Bella and the Beast (37 page)

Bella blinked and the snippet of memory vanished. She was standing in the study, staring down at the folded missive, sealed with a circle of red wax.
Ramsgate.
No wonder the name had sounded so familiar to her. It wasn't just that she'd heard Miles called by the title in Egypt. She had also seen it inscribed on this very letter.

Why had her father never sent it? And when had he written it? Had it had been right after the fourth duke's death? That would make sense, for Papa had automatically used the name by which he was accustomed to addressing Miles. Only then had he realized his mistake, crossed it out, and penned Miles's new title.

Bella sat down and opened the journal from which the letter had fallen. She scanned the cramped, scribbled writing and in a rush of excitement, realized that it was the missing notebook that detailed her father's sojourn in Egypt. There was no time now to read all the daily notes from the excavation site.

Instead, she quickly turned the pages, looking for the fragment of papyrus that would match the one belonging to Miles. But it wasn't there. Frustration nipped at her. Surely this notebook would be the one place where her father would have put his half of the treasure map.

Was it perhaps tucked inside the letter to Miles?

Bella held the folded paper up to the candlelight, but couldn't see through it. Should she awaken Miles? Or just put it away until morning?

It was then that she noticed something odd about the notebook in her lap. The stitching of the leather binding was irregular and loose at the top corner. She worked at it with her fingers, pulling the thread until she could look inside. With a gasp, she spied a piece of papyrus.

Working feverishly, she separated the rest of the stitching, taking care not to damage the ancient paper. She slid it out, and much to her jubilation, it appeared to be a perfect match for the other piece.

Just to be certain, Bella hopped up and ran to the desk. With trembling fingers, she fitted the two pieces together and gazed down at the time-faded ink of the hieroglyphs. There were pictographs, with people and animals, even a tiny eye at the top like the one on the back of Hasani's neck.

An exultant smile lifted her spirits. She had found the map at last! Miles would be thrilled, for now he could decipher the entire message. Soon they would know if the directions led to the secret burial site of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen and the fabled treasure trove.

She couldn't wait until morning. Miles needed to know at once. He deserved to share in her elation that the mystery had been solved.

But even as she started to turn, a flicker of movement from behind startled her. A sharp pain exploded at the back of her head.

The world went black.

*   *   *

Miles awakened to find himself alone in the large bed. He pushed up on one elbow to scan the dim-lit chamber with its dark lumps of furniture and the glowing embers on the hearth. In his dream, he had heard a distant pounding—but it must have been the thud of his own heartbeat. Bella was gone, as were her clothes from the floor. She must have decided to return to her own chamber.

He lay back down, folded his arms behind his head, and stared up at the shadowed canopy. It was irrational to feel uneasy. Bella had been prudent to avoid being found in his bed. Nevertheless, he didn't like letting her out of his sight.

Not until the mystery was solved.

She thought herself a strong, capable woman. But she had not seen the body of his father with his throat slit. After killing him at the excavation site, the gang of robed bandits had ridden through the encampment, creating havoc and setting some of the tents on fire. Miles himself had pulled six-year-old Bella out of her parents' burning tent.

He'd long wondered if someone had paid those renegade tribesmen to kill his father. Though Miles had never been able to prove it, his chief suspect had been Sir Seymour Jones, who had taken his family and vanished. It had been the act of a guilty man.

But now Miles finally understood what had happened. Fearing for his life, Sir Seymour had escaped with his half of the treasure map.

That meant the culprit had to have been someone else. Someone who'd wanted that map. The question was, who? He could think of only two possible suspects, two men who had been in Egypt at the time: William Banbury-Davis and Hasani.

Banbury-Davis, he could understand, for the man had been resentful of not being included in the expedition. He would have been eager to seize the fame of discovering a fabled tomb. But Hasani? The Egyptian had been a faithful servant to Miles for many years, and before that, had served Miles's father. Miles had never had reason to question the man's loyalty.

Yet he had a tense knot in his gut. There was no danger to Bella, he assured himself. She was safe in her bedchamber.

Although someone had broken into her cottage looking for the map, the intruder couldn't know that Bella was even aware of the map's existence. She had told no one but Miles himself of her quest.

He was just being overly cautious, wanting her here in his arms. He wouldn't be content until she wore his ring upon her finger, until they had spoken their vows and recorded their names in the church register. For too long he had locked himself in a regimented life out of duty to his father. Bella had helped him realize how wrong he'd been, though it had been a shock to fall so deeply in love with her. But his decision to wed her felt right, good. Perfect, in fact.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, to no avail. Thoughts of that damned map kept intruding on his mind. He wished Bella had told him of it sooner. Yet he could understand why she had not. Until tonight, he had given her no reason to trust him.

Throwing back the covers, Miles rolled out of bed and reached for his trousers from the floor. He had not locked the study. He couldn't risk the chance of the map being stolen.

And his mind kept returning to Hasani. There was something about the man that continued to bedevil Miles. Hasani had been ill the previous day. He had not been present on the morning that they had traveled to Oxford to learn that an intruder had broken into the cottage overnight and had rifled through Sir Seymour's papers.

Could that burglar have been Hasani? Had his illness been a ploy to explain his absence?

Earlier this evening, the valet had used oddly jerky movements to brush Miles's coat. Miles had been too intent on composing his apology to Bella at the time to determine why. But now the answer hit him.

Hasani was right-handed. Yet he'd been wielding the brush with his left hand, which accounted for his awkward strokes.

The sense of unease deepened in Miles. Lila had slashed her knife at the intruder. There had been blood on the blade afterward, she'd said. Had Hasani's right arm been wounded by her?

There was only one way to find out.

Miles yanked on his shirt and stalked out of the bedchamber. The moment he stepped into the corridor, he heard a sound that alarmed him. The distant shatter of glass.

*   *   *

Bella came to with an awareness of total darkness. At first she could not fathom why she lay sprawled out on the hard floor, a dull throbbing pain at the back of her head. Then she remembered being in the study, seeing a flash of movement behind her. After that … nothing.

She sat up slowly, struggling to get her bearings. Gingerly, she felt a lump at the back of her skull. Where was she?

Something poked into her spine. Reaching into the gloom, she felt a round knob. As she moved her hands up, she found several more, and her fingertips traced the outline of drawers.

She was in the storeroom adjacent to Miles's study. But where was the door?

The blackness of the windowless room blinded her. If only she could see something. She crawled forward, following the guide of the cabinetry. Then, as she rounded a corner, she spied a faint rectangle of light.

The door.

Bella rose slowly to her feet, her head spinning. She made her way forward and felt for the door handle. When she tried to turn it, however, it refused to budge. Locked!

Clenching her fist, she hammered on the panel, the sound reverberating in her skull. “Miles!”

He had to wake up and free her. But she had shut the bedchamber door upon leaving, and a long stretch of corridor separated the ducal suite from the study. The chances of him hearing her were minimal. Yet what else could she do?

She battered the door again, harder this time, screaming his name.

No sound came from the study. She might have been the only person awake in the house.

Bella rested her forehead against the wood panel. Who had struck her? She had been dragged into this small room and the door locked. Had William Banbury-Davis come back to the house under cover of darkness? Had he already stolen the treasure map?

All of a sudden, she heard footsteps and then a key rattled in the lock. The door swung open and she blinked against the brightness of light. But her rescuer wasn't Miles.

Hasani stood there in his white robes, holding up an oil lamp with a flame inside a glass chimney. “Miss Jones!” he said, a look of concern on his dusky features. “I heard you pounding. Are you all right?”

“Someone hit me over the head and then locked me in here.” Bella brushed past him and hastened to the desk, but the two pieces of papyrus had vanished. “Oh, no! Have you seen Mr. Banbury-Davis? I must waken Miles at once.”

“There is no need,” Hasani said reassuringly. “His Grace has the situation well in hand.”

“In hand?”

“Yes, you see a short while ago, the duke discovered Mr. Banbury-Davis prowling here in the study and chased him down to the wine cellar. His Grace dispatched me to fetch the map. That's when I heard you pounding on the door.”

“Oh.
You
have the two pieces of papyrus?”

Hasani patted his robes at his side. “The map is right here in my pocket. Come, I'll escort you to His Grace and we'll give it to him.”

Carrying the oil lamp, the Egyptian led the way out of the study and down the corridor to the main part of the house. Bella had to proceed slowly, for her head still ached and she felt woozy.

Hasani seemed impatient, walking with energetic steps a little ahead of her, turning back now and then to urge her to hurry. She glimpsed the tattooed eye at the back of his neck, and suddenly recalled seeing one just like it on her portion of the map. What did it mean?

As they turned a corner and went down another long corridor, she asked, “What did His Grace tell you about the map?”

Hasani glanced back at her, the lamp throwing harsh shadows over his face. “Only that the ancient hieroglyphs give directions to the lost tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The burial site has been covered by desert sands for many thousands of years.”

Bella found that peculiar. Miles had told her he couldn't be certain of the map's meaning until he'd had time to study the symbols. “You mentioned once that His Grace's father had been looking for the tomb. But … how did Mr. Banbury-Davis find out about the map?”

Hasani's face darkened. “That one is driven by greed, always poking and prying, never showing respect to the dead. He wishes to break into the tomb and disturb the pharaoh's rest, to steal the items the boy-king needs for the afterlife. Tutankhamen's tomb must never be looted by English swine.”

The depth of loathing in his voice sent a shiver over her skin. She had witnessed the animosity between the two men once before, when Banbury-Davis had been working on one of the mummies. Hasani had insisted upon uttering a ritual prayer over the withered body. He had reminded her of an ancient Egyptian priest …

Hasani stopped at a door in the wall. He gave Bella a veiled stare. “I daresay it would have been best if you had not brought the other half of the papyrus back to England. Tutankhamen's resting place must be left undisturbed.”

How had Hasani known that her father had taken half of the map? Had Miles told him?

Even as she puzzled over that, the Egyptian reached out to open the door. His loose sleeve fell back and she caught sight of a linen strip that bound his right forearm.

He motioned to her to precede him down a narrow flight of wooden stairs and into the cellars. “Go ahead, Miss Jones,” he said. “His Grace is holding Banbury-Davis captive and we mustn't keep him waiting.”

A chill froze Bella in place. That wrapping. Was it a bandage?

Lila had stabbed the intruder. And Bella suddenly knew with sickening certainty she had been wrong to think the culprit had been Banbury-Davis.

It was Hasani.

Miles wasn't in the wine cellar. This was merely a ploy. But two could play that game.

Putting her hand to her brow, she leaned against the wall. “I'm afraid I can't manage the stairs. That knock on my head has made me quite dizzy. You go on down without me.”

Surreptitiously, she groped the side of her skirts with her other hand for her dagger. But the pocket was empty. He must have taken the weapon while she was unconscious.

“Come,” he asserted forcefully. “I will assist you down the steps.”

As he made a move toward her, Bella lashed out with her fist. She struck him hard on his injured right forearm.

Hasani howled with pain. The oil lamp in his other hand went flying. The glass chimney shattered, spilling a stream of oil that caught fire like a flaming tail across the marble floor.

Bella turned to run, but Hasani seized hold of her with his good arm and wrestled her toward the open doorway. He was surprisingly strong and muscular. In horror, she knew he meant to kill her. To thrust her down the steep stairs.

Miles would think it an accident. He would believe that she had tripped while going back to her bedchamber and had tumbled down into the cellar.

She screamed, her voice echoing in the corridor. Fighting and wriggling, she kicked at Hasani, her movements hampered by her skirts. By brute force, he inched her closer and closer to the doorway. His face was cold and twisted with effort.