The Alexandria Affair

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Then who is he?” Lord Randolph moved his pointing finger to the other man.

  “I haven’t the faintest bloody idea.” Grenville’s quizzing glass came out, and he fixed it on the imposter. If we had been at White’s, the false Captain Lacey’s social ruin would have been complete.

  “I met him yesterday,” Lord Randolph said, puzzled and angry. “At the home of the bey of Alexandria. He told me he was Captain Lacey. We discussed my dig at Memphis, and the legend of Alexander’s tomb. He is well-informed.”

  “Well, I’ve never met him,” Grenville said. He sniffed and dropped the quizzing glass back into his waistcoat pocket. “He has been following us about, attempting to assassinate my friend, the true Captain Lacey.”

  Lord Randolph started at the word assassinate, and the crowd behind Grenville murmured in shock.

  The imposter only laughed again, the sound of one confident he was in the right. “You will find, Lord Randolph, that if you listen to Grenville, who has also been duped, you will back the incorrect Captain Lacey.”

  “He’s a madman,” I said, regaining my composure. “Brewster, take him out and give him to the police, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, indeed, Brewster,” the imposter said. “Do so. I’ll lead the way, shall I?”

  He tried to start off, but Brewster still had hold of him, not intending to lose sight of him again. Brewster marched him from the room, the crowd pulling back as though fearing either of the two would touch them.

  I followed, but I found my way to the courtyard blocked by Lord Randolph.

  “Captain Lacey, I do beg your pardon,” he said, sounding anything but apologetic. “You and Grenville must explain why I spent several hours yesterday talking to a man who claimed to be you.”

  I longed to rush after Brewster, to shake the imposter, to make him tell me what he’d meant. I am as legitimate as you are, even more so. Your father never sired me. He was a madman. And a murderer.

  The words rang in my head, blotting out any interest in the social niceties of the soiree.

  Grenville, when I could hear again, was busy soothing our host. “I apologize for the spectacle, Dolphin. We had no idea he’d be here.”

  “He arrived most punctually,” Lord Randolph said with a frown of disapproval. “I was surprised he did not accompany you, but as I had spoken to him before, I made nothing of it. Captain Lacey.” He gave me a curt nod. “Please rest here and recover from your ordeal. I will send for refreshment.”

  In other words, Lord Randolph did not wish me to roam his soiree with a blood-splashed cravat while his guests stared at me. Lord Randolph might once have been a libertine himself, but his gaze told me that he did not like others disrupting his gatherings.

  I nodded my acceptance. Lady Mary, who had shoved her way to the front of the crowd, now turned and shooed the guests out.

  “Let the poor man rest, do. What a shock for him. So distressing.” Uttering more such phrases, Lady Mary herded the others back into the courtyard.

  Conversation burst into life as Lord Randolph’s guests headed for the drawing room. Lady Mary turned to me before she exited to the courtyard, her eyes bright.

  “You are very naughty, Captain Lacey, for not telling me of this adventure. You as well, Grenville. I shall let you make it up to me later.”

  She nodded to us, her feathers bobbing every which way, sent Grenville a wide smile, and finally departed. She raised her hand and her voice as she went, calling out to the Florentine gentleman who’d walked with me at the fortress.

  Lord Randolph again began his stiff apologies, but Grenville cut him off. “More to the point, Dolphin, you need to tell us what he said to you. I want to know all about this man who has been violent toward my friends.”

  Lord Randolph looked me over, his blue eyes holding more intelligence than his foppish manner would suggest. “I will have my servants escort you home,” he said. “I will join you there later, if I may.”

  I was far too agitated for polite chatting at the soiree, no matter how long I rested, so I readily agreed. Bartholomew, who had accompanied us, met me at the gate, his young face creased with distress. Grenville elected to remain, to smooth over the waters, as he put it, as he could.

  “I saw Mr. Brewster taking him out,” Bartholomew said as he walked beside me through the crowded streets. Though it was dark, Egyptian faces turned to me, alarm in them when they saw the blood on my clothes. “He does look remarkably like you, sir.”

  “And yet when I accused him of being my father’s by-blow, he found this highly amusing,” I said. As though I know nothing.” I increased my pace, unnerved by the stares of the passersby. “I will visit whatever prison they throw him into and pry answers from him.”

  “If they don’t torture him,” Bartholomew said. “I heard that prisoners are shackled with their legs stuck out in front of them, while the soles of their feet are beaten.”

  I shuddered. Torture was still unfortunately common around the world. In England, we’d ceased burning people to death and had relegated the rack and the wheel to museums, but we retained the pillory, the noose, and sentencing a man to work himself to death on the moors.

  “Grenville has much influence,” I said as we walked on, the men Lord Randolph had sent with us watchful. “He may be able to have the fellow taken back to England to stand trial there for assault. I’m certain Sergeant Pomeroy would welcome a chance at a conviction.”

  Pomeroy, once a sergeant under my command, was now one of the elite Bow Street Runners, and very good at it. He gained a reward for every criminal convicted, and he’d obtained many a conviction.

  We reached our lodgings. I thanked Lord Randolph’s escort, who faded back into the streets, and went inside to warmth and light. I was already growing fond of this house, which Matthias and Bartholomew had managed to make quite comfortable.

  My comfort did not last long. I had changed my shirt and cravat, allowing Bartholomew to sponge the blood from my skin, and was returning downstairs when Brewster came in, clearly out of temper.

  “Bastards,” he said feelingly. He swung his huge fist into the nearest brick pillar, and I swore the house trembled under the onslaught. “They took ’im.”

  “Who?” I asked. “What happened?”

  Brewster shook out his hand, scowling in rage. “Bloody Turks—I don’t know who they were. Came out of nowhere, surrounded me, and took him away. One tried to cuff me too. I ran him off.”

  “Were they police? Or the army? Maybe they wanted him for Ibrahim’s death.”

  Brewster shook his head. “They weren’t arresting him. They fawned all over him, bowing and apologizing, and escorted him off. He looked chuffed. Smug. They pushed me to the side of the street and marched away.”

  Bartholomew, who had come to listen, said, “Must have friends in high places.”

  “Apparently.” My double had earlier fled inside the home of the top city official who’d made certain the local men kept us out.

  Who the devil was this man? A brilliant confidence trickster? But why on earth would a confidence trickster have interest in pretending to be me? In taking over my life?

  “He’s a madman,” I said decidedly. “It is the only explanation.”

  “A dangerous one,” Brewster said. “He can turn the high and mighty to his side. He had that Lord Randolph fooled, didn’t he?”

  How many others had he duped? I wondered. Would I have to travel through Egypt—anywhere in the world—worrying about how this man had sullied my name? Would I be arrested for pretending to be him?

  “I will grow mad if I don’t find out what he wants,” I said. “Keep a sharp eye out, Brewster. Who knows, he might convince his new friends to help him come after me.”

  The thought buoyed me more than it frightened me. If they came for me, I would fight, and I would have answers.

  I gave up for now and sat down in the drawing room, stretching out my aching leg. I tried to settle my mind, but my impatience and anger kep
t my thoughts whirling.

  I had heaved myself to my feet again and was pacing by the time Grenville returned, Lord Randolph with him.

  Lord Randolph accepted the goblet of brandy Bartholomew presented him and held it politely until Grenville and I were served ours before he sipped.

  “Well, Dolphin, let’s have it,” Grenville said. He didn’t bother waiting for Bartholomew to be out of earshot, knowing he would listen anyway. “Why did you think that man was Captain Lacey?”

  Lord Randolph took another sip of brandy and responded calmly. No need for agitation, his expression said. “He presented himself at my house, said he knew he was rudely punctual but that you’d told him to go on ahead as he was so impatient to speak to me. He apologized and said his curiosity often made him brush aside niceties.”

  It was the sort of thing I might say if I were in a hurry to quiz someone. “Bloody cheek,” I said.

  “When I told you about Lacey, I said he’d been injured in the war,” Grenville said. I tapped my walking stick to the boot of my left leg to illustrate the point. “But this man seems agile.”

  Lord Randolph gave a smooth shrug. “He leaned heavily on his walking stick and moved slowly. He looked and walked very much like you.” Lord Randolph ran his gaze over me where I stood. “He is different from you, I see that now—your faces are not exact, and his nose has been flattened. But you are very alike. Who is he?”

  “That is what I wish I knew,” I said. “Why did he want to speak to you privately, Lord Randolph?”

  Lord Randolph answered readily. “He wanted to know about this papyrus Grenville mentioned—the lost treatise from the Alexandrian library. Chabert’s secret find that he reportedly hid.” The man gazed at me, his haughty bearing deflating somewhat. “I am sorry, gentlemen. I am afraid I told him rather a lot.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I sank into a chair, my weak leg no longer supporting me, and sucked in a breath as pain bit. The imposter had kicked me hard, knowing which leg had been injured and exactly where to hit it.

  Grenville was the one who answered Lord Randolph. “How the devil did he know what we planned to discuss with you? Oh, damnation.” He shook his head in realization. “Lady Mary knew we were after the book. I suppose she spread the tale far and wide.”

  “I have not heard her speak of it,” Lord Randolph said. “Not that I spend much time in conversation with her if I can help it. But I said nothing, and I’ve heard no one else discuss it. That is not to say gossip could not have reached him. The community of British in Egypt is small, and we all know everything there is to know about one another. We know about those from the Continent as well. Chabert, for example, was carrying on openly with a lady during his stay in Egypt though his wife waited patiently for him in France.”

  “What lady?” Grenville asked, coming alert. “Perhaps she knows where he hid his treasure.”

  “I am not sure she does,” Lord Randolph said. “Plenty of people have asked her, and she returns the same answer every time—Chabert did not confide to her the whereabouts of the book.”

  “She’s still alive then?” I asked, coming out of my fog of pain.

  “Yes, indeed,” Lord Randolph answered. “And in Egypt. She is Signora Beatrice Faber, famous for her travels in the Near East. Which I unfortunately told your double. If, as your man says, he was rescued then he will certainly find her and speak to her. But as I say, Signora Beatrice professes to know nothing.”

  I leaned forward, resting both hands on my walking stick. “And where can we find this lady?”

  “On the Nile.” Lord Randolph spread his fingers. “I mean that quite literally. She has a lavish barge on which she lives while she sails up and down, pausing to look at whatever strikes her fancy. She has done this for many years.”

  “You call her ‘Signora’,” Grenville said. “She is Italian?”

  “I heard somewhere that she is Venetian,” Lord Randolph answered. “Having met her only once, and it never coming up in conversation, I haven’t learned exactly where she is from.”

  It hardly mattered—I only knew I needed to speak to this woman. She might have told Lord Randolph she had no information about Chabert’s book, but that might not be the truth. She might be protecting Chabert’s memory and his wishes. Or perhaps she was searching for the book herself, either for love of Chabert or for profit.

  “What else did you tell my double?” I asked Lord Randolph.

  Lord Randolph heaved a sigh. “That the book exists. I’ve seen it. Oh, a very long time ago.” He gestured with his goblet. “Chabert showed it to me. He wanted an independent opinion, and I was a scholar of the Classics, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me.”

  Lord Randolph beamed a broad smile, which revealed how very charming he must have been as a young man. He was not handsome, in my opinion, but true charm, I had seen, can overcome what is on a man’s surface.

  “So you saw the book?” Grenville broke in, eyes glittering with interest. “And is it a treatise on astronomy?”

  “It is indeed.” Lord Randolph sat back, rolling his brandy goblet between his hands. “But no matter what information the scroll contains, the fact that it resided in Alexandria’s library at all is enough to make the world agog. In my opinion, though, Chabert knew what a furor it would cause and either hid it carefully or destroyed it.”

  “Surely not.” Grenville, the avid collector, expressed horror. “He’d be too good a scholar to burn it or otherwise get rid of it. I wager he hid the book, intending to return for it someday and use it to make his name.”

  Lord Randolph sighed and shook his head. “We shall never know. Chabert died, his mistress alone knew his secrets—if he told her—and the book is gone.”

  I pictured Chabert’s lady, Signora Faber, who’d be perhaps as old as Lord Randolph by now, floating in a great ship on the Nile, cradling the papyrus in her hands, secretly pleased.

  Into my tiredness and pain came Lady Mary’s words, A woman is behind it. Mark my words, Captain. Where there is a young man in trouble, a woman causes it.

  I jolted in realization, brandy sloshing over my hand. Had my imposter already spoken to Chabert’s mistress, or tried to meet with her here in Alexandria? Perhaps Ibrahim, out after hours looking for entertainment, as soldiers sometimes did, had come across the meeting and had been killed for it.

  But no, the imposter hadn’t spoken to Lord Randolph about Signora Faber until earlier tonight. That did not mean the imposter hadn’t known about her already, of course.

  “Are you all right, Lacey?” Grenville asked in concern.

  I realized I was sitting quite still, sticky brandy all over my hand, my gaze fixed like a madman’s. Visions and words snaked through my head, a jumble of disparate pieces of knowledge.

  The imposter must have hurt me more than I’d thought. I was drifting in and out, the pain in my leg increasing.

  “I believe I will retire,” I said, setting aside the brandy and climbing to my feet with difficulty. “A good night’s sleep will see me better.”

  Bartholomew, good lad, was next to me in an instant, lending me his strong arm. I bade Grenville and Lord Randolph a polite good night, and managed to leave the room while I still could stand.

  “Where is Brewster?” I asked as I ascended the dark stairs, Bartholomew close behind me to steady me. I’d seen nothing of Brewster in the downstairs rooms, nor had he been lounging in the courtyard.

  “He went out,” Bartholomew said. “Probably trying to find a way to get to our villain.”

  “Bloody hell.” I let out a breath of relief when we reached my bed and I could let myself collapse on it. “I do not need him to be arrested, nor do I particularly want to tell Mr. Denis that I got him killed.”

  “Mr. Brewster is resilient, sir,” Bartholomew said with confidence. “Never met a man as strong.”

  “And yet, a small bullet brought him nearly to grief.” I grunted as Bartholomew slid the boot from my left leg, though he did it wit
h great care.

  “True.” Bartholomew set the boot aside and grasped the second. “But if he’s out alone, he won’t be diving in front of you to take a shot, or a stab, or a bludgeon for you. He’ll only have to fight for himself.”

  I gave laugh of wry humor. “In other words, I put him in far more danger than he can find for himself.”

  Bartholomew shrugged. “If you like to put it that way. I’ll keep an ear out for his return. Would you like me to send him up to you when he’s come back?”

  “No.” I sat up and removed my coat, waistcoat, cravat, and shirt on my own, and held them out to Bartholomew. He dropped my nightshirt over my head, and I shoved off my trousers while I settled the shirt. “I’m far too tired. Tell him to remain home, though, so I can sleep and not be anxious for him.”

  “I will do that, sir.” Bartholomew piled up my clothes in his arms, ready to rush off and work whatever spells he did to make them clean and fresh. “Good night, sir. And do not worry overmuch.”

  Bartholomew was probably correct that Brewster could take care of himself, but I would feel better when he’d returned. I bade Bartholomew good night, let him douse the candles for me, and slid into uneasy slumber.

  * * *

  That night I found myself reaching for Donata in my sleep. We often shared a bed at home, though she liked to give me a wicked smile when we did so and claim we were being quite scandalous.

  I came half awake to see that my hand had sunk into the pillow beside me, my heart speeding to find her gone.

  But Donata was far away, resting in Oxfordshire, feasting on treats brought to her by her father’s doting staff.

  I missed her profoundly. The longing manifested itself as an ache in the center of my chest and a heavy feeling that my bouts of melancholia used to bring on. I tried to simply enjoy the knowledge that such an interesting and surprisingly tenderhearted woman was now in my life, but at the moment, it wasn’t enough.

  I needed Donata by my side, where I could touch her skin, feel her warmth, breathe her scent. I wanted to hear her low-pitched, drawling voice admonishing me. Tell Mr. Denis that he can send someone else on his fool’s errand. You are in Egypt to enjoy yourself and look about, not chase down impossible books.