Lady of Heaven (21 page)

Allahaba turned
away from the Nile to look at him. “Fanny Sherburn did not die of a fever,
Fox,” he said frankly. “What your Morgan was told was not true.  Fanny’s husband
must have returned to England to tell everyone that Fanny died of a fever in
Egypt because of the shame of his wife leaving him for another man.  To tell
others she died in Egypt is much better than saying she is living in sin with a
heathen.”

For the first
time in the conversation, Fox showed emotion. He sat forward, his eyes wide.
“It makes perfect sense,” he hissed. “But he took the papyrus back to England
with him. I wonder why?”

Allahaba
shrugged. “What better revenge than to keep what meant a great deal to his wife
and to her heathen lover?”

Fox couldn’t
help his surprise as he pondered the twists of the story. But there was
something far more important he needed to know. “If Fanny didn’t die of a
fever, what happened to her?”

Allahaba moved
away from the balcony and plopped into the set next to Fox.  Putting his hand
on the man’s arm, he looked him in the eye.

“Fanny Sherburn,
my grandfather’s wife, is alive and living in my home,” he lifted his eyebrows
at the irony of it all. “The entire time you were at my shop, she was directly
above your head.”

November 3, 1923

            I
have met with Mr. Sula regularly over the translation of the Lady of Heaven
papyrus.  He is helping me with the clues presented.  Mr. Sula believes the
papyrus is true and is willing to help guide our search.  Dear Louis, however,
does not believe in the clues but I am still determined to go. I feel that I
must.  More and more, this country is becoming a part of me

            ~FS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Dr. Fox met
tonight with a man I did not recognize,” Beni said. “I remained at the hotel
all day, as you instructed, to see if Dr. Fox left during the day but he did
not. He met a man in the lobby around dinner time and the two of them went up
to his room.”

It was late, but
not too late that Alia didn’t want to know what Fox was up to.  In the living
room at her lovely home in the northern Cairo suburbs, she was in her robe as
Beni huddled at her front door with the news.  Exhausted, perturbed, she yanked
Beni inside and slammed the door.

“This man he met
with,” she snapped. “How long was he with Fox?”

Beni shrugged.
“A couple of hours, at least.”

Alia exhaled
sharply. “If you did not recognize the man, did you at least follow him when he
left to see where he lived? It might give us a clue as to who he is.”

Beni nodded
eagerly. “I did indeed follow him,” he assured her. “He took a taxi to the Khan
el Kalili bazaar and went to one of the shops there.”

“Did you follow
him into the shop?”

“I did not,” he
said. “I wanted to come and tell you what had happened. I know where his shop
is and we can go there tomorrow if you wish. Perhaps we can ask the man a few
questions and find out what Dr. Fox is up to.”

Alia thought on
that, growing more confused and obsessed by the moment. “You said that Fox refused
your help when you offered?”

Beni bobbed his
head. “He told me he was not working on his project today. He said he would
call me tomorrow.”

Alia eyed Beni,
thinking many things at that moment; Fox, his project, the blond American whore
who was with him. None of it made her happy.  After several moments of
deliberation, she shrugged and turned away.

“Perhaps it is
nothing at all,” she mused, looking up to the lovely walls of her home with the
colored glass tiles. “Perhaps Fox was simply meeting with an old friend. He has
many here, you know.”

“An old friend
who works at an antiquities shop?” Beni said pointedly, watching her turn
around and look at him. “The man I followed went in to an antiquities shop
called the Azraq Nahr.”

Alia blinked as
she recognized the name. “Azraq Nahr?” she repeated, surprised. “Blue River
Antiquities has been around for hundreds of years. The Cairo Museum has done
business with them.”

Beni looked
eager. “Do you know the man I speak of?”

A light came to
Alia’s eyes. It was evident that her obsession was taking dimension. “Perhaps,”
she said slowly, thoughtfully. “I will let you know tomorrow.”

“May I go home
now?”

“Yes,” Alia went
to her front door and threw it open. “Get out. Be at work early tomorrow.”

She slammed the
door in Beni’s face as he was replying. Then she went into the kitchen, poured
herself a glass of beer, and plotted her next move because she knew, without a
doubt, that Fox as plotting his.

***

When Fox entered
the bedroom around eleven o’clock, he found Morgan asleep in her slinky silver
dress with the television blasting.  He smiled at her, shook his head at the
irony of sleeping through such loud noise, and quietly began to remove his
clothes.

The shirt and
shoes came off, followed by the pants. In his boxer briefs, he quietly went to
the bed and very carefully removed one of her shoes. When he went to remove the
other, Morgan suddenly woke.

Her clear brown
eyes were sleepy as she gazed up at him. He smiled at her and pulled off her
other shoe, tossing it to the floor.

“How can you
sleep with the television so loud?” he asked.

She yawned. “I
don’t know,” she rolled onto her side and hugged a pillow. “I just can.”

He saw that she
was going back to sleep. “No, no,” he grabbed her gently around the waist and
pulled her up. “Let’s get the dress off and get under the covers.”

She grumbled as
he lifted her arms and pulled the sexy cocktail dress over her head.  She was
completely nude beneath it and he tossed the covers back, picking her up and
depositing her against the sheets. Covering her up, he pulled off his briefs,
turned off the light, and slid into bed beside her.

The television
went off as Fox pulled her warm, soft body against him, snuggling down against
the feathery mattress.  She squirmed a little, finally settling down with a
sigh of contentment. Fox wrapped his big arms around her, his chin against the
top of her head.

But he wasn’t
tired nor could he sleep after his conversation with Allahaba. He stared off
into the darkness of the room, wondering how he was going to tell Morgan about
her great-grandmother.  It was a shocking revelation even to him and Fanny
Sherburn wasn’t even a blood relative. But because the situation was so
important to Morgan, he felt it as deeply as she did.   He was concerned how she
would take the news.

“What’s the
matter?” she asked, muffled against his chest.

He did nothing
more than caress her hip with a free hand. “Nothing, love,” he murmured. “Go
back to sleep.”

“You keep
sighing,” she mumbled. “What’s wrong?”

He kissed her head.
“Nothing is wrong. Go back to sleep.”

She was still
for a few moments and he thought she had drifted off again.  But her head came
up and she gazed sleepily at him. “What did Allahaba have to say about Fanny?”

Fox looked at
her in the darkness, knowing he couldn’t defer the subject to the morning. She
was asking a direct question and he suspected that if he dodged it, even to
spare her feelings, that it would damage the trust they were building between
them.  He sighed faintly as he gazed into her groggy face.

“Are you sure
you want to hear this right now?” he asked softly.

She nodded,
becoming more alert. “Of course I do,” she said. “What did he say?”

He reached up,
smoothing wisps of blond hair from her eyes, all the while thinking of how he
was going to carefully couch the bombshell he was about to deliver.  He decided
that being straight forward would be the best tactic to take with her.  Morgan
wasn’t a beat-around-the-bush kind of girl.

“He said a lot
of very interesting things,” he told her honestly. “Apparently, the romance
between Fanny and his grandfather caused quite the uproar because his
grandfather was married to another woman at the time.”

Morgan’s
eyebrows rose and she sat up, propping herself up on an elbow. “Really?” she
responded, shocked. “But Fanny was married, too, to Louis.  So did she really
have an affair with Allahaba’s grandfather?”

“It was more
than that, evidently,” he went on. “Do you remember in Fanny’s journal where
she writes about bad tidings and we thought they were associated to the
papyrus?”

Morgan nodded
firmly. “Yes, I do.”

“I think she was
alluding to the affair,” Fox shifted, putting an enormous arm behind his head
and lying back on the pillow. “The papyrus is what brought Fanny and Allahaba’s
grandfather together, so perhaps the ‘bad tidings’ she mentioned in relation to
the papyrus had to do with his family’s reaction to what was going on. It was
apparently very scandalous to the point where the grandfather’s wife’s family
made a few attempts on Fanny’s life.”

Morgan’s
eyebrows flew up. “I knew it!” she hissed. “She
was
murdered, but not
because of the papyrus; it was because of the affair. I knew she was murdered!”

“Hold on,” Fox
reached out, running a massive hand down the side of her blond hair to calm
her. “Apparently, Louis, shamed by Fanny’s affair with the Egyptian, fled back
to England, taking the papyrus and Fanny’s journal with him. He didn’t want
anyone to know that his wife left him for a heathen so he told everyone that
she had died in Egypt. Doesn’t that make sense with what he always told you?
Didn’t you say he dodged the subject if asked a direct question?”

Morgan was
stunned, enthralled, and feeling an odd sense of contentment, as if she was
finally learning the truth.  It was a truly fulfilling moment.

“He never gave
me a straight answer to any of my questions,” she agreed, pondering the great
revelations. “Now it makes perfect sense. I just can’t believe it.”

His hand was
still on her head, stroking the mussed blond hair. “It gets better,” he said softly.
“Fanny and Allahaba’s grandfather were married.  His ex-wife’s family never did
murder her.”

Morgan’s
eyebrows lifted. “So she
wasn’t
murdered?”

He shook his
head, his fingers gentle on her skull as he caressed. “No, love” he murmured.
“She wasn’t killed in spite of the attempts on her life.  She and Allahaba’s
grandfather got married and had a long life together; so long, in fact, that
Fanny outlived him. She is still alive.”

Morgan stared at
him a moment as if not comprehending what he’d told her.  When his statement finally
registered, she bolted to her knees with her hands over her mouth.

“Oh, my God!”
she gasped. “She’s still alive?”

Fox sat up, his
big hands on her arms to keep her from jumping off the bed. “According to
Allahaba, she is,” he kept his tone calm. “If she was nineteen years old in
1924, then she is one hundred and five years old today. That’s remarkable.”

Tears began
pouring from Morgan’s eyes. “My God,” she wept. “She’s really still alive?”

He smiled
gently, nodding. “She is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Allahaba said
so. He has no reason to lie.”

Morgan was
furiously wiping the cascades of tears that poured down her cheeks. “Where…
where is she?”

“Living with
Allahaba and his family,” his gaze lingered on her a moment. “When we were at
his shop earlier today, she was apparently right above our heads in the
apartment on the second floor.”

Morgan shrieked
and leapt off the bed before Fox could stop her. “I want to go see her,” she
demanded. “I want to go now!”

Fox threw the
covers off and swung his big legs over the side of the bed. “Love, it’s late,”
he explained steadily. “I’m sure Allahaba and his family is asleep by now,
including Fanny, so it would be much better if we went first thing in the
morning. All right?”

She was standing
naked in the middle of the bedroom, hands to her mouth and tears on her face. 
But through her haze of shock and excitement, she understood what he was
telling her.  After a moment, she nodded unsteadily.

“O-okay,” she
sniffled, wiping at her face as she wandered back over to the bed. “Promise?”

He reached out,
taking her by the wrists and pulling her back onto the bed. “Of course I
promise,” he kissed her head as he settled her down. “Lay down, now. Go back to
sleep and we’ll go first thing in the morning.”

Sniffling,
shaken, Morgan lay back down as Fox pulled the covers over her.  He hovered
against her, kissing her temple, gently rubbing her shoulders.  She was
shocked, worn out and thrilled beyond measure, which translated into a very
exhausted sleep when she finally drifted off.   She twitched and snored,
keeping Fox up most of the night, but he wasn’t sorry about it.   He was just
glad he could be with her to solve one of the important mysteries of her life.