Playing with Fire Read online

  Sir Julian smiled at Tansy. “Come, my dear. We’ll all go downstairs now, hmm? The lieutenant must be left to his sleep.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” She glanced down at Martin, who seemed to have sunk into sleep again; then she went to her uncle.

  Sir Julian ushered Tansy out as well, and as the door closed behind them, Martin’s eyes opened. He had not been asleep at all, and knew everything that had gone on around him over the past minutes, including Tansy’s stolen kiss. Restored greatly by the figurine, he got up. He swayed a little, but after a moment felt steadier…. He went to the wardrobe where he knew his dress uniform hung with his other clothes. Tonight he would join the others for a while, and commence the business of fighting for something that had begun to matter very much to him—someone who had begun to matter very much to him.

  But as he began the painstaking business of getting himself ready to go down to join the others for a short while, he did not notice that the gold chain around his neck had broken, or that the locket had fallen on the carpet beside the bed. Or that the figurine had disappeared from the bed.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile, the cats had repaired to Tansy’s room, where the hearth rug was particularly deep and warm. They sat side by side in a way that could only be described as triumphant. No guilty children they, for seeing Amanda off had been their intention, and they had succeeded. The rich sound of purring filled the room.

  On the mantel above them stood the bronze cat. Its eyes shone in the flickering light, and had Tansy returned to the room at that moment, she would have been certain that the purring did not come from just the two cats on the hearth rug….

  Chapter 22

  Randal was having a bath at Bothenbury. The tub had been placed in front of the roaring fire in the bedroom, and Liza was applying a soapy sponge to her lover’s chest as he leaned back against a soft white towel. He had been soaking for a considerable time now, and so far two fresh kettles of hot water had been required to keep him warm.

  Liza wore a peach muslin wrap, and her unpinned hair hung in damp rattails over her shoulders as she worked with vigor, but then she halted as a maid knocked at the door.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, madam, but his lordship’s carriage will be ready in ten minutes.”

  Randal sat up with a jolt. “Is it that time already?”

  Liza gave him a look. “Well, you have been lolling here like a whale this past hour,” she pointed out.

  Randal scrambled out of the bath and reached for the towel, which he flung at Liza. “Dry me,” he said imperiously, standing there with the firelight shining on his wet body.

  One sharp push into the flames, she thought, that was all it would take, and he’d be dry all right! But she resisted the urge and confined herself to simply obeying his orders. Well paid or not, she wished more and more that she had stayed at Mother Clancy’s. Tending to this noble maggot’s every need was a thankless task!

  “Get me the clothes I wore this afternoon,” he said.

  “I’m not a maidservant, you know!”

  “No, you’re a whore whose services I’ve hired. Now get the clothes.”

  Her cheeks flushed with more than just the heat of the fire as she went to do as he commanded. “Where are you going?” she asked then, curiosity getting the better of her.

  “To see my bride,” he replied. “By the way, I shall not be needing you anymore. First thing in the morning I wish you to leave. I’ll send you to Weymouth in the carriage, with enough money to purchase a ticket on a London stagecoach.”

  Liza didn’t reply. So that was it. She was to be cast off without so much as a thank-you. Anger forged through her. If anyone had earned his ring on her finger these past weeks, it was Liza Lawrence. And what thanks did she get? None. He treated her worse than something he had trodden in, and now he was off to whisper sweet words to his future wife. It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair. She contained the urge to rub him so hard with the towel that she made his skin raw, and as she helped him to dress, she began to think about how she could get back her own.

  As soon as he set off in the carriage, she dashed to his room to go through his things with a fine-tooth comb. If there was anything worth taking, Liza Lawrence was going to lift it. Then she was going to skip back to London tonight and disappear. By the time Lord High-and-Mighty Sanderby got back from cooing and caressing with his bride, his whore would be long gone. And serve him right!

  She went through his bedroom like a weevil through a biscuit, and, like a weevil, she was very thorough. The denizens of Mother Clancy’s were adept at searching a gentleman’s pockets, knowing that even the highest in the land might have a tear in the pocket lining through which interesting things might slip. Lord High-and-Mighty Sanderby proved to be no different; in fact, he proved to be astonishingly lax, for as well as several coins, she found a note that he had received, read, then pushed into the pocket and forgotten.

  Liza cast her eyes swiftly over the scribbled writing.

  My lord. Regarding the matter you asked me to investigate on behalf of your friend. There is no longer any trace of the lady. The last I was able to firmly establish was that in December 1767, she consulted a prominent Mayfair doctor about a problem concerning the child she expected the following Valentine’s Day. She gave a false name, but there is no doubt that she was the woman in question. Where she went or what happened to her remains a mystery, although you are already aware from another source that the child she bore was a boy. However, from the date of the appointment with the doctor, it is clear that the first wife was still living on the day your friend’s father remarried, so the second marriage cannot possibly be legal. Nor, therefore, can your friend be legitimate.

  The note was signed by a man who was known to her, because he had called upon Randal a number of times in London. He was investigating something important that Randal pretended was on behalf of an anonymous “friend,” but she had known all along that it really concerned Randal himself. She had often wondered what it was all about, and now it was suddenly only too clear. Lord High-and-Mighty Sanderby wasn’t Lord Sanderby after all, because his father was bigamously married to his mother! The real Lord Sanderby was the boy born on or near St. Valentine’s Day, 1768!

  Liza smiled vengefully. What an idiot Randal was not to have destroyed outright a note containing such delicate information. She would show him what happened to uppity coves who thought they could kick her aside like that. Blackmail wasn’t her game, for that would leave him enjoying all his privileges. No, she had other plans entirely.

  Pocketing the note, she prepared to leave Bothenbury.

  * * * *

  Everyone was enjoying a glass of sherry in the library, with as yet no idea that Martin intended to join them. Apart from Amanda, they would all have been most alarmed to know of his intention, for such an exertion was not yet advisable for someone in his fragile state of health. Amanda, of course, would simply resent the fuss that would ensue the moment he appeared, and would regard him as having stolen the attention at her expense. As indeed she felt the conversation had already been stolen. On several occasions she had done her utmost to make them all talk about her marriage and grand future, but each time she tried, she took a poor second place to such things as sarcophagi, bas-reliefs, scarabs, papyri, and, of course, the interminable hieroglyphs.

  Bored to tears, she wandered around the library, touching this and that. She was angry with Sir Julian for failing to mention Randal’s close proximity at Bothenbury, but could hardly reveal without prompting questions as to how she knew! She paused in front of one of the bookcases to look sourly at the volumes within. What an excruciatingly dull collection! Names leaped out at her, Herodotus, Pliny, Plutarch, and Homer, to say nothing of titles such as Pyramido-graphia and Chronological Antiquities. Ah, at least there was one she could tolerate. The Tales of One Thousand and One Nights. What on earth was a storybook doing among all these other stuffy old tomes? Ali Baba was one of her favorite pantomimes. Sh
e had seen it when she was eight, and had paid great attention, especially the part where the magic word opened the cave and all the treasure was revealed.

  Rather like the wonderful life that would open up to her when she said, “I will,” and became the Countess of Sanderby….

  The cats were stretched on the floor in front of the fire, but suddenly they both awoke and got up to trot to the door, before which they waited expectantly. The handle turned, and Sir Julian and Hermione stopped talking and looked toward it in surprise, for all the servants would surely knock before entering.

  Martin came in, and paused in a little embarrassment on seeing the astonishment that greeted him. He had managed to tog himself in his full dress uniform, but even though he looked so unwell and thin, and the clothes were no longer as fine a fit as they had once been, Tansy thought he was still heart-stoppingly attractive. The blue coat, with its blue standing collar, white lapels and cuffs, gold braid and gilt buttons, was somehow calculated to show any man to great advantage, especially a man like Martin, who was so very handsome in the first place.

  Tansy gazed at him, conscious that his inner strength burned fiercely on. The brave lieutenant who had rescued them from Tel el-Osorkon was only resting and would soon be himself again. Her moments of inaction were short-lived, and she leaped to her feet to go to him. “Lieutenant, you really should not have left your bed!” she cried.

  Sir Julian was in full agreement. “Hear, hear, young man. What in the deuce are you doing down here?”

  Martin bowed to the room in general. “Forgive the intrusion, but I think I have languished in bed for too long. I need to push myself a little, and so have come to inflict my presence upon you for a short while. As soon as you go in to dinner, I will retreat to my lair, I promise.”

  Amanda suddenly appeared at his side. “Why, Lieutenant, how very dashing you look, to be sure,” she breathed, treating him to the full force of her cornflower gaze.

  He did not seem to hear, for he spoke to Tansy.

  “May I impose upon you to assist me to a chair?” he asked.

  “It is no imposition at all,” she replied, and helped him into a comfortable armchair.

  “Your bronze cat is indeed a magical thing,” he said quietly as she bent over him. For a moment his hand rested on hers, his fingers warm and firm, their touch far from accidental; then she straightened. Their eyes met, and for the single beat of her heart she felt alone with him. They might have been far away from Chelworth, just the two of them….

  Sir Julian was anxious to return the conversation to more important matters. He went to his desk, and opened the drawer to take out the two pieces of papyrus—or rather, to take out the two papyri that were now one whole sheet, for they had fused together as if they had never been ripped at all. He gaped at the single sheet for a moment, then cleared his throat and spoke to Hermione. “Mrs. Entwhistle, as a fellow antiquarian—”

  “Oh, you honor me too much, I fancy,” she answered quickly, quite clearly a little flustered.

  He smiled. “Dear lady, in my opinion you know more about Ancient Egypt than many of the gentlemen at the Society of Antiquaries.”

  Amanda heaved a theatrical sigh.

  No one took any notice of her, and Sir Julian pushed the papyrus across the desk. Ozzy and Cleo jumped up onto the desk and sat with their tails tidily wrapped around their paws as they surveyed the papyrus. From their pricked ears and brightly watching eyes, it was as if they understood all about such things. Or so it seemed to Tansy.

  Not knowing quite what to think of the mysterious way the separate pieces had become joined, Sir Julian stood back for Hermione to examine the picture. The chaperone’s face changed, and her startled glance leaped toward Tansy. “My dear, I…I think you should come to look too!”

  Puzzled, Tansy joined them, and was amazed to once again gaze upon the scene that graced both the wall at Tel el-Osorkon and the scroll on the canja. She picked up the papyrus. “Uncle, may I please show it to the lieutenant?”

  “Why, yes, of course.”

  She hastened to Martin’s chair and placed it on his lap. He stared at it, and then up at her. “How incredible….”

  “To have seen this particular illustration twice is remarkable enough, but three times…?”

  “But was the cat always there on this scene?” he murmured.

  The pensive softness in his tone seemed to stroke her. He only spoke of a painted figure on an ancient papyrus, but Tansy looked past the words to the caress that seemed woven into his voice. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she had no control over her heart. Just to stand close to him like this was to need to touch him. Before she knew it, she had put her hand on his shoulder. Before she knew it again, his fingers rested fleetingly over hers. It was over in a moment, a gesture that was unseen by everyone else but that meant everything in the world to the two people involved. Their glances met, and she saw the caress warming his eyes as well. She wasn’t imagining it. She wasn’t.

  “Seen what three times?” Sir Julian demanded. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

  Martin looked apologetically at him. “Forgive me, sir. All I can tell you about this picture is that there is another version of it among the antiquities we commandeered in Egypt. When I first saw it, I was quite sure there was no cat in the scene, but when I looked a second time, there it was.”

  Tansy added her contribution. “And I first saw the scene on the wall at the temple where we took refuge. When we left, I looked back at it, and was quite convinced the cat had vanished.”

  Hermione looked at her in surprise, for this was the first she had heard of it. Sir Julian was equally surprised, and yet, perhaps not. He gave Tansy and Martin a slightly rueful smile. “Well, to be truthful with you, I too have experienced something odd. You see, I am ashamed to admit that I, er, borrowed a papyrus from the British Museum, because it reminded me so of a similar papyrus here at Chelworth. It proved to be so similar as to be another piece of the same papyrus.”

  Tansy and Martin gazed at him, then Tansy asked, “Which one is this? Yours, or the one from the museum?”

  “Ah, well that is the strange thing. What you have there is both fragments. They have, well, joined themselves together somehow.” He spread his hands, not knowing quite what to say next.

  There was utter silence; then Amanda gave a scornful sigh. “Oh, how very silly! Such things simply do not happen.”

  Sir Julian shifted uncomfortably, for truth to tell he felt a little foolish for having confided such a matter. Amanda was right; two pieces of ancient papyrus couldn’t fuse into one. Yet the single papyrus now before them was proof positive that the impossible had become very possible indeed. And taken together with vanishing and materializing cats…. Oh, he didn’t know what to think.

  Hermione was quite prepared to believe it all, having developed a healthy respect for the mysteries of the past. She was disappointed not to have a tale of her own to add. “Well, I fear I have nothing out of the ordinary to report. Mayhap more than a leaning to the psychic is required, mayhap a belief in it.”

  Amanda’s irritation grew. “For goodness’ sake, how ridiculous you all sound. None of the things you say can possibly have happened, so I think you are all letting your imaginations run away with you.”

  Sir Julian shrugged. “Maybe you are right. Who can say?”

  I can, Tansy thought, for she was in no doubt that these strange things were happening. If only she knew why!

  Sir Julian stroked his chin. “It is all most mystifying. So there is another version of the scene among the antiquities, eh?”

  “Yes,” Tansy said.

  Hermione shivered. “Dear me, I daresay I’m being foolish, but although I may not be psychic, I nevertheless feel something untoward is going on.”

  Sir Julian smiled at her. “I tell you, dear lady, I believe Egypt was once a civilization more advanced than Greece or Rome, which it undoubtedly preceded by many centuries. I do not find it hard t
o imagine they had powers then that we have forgotten now. After all, we in England have stories of fairies and giants, but can we be sure they are simply stories? Who is to say that such things did not once exist? Maybe our fairy tales have some basis in fact, and merely seem fanciful to us in this modern age.”

  Amanda was more irritated than ever. “Soon you will be telling me that Ali Baba is centuries old, when we all know he was created for the pantomimes at Astley’s!”

  Everyone endeavored not to look at one another, but no one corrected her about Ali Baba’s far more ancient antecedents. An invention for Astley’s he most certainly was not! The wind stirred outside, and a draft drew down the chimney, making the flames flare for a moment. The brighter light glanced around the room, and Hermione happened to be looking at the statue of Isis that stood beside the mantel. It was the first time she had really noticed it, and now she straightened with great interest. “Good heavens, it’s one of those!” she said.

  “One of what?” Sir Julian turned. “Isis, do you mean?”

  “Yes. My late husband showed me….” She caught up the skirts of her gray velour gown and went closer to the statue. Before Sir Julian realized what she was doing, she reached up to its headdress and pressed down on the scarab that was carved there. A little flap swung down, revealing a cavity behind, in which lay some folded sheets of paper.

  Amanda hurried to join her. “Oh, something really exciting at last! Is it a map to buried treasure?” she cried, and she grabbed the papers to see what they were. It was unforgivably rude, but Amanda was never one to observe the niceties of good manners.

  Sir Julian spoke sharply. “No! Please be so good as to replace it immediately, Amanda!”

  “But it’s only an old letter from—”

  “Enough! It may only be an old letter, madam, but it’s my old letter! A private matter that is no business of yours, so put it back this instant!”