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I will kill Quin Bredon in the morning, she thought hazily as she plaited her hair for bed, already more than half asleep. Just now I haven’t the energy to be angry with a scorpion, let alone a worthless man.
* * *
It was Maggie who woke her with the luxury of more hot water and then fresh rolls, crisp outside and fluffy white inside, and a pot of coffee and fresh eggs and a bowl of yoghurt studied with pomegranate seeds.
‘I will grow fat on all this luxury and no work,’ Cleo said as Maggie laid out the last of the dishes. ‘There is too much—share it with me, please.’
Maggie needed little persuasion. ‘Oh, this is good,’ she said, grinning through a moustache of yoghurt, then using the back of her hand in lieu of a napkin. ‘Sorry, mam, I’m not used to this fine dining.’
‘Nor am I,’ Cleo confessed. Although this would not count as even a picnic for the likes of Lord Quintus, she was sure.
* * *
Ensign Lloyd came marching across as they were finishing, very formal. ‘Sir James requests the pleasure of your company in half an hour, ma’am.’
‘And if I do not choose to join him?’ Cleo sipped her coffee and tried to imagine what a well-bred society lady troubled by a tiresome invitation would do.
‘Um, it isn’t a request, ma’am.’
‘So if I say no you will toss me over your shoulder and carry me, Ensign?’ It was unkind to tease him, she knew, but he was the only man around to take out her anxiety on.
Ensign Lloyd actually lost colour, but he squared his shoulders and met her gaze. ‘If I have to, ma’am. With the deepest respect.’
‘You have courage, Mr Lloyd. I didn’t mean it. Will you collect me?’
‘Ma’am!’ A sharp salute and he wheeled and marched off.
* * *
‘Madame Valsac.’ The tall man with the lined face and the cropped grey hair pushed back his chair and rose as she came into the room. Ensign Lloyd closed the door behind himself and she was alone with the stranger. Then there was another scrape of chair legs on mud brick and she turned to see Quin at a table in the corner, papers spread before him and an inkstand by his hand.
‘I am Sir James Houghton of His Majesty’s Foreign Service. This is—’
‘I know who that is.’ She did not look at Quin again. ‘That is to say, I thought I knew who he was, but it seems he lied to me.’
‘I am Quintus Bredon Deverall,’ Quin said. ‘I fear I misled you about being an engineer.’
She still did not turn. ‘And much else, I am certain, Lord Quintus.’ There was a seat facing Sir James and she took it without waiting to be asked. ‘Where is my father?’
‘He is perfectly comfortable elsewhere in this building. I trust you are adequately housed and looked after, madame?’
‘Adequately, yes. For a prisoner. Why are we confined? And why did Lord Quintus lure us here under false pretences?’
‘I can assure you that the Mameluke threat is in no way a falsehood.’ Sir James did not appear in the slightest bit disturbed by her hostility. ‘Despite the fact that they have changed their allegiance to the British on the death of Murad Bey, I can assure you they would be most unsafe to encounter.’
‘So his lordship was acting out of purely uninterested concern for our welfare. How touching.’
‘No, madam, he was not. He was acting on my orders as part of our attempts to counter espionage.’
‘Espion—’ Cleo closed her mouth with a snap. ‘I do not know any spies. Other than his lordship, of course.’ To her right there was the scratch of pen on paper and she swivelled on the chair to glare at Quin. ‘Only he appears to be a clerk now. How confusing.’
‘Are you sure, madam?’
‘That I am confused, or that I know no spies beyond Lord Quintus? I am sure about both, Sir James. I married a Frenchman. Is that what this is about? I can assure you I am not spying for France—I owe it as much loyalty as I do to Britain, another country where I have never set foot. And what, exactly, would I be reporting on? The number of ibis flying past every day? The hieroglyphs on the temple at Koum Ombo? The amount of sand that I sweep out of the tent in a week?’
‘We quite accept that there is nothing you could tell a French agent that would be of any interest to them.’
How dry he is. Does he ever show any emotion? Cleo tried to imagine Sir James in the throes of passion, which was a small help to her nerves. He would have skinny buttocks.
‘You find something amusing, madam?’
‘Not at all. So, if you do not think I am a spy, what am I...? Oh, I see, you think my father is one. What nonsense! My father is an English baronet and a scholar. He is probably the most boring man on this earth and he would not know anything of interest to your enemies if he fell over it. Unless it came decorated with hieroglyphs, that is.’
