The Other Guy's Bride (6 page)

Well, he
had
smelled, Ginesse thought as she jounced along on the back of the donkey through the winding alleys and narrow streets of Cairo. She pictured with satisfaction the startled look on Mr. Owens’s face when she’d delivered her
coup de grâce
and refused to feel guilty.

How
could
James Owens believe she thought she was in danger of attracting his grimy—and thoroughly unwanted—attentions? It was embarrassing. She would
never
imagine he would…that she was the sort of woman he’d…Oh! She understood perfectly well she was not the sort of woman who inspired men’s animal passion. And she did
not
want him thinking she had any misconceptions about herself in that regard.

She could still hear the horror—yes,
horror!
—in his voice as he’d breathed the Arabic equivalent of “Holy Mother of God.” It was mortifying.

Not to mention disappointing. She had been so pleased with her initial impression of Mr. Owens. He’d looked like the exemplar cowboy: a lone wolf with the soul of a poet…She frowned. That sounded awkward. She would have to work on a better metaphor.

But his face had seemed intelligent; his manners, circumspect; his bearing self-possessed but without a trace of arrogance. She’d even glimpsed a touch of humor in his light gray eyes when she’d been taunting Haji.

And
she refused to feel a twinge of guilt about that, either. As a girl, she’d suffered far worse at Haji’s hands. He’d been a telltale and a bully, the first to catch her in some minor transgression and then tell others about it. He’d even been the originator of that nasty nickname,
Afreet
. It had felt good to get a bit of her own back.

And Mr. Owens
had
nearly laughed, she thought with a slight smile. She would bet her last pound on it. His wide mouth had curled up at one corner, and he had had to look away to recover his gravitas. All cowboys, she decided, ought to have humor as well as gravitas.

If
he was a cowboy. There had been a slight but definite English public school flavor to his deep, soft voice. She sighed. More likely, he was some clerk from Liverpool. He’d probably never even held a six-shooter. That would account for his tasteless comment about her virtue being as safe with him as his own sister’s. The cowboys in the books she’d read would never be so familiar. They had a deeply embedded respect for womanhood. Even the dastardly ones. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine an Englishman throwing her on a donkey and sending her off alone to a hotel. So perhaps he
was
an American.

By the time she arrived at Shepheard’s Hotel, it was just past four o’clock and the streets were quiet. Few people ventured out into the oppressive afternoon heat, but there were some intrepid souls on the balcony. An elderly Copt with a trained monkey was entertaining them from the street below, the poor dispirited beast doffing his little fez and holding his paw out for
baksheesh
. A gentleman laughed and leaned over the rail. Ginesse glanced up and promptly blanched.

Of the half dozen people on the balcony, she knew three. Or rather, they knew her. An idly chatting couple, Baron and Baroness Heissman, had once found her after she’d wandered away from her family into a less-than-salubrious
suk
. The gentleman sharing their table, Dr. Younterville, had set her arm—both times it had been broken.

Why hadn’t she thought about how small the expatriate community was in Cairo? She should have realized she might encounter people she knew. Though the food was notoriously bad, Shepheard’s still maintained its reputation as the premiere meeting place for Cairo’s luminaries—archaeological and otherwise. It was bound to be full of family friends and acquaintances.

“We are here,
sitt
.”

Ginesse slid off the donkey’s back, keeping her face carefully averted from the balcony, opened her purse, and pressed a couple of coins in the donkey boy’s palm. True to form, the boy immediately began to harangue her for more until a turbaned and uniformed doorman well into his middle years came racing down the hotel steps. She even recognized him; his name was Riyad, and he’d been a doorman at Shepheard’s since she could remember. He shooed the raggedy lad and his donkey away at the same time as he secured her carpetbag and offered her an obsequious welcome in at least a half dozen languages.

Praying he did not recognize her as well, she readjusted her dark glasses and schooled her face to an impassive expression.

“May I inquire as to your name,
sitt
?” he said.

“Mildred Whimpelhall,” she answered, half expecting him to cry out that she was an imposter.

But he only smiled warmly and said, “Ah, yes. Miss Whimpelhall. You are expected.”

He escorted her into the hotel’s massive lobby. Her heart sank further. The lobby was full of people congregated in little clusters taking their afternoon tea. And once more, she was familiar with many of them. Lady Sukmore was ensconced on a divan with two of her cronies, Mrs. Paurbotten and Miss Dangleford. The three comprised the worst snobs in all of Egypt and had ruled the women’s social scene at Cairo’s legendary Turf Club for decades. She’d been banned from attending any of the club “socials” since she was six years old and found trying to set Countess Munter von Halwiener’s leopard free on the golf course.

“I won’t have it!” a shrill masculine voice declared, drawing her attention to the reception desk. “You
will
find room for me and my entourage!”

A group of tourists stood in front of the long desk making loud noises and gesticulating angrily at the harassed-looking clerk. Riyad shot the group a disheartened glance and then turned to her with an apologetic smile.

“It appears there may be some small delay in registering you, Miss Whimpelhall. In the meantime, if you would be so kind as to take refreshment here in the lobby, it will not be long,” he said. He lowered his voice confidingly: “The lobby is most especially prized as a place for young ladies to see and be seen.” He fairly twinkled as he said it, as sure of her enthusiastic acceptance as an adult would be offering a sweet to a child.

“Is there somewhere private where I might wait?” she asked.

It was one thing to deceive Haji, whom she hadn’t seen in six years and who had never struck her as being particularly bright in the first place; it was another to fool someone with whom she may well have dined just last year at her parents’ house in Cairo or even here, at Shepheard’s.

Riyad shook his head regretfully. “I am afraid not. I assure you, it will only be a short while.”

He extended his hand toward an open chair in the middle of the room, but she’d already spied another vacant seat in a less conspicuous location behind one of the towering vases filled with potted date palms that ringed the lobby. Lady Sukmore and her companions occupied the seats on the vase’s other side, but they would not see her behind the massive urn.

She brushed past Riyad and hurried over before someone else could claim the semi-seclusion.

“—fear this year’s season shall be quite boring. I
pray
not,” she heard Mrs. Dangleford say in dramatic tones.

“Be careful what you wish for, dear,” Lady Sukmore replied. “I hear that Ginesse Braxton is due to arrive back in Cairo any day now.”

Good Lord. They were talking about
her
. She looked around, trying to find another chair where she could sit, but the only vacant ones were those next to people. People who looked distressingly familiar.

“Such a bold-faced little scrap of a thing.” Mrs. Paurbotten sniffed. “Looked you dead in the eye in a way that was quite unnatural for a girl. Even the father recognized it if the mother did not. Why, he called her his ‘little adventuress.’”

It had sounded much nicer coming from her father’s lips. “
I’m afraid we’ve raised an adventuress
,” he would say, laughing. “
She’s never more alive than when something’s at risk
.”

“Best thing they did was to send her off.” Lady Sukmore again. “She made poor Mrs. Braxton’s life a trial, you know.”

Yes. I know
, Ginesse thought, her mood darkening.

She hadn’t gotten into trouble on purpose. Her intentions were always blameless. There just always seemed to be something irresistible beckoning her from some tawdry show window, down the meanest street corner, atop the highest minaret, or through the narrowest crevasse. Afterwards she’d always swear to be more careful next time, more prudent, less impetuous. And she’d meant it, every time.

“Should have sent her off far sooner than they did.”

“Too fond of the girl,” Mrs. Paurbotten said with a sniff. “Nothing good comes of a fond parent, and give a child
two
fond parents and…just look what happened.”

“I shudder to think of the high cost to our archaeological community she might have caused had she stayed,” Lady Sukmore said.

Sanctimonious old biddy. She’d no more interest in the “archaeological community” than she did the Muslim community.

“I suppose in the end The Fire was a godsend.”

That
damn
fire. She hadn’t intended to set the blasted papyri ablaze. It had been an experiment with a magnifying glass gone horribly awry.

“How’s that?”

“At least it finally convinced Mrs. Braxton to send the chit away somewhere she could be managed.”

The memory of The Fire was usurped by another of her mother, eyes unnaturally bright, standing in the foyer of the Misses Timwells’ School of Edification and Improvements.

“
Egypt is too dangerous a place for a girl as inquisitive as you. There are too many opportunities for disaster, and you seem bent on taking them all.
”

Ginesse had pleaded with her parents, insisting she would be more careful, more prudent, that it would never happen again. No one, including herself, had believed her. The two broken arms, a head contusion, sprained ankles, and more bruises and scrapes than she could recall weighed heavily against her.

“They didn’t even attempt to get her into any of the more selective finishing schools but settled for an establishment known for indulging willful children.”

And even there, Ginesse had never been able to completely tame her magpie curiosity, her thrill-seeking heart. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to study; she wanted to study
everything
. Her mind was like a sieve at the end of a fish trap, catching anything that came within its vicinity, a jumble of facts and curiosities, anecdotes and histories, nothing more valued than the next, nothing less interesting for being less weighty.

But ultimately determination had won out. She was here, wasn’t she? She sat straighter, refusing to be cowed. How she loathed them.

“I don’t wonder that she’s come back. London society is far more excusive than we allow ourselves to be. She might be husband hunting…”

How
dare
they use her embarrassment, her exile, and
her life
as a way to pass the time between scones and flounder? She was on her feet, heading around the vase before she even realized it. Luckily, Riyad intercepted her before she could act.

“Ah, Miss Whimpelhall,” he said. “If you will follow me?”

He escorted her to the front desk and left her to register, after which she was handed off to a young bellhop. The lad took her valise and led her into the Great Moorish Hall, where she finally felt free to remove the dark glasses. They started toward the grand staircase at the far end, its bottom steps flanked by a pair of life-sized Nubian maidens. Along with Mr. Runyan and Mr. Bradley, bankers who were great favorites of her mother’s.

“Hassan,” Mr. Runyan hailed the bellhop. “Good lad. We were just requiring an impartial judge to settle a dispute—Oh! What ho? I do apologize. I didn’t see you there. Thought old Hassan was quite alone.” He smiled politely, eying her with evident interest. Especially her hair.

She stopped walking, forcing the bellhop to pause as well. They were a good twenty feet away from the bankers, and the lighting in the hall was dim, the window shutters having been drawn against the late afternoon sun. She could only hope it was enough to disguise her.

They waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, Mr. Bradley stepped forward, smiling graciously if with a touch of perplexity. She had to figure out some way past them and quickly.

“By jingo, it doesn’t look as if there’s anyone about to introduce us properly,” he said and chuckled. “But seeing as we’re in a foreign country, I don’t suppose there’s any reason to stand on ceremony.”

She took a deep breath and headed briskly toward them, the bellhop falling into confused step behind her.

“I’m Donald Bradley, and this is—”

“I am afraid I must disagree, sir. There is
always
reason to abide by the niceties of social convention, and I, for one, intend to do so.” She swept past them. “What are we, sir, savages?”

Somehow, she refrained from turning to see their expressions, certain their mouths would be hanging open. They were both such nice gentlemen. And she had been so vile. But it had been necessary. Neither gentleman was likely to recall a thing about her other than that she was red-headed and a first-rate…Lady Sukmore.