Seeing a Large Cat (45 page)
Read Seeing a Large Cat Online
Authors: Elizabeth Peters
Tags: #Suspense, #Mystery, #Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical, #Large Type Books, #Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, #Fiction - Mystery, #Women Sleuths, #Mystery & Detective - General, #Detective and mystery stories, #Women archaeologists, #Women detectives, #Egypt, #Peabody, #Amelia (Fictitious character), #Historical - General
"There is nothing wrong with a little sentiment," Emerson declared, squeezing my arm against his side. "I am one of the most fortunate of men, Peabody, and I am not ashamed to say so. I could wish no more for our children than that they find the same happiness I have found with you."
A shiver ran through me.
"Now what's the matter?" Emerson demanded. "Confound it, Peabody, I thought you would appreciate my graceful little compliment. If you are having premonitions or dire forebodings, keep the damned things to yourself, curse it!"
He was his old self again, his handsome blue eyes snapping with temper. I laughed and leaned on his arm, as he likes me to do, and his good humor was restored.
It would not require extraordinary foresight to realize that even bright, confident youth may suffer sorrow and grief; but it was not one of my famous premonitions that had caused that involuntary shudder. I had forgot the dream until Emerson spoke.
I had seen the three together just as they were now, walking in the sunlight with the blue sky arching above. Slowly and inexorably the heavens darkened from azure, to gray, to a deeper gray, until the entire sky was black with stormclouds. From the north and east came a rumbling of thunder, and a long spear of lightning split the boiling clouds. It wrapped round them like a rope of living light, binding them together