Must Have Been The Moonlight (19 page)

Brianna looked at the date emblazoned in brass beneath the mounted photograph. Two years ago.

She returned to her satchel and, prying the photographs apart, sought the one of Selim. Her hands trembled. Black and gray streaks from a stone tower smeared his image. She no longer had the plate. The sandstorm on the way back to Cairo had destroyed everything that survived the attack on the caravan.

“Brianna?”

Christopher’s voice spun her around. His dark eyebrows raised, he looked at her over the spectacles on his nose, his gaze taking in her state of disrepair. “I was just told that you were here.”

“Who is that young man?” She pointed to the photograph on the wall.

Christopher regarded the photograph impassively before removing his glasses and sliding them into his pocket. “Omar’s youngest son.”

“He was on the caravan, Christopher,” she whispered,
aware that the room had grown silent. “I swear that is Selim.”

“Brianna”—her brother took her arm and escorted her out of the anteroom—“you couldn’t have seen him.”

“But I did.”

“He’s been at school in England for the past two years. He’s attending Oxford.” She heard her brother’s statement as if from a distance, and looked up to see that he’d brought her into his office and had shut the door. “The caravan attacks began last year, Brea. Whoever you saw can’t have been him.”

She rubbed her temple. Maybe she was mistaken, she silently conceded. The photograph on the wall wasn’t completely in focus.

“You can’t just make an accusation like that without solid proof, Brea. Even
with
solid proof, you’d have to be damn sure of your facts.”

“I know. I know.” She scraped her fingers through her tangled hair. She should just lie down in traffic. Get everything over with now. “I’ve had a really bad day, Christopher.” She pulled back her shoulders. “Do you think we can go home?”

“What are you doing here anyway?”

“I was escorted here by the minister of war’s henchman.”

Christopher’s brow arched in amusement. “There is no minister of war, Brea.” He returned to his desk and, reapplying his spectacles, returned to the document on the desk. “I won’t be that much longer.”

“Did you know Major Fallon is leaving Egypt?”

Christopher raised his gaze. “I know. He told me this morning.”

“Truly, Christopher.” Brianna crossed her arms and laughed. The stylish room had curved cast-iron window frames and a white-marble chimney piece in the Egyptian flavor, designed by the office’s previous occupant to celebrate Nelson’s victory in the Battle of the Nile. It was a silly room, Brianna thought as her mind desperately sought a dis
traction. “I suppose everyone in Cairo knows about his inheritance?”

Even Charles Cross, who worked at the museum.

Charles Cross, who’d quoted Dickens and, until today, had never made her feel uneasy.

“You had a visitor today, Sitt.”

Abdul met Brianna with a handful of invitations and mail the next evening as she walked into the house, carrying a small package that she’d picked up at the apothecary that afternoon.

Brianna had started up the staircase before she realized Abdul had spoken. “Who?”

“Major Fallon, Sitt. He said that you had invited him to lunch.”

Brianna looked past Abdul to the tall clock. “I completely forgot.”

No she hadn’t. He’d specifically implied that he wasn’t interested in dining with her family.

“He stayed most of the afternoon. He and Lady Alexandra had a pleasant chat. He left shortly before Mr. Cross arrived.”

Brianna retraced her steps down the stairs. “Mr. Cross?”

“Her ladyship was most gracious, Sitt,” Abdul called after her.

Brianna found Alex in the parlor installed on a red velvet Roman chaise lounge, a blanket wrapped around her lap. She wore an emerald dressing gown. A pair of ornate brass lamps cast light over the photographs in her hand. “Brea…” She looked up as Brianna stepped in the doorway. Her sun-streaked hair had been tightly wound in a coronet around her head and her color had returned. She looked beautiful. “Won’t you sit down?”

Brianna’s gaze fell on the photographs strewn about the thick Persian carpet, clearly laid out by category, including those that had been ruined yesterday. “I found these in your
bedroom,” Alex said. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had all of these? They’re wonderful.”

“They’re ruined.” Brianna walked to the edge of the chaise lounge.

“Not all, Brea.” Alex flipped through the dozen in her hand. “These are perfect. Mr. Cross was right. He said that you had done a quality job. He’d wanted to see more of your pictures. Imagine my surprise when I had no idea what he was talking about.”

Alarmed, Brianna looked past Alex into the corridor. “Did you take him into my laboratory?”

Alex laid the photographs on her lap. “I went to your chambers after he left. May I please keep these?”

“Do you really like them?”

“What do you think I’m trying to tell you?” She laughed. “You’ve helped me decide that if I don’t at least attempt to finish this project, I will have done us both a grave disservice. Besides, I have to do something with my time or I shall go mad alone here all day.”

“My lady?”

Alex folded her arms over the photographs and looked up.

“Did everything go all right today?”

Her expression softened. “Major Fallon wished for me to tell you that he will be leaving Cairo next Saturday for Alexandria.”

Brianna looked away. “I suppose you also know who he is.”

“I do now.” Alex sighed. “You’ve been through a lot these past months. It’s understandable that you would feel something for him, Brea.”

“He doesn’t deserve to leave here in disgrace,” Brianna whispered.

“I know.”

All Brianna could do was nod as she set her packet beside the lamp. “I brought you tea,” she said. “It should help with your nausea.”

Her skirts whispered as she climbed the curved stairway.

Reaching her room, Brianna shut the door. Gracie had already lit the lamps. She walked across her room and opened the glass doors. The cacophony of birdsong had faded with the last of the daylight.

Nothing had been the same since she’d returned from the desert. Having an affair had not been anything like she’d thought it would be. Moving onto the balcony, she searched for a light in Michael’s apartment.

“Mum.” Gracie was suddenly beside her, testing her forehead. “You look flushed.”

“I’m fine, Gracie.” Brianna’s voice was tired.

“A fever is quick to come upon a body in this clime, mum.”

With the instincts of one who had been a nurse her whole life, Gracie set to the task of putting Brianna to bed.

Suddenly she didn’t care. Her maid fed her warm milk with her dinner and a miracle elixir that cured everything from toothaches to rheumatism. Then she found herself tucked in bed, buried in covers as she watched Gracie turned out the lamps. “Thank you, Gracie,” Brianna quietly said. “At least I’m assured that you’ve cured me of any ailment before I’m felled.”

“The chlorodyne drops will help you sleep, dear.” The last lamp beside the door went out, descending the room into darkness. “I’ll see that no one disturbs you. Good night, mum.”

Chlorodyne drops!

Gracie and all of her medicines. The last thing she wanted to do was fall asleep. She flung back the covers and locked the door. She’d saved the clothes Michael had given her in the desert, and stepped into the tunic and trousers. Adjusting the turban on her head, she walked onto her balcony and looked at the fifteen-foot drop before leaning forward to pull herself onto the nearest tree limb.

Michael heard the scrape of footsteps in the stone enclave above him. The moon was a white face in the sky and lay a
patchwork of shadow and light up into the stairwell. Music and laughter drifted from the coffee shop down the street, nearly concealing the faint rasp on stonework as someone moved. He stepped into the shadows, his hand easing his revolver from the holster at his hip.

A slim white figure appeared at the top of the stairs, and Brianna stepped into the moonlight. An oath on his lips, Michael relaxed his grip on the revolver. He could have shot her. And how the hell did she get to his quarters in the first place?

“How long have you been here?”

“What happened to you?”

They’d both spoken at the same time.

“I’ve been here since eleven o’clock.” Brianna watched him ascend. “I didn’t know if you would be here. I’d hoped that you were alone. I mean”—she stretched to look around him as he stopped on the stair below her—“I don’t know what it is you do at nights when you aren’t out roaming the vast wastelands saving people.”

Her gaze dropped to the rag that wrapped his knuckles. She lifted her eyes in question. He’d not moved. Then he ascended the last step and stood before her. “I’m alone,” he said, and drew a key out of his pocket.

Opening the door, Michael stood aside and waited for her to pass. She stepped past him, her gaze on his as she entered. Once inside, he removed his holster and walked through his bedroom, then to his office. He peered out the blinds at the lake, then turned to face the nemesis in his dreams.

“You’ve been hurt,” she said.

He looked down at his jacket hanging open, the buttons torn from their moorings, probably lost in the alley where he and his men had been ambushed that night. “I’ll be all right, Brianna.”

“And you don’t wish to tell me about it?”

He hadn’t moved, but he did so now as he set the gun on the desk. “I don’t mean to be evasive, but I’ve been at the
infirmary for the last two hours. Two of my men are there. It really is the last topic I want to discuss at this moment.”

“Did you know there are crocodiles in that lake?”

He paused in the act of lighting the lamp. The tunic she wore molded to her slender body. “The lake is part of the Nile waterway.” Peering at her, he blew out the match. “It would be to my utmost relief if you told me that you didn’t swim the channel over here.”

“I borrowed a boat and rowed across the lake. It isn’t far if one can take advantage of the current.” She shoved the ragged length of the turban over her shoulder. “Do you hurt?”

A grin touched the corners of his mouth. It was the first hint of emotion he’d felt in the last two hours. “Not in the places that count.”

Her left brow hitched. “That’s good to hear…Michael.” She looked around her, and in her typical feminine inquisitiveness, asked, “Have you ever had a woman in this apartment? Nevermind. Don’t answer.”

He didn’t.

She turned into the archway, and Michael watched her gaze go over his bedroom. There were no decorations on the walls, no memorabilia that revealed any other existence outside the one he’d lived for the past few years. Even that was limited to one ceremonial spear he’d brought back from the Sudan, given to him as a gift from a tribal chief. His eyes held to her profile before dipping lower. Her arms remained folded over her torso. She’d rolled the length of her baggy trousers, and looked like something ethereal out of
A Thousand and One Nights
.

They were like night and day, shadow and light. Yet, in some abstract way, he thought her the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“The place is nearly empty. You’ve started to pack, I suppose.”

“Why are you here, Brianna?”

When she turned back into the room, her blue eyes
seemed to radiate into his. Lamplight wavered over her slight form, displacing the shadows. And Michael was suddenly unsure of the tenacity of his restraint, of his emotions. It seemed as if for too many years his life had been nothing but shadows and death. He’d lived in the wake of both for so long that he hardly recognized the force that drew him forward. He was wary of his current turmoil. Wary of a heart that he’d allowed to escape from his grasp. Most of all he was wary of himself.

For more years than he could remember, he wanted to make love to a woman almost more than he wanted to breathe.

“I’m sorry that I missed lunch this afternoon.” She approached until she stood in front of him. “Had you been more specific in your acceptance, I would have been less forgetful in my attendance.” Eyeing the revolver on the desk, she ran her finger over the rag on his hand. “Are you angry?”

“Do you mean could I have accidentally shot you?” His eyes continued to burn into hers for another fraction before he placed the gun on a shelf above his head. “I didn’t.”

“I’m relieved. I’ve been told that I have a habit of doing a thing,” her voice warmed with her eyes, “then asking afterward.”

“That’s a very bad trait, Miss Donally.” He slipped his fingers beneath the cloth wound around her head and leaned toward her. “I happen to know firsthand that such a characteristic can get one removed from one’s post in Egypt.” His lips brushed hers, not quite a kiss. “What are you going to do if someone finds you here?”

Brianna rose on the balls of her feet and, caught in that familiar miasmic aura that hovered around her senses whenever Michael touched her, loitered in the warming mist. She knew she was drunk on the affects of the chlorodyne drops and warm milk. “You don’t think me too forward for coming here tonight?”