Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) Page 12

  She wiped her grimy glove against her hip and shook the man’s hand in a half-hearted attempt at civility. To his credit, he almost managed to hide his distaste at the grease she transferred to his palm. She knew this man’s type well, and she probably should have been more welcoming to him, considering he was just the sort of client she needed at the moment: a “scholar” with more funding than sense, who needed transport to all of the usual tourist sites.

  “What can I do for you, Professor Hendrix?” she asked.

  He looked pleased at her attempt at manners. “I am here on behalf of my colleague, Professor Charles Netherfield, the eminent Egyptologist. Perhaps you have heard of him?”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. She had a passing knowledge of the general pecking order in the archaeological community, considering her clientele, and she had doubtless come across his name before. Though calling the man “eminent” seemed to be painting it a bit brown.

  “Maybe,” she said with a shrug.

  “He is engaged in a project which requires the use of your services. We have been informed that your ship is the best around,” Hendrix continued.

  “You have been informed correctly,” she said, even more suspicious of him now. She had ceased trusting men who flattered her years ago, but it was hard to call him out on it. The Amun Ra was indeed the best, and she’d defy anyone to prove differently. “What sort of project?” she asked.

  “It is an archaeological project,” Hendrix answered, and Hex couldn’t tell if he were being purposefully vague, or if he didn’t think she had the intellectual capacity to understand the details. She suspected the latter. The patronizing bastard.

  Modern man indeed.

  “What sort of archaeological project,” she asked calmly enough, though inwardly she was gritting her teeth.

  He looked surprised at her persistence. “Ah. I am, unfortunately, just the messenger,” he said apologetically. “I’m playing errand boy, merely, for the professor’s pet project. I am not privy to the specific details, as he is keeping his research close to the cuff. You know how us bone hunters are,” he said playfully.

  Oh, did she ever. She’d yet to come across an archaeologist who didn’t believe he was about to make a discovery on the scale of a Troy or Atlantis. They were irritatingly close-lipped, and when their digs didn’t pan out—usually a mere few weeks in, since very few of them were able to endure the desert for any longer than that—they pouted like four year olds. But they usually paid well.

  “Perhaps you would be willing to accompany us to meet with the professor?” Hendrix suggested. “He expressed his desire to have an audience with you as soon as possible.”

  “Today?” she asked, once again glancing down at her soiled clothes.

  Hendrix gave her an encouraging smile. “The professor does not stand on ceremony, I assure you.” Meaning Hendrix thought she looked like a street urchin but was graciously prepared to tolerate it. “It would take but a few moments of your time. We can have you back here before sundown.”

  She hesitated, something she wouldn’t have done a month ago. She’d had many similar solicitations in the past, all of which had led to money in her pocket. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d visited the Egyptian Museum for work consultations. Ever since the Western Sahara cock-up, however, she’d become a bit more cautious.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Come now, Miss Bartholomew, no time like the present,” Hendrix cajoled cheerily. “I’ll tell you right now, Netherfield is in rather a rush on this one, so if you don’t jump on the offer now, I doubt you’ll get another chance. The professor can be…impatient.”

  She arched her brow, not at all intimidated by the implied threat. She had half a mind to tell Hendrix to piss off and find some other pilot—who wouldn’t have a ship half as gorgeous as the Amun Ra, by the by. But she didn’t have the luxury of not considering Hendrix’s offer, no matter how tedious she found the whole thing. Not when she needed the money so urgently.

  Besides, between an old man and the hothouse flower that was Theodora, she didn’t think she had much to worry about.

  She sighed and followed Hendrix to the hack.

  A FEW BLOCKS into their journey, Theodora abruptly turned the hack east toward the inner city, in the exact opposite direction of the museum. Hex could only sigh in frustration at her own impulsiveness. This time, at least, she probably should have heeded her paranoia.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

  Professor Hendrix, sitting next to her, smiled with false cheer. “Oh, did I not say? Professor Netherfield is staying at the palace, my dear girl. Quite the treat!”

  Hex cursed inwardly and stared out at the passing streets, her mind racing alongside her steadily mounting anxiety. Abdeen Palace was at the political heart of the city, where the Khedivate, the British Protectorate, and the Souk maintained their delicate balance of power—and hoarded the city’s wealth. The only positive thing about her predicament was that the temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees the moment they entered the inner city, as if the rich had hoarded the temperate weather alongside their money.

  But she’d take the oppressive heat and self-serving rabble of the docks any day over the pristine environs surrounding the palace. It was the last place she’d voluntarily visit, considering all of the trouble she could find there.

  While she’d suspected Professor Hendrix was up to no good—no one was ever actually that friendly without an ulterior motive—she would have never guessed he would take her anywhere near the palace. She’d not thought any bone hunter to be that connected.

  She prayed this was all just some misunderstanding on her part and that Hendrix was just as he had presented himself. There was still a chance she was merely jumping at shadows.

  Nevertheless, she angled her body away from Hendrix and discreetly tapped out a message to Simon on the special wristwatch he’d given to her, just in case her instincts were right and she’d once more found herself in over her head.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Bartholomew?” Hendrix asked her, trying to peer over her shoulder.

  She straightened in her seat and gave him a brash smile, pushing her sleeve back down over the watch. “No problem at all.”

  He looked unconvinced but finally turned his attention elsewhere and began chattering about the weather.

  Hendrix was indeed speaking the truth, however, when he’d claimed Netherfield was staying at the palace. In fact, Theodora drove right up to the front entrance unimpeded, which didn’t bode well at all. Uniformed palace guards, all of them seeming to defer to the Hendrixes, immediately surrounded the hack, and she cursed under her breath. She’d planned to make a run for it once the hack had stopped, but she wouldn’t make it very far now.

  This was even worse than she’d imagined. She’d captured the attention of someone holding the leash of the khedive’s army, and that couldn’t lead to anything good.

  Why did these things keep happening to her? Why the hell had she gotten into the hack at all when she’d known something was off?

  “I’ve never met an archaeologist with such grand connections,” she murmured to Hendrix as she alighted from the hack, ignoring his offered hand. Theodora hovered behind her, so close she could feel the woman breathing down her neck. It was…disconcerting.

  “You’ve never met Professor Netherfield, then,” Hendrix responded with another one of his false smiles.

  He offered his arm to escort her, as if she were some sort of grand lady, and again she ignored it and strode ahead of him with a roll of her eyes. She might have been an avaricious fool for getting into that hack, but she was damn well going to face down trouble on her own terms. That certainly did not mean playing nice with Hendrix for a moment longer.

  The inside of the palace rivaled any of the lavish aristocratic houses she’d burgled as a child, but she refused to be impressed by all the gilt. Instead, she kept her attention focused on finding an escape route.
But her escort was well trained and kept her marching through the labyrinthine palace at a pace that soon had her panting. She didn’t want to find out what would have happened to her if she tried to step out of line. The soldiers were well armed, after all.

  Finally, her escort stopped in front of a large set of double doors, and Hendrix, who had also found the forced march a bit onerous, came to a stop beside her, panting heavily. He wiped at his sweaty forehead and wheezed through his Iron Necklace.

  “Here we are, my dear Miss Bartholomew,” he managed to get out between breaths. “I will leave you to it. I do hope you will consider the professor’s offer.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Hendrix’s smile hardened. “I would advise against it, Miss Bartholomew.” He waved at one of the guards, who threw open the double doors, revealing a vast room lined floor to ceiling with books and glassed-in display cases.

  She stepped over the threshold alone, and the guard snapped the doors shut behind her so abruptly she jumped a little. Carefully recovering her composure, she glanced around the room, curious despite herself.

  Other than the books and the antiquities on display, however, the room was empty save for a man sitting behind a large teakwood desk set underneath a window.

  “Ah, Miss Bartholomew, so kind of you to accept my invitation,” the man said, rising to his feet and gliding in her direction. He extended his hand. “Professor Charles Netherfield.”

  She shook his hand warily, unwilling to rile him before she absolutely had to. Now that she had a good look at what she was dealing with, she doubted she could have escaped his “invitation” even if she had refused to accompany the Hendrixes today. He would have found some other less friendly method to get her here, for she knew Netherfield’s type all too well: moneyed, rotten to the core, and used to getting his way, especially in a lawless place like Cairo.

  He was innocuously handsome, tallish, with brown hair, brown eyes, a soft mouth, and olive skin burnished bronze by the Egyptian sun. Like Hendrix, he was dressed in the standard uniform of the colonial: jodhpurs, high boots, and pocketed canvas vest. He seemed bland, safe, and approachable, down to the elegant way he bowed over her hand, as if she were a lady at a ball, not an ex-thief divorcée in trousers. Just like Hendrix, everything about him was calculated to set her at ease…

  But she’d been reading people since she was in pinafores, and those brown eyes of his were too…shrewd. He raised her hackles even more than Theodora had with her inappropriate staring and disconcerting invasion of her personal space.

  This was no naïve scholar looking for a pyramid tour. This was something else entirely, and she was fairly certain she wasn’t going to like it.

  She jerked her hand away as quickly as she dared and glowered at his back as he strode to a well-stocked sideboard.

  “May I offer you a drink, Miss Bartholomew? Something a bit stronger than tea, perhaps? You look like you might appreciate a tipple.”

  She snorted. Brits and their tea. “Brilliant deduction,” she muttered.

  He held up a bottle of single malt and cocked a questioning eyebrow. She nodded tersely, and he poured out a couple of fingers into two tumblers. She took the offered drink but didn’t touch it. She wasn’t an idiot.

  He just grinned at her and sipped at his own drink insouciantly, as if he had read her mind. Perhaps he had. She wasn’t even bothering to hide her suspicions any more.

  “I was under the impression that I would be meeting you at the Egyptian Museum,” she said. “You know, where most legitimate scholars conduct their affairs.”

  His amusement deepened. “Oh, I assure you, I am quite ‘legitimate’, despite my rather lavish surroundings. I am conducting field research for London University. All on the up and up. But dusty old books and moldy artifact rooms are not exactly my preferred habitat. Why spend my days in such dreary surroundings when I have at my disposal much more amenable accommodations?”

  She was the one to quirk her eyebrow at that. The khedive’s palace was more than merely “amenable”.

  “Most ‘scholars’ don’t have the connections to secure private apartments at Abdeen Palace,” she returned.

  “My benefactor is a wealthy man and a personal friend of the khedive,” he continued silkily. “But I find it most intriguing that you are so concerned with my credentials, considering.”

  She grinned at him. She did so prefer a bit of plain-speaking. “A girl can’t be too careful in a business like mine,” she said. “I suspect I’ve already been a bit too careless today in accepting your associate’s invitation. So if you don’t mind getting to the point?”

  He looked as if she had impressed him…or amused him. Some unsettling combination of both, perhaps. But he certainly didn’t seem inclined to heed her words. He gestured for her to sit, ever the gentleman despite those cold eyes, but she declined. She suspected she might need to make a quick exit.

  He sat down behind his massive desk anyway, proving he wasn’t such a gentleman after all, and clasped his fingertips together contemplatively, as if pondering his next words…or dragging his feet on purpose just to irritate her. She would have wagered on the latter.

  “I have been informed that you’ve recently returned from the Western Sahara,” he said.

  Ah.

  Maybe she was an idiot after all.

  She set her untouched drink aside and contemplated leaving then and there. Or at least attempting to. She had a feeling she’d not make it past the threshold.

  “How did you hear about that?” she asked carefully. Her gut was beginning to positively churn with foreboding.

  He waved aside the question. “Mutual acquaintance. I am simply curious—professionally curious, you see—to know whether you found the Tomb of Apophis after all.”

  Oh, she’d found something, all right.

  “Never heard of it,” she said quite honestly. Netherfield had said the words as if they should mean something to her, but none of Janus’s moronic crew had ever given the site a proper name.

  Netherfield’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and his grip on his tumbler tautened. He didn’t believe her. Which just figured. The one time she was being completely honest—well, mostly honest—and it didn’t do her any good.

  “Look, professor,” she said impatiently. “The trip out west was not exactly my idea of a good time. My services were commandeered, if you get my meaning, and I barely managed to get my ship out of there in one piece. There was a tomb, I admit, but it wasn’t called the Tomb of Acropolis or whatever bollocks you’re on about,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And there wasn’t anything of value in it, far as I could tell. Grave robbers must’ve got to it ages ago.”

  Netherfield smiled at her, as if she’d amused him even more. He still didn’t believe her, even though she had still technically told him the truth. Technically. There hadn’t been anything in the tomb of value to her knowledge, unless one counted an amnesiac British god, which she did not. She was not going to even think about him and all of his…weirdness.

  Netherfield had to know more than he was disclosing about that ill-fated trip. But how could he know? Janus’s men were…well, she didn’t want to think about their fate right now, but they were likely nowhere near Cairo, if they were alive at all.

  That left Omar or Rowan, and though she’d seen her father out of the country herself and highly doubted he’d returned, she wouldn’t put it past him. Not after what he’d done to her. He’d sell her soul if the price was right.

  “Miss Bartholomew, normally I would take you at your word. You are a very gifted liar,” Netherfield said.

  She sighed and contemplated drinking her scotch after all. “Uh, thank you?” she said dubiously.

  “However,” he continued, “I have rather a lot invested in the Tomb of Apophis, and I assure you my information is accurate.”

  “Well I’m not taking you out there, if that’s what this is about,” she muttered.

  “Unlike your pre
vious…er, clients, my interest in the tomb is purely professional.”

  She highly doubted that. Nothing was ever “purely professional”, and anyone who claimed such a thing was a bigger liar than she was.

  “I’m sure it is, but that doesn’t change anything,” she said. “My ship took a beating out there. Even if I wanted to take you to that hellhole, which I don’t, I couldn’t at the moment.”

  He seemed undaunted. “Your ship can be fixed, and your compensation will be generous, of course.”

  “Still not doing it, and if that is all, I’d like to leave now.”

  “Please, Miss Bartholomew,” he said when he noticed her balking. “I urge you to reconsider lending your professional services to this endeavor.”

  He stood up, gesturing her across the vast room to the glassed display cases. The objects inside should have been in the museum, not this private collection, but she’d, alas, seen worse examples of colonial ransacking in her day.

  She sighed and let him escort her to the most prominently situated case. She wasn’t about to agree to anything, but it would be nice to have some answers, if nothing else.

  Answers to not only how the professor knew so much about her recent business, but also why in hell so many unscrupulous men were interested in a tomb out in the middle of nowhere in the first place.

  He turned a brass dial on the wall, and the gas sconce set above the glass case sprang to life, illuminating a collection of papyri. The sheaves were carefully rolled out on stands of clear glass, though they were brittle and foxed with age. Even with her limited knowledge, she knew they had to be thousands of years old, but they were some of the most vibrantly colored and meticulously preserved specimens she’d ever seen.

  She didn’t know much about ancient antiquities, considering how creepy she found the stuff, but she knew these had to be extremely valuable. Certainly irreplaceable. Once upon a time, she would have taken great pleasure in liberating them from their current owner. Hell, the itch was still there, if she were being completely honest with herself. The scrolls would have paid for Helen’s care for centuries.