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‘Jenkins! Take madam’s bags. This way, ma’am.’
She followed him without a glance back. The back of his neck was scarlet with heat and embarrassment.
The rooms he showed her to were simple but clean. A chamber with a bed, a chair, a small table and a lamp and beyond it a room with a wash stand and a covered pail. The windows in both rooms were tiny, a protection against the heat, and the door opened on to a shaded area where a sentry stood at ease.
‘I’m sure it’s not what you’re used to, ma’am,’ the young man apologised as the soldier brought in her bags.
Cleo relented. It wasn’t his fault, any of this. ‘I will be very comfortable—?’
‘Ensign Lloyd, ma’am. I’ll find one of the camp women to look after you, ma’am. One of the respectable ones.’ He had gone vermilion now.
‘Thank you.’ Cleo walked out on to the veranda. ‘Now, I will join my father.’
‘You’ll be better off here, ma’am.’ He might be embarrassed, but his jaw was set and he looked determined.
Cleo took an experimental pace towards the edge of the shade. The sentry came to attention. ‘Am I a prisoner, Ensign Lloyd?’ What the devil is going on? I am English, they are English.
‘For your own protection, ma’am. Best if you stay here. This is an army camp, no place for a lady.’
‘I am an officer’s widow, Ensign. I am used to army camps.’
‘I have my orders, ma’am.’ He snapped off a salute and marched away, radiating relief at escaping her.
Cleo turned to the guard. ‘And you are?’
‘Private Minton, ma’am.’
‘I have been cooped up on a boat for days, Private. I am going to take a walk.’ Where is Father? Where is that lying, scheming, traitorous Quin Bredon or whatever his name is?
‘No, ma’am.’ He was tough, battered and about as unconcerned about being confronted by an irritated woman as the ensign had been embarrassed.
‘Just what will you do to stop me, Private? Shoot me?’
‘Pick you up, bring you back and lock you in, begging your pardon, ma’am.’
He is only obeying orders, she told herself. You cannot lose your temper with him. Save that for his lordship.
Cleo went inside and sat on the bed. How long was she going to be here? She supposed she might as well unpack her things and make herself as comfortable as possible. She had three bags. Two containing clothes and the third for her sewing kit, medical equipment, toiletries, two books and a notebook, her wedding certificate, her few pieces of jewellery. All the small possessions of a simple life.
Almost as soon as she began to lift items out she knew it had been searched. So had her clothes’ bags. Cleo was nothing if not tidy and methodical after years of camp life. She always folded away her clean clothing just so, rolled her scarves a certain way, coiled ribbons and belts, placed shoes toe to heel. The disturbance was subtle and the repacking almost perfect, but she could tell someone had been through her things. Her books were stacked with the spines together, while she always put them with the spines opposing each together, because that way they lay flatter. Her notebook had a crease on the page where she had listed the ingredients for bamiyeh and a smudge under the weight of hibiscus pods needed—the page had been pristine when she had put the book away.
It had not been a thief. Mama’s locket, the pearl earrings Thierry had given her as a wedding gift and the Greek gold bangle she had received for her fourteenth birthday were all there. No, it was another kind of robber, one who stole trust. But what had he been looking for?
She shook out the clothes and hung them on the pegs hammered into the walls, then organised the small things in one of the empty bags. The lining was loose: whatever Quin—Lord Quintus—had been searching for it was small enough to slip between the layers of leather and cotton. Papers? But I have nothing.
Cleo closed her eyes and conjured up the memory of him standing by the donkey that day in the French camp, his head bent as though resting. Or reading. The slight disarray of her father’s letters as though someone had riffled through them... Yes, he was looking for papers, which meant he had not stumbled into their camp by accident. The encounter with Bedouin raiders was true enough, she was certain. No one was stupid enough to wound themselves and then get into that dangerous state of dehydration and heat-stroke, just as a ruse.
What was his original plan? To appear on his camel, perhaps with some surveying instruments, no doubt. He would have been welcomed, for no one turned away a stranger in the desert, and then he would have found an excuse to stay and eventually lure them down river into his trap.
