The Lord’s Inconvenient Vow

His breathing was harsh from the fear of what he had expected to witness and the need to stop it. But his mind was already rushing ahead with a series of realisations—that the woman who had just keened like a vengeful houri at the top of her lungs into the desert air was neither a local nor a hallucination of his, but something far worse.

Egypt had taught him to always expect the unexpected. Especially when it came to Sam Sinclair.

She was dressed in local dress, and local male dress at that, a cream-coloured gibbeh tied with a red cotton sash around her waist over a simple muslin gown. She was still staring at him, her blue-grey eyes wide and far away, but then the pupils dilated as recognition settled in and with it wariness. For a moment he wondered whether he was mistaken. After all, almost a decade had passed and this was no child. She looked very much like Sam and yet she did not.

Well, she wasn’t Sam any more. She was Lady Carruthers, wasn’t she?

‘I thought you were about to jump,’ he said, his breath still short and her eyes focused even further as she glanced from him to the cliff.

‘Why on earth did you think that?’

‘Perhaps because you were standing on a cliff, screaming?’

‘I did not scream, I howled. These are, after all, the Howling Cliffs. I didn’t expect anyone to be listening. I came here to be private.’

Anger was proving to be a wonderful antidote to fear and shock.

‘I am so dreadfully sorry to have intruded, Lady Carruthers.’

His sarcasm kicked up the corners of her mouth, but they fell almost immediately.

‘And I am sorry I frightened you, Lord Edward. I thought it safe to do so since no one dares come here. These cliffs are haunted, you know.’

‘I do now.’

The smile threatened again, but again failed to materialise. Perhaps this really wasn’t Sam at all. Or perhaps marriage had finally succeeded in taming her where all else failed. If so, it was nothing short of a miracle.

‘Not by madwomen,’ she corrected. ‘But by the protectors of Hatshepsut. Poppy was telling us they think that is probably her temple down there.’

She pointed to the structure at the foot of the cliffs. It and the flanking sphinxes were now completely uncovered as was a broad gravel pathway leading towards a jetty. It looked very small and inconsequential from where they stood, nothing like the sand-covered temple where he’d sat with this woman eight years ago...

A lifetime ago.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. It felt raw and rough with sand.

‘You are staying with Poppy?’

‘Of course. Why else would I be in Qetara?’

Why indeed. His wits had clearly gone begging. Her gaze moved over him again and for the first time he realised how he must look. Filthy, for one. He hadn’t shaved in days, or was it a week now?

‘Where did you come from?’ She looked around, frowning. ‘I would have seen you if you came up from Bab el-Nur.’

‘I haven’t been there yet. I came from Zarqa.’

Her eyes widened, managing to look both surprised and suspicious.

‘You’d best fetch your donkey or camel and come down. It will be dark soon.’

‘I don’t have a mount. I walked.’

Surprise turned to shock and then to outrage. He’d forgotten how expressive her face was.

‘You walked from Zarqa. On foot. On your own.’

‘Yes, on all counts. Is that an offence?’

‘Only against good sense! And what on earth were you doing up here? The desert path leads directly through the valley to the Nile, not to the Howling Cliffs. Were you lost?’

‘I wanted to see the view first.’

Her lips closed firmly on whatever was straining to be said. Then she gave her skirts a slight shake, as if dislodging something distasteful.

‘Well, it’s your hide if you wish to risk it. But I suggest you abandon this romantic conceit and make your way down before dark or you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the cliff more rapidly and painfully than you would like.’

She set off down the path and he followed. The reversal of scolding roles was as peculiar as everything else about his return to Egypt. She was right, though. He’d been tempting the fates walking from Zarqa in the first place and going along the cliff path in his present state was...

Romantic conceit. No one had ever accused him of being romantic. Conceited, yes. Romantic—he’d only been romantic once in his life and that had cost him dearly. He sighed. The path which he’d climbed and descended hundreds of times in his youth felt endless and his legs were a mixture of wool and fire when they finally reached the gate in the high whitewashed walls.

‘It has changed a little since you were here last,’ Sam said as she secured the gate behind them and he forced himself to look up.

She was right. Bab el-Nur used to be a sprawling but modest whitewashed structure surrounded by neat gardens, but Poppy had constructed a second storey and the gardens were a lush jungle of trees and flowering bushes surrounded by high mudbrick walls.

‘Good God, he’s constructed a fortress!’ he exclaimed as the house came fully into view.

She laughed over her shoulder, her face transforming, and for the first time the cool woman from the cliff and the girl in his memory connected.

‘It is even more amazing inside and Janet has made a marvel out of the gardens. I have been sketching...’ She paused and shrugged and it was like watching a flower furl its leaves as night fell, a physical and spiritual diminishment.

They continued through the garden, scents and memories engulfing him. It was already dark and the palm trees were weaving above them in their evening dance. The packed earth of the path gave way to the stone floor of the veranda and suddenly there was a flurry of movement.

‘Good heavens, Sam, who is...?’

Edge looked up and his uncle’s question melted away.

‘Edge. Dear Lord. My boy!’

Poppy wasn’t quite as tall as he, but he was a burly man and his embrace was powerful, his arms catching Edge in a vice, his bushy grey hair surprisingly soft against his cheek. For a moment Edge just stood there in shock. It had been so long since he’d seen this man, though he’d been closer than a father to him. How had he allowed so much time to pass?

‘Edge...’ The one word was a cracked whimper, then he was suddenly thrust away, his shoulders grabbed in Poppy’s considerable paws. ‘What have you done to yourself, boy? You look disgraceful! And why did you not tell me you were in Egypt? Janet! Edge is here!’

The last words were a bellow worthy of a call to prayer from the minarets and their effect was immediate. A plump figure hurtled into the room followed by others and Edge found himself being handed around like a parcel, embraced, scolded, questioned. He tried to keep his feet steady as he greeted everyone, but the room was beginning to move around him and suddenly a pair of blue-grey eyes were in front of him and he felt his hands clasped in a cool, strong grip.

‘When did you last eat, Edge?’

Eat?

‘This morning.’