It crossed her mind that perhaps he was in cahoots with one of her rivals. William Petrie, distant relative of the well-revered antiquarian Flinders Petrie, was always trying to find out what Bobbie knew, in an attempt to take her discoveries for himself. She didn’t think it likely though.
It was far more probable that her parents had seriously sent a man after her to keep an eye on her as though she were an errant toddler playing too close to a stream. How silly of them.
The whitewashed walls were greying and grimy in this part of the city. Bobbie was glad she knew the warren of narrow roads like the back of her hand; it would make it far easier to give Mister Sean McClintock the slip.
For some reason, her thoughts kept returning to how handsome he was, how his voice had done strange things to her insides, and how that strict spanking had left her bottom stinging and her insides glowing. Every time she pushed him out of her mind he returned, like a stray dog. She grudgingly conceded that he was rather handsome, but aside from his propensity for condescension, she also suspected he wasn’t terrifically adventurous.
It didn’t take long for Bobbie to reach the banks of the Nile, whereupon she followed the road down to the harbour. She dodged and skipped over the vendors whose wares were precariously calculated to cause the most amount of nuisance to passers-by, in the hopes that people might buy something whilst trying to navigate the street. After leaping over yet another grubby curtain covered in cheap trinkets, Bobbie saw the boat.
When she gave the captain a crisp five-shilling note, it took all of two minutes for him to issue her a ticket and stand aside so she could ascend the rickety gangplank, made of bowing planks of wood that threatened to hurl Bobbie into the crocodile-infested waters, and embark the boat.
Calling it a cruise was a generous overstatement. It was the sort of matchwood vessel that had seen better days—when the wood that made it had been trees. By design, it had no bathroom facilities save for a bucket in a small unlit cupboard, shared by everyone on board. Bobbie vowed to use it as little as possible.
The cabins were equally rough, with a short, narrow berth for each passenger. There was no second or first class, and Bobbie had the misfortune to be sleeping in the same room as a particularly obnoxious woman who snored even when she was awake, and who seemed to have something against regular bathing.
The Nile was a huge river, over a mile wide by Bobbie’s guess, and it almost looked like the sea. Aside from the scenery being dry and sandy, it reminded her of the Firth of Forth as it turned into the North Sea whilst it flowed past Edinburgh. The key difference, however, was that the Forth was tidal, whereas the Nile was not. Whilst Bobbie wasn’t especially prone to seasickness, she still enjoyed not needing to take preventative measures.
Her fellow passengers were a peculiar bunch. Aside from the woman who snored all the time, there was a litany of characters. When Bobbie went up to the deck to admire the view, she encountered a few of them. At the prow of the vessel, an Egyptian man was playing a pipe. Bobbie stepped closer to listen, then startled and hurriedly moved away as she realized he was charming a cobra in a basket. She hated snakes with a passion. If the damned cobra were to escape and find its way near her in the night, it would swiftly find itself on fire. She wasn’t sure what possessed some people to befriend poisonous cobras and she was not in the least bit curious about them.
An assortment of other passengers sat on top of the roof of the main cabin. Some had brought bread and local wine. Others were sleeping up there. What really drew Bobbie’s attention, however, was the man who was talking to a pet mouse. By the looks of it, they were having an entire conversation, in great depth and seriousness. Every so often, the man would chortle with laughter, then gaze around the deck, telling anyone who looked his way that the mouse had a rapier wit. Bobbie doubted that, but the chap seemed entertained, nonetheless.
* * *
Sean was frustrated that the young Englishwoman had evaded him so easily. On reflection, perhaps he had scared her off by spanking her. It was hard to tell, though, because she’d seemed quite stoic about it at the time.
In the six years since the armistice, Sean had taken on numerous protection jobs, because he was good at keeping people safe. He’d followed heiresses plenty of times in the past for their parents. Usually, their lives were uneventful and the money was easy. But he had never had to work with someone who was simultaneously so determined to evade him and so intent on putting herself in danger.
He wasn’t used to dealing with young ladies in matters of discipline, and was finding it difficult to hold himself back. If she’d been one of his recruits in the British Army, he would have had her cleaning the toilets with her toothbrush and holding heavy weights in the corner to teach her to listen. But out here, on civvy street, he knew that wasn’t how things were done. People didn’t have any incentive to behave. And nobody knew any more how to rein people in when they were out of control.
Bobbie’s father knew Sean’s dad from the Boer. Old Colonel McClintock had been a formidable man, fierce in the battlefield and demanding in the home. But he’d loved Sean’s mother with all his heart, and while he’d always expected her and Sean to obey him without question, he’d been a kindly and caring head of the household. Sean missed his dad. Lord Huntingdon-Smythe had apparently followed Sean’s military record during the Great War, and decided that he was the man for the job of keeping Bobbie safe.
He knew from the papers her father had found in her bedroom that Bobbie was heading toward a certain area in the middle of the desert, and the most convenient way to get there was to take the river taxi, a crumbling vessel that was docked on the Nile. Sean didn’t want to scare Bobbie off the boat before it departed the dock, as it would be far easier to corral her once she was cornered, so he watched the boat carefully until he saw her disappear below decks with her carpet bag.
Sean bought a ticket and went straight to his berth, neither pausing to speak to anyone nor making any enquiries of the staff. He would remain in his bunk until the boat was definitely on the water. The girl wouldn’t be stupid enough to jump off a moving boat into the mile-wide, crocodile-infested waters of the Nile, surely.
He sipped at a canteen of water he’d brought with him and bided his time, forgoing the evening meal with the intent of lulling her into a false sense of security. She couldn’t escape if she didn’t know she was in a mousetrap. He would have her tootling back to her parents’ comfortable country pile in no time at all.
When Mr. and Mrs. Huntingdon-Smythe had enlisted Sean’s help, they had provided him with all the details about her disobedience, her refusal to even consider marrying anyone, and her dangerous behaviour. What they failed to explain was why. It appeared that she could certainly use some discipline in her life, however, and he wouldn’t balk at meting it out until she was safely returned to her family. He had worked to train men who were from all walks of life during the war, between being sent out to the front lines, and he knew a thing or two about getting people to behave.
When they first met, Sean thought Bobbie seemed rather quiet and thoughtful in person, not at all like her parents had described, but then her wild side had come out when he’d had to spank her. He was more than a little intrigued by the attractive redhead who was bookish one moment and almost an acrobat the next. But what on Earth had possessed her to come to Egypt? And why, given that he’d caught her fair and square, hadn’t she returned with him? It was most peculiar. Still, he would spring his trap tomorrow and have her home by the end of the month.
* * *
On the second day, Bobbie was eating dinner when a newcomer joined the table. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and it was difficult to gauge his appearance beneath it, given how poor the lighting was below the deck. Bobbie was sure she’d seen him before, and she rolled the mystery around in her mind while she tried to finish her meal, which comprised of poorly cooked and unrecognizable parts of animals.
As she headed back to her cabin, someone touched her shoul
der. Spinning around in surprise, she came face to face with the Scotsman once again.
“You!” she grumbled. Of course he was the man who wore his hat at the dinner table. Manners clearly didn’t run in his family.
“Me,” he confirmed. “Are you going to come quietly, now, or do I have to remind you about how to behave?”
“I think you’ll find I’m not the one who requires an education in appropriate attire at the dinner table,” she replied coldly. “Go and boil your head.”
“I’ll take it you need the reminder, then.” He lifted her easily, flipping her over his shoulder where he landed three fast swats before marching swiftly to his own cabin. When Bobbie heard the lock click, she knew she was in for it.
“Look here, I’ll come back to England,” she said, as he unfastened his belt. She had heard about how bad a belting could be, although it was another punishment she’d never received.
“Where have I heard that before?” He placed her down on the bed, quickly lifting her skirt to reveal her thin underwear, then as she tried to get up, he knelt over her thighs with one of his legs, pinning her wrists against her back with one of his hands. Bobbie sighed in defeat and steeled herself for the inevitable thrashing she was about to get.
The belt smacked across both her cheeks and she hissed through her teeth at the sudden and immediate burning pain that blossomed where it landed. Not waiting, he brought it down again, seemingly disinterested in avoiding any overlap. It stung so much worse than his hand, and while she still tried to avoid making any noises, she wriggled her bottom to try to get the sting out. It was no good, however, and the pain from the first two licks was still clinging to her skin when the third one came down, making her gasp as it caught her straight across the line where her bottom became her thighs. She scrunched her toes, trying her best not to kick her legs, a resolution that she also failed to keep when the next two licks of the belt thundered down on her poor bottom.
“Please,” she implored him, trying not to show how much this hurt whilst trying to get him to stop.
“No,” came the reply. He brought the belt down again and again, and when he’d done it a dozen or so times, Bobbie cracked. First she sniffled, then she began to cry. Mostly, she was sure that the Egyptian heat was getting to her, because she rarely cried under normal circumstances. Wet tears streaked down her face and landed on the floor below, as the boat rocked on the Nile. Still, he continued punishing her.
When her bottom and legs were burning all the way to the back of her knees, at long last he stopped. The belt fell to the floor with a thunk, then his fingers were lightly dancing over the burning welts he’d inflicted so dispassionately just moments earlier.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and Bobbie was surprised to hear tenderness in his voice. She cleared her throat to try and not sound like she’d just been crying.
“Yes. Fine. Never better.” She gasped in pain as the flat of his hand landed squarely on her sit spot.
“That was for telling untruths,” he told her.
“My bottom hurts,” she admitted. “You seem to have a preference for it.”
“I take no pleasure in disciplining you, lass. It’s what you need, though, I can see that. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be gallivanting off out here instead of being at home.”
“Why must a girl be naturally undisciplined and disobedient to want to see the world? Why is the world designed in such a way that women are almost forced to live out their whole lives in a small corner of it, never expected to dream about anything more or aspire to amounting to anything? Why is it so objectionable to men like you, that in lieu of finding a suitable husband, of which the world is lacking, a woman is vilified for going out into the world and seeking her fortune? If I were a man I would be lauded for what I’ve done out here.”
“Have you quite finished on your soapbox?” he asked, gently lifting her up and sitting her on the bed beside him.
“It depends,” she replied. “Do you understand that women might want to do more than what men expect of them?”
He gave her a long look. “Perhaps. Depends on the woman. And on the expectation. For example, during the Great War, the nurses were formidable, and I’d never cross them, but I’d also not want to put a gun in their hands or put them on the front lines.”
Bobbie coloured red as she remembered trying to join the military during the war. “But what if a woman wanted to be on the front lines? What if she didn’t want to be a nurse?”
“I wouldn’t train her. I couldn’t. Shooting an enemy… it breaks a part of your soul. It changes you forever. Makes you… less soft. I wouldn’t want to inflict that on a woman.”
Bobbie glared at him, feeling like he was still being utterly sexist.
“Look, lass, I’ve got you now and I’m going to do my job, so I can go back to my own house and spend my days taking on more interesting body-guarding jobs than this one. If you give me the slip again, I’ll have to tie you down to get you back home, and you really won’t like that, so be good and come quietly, all right, lass?”
Bobbie stared at Sean for the longest time, deciding between finishing her expedition and returning home to disentangle herself from the stern Scot, and decided there were worse things to do than to drop into her family pile for a brief interlude until Mr. Spanky decided to pursue some other wayward girl.
* * *
The journey back to Britain was mostly uneventful, and in no time at all, Bobbie found herself dying inside whilst nodding along to her mother reading out the society pages at the breakfast table every morning. The irritatingly dogged Scotsman vanished into the aether and Bobbie was sure she’d seen the last of him.
Three months after she had returned from Egypt, it was that time of year when every country house had its own annual ball, offset so the usual crowd would spend each weekend at a different manor. The servants had been finishing preparations for the Huntingdon-Smythe bash, which was to commence the following day. Bobbie sat on a pink velvet armchair in the pink room, where the ladies of the house were expected to retire with tea after dinner, avoiding the smoky drawing room where the men would be sipping whisky. She might have suffocated from the conversation between her mother and a couple of early arrivals for the weekend’s festivities, but thankfully Adeline Hawthorne—Wolstanton, now, Bobbie corrected herself—was one of the premature guests, and the two girls were gracefully consuming as much tea as the servants could provide.
“The evening news, madam.” Cribbins, one of the footmen, placed a folded broadsheet paper on the sofa between Bobbie and Adeline. Bobbie frowned; this was so far outside normal protocol that she almost enquired as to whether the young man had a fever. Unlike Adeline, who had always revelled in trashing social conventions, Bobbie appreciated good manners and only broke the rules when she wanted to do something that she was too curious about.
Before she spoke, however, she glanced down at the headline, and when she looked back up at Cribbins, it was with appreciation that he’d brought her the news, even as a frisson of fury made her knit her brows while she stared back at the thin grey paper emblazoned with fat black words.
William Petrie’s picture graced the evening news.
“Isn’t that where you went, recently?” Adeline Hawthorne enquired. Bobbie clenched her fists so tightly that she only heard her teacup crack after she felt the hot liquid drench her hand with a plop, as the tea hit her pale blue gown and covered her thighs on its journey to find the lowest level.
“Bother.” Bobbie knew better than to use stronger language anywhere near her mother. She closed her eyes for a moment, tuning out the chaos as servants surrounded her, and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, several servants were standing within three feet of her, looking uncertain about what to do.
“Bobbie, dear? Let go of the cup,” Adeline coaxed gently. Bobbie stared at her hand. Shards of Royal Doulton shone with tea. She released the handful of china into a saucer proffered by a servant. Beneath, a dark rivulet
began making its way down her hand.
“Good heavens, lady,” a servant squeaked. Adeline hissed at her and she shrank back.
“What’s the matter, have none of you ever seen blood before?” Adeline demanded. She swiftly whipped her handkerchief out of a pocket and bound Bobbie’s hand tightly. “Keep it over your head, dear.” Adeline helped Bobbie to her feet. Bobbie grasped the paper in her other hand, determined to read the rest of the article once she’d recovered her senses.
“I’m sorry, my lady, I didn’t mean to cause no upset.” Cribbins’ voice was strained. In the background, the other women chattered about begonias, completely oblivious to the turmoil as Bobbie’s world wavered around her.
“Please pass on our apologies to everyone in the room. Bobbie has been taken ill and we need to retire, now,” Adeline said firmly, then, keeping Bobbie’s hand above her head, she led her out of the pink room and up the stairs. Bobbie felt rather silly that she’d lost control of her emotions so near to a party.
* * *
“What the dickens was that about?” Adeline asked after locking Bobbie’s bedroom door. Bobbie flopped on her bed, grateful that she had a friend with her who knew how to navigate a scrape.
“William Petrie. William fucking Petrie…” Bobbie trailed off, squeezing her toes in her stupid tight shoes as she tried to put her words together but the fury boiled over. “He just made a great discovery exactly where I was headed.”
“It must just be a coincidence, though, right?” Adeline put an arm around Bobbie’s shoulders.
“It’s always a coincidence. The sort of coincidences where he intentionally bribes my local men to tell him where I am headed, then takes my find for himself.”
Protected by the Scotsman (Stern Scotsmen Book 2) Page 2
