The Other Guy's Bride (23 page)

They locked him in the stockade for four days. No other prisoners occupied the other cells that ran the length of the room. He was alone, and that was fine with him. He needed to think, and that was best done in a place where he wouldn’t see Ginesse Braxton—Ginesse, not Mildred—because she did things to his thought processes, such as dammed them up completely.

She acted and he reacted: viscerally, irrepressibly, and ruinously.

She fell in the water; he dove in after her. She laughed; he smiled. She mentioned the beauty of the sunset; he saw colors in it he hadn’t ever noticed. She peeked at him from under her gold-tipped lashes; he grew hard as Damascus steel. Pomfrey said something derogatory; he wanted to kill the sonofabitch with his bare hands.

Things like that.

He was not a reactive sort of man. His life had often depended on him taking measured, deliberate action after careful, rational consideration.

He should have known she couldn’t be who she said she was because if he wasn’t relying on objectivity to survive, he was relying on his attention to detail, the hunter’s eye for anything out of place or unexpected, and the details about “Mildred Whimpelhall” didn’t add up.

There’d been any number of clues: that hideous red hair dye for starters—Pomfrey would consider a woman who dyed her hair a floozy; her youth; the hundreds of ancient Egyptian facts and anecdotes she knew; her familiarity with how to mount a camel. Jesus. As Harry Braxton’s kid, she almost certainly knew Arabic. She’d probably spent her days as the Tuaregs’ captive giving them history lessons.

She’d appeared and laid to waste the foundations he’d survived on, and that unnerved him. She’d come into his life like a sandstorm, eroding his self-control, uncovering dreams he’d thought buried, and stripping away his indifference.

It was just as well they kept her away from him because he was hoping that if he sat here long enough, out of her proximity, he’d be able to regain some of his perspective and figure what the hell was going on. He stood up and stared out the barred window at the parade grounds where a platoon of men were going through an arms drill.

Across the grounds, he could see the married men’s barracks where the few women in the fort resided with their families. Some children played a game in the dust beneath the raised walkway. That’s where Ginesse would be quartered. He moved to the other side of the cell and dropped down to the floor, sitting with his back against the bars. He didn’t need to be watching for her. He needed to think. What did he know? Not assume,
know
.

He knew that she’d manipulated him, lied to him, and pretended to be someone she wasn’t. And apparently, she’d done so to chase after some pipe dream involving Zerzura, which any treasure hunter worth his salt would be able to tell you was nothing but a myth told by some Arab traders in the fifteenth century to keep the European adventurers busy in Libya and out of Egypt.

Then, halfway through their journey, she’d given herself to him with the sweetest abandon and afterward claimed she would rather deceive her supposed fiancée Pomfrey than lead the life he offered her. Which, if not the most honorable act, at least made a sort of practical sense
if
she’d been Mildred Whimpelhall. But she wasn’t Mildred Whimpelhall. She was Ginesse Braxton and as far as he knew not promised to anyone…

He stiffened. Maybe she was promised to someone else. He knew nothing about her. Maybe when she’d been rhapsodizing about Pomfrey she’d actually been describing another man, someone she knew. She was an impetuous, ardent woman. The circumstances had been extraordinary. In a moment of impulse—and God knew she was impulsive—she’d surrendered to a combination of unprecedented relief and undeniable physical attraction. But as soon as reality reinserted itself, she’d remembered that other man. It was the only thing that made sense—

Except…

Why hadn’t she told him then who she was? Why continue to pretend to be Mildred Whimpelhall, who would not give up a life of prestige and relative comfort because of a “lapse in judgment”?

He got up again, pacing the ten-foot length of the cell back and forth, thinking back to his interview with Pomfrey, before Ginesse arrived, when he still thought she was Mildred Whimpelhall.

How long had he involuntarily held Colonel Lord Pomfrey up as the bar against which he measured himself? What a fool he’d been, how naïve and credulous. During those few brief moments when Pomfrey thought his fiancée had been raped, his first thoughts had not been for her pain and terror, it had been on how her “shame” would reflect on him.

And Jim had been glad, savagely, unworthily exultant that Pomfrey had revealed himself to be so little, so self-absorbed. Because in those moments he’d realized that Pomfrey was no contender for Mil—Ginesse’s heart. She couldn’t love him. She might trade passion for privilege, but she would never wed so slight a man. He had absolute faith in that, faith in her. He only needed to wait for her to discover what Pomfrey was for herself.

But he had no capacity for patience or guile where she was concerned. He hadn’t been able to leave without provoking Pomfrey. Then she’d appeared, her hair flying about her face, a dress two sizes too large swirling about her feet. He could still see the look of shock on Pomfrey’s face, shock and relief and exultance because she wasn’t his fiancée.

And in the space of a few seconds everything had changed.

Once he’d been in a boxing match in some seedy town he’d forgotten the name of. His opponent was a big German with ham-like fists and a head like a cannonball. At the end of the fifth round, the German had decided the round bell didn’t mean anything and as Jim had turned to go to his corner, the bastard had sucker-punched him. Somehow Jim had remained upright though barely sentient, only dimly aware of the crowd shouting at him, dazed and disoriented.

He’d felt exactly the same way when he’d heard Pomfrey identify Ginesse Braxton. A dozen conflicting emotions vied for precedence: anger, relief, confusion, acrimony, elation. A hundred memories from the past three weeks flashed through his mind, each taking on new, but no clearer, meanings.

She’d lied to him, used him, made love to him, and then, when Pomfrey’s words had finally penetrated, when he’d once more offered her his name and his protection, she’d refused him. Again.

With a sudden growl, he grabbed hold of the cell bars and banged his forehead against the iron rods, willing himself to accept that there could very well be another man, some Oxford scholar or one of her father’s protégées. Or it could be simpler. She might want something more than he could offer—and how could he fault her for that? She might have seen him as a brief, intense infatuation but not a man with whom she could share her life. Not a man worth giving up the lifestyle, the community, the cachet of being a Braxton. And again, how could he fault her for that?

“Owens! Move back from the door,” a guard ordered him, as he entered the room.

Jim pushed himself back from the bars as the guard came forward and unlocked his cell. “Colonel said to let you out,” he said.

Jim raised his brows. He didn’t see Pomfrey as a compassionate commander, but then he couldn’t see a lot of things.

The guard smiled thinly. “Jurisdiction’s a bit dodgy. You’re lucky you’re not a soldier, Owens, or you’d be living in that cell for the rest of your life like as not.”

“Yup,” he answered. “Where’s my horse?”

“In the stables. The rest of your things are in the quarter-master’s office, but I wouldn’t count on seeing that pistol of yours until you leave.”

“Thanks.” He left the stockade and headed straight for the stables, where a wiry, red-haired man in a leather apron met him at the door.

“Nice bit of horseflesh,” the man said in a thick Scottish accent. “Poorly used though, sir. Poorly used.” He shook his head disapprovingly.

“How long before I can ride him out of here?”

The man blew out his cheeks in disgust. “Tomorrow at the earliest. Day after would be more to me likin’.”

A couple days. If he stayed out of her way, if he just kept his head low, stuck to the barracks…Who was he fooling? He couldn’t keep away from her unless they kept him in a cage.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Pomfrey had apologized to Ginesse Braxton. He’d lost his composure. His near giddy relief that the woman Owens had described—an intemperate, loquacious, and impulsive woman who’d been held captive for four days and
nights
by savages—was not Mildred had given way to giddy scorn. He felt he’d behaved badly, and he blamed the girl, again, not without cause. She was definitely at fault. But he was a gentleman and a gentleman’s code demanded he apologize.

Besides which she was the daughter of Harry Braxton, a man renowned for his protective instincts, hot temper, and far-ranging influence in Egypt. And apparently she also meant something to James Owens, a man with an even more dangerous reputation, if less well-known.

So he had asked her into his office and apologized. The bold creature had simply said, “Fine,” and then she asked him to send her with a full escort out forty miles into the desert so she could dig for a lost city.

Well, he had made it clear in no uncertain terms that he was not the sort of man to reward duplicity and deceit. Even if she had arrived with the proper letters of introduction and credentials he wouldn’t have granted her request. His men had far better and more important ways to occupy their time.

Nonetheless, he resolved never again to be involved in so distasteful a scene as the one that had played out in his office. He was so much better than that. And to prove it, he was dining with them both that very night.

Which is why he was standing in front of his dressing table mirror making sure his tie was knotted to perfection, not a strand of his gleaming pomaded hair was out of place, the ends of his moustache were trimmed within a degree of one another, and his nails were buffed to a high sheen. He would be a living example of gentlemanliness at its highest order. He had just made a last, small adjustment to the lay of his tie and allowed himself a small smile at his reflection when his batman knocked on the door.

“Come.”

A soldier popped his head around the door. “Sir, an Arab scout has just arrived with news that a caravan is approaching the fort and should be here within the hour.”

“A caravan? What sort of caravan?”

“Dunno, beggin’ your pardon, sir. The scout said it was belonging to an old English gent, some sort of archaeological bloke, but I couldn’t make out the name given by the Arab scout what come with the news. But I did make out that there were other English folk with ’im. Big caravan. Twenty-five men and as many camels.”

Pomfrey smoothed his hair back one last time. It wasn’t unheard of for expeditions to arrive at Fort Gordon, but it was an infrequent event and put undue stress on the garrison’s provisions. “Probably some old fool looking for…for Zerzura, whatever that is. We’ll doubtless be inundated with more of the idiots by the end of the year.”

Unhappily, he blew out his cheeks. “Tell Jones to have quarters prepared for them and to tell them I’ll meet with them come morning…” A thought occurred to him, a way to curtail the punishing ordeal of dinner without surrendering an iota of good manners. “Wait. Instead, tell Jones to show them to my dining room as soon as they’ve had a chance to clean up.”

“As you will, sir.”

Well satisfied, he flicked a piece of lint from his jacket sleeve and went to dine.

He arrived to find Ginesse Braxton and James Owens already seated, she at the far end of the table and Owens at the side. Owens was studying a glass of red wine as though it could tell him the answers to the universe, and Ginesse Braxton was similarly involved with the pattern on his personal china.

At least Miss Braxton had made an attempt to look presentable, Pomfrey thought and at once commended himself on his generosity of spirit. Sergeant Dodd’s wife, closest to Miss Braxton in form if not height, had given her several dresses. This one was a modest-fitting gown of apple green lawn with a high lace collar and cuffs. She’d gathered her nutmeg-colored hair into a tidy chignon, and though she was no beauty, she did have about her a sensualist’s allure, a certain haughtiness in the set of her brow, the fullness of her lips, and her large, exotically tilted eyes. Added to which was the remarkable color of her eyes. Garish, one was tempted to say.

“I am sorry to be delayed,” he said, taking his chair at the near end of the table. “I’ve just received word that we are to be joined shortly by more guests.”

“Really? Who are they?”

“I’m afraid I was unable to ascertain that. These Arab scouts we employ are categorically incapable of learning proper English, so we are forced to try and decipher their Pidgin English,” he said in an amused tone.

“Why don’t you learn Arabic?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“If you come into a country and employ its denizens, I would think the onus of communicating with them falls on you.”

“You would think wrong,” he said. “I believe I have a right to expect those in the army’s service to be able to adequately express themselves.”

“If the man you’d employed claimed that he knew ‘proper English,’ I would agree with you. But by your own words, you hired him knowing full well that he did not,” she persisted pleasantly. “Which leaves the burden of communication to you.”

Her expression grew pensive. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that he has made the same assumptions about why you do not learn Arabic that you have made about why he hasn’t learned better English. Only in his case he can tell himself that while he was able to learn
some
English, you have not the faculties to learn
any
Arabic, which makes him the more intelligent man.”

“No scout of mine would
dare
make such an assumption.”

At which point Owens, who until now had remained silent, burst into laughter.

Pomfrey’s mouth pleated with anger as he glared at Owens. But the tall, young American was concentrating on twirling the stem of the wineglass between his fingers, watching its rotation while smiling in open amusement.

“I could learn the blasted language if I wanted to,” Pomfrey said and at once regretted the statement because—

“Then why don’t you?”

—because of
that
. Her.
She
.

“I have more important things with which to occupy myself. Such as the running of this entire garrison.”

“That sounds like an excuse,” she said without rancor, and somehow that made it worse.

Who did she think she was to reprimand him? She hadn’t even had the decency to try to expiate her disgrace by marrying her seducer. “You, Miss Braxton, are in no position to—”

Owens caught his eye. “I wouldn’t,” he said in a voice so soft he might have imagined it, a voice so low that Miss Braxton, still regarding him expectantly, would not have heard.

No trace of his previous humor remained in Owens’s pale gray eyes. He looked like a great tawny predator, all alert watchfulness. He was a frightening man, Pomfrey conceded in the privacy of his own thoughts.

“Colonel?” Miss Braxton prompted. “I am in no position to what?”

Pomfrey flushed, pretending he hadn’t heard Owens, that his warning had not been necessary. And it hadn’t been; he was a gentleman.

He waited while the Arab attendant cleared away the soup bowls and brought in a second course of roast mutton before turning a haughty gaze on the girl. He had himself well in hand now.

“You are in no position to lecture those who have actively served their country for longer than you have been alive.”

He derived, he feared, unworthy satisfaction in watching her skin grow red with embarrassment. He glanced at Owens. Though the American had no cause to take umbrage, Owens might not see it the same way. He watched over the Braxton girl like some preternaturally vigilant warrior guard, which would have been touching if the girl showed one whit of regard for him. But she didn’t.

As far as Pomfrey could see, she wanted nothing more to do with him. Doubtless her initial experience with the carnal embrace had been disappointing and unpleasant. He had little sympathy for her. What had she expected, coupling like an animal out in the wilderness with a ruffian like Owens? Solicitude? Gentleness? Even the most treasured bride would be bound to find the initial introduction to her wifely duties disturbing, perhaps onerous. He could well imagine with Owens they had bordered on brutal. Perhaps that is why she had refused to marry him.

He couldn’t be rid of the pair soon enough for his liking. And while he was stuck with Ginesse Braxton for the near future, he could at least look forward to ridding himself of her watchdog.

“Owens,” he said, slicing off a piece of meat, “the stable master says your horse has made a remarkable recovery and is ready to ride again. When do you expect to be leaving?”

“I was hoping to leave tomorrow,” he said.

Miss Braxton, in the process of raising her water glass to her lips, checked. “So soon?” she whispered.

Owens turned to her at once, his gaze sharply compelling. “Is there any reason I should stay longer?”

With a peculiar show of defiance, she lifted her chin. “I can think of no reason if you can’t.”

“You have already dismissed the most persuasive reason.”

“I do not consider it a reason, but a nostrum.”

Dolefully, Pomfrey chewed his meat. Lord, but they were an exhausting pair. Just being in the room with them sapped his energy and soured his mood. They were both too elemental, too intense, their emotions too raw and their pride too great. It was like dining with feuding emissaries, neither of whose language you understood.

“Nostrum?” Owens pushed back his chair and slowly rose from his seat. His gaze locked with Ginesse Braxton’s. The water in the glass she held shivered. Pomfrey froze, his forkful of meat arrested halfway to his mouth, half expecting Owens to toss the chit over his shoulder and carry her off for a good drubbing.
Then
what was he supposed to do?

What Owens would have done or said next, Pomfrey would never know because at that moment, Lieutenant Jones arrived, shepherding in Fort Gordon’s newest visitors.

With a sigh of relief, Pomfrey looked around and then started in amazement. A nicely plumpish redheaded woman was being escorted in on the arm of a somewhat stout, elderly gentleman in a white linen suit. Trailing close behind came a second, slender, well-groomed young man, obviously a gentleman.

“Mildred!” Pomfrey breathed.

“Hilliard!” Miss Whimpelhall said, then, “I mean, Colonel Lord Pomfrey. How…how nice to see you again.”

“Miss Braxton!” said the young man, his rather somber young face breaking into a pleased smile.

“Ginny!” the old man piped in.

“Great-Grand!” Miss Braxton cried, shoving back her chair with so much force it nearly fell over, rushing to the old man’s side and flinging her arms around his neck.

“Jock,” whispered Jim Owens.

And the young man, who’d been fondly witnessing the happy reunion between the older gentleman and Miss Braxton, looked at Owens. His gaze slowly sharpened, and his expression went from polite interest to incredulity to astonishment and then, finally, undisguised pleasure.

“Good Lord. I came to Egypt to uncover the dead, and it looks like I have already had my first success,” he said wonderingly. “How are you, Your Grace?”