Beguiled by Her Betrayer

Chapter Five

‘Why marry other than for love?’ Quin Bredon fell into step beside her. ‘I can think of many reasons. For protection, for money, for status.’ She sensed his gaze slide sideways for a second. ‘For lust.’

Cleo winced, then hid the reaction with a slap at a fly. To escape, she added mentally. And for lust, let’s be honest. You desired Thierry, he was big and handsome and active. Alive. He looked at you and saw something beyond a drudge, so you thought.

‘I married my husband loving him,’ she answered honestly. And by the time I was left a widow three months later I hated him. Pride kept her voice light and her lips firm. She had been a fool to marry a man she hardly knew. And she must still be a fool, because she could not work out why he had married her. But she was not going to admit any of that to this man who was also big and handsome and active. And worryingly intelligent and curious.

‘I’m amazed you found a priest to marry you all the way down here,’ Quin remarked. ‘Or did you wed in a Coptic church?’

‘We married in Cairo. Father and I were there when the French took the city in July ninety-eight.’

‘Good God,’ Quin muttered.

‘It was not amusing,’ Cleo agreed, with massive understatement. It took an effort not to let the memories flood back, filling her nostrils with the stench of smoke and blood and disease. She had only to close her eyes and the screams of the sick and dying would drown out the sound of the river and the cries of the hawks overhead. ‘Fortunately there was no prolonged siege. Father made himself known to the new French authorities at once—he had heard about les savants, you see.’

‘And they allowed him, an Englishman, his freedom, even after their defeat at the Battle of the Nile?’

‘They saw he was harmless, I suppose. He talked to the governor and must have convinced them he was exactly what and who he said. They gave him protection and even facilitated his correspondence.’

‘Why are you not still there?’

‘We stayed for a year, then the next July they found the Rosetta Stone and brought it to Cairo, but they wouldn’t let anyone but the French savants look at it. Father was livid. Napoleon left for France to stage his coup and things began to fall apart in Cairo—the generals were arguing, there was very little money or food and the plague got worse. Father said he wanted to go south and they said he could if we went with a party of troops that was going too.’

‘And luckily Valsac was one of the officers? You must have been delighted.’

‘I did not know him before. We were introduced when the plans were being made. Thierry began to court me. Then Father and the general said it was awkward me being the only woman, and unmarried. So he proposed.’

‘How fortunate that a marriage of convenience should turn out so romantically. And how sad it lasted such a short time. How did he die? If you don’t mind talking about it.’

There was no hint of sarcasm in his words and Quin sounded genuinely sympathetic. It must be her own nagging unhappiness about the whole marriage that was colouring her reaction to his words.

‘He was killed in a skirmish when we came up against Murad Bey’s rearguard on his return south. It has been peaceful since, which is why we live apart from the troop now. They have found a better base for themselves and Father wanted to be close to the temple.’

‘And you returned to your father’s tent.’

‘I was always there when Thierry was away from camp.’ Who else was going to look after him? she thought and bit back the words. There was no point in bitterness, she was the only one it hurt. ‘Look, here is our village. I must arrange some help tomorrow to carry our things to the boats.’

There was no problem here, she was known and trusted even though the villagers thought her father was most strange and the women sympathised with her lack of a husband. Cleo negotiated with the sheikh’s senior wife for men and donkeys to carry their baggage to Shek Amer in return for her own little donkey and everything that would not fit on the boats.

Quin did not enter the village with her, perhaps sensing that his presence as a strange man might be an embarrassment. He was quite sensitive, quite unlike what she imagined an engineer to be like. He was more suited to being a diplomat, Cleo decided as she stopped on the river bank to cut some greenery for the donkey’s evening feed. When she looked round for him Quin had climbed the piled sand around the temple and was standing in the shadow of one of the great pillars.

Cleo lifted the packet of letters, the knife and water flasks from the bottom of one of the panniers and heaped in the greenery, then laid the things back on the top, straightening the cord that tied the bundle of correspondence as she did so. When she had fastened it that morning she had wrapped it round once, then twisted it so the cord caught in the other sides of the little bundle like a parcel, before knotting the ends in the middle. Now one corner was creased and the cord not straight. Odd. Perhaps it had been knocked when the water bottles had been dropped in.

She lifted her gaze to the figure almost invisible in the deep shadows of the temple. Or perhaps Quin pushed the cord aside to look at the addresses on the letters. But why should he do that? She recalled her conversation with Laurent. Could Quin be spying? But all there was here was one English scholar and his daughter and a small troop of French soldiers, miles from base.

But we are going back to Cairo and he will come with us... No, that is too convoluted. To come hundreds of miles south, through all those dangers, only to find a small group to give him an entrée into Cairo? Preposterous.

She was being foolish, Cleo told herself as she took the leading rein and made her way across the scrubby grazing area and into the sand. He was just curious and she was lonely, isolated and had no one to talk to. It was a miracle she did not see suspicious characters around every corner or hold imaginary conversations with the donkey.

There was a whole world out there filled with people who had proper families, families who cared for each other and talked and shopped and went to the theatre and entertained friends. A whole world that seemed as remote as the world of the ancient Egyptians with their enigmatic monuments.

The donkey found a bush clinging to life at the foot of the temple and proceeded to eat it. Cleo dropped the rein and trudged up the slope of shifting sand until she reached the top. Here the great horizontal slabs were only a few feet above her head and she slithered down the slope inside to where Quin stood in the shadows, gazing upwards at the ceiling.

‘Look,’ he said, his voice filled with wonder. ‘The roof is painted with stars.’

‘There is Nut.’ Cleo pointed up to where a woman’s elongated figure spanned the sky. ‘This is all so unimaginably old. I was there when Napoleon made his speech to the troops outside Cairo. “Soldiers! From the top of these pyramids, forty centuries gaze down upon you.” But I know very little about it. Father just measures things. I want to dig all the sand out.’

‘And find treasure? They say there are golden coffins and statues of lapis and gilt.’

‘Is that why you are here?’ she said before she could censor her thoughts. ‘Are you a treasure hunter?’

‘No, certainly not.’ He looked bemused. ‘It is obvious, even to someone as ignorant about this as I am, that one would need teams of workmen to clear these sites.’ As her eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light she saw he was watching her. ‘I told you what I am. Do you not believe me?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. But an engineer would know how to clear something like this—’

‘I know how to clear it safely and efficiently, I just do not know what I would be looking for or what damage I might be doing,’ he interrupted her. ‘Is it very hard to trust me, Cleo?’ Quin held out his hand. ‘Let’s go out again, those four thousand years are weighing down on me.’

She ignored his hand, but they scrambled up the internal sand slope together and stood just within the sharp edge of shadow that ran along the top. Quin seemed to want to touch, she thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. That arm around her shoulders that she had shrugged off, his hand just now. But it did not feel sexual, he was not trying to grope her body as some men did before she showed her knife to them.

‘Your colour is not good,’ she observed. ‘You are grey under your tan.’

‘That makes me feel so much better,’ Quin said with a grimace. ‘I’m shattered, if truth be told.’

‘I warned you.’

‘There’s no need to be smug about it.’ He leaned back on a pillar and closed his eyes, his lashes thick and dark on the pale skin beneath his lids.

‘I am not smug, merely right.’ Cleo put her hands on his shoulders and pushed down. ‘Sit. Rest.’

Quin caught her wrist and pulled her with him as he slid down the pillar to end up on the sand, knees raised. ‘Your concern is touching. Sit down too and tend to me in the approved womanly manner.’

Cleo snorted, but settled next to him, her shoulder not quite against his. It was a novelty to simply sit during the day and do nothing. It was completely outside her experience to just sit and talk. He would think her pathetic indeed if he guessed how much this gave her pleasure. ‘My concern is simply to keep you in good enough condition to be of some help packing.’

‘I will be all right in a few minutes.’ His eyes were still closed and he rested his head back against the golden sandstone.

It was interesting to hear a man admit weakness. Thierry would never have dreamt of such a thing, he would have considered it unmanly. Cleo thought that merely foolish. It was sensible to take a rest, that was all, it did not make Quin a weakling. She studied his big hands with their long fingers as they rested on his knees. There was nothing unmanly about those hands. As she thought it he lifted the right one and slung it around her shoulders, apparently gauging her position by instinct.

‘What are you doing?’ Cleo demanded, twisting against him.

‘Hugging,’ Quin said and settled her firmly against his side. ‘Not groping, don’t panic. I’m a great believer in hugging, we all ought to do it a lot more. Human contact is important, don’t you think?’

I wouldn’t know. Cleo shrugged. Her father never hugged her, Thierry had only taken her in his arms for sex. She supposed her mother must have hugged her, but she could not remember. Mama always seemed so busy, or so tired. But, now she let herself relax a little, it was pleasant to be close to another human being, a friendly, talkative human. His arm around her shoulders was heavy, but not unpleasantly so. He made no move to touch her in any other way. She could feel the beat of Quin’s heart beneath his ribs where their sides touched and he smelt of her own familiar soap, and not unpleasantly of fresh male sweat. She probably smelled of dust and donkey.

‘Who hugs you?’ she asked. ‘Your wife?’

‘Not married.’ He sounded half-asleep.

‘Your mistress?’

The side of his mouth kicked up a fraction. ‘Mistresses aren’t for hugging.’

‘Who, then?’

‘My mother used to. My nieces and nephews do. My old nurse when she isn’t telling me off for something. My brothers. Male friends.’

‘You hug men?’

That almost-smile again. ‘Well, you know—that embarrassed half-hug men do, then we slap each other on the shoulder and clear our throats and start talking about horses or women.’

No, she didn’t know. This was obviously part of that unknown world that she understood as little of as any village woman. ‘Your father?’

‘Not my father.’ There was no smile this time and no colour in his voice.

She understood about fathers who wiped the smile from your lips. ‘You have four older brothers, of course. Is there a Sixtus?’

‘No, I’m the only one with a number.’ Again that careful avoidance of emotion. ‘The others are Henry, James, Charles and George.’

It took no great degree of perception to guess that something was very wrong with his family, or, at least with his relationship with his father. What to talk about now? Or perhaps it was best just to let him rest. It was unexpectedly comfortable sitting quietly together, touching. Cleo closed her eyes. What an idiot I was to be suspicious of him. He is a nice, uncomplicated man.

‘Tell me about your little troop of soldiers.’

Her eyes snapped open. ‘What about them?’

‘I just wondered what they would be like as travelling companions. Are they amiable or aggressive? Competent, do you think? Well-armed?’

‘I have no idea about their efficiency or their arms,’ Cleo said cautiously. ‘I know little about such things. Why?’

‘Because I am going to write it all down in a report and send it off to the British by carrier vulture.’ He rolled his eyes at her. ‘For goodness’ sake, Cleo! Because our safety is going to depend to a great extent on that unit, of course. This is hardly going to be a pleasure cruise. I have no weapons. Has your father?’

‘A musket and some pistols. A sword in the big trunk, I think. But they have been in there for years.’

‘We will get them out and check them over this evening. Is your father a good shot?’

‘I imagine he could hit the side of a pyramid if he was close enough, but I have never seen him with a weapon in his hand.’ It was always Mama who had to deal with the chickens for the pot.

‘We’ll stick close to your soldiers then.’ Quin pushed against the pillar and got to his feet with an easy grace that looked effortless and which must, given his state of health, have taken some will-power.

‘They are not my soldiers.’ She looked at the way he was favouring his left arm. ‘Does that hurt?’

‘I’ll live.’ Yes, he hides a great deal under that pleasant face and reasonable manner. ‘You married one of them,’ he added, not to be distracted from his point, it seemed.

Cleo marched off down the slope to the patient donkey.

‘For love.’ Quin’s voice came so close behind her that when she stopped he bumped into the back of her.

‘Of course. I told you so.’ She set off briskly towards the camp so the donkey had to trot to catch up. ‘You are a very curious man, Mr Bredon.’

‘Strange or inquisitive?’ He had lengthened his stride, too, which would probably tire him again, but she was too flustered to care.

‘Both.’

‘I only wondered because it seems a strange thing to do, for an Englishwoman. To marry an enemy. But if it was love, I can understand.’

‘The French are no enemies of mine. I have never been to England and my grand English relatives do not want me, so why should I care for it? The only good thing I know of it is that it rains a lot there.’ She glanced up at the relentlessly blue, hot sky. ‘And there is no sand. But it rains in France almost as much as in England, Thierry said, and there are no deserts there either. I was looking forward to France,’ she added under her breath.

But not softly enough, it seemed. ‘It rains a lot in America, too,’ Quin remarked. ‘There are deserts, but those are easy to avoid if you want to.’

Cleo reached the tent and turned. ‘Is that a proposal, Mr Bredon?’

She had hoped to disconcert him, embarrass him even. Instead he laughed, a deep, mellow sound. ‘No, and you are teasing me, madam. It was a geographical remark, as you know full well.’

‘Daughter!’ Her father appeared around the side of the tent. ‘There you are at last.’ He picked up the bundle of letters from on top of the wilting greenery in the pannier. ‘Why have you not handed these over? And was there nothing for me?’

‘The soldiers are leaving, Father.’ Cleo led the donkey into its shelter and lifted off the panniers. Quin took them and began to dump the fodder out, tactfully, she supposed, leaving them to their exchange.

‘Leaving? But who will deal with my correspondence?’ Her father was going red in the face as he always did when thwarted.

‘No one. We are going, too, because the Mamelukes are coming. Mr Bredon has secured two feluccas and the villagers are coming to help us move our things early tomorrow morning. We must start to pack now.’

‘Nonsense. There is work to be done here. They will not trouble us, why should they? We are staying.’ He turned back towards the tent.

‘But, Father—’

Quin ducked out from the donkey shelter. ‘I am leaving tomorrow morning and I am taking Madame Valsac and her belongings with me. Whether you come willingly or attempt to stay is entirely up to you, Sir Philip.’

Her father swung round. ‘She will do no such thing, she will do as she is told and remain with me.’

‘Madame Valsac is a widow and of age, Sir Philip. She does as she pleases. And it does not suit my conscience to leave you here, however pig-headed you are, sir. If you refuse to accompany us, then I am afraid I will have to knock you out and sling you over that unfortunate little donkey.’

‘You would assault a man old enough to be your father! After I took you in, saved your life—’

Cleo slipped away into the tent behind them.

‘It was Madame Valsac who took me in and saved my life, Sir Philip. I imagine you would have noticed me when my corpse began to stink, but not before, unless you fell over me,’ Quin said calmly. ‘And I would not leave a man old enough to be my father to the mercies of a war band of belligerent cavalry, armed to the teeth and set on killing. So, what is it to be? Co-operation or force?’

‘Damn you, sir—’

‘Here is the key to the arms chest, Mr Bredon. I have just locked it.’ Cleo handed him the key and stood beside him, facing her father. ‘It is for your own good, you know.’

Sir Philip turned and stormed back into the tent.

‘I’ll take that to be a yes, then,’ Quin said. ‘You are truly a soldier’s wife, Cleo.’ He tossed the key into the air and caught it again. ‘Let us go and inspect our arsenal.’

Chapter Six

Cleo was extraordinarily efficient. Quin wondered if she had learned to be in her few months as a soldier’s wife or whether she was naturally organised. Probably the latter, he decided as he helped a grumbling Sir Philip pack his papers into trunks. From what he could see the man’s books and notes comprised most of the Woodwards’ possessions.

There were a few portmanteaux he had glimpsed in their sleeping spaces, enough for a limited wardrobe, but Cleo seemed to possess no ornaments or trinkets, only tools, kitchen implements and her medical kit.

‘We cannot do more this evening,’ she said at last, coming out to find him feeding the donkey to escape her father’s complaints. ‘What is left are the cooking and eating things and tonight’s bedding and of course the tent, but that comes down very easily.’

‘It does?’ Quin slopped water into the bucket and straightened up to look at the structure.

‘It does when you have done it as often as I have,’ Cleo said. ‘Here, there are some spare clothes of my father’s.’ She thrust a bundle topped with a wide-brimmed straw hat into his arms. ‘You will find it easier to relate to the soldiers if you look more like a European.’ She shrugged when he looked a question. ‘They do not trouble to get to know the local people. As far as they are concerned the villagers are either the lowest form of peasants or brigands—or both.’

Quin shook out a pair of loose cotton trousers, a shirt and a long, sleeveless jerkin. Not exactly the thing to be seen wearing at Almack’s, but ideally suited to the heat. ‘Thank you, I must admit to becoming tired of my skirts.’

‘They will be too big,’ she said as she walked back to the tent, ‘but you can use a cord as a belt. I will find something.’

‘Cleo.’ She stopped, but did not turn. ‘Leave it, I will manage I am sure. You look exhausted. Surely there is nothing more to do tonight?’

‘Just supper and heating the washing water and some laundry.’

‘Cleo.’ That brought her round, a frown between the dark slashes of her brows. ‘Come here. Please.’

She trudged back towards him, her usual grace lost in what must be a fog of tiredness. Quin opened his arms and gathered her to him and after a moment she slipped hers around his waist, leaned in, her face in the angle of his neck and shoulder. She relaxed against him and sighed.

Quin held her and breathed in the scent of hot, tired woman, the herbal rinse she used on her hair, the faint scent of mint tea on her breath, the dust that filmed her skin. He was beginning to care too much for her welfare, he knew that. He had a mission to perform and it was not certain yet that she was an entirely innocent victim to be rescued. This was all too near spying to be comfortable and yet it was his duty. This was no place to strike fine attitudes about being a gentleman. He sneered at himself. So anxious to be a true gentleman and not a bastard? This is the best thing for her, the authorities will bend over backwards to look after her welfare, if only for her grandfather’s sake. Your sensitive conscience can rest easy, Quin.

Cleo stirred in his arms and he forced himself to think clearly about her. She professed no loyalty to England, she had married a Frenchman for love and she carried her father’s suspicious paperwork back and forth to the troops. Had she any idea what was going on? She was an intelligent woman, but curiously sheltered from the real world. An innocent, an obedient daughter or a willing servant of the French?

Having a woman plastered to him was having its natural effect on his body and the thin robe he wore was not exactly designed to hide the fact from someone as close as Cleo was. Quin realised the proximity was having an effect on her, too. He could feel her nipples hard against his chest and her breathing had changed.

He wanted to make love to her, but that was out of the question. Back to his blasted gentlemanly sensibilities, he recognised with resignation. To make love to Cleo while he was uncertain of her smacked of a ruse to gain her confidence and extract information through pillow talk. He would die for his country, he would kill for it if he must, but he was not going to seduce a woman for it and if that made him a hair-splitting hypocrite, then so be it.

Cleo wriggled back a little and he opened his arms to release her, half-thankful, half-regretful. Then he realised she was simply putting enough space between them so he could kiss her. Who is seducing whom? he wondered. Or is this just for comfort? If it is, it must be hers, because it is most certainly not going to help me sleep tonight... To hell with it. He bent his head and took the proffered lips. Just one kiss.

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