by Louise Allen
‘And if I do not choose to join him?’ Cleo sipped her coffee and tried to imagine what a well-bred society lady troubled by a tiresome invitation would do.
‘Um, it isn’t a request, ma’am.’
‘So if I say no you will toss me over your shoulder and carry me, Ensign?’ It was unkind to tease him, she knew, but he was the only man around to take out her anxiety on.
Ensign Lloyd actually lost colour, but he squared his shoulders and met her gaze. ‘If I have to, ma’am. With the deepest respect.’
‘You have courage, Mr Lloyd. I didn’t mean it. Will you collect me?’
‘Ma’am!’ A sharp salute and he wheeled and marched off.
* * *
‘Madame Valsac.’ The tall man with the lined face and the cropped grey hair pushed back his chair and rose as she came into the room. Ensign Lloyd closed the door behind himself and she was alone with the stranger. Then there was another scrape of chair legs on mud brick and she turned to see Quin at a table in the corner, papers spread before him and an inkstand by his hand.
‘I am Sir James Houghton of His Majesty’s Foreign Service. This is—’
‘I know who that is.’ She did not look at Quin again. ‘That is to say, I thought I knew who he was, but it seems he lied to me.’
‘I am Quintus Bredon Deverall,’ Quin said. ‘I fear I misled you about being an engineer.’
She still did not turn. ‘And much else, I am certain, Lord Quintus.’ There was a seat facing Sir James and she took it without waiting to be asked. ‘Where is my father?’
‘He is perfectly comfortable elsewhere in this building. I trust you are adequately housed and looked after, madame?’
‘Adequately, yes. For a prisoner. Why are we confined? And why did Lord Quintus lure us here under false pretences?’
‘I can assure you that the Mameluke threat is in no way a falsehood.’ Sir James did not appear in the slightest bit disturbed by her hostility. ‘Despite the fact that they have changed their allegiance to the British on the death of Murad Bey, I can assure you they would be most unsafe to encounter.’
‘So his lordship was acting out of purely uninterested concern for our welfare. How touching.’
‘No, madam, he was not. He was acting on my orders as part of our attempts to counter espionage.’
‘Espion—’ Cleo closed her mouth with a snap. ‘I do not know any spies. Other than his lordship, of course.’ To her right there was the scratch of pen on paper and she swivelled on the chair to glare at Quin. ‘Only he appears to be a clerk now. How confusing.’
‘Are you sure, madam?’
‘That I am confused, or that I know no spies beyond Lord Quintus? I am sure about both, Sir James. I married a Frenchman. Is that what this is about? I can assure you I am not spying for France—I owe it as much loyalty as I do to Britain, another country where I have never set foot. And what, exactly, would I be reporting on? The number of ibis flying past every day? The hieroglyphs on the temple at Koum Ombo? The amount of sand that I sweep out of the tent in a week?’
‘We quite accept that there is nothing you could tell a French agent that would be of any interest to them.’
How dry he is. Does he ever show any emotion? Cleo tried to imagine Sir James in the throes of passion, which was a small help to her nerves. He would have skinny buttocks.
‘You find something amusing, madam?’
‘Not at all. So, if you do not think I am a spy, what am I...? Oh, I see, you think my father is one. What nonsense! My father is an English baronet and a scholar. He is probably the most boring man on this earth and he would not know anything of interest to your enemies if he fell over it. Unless it came decorated with hieroglyphs, that is.’
‘Why do you think the French helped you when they arrived in Cairo?’ Sir James asked, without the slightest indication he had heard what she said.
‘Because of the savants. My father is a scholar and they, being more observant, or perhaps less insanely suspicious than you are, thought he would contribute to their efforts.’
‘So they facilitated his move to an area they controlled, they arranged a marriage between his daughter and a French officer and they took over his postal arrangements?’
‘Yes.’ Postal arrangements... ‘That is what this is about, isn’t it? My father’s correspondence.’ She stood and confronted Quin, who sat back in his chair, but made no move to stand. ‘You were prying into his letters. Did you search our tent? Is that why you locked up his boxes when we landed here?’
He nodded. ‘And you did not suspect anything?’
Cleo put her knuckles on the table and leaned forward so she could stare deep into his eyes. ‘Suspect that you were up to something? Yes, of course I did. And like a fool I did not tell Capitaine Laurent of my suspicions because I knew he would torture you and I was too soft-hearted to contemplate that. And this is how you repay me.’
There was colour over Quin’s cheekbones, but he did not rise to her taunts. ‘Did you suspect that the French were using your father’s correspondence to channel information from spies and informers across the world?’
‘Why should they bother with one man’s antiquarian gossip?’ She sat down again, twitching her limp skirts around her feet with a disdainful flick.
‘Because that is how intelligence operates.’ It was Quin who answered her. ‘Endless tiny details building into one large picture. Agents wrote to your father from major English ports, from London, from militarily strategic parts of India, from all around the Mediterranean. Their outgoing letters would have raised no suspicions. Antiquarian gossip, as you say—but it was full of codes. The French in Cairo slit the seals, read the letters and passed them on to your father.
‘Troop movements, ship movements, political intrigue, economic intelligence. Tiny grains of sand, just like the ones that irritate between your toes—and which mound up when the wind is right into vast dunes that can swamp a village.’
‘Or an army, or a fleet,’ Sir James added.
‘And you think my father knew this?’ There was an odd buzzing in her ears. Her fingers hurt and when she looked down she found they were twisted tight into the muslin of her skirts.
‘That is what I need to find out,’ Sir James said. ‘If he is innocent of anything except gullibility, then he can help us establish just who is genuine and who is not. There is a mass of paper to sift through.’
‘And if he is not innocent?’
Sir James just looked at her.
If they find Father guilty of this, they will... For the first time in her life Cleo knew she was about to faint. The air darkened, as though someone was slowly drawing a curtain. The buzzing sound filled her ear and she was falling.
‘Very convenient,’ said a dispassionate voice.
‘I think it is genuine,’ said another, close to her. One she knew.
‘I never faint...’ Cleo reached out her hands and found fingers, warm, strong fingers that held her as the world went black.
* * *
She had been dreaming, Cleo decided. She never fainted and she was in bed, so it must have been a dream. Only...it had all made sense. Her father’s letters, the French assistance, the way Quin had acted.
If she kept her eyes closed, none of it would be real. That was what she had told herself when she was a little girl, frightened in yet another strange town where she did not speak the language, where she was hungry or uncomfortable, where Mama was crying quietly.
It hadn’t worked then and it would not work now, she knew. Still, she would huddle under a sheet and pretend to be asleep while she thought. No one could expect her to speak when she was asleep. Speak and risk saying something that would condemn Father.
What was the worst possibility? That he was a deliberate spy, that he had bought French protection and the opportunity to study his beloved ruins unmolested at the cost of betraying the country of his birth. They would shoot him for that.
The best she could hope for was that the
British believed he had been an unknowing dupe. He would be shamed and humiliated, his precious circle of correspondents shattered.
She did not think she loved her father. Any affection for him had been worn out over years of indifference, of emotional neglect, of learning painfully that he was a selfish man who had broken her mother’s heart. But he was still her father and she would not have left him unless she had been certain he would be cared for.
Cleo had wanted to walk free from him with her conscience clear and now she would always know that by saving Quin, not once, but twice, she had condemned her own father.
But she could not go back and undo it and lying here was not going to help either. There were soft sounds in the room, someone was there with her.
‘Maggie?’ Cleo opened her eyes, blinking into the bars of strong sunlight that crossed the bed from the windows. It was still late morning then.
The bed frame behind her creaked as someone sat down on it and she rolled over on to her back. ‘You.’ Of course, he would not leave her in peace, he had to carry on harassing her.
‘Yes, me.’ Quin reached out and brushed her hair from her forehead. ‘How do you feel?’
She could not bat his hand away, she was so tangled in the sheet. Cleo struggled free and sat up. ‘How do I feel? Like a fool. Like a woman men lie to and who is stupid enough to believe them. Like a daughter who could not see what was going on under her nose. Like a sentimental female who wants to think the best about a man because he offers hugs and smiles and...’ And kisses.
‘I am sorry. We had to find out who was involved, you must see that? We had to be certain you were innocent too.’ He sat and watched her face, his own serious and open. There was regret in his voice as well as in his words.
She wanted to believe him, began to form the sentences to tell him that, to tell him she understood why he had lied to her and used her, that she believed it must have been hard.
‘It was for your own good,’ Quin added.
‘My own good?’ Every iota of empathy and understanding fled. ‘You expect me to believe that? Of course it was not for my own good! Of course you had to know whether I was guilty or innocent and it doesn’t much matter which, does it, provided you know? Innocent is probably less messy, I suppose. Do you shoot women? Or would I have had a nasty accident? That would have been neater.’
‘Cleo—’ Quin reached for her and she struck his hand away with the edge of hers, bone against bone.
‘Ow!’ Tears sprang to her eyes and she cradled her bruised and stinging hand against her chest.
‘Let me see.’ He held out his hand again, the mark of the blow red against the side of the palm. ‘You abuse these poor hands enough without trying to break them on my hard bones. Come,’ he urged when she glared at him. ‘Show me.’
She laid her hand in his and closed her eyes as he straightened out the fingers, one after another. So gentle. And so implacable. He knows it hurts me and he is going to do it anyway. For my own good.
‘Nothing broken. Keep still.’ He began to wrap it in something soft and when she opened her eyes she realised that the bandage was his neckcloth, pulled free so his formal collar gaped open.
She had seen that vee of brown skin, the curl of hair, every day they had spent together up to now. She had seen him stark naked, for Heaven’s sake! But this seemed both a shocking informality and a sign of tenderness that touched something deep inside. Something that hurt.
‘Quin.’ Cleo realised she was weeping. Great welling tears splashed down on the sheet, on his wrist, on her shift. ‘I never cry,’ she stammered. ‘I never faint and I never cry and...’
‘And you never let go, do you? Come here.’ Quin shifted so he was sitting with his back to the wall and pulled her into his arms. ‘There is a lot to cry about, I would say.’
Chapter Twelve
He thought she would resist. Cleo went rigid in Quin’s arms and then, with a little gasp, burrowed deep against his chest and wept. His nice clean shirt, borrowed from Sir James, stuck wetly to his chest, his hand where she had struck him ached, there was a lump in the plaster behind his head—and his arms were full of soft, fragrant woman. Cleo, who might never forgive him, Cleo, who certainly needed him at this moment.
The discomforts faded. Quin bent his head and nuzzled the top of hers, his lips moving against the shifting texture of her hair. He felt no need to try to stop her weeping. She would be better for the release and, selfishly, he enjoyed having her in his arms.
When she sat up, red-eyed and endearingly snuffly, he found his handkerchief and offered it without a word.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered into the depths of the linen.
‘Don’t be.’ Quin stayed where he was and waited until she emerged. ‘Cleo, we believe you. And we believe your father now we’ve talked with him. The man isn’t that good an actor.’
‘What...what did he say?’
‘He is furious that he was deceived and appears to regard it as an insult. The implications for national security do not appear to concern him anything like as much as the thought that we might cut him off from his correspondents.’
Cleo gave a moan of what sounded like pain. ‘Typical! Has he no idea what would have happened to us if you hadn’t believed him?’
Quin grinned. At the time he had wanted to hit the man, but in retrospect Sir Philip was so predictable it was almost funny. ‘He is an English baronet and a noted scholar. Naturally, in his opinion, we would take his word. I doubt it occurred to him for a moment that we might not. I thought Sir James was going to lose his temper, which would have been a novelty.’
‘Did Father ask about me?’ Cleo had recovered her poise, as much as a young woman sitting up in bed in her shift and mopping red eyes could. Her question was put calmly, with an air of indifference that made Quin want to wince.
‘He was rather preoccupied,’ he prevaricated.
‘In other words he did not.’
‘Cleo—’
‘I am used to it,’ she said with a smile.
He had seen that smile before, knew it well enough now not to be convinced. ‘The lack is in him, not in you,’ Quin said as he traced the curve of her lips with his fingertip. As he suspected, her flesh felt tight and unyielding as she forced the smile.
He expected her to move her head, to reject the caress. Instead her lips parted and her eyes closed. Quin caught his breath as the shock of arousal swept through him. He bent and touched his lips to hers. Sweet, soft, salty with tears. The desire to taste more, to reach the essence of her, was overwhelming. Quin cradled the back of Cleo’s head and opened his mouth over hers.
That kiss back in Koum Ombo might have been just a moment ago, so familiar was the feel of her lips, of the feminine essence that was simply Cleo. Her uninjured hand curled around his neck without hesitation, as direct and brave as she was herself, and he felt himself go achingly hard with the need to possess her. Here, now. Mine.
Cleo gave a little growl and Quin smiled against her mouth. No needy little whimpers from her, she was as fierce and demanding as Bastet the cat goddess. He stroked his hand up her side, shaped it to cup the globe of one small apple breast and heard his own answering growl as the nipple responded to the pressure of his thumb.
Her reaction was instant as she arched into his caress and lifted her free hand to pull his head closer, her teeth nipping at his lower lip. The trailing edges of the makeshift bandage brushed over his arm and cheek, confusing him, breaking his focus.
Hell. What am I doing? This is Cleo and she’s disorientated, distressed and uprooted. I have done enough to hurt her. The last thing she needs is a man taking advantage of her need for comfort and someone to cling to. He broke the kiss and gently lifted her hands free of his neck.
‘Cleo. I am sorry, this is not a good idea.’
Her chin went up and her lips thinned into that look of haughty disdain he had first seen when he had regained consciousness in her tent. Quin wondered why he had never recognised i
t for what it was, the legacy of generations of blue-blooded ancestors. This was a duke’s granddaughter and it showed in every fine line of her face and the erect bearing of that lovely, overworked body. And beside any other consideration, he had no business in her bed, desiring what he did, however unconventional her upbringing had been.
A gentleman made love to a lady with only one outcome in mind—marriage—unless he was a complete blackguard. And for Quin marriage was a carefully calculated step in his master plan. If he had to draw up a list of well-bred women in order of their total unsuitability for a diplomat’s wife, Cleo Woodward would top it easily. Not that the Duke of St Osyth would countenance his suit for one second if he were so foolish.
‘I am certain it is not a good idea,’ she agreed with an icy control at odds with her reddened eyes and her tumbled hair. ‘How very considerate of you to stop.’ She dragged up the slipping shoulders of her shift. ‘Who undressed me and put me to bed?’
‘I did.’ It had hardly been an intrusive act. She had not been wearing stockings or stays. All he had done was slip off her gown and tuck her under the sheet. ‘There is no need to look as though I was some dirty old man stripping the clothes off a defenceless female for my perverted pleasure. I left you in your shift. You stripped me naked.’
‘Tit for tat?’ There were flags of furious colour flying in her cheeks now. ‘I had to in order to nurse you and you know that perfectly well.’
She was quite right, which did nothing for Quin’s own temper. His balls were probably turning blue with frustration, his bruised hand gave a twinge every time he flexed his hand, he had pulled the almost-healed scar on his arm carrying her and his conscience was playing merry hell. ‘And what the blazes were you doing with a knife strapped to your leg?’ he demanded.
‘I was hoping to find you with your back turned,’ Cleo snapped back.
‘Then I shall take care to keep my back to the bulkhead all the way to England,’ Quin said as he stood up. ‘The knife is on the table,’ he added as he reached the door.
‘England?’
