The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

by Lara Temple

  It was deceptive, just like the sense of distance in the darkness was deceptive. Edge was right—if you allowed yourself to go too far into this strange dream, you might never find your way back.

  ‘That is why I depend on you, Edge,’ she said lightly. ‘I know you will never allow yourself to lose track of the real world. I dare say you know precisely how far we have come and when to stop so we do not lose our way.’

  ‘You think me a very unexciting fellow, don’t you, Sam?’

  She flushed.

  ‘I think you do not allow yourself to be carried away. But there is nothing wrong with being sensible. There have been many, many times I’d wished I was more so.’

  ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘Of course. Eight years is a long time. It would have been surprising had I not changed.’

  ‘It isn’t the years, Sam. What happened to you?’

  ‘What happened to me? Good God, Edge, you do nothing in half-measures, do you?’

  She tried to laugh but a whole sky’s worth of pain was filling her, expanding like the inundation of the Nile—swift and unstoppable. ‘Let’s return.’

  ‘Not yet. Are you crying?’

  ‘Not yet, but I shall if you keep prodding. I’m tired, my legs ache and I’m terrified of returning to England and it is all too much. You may be made of stone, Mr God of the Earth, but I’m not. If you wish to stay here, I shall find my own way back.’

  ‘Perhaps it would do you good to cry out here where no one can hear you. I need to make amends for interrupting you on the Howling Cliffs.’

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or kick him for his dispassionate practicality.

  The truth was she didn’t want to return yet. She wanted to stay cocooned in the night, wrapped in the strange thoughts bubbling inside her, but somehow separated from them by his presence. In the dark she made out the shape of a large flat boulder and sat with a sigh.

  ‘I never really understood you, Edge.’

  ‘There isn’t much to understand about a lump of rock.’

  His voice was flat, but suddenly she could hear the currents beneath, as if not seeing his face she could hear things his expression would never give away. There was bitterness and resentment and darker things.

  She held out her hand without thinking.

  ‘Come sit with me.’

  ‘I had better not.’

  ‘Don’t play the prude, Edge. Just sit.’

  He sat and she closed her eyes, soaking up the warmth of his body so close to hers. Above the silvery scents of the desert night air and the ochre of the earth there was his scent—it was out of character—warm and encompassing, like the sensations sparked by the deepest, darkest of wines. She wanted to lean into it and then sink.

  She touched her palm to her chest. The pain inside her was gone. Strange—it had been so harsh and enormous just moments ago and it was gone. All she felt now was...heat, as if the desert still held the warmth of the noon sun and was sending it upwards through her, through him...

  ‘You are the least lump-like person I know,’ she said and he laughed, bending forward to lean his arms on his thighs as he picked something up from the desert floor. But he didn’t speak so she continued, working her way through her thoughts.

  ‘You are like watching the sea from a ship’s deck on a moonless night—you never know quite what is beneath the surface, but you are quite certain a great deal is going on there and that one is safer on solid ground.’

  Where on earth had that come from?

  ‘I am not certain if being the dark abode of sea monsters is any better than a rock.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed, a little scared of the image she’d conjured. ‘Perhaps not. I meant it as a compliment, though. Clearly I am not very adept at them.’

  ‘You were always more honest than was comfortable, Sam.’

  ‘In other words I always spoke before I thought. Madcap Sam.’

  ‘Don’t make it into an insult. Your honesty was never cruel or cavalier. Sometimes you put too much thought into it, in fact. What will you do when you return to England?’

  Sam wanted to stay on the topic of her honesty. Or rather on his strangely complimentary interpretation of her. But she accepted his change of subject.

  ‘I do not know. Now my brothers are married I shall have to find a solution.’

  ‘They don’t want you living with them?’

  ‘It is not that. They do, but soon they shall have children and—’ She broke off, realisation hitting her, her hand closing over his. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Edge.’

  He placed his free hand over hers, hard.

  ‘Don’t tiptoe around me, Sam. I can’t abide it. Especially not from you. The worst is no one will talk about Jacob or they do what you just did—apologise and run away. Jacob was the best thing that happened in my life. I would not have traded a moment of my time with him for anything else.’

  Her hand was buzzing under his and it was a struggle to stay still.

  ‘I’m glad you had him.’

  The image of Maria flashed in her mind, starker than usual in the darkness. The three-year-old’s dark curls woven into the sky, her smile shimmering with stars. She’d had only a year with Ricki’s natural daughter, but she’d loved her and when she’d drowned it had cracked Sam’s heart all over again. It could not compare to Edge’s loss, but she understood what he meant. She wanted so much to share the story with Edge, but guilt held her silent. Ricki bore the brunt of responsibility for Maria’s death, but none of it would have happened if Sam hadn’t been fool enough to think she could escape her pain and loneliness by marrying the charming and gregarious Lord Carruthers.

  The silence stretched until he spoke again.

  ‘I heard Janet telling Poppy she plans to introduce you to some of the younger antiquarians when they reach London.’

  ‘It is rude to eavesdrop.’

  He tossed the stone he held and picked up another.

  ‘They thought I was asleep.’

  ‘Still rude.’ She could feel him watching her, her whole left side felt branded and fuzzy. ‘Janet is probably right and it would be best. I am tired of not having a corner of my own.’

  It sounded so weak, so utterly out of proportion with her fears and half-formed hopes. Watching her brothers find such contentment had brought back this thirst inside her—to create a home of her own. A family. But after the mistakes she had made with Ricki she was too afraid to trust her judgement about men. The thought of finding herself in that hell...again. By choice...again. She didn’t think she could do that.

  ‘You miss your husband.’ Edge’s words cut through her fog and they were so far from the truth her throat closed with shame and guilt. A memory returned, vivid and bitter—Ricki rising from the last time he shared her bed, his body slick with sweat as he loomed over her, flinging insults and threats, but all she could hear was the scream inside her head and the prayer that he would hold true to his threat never to touch her again until she begged him to. A shiver of remembered disgust at both of them rippled through her and Edge stood abruptly.

  ‘It is late. We should return.’

  She rose as well, feeling utterly defeated and not even sure why.

  ‘You have changed,’ he said after walking a while. ‘In the past you never would have agreed to return without at least a token argument. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, Sam.’

  ‘Make up your mind, Edge. You spent years lecturing me for being wild and now you’re bemoaning how tame I’ve become. Be damned to you,’ she snarled and marched off.

  ‘Sam...’ He caught up with her, but she walked faster.

  ‘I don’t want more of your twisted brand of wisdom, Edge. Go away.’

  ‘You’re heading the wrong way.’

  She stopped. Her jaw ached with a kind of fury she coul
d not remember ever feeling, not even at Ricki. It felt like it might raise the whole of the desert around her into biblical eruption. Maybe this was what desert sandstorms were—somewhere a woman unleashed them when the ferocity she held inside could be contained no longer. Sandstorms, volcanos, typhoons... She felt she could unleash them all right now.

  I am Sam. I am Sam. I am...

  ‘No one will hear you if you want to howl at the world again.’

  ‘Don’t be nice to me, Edge,’ she snapped.

  ‘I’m merely stating a fact.’

  ‘You will hear me and probably say something obnoxious. Again.’

  ‘Here. If I say anything, you have my permission to throw this at me.’

  He held out a fist-sized stone. Without thinking she took it and threw it. Hard. It hit a boulder with a sharp clack and a small burst of dust visible even in the darkness.

  ‘You’ve a good arm,’ he observed without heat. ‘Were you aiming for that, or was it mere chance?’

  ‘You are lucky you waited to speak until after I threw it. Don’t you ever lose your temper?’

  ‘Not often. Not for a while at least.’

  ‘When was the last time?’

  ‘When?’ He looked up at the sky, frowning. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You used to lose it often enough at me.’

  He smiled, still at the stars.

  ‘That was different. I was different back then.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a dose of your own medicine and howl at the sky? It might do you more good than me.’

  He let out a long breath and began walking again.

  ‘I used to. That was one benefit of living on a lonely stretch of shore with only fishermen around me. Whenever there was a storm that is precisely what I did the first year I was there. Then I didn’t feel like it any more.’

  ‘Do you feel like anything any more?’ She retorted, still angry and determined not to let the image of Edge raging at the storm soften her. She wanted to be angry at him. But he just shrugged again, as if shaking her off.

  ‘No, not really. It is quite pleasant this way. It suits me. But it doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Go fall down a well, Edge.’

  ‘I dare say I will if I spend enough time with you. Or into the Nile like the time you took the felucca without Daoud’s permission.’

  ‘I would have been fine if you hadn’t insisted on coming aboard when I was pulling away from the jetty.’

  ‘Probably. I always did make bad worse, didn’t I? I deserved every one of your nicknames. It would have been far better if I’d listened to you instead of you to me. Then I might have...’

  She heard the clean note of pain at the memory of his son and she took his hand again without thinking. It was warmer than hers and a little rough, his callouses rubbing against her palm as his hand wrapped around hers in turn. The sky felt like it was pulsing above them, a deep, steady throb. She watched the outline of his chest as he breathed, a slow rise and fall like the thick rolling waves of the Mediterranean. With strange panic she felt her own breathing fall into the rhythm, like a musician entering the orchestra late. Her heartbeat was completely on its own, though—hard and slapping at her insides as if trying to wake her from sinking into a dangerous sleep.

  Into a dangerous dream.

  She’d fallen into it once, but she wouldn’t again. It was the result of being back in Egypt with memories of everything that had happened... Edge standing below the ram’s statue, looking exasperated, but with that glimmer of rueful amusement she’d often missed or misunderstood. She’d seen only what he chose to show the world and not the conflicting currents that clashed beneath his wary surface.

  Again she thought of al-Walid’s story.

  ‘I keep thinking of what they saw,’ she said and he turned to her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those men who saw you on the temple with the sandstorm rising behind you. It must have been terrifying.’

  ‘I was certainly terrified. We thought that might be our final misdemeanour.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. They must have thought you conjured the storm yourself.’

  ‘Which makes as much sense as believing you conjured the stars in the sky behind you... On second thoughts, I could well believe that right now, Najimat al-Layl. In fact, I’m surprised the wind has fallen. Shu is failing in his role.’

  Edge truly had the most amazing voice, Sam thought as her heartbeat whipped up again, her mind groping to remember what al-Walid had said about Shu and Geb and Nuut.

  And intercourse.

  The desert turned cold at night, but Sam didn’t feel it in the least.

  ‘Come, we should return.’ He reached out his hand.

  ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘Don’t be foolish, Sam. It is late. Come.’

  ‘But I want to do something foolish. It has been far too long.’

  ‘Too long? Today you refused to rest even though you were ready to fall off that camel and the day before that you were railing at the skies from the Howling Cliffs. I’m afraid to ask what you did the day before that.’

  ‘Well, at least I didn’t insist on walking alone from Zarqa.’

  His laugh was a rusty rumble.

  ‘Touché. I think you are owed at least one more foolish act to measure up to mine. Go ahead, climb something. There’s another boulder over there.’

  ‘Very well.’ She walked past the boulder he indicated, heading for the darker shape beyond it.

  ‘Sam...that’s a hill!’

  ‘Wait for me here if you’re scared. You never did know how to enjoy yourself.’

  She wasn’t surprised to hear the scrape of pebbles and muffled muttering behind her as she climbed. Like the honourable man he was, Edge was so easy to manipulate. He could no more leave her alone in the desert than he could take a hammer to a statue.

  ‘This is beyond foolish, Sam. You can’t even see where you are going. If you fall into another bat-infested tomb I’m going to leave you to it this time!’

  ‘That only happened once! You’ll remember that on your deathbed, I dare say.’

  ‘I probably will, if I live long enough to die on a bed which is distinctly less probable with you around. And I know all about enjoying myself.’

  ‘Yes, spending hours cleaning a broken piece of pottery. Scintillating.’

  ‘No, not that.’

  They’d reached the top of the hill and she barely stopped in time to prevent herself from stepping into darkness. There was something in his tone that told her he’d reached the end of his temper’s leash as well. Strangely it made her want to smile. He’d scared her a little these last couple of days—he’d been so...empty. Not like the Edge she’d remembered.

  In the darkness she could only make out the tense lines of his jaw and the deepened grooves by his mouth. Suddenly standing at the tip of the little cliff with the substantial bulk of this dark, angry giant looming over her felt distinctly unwise.

  This is Edge, she reassured herself. He won’t hurt you. Not like that at least.

  But then what did she know? Eight years and losing one’s family changed a person. She knew that. What she didn’t know was who he had become.

  ‘Edge...’

  ‘You think I’m as useless and dull as those broken pieces of pottery you used to make fun of, don’t you?’

  ‘No... Edge, I didn’t mean...’

  ‘Yes, you did. Lord Hedgehog, Stay-Away-from-the-Ledge-Edge. I lost track of how many ways you mangled my name. It is rather ironic that you were the one who saddled me with the name Edge only to then contort it into all manner of insults about how boring I am.’

  ‘Edge, no. I only said such things because I was upset you never wanted me to be part of what you were doing.’

  That was a lit
tle too much truth. She could see it in the narrowing of his eyes, the tight line of his mouth. Embarrassed heat flared through her. She’d learned nothing in eight years. All her hard-earned poise was as flimsy as a paper boat on the Nile. Without thinking she tried to move around him and stepped into nothingness.

  She didn’t end up in a heap at the bottom of the hill as she deserved. Instead it was worse. He hauled her against him, bracing his legs apart. For a moment they both teetered but then he steadied, his arms so tight around her she could feel the hard pressure of his hipbone against her stomach, his knee parting her legs.

  ‘Now you’ll say I told you so,’ she gasped.

  ‘No, I’ll say you owe me. Again.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad this time. We can’t have climbed that high.’

  His hands softened, sliding down her back, and she sank back from her tiptoes, his knee scraping her skirts against the inside of her thighs.

  ‘Shall I let you go and see?’ His voice was lower, taunting. She swallowed. She was shaking and not with fear.

  ‘No.’

  Don’t let me go.

  ‘Then say thank you for saving me again, Edge.’

  ‘Thank you for saving me again, Edge.’ She rose again on tiptoes and touched her mouth to his.

  Eight years melted. She melted.

  Oh, no.

  She could hear those two words again and again, like a bell tolling. Oh, no...oh, no...oh, no...

  I still want this.

  Any second now he would push her away as he had eight years ago, probably off the cliff, but she didn’t care. She was caught by the firm warmth of his lips, softening where they were slightly parted, his breath just a whisper of indrawn air on hers, as if he’d stopped breathing altogether.

  She knew what was coming—the lecture, the dismissal...

  Her hands curved about his nape, slipping into his hair, so much silkier than she’d remembered, nothing like Ricki’s shaggy curls. And his scent... It wrapped around her, warm and unique. Unforgettable.

  He hadn’t saved her, he’d damned her.

  Again.

  Damn him.

  She untangled her hands, detached her mouth, bracing herself against his shoulders for when he put her aside. She wasn’t brave enough to meet his eyes so she stared at the pulsing beat at the side of his throat, at the shadowed line of his jaw, every inch of her telling her to kiss him again, touch...take.