“My beloved, we must stop this. It’s becoming too dangerous.”

Meresankh bit her lip as she looked into the anxious eyes of her young lover, but she knew he was right. Since becoming the favourite of the pharaoh, all eyes were upon her. Her clothes were made from the finest linen, kohl adorned her eyes, and her lips and nails were dark with henna, but she longed for the days when she had been a lowly slave with barely a stitch of clothing and could slip out of the palace at night with ease, safe in the knowledge that no one paid any attention to her. Even these few precious stolen minutes in the middle of the banquet were precarious.

“One kiss, and you must go,” she agreed.

“One kiss.”

He took her in his arms, and she melted.