As You Desire (3 page)

Not that Harry wouldn’t have known that. Everyone in Cairo knew that Sir Robert Carlisle, head of Antiquity Acquisitions for the British Museum of History, though an excellent archeologist and middling bureaucrat, was a complete failure as an economist.

“He has never understood the concept of profit and loss.”

“But you do,” Harry said.

“Yup. If I can just raise enough money, Grandfather will be able to accept the post the museum offered him in London.”

“And that’s important,” Harry said. “Your grandfather’s triumphant return to England.”

Desdemona bobbed her head affirmatively. “He’s
been wasting his genius here for twenty years, Harry. Once we’re back in England, he’ll finally achieve the recognition he deserves. Can you imagine, Harry, how much it hurts him to watch would-be archeologists arrive here, scrape around for a season or two, then return to England and immediate international recognition?”

“I think I can.”

“But he won’t go if he thinks it’ll mean I’ll have to live in reduced circumstances. If we could just get these past debts settled, I’m sure he could make a proper living what with the stipend from the museum and lecture—”

“Yes,” Harry interrupted. “But what about your desires?”

“Me?” She blinked. “I’ll love it there. Of course. We’ll have a little thatched-roofed cottage with hollyhocks and a privet hedge and—”

“—a leaking roof and an old biddy next door who’ll be clucking her tongue every time you appear in your harem trousers.”

“Oh,” Desdemona said quietly, “I’ll give up all those once I’m home.”

Harry shook his head. “Do you really want to go back to England?”

“What do you suggest as an alternative?” She tried to keep the hopelessness out of her voice by giving a dismissive snort. “Do you think I’d like to spend the rest of my life here, an object of curiosity? I’ve had enough of that, thank you very much.” She hurried on. “I want a normal life. I want to meet people who have no interest in dead cultures, dead
people, or dead languages. I want to be introduced to gentlemen with at least some expectation that they might be more interested in
me
than in whether I can translate a grimy piece of papyrus they always ‘just happen to have’ in their pockets. That’s certainly not going to happen here.”

“Well, before you start tatting lace curtains, you have that translation to do for me,” Harry said, apparently unswayed by her tale of woe. “Since that’s the price you put on my efforts.”

She heard the reproach and responded immediately. “It’ll take weeks to do those translations, Harry,” she said, England forgotten. “Isn’t that recompense enough?”

He nodded dubiously. “Oh, of course. What’s four days of brutal sun and heat to me? Not to mention the, er, the expense this little rescue has entailed. That’s the problem with us poor mortals, Diz. A damsel’s smile”—his face grew somber and he reached out and traced her jaw with his knuckle—“ravishing though it might be, doesn’t put soup on the table. Plebeian concerns, but there you are.”

With the touch of his hand she went still, which among all the odd, garbled, and jumbled episodes of the last four days was oddest of all because Harry touched her often—familiar, fraternal touches—and yet
this
touch seemed staggeringly different from a brotherly caress, imbued with tantalizing awareness, shivering reverence, discovery, or … acknowledgment.

She wanted to arch into his touch and so she did the opposite, certain this reflexive desire was counterfeited
by her mood, the drink, and the scandalous shape of his mouth. Angry with herself for being such a simple-witted, suggestible chit, she snapped at him. “Why can’t you just do something admirable, Harry, without always trying to”—she cast about for the right phrase and found it in an Americanism she’d lately heard—“figure the angles? Why can’t you, for once, just be noble?”

“Because then you’d expect I
was
noble.” His words came out low, harsh. Harsher than he’d intended, perhaps, because he suddenly dropped his gaze and shook his head slightly. “Wouldn’t want you forming any wrong impressions about me.” He glanced up and his mouth twisted in self-mockery. “So, what’s it to be, Diz? No joy for the hero despite the out-of-pocket expenses incurred on your behalf?”

Whatever her ransom had cost him, Harry could afford it. He was well on his way to being one of the more successful jackals in Egypt.

She sighed, vaguely relieved and oddly chagrined that the intensity of the past moments had vanished. “I’ll see if Hammad might be willing to sell that Nineteenth-Dynasty collar to you,” she offered. “It really was decent of you to come after me and all, Harry. In spite of your taking advantage of me.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said.

“I wish I could,” she muttered under her breath, aware of how grudging her gratitude sounded. “I hate being beholden to you.”

Harry had that effect on her. With everyone else she could be composed, mature, gracious. Harry
brought out her worst qualities: sarcasm, impulsiveness, competitiveness. He constantly shot holes in her attempt at self-Anglicization.

Well, Harry old boy, she thought, brushing her fingers against the packet held beneath her waistband, if one were incited against one’s finer nature into being competitive, one might as well win. There was bound to be a market for the type of merchandise currently jabbing her in the midsection. Those markets would be hard for her to find, but still …

“Brax-stone!” The Egyptian with the lopsided turban flung back the tent flap. Impatiently he motioned them outside. Harry ducked under the flap and Desdemona followed him. The Egyptian waved his arm toward her, making angry sounding invectives as he did so. Harry responded heatedly.

Something was wrong. Maybe the slaver had decided not to part with her. Maybe he’d found a wealthier buyer.

“What is it?” She grabbed Harry’s arm. “What’s he saying?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. You just go wait over by my horse,” Harry said. The old trader sputtered. “Go on.”

She had just started to sidle past them when the Egyptian suddenly reached inside his robes. She started in horror, certain he would pull out a razor-edged dagger. Instead, he pulled out a bulging satin purse. He flung it at Harry’s head. One-handed, Harry snagged the missile from the air. Gold coins spilled from its mouth.

“You take!” the Egyptian shouted. “You take
Sitt!
Take this for your trouble! But
take her back!”

Every hair on the back of Desdemona’s neck stood at attention. She should have known. Of all the people on this earth,
she
should have realized: Exit Harry the Hero. Enter Harry the Hound.
Passion and something inexplicable
. God, she was a fool! She stomped forward, hands clenched at her sides.

“Desdemona,” Harry said, backing away from her. “We don’t have time for this. Abdul is very angry we’re still here. He wants us—you—gone. Now.”

“Ha!” Nonetheless she stopped, glancing over at Abdul. The Egyptian looked apoplectic.

“Honest, Diz,” Harry said. “He says he has some buyers who have been waiting to trade for two days. They won’t wait any longer and they won’t come near the camp while you’re here.”

“Really?” she asked dryly. “Why? And
you
”—she speared the slaver with a glare—“can just button it, Abdul. I’m not leaving with Harry until I have some answers.” Abdul must have understood; his grousing subsided into a low, incessant mutter. “Explain, Harry.”

“You’re a genteel English lady, Di—Desdemona. Our dear Sir Baring—You know, Over-Bearing?—may not be the titular head of Egypt, but he rules the country. Do you think Abdul here would risk an international incident in order to make a few pounds?”

A few pounds?
So much for her princely ransom.
She was glad it was dark so Harry couldn’t see the red color flooding her cheeks.

“Think again,” Harry went on. “If word got out that you were kidnapped, not only would every right-thinking”—the word dripped sarcasm—“English gentleman in the country be after Abdul’s head, so would every one of his native cohorts. Kidnapping young Englishwomen is bad for business. So he sent for me. This money is merely a gratuity of sorts.”

“So why,” she asked coldly, “did Abdul kidnap me in the first place?”

“He didn’t. Rabi did. By mistake. And he is, by the way, very angry at you for your deception.”

“My
deception?”

Harry nodded sententiously. Abdul kept muttering. “Rabi says you fooled him into thinking you were a poor unattended slave. He thought of himself as rather a knight errant, saving you from the clutches of a negligent owner. And after he’d picked you up, his suspicions that you were badly mistreated were confirmed. Skinny, bony, weak—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

“Rabi’s words, not mine. He feels very poorly used. He had, he claims, only the highest principles in mind.”

“Rabi must be related to you.”

“Why would you say that?” Harry cocked his head.

“No reason.” She glanced again at Abdul. With his swollen cheeks and purplish hue, he looked as if
any moment his skin would split “Are we going to stand here talking all night?”

Harry let out a
whoosh
of relieved air. “Of course not.” Without a glance at Abdul, he led the way to where his Arabian mare waited. He swung up lightly onto her back. Desdemona had to admit it; Harry was graceful. He nudged the horse forward and held out his hand. She took it.

Without further ceremony, Harry pulled her up, lifting her sideways across his lap.

He looped one arm around her waist, settling her closer. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable if I took whatever it is you stuck under your waistband?” he murmured against the nape of her neck, his lips velvety-soft and warm.

She shivered from the feel of his mouth on her skin and shook her head. “I am absolutely certain, Harry.” Her voice sounded too high. “Thank you for your concern.”

She must be more exhausted than she had realized because now, with the cool night breeze ruffling her hair and Harry’s hard thighs bracketing her own to keep her from falling, she was feeling very drowsy, very … content. The world that had for the past few days seemed surreal and unfocused and—yes, she could admit it now—frightening, was beginning to feel safe and familiar once again.

She closed her eyes and let her head roll against Harry’s shoulder. Harry might be lean, but his shoulders were broad. Comfortable. Far more comfortable than the dusty, sweaty tent in which she’d spent the past three nights.

“Diz?”

“Hm?”

“What did Rabi give you?”

“Love letters,” she murmured.

He laughed and kicked the mare into a canter.

Sir Robert Carlisle looked up from the book he was reading as Desdemona straggled through the front door. He peered over the edge of the glasses perched on his nose. “Oh. Hello, Desdemona.”

Hello?
She’d been kidnapped, spent four days and three nights in a sweaty tent, and nearly been sold into slavery. She was tired and filthy and her head felt like it was being used as an anvil by a blacksmith demon, and all her doting grandfather could say was “hello”?

“Grandfather, do you realize—”

“Hello, sir.”

Her grandfather looked up and squinted. His expression sharpened. “Oh, it’s you, Braxton. What are you doing here?”

“I met Dizzy on the way in.” Her grandfather closed his eyes. He disliked Harry’s nickname for her almost as much as she. “I thought I’d take the opportunity to pay my respects.”

Her grandfather snorted. So did she.

“Grandfather, I have been—”

“Dizzy has been telling me what a lovely time she had visiting the Comptons.”

“She has, has she?” her grandfather said. “Well, next time you go visiting, Desdemona, please tell me
of your plans in person rather than leaving a note with the housekeeper.”

Note? With Magi?
A surreptitious glance at Harry’s innocent expression told her who’d authored her “note.” She gave an unhappy inner sigh. As much as she hated to, she was going to have to lie to her grandfather. Either that or spend the next year in her room.
Damn
. Now she owed Harry another debt.

“I realize things are done differently among you young people nowadays,” her grandfather was saying. “I have tried to adjust. But still, it is important to keep up appearances. And since we have broached the subject of appearances, why are you togged out in that getup?” His gaze traveled over her bedraggled native garb and even more bedraggled self.

She groped around for an acceptable lie. If her grandfather ever discovered her unchaperoned and absolutely forbidden trips to the Cairo
suqs
, she’d be locked in her room for a year.

“Dress party,” Harry said.

“Oh?” her grandfather asked.

She narrowed her eyes on Harry. He smiled graciously. She could almost see him checking off another mark in his mental “Debts Desdemona owes Harry” list.

“Dress party, Desdemona?”

Desdemona nodded glumly.

“Well, I also suggest that the next time you feel you must dress like a native, you find some clean
garb in which to do so. Gad, Desdemona, what can you have been thinking of? You smell like a camel.”

“Goat’s milk. Fermented,” Harry supplied helpfully.

The warmth in her cheeks turned into an inferno.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced.

“Jolly good plan. Let yourself out, Braxton.” Her grandfather wandered off toward the back of the house, once more engrossed in his book.

Without waiting for Harry to leave, Desdemona climbed the stairs. A bath, a light meal, a bed, and then—she patted the thick packet at her waist—and then she would reread the shocking, titillating, downright indecent poems of “Nefertiti.”