Must Have Been The Moonlight (15 page)

But in the end, it was Halid who took her home.

“Y
ou had a visitor from the consulate while you were gone, effendi.”

Michael took the bundle of correspondence from his secretary. “Did he leave his name?” “No, effendi.” The secretary’s eyes were large, and Michael always had a feeling that the man was terrified of him. “Only that it was important that he find you.”

“It must not be too important if he chose not to leave his name.”

Annoyed by the cryptic silence of the visitor, Michael walked past the desk into his office. Late afternoon sunlight bore down on the room filled with cabinets and two dead plants, creating a lifeless menagerie.

As was his habit before he settled down to work, he thumbed through the pile of missives and social invitations, separating anything important before dropping everything else into the garbage receptacle.

He was in a thunderous mood.

Swinging around in his chair, he looked out the window over the vast tree-lined parkway that encircled the ministry offices. Puddles of water darkened portions of the quiet
stone walk where the gardeners worked. He disliked the closed confines of the office. He didn’t know how Captain Pritchards had stood the monotony of tea parties and endless meetings. He felt stifled by his life here—by the impotence of conducting a massive investigation that was leading nowhere.

Footsteps sounded from down the long tiled corridor. When the steps finally registered, Michael turned, realizing he’d left the door to his office open. Donally stood in the outer office doorway, having halted abruptly upon seeing him. He was dressed as if he’d just come from the consulate function. Faintly amused by the black look on the man’s face, Michael suspected Donally wasn’t expecting to see him in his office.

He stepped into the room and closed the door, his eyes hard. “I take it that you’ve returned my sister to the house. Safe and sound?”

Michael recognized an adversary in the dark Irishman, and in truth he possessed no desire to alienate one of his only allies, but he’d let the man’s implied warning be hanged when it came to Brianna. “I took her to visit Colonel Baker and his family.” He bent forward and lit the lamp on his desk. Donally watched his every movement. “We were there most of the morning. Halid took her home, and I came directly here.”

Michael didn’t account for the four hours in between, nor would he defend his actions for taking her away that morning. Brianna knew her mind far better than the ordinary citizen. Hell, she knew
his
mind. Had honed in on his weakness, smiled her smile, and he’d been as lost as any other male idiot in Cairo. It was illogical that a perverse surge of possessiveness had chased away the need for caution when it came to his reactions toward her. Illogical and annoying as hell that he wanted Brianna with a ruthless singularity of mind that he had not felt in years. Yet, another instinct held the surge in check.

Caution.

The need to understand what had happened to him this afternoon. Because he knew something had.

Donally leaned against the door and gave him a mild look. “If you haven’t noticed by now, my sister is an impulsive romantic.”

“And it’s your job to protect her from me.”

“Does she need protection from you?”

Michael sought to check his irritation, and sat back in his chair. He possessed the uneasy feeling that he’d just slid into an ambush.

“My sister has a natural capacity to enjoy life that is contagious to those she touches,” Donally said. “Perhaps you’ve noticed.”

In frigid silence, Michael considered where the conversation was heading.

“She weeps at the sight of abandoned kittens and volunteers her time at the mission. She’s fought for women’s property rights, divorce law reform, and the right for children to be educated rather than put to work. She has the courage to go to jail for her convictions, and has been brought up once already on charges under Disraeli’s indecency laws.

“I quit trying to rein her in years ago, when I found her sneaking out at night to see the son of my solicitor. That betrothal lasted four years longer than I thought it would. He was never a match for her spirit or her temper. So you see, Major, you’re not the first man she’s put in her winsome crosshairs. But that doesn’t mean I’m less protective, or desire to see her hurt. She is not as worldly as she thinks she is.”

When Michael didn’t reply, Donally stepped forward and dropped a sheaf of papers on the desk. “These are the names of everyone who works in my office. I’ve known each of them and most of their families for years. Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find there.”

Michael sat forward and lifted the packet, turning it over
in his hands but saying nothing. Brianna’s character and passions didn’t surprise him. When she committed herself to a course of action, she did so with every ounce of heart and soul. He also knew that whatever had happened in her betrothal, she’d still been a virgin until today.

“Omar was at the picnic.” Donally’s steps sounded hollow on the floor as he stepped out of the room and turned. “I understand that he’ll not drop the charges against you.”

“No.” Michael leaned an elbow on the desk. “He will not.”

“Then you also understand your days in this office are probably numbered.” His hand on the door latch, Donally studied him impassively. “Count yourself lucky that when you go, you won’t be leaving your post the same way that Colonel Baker or Pritchards did.”

Except Omar knew Michael would be just as finished.

Brianna’s hands paused in their cleaning as she listened to the steps approaching her third floor workroom. “You’re still awake.” Christopher stopped in the doorway.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Brianna twisted the lid on a glass jar and turned to face him.

Somehow, she’d managed to avoid being alone with her brother since she’d missed the picnic last week. Her photography work had taken up her time, and she’d spent the last three days in the Old Quarter focused on her project.

The tiled ceiling sloped sharply down from the entrance into the small room to the back, where a pair of trapdoors opened onto the roof. Brianna had surmised that the room must have once been a pigeon roost, now cleaned and come to life with the pieces that made up her world. Her trays and chemicals lined the cabinet.

She watched Christopher walk among the many rows of photographs strung wall to wall. “I had no idea that you’d done all of this work. Does Alex know?”

“You don’t think I spend my days knitting, do you?” Brianna poured water over a tray she’d set in a bin.

He leaned a hip against the counter. “Do you know how to knit?”

“As a matter of fact, I knit quite well.”

Reaching past her, Christopher picked a photograph off the shelf above her. It was a picture of Stephan Williams—one she’d placed there months before. He didn’t seem surprised. “Have you heard from Mr. Williams since you’ve been here?” he asked.

“I don’t expect that I will. He’s married.”

“I didn’t know.”

She set a jar on the shelf beside others marked
collodion
, used for coating the photography plates. “No one ever asked.”

“Brea…” He watched her clean.

“Don’t.” She slapped a jar on the shelf beside others.

“What happened between you and Fallon?”

“Yasmeen is not his mistress” she said, skipping past his question. But then you probably knew that. You probably even know what happened to Colonel Baker.”

“I know what Omar is, Brea,” he said quietly.

Neither of them spoke. The room smelled of silver nitrate, and Brianna moved to tilt up the blinds and let in the night air. Her hair was tied back with a checkered kerchief. “I know that sometimes appeasing men like Omar is necessary to get the job completed,” she said. “Unfortunately, diplomacy allows the worm to prosper. I like Major Fallon’s way of dealing with people like him better.”

“Major Fallon’s way is about to get him court-martialed. You don’t know him, Brianna.”

Turning, with her palms on the countertop, Brianna faced him.

“Fallon may be an efficient soldier, but he has not come by his reputation without cause, Brea.”

Brianna’s chin lifted. “Are you telling me to stay away from him?”

Christopher was still leaning against the counter when
Brianna blew out the lamp. What did he know about her heart, anyway? Certainly less than she understood herself.

Brianna stood face-to-face with the Falcon of Horus painted on the glass door leading into Michael’s office. She could hear the rumble of voices inside through the transom. She looked left and right and saw that a man had paused at the door down the long hallway. Wooden cabinets lined the paneled walls, muting the sounds of traffic outside the ministry.

She peeked inside the basket she carried as if to reassure herself that she’d not traumatized the tiny cargo. Soft mews escalated as light fell on the blanket. Closing her eyes, Brianna mentally checked her posture. She could do this.

Besides, she had another reason for being here, which had nothing to do with kittens or her desire to see Major Fallon.

The man sitting behind the desk, a red fez perched sideways on his shiny black hair, looked up as she entered. He widened his eyes, and the expression on his face changed to one of bewilderment. Four men dressed in long cotton
thawbs
sat in the waiting room. Her hand went to the top button on her bright blue cotton shirtwaist. Although long-sleeved and collared, it stood open at her neck. She wasn’t underdressed, but neither was she buttoned up like a sausage. Her lapis-blue jacket matched her split riding skirt.

“I would like to see Major Fallon,” she offered helpfully, and considered lying about an appointment as the man wasted a great deal of time flipping anxiously through the ledger in front of him.

Clearly flustered, he raised his eyes. “I see no appointment.”

“Perhaps if you can just tell the major that—”

The door to the inner office opened. Michael stood in the doorway, shrugging into his uniform jacket, his gaze going from his secretary to her. He looked every bit as tall and dashing as he had when he’d taken her on the
dahabeeyah
, stripped her naked, and told her that her French
lettres
wouldn’t fit him.

“Major Fallon.” Her heart beat a little too loudly in her chest.

His eyes paused on her. “What are you doing here, Brianna?”

“I needed to see you.”

A shadow darkened his jaw, contrasting with the silver of his eyes. He was devastatingly handsome and, with his implied lack of civility, dangerous to her mind.

Brianna watched as his gaze shifted to his secretary. “When is my meeting at the consulate?”

“In an hour, effendi.”

He said something in Arabic to the men waiting to see him, then turned with a silent invitation for her to follow. Brianna walked into the inner sanctum of his office. There was nothing impressive for her gaze to latch onto as she glanced at the paneled walls. Nothing except the man wearing the British uniform who now sat with his elbows resting on the desk and his hands folded.

Staring into the murky shadows of the room, she swallowed that dirty little lump in her throat. She didn’t understand what had happened between them on the houseboat.

She didn’t want him sleeping with other women, but neither did she want him controlling her life—as if he had some indelible right by his masculine virtue to claim ownership of her, when men had mistresses all of the time. Her desires were no different than his.

“Come inside, Miss Donally.”

Turning to close the door, Brianna didn’t need to see his eyes to know that they slid down her body, but when she glanced at him, he’d turned his attention to the papers on his desk, gathering them up into a pile and setting them aside.

She held her tote and the basket next to her. The mewing sound of the kittens seemed louder. “You look fatigued,” she told him.

“Thank you, Brianna.” He crossed one wrist over the other as she continued to stand. “Would you care to sit?” He motioned to the worn leather chair facing the desk.

“I’ll make this brief, Major.” Brianna said. “Whatever happened between us the other day meant something to me. I think it did to you as well. Yet, I’ve not seen you in six days, and you seem quite content with that arrangement. Personally, I think that you’re a…misogynic charlatan.”

“Misogynic?” He raised a brow, and she thought she glimpsed mirth in the subtle shift of his mouth.

“Reclusive, and a closed-minded…fraud.”

“Is that what you came here to tell me?”

Brianna withdrew the book in her bag and set it before him. It had shown up unexpectedly at the mission yesterday.
“A Tale of Two Cities,”
she clarified, as if he didn’t know how to read. And because he was treating her so indifferently. “It’s mine.”

Michael slid the book across the desk. “‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”

The opening words of the book caught her. “‘It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,’” she answered.