The Lord’s Inconvenient Vow

‘I shan’t say what I don’t think. I never saw you condescend to anyone, no matter their choice of gods or their place in society. And as for cold...’ She paused as his frown deepened—she could almost feel him haul up the drawbridge and she realised with surprise that her words mattered to him. She’d never thought that before. ‘I think you do your best to build battlements of ice, but they keep melting because you aren’t really cold. Poppy and Janet could never have loved you so deeply if you were.’

Her words surprised her as much as they appeared to embarrass him. His high cheekbones turned dark beneath his sun-warmed skin and he planted his hands on the stone as if ready to push to his feet. She almost took his hand and asked him to stay, but his embarrassment spread to her and she waited for him to make his excuses and leave.

He sighed, his hand relaxing a little on the stone.

‘If I didn’t know how honest you are, Sam, I’d suspect you of trying to butter me up for some reason or another. Did you happen to topple some precious antiquity while I wasn’t looking by any chance?’

She smiled in relief.

‘The fallen Colossi of Memnon? That was I.’

He laughed and she relaxed a little further.

‘I hope you do come to London soon, Sam. When you do, I shall take you to the Museum. There is a statue there that made me think of you, a bust of a girl staring at the sky like you do when you make believe you haven’t heard your mother when she summons you to supper.’

She laughed as well, embarrassed but peculiarly flattered to be compared to a statue and that anything made him think of her at all, let alone fondly. It was so very unlike Edge to say anything remotely nice to her. She smoothed her grubby skirts over her thighs, suddenly wishing she wasn’t dressed in this dusty jumble of eastern and western garb.

‘What else did you do in London? Aside from being forced into the company of your unworthy parents,’ she prompted, not wanting him to stop talking. He smiled and the strange lightness about him struck her again. He’d changed so much since his last visit to Egypt two years previously. Or she had. Or both of them.

‘I had to attend endless balls and assemblies for Anne’s debut. You would have enjoyed watching me squirm.’

‘No, I wouldn’t. Was it terrible?’

‘Sometimes. Other times I actually enjoyed myself...’ He brushed some sand from the stone between them, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘It pulls you in, that world. Everything appears so...easy. We barely survived the war and yet they are all so gay, so full of life. It tips the scales back a little; washes away the blood and dirt and pain and you can begin to believe London is the truth, not...everything else. That you are who they see.’ He hesitated, gathering back the sand he’d scattered into a little mound. ‘Everyone calls me Edward or Lord Edward there.’

‘Well, those are your names.’

‘I know, but... I have been called Edge for years. Ever since a certain annoying six-year-old on her first visit to Qetara decreed I didn’t look like an Edward or Lord Edward Edgerton and rechristened me Edge.’

Sam flushed again.

‘I still don’t think you look like an Edward, and Lord Edward Edgerton sounds like a particularly pompous character from a morality play, but I hardly forced anyone to call you Edge, they did that all on their own.’

‘Yes, well, you had a way of dragging people along with you. And I didn’t object. I liked that it was uncommon. Edward is my father’s name.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. Edward Raphael something something. The two monikers bestowed upon the first two Edgerton males.’

‘If you don’t like them calling you Edward, tell them so. I’ve certainly told you often enough not to call me Samantha.’

He frowned. ‘As you said, that is my name. It is who I am.’

Sam didn’t understand what he was trying to say, if anything at all—Poppy and Janet and everyone still called him Edge and he had not objected. Absently she traced a little pyramid in the sand he’d gathered between them and he added a crescent of a moon.

‘Deep in the desert, by the light of a silver sliver of a moon...’ he intoned and she smiled. One of Edge’s redeeming features was how well he read aloud. There was little entertainment in Qetara and their small group did their best with the material at hand, from cards to charades to books. Since childhood she’d loved the moment someone handed Edge a book to read aloud. It wasn’t merely the depth and timbre of his voice, but how it would shift and change with the tale. She would close her eyes and see every word he spoke, more vivid than a dream. It was the one quality for which she was willing to excuse all his lectures about her lack of decorum and his ability to ignore her absolutely when she annoyed him. Someone with such an ability to bring a tale to life could not be wholly humdrum.

‘No,’ she corrected. ‘You are telling a different tale—deep in the heart of London, by the light of a hundred chandeliers, they danced that night away...’

He brushed the sand away completely and re-clasped his hands around his knees.

‘Three chandeliers, but enormous. I think each one held a hundred candles. At least it looked that way. I kept worrying the hot wax would drop on the dance floor and we would skid and waltz into a wall.’

She laughed, but something in his voice caught her attention.

‘We?’

He turned his head and then she heard it as well.

‘Daoud’s horn. Come before the flies win the battle for luncheon.’

‘I thought climbing that poor ram yesterday was mad enough, Sam. I should have known you would outdo yourself. Couldn’t you at least wait until they cleared the sand off the rest of the temple before you set claim to it?’

‘Why do you even bother becoming annoyed with me? You know it makes not one iota of a difference,’ Sam said as she looked down at Edge from her perch on the lintel of the temple.

‘Only too well. One day you will fall and crack that thick head of yours.’

‘I shall do my best to land on top of you; you are so stuffed with pomp it will be a soft landing.’

His grin flashed lighter in the shadow.

‘How did you get up there?’

She indicated the enormous twin sphinxes that flanked the sides of the temple. They were still mostly buried in sand, but there was enough accessible to climb from them to the temple roof.

‘I climbed that statue’s arse,’ she said and Edge visibly winced.

‘Sam!’

‘Well, you objected to my saying posterior yesterday.’

‘I admit defeat.’

‘You keep saying that and yet you persevere. Go away, the sun is sinking and I want to finish this today.’

He walked away and she felt the silence around her more keenly. Contrarily she wished he had stayed. Then she heard a grunt and the slither of sand and smiled to herself. He sat beside her again and she noticed a small fresh scratch along the edge of this right hand where he braced it on the roof beside her and she resisted the urge to reach out.

‘You scratched your hand,’ she said instead and he raised his hand, inspecting it.

‘So?’

‘So nothing. It was merely an observation. Or an opening so you can berate me for that as well.’

‘I can hardly blame you for my clumsiness.’

‘It would not be the first time. Remember Saqqara, two years ago?’

His frown fled before another of his surprising smiles.