Mr Impossible (28 page)

Rupert had enough
to do, protecting Mrs. Pembroke and her entourage from villains. What
the
his
did not need was a lot of vengeful villagers in pursuit as well.

The sensible thing
to do was give the girl a generous baksheesh and get away as quickly
as possible.

He would have been
sensible, would have carried away Mrs. Pembroke bodily if
necessary—if the confounded Egyptian female had not commenced
weeping.

As the first tears
trickled down, he knew he hadn’t a prayer.

He got everyone
safely aboard and kept vigilant watch as they crossed to the
Isis
. There he spent his time on deck with the men. Occasionally, Leena
would emerge from the middle cabin, which had been quickly
transformed into the
Isis’s
infirmary. Her reports on the infant’s progress were invariably
pessimistic. The child suffered from a bilious fever, perhaps the
typhus fever or something even worse. Fevers killed strong, healthy
adults. They’d brought the consul general to death’s door
more than once, she’d heard, and he had proper doctors, not
shamans and village hags. What hope was there for a weak, ill-fed
baby who’d been treated with nothing but charms and magic
spells for days? Now they would all catch the fever and die in one of
the filthiest and ugliest places in all the world, and when they were
all dead, the peasants would come and pillage the boat and throw
their bodies in the river for the fish and the crocodiles to eat.

After Leena
returned to her mistress—and certain death, by the sounds of
it—Rupert could spend the next several hours cursing himself
for once again falling victim to feminine tears.

He was an idiot.
No, worse, he was a cliche.

Women wept. Easily
and often. An adult male ought to be able to remain sane while they
did so. Had he remained sane, Mrs. Pembroke would be in no danger—or
no more than the usual danger—of contracting some unspeakable
foreign disease.

They were miles
from civilization and anything remotely resembling medical care. All
she had was her medicine case, whose contents were shrinking, thanks
to the crew members’ frequent accidents. She’d treated
with success someone’s bruised foot, someone else’s
swollen thumb, and one case of sunstroke. Rupert had no idea how much
she knew about treating fever. More than he did, beyond question. If
she fell ill, he wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.

From sunset until
the last streak of light faded from the sky and the stars arranged
themselves in the familiar constellations, Rupert paced the deck,
growled when spoken to, and repeatedly waved away Tom’s
attempts to lure him into the front cabin to take some supper.

When he heard the
footsteps behind him, he assumed it was Tom again, come to plague
him.

“
No, I don’t
want any supper,” Rupert said. “No. Is that not clear? I
thought you had mastered the English term. Clearly, I was wrong. What
is the Egyptian word for no? How about
bokra
? Not today.”

“
No is
la
,” came an amused feminine voice. “The polite refusal
would be
la shokran
.”

He turned quickly,
and his heart slammed into his rib cage. He managed to keep from
reaching for her and pulling her into his arms. But he couldn’t
suppress the moronic smile or the laugh of pleasure that it turned
into.

All this, at the
sound of her voice.

But she sounded
happy. He was relieved, naturally. The child wasn’t dead. The
prognosis must be hopeful, else he’d have heard the
disappointment and sorrow in her voice.

“
The babe?”
he said. “It’s well?”

“
It’s
a
she
, amazingly enough,” she said. “Girls are not
very important and normally wouldn’t be worth the trou-ble. But
Sabah’s mother deems her exceedingly valuable. The name
means
morning
, you know. We got some liquids into her, which
seemed to help. We gave her a cool bath, and she bore it well, unlike
her mama, who was terrified. Then I tried a decoction of Peruvian
bark. The fever seems to be declining. Quite rapidly, in fact.”

Rupert let out the
breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I’m glad
to hear it,” he said.

“
You can have
no idea how relieved I am,” she said.

Not nearly as
relieved as he, he’d wager.

“
I have no
experience of children,” she went on. “Still, I did care
for my parents and Virgil, and must have absorbed some doctoring
wisdom. It is little enough, but these people have none. A compress,
a bath, a poultice—the simplest remedies are great miracles and
magic to them. Good grief, what a world this is.” Her voice
caught.

“
You’ve
had a long and trying day,” he said quickly. “Come inside
and help me eat the supper Tom’s so frantic about.” He
paused and added, “Dr. Pembroke.”

She laughed at
that, but he heard the strain in her voice.

“
Come, I’m
starved,” he said. And then it was simple instinct to put a
protective arm about her shoulders and lead her inside.

They had a quiet,
companionable meal, and Rupert was reaching for his third helping of
sweet pastry when Leena screamed.

Chapter 13

EVERYONE IRRUPTED
INTO THE PASSAGE AT once: Daphne, Mr. Carsingtqn with a piece of
pastry in his hand, the mother Nafisah with the baby clutched to her
bosom, and Leena, who slammed the door to Daphne’s cabin shut
behind her.

She ended the
barrage of questions with the grim announcement, “
Mongoose
.”

“
Is that
all?” said Mr. Carsington. He made his way through the gantlet
of females and grasped the door handle. “I thought someone was
cutting your throat.”

“
He showed
his teeth at me,” Leena said.

Mr. Carsington
opened the door and smiled. “Gad, it’s only a baby. Well,
not fully grown at any rate.” The smile faded. “But he’s
got—or is it a she? I think it’s a she, actually.”

“
What’s
it got?” Daphne said. She edged round Nafisah and baby and past
Leena and on tiptoe looked over Mr. Carsington’s shoulder. “Oh,
it’s Miles’s shirt.”

The creature had a
clump of sleeve in her teeth. She gazed balefully at the humans in
the doorway.

“
They’re
good with rats,” Mr. Carsington said. “And snakes. She
could come in handy, Mrs. Pembroke, when you’re dismantling
temples and pyramids.” As he spoke, he turned to meet her gaze,
his as black as midnight. His mouth was mere inches away, a smile
teasing at the very corners. She wanted to bring her lips to that
hint of a smile and kiss it away from him and into her. She needed
the smile, the secret joke, the humor that was so much a part of his
fierce
aliveness
.

She inched back and
told herself to calm down. “We have two cats,” she said.

“
Killing
venomous snakes is not their specialty,” Mr. Carsington said.
“Recollect, you do like to poke about places where
short-tempered vipers like to sleep.”

“
I am not at
all sure the cats will be happy about her,” Daphne said.
“Besides, she might be wild. Or rabid. I cannot think why any
rational mongoose would wish to eat a dirty shirt. It is not as
though there is any shortage of rats hereabouts.”

“
Yes, it’s
very interesting,” said Mr. Carsington. “Such interesting
things happen in your vicinity.” His amused expression faded.
He looked… puzzled? Lost?

But of course he
could not be lost. The indecent embrace yesterday must have
disarranged her mind as well as her morals.

The unusual
expression quickly vanished, though, and his gaze returned to the
mongoose. “I suppose you want me to take the shirt away from
her.”

The creature still
watched them, garment in her teeth. Her fur bristled.

“
I’m
not sure that’s wise,” Daphne said. “She looks
ready to fight about it.”

By this time, Leena
having apprised Nafisah of the situation, the young mother approached
and asked if she might look.

Daphne and Mr.
Carsington moved out of the way. Nafisah looked in. The baby pointed
and said something in baby gibberish.

“
I think this
is my neighbor’s mongoose,” Nafisah said. “She is
tame but lately she has become troublesome. One night, I catch her
near my chickens. I chase her away with a stick. In a little while,
my neighbor comes, and he is an-gry with me. He says I hurt her foot.
Now she limps, he says, and she is worthless to kill snakes, because
she is too slow. I think he was the one who hurt her. She came to
steal my eggs because it is easier than killing snakes. But my
husband is dead and I have no one here to stand up to this man. This
makes him bold. See if she is lame,” she urged. “He put
her down to show me, and she ran away from him. I could see her foot
pained her, and I felt sorry for her. Later I went out again to look
for her, but I saw the ghost, and I was afraid. See if she is lame,”
she repeated.

The art of brevity
was not highly prized in Egypt. Daphne was able to condense the tale
to a few English sentences. When she was done, Mr. Carsington
crouched down, held out his bit of pastry, and called to the animal,
“Come, my dear. Wouldn’t you rather a bit of sweet than
that dirty old shirt?”

The creature stared
at the pastry without moving.

“
She’s
Egyptian”
Daphne said. She crouched down beside him. “
Ta’ala
heneh
,” she crooned.
Come here
.

The creature looked
up at her and sniffed.

“
Ta’ala
heneh
,” Daphne repeated.

The mongoose
advanced a few steps, dragging the shirt along. Then she stopped,
chittered at them, and sat down on the garment, her teeth still
firmly clamped on the sleeve. Those few steps showed her favoring the
front left paw.

“
That’s
the way Alistair walks,” said Mr. Carsington.

“
Your
brother,” she said. “The one who was injured at
Waterloo.”

He nodded. “Such
a melting effect the limp had on women. They sighed. They swooned.
They threw themselves at him. Maybe what I need is a limp.” He
shot her a glinting sidelong glance.

It was not merely a
glance. It was purposeful and intimate. It conjured the taste of his
mouth and the feel of his hands and his hard body and the rush of mad
joy she’d experienced when she fired the pistol for the first
time, and when she’d kissed him. Her knees softened first, then
her muscles, then her head.

While Daphne
straggled to reclaim what used to be her brain, Nafisah said, “This
is my neighbor’s mongoose. I am sure of it.”

Daphne’s
intellect sorted itself into order and her attention reverted to the
girl and the crucial words she’d uttered moments ago. “You
saw her the night you saw the ghost, Nafisah,” she said. ‘Tell
me about the ghost.“

DAPHNE TRANSLATED
FOR Mr. Carsington later, when they returned to the front cabin. He’d
already got the gist of it from Leena, though.

Nafisah had seen
the ghost last Thursday night. The next morning, she reported the
sighting to her neighbor’s wife. Before long, some of
the
kashefs
men came to her house and questioned her for a long time about the
ghost. She described what she’d seen and where. They gave her
money and went away. Later, she saw a group of men go out to the
tombs. They were strangers and foreigners. They weren’t from
her village or from Minya, but most of the villagers seemed to know
who they were, and they were afraid of these men.

“
Shall we
return to the
kashef
?” Daphne asked. “A large enough bribe will probably
elicit the information we want.”

“
I’ll
deal with him, first thing tomorrow,” Mr. Carsington said.
“I’ll take Tom.”

“
Tom’s
grasp of English is haphazard at best, and his vocabulary is
exceedingly limited,” Daphne said.

“
That’s
all right,” Mr. Carsington said. “I don’t mean to
do much talking.”