The Lord’s Inconvenient Vow

‘You were always more honest than was comfortable, Sam.’

‘In other words I always spoke before I thought. Madcap Sam.’

‘Don’t make it into an insult. Your honesty was never cruel or cavalier. Sometimes you put too much thought into it, in fact. What will you do when you return to England?’

Sam wanted to stay on the topic of her honesty. Or rather on his strangely complimentary interpretation of her. But she accepted his change of subject.

‘I do not know. Now my brothers are married I shall have to find a solution.’

‘They don’t want you living with them?’

‘It is not that. They do, but soon they shall have children and—’ She broke off, realisation hitting her, her hand closing over his. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Edge.’

He placed his free hand over hers, hard.

‘Don’t tiptoe around me, Sam. I can’t abide it. Especially not from you. The worst is no one will talk about Jacob or they do what you just did—apologise and run away. Jacob was the best thing that happened in my life. I would not have traded a moment of my time with him for anything else.’

Her hand was buzzing under his and it was a struggle to stay still.

‘I’m glad you had him.’

The image of Maria flashed in her mind, starker than usual in the darkness. The three-year-old’s dark curls woven into the sky, her smile shimmering with stars. She’d had only a year with Ricki’s natural daughter, but she’d loved her and when she’d drowned it had cracked Sam’s heart all over again. It could not compare to Edge’s loss, but she understood what he meant. She wanted so much to share the story with Edge, but guilt held her silent. Ricki bore the brunt of responsibility for Maria’s death, but none of it would have happened if Sam hadn’t been fool enough to think she could escape her pain and loneliness by marrying the charming and gregarious Lord Carruthers.

The silence stretched until he spoke again.

‘I heard Janet telling Poppy she plans to introduce you to some of the younger antiquarians when they reach London.’

‘It is rude to eavesdrop.’

He tossed the stone he held and picked up another.

‘They thought I was asleep.’

‘Still rude.’ She could feel him watching her, her whole left side felt branded and fuzzy. ‘Janet is probably right and it would be best. I am tired of not having a corner of my own.’

It sounded so weak, so utterly out of proportion with her fears and half-formed hopes. Watching her brothers find such contentment had brought back this thirst inside her—to create a home of her own. A family. But after the mistakes she had made with Ricki she was too afraid to trust her judgement about men. The thought of finding herself in that hell...again. By choice...again. She didn’t think she could do that.

‘You miss your husband.’ Edge’s words cut through her fog and they were so far from the truth her throat closed with shame and guilt. A memory returned, vivid and bitter—Ricki rising from the last time he shared her bed, his body slick with sweat as he loomed over her, flinging insults and threats, but all she could hear was the scream inside her head and the prayer that he would hold true to his threat never to touch her again until she begged him to. A shiver of remembered disgust at both of them rippled through her and Edge stood abruptly.

‘It is late. We should return.’

She rose as well, feeling utterly defeated and not even sure why.

‘You have changed,’ he said after walking a while. ‘In the past you never would have agreed to return without at least a token argument. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, Sam.’

‘Make up your mind, Edge. You spent years lecturing me for being wild and now you’re bemoaning how tame I’ve become. Be damned to you,’ she snarled and marched off.

‘Sam...’ He caught up with her, but she walked faster.

‘I don’t want more of your twisted brand of wisdom, Edge. Go away.’

‘You’re heading the wrong way.’

She stopped. Her jaw ached with a kind of fury she could not remember ever feeling, not even at Ricki. It felt like it might raise the whole of the desert around her into biblical eruption. Maybe this was what desert sandstorms were—somewhere a woman unleashed them when the ferocity she held inside could be contained no longer. Sandstorms, volcanos, typhoons... She felt she could unleash them all right now.

I am Sam. I am Sam. I am...

‘No one will hear you if you want to howl at the world again.’

‘Don’t be nice to me, Edge,’ she snapped.

‘I’m merely stating a fact.’

‘You will hear me and probably say something obnoxious. Again.’

‘Here. If I say anything, you have my permission to throw this at me.’

He held out a fist-sized stone. Without thinking she took it and threw it. Hard. It hit a boulder with a sharp clack and a small burst of dust visible even in the darkness.

‘You’ve a good arm,’ he observed without heat. ‘Were you aiming for that, or was it mere chance?’

‘You are lucky you waited to speak until after I threw it. Don’t you ever lose your temper?’

‘Not often. Not for a while at least.’

‘When was the last time?’

‘When?’ He looked up at the sky, frowning. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘You used to lose it often enough at me.’

He smiled, still at the stars.

‘That was different. I was different back then.’

‘Why don’t you take a dose of your own medicine and howl at the sky? It might do you more good than me.’

He let out a long breath and began walking again.

‘I used to. That was one benefit of living on a lonely stretch of shore with only fishermen around me. Whenever there was a storm that is precisely what I did the first year I was there. Then I didn’t feel like it any more.’

‘Do you feel like anything any more?’ She retorted, still angry and determined not to let the image of Edge raging at the storm soften her. She wanted to be angry at him. But he just shrugged again, as if shaking her off.

‘No, not really. It is quite pleasant this way. It suits me. But it doesn’t suit you.’

‘Go fall down a well, Edge.’

‘I dare say I will if I spend enough time with you. Or into the Nile like the time you took the felucca without Daoud’s permission.’

‘I would have been fine if you hadn’t insisted on coming aboard when I was pulling away from the jetty.’

‘Probably. I always did make bad worse, didn’t I? I deserved every one of your nicknames. It would have been far better if I’d listened to you instead of you to me. Then I might have...’

She heard the clean note of pain at the memory of his son and she took his hand again without thinking. It was warmer than hers and a little rough, his callouses rubbing against her palm as his hand wrapped around hers in turn. The sky felt like it was pulsing above them, a deep, steady throb. She watched the outline of his chest as he breathed, a slow rise and fall like the thick rolling waves of the Mediterranean. With strange panic she felt her own breathing fall into the rhythm, like a musician entering the orchestra late. Her heartbeat was completely on its own, though—hard and slapping at her insides as if trying to wake her from sinking into a dangerous sleep.

Into a dangerous dream.

She’d fallen into it once, but she wouldn’t again. It was the result of being back in Egypt with memories of everything that had happened... Edge standing below the ram’s statue, looking exasperated, but with that glimmer of rueful amusement she’d often missed or misunderstood. She’d seen only what he chose to show the world and not the conflicting currents that clashed beneath his wary surface.

Again she thought of al-Walid’s story.

‘I keep thinking of what they saw,’ she said and he turned to her.

‘Who?’

‘Those men who saw you on the temple with the sandstorm rising behind you. It must have been terrifying.’

‘I was certainly terrified. We thought that might be our final misdemeanour.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it. They must have thought you conjured the storm yourself.’

‘Which makes as much sense as believing you conjured the stars in the sky behind you... On second thoughts, I could well believe that right now, Najimat al-Layl. In fact, I’m surprised the wind has fallen. Shu is failing in his role.’

Edge truly had the most amazing voice, Sam thought as her heartbeat whipped up again, her mind groping to remember what al-Walid had said about Shu and Geb and Nuut.

And intercourse.

The desert turned cold at night, but Sam didn’t feel it in the least.

‘Come, we should return.’ He reached out his hand.

‘I’m not ready.’

‘Don’t be foolish, Sam. It is late. Come.’

‘But I want to do something foolish. It has been far too long.’

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