“I hope you don’t think me too forward,” he said. “Approaching you like this.”
She smiled. “Oh, no. It saved me the trouble.”
“You were going to approach me?”
“I wanted to apologize for barreling into you earlier,” Linley said. “Catching me in the middle of a tantrum is hardly the first impression I hope for.”
Patrick laughed. “You needn’t worry. My impression was formed long before that.”
“How? You don’t know me.”
“I know a little. Which makes me want to know more.”
She frowned. “You think me a curiosity.”
“I am curious about you, Miss Talbot-Martin. I fully admit to that.”
“Then you’ll be disaoppointed,” she warned. “I’m not nearly as exciting as people make me out to be.”
He smiled over at her. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Oh, the exterior is fascinating, to be sure—Archaeologist’s daughter, world traveler,” Linley explained. “But beneath all that, I’m just a typical girl.”
“I think you’re rather complex. I’d be a fool not to know you further.”
Suddenly, Linley noticed that the garden had grown quieter over the course of their conversation. All the ladies had gone indoors and, except for the ruckus on the balcony above, most of the lights were out in the hotel. She wanted to sit with Patrick all night, but the brandy had gone to her head, and she knew she should get some rest.
“Then proceed at your own peril, Mr. Wolford,” she said. “I’m going into the souk tomorrow. You should join me.”
“The souk? Is that what I had to fight through to get here?”
She nodded.
“And you’re going out alone?”
“Only if you do not come with me.”
Patrick imagined the young woman being jostled about in the chaos, and of all the dangers that lay beyond the protective hotel gates. “After breakfast?” he asked.
“I’ll meet you here.” Linley stood up, handing him her empty liquor glass. “Thank you again for the drink.”
***
The next morning, Patrick flipped his gold watch open, noting the time, then shifted in his seat and returned the watch to his pocket. Almost ten o’clock. He debated whether to wait any longer, or return to his room and count his losses when Linley stepped through the French doors and into the garden.
“You’re late,” he said, rising politely.
Her white linen suit shone crisp and bright in the morning sun as she crossed the lawn and held out her hand to him. “Or one could argue you are quite early.” She smiled as she said this, scattering the dark spatter of freckles across her face. They seemed more pronounced in the daylight, even under the shade of her enormous straw hat. “It all depends on one’s definition of breakfast.”
Patrick smiled, too, taking her small hand in his. “Yes, well, I suppose we should have chosen a more specific time.”
Linley nodded. “Shall we get on with it?”
“By all means,” he said. “Lead the way.”
They walked through the hotel gates and across the square. The cafés were already full of patrons drinking mint tea and coffee, the pleasant aromas infiltrating the open air, beckoning passersby to stop in for a cup. Patrick lingered for a moment, breathing in the fragrant mixture of spicy Arabic coffee and heady green tea.
Linley slowed her pace to allow him to catch up. There would be plenty of time for the cafés, but she was eager to reach the souk. She led him through an alleyway shaded by reed screens. High above, laundry lines crisscrossed the narrow opening of blue sky. They descended down a curved stone staircase, delving deeper into the city. At the bottom of the steps, a group of young Moroccan boys pressed their backs against the wall to let them pass, and then disappeared down the long corridor of brightly colored buildings.
“I cannot believe your father would allow you to venture here your own,” Patrick said, struggling to keep track of which way they came and in what direction they were headed.
“I’m sure it’s no different than in London,” Linley explained. “You learn where to go and where not to go, and how to move about as safely as possible.”
He choked back a laugh at her ignorance. “In London, young ladies generally do not walk unaccompanied.”
“Really?”
Patrick nodded, even though he walked a few paces behind her.
They reached the end of the maze of alleyways and found themselves in the heart of the souk. Linley rested a shoulder against the corner of an adobe-daubed building, and turned to face her companion. “If London women must wait for their fathers and brothers just to walk through town, it’s a wonder they ever make it outside at all.”
“I agree.” He reached up and pulled off his straw hat, giving his damp brown hair a hard shake. “You would have a lady’s companion or your mother to escort you.”
“This is 1913, not 1813. You cannot expect me to believe people still live by all those stuffy, antiquated rules.”
“Some do.”
“Only the most backward,” she said. “Probably the same folks who think women shouldn’t learn to drive, or attend school, or—”
“That is stretching it a bit, I think.”
“Regardless, I have neither mother nor chaperone, and I make due quite well on my own.”
Patrick pressed his hat back down on his head. “Then I put myself at your mercy.” He gave her a quick smile and gestured to the busy marketplace.
With a bright grin, Linley pushed off from the wall and joined the crowd of shoppers milling between the stalls. On every side, vendors offered something unique—lemons, olives, strong incense, colorful shoes, hand-worked leather goods, copper lanterns, and goatskin wine pouches. Patrick imagined Covent Garden couldn’t have been so busy on market days.
Linley browsed carefully, methodically. She studied the items in each stall, remembering who had the best selections and prices. At a perfume stand, she sampled every concoction on display. Finally, she held a bottle under Patrick’s nose. “I think this is my favorite,” she said. “What do you think?”
He breathed in the light scent of the jasmine water. “I like it.”
Linley gestured to the perfume-maker, indicating that she would buy it. They haggled over the price for a moment, and once an agreement was reached, the money changed hands. “Do you have someone you would like to buy for?” she asked, turning to Patrick.
He looked around at the commotion in the marketplace. “My sister. Although I confess I’m not very good at picking out presents for her. The electric toaster I bought last year did not go over very well.”
“You bought your sister a toaster?”
“As a wedding gift. She is very particular about her toast. And since I couldn’t very well let her take the cook, I found out what kind of toaster we had and bought her the same,” he explained. “I thought it would make the transition to her new home a little easier.”
Linley smiled. “That was very thoughtful of you, but I don’t think an electric toaster is quite the gift every young woman dreams of.”
“No, apparently not.”
They walked on, searching through the stalls for souvenirs. Linley would miss Morocco, and wanted to stock up on all the things she’d grown to love about its cities and its people. Patrick was determined to find the perfect gift for Georgiana, and perhaps even a little something for himself.
They passed a space selling lanterns and birdcages with an enormous pile of oil lamps strewn across the dirt.
Linley stooped down and fished one out of the heap. “A genie lamp!”
Smiling at her, Patrick reached over and gave the silver lamp a firm rub with the palm of his hand. They both laughed, waiting to see if anything appeared. When nothing happened, Linley started to toss it back down in the pile, but Patrick stopped her.
“Maybe the genie is just shy,” he explained. “What say I take him back to England with me? Perhaps there I will get my th
ree wishes after all.”
They purchased the lamp, as well as a few more items, and meandered through the rest of the souk. By then, it was well past noon. The sun sat high, and the heat grew unbearable. Linley knew they needed to find somewhere to rest and wait out the hottest part of the day.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I know somewhere we could eat.”
Patrick looked around, wiping sweat from the back of his neck with a handkerchief. The filthy souk was the last place in the world he wanted to sit down and eat, but he was willing to give anywhere a try if it kept him out of the heat and the sun.
“Alright,” he said, tucking the limp handkerchief back up his sleeve.
They pushed their way through the marketplace, weaving between vendor stands and donkey carts. Beyond the stench of manure, cumin, tobacco smoke, and thousands of scents Patrick could not even identify, another aroma grew more pronounced—that of roasting meat.
On the far side of the marketplace, food stands lined the narrow streets. Linley ducked beneath a carpeted awning, pulling Patrick in behind her. The space beneath it could hardly be called a restaurant, yet that was exactly what it seemed to be. They took a table in the corner, amid the stares of the local men dining in the shade.
“I like to try the food wherever I am,” Linley explained. “I don’t think one can say they’ve been anywhere if they haven’t experienced that place’s cuisine. What do you think?”
Patrick gulped. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What is it, the smell?” Linley leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “I have to agree that meat left in the sun, no matter how fresh, tends to develop a certain…aroma…but at least try everything they bring us.”
He swatted away a fly buzzing around his face. By the time the food arrived, one fly turned into two flies, and two flies became a dozen. Patrick could hardly see what was on his plate between them all.
“Should I even ask what this is?” He pointed to a mass of what appeared to be meat and vegetables atop a bowl of yellow, rounded pellets.
“Well…” Linley grabbed a handful of the dish and popped it into her mouth. “The meat is lamb—or maybe goat—and the little yellow things are called couscous,” she explained as she chewed.
“Goat?” Patrick asked. “You want me to eat goat with my hands?”
“I’d be very disappointed if you didn’t.”
With a groan, he relented and dug in. Even as a boy, Patrick never ate with his fingers. It just was not done—unless a chap found himself having luncheon under a carpet in the company of one little English girl and ten angry Arabs. Then, apparently, it was acceptable.
“Do you like it?” Linley asked, rolling another handful of couscous. “You don’t look like you like it.”
“It takes some getting used to, I’d imagine.”
She pushed the rolled ball into her mouth and shrugged.
Patrick tried to emulate her, but ended up a sticky, sloppy mess. “Tell me something about yourself, if you don’t mind. I understand your father is an explorer of sorts, but what is a girl like you doing all the way out here?”
“All the way out here? To me this is civilization,” she said. “And my father is not an explorer. He is an archaeologist.”
“What is the difference?”
Between bites of food, Linley explained, “My father studies human history through the things they’ve left behind—mostly artifacts, but not always. For instance, we’ve been here in Morocco searching for a lost kasbah, which is sort of like a fortress and a palace all in one.”
“Did you find it?”
Linley grinned. “The French government would rather I not say.”
“That sounds very dangerous.”
“It can be,” she said. “But mostly it’s just a lot of hard work with little payoff. Most of the time we’re up to our elbows in dirt and decay and never find a thing. Sometimes, though, we make a discovery. Even the smallest one can make it all worthwhile.”
“Surely you must find something,” Patrick said, “Even I’ve heard of Bedford Talbot-Martin.”
Linley beamed with pride at that remark. “Papa is a genius. He got his start studying Buddhist temples in India. That is his passion, but unfortunately no one else seems to care. At least not the people with the money,” she said. “We receive funding from both the British Museum and from private investors, so mostly we have to do what they tell us.”
“Like looking for lost palaces.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But not that I’m complaining, because an expedition anywhere would be better than my father taking a teaching position at a university.”
“Is that a possibility?”
Linley sighed. “There isn’t much work for an archaeologist once he’s too old to actually get out and dig. My father is in good health now, but in a few years, who knows? And besides, money has been very tight lately, and it only seems to be getting tighter.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Would you mind walking to the beach with me, Mr. Wolford?” Linley asked as they left the little restaurant in the souk. “I would like to see it one last time before I leave.”
Patrick followed her through the crowd and down the narrow flight of steps leading to the Moroccan shoreline. “Don’t you ever get tired of moving around all the time?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I think it’s all terribly exciting.”
To the north, the beach lay deserted. Patrick and Linley walked across the hot, camel colored sand until they found a suitable spot midway between the walls of Rabat and the blue Atlantic.
“Here,” Patrick said, taking off his jacket and placing it across the sand.
Linley smiled at him and took a seat on the cool white flannel. “Thank you.”
Ever the gentleman, Patrick sat on the sand.
“I love beaches,” she said. “They are always my favorite places.”
“Beaches are very dirty. All sorts people in the same water together…along with God knows what.”
“You worry too much.”
He bit back a smile. “Funny, my sister tells me the same thing. She says it drives her insane.”
“I think it’s charming.”
Patrick stopped trying to hold back his smile, and let it sweep across his face. Linley grew warm it its wake, but blamed that on the sun instead of the handsome gentleman and his dimpled grin. Searching for something to take the weight off the moment, she reached beneath her skirts and tugged down her stockings.
“What are you doing?” Patrick asked, staring at everything except the pink skin of her thin little ankles.
“Taking off my shoes,” Linley said, slipping them and the stockings off. “The sand feels marvelous between my toes.” For good measure, she gave them a wiggle. Warm bronze sand sifted through her toes as if through an hourglass. “Won’t you give it a try?”
“No, thank you.”
“Why?” she asked. “Do you have an extra toe, or a wart, or something hideously wrong with your feet?”
Patrick snorted a laugh. “My feet are fine, I assure you.”
“Well, you certainly can’t get in the water with your stockings…”
“We’re getting in the water?”
Linley finished balling up her stockings and shoved them inside her shoes before standing up. “I am. But only up to my ankles.” She gathered her skirt into her hand and padded down the sand to the edge of the water, squealing as a wave swirled around her bare feet. “Come on!” She called to him, urging him to join her.
He shook his head.
Linley called again, but Patrick still would not budge. After one wave too many soaked the hem of her skirt, she ran back up the beach and plopped down beside him, breathless. “That was fun!”
Patrick shielded his eyes from the blast of sand that followed close behind her. “I’ll bet.”
“Years from now, you’ll wish you had done it,” Linley said. “It could have been one of those real moments of life—one wh
ere you knew in that exact instant you were totally and perfectly alive.”
“That is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard.”
She shrugged. “All this from a man who’s afraid to take off his shoes and socks…”
“I am not afraid.”
“It’s alright to be afraid some of the time,” Linley continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “But you cannot be afraid all of the time.”
“I said I am not afraid.” To prove it, Patrick jerked at the laces of his tan leather oxfords. He wrestled his feet out of the shoes, pulled off his socks, and dropped them both down onto the sand. “See!”
She clapped with mock pride. “Very good. I am proud of you.” With that, she picked up his left shoe and chucked it toward the ocean. It fell short of the water, but landed the wet sand with a plop.
Patrick grappled for the other one, but Linley sent it flying in the direction of its mate. “Those we’re very expensive!” he cried.
“You can get them back when we’re finished,” Linley said. “Besides, you strike me as the sort of fellow who owns more than one pair of shoes at a time.”
“It is the principle of the matter,” he said, frowning. “You can’t go around pitching people’s good footwear into the Atlantic.”
“Are they your favorite?”
“As a matter of fact,” Patrick said, “They are.”
Linley stood up, releasing a fresh barrage of sand into Patrick’s face. “I’m sorry. I’ll go get them.”
“No, it’s fine. Sit down.”
She looked down at him, the salty wind blowing her skirt around her ankles. “Are you sure?”
“Please,” he said, patting the ground.
Linley sat. Once she settled herself back onto the flannel jacket, Patrick snatched both of her shoes and slung them as close to his own as he could get them.
“Hey!”
He couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the look of open-mouthed shock on her face. “Now we are even.”
“You snake! You had me feeling really awful.”
Patrick tried to wipe the smile from his face long enough to scold her. “You should feel awful. But now you’ve had a taste of your own medicine.”
A Love That Never Tires (Linley & Patrick Book 1) Page 3
