Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Cairo 1922

           
Pulling
her wet blouse tighter against the chill, Ella forced herself to straighten up and
walk. Whether she would be able to get back or not, it didn’t appear the alley
was the way. Whether she would ever see Rowan again…She stopped and took a good
long breath. She needed to be stronger than that. Those sorts of thoughts were
not her friends right now. She
would
get back. She would see him again. Somehow.

           
Coming
once more to the busy street, Ella watched the swirl of humanity—most of them
looking terribly impoverished—rush by and try to engulf her. She stepped
back to the alley and watched the dense crowd go by. Even in the evening, the
bazaar was in full swing. She touched her bag. She had Egyptian pound notes in
her wallet but she had no idea if they were valid currency for this time in
Egypt’s history.

           
When
was
this? She fought down the panic
that those words caused and began to search the street for a car or something
that passed as a taxi. A young Egyptian man materialized in front of her
pulling a double-seated rickshaw.

           
“
Efendim
!” he called. “You ride? Fifty
piaster
to your hotel!”

           
Thank you, God.
She staggered out into
the street to the young man and allowed him to help her into the back of his
vehicle.

           
“Shepheards?”
the young man asked brightly. Ella nodded. One hotel was as good as another.
Clearly, this man was taking her to where he thought she belonged. That was a
start.

           
As
she rode, Ella was relieved to see what looked like many men in Western dress.
One wore what looked like a British uniform. She noticed that there were still
more horse-drawn carriages on the street than automobiles. She tried to
remember if she had watched any
Masterpiece
Theatre
dramas set in this time period.
 
She only knew that the British were in
charge of Egypt after the first world war.
Had
the war happened yet?
There was no way to tell. It could be 1915 or as late
as 1930. While knowing that the Brits were in charge made her feel a little
less lonely—
surely they would help
see a lost American woman was taken care of?—
she knew she would have
to come up with a convincing story about how she got here.
 

           
By
the time her driver deposited her in front of the magnificent forecourt of The
Shepheards Hotel, Ella knew her new setting had electricity and cars and so
probably telephones, airplanes and basic medical care. When she handed her
driver a pound note, he refused the money but kept his hand out.
Clearly, whatever the Egyptian pounds look
like now is was not what they will look like in 2013
. Without thinking, she
unbuckled her watch and handed it to him. Nearly crying out with delight, the
young driver pulled Ella out of his carriage and drove away through the throng
of people milling about in front of the hotel. The three turbaned doormen who then
approached her clearly had every intention of removing her forcibly until they
saw that she was not Egyptian.

           
“We
may be of service,
aanesa
?” The head
doorman spoke to her but still barred her from walking into the hotel.

           
“I
am here to register, if you please,” Ella said in her most formal voice. It was
her experience that behaving like one belonged often allowed one admission in places
one didn’t in fact belong.

           
That
obviously didn’t include Shepheards.

           
“You
are visiting a guest,
aanesa
?” The
head guy gave Ella’s a disapproving up-and-down look. She could imagine he had
never seen a woman dressed in tight jeans and a wet see-through blouse. She
hesitated, not knowing what to say.

           
“Beryl,
darling? Is that you?”

           
Ella
stepped back to see a young woman, no more than twenty, emerge from behind the
wall of doormen. Her eyes were a startling blue. Her hair was golden and pulled
in a Gibson upsweep. Her dress covered every inch of her from chin to wrists
all the way to the ground, where it swept the walkway in front of the luxury
hotel.
 

 
          
“Oh,
yes, I can see that it is,” the girl said. Reaching out, she took Ella by the
elbow and tucked it under her arm. She was easily two inches taller than Ella.
“Naughty, Beryl,” she said, patting Ella’s arm with a closed fan and
maneuvering her adroitly between the two men and up the hotel steps. “We missed
you at dinner but I told them you were probably riding again.”

           
“Yep,
er, yes,” Ella said. “That’s me. Off riding.”

           
“Well,
come on, darling. Let’s get you upstairs and into a bath before they all come
back. Wouldn’t do for them to see us out on the street like this, would it? Can
you imagine what Edward would say?”

           
Ella
allowed herself to be escorted into the magnificent Shepheards Hotel lobby. A
tiered crystal chandelier the size of a small minibus hung from the center of
the ceiling. Directly beneath it was a palm tree surrounded by three blood red velvet
settees. The entire floor of the lobby was covered by a huge ivory Isfahan with
a delicate pattern woven in peach and aqua. On the hundred foot ceiling was a
dramatic mural depicting Egyptian pharaohs and the pyramids. Forty-foot windows
with velvet drapes were sandwiched between giant mirrors surrounded by ornate
gold decorative frames. Ella’s new friend was chattering happily as they
climbed the massive staircase. It was all Ella could do not to gasp as she found
herself thinking
, It’s like the palace of
Versailles
.

           
When
the young woman had ushered Ella into her hotel room and shut the door, she
dropped her silly banter. “Who are you? Are you American?”

           
Ella
nodded, not sure which way to jump with this one in order to keep a comfortable
place to sleep for the night. But whatever she wanted Ella to say is what Ella
was prepared to say.

           
“I
thought so. I heard your accent. Please excuse my shanghaiing you at the door, but
it looked like you were having some trouble.”

           
“Er,
yes. There was a misunderstanding in progress with the doorman. I appreciate
your intervention.” Ella could tell by the way this girl—obviously
British—spoke and carried herself that a certain amount of staged
formality wouldn’t go amiss. Especially considering how Ella was dressed.

           
“I
am Lady Julia Haversham.” She stopped and corrected herself. “I am Julia Digby,
wife of Viscount Edward Digby,” she amended. “I am recently wed and I fear
unaccustomed to my new title.”

           
“Pleased
to meet you and congratulations.”

           
“Do
you know Viscount Digby?”

           
Ella
always believed that when you had no hint of which way to go, the truth was
usually the most sustainable course. She hoped she was doing the right thing.
“No,” she said.

           
The
girl looked at her as if trying to read her face. “Are you a guest at the hotel?”

           
Ella
took a deep breath and began the story she had prepared on the rickshaw ride to
the hotel.

           
“My
name is Ella Stevens. I traveled here with my fiancé from the States as a sort
of pre-honeymoon.”

           
The
girl frowned and Ella decided in future to omit that piece of the story.

           
“We
had a fight and he left me.”

           
“What
do you mean
left
you? Is he still in
the country?”

           
“No,
he took my papers, my money and just left me here.”

           
“What
in the world did you do to provoke such behavior?”

           
Okay,
that was so not where she had seen this going.

           
“Nothing.
We fought and he left me.”

           
“That’s
not believable,” Lady Julia said. She tossed her fan on the bed. “No gentleman
would leave a lady in a foreign country. It’s unimaginable.”

           
“He
caught me with his valet.”

           
The
girl turned and stared at Ella as if she had sprouted a scarlet
A
across her chest. “No!” she said,
covering her mouth with her hand.

           
“I…I
was in love,” Ella said, defensively.

           
“With
the
valet
?”

           
“It’s
different in America.”

           
“Not
that
different.” Lady Julia sat on
the bed. “Well, at least it explains why your fiancé left you. That’s
despicable.”

           
Ella
was pretty sure she wasn’t referring to the fact that her fiancé had left her
high and dry.

           
“Thank
you for helping me,” Ella said. She hoped Lady Julia still intended to help her
after hearing her sad tale. Clearly there was a reason she plucked Ella out of
the contretemps with the doorman “If there is anything I can do in the way of
thanks…”

           
Lady
Julia jumped up from the bed where she was sitting and stepped across the room
to Ella. She grabbed Ella’s arms and looked into her eyes. “There is,” she said
earnestly. “Particularly now that I see that my initial observation is correct.”

           
Ella
frowned at her.

           
“It
is obvious,” continued Lady Julia, “that you are a ruined woman with nothing
more to lose.”

           
“Right,”
Ella said. She pulled the front of her wet blouse away from her skin.
Surely a couple of dry towels would soon be
in the offing?
“So what can I help you with…Lady Julia?”

           
Julia
Digby took a step back from Ella and placed her hands on her hips.
   

           
“I
need you to help me get rid of my husband,” she said grimly.

Dothan, Alabama 2013

           
No
phone call had come.

           
While
Rowan thought it highly unlikely that Ella’s dad would have heard from the
authorities before Rowan did, he called him just to be sure. Sure enough, her
old man was as batty as ever.

           
“What
do you mean she didn’t come back from Egypt? Where is she?”

           
“Presumably
still in Egypt.”

           
“But
you’re not sure?”

           
“Her
phone ran out of juice and she wasn’t able to call.”

           
“So
are you expecting a
letter
?”

           
Yeah,
Rowan was pretty sure he was never going to like this guy.

           
“Well,
sir,” he said, “I will call you as soon as I hear from her.”

           
“Unless
I hear from her first,” her father said. “In which case, I’ll have her call
you.”

           
Awesome.

           
The
next phone call was going to be if possible even more uncomfortable, which is
why Rowan decided to wait a day before calling his mother. As he went about the
next day turning off the mail, clearing out the refrigerator, and setting up
his emergency leave from his department, he realized he was doing his best to
act and plan without conscious thought. Thinking about what might have happened
or what could still be happening didn’t seem to help right now.
 

           
In
his experience, there were times when anticipating the result of an enterprise
was actually counterproductive to achieving the desired result. That’s one
thing he had learned in eight years of guarding and transporting Federal
witnesses and suspects.
You needed to
plan but not go so far ahead that you were adversely affected by twists not
originally in the game plan.

           
He
looked around their apartment and thought how quiet it always was, even when
the two of them lived there. Ella spent most of her time on the computer and he
mostly watched television with the volume on low.