thought him a nuisance and she rated his strength, endurance and, probably, his brains very low indeed.

We will see who is right, Cleo my lovely, he thought, meeting her cynical grey-green eyes. To his amazement she blushed.

* * *

And do not pretend you don’t know what is the matter with you, my girl, Cleo chided herself and bit so hard on a date that she almost broke a tooth. Lust. An intelligent man with a magnificent body ends up naked in your bed space, at your mercy. And then when he regains his wits he looks at you with those blue eyes and you don’t know whether he is pitying you or mocking you or desiring you.

Or all three, perhaps. Two of those were unwelcome and one was improbable, unless the American had a fancy for skinny, sun-browned widows with calluses on their fingers and not a social grace to their name.

But the widow... Ah, yes, the widow could have a fancy to discover whether those eyes became a darker blue with passion and how those long fingers he was so careful to keep still and inexpressive felt on her body. Quin. She indulged herself by trying out his name in her head. Quintus.

He was looking at her father now, listening politely to another lecture on hieroglyphs and the importance of measuring the monuments. His face in repose, or when he was guarding it, was all straight lines. Level brows, narrowed eyes, that nose with its arrogant jut in silhouette. His lips were straight until he spoke and the lines of cheekbone and jaw showed strong and regular under the growth of beard, a shade darker than his hair. He looked severe and impenetrable—and then he spoke or smiled and the lines shifted, the angles changed and his face was alive and charming. And still just as unreadable, she realised.