“It would seem your wards reflect their guardian admirably.”
She shook her head. “They are entirely individuals, which has little enough to do with me, other than providing them with the environment in which to flourish.”
“They certainly have much of which to be proud. Their guardian is to present a paper at Burlington House.”
“That may be so,” she said modestly. “I always impressed upon them that academics are important—too many females these days come to the sciences and humanities as mere fawning spectators.” She looked disapproving. “Although about a third of the audience at these Royal Society lectures is typically comprised of women, they tend to perceive scholarly pursuits as fashionable, like the latest millinery styles or fabric patterns.”
“Indeed, the numbers of women who speak at sectional meetings are vanishingly small.”
“I’m surprised you noticed, Lord Archer,” she said with a smile.
I notice a lot of things, he wanted to say, but didn’t. The wind had calmed to a low moan. And then she turned her head slowly to him, her soft smile fading. He wondered what she was thinking as she glanced over at him, whether a flutter of awareness was causing her stomach to clench, whether her lips tingled with the memory of his. Their eyes met and Archer felt it again, the chafing of his blood, the compelling desire to cradle her cheek in his hand and lean still closer toward her. Instead, he inhaled sharply, ignoring it, battling the inclination by turning his head away from her.
They sat quietly for a few moments longer, listening to the high pitch of the wind, its fury lessened. The storm had all but vented its anger. He had a captive Meredith Woolcott but a few seconds longer. “I wish to help you,” he said abruptly. “Why is it that you do not believe me?”
She jerked her head away from him, recoiling from the question.
“I shall manage the incident... .” They both knew that he was referring to the dead Arab.
Meredith raised one brow and stared him down, eager to defuse whatever confrontation he had in mind. “I did not ask you to. I can approach the British Office on my own.” A short pause. “I believe the wind has died down.”
He was reminded suddenly of the predawn light that had eased through the fort earlier in the morning, waking him from a half slumber. He had kept watch over Meredith all night, absorbing her every twitch as she slept, with an ear cocked for any unwelcome visitors. He could imagine the kinds of dreams that vexed her. Had he slept at all by her side, he might have reached for her and she would have surrendered. It had almost happened—
Archer was convinced that she was thinking the same thing, her gray eyes darkening, the pupils indistinguishable. The silence was deafening. “I think we should talk about what happened earlier.”
“No.” The one-word answer was abrupt. She knew he was not referring to the dead Arab this time.
She remained forbiddingly silent, glancing at him briefly before giving the canopy overhead a decisive pat.
Archer spread his arms and pulled the blanket to the side, causing a small but harmless avalanche of sand. Miraculously, a blue sky and cutting sun poured over them. Their mount nickered softly, unharmed save for a thin sheen of grit covering his coat. Archer sucked in a great gust of air, watching Meredith do the same. “I can breathe again,” she said, spreading her arms out and turning in a half circle. Archer couldn’t resist. He spun her about, pinned between his arms.
“Don’t,” she began.
“It doesn’t always have to be don’t,” Archer said softly and he pulled her hips hard against him. “Don’t frown at me. We have survived a sandstorm.” He whispered this time and when his hands went up to her face, her arms closed around his waist, palms flattened against the hard muscles of his back. His knuckles smoothed her cheeks, still smooth as silk under a fine coating of sand. She closed her eyes because his were too probing, sensing behind her great strength, her greatest weakness.
His fingers feathered across her ears, pushing down her jacket collar to stroke along her throat, gritty with sand, and the nape of her neck. Tipping her head, he cradled it before touching his lips softly to the pulse in her throat.
“Why are we doing this? It makes no sense.” The words were balanced on a sigh.
“Sense has nothing to do with it,” he said, his voice low. Then he dragged his lips softly from the arc of her throat to her lips, which were parted ever so slightly. Their lips brushed and then nipped softly, and he whispered nonsense against her mouth, although she was not offering a protest, only a sigh of pleasure. Meredith’s hands slid up to his shoulders, pulling him closer before her lips fell open beneath his. His tongue marauded gently at first, warm, velvet, finding and twining with hers. He lifted his lips away from hers to look into her eyes, which were closed, far from giving him any insight into the woman he held in his arms.
It seemed to work better this way. No words. He took her lips again, more decisively this time. She responded with her arms sliding up to coil around his neck as he pulled her into his body, his iron arousal pressing against her abdomen. He drove the kiss deeper and she met him, their tongues touching and tangling in a primal rhythm. She moaned softly, the sound causing him to bite her bottom lip gently.
Her eyes opened, her breath coming hot and swiftly. The gray of her eyes revealed nothing save blatant desire. She clung to him a moment longer, then her arms loosened about him. Looking as though she was considering whether to speak, she simply shook her head.
Archer took his thumb and gently brushed away the sand from her cheeks. “You think too much,” he said softly.
She stared at him. “Nothing has changed,” she said thickly after a moment. “The intensity of the past day is in part responsible for this... .”
“In part? You really don’t exert any charm, do you, Lady Woolcott?”
Brushing her hands down her arms and legs, she shook her head with irritation, the smoky desire fading from her eyes. “Arrogant man.”
Instead of being insulted, for some perverse reason, her dismissal made him smile and blunted the edge of his anger and frustration. It was a matter of fatigue and fury, he rationalized, that had tempted him to take her in his arms. He had wanted to gain her trust. God knew that it had worked many times before with other women in his orbit. Then again, Lady Woolcott was hardly typical.
The horse nickered again and the seamlessly clear horizon beckoned. “We should go,” she said for the second time that day. “Rashid cannot be more than an hour from here.” Folding the blanket into a neat triangle, she held his gaze. In the harsh light, the skin beneath her eyes was mauve and her hair was coming loose, a narrow strand bright against the paleness of her jaw. “And in Cairo, we shall part ways, Lord Archer. I insist.”
Archer did not reply, aware that perhaps for the first time in his life, things were not falling into place as easily as they might. He refused to consider the paucity of information he’d gleaned of Lady Woolcott and her past. The questions were beginning to gnaw at him, the child’s kaleidoscope in his saddlebags a potent reminder of everything he didn’t know.
They returned to Rashid wordlessly, meeting the barque there before making their way back to Cairo.
Shepheard’s Hotel, facing the Ezbekieh Gardens, had expanded only in the past year, taking over the adjacent palace which had once been Napoleon’s private quarters. Perfectly reasonable—as many believed that in no hotel in the world could one find such an assembly of people of rank and fashion sitting down to the table d’hôte. As the place to reside whilst in Egypt, many travelers simply checked in for the social life and saw less of Egypt than they would have if they had remained in London to visit the Egyptian Department in the British Museum. From the vantage point of the hotel’s terrace and tearoom, where waiters glided about wearing fezzes and inscrutable expressions, anyone who was anyone could be observed.
“My dear Lady Woolcott. You gave us such a turn.” Lady Tattersall smiled at Meredith with a brightness that was almost certainly fe
igned. Like a crow looking for a scrap of glitter, Lady Tattersall sensed something entirely untoward about the woman sitting across from her, balancing a cup of tea in her hand. The subdued mauve of her shirtwaist was expertly pressed, her high lace collar impeccable and her hair smoothed into a luxurious chignon. Quite the transformation. She had appeared the previous afternoon in the lobby of Shepheard’s Hotel looking positively disheveled and with that handsome devil, Lord Archer, in tow.
Lady Tattersall had espied them from her perch in the conservatory, cooled by thick fronds of green palm and bright bougainvillea. Most intriguing, she had thought, glancing over her glass of sherry, watching as a fez-capped servant had immediately appeared to whisk them to their rooms. Shepheard’s was her fiefdom, through which the caravan of her world flowed, its bustling atmosphere not to everyone’s taste. Perhaps a trifle too proletarian, thought Lady Tattersall, catching up the jetsam and flotsam of life by the Nile like one big net. Of course, there were those like Lady Woolcott who were in Cairo to visit the city’s antiquities museum and nearby ancient sites, often heard described as the world’s largest open-air museum.
Lady Tattersall leaned intently forward. “All went well with your endeavors at Rashid. I am so happy to hear it,” she trilled, freshening her cup of tea, the ostrich feather in her hair quivering. “You are positively amazing, my dear, what with your unorthodox pursuits. I can’t imagine what it must be like traipsing over ruins and whatnot. Positively tedious. Not to mention dangerous.” The wife of a diplomat in the British Office, Lady Tattersall had long resigned herself to the intricacies of expatriate life in Cairo, excavating for fiendishly tasty tidbits of gossip that could shorten the long, hot days.
It had been anything but tedious. Meredith held her counsel, relieved that they were surrounded by the hushed din of well-modulated chatter. Tables adorned with epergnes piled high with tiny sandwiches and sweets punctuated the conservatory, a veritable merry-go-round of pastel colors. None of it piqued her appetite; her stomach had been in a perpetual knot since her return from Fort Julien.
“And how fortuitous that Lord Archer was inclined to visit the site at the same time. Positively serendipitous.” Lady Tattersall picked up her tea, the cup clattering on the saucer in her excitement. They sat together at her table in the conservatory, reserved for diplomats and their wives. “Who knows what might have occurred without the accompaniment of a man. An Englishman, I might add.” Her eyes widened, hinting at a hundred dastardly deeds. “Should you not have returned in time, delayed by that horrific sandstorm, you might have missed your packet tomorrow. Indeed, I should love to keep you here longer, as I should have liked to further our acquaintance. Nonetheless, you insist on leaving and I could not let you go without saying good-bye, dear girl.”
She hadn’t been a girl in years. Meredith forced a smile. “Your concern and invitation to tea was very kind.” She had thought it was better to accept the summons, to smooth the water, lest Lady Tattersall’s feverish imagination run away with her. “My time in Rashid was most rewarding, Lady Tattersall. So much so that I have all I need to return to London tomorrow via the steamship Longoria.”
“What a shame. Are you certain you cannot delay your departure?” Lady Tattersall took a bite of her watercress sandwich.
“I have work to undertake so I must hasten my return.”
The notion of work was as foreign to Lady Tattersall as snow on the terrace of her Cairo town house. She frowned. “Work?”
“A lecture at Burlington House.”
“A lecture? My dear, I exhort you not to overburden yourself with intellectual pursuits. Not at all good for one’s health, or so my physician tells me. As a matter of fact, he advised my nieces only recently to confine their reading to no more than a novel each month, and the more soporific and calming the subject, the better.”
“My health is excellent, ma’am.”
Lady Tattersall’s eyes narrowed, not entirely convinced. “Now what is it that you do again? Indulge me, if you please. Something about ancient translations and whatnot. How extraordinary. And I have trouble enough with my French.” She sighed extravagantly.
“It has been an interest of mine for many years.”
The older woman regarded her over the rim of her teacup. “You look no worse for wear, I must say. Now do not regale me with details that I won’t understand and that will only bring on a nasty headache.” She crisply ordered, “Instead, tell me something much more invigorating regarding your recent adventure, perhaps a little more about Lord Archer. Quite the striking figure of a man. I have a vague notion of his people. One hears so little gossip when one is far away from London, after all.”
“We share a tenuous family connection.”
Lady Tattersall’s eyes widened. “How wonderful for you both, although I must say that from what little I’ve heard, Lord Archer has never shown even the slightest inclination toward domesticity.”
Meredith managed a smile. “But then neither have I, Lady Tattersall.”
The older woman’s eyes danced with appreciation. “It is never too late.”
Dear God, this was the last thing she’d wanted. Meredith held her gaze unflinchingly. “I am long past the age when a woman should be married, Lady Tattersall.”
Lady Tattersall’s brows drew together. “Nonsense, my dear girl.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Dare I say, the way Lord Archer looked at you yesterday afternoon, with such intensity and concern, saving you from the hideous sandstorm ... I don’t know what I should have done in such an instance.” She shivered dramatically and then returned to her train of thought. “And then he interceded upon your behalf at the British Office ... or so I hear. Not that I shall be telling tales out of school, you understand. The Colonel, my husband, would so disapprove.”
Meredith folded her hands neatly in her lap, all too aware that Archer had taken care of the matter of her attacker. How and with what explanation? The knot in her stomach tightened, but she focused instead on the trill of feminine laughter at the next table. “Entirely your imagination, Lady Tattersall,” she said lightly. “I’m certain Lord Archer only met with the British Office to finalize his own travel details.”
“How modest you are, Lady Woolcott.” The older woman’s hand fluttered to the fine lace fichu at her breast, before she lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “I’m certain he behaved the perfect gentleman during your time together. Although I might add that there is something rather unusual about the man. Dare I say he’s not typical of the drawing room sort. Of course, he comes from a good family and”—she winked conspiratorially—“with a handsome fortune. So one might be convinced to overlook that rather overtly masculine quality that just might be difficult to control... .” She trailed off, shivering slightly.
Meredith winced inwardly, her appetite for tea and Lady Tattersall diminishing further. Eager to steer her to another subject, she endeavored to light upon a topic that might be of interest to the older woman. With desperation, and an eye on the quivering ostrich feathers in the unnaturally bright hair of her companion, she began talking about the latest London fashions, of which, in truth, she knew little.
Lady Tattersall warmed immediately to the matter of crinoline widths and the merits of jet beading over lace. “It takes such a long time for news to reach us here in the colonies, my dear girl. I can’t remember the last time I saw my modiste with anything remotely fashionable in hand. Why the patterns are at least two years behind by the time they arrive by packet post.” Her hand hovered over the creamer. “I do not know myself whether I prefer Mr. Worth or Mr. Manning’s designs,” she mused. “And you?”
“Mr. Worth,” Meredith said automatically and with little thought, although suddenly aware that the relative drabness of her afternoon gown with its mauve piping did not say much about her sartorial choices. The trunk that awaited her in her rooms was filled with serviceable dresses and shoes in the earthen tones that had become a familiar and reassuring staple. There was littl
e need for frills and furbelows in her life and she had never paid the least attention to the vagaries of fashion.
Lady Tattersall chatted on. “I do so agree,” she admitted, the feathers in her hair bouncing as she began expounding upon her favorite elements in his most recent designs. “I prefer his subtle use of fabrication and his extraordinary skill with the needle. But do tell me, are his portrait bodices still all the rage?”
The very devil if she knew.
Lady Tattersall made a moue of surprise, looking away from the canapé on her plate toward the small maelstrom that had occurred at the entrance to the conservatory. All thoughts of Worth and beading fled her mind in an instant. “Why how extraordinary, Lady Woolcott. It’s Lord Archer,” she pronounced unnecessarily as the man in question stood framed in the doorway before beginning to approach their table. He looked out of place in the fussiness of the room and it seemed as though every female head had turned in his direction.
Meredith tried to suppress the jolt of excitement racing through her senses. But the startling width of his shoulders was too near, the taut breadth of his back too familiar and the hard muscles of his torso and arms too graphically memorable. In self-defense, she put down her teacup and drew herself up an inch. “Lord Archer,” she said evenly as he reached their table, her voice neutral to bolster her resolve.
Lady Tattersall’s eyes narrowed with appreciation. “Lord Archer,” she echoed, but more slowly. “What brings you to tea this afternoon, or do I need to inquire?” She turned to study Meredith, her eyes widening dramatically as if she held the secrets of the universe.
“Lady Tattersall. Lady Woolcott.” He bowed in turn, dazzlingly resplendent in tan jodphurs, a white shirt and gray jacket. Clean shaven, the starkness of his features was even more pronounced, his thick hair barely tamed.
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