A Love That Never Tires (2 page)

She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

A few feet away, Archie and her father whispered to each other. Reginald Bourne, the third member of their team, slowly loaded his pistol. The camels snorted. The wind whipped up little currents of sand, stinging their eyes.

No one noticed the figure creeping toward them in the darkness.

Something reached out and grabbed Linley’s ankle. She started to kick. She stifled the urge to scream and flipped over onto her back to face the attacker, her hand reaching for the knife stashed in her boot.

“It’s me,” the shadow hissed. “Schoville.”

Linley blew out the breath she’d been holding. “Christ!”

He flopped down beside her. “I couldn’t get your attention. God knows I couldn’t make any noise. If those Frogs knew we were here, we’d be in for it, to be sure.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Those Frenchies,” he said, pointing down the hill. “If they caught us.”

Linley followed the direction of his finger, all the way to the besieged archeologists and the band of attackers. “Don’t tell me
we
are behind this.”

“Your Berber messenger ran into some very curious Frenchmen on his way to town,” he explained. “I had quite a hunch about them, and it turns out I was right.”

A misplaced gunshot rang out and a bullet thumped into the sand only a few feet from where the team lay hidden. Linley, Schoville, and the others recoiled, covering their faces.

When the moment of danger passed, he continued, “I employed a caravan of Berbers and staged an ambush. If the French government suspects the natives, they won’t come after us.”

Linley grinned. Sometimes Schoville could be brilliant. One had to be, in their line of work. The Talbot-Martin team rarely resorted to violence or bribery. They carried weapons, but only as means of protection, and never seemed to carry enough money. Instead, they relied on their ability to outsmart their adversaries. Always staying one step ahead of the game. Always slightly out of reach.

From across the sand, her father frowned. As happy as he was to get his crates back, tangling with those double-crossing French was much too risky. “The last thing we need is more trouble from the French government.”

“Don’t worry,” Schoville said, watching the Berbers disappear into a cloud of dust. “Our re-stolen crates will be on the first steamer back to England. The evidence will be long gone before anyone suspects it was us.”

CHAPTER TWO

Patrick had never heard of Rabat before he stepped off the steamship, but when one’s boat is sinking on its way to South Africa, one is glad for any spot of dry land.

“We are sorry, my lord,” the ship’s captain explained. “But it will take a few days to make the necessary repairs.”

Inhaling the pungent aromas of the open-air fish market in the height of the Moroccan mid-day sun, Patrick held his white handkerchief to his face. “You mean I am stuck here?”

“Only for a few days.”

“What am I to do until then?” he asked.

The captain looked around the docks. The last thing he needed was a member of the aristocracy complaining to the home office about inadequate accommodations. But with a piston blown clean through a cylinder, and the ship bleeding steam, he couldn’t possibly risk anyone’s safety by keeping them onboard.

“I know a hotel nearby,” the captain said. “It’s nothing fancy, but it is clean.”

“Who will see to my luggage?”

The captain sighed. “I’ll see to it personally, my lord.”

From the docks, they waded through throngs of Arabs and Berbers. The streets were narrow and filthy. Sun bleached, mud brick walls corralled hundreds of people in the marketplace that afternoon. Low arches and tattered carpets blocked out the heat of the sun, but even for someone accustomed to the bustle of London, Patrick felt confined.

Old men in robes called out to him to buy olives and dates. Women with their faces hidden behind black veils pressed bolts of colorful woven cloth against his chest. They spoke bad French because he was a white man, but Patrick could only pick out pieces of it all in the chaos.

“Do we have far to go?” he asked the Captain.

“Not much farther, my lord.”

The other passengers from the ship, mostly women and children on their way to join their husbands and fathers in the African colonies, pushed at Patrick from behind, trying to hurry him out of the market.

A sharp right turn brought them down an even narrower alley, but to their relief, it soon opened up to a large square. There were other white men there. A few women, also. They sipped tea at low, round tables shielded from the sun by umbrellas and wide-brimmed hats. Further beyond them was a gate, which opened up to the
hôtel
courtyard.

The walk from the docks had taken him straight through the heart of the Old Town. Now he stood on the threshold of the
Ville Nouvelle
—the ‘new city’. And as the porters led him up the carved granite staircase, Patrick realized the ship’s captain had been wise to suggest this place. Instead of lanterns, the hotel was lit by electric light. There was running water, and all the other modern conveniences an Englishman would be accustomed to. Truly, it was an oasis of the familiar in a place more foreign to him than anywhere he’d ever traveled.

Once upstairs in his room, Patrick pulled off his straw panama hat and tossed it on the bed. Raking his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, he drew a few bracing breaths.

What ever made him decide to go to Africa? Miserable place, Africa. He should have stayed home in Kyre where he belonged. Now he would be stuck until the ship was fixed, and God only knew how long that would take.

At least his room had an ocean view. He threw open the windows and leaned over the ledge, breathing in the fresh salt air. Under his window, a palm tree rustled in the breeze. Patrick reached out to touch the stiff green fronds. He had only seen trees like these in someone’s hothouse or potted in some grand hotel foyer. Never in nature. It occurred to him just how far from home he really was. If he wrote to his family, he doubted they could even find him on a map.

It was both a frightening and comforting prospect.

But wasn’t the point of a holiday to get away from it all? He’d certainly accomplished the away part. Now if he could only manage to enjoy himself…

Patrick wished he’d thought to bring some books—they would have helped to pass the time. But he never expected to be sitting idly in a damned hotel room. When he planned this trip, he fully intended to have a rifle in one hand and field glasses in the other, wreaking havoc on the African wildlife. Yet, here he was, with nothing to do but stare out the window at the ocean for the foreseeable future.

He was a disgrace to bored aristocrats everywhere. He couldn’t even loaf about properly.

Behind him, two young Arab porters entered the room, dragging his trunks in one by one. When the boys finished, they turned to him and held out their hands. Patrick blinked down at their little brown faces. It seemed these children wanted a tip. As if he would give them any money before they finished bringing in the rest of his luggage!

“Where is the other trunk?” he asked.

The tallest boy pointed to the one at his feet.

“No,” Patrick said. “Not that one. The other one.”

Again, the boy pointed.

Patrick sighed. “There were three.” He held up his fingers and counted them off. “One. Two. Three.”

The boys stared at him blankly.

“No English, I suppose,” he said, suddenly remembering he was in French Morocco. “
Française?
”

The boys smiled and nodded.

“Où est mon autre malle?”
Patrick asked.

The two boys looked at each other and shrugged. “
Nous ne savons pas, monsieur,
” the taller one said.

Clearly, they did not know anything about another trunk. For all Patrick knew, it could have been left aboard that damned sinking ship.

***

“I seem to be missing a trunk.”

The hotel desk clerk turned to face him. “
Monsieur?
”

“I had three—two large and one small,” Patrick explained. “Your porters only delivered two.”

“
Désolé, monsieur
. It must have been sent to the wrong room.”

“I’m very keen on getting it back. You see, it has my evening clothes in it and without them, I cannot go to dinner.”

“
Oui, monsieur.
I’m certain it will turn up as soon as the recipients realize a mistake has been made.”

“It’s a brown Vuitton. Quite large. Monogrammed with the initials
P. W.
”

“P.W.,” the clerk repeated. “
Oui
.”

“Usually I would have my man look after this sort of thing,” Patrick said. “But I didn’t see much use for a valet in Africa.”

The man nodded in sympathy.

“So, you understand my predicament. If you could help me find my missing trunk, I would be grateful,” Patrick said. “Perhaps you could send your porters to look in the other rooms, or—”

Just over the hotel clerk’s shoulder, Patrick watched a young woman walk through the foyer. He assumed she was a woman because she wore her tangled brown hair tied back with a ribbon. But she was small enough to be an Eton schoolboy and, in fact, it seemed she was wearing one’s breeches.

“Ah,” the clerk said, noticing Patrick’s fascination with her. “We have asked the
mademoiselle
not to walk through the hotel dressed like that. But she has been here so long and always pays her bill on time, it is hard to press the issue.”

“Who is she?”

“I do not know her name, but her father is Bedford Talbot-Martin.”

“The explorer?” he asked.

“
Oui
.”

Patrick studied her more closely. Miss Talbot-Martin was quite thin, with remarkably long, slender arms. Despite her small stature, she carried herself well—cool, detached, and confident, but without the arrogance of many women he knew in London.

In fact, if Patrick had not seen her wearing those ridiculous jodhpurs, he would have sworn she was a ballerina in some traveling company.

Instead, she looked like a stablehand from a second-rate American circus.

Patrick had certainly never seen a grown woman prancing about in gentlemen’s riding breeches before. Although, he doubted whether anyone in his limited circle of acquaintance would ever dare to be so bold.

Miss Talbot-Martin was bold. There was no doubt about that.

She was also very tanned—more so than from a few hours on a boat deck or an afternoon on the beach. Clearly, the young woman spent a great deal of time in the elements. It made sense that her father would be an explorer, and that she would go and do as she pleased. That she would wear jodhpurs in public without caring what other people thought of her.

And it made sense that she would walk right past Patrick without even noticing him. Because a girl like that did not have to notice anyone. They were all too busy noticing her.

Even if she weren’t dressed so dramatically, there was just something about her. Some wild, honey-eyed recklessness. Like a horse he instinctively knew would bolt the moment he reached out to touch it. But one he would touch anyway, because it was worth the risk. Because he admired its spirit.

He admired Miss Talbot-Martin’s spirit. He knew that without even meeting her.

As Patrick watched her disappear up the stairs, he hardly even noticed the small Arab boy pulling on his sleeve.

And he hardly heard the hotel clerk speaking. “
Monsieur
,” the man said.

Patrick turned toward him. “What?”

“Your trunk,” the clerk repeated. “It has been found and brought up to your room.”

They both looked at Patrick expectantly. As if finding his trunk was the most amazing thing that could have happened to him. Perhaps it would have been, if they had found it a moment earlier. But now Patrick realized he no longer cared.

CHAPTER THREE

After seeing Schoville and the crates off to London, Linley took breakfast in the hotel garden. She sat in a wicker basket chair, eating
croissants
with fresh jam and drinking orange juice. French breakfasts were better than their heavy English counterparts, and she always looked forward to spending time in a French colony.

It suddenly crossed her mind as odd that, as an English girl, she’d been around the world, been to almost all of the British colonies, but not to England itself. Never been to London. Never seen the British Museum, even though her livelihood depended on it.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Archie said, strolling across the lawn and taking the chair across from her.

“I was thinking that I’ve never been to London.”

“And you’re all the better for it.” He poured himself a glass of orange juice before continuing, “Besides, you have no business there.”

“But Schoville goes, and Reginald goes. Even you and Papa go,” Linley said. “I want to see the British Museum.”

“You practically have seen the British Museum—one piece at a time.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t the same.”

“The Museum will always be there. This lifestyle—the one you’re living—it isn’t permanent.” Archie leaned across the table. “Your father is an old man, Linley. How much longer do you think he can trek across deserts and crawl through caves?”

Linley looked away, studying the weave of the wicker chair until the tightness in her throat faded. “You’re being awfully cruel today.”

“I don’t mean to be,” Archie said. “I only want to stress the importance of the work you are doing. That we’re all doing. We’re living other people’s dreams, and you want to run off to London! It does not make sense to me.”

“You’re right, of course. I’m such a silly, stupid girl.” She threw her napkin on the table and rose from her seat. “Sometimes I forget how lucky I am.” Without another word, Linley turned and stalked across the grass, brushing shoulders with a gentleman as she passed through the hotel doors. “
Pardonnez-moi.
”

Patrick stepped aside to let her pass. “I beg your pardon.”

When she heard his voice, Linley spun around to face him. “You’re English?”