Chapter Eleven

Although Adam should have barricaded himself in the room he’d been allotted and awaited Lily’s return, he could not leave her in the hands of that scoundrel. He knew that by infiltrating Lord Ednam’s house, he jeopardized their goal. But if it kept her safe…

He didn’t trust Chatterley.

Entering the house was surprisingly easy considering that the hosts had hired temporary staff to serve the guests for the evening. Once Adam acquired the livery from a man fool enough to leave his post, no one had questioned his presence. In fact, when he’d adopted a meek persona, the staff had been too busy tending to the evening to recognize him for the physician he’d played mere days ago. In his previous life, he would have basked in the triumph of such an easy manipulation.

The ruse extended to the hosts. Men with money lining their pockets thought themselves above the common man. The moment a man donned livery, he rendered himself unremarkable. Stamped as property, and given as little notice except to find offense. Adam could have served Lord Ednam, but his aim tonight was not to thumb his nose at the aristocracy. He only wished to protect and support Lily.

But in so doing, he had to avoid the gaze of her escort. Chatterley would recognize him. Adam bristled and fought to keep the tray at an even angle as he circulated the room, pretending deference to guests he did not recognize. He studiously avoided the ones he did. All the while, he kept Chatterley pinned in sight. Whatever his reasons for insinuating himself tonight, they were not altruistic.

In Adam’s opinion, he deserved to have his nose rearranged. Adam wrestled with the violent urge as he watched Chatterley ingratiate himself to Lord Ednam. Lily, sensible woman that she was, had left him in her wake to circulate among the other guests. Lord Granby, the man to whom Chatterley had sold his precious artifact, must be in the room. Unfortunately, he’d given no indication with either body language or words.

Despite his resolve to watch Chatterley, Adam’s gaze continually strayed to Lily. He should be standing next to her, claiming her as his partner for all the room to see.

But he’d lost the right to claim her when he’d walked away. When Chatterley had forced him to walk away. Not this time. This time, Adam would not be parted from her until he was certain that she had shaken Chatterley’s noose.

He briefly checked that mongrel’s position—still deep in conversation with Lord Ednam. When he returned his attention to Lily, he found her staring at him, her lips parted.

He held her gaze and gave her a surreptitious shake of the head. Don’t draw attention to me. Her freckles splashed dark against her milk-pale cheeks. Would she swoon? She never had before. If she did, he wouldn’t be at liberty to catch her.

His tray almost empty, he offered its contents to one last guest and turned on his heel toward the door. The back of his neck tingled and he held his breath, afraid of the stir that might result in his wake if Lily succumbed to shock. In the corridor, he dropped his meek manservant persona and lengthened his stride, searching out the first unoccupied room. The click of footsteps followed him.

The room he found stank of dust and disuse. Sheets curtained the furniture—a settee, a table, a pianoforte. The shapes were difficult to discern in the dark. He left the shutters fastened, not wanting to alert others to his presence.

His pursuer needed no more light than the tallow candles lighting the way for servants to carry their trays without tripping. She followed him into the room. Despite the darkness enveloping the room, she had no trouble finding him. She eased the door partway shut, showing him a profile he had long since memorized. Ruthless, she advanced on him until his back pressed against the wall.

Her breath skated over the sensitive underside of his chin, sending shivers cascading through him. He tightened his hold on the tray to keep from shutting his eyes and forgetting where they were—and who they now were.

“What are you doing here?” Lily demanded.

“Our mission,” he said between gritted teeth.

She took a step back, and he swallowed disappointment. Without a candle, it was difficult to interpret her body language. She stood nearby, but she might as well have put an ocean between them.

“If someone sees you, you could jeopardize everything.”

“They won’t notice me. I’m dressed as a footman.”

She threw her hands in the air. “You can’t possibly think that is a valid disguise! I recognized you at once. The hosts tonight—”

“I know.” He clipped off the words, silencing her.

She recoiled, another small step back. “Adam…”

He’d dreamed of hearing her say his name again. But not with the censure that dripped from her lips tonight.

“If you cross me…”

He stepped forward, lifting his hand to caress the curve of her cheek and stop her from finishing that sentence. She flinched away from his touch.

“I’m helping you. Why do you think I would be here to undermine you?”

“I know you for the devil that you are. You haven’t yet named your price—”

He fisted his hands to keep from pulling her closer. The silver tray, warm from his body heat, etched itself into his palm. Over the past few days, he and Lily had worked seamlessly together. What had happened?

Chatterley.

If anyone had a price to pay, it was that blackguard.

“I have no price. I hurt you and I’m looking to make amends. Nothing more.”

Silence rang in his ears. She held her stiff posture, her breaths shallow.

“How can I believe that? I trusted you last time and…”

It wasn’t my choice.

He bit his tongue to stifle the confession. At this late date, she wouldn’t believe him. If Chatterley carried out his threat, Adam wouldn’t be the only person ruined. Lily would fall with him.

He couldn’t bear that burden.

“I’m here to support you. I won’t draw attention to myself, but I need to see this through.”

“You don’t trust me to do as you taught?”

Her small voice cut through him, wounding him to the quick. He swallowed hard.

“As I said, I know I hurt you. I won’t hurt you again.”

He would rather die.

More footsteps sounded down the corridor, making her jump. She glanced at the door over her shoulder, then back at him. “Go home. You’ve given me the tools I need— Now you must trust me to wield them.”

Hell and damnation, but she was right. It’s not you I don’t trust.

Softly, he murmured, “I don’t trust Chatterley. I fear he might try to dig his claws in deeper.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

The footsteps paused. After a moment’s hesitation, they continued, growing louder.

She glanced over her shoulder again. “I shouldn’t be in here with you. I must return to the party. Let me do this, Adam. I’m not as helpless as you think.”

As she turned on her heel, it took everything in him not to follow. I don’t think you’re helpless. Nevertheless, he couldn’t bury his protective instincts. He owed her, and this was the only way he could level that debt.

…

Lily had never considered herself an Egypt enthusiast, but excitement hummed in her veins as she returned to the receiving room. In the course of their preparation, Lily had read copious texts detailing the sort of precious stones and metals used in ancient Egyptian jewelry. These works of art were buried with the body of the mummy, in between the layers of swaddling. Despite her distaste for the corpse beneath, she was curious to see and handle this ancient jewelry.

“Mrs. Darling, is that you?”

Lily jumped. She turned, finding the host bustling toward her with a sheaf of papers—no, a periodical—in his hands.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

She pressed the back of her hand to her hot cheek. Why had he been searching for her? “I had difficulty finding the withdrawing room.”

“Ah.” He nodded his head. “Out for some fresh air, were you? Well, I trust you found your way?”

Lily nodded, but he didn’t appear to be paying attention to her.

He gestured to the receiving room with the journal in his hand and adjusted his spectacles. Lily, forgetting until that moment the pair perched on her nose, mirrored him.

He let her precede him into the room. “I must admit, I owe you an apology. I didn’t believe you had contributed to the Antiquities Review. I didn’t know they allowed women into their ranks.”

They likely didn’t. Lily gritted her teeth. What should she say to that?

Adam would know. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder.

“My mistake. I hadn’t recognized the name, since you used only your initial. But that’s to your advantage,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know if I would have read the article if it had your full name attributed. It’s not often—or ever—that we find a woman so shrewd and knowledgeable regarding Egypt. Even my dear wife doesn’t compare to true scholars.”

Lily’s fingernails bit into her palm. She pressed her lips tight to swallow a caustic remark. Lily abhorred narrow-minded men like him. She could dance circles around him with everything she knew, everything she could do. She made jewelry as masterfully as her father had. She ran a business. What did this dullard do with his time, other than indulge his mediocrity?

“You have some wonderful insights, Mrs. Darling. I do hope I’ll be able to get a moment or two alone with you to speak more about your paper on the prevalence of turquoise.”

Lily seethed. She didn’t know if the smile she offered him was polite or murderous. “I hope so as well.” Her voice was wooden, but as little opinion as Lord Ednam had of her gender, he didn’t pay her enough mind to notice.

Another guest caught his attention and the little man made his excuses. She ensconced herself next to the door, gulping slow, deep breaths to soothe the hot, churning sensation in her chest.

Her task wasn’t over yet.

Without a word of greeting, Reid claimed the space next to her. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the sarcophagus in the middle of the room. He said nothing, his gaze intense, a lock of his hair falling across one cheek. His mouth was turned down in a frown, a look he got when deep in thought.

The tinkle of glass sounded and the room fell silent, every eye turning to the host. Although short, he commanded the room with his enthusiasm and the sparkle in his eye. He still held the journal in one hand.

“You all know why I’ve called you here today. Perhaps you’d like to get on with the unwrapping before we all die of old age?”

Polite laughter circulated the room. Lily smiled but didn’t join in. Reid didn’t even bother to smile.

Under his breath, he whispered, “At one time, I would have been welcomed in this room wholeheartedly. I would have been the center of attention.”

Lily glanced at him before turning her face toward Lord Ednam, who regaled the room with the origin and unearthing of the mummy housed in the sarcophagus. As he methodically listed every hand involved in discovering and shipping it, she whispered back to Reid.

“I recall. What happened?”

She hadn’t meant to ask. The topic seemed raw and forbidding, like the change in him.

Reid spoke in a growl. “Your husband happened. My father’s death happened. Without money, I haven’t been able to invest in the recovery of artifacts of my own, which stalls research. I haven’t contributed to any of the journals of late, and so they think I’ve fallen into disgrace.”

Have you? Lily’s lips trembled with the question. She pressed them together hard.

Her heart ached for him. Not for the jaded, acerbic man who had stalked back into her life with ulterior motives, but for the soft-hearted, dreamy-eyed young man she’d known before her marriage. They’d been friends. She’d cared about him.

She’d thought he’d cared about her.

He no longer existed, but maybe if she was able to remind Reid of their past friendship, he would stop trying to punish her for ignoring his advice and marrying a confidence man. “You deserve the accolades. You were brilliant— You are brilliant,” she corrected.

He glanced down at her, his expression open and vulnerable with shock. For a moment, she saw her friend again.

Something flashed across his eyes and he turned his face away. Softly, he admitted, “A small part of me feels they’re in the right. If I conduct no new research, am I still a scholar?”

He could be, if he stopped wallowing in his misfortunes and instead looked for solutions. Men of lesser means than he were able to carve out careers as scholars. They found wealthy patrons, joined expeditions funded by other people, relinquished the artifacts they found into the care of those who had paid for them. But in order to do that, he would have to swallow his pride.

Somehow, she sensed that he wouldn’t look favorably upon her if she pointed out the obvious.

“Mrs. Darling, would you do the honors?”

She returned to herself with alacrity at the sound of her name. She blinked several times, realigning with the name she hadn’t associated with herself for several years. It felt…foreign.

It is a means to an end.

Her persona. Her task. She wasn’t here tonight on pleasure.

“Me?”

Eagerly, he gestured at the sarcophagus. Two footmen stood on either edge of the heavy stone lid, ready to lift. Thankfully, neither of them was Adam.

“But of course,” Lord Ednam exclaimed. “You are our guest of honor tonight.”

Half an hour ago, he and his wife had been attempting to tear her reputation to shreds for their own amusement. What had changed…the journal?

It must be. Adam’s instincts and planning had worked to their benefit.

Of course it did. This is what he does. He manipulates people.

Including her?

Again, her thoughts circled back to his confession of fidelity these past four years. Again, she shoved the thought aside. The host was speaking.

“…my pleasure to give the honor of the first unwrapping to you.”

She would have to touch the mummy? Lily’s curiosity shriveled and died. She gasped for words. “Shouldn’t a doctor or surgeon…someone more experienced with anatomy…do the honors?” Her voice was high and tight, not at all the voice of a distinguished scholar.

Lord Ednam refused to hear a word. Affably, he batted his hand through the air, waving the journal at the same time. “I’ll have Dr. Turner pick up where you leave off, of course.”

In the far corner, a surly, potbellied man crossed his arms. He certainly looked robbed of his duty.

The host spoke for the room. “But we feel the first find of the evening should be yours. After all, you wrote such a lovely piece about the symbolism in gemstones in last month’s Antiquities Review. This is your area of expertise.”

Next to her, Reid stiffened. He seemed to be fighting with himself, that dark expression she loathed contorting his features. Under his breath, he whispered, “You didn’t write that article. My friend Carl Harland did. What did you do?”

He wanted her to steal a priceless Egyptian artifact and yet he was quibbling about the means she used?

Quickly, she hissed back, “I needed credibility. This is how I will secure an invitation to Lord Granby’s house. Or have you given up on the armband?”

He said nothing, leaving her the victim of every eye in the room.

She cleared her throat, stepping forward on shaking legs. “It would be my honor.”

I cannot do this. Acting demure or mysterious would not help her analyze a corpse that had been dead for a thousand years.

The grating sound of the stone lid lifting from the coffin drowned out her panicked inner voice. As she drew in a deep breath, a familiar stench caught her in the back of the mouth. She spluttered before catching herself. Eyes watering, she fought the urge to cover her mouth and nose. She must remain composed. Save for an initial murmur and the discomfort of bodies moving farther away, everyone in the room seemed to be doing the same. The smell must come hand in hand with grave robbing, because the guests each attempted to appear to ignore it.

“It has nothing on the smell of the Thames in August,” a man quipped. The whispered voice was joined in a low chuckle, quickly swallowed by silence.

Must she? Lily tightened her grip on the case with her tools. She would need them to impress, but they would be of no use to her with flesh and bone. The footmen had stoically removed the lid of the sarcophagus from the table, propping it upright against the rest of the heavy coffin.

Bracing herself, the painted eyes of the lid watching her progression along with everyone else, Lily peered over the lip at the gruesome body wrapped in dirty bandages. The stench made her eyes water. When she gagged, she gave in to the urge to pull a perfumed handkerchief out of her bodice and lay it over her mouth and nose. She peered over the rim of the sarcophagus again, cringing at the layer of moisture at the bottom. Should a mummy be leaking?

She reached in, starting at the hand and fumbling with the end of the wrapping. The mummy’s fingers were wrapped individually, and it took her a moment to peel the edge away one-handed. Inch by inch, she unraveled the length of stiff cloth, which crackled as it came free and exposed a blackened, shriveled digit.

The cadaver was revolting. She glanced up, blinking away the moisture in her eyes, and spotted Adam hovering in the doorway. Their gazes locked, his expression open for once. She saw the faith in his eyes as he nodded, encouraging her. Without words, he renewed her strength and faith in herself.

You can do this.

She had to. She looked down, gingerly unraveling another digit, then another. Something caught her eye at the bottom of the sarcophagus. Frowning, she reached in. Her fingers slipped in the slimy residue, but she recognized the shape. A cufflink?

As she drew it out, she recognized the craftsmanship, the small stamped lily in the silver.

“What have you found?”

She wrapped the cufflink in her handkerchief, holding the ball wadded to her nose again. Her heart raced. Why was Adam’s cufflink in the sarcophagus? Using the handkerchief to obscure her expression, she mumbled, “Nothing. A delightful specimen you have here. Would someone else like to take over?”

The host chuckled and batted his hand. “Carry on. I’ll let you make the first find before we turn over the mummy to someone else.”

What find did he believe she would make? She continued to unwrap the hand, moving gingerly so she didn’t disturb the corpse. She was afraid to touch that wrinkled skin, afraid to brush too hard against the hand and snap a digit clean off. This had been a person. Why was she desecrating it with her touch? Swallowing back revulsion, she continued.

When she reached the wrist, she paused. “There is something bulky in here.”

Lord Ednam took a step closer, his eyebrows rising toward his thinning hairline. “Oh? What is it?”

She filled her lungs, then laid the wadded handkerchief next to the sarcophagus. Holding her breath, she moved quicker, pulling the delicate strands of bandages from around the arm in layers until she exposed what looked to be a thick metal circlet. “It’s a bracelet. May I remove it? I’d like to take a closer look.”

“But of course! Feel free to pass it along to everyone else once you’re finished. That is the point of this evening, to make deductions about this fine mummy and who he was in life based on the artifacts that were buried with him.”

It took her several moments to undo the clasp and pull it wide enough to leave the shriveled wrist. As she brought it into the light, the markings surprised her. Deep grooves were carved along the metal, but they had been crudely cut. She crouched and groped for her case, opening it wide and pulling out her monocle. As she fixed it to her eye, she examined first the grooves, then the red gemstone set into the middle.

The grooves looked gouged, not worn by time and touch as she would have expected based on the other artifacts in the room. And the gem… It was clouded.

“Curious.”

“Oh? What is it?”

She jumped, not realizing that Lord Ednam stood so close. He leaned over her shoulder, his hot breath making her skin crawl.

Her smile felt queasy. “This jewel is of surprisingly inferior quality. I didn’t expect to find a flawed gem buried in so lofty a sarcophagus. And these markings.” She turned the bracelet, examining the gold band. “They look to have been made recently. Within the last year, at my guess.” And not by a jeweler as skilled as she or her father. She turned her face up to Lord Ednam’s. “I’m afraid you’ve been robbed.”

A gasp circled the room. From the door, Reid looked like he had swallowed a thundercloud. He looked ready to spit lightning. She turned her gaze away from him and offered the bracelet to Lord Ednam. “It’s gold plated, not pure gold. See how the center of these grooves show a darker color? That’s copper beneath. Both, I believe, were common in Egyptian jewelry, but if this bracelet were as old as we anticipate, I would expect for the plating to wear thin in other places, not simply where a jeweler has carved the grooves. The gem is clouded, too, and if that’s meant to be a scarab, it isn’t very well carved.”

Lord Ednam frowned. “What are you saying?”

Lily stuffed everything back into her case, including the handkerchief with Adam’s cufflink. She closed it with a snap. “I’m saying this mummy was not dead two thousand years ago. You were sold a fake.”

The physician, Dr. Turner, bustled forward with a frown and examined the arm she had exposed. He took out a knife and delicately cut into the flesh, dropping it in disgust as he straightened.

“She’s right.”

Another symphony of gasps ringed the room, and Lord Ednam turned a mottled purple. “I cannot believe I’ve been so misled!”

Exclamations rang around the room. Gossip eddied, the layers of voices rendering each indistinct. Lady Ednam swooned, attended by a knot of her friends as they attempted to revive her. Lord Ednam fumed, his unimposing stature dissolving beneath his fury. Lily had no doubt that the men who had sold him tonight’s entertainment would regret the deceit.

Stroking the whiskers along his left cheek in contemplation, Lord Granby joined her beside the sarcophagus. He peered into the case, then returned his attention to her. His look was one of bald admiration. “That’s a very good eye you have, Mrs. Darling.”

His praise made her blood sing. She’d done it. The disappointment of the mummy gave her ample excuse to leave before her persona slipped. It was only a matter of time before she received the invitation she needed in order to finish the task Reid had set and thereby save her family from disgrace.

She had done it.