Heart of Light (8 page)

He had dark fingers, almost as golden as Emily's own and, like Emily's, slender and tapered. A single gold signet ring with a massive black stone at the top ornamented the ring finger of his right hand.

A wealthy family, Emily thought. A well-born man. And Nigel's friend.

“Indeed,” Farewell said as the devilish smile split his features and made him look irresistibly handsome again. “I can't imagine anything more interesting or more unlikely than meeting Nigel's beautiful wife, by happenstance, in Cairo.” He bowed slightly to her. “I am delighted.” His gaze ran over her features and paused, as though to take in her dark blue eyes, her pouting lips.

She blushed and looked away, but he didn't seem embarrassed.

“I must say that Nigel is very fortunate indeed.”

Embarrassment and heat rose in twin waves through Emily. “Sir—” she started.

The man cleared his throat and seemed for a moment at a loss. “Er,” he said, “you are Nigel's wife, not his widow, I trust?”

“Oh, no,” Emily said, looking up. “Not his widow. His wife, this last week. We were married just last week, at Oldhall.”

“You'll pardon me,” Peter Farewell said. “But since you were alone—” He stopped and frowned, his dark, well-delineated eyebrows gathering over his dark eyes. “This week? And Nigel has left you alone on your honeymoon? How? Why? Is there something wrong?”

Emily felt the color flee her cheeks. How dared this stranger echo the questions in Emily's own heart? “Oh, no. Nothing wrong. It's just that he . . . He had some business to attend to in Cairo. He'll be back presently.”

“Is that so? Then if you'd allow me to sit with you, perhaps we can talk for a while. I know it's not altogether proper, but . . .”

Emily was thinking that even a stranger would be a protection against the looks of other strangers amazed at her being alone, a young woman with no chaperone in this busy restaurant in this strange land. And besides, Mr. Farewell was obviously not a stranger. Or not totally. He knew the family. And he came from a wealthy background. She waved him toward the chair, and he sat down.

The server showed up then and regarded the situation with raised eyebrows. “I realized the lady is an old family friend,” Peter Farewell said. “If you'd bring my food here . . .”

“Certainly, sir,” the server said, and gestured wildly at what turned out to be a company of underlings, each carrying little portable, foldable tables and trays. Emily smelled the distinctive odor of curry, beloved to her from childhood and well known because among the staff her parents had brought to England was an Indian chef, an old servant—some said a relative—of her mother's.

A glimpse of the trays showed her lamb and rice, chicken dishes and stewed fruit. The server used a silver ladle to dispense a variety of dainties onto each of their plates, and filled their cups with wine. Then leaving the serving tables set up near them, the trays covered with great silver domes, he retreated into the shadows of the restaurant, doubtless to attend to other diners.

Peter unfolded his napkin upon his lap and plied his silverware with the easy, effortless grace of the ton. “So, tell me, how is Nigel faring? What holds his interest these days?” Peter said, his lips curving in an expansive, craggy smile.

“Ah . . . Nigel administers his father's lands,” Emily said, between bites of savory morsels. She avoided looking at Peter Farewell, and tried to hide from him how little she truly knew of Nigel's business, his daily occupations. Their courtship had consisted of him visiting her home, of his talking to her. Not about estates and children, money and real life, but about poems and stories, delicate constructions of words, the foreign languages he loved. And asking her about India. Asking her so much about India that presently Emily feared he loved her only because part of her came from India.

But she didn't want Peter Farewell to know any of this. He was a stranger and, at that, the most handsome stranger she'd ever met. Even if he had indeed been Nigel's friend in school, surely it would be improper for him to discern too much of his school fellow's marital felicity—or lack of it.

Her eyes averted, color burning in her cheeks, Emily spoke softly. “Or rather, he helps Lord Oldhall administer them. I imagine he's a great comfort to his father. And he performs those magic feats that are necessary—healing animal illnesses and looking after the magical needs of his servants and renters. He provides them with needed light and healing for their children, and such.” Indeed, she did no more than repeat what her father had told her when he had investigated Nigel's background before giving his consent to their marriage. It was all she truly knew of the man.

Farewell's eyebrows rose. For a moment he looked grave and somber, a man consumed with vast and weighty cares. “Yes,” he said, “I imagine he would be. Old Nigel was always very punctilious. The headmaster's pet and the example to us all.”

Was that bitterness in his voice? Before Emily could decide, Farewell smiled. “And he was a caring boy, even then. If I had sixpence for every lame dog, every wretched cat that Nigel adopted and nursed, in direct contravention of the school's policy . . . He just couldn't bear to see any living thing killed or in pain.” And here it appeared as though Farewell's gaze skittered sideways away from something. It wasn't a physical movement, but a reflection of some internal change, as though he flinched from a thought triggered by the words he'd pronounced.

He ate a mouthful of food, took his crystal goblet to his lips and frowned—not a true frown but a gathering of his dark eyebrows. Looking intently at Emily, he said, “There is only one thing I do not understand. Where did Carew go? Because he is the oldest son. Shouldn't he be—”

“Carew disappeared some years back,” Emily said.

“Disappeared?” Farewell raised his eyebrows. Voice and expression, together, mirrored shock.

Emily blushed. “As I said. He disappeared during an . . . exploration trip in Africa.”

“An exploration—?” Farewell's eyebrows rose even more, in shocked surprise. “Carew was exploring Africa? I always thought him a man of his comforts—a drawing room emperor, ready to lord it over everyone and everything, but not very adventurous.”

Emily had met one or two women, in the course of her engagement, who'd told her she was unfortunate in marrying the much less desirable of the two brothers, and how much better off she would have been with Carew. They spoke of Carew as a handsome man, virile and full of strength. Emily thought that Carew would have been exactly the sort of man who went to Africa on a voyage of exploration and somehow got lost in the fever-inducing swamps or fell victim to a foul attack by ambushing natives.

“I didn't know him. I didn't know Carew. I've known Mr. Nigel Oldhall for one year only, the space of his courting me.”

“I beg your pardon,” Farewell said. He looked away from her. His lips, which were broad and sensuous-looking in a way not often found in an Englishman, formed words that he never actually pronounced. “I beg your pardon,” he repeated at last. “It is not in my scope, nor within my rights, to question your family or your associations with them. It is just that we knew Carew too well, Nigel and I. He was the kind of man that takes delight in . . . matches where he knows he'll win. A man who wouldn't risk his own precious skin, his own precious comfort on anything short of a done deal.” He looked at her, and for a moment his dark green eyes were unguarded and it seemed to Emily that she was glimpsing a time when both he and Nigel had been wide-eyed, trusting children, afraid of an older brother.

Had Carew been a bully, then? Or had Nigel and Peter, in the way of younger children everywhere, resented the older youth's ruling over them to such an extent as his age entitled him?

“Oh, it means nothing,” Peter Farewell said. “It is only, I suppose, that Nigel and I were five years younger and it was obvious that Carew was Lord Oldhall's favorite. Perhaps Nigel resented his brother and perhaps I, his best friend, simply caught this resentment.”

Peter gestured for his glass to be refilled, and Emily noticed a high webbing between his long, tapered fingers. It wasn't high enough to make his hands look deformed, but it was longer than that between the fingers of most people, and as such an eccentric characteristic. The first less-than-perfect detail she had noticed about him.

He drank, though his plate remained mostly full. He'd pushed the food around with his silver fork, drawing unknown patterns and shapes upon the glossy surface adorned with concentric golden rings.

“It's just that no one can imagine one of their older acquaintances becoming an intrepid explorer in Africa. Which organization did he favor? The National Geographic Society, perhaps? For you cannot tell me that he meant to work for one of the missionary associations.”

Emily drew breath to speak, but she could not. Because indeed she knew nothing about who had sponsored Carew, much less of Carew's religious opinions or interests.

“Emily,” a voice rang out, too loud, in the dining room. Several people looked over the partitions that separated their tables, to watch what promised to be rich melodrama. For there stood Nigel—pale, shocked, outraged and disheveled. Quite unlike his normal unruffled, mirror-smooth, polished self.

His suit was dusty, stained with dark greasy smears that might have been smoke or ash. His blond hair, too short and neatly cut to be in great disarray, still managed to look unbalanced, combed all up one side and down the other. And his face was pale, his gray-blue eyes surrounded by dark circles, his expression scared.

He stared with wide disbelief at the table, where his wife of less than a week had obviously been entertaining a gentleman friend.

SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOTTEN

Later on, Nigel would tell himself that he never suspected
Emily of being unfaithful. Not for a second—though his breath had caught in his throat and his heartbeat had seemed to skip like a startled wild thing. And yet he had to own he'd felt the sudden pain of betrayal and loss, and that suspicions ran riot through his mind, though never finding words to express themselves.

He'd thought that he'd failed Emily to such an extent that she'd already found a more virile replacement. He'd thought that Emily had always had another lover and that she'd only accepted his proposal so that he'd bring her to Cairo, where she could meet this other man. He'd thought half a dozen other improbable schemes, all of which would have meant that Emily had never loved him and that Nigel remained as he'd always thought of himself, unlovable and despised—the sickly younger son and brother whom no one could care for.

Then the man at the table turned his handsome, chiseled features toward Nigel, whose mouth dropped open in surprise, a sound of recognition and joy escaping through his lips.

It was a face Nigel could never forget. Peter Farewell—Nigel's best and often only friend. When school had ended, imagining for himself no more than a dull life of studying languages, Nigel had begged Peter to write to him. To write often. Nigel had thought that his only respite from boring solitude would be Peter's letters, which would echo of foreign lands and spicy, exotic women. But somehow, the letters had stopped after a few months.

Now the force of childhood friendship and idolatry-like admiration of Peter hit him like a physical blow and relief swept over Nigel like a chill, cooling the sweat of fear upon his skin. He was not alone. He might have found the British Magical Secret Service house burned out, and every man he expected to call an ally dead. But Peter was here. Nigel would not be braving danger on his own.

The relief of the thought was such that Nigel's legs went suddenly weak, as if only fear and desperation had been steadying him.

Peter stood up and smiled at Nigel. “Hello, old man.”

He gestured eloquently to the black-suited servants who hurried up to the table, carrying an extra chair. While Nigel sat, they arranged a place setting in front of him and dispensed food and drink noiselessly.

As Nigel unfolded his napkin upon his dark pants, Peter said, “You'll forgive my having introduced myself to your wife, Nigel. I heard her name, and I couldn't help seeing if by any chance she knew you.”