Must Have Been The Moonlight Page 14

  “I quit trying to rein her in years ago, when I found her sneaking out at night to see the son of my solicitor. That betrothal lasted four years longer than I thought it would. He was never a match for her spirit or her temper. So you see, Major, you’re not the first man she’s put in her winsome crosshairs. But that doesn’t mean I’m less protective, or desire to see her hurt. She is not as worldly as she thinks she is.”

  When Michael didn’t reply, Donally stepped forward and dropped a sheaf of papers on the desk. “These are the names of everyone who works in my office. I’ve known each of them and most of their families for years. Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find there.”

  Michael sat forward and lifted the packet, turning it over in his hands but saying nothing. Brianna’s character and passions didn’t surprise him. When she committed herself to a course of action, she did so with every ounce of heart and soul. He also knew that whatever had happened in her betrothal, she’d still been a virgin until today.

  “Omar was at the picnic.” Donally’s steps sounded hollow on the floor as he stepped out of the room and turned. “I understand that he’ll not drop the charges against you.”

  “No.” Michael leaned an elbow on the desk. “He will not.”

  “Then you also understand your days in this office are probably numbered.” His hand on the door latch, Donally studied him impassively. “Count yourself lucky that when you go, you won’t be leaving your post the same way that Colonel Baker or Pritchards did.”

  Except Omar knew Michael would be just as finished.

  Brianna’s hands paused in their cleaning as she listened to the steps approaching her third floor workroom. “You’re still awake.” Christopher stopped in the doorway.

  “I couldn’t sleep.” Brianna twisted the lid on a glass jar and turned to face him.

  Somehow, she’d managed to avoid being alone with her brother since she’d missed the picnic last week. Her photography work had taken up her time, and she’d spent the last three days in the Old Quarter focused on her project.

  The tiled ceiling sloped sharply down from the entrance into the small room to the back, where a pair of trapdoors opened onto the roof. Brianna had surmised that the room must have once been a pigeon roost, now cleaned and come to life with the pieces that made up her world. Her trays and chemicals lined the cabinet.

  She watched Christopher walk among the many rows of photographs strung wall to wall. “I had no idea that you’d done all of this work. Does Alex know?”

  “You don’t think I spend my days knitting, do you?” Brianna poured water over a tray she’d set in a bin.

  He leaned a hip against the counter. “Do you know how to knit?”

  “As a matter of fact, I knit quite well.”

  Reaching past her, Christopher picked a photograph off the shelf above her. It was a picture of Stephan Williams—one she’d placed there months before. He didn’t seem surprised. “Have you heard from Mr. Williams since you’ve been here?” he asked.

  “I don’t expect that I will. He’s married.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  She set a jar on the shelf beside others marked collodion, used for coating the photography plates. “No one ever asked.”

  “Brea…” He watched her clean.

  “Don’t.” She slapped a jar on the shelf beside others.

  “What happened between you and Fallon?”

  “Yasmeen is not his mistress” she said, skipping past his question. But then you probably knew that. You probably even know what happened to Colonel Baker.”

  “I know what Omar is, Brea,” he said quietly.

  Neither of them spoke. The room smelled of silver nitrate, and Brianna moved to tilt up the blinds and let in the night air. Her hair was tied back with a checkered kerchief. “I know that sometimes appeasing men like Omar is necessary to get the job completed,” she said. “Unfortunately, diplomacy allows the worm to prosper. I like Major Fallon’s way of dealing with people like him better.”

  “Major Fallon’s way is about to get him court-martialed. You don’t know him, Brianna.”

  Turning, with her palms on the countertop, Brianna faced him.

  “Fallon may be an efficient soldier, but he has not come by his reputation without cause, Brea.”

  Brianna’s chin lifted. “Are you telling me to stay away from him?”

  Christopher was still leaning against the counter when Brianna blew out the lamp. What did he know about her heart, anyway? Certainly less than she understood herself.

  Brianna stood face-to-face with the Falcon of Horus painted on the glass door leading into Michael’s office. She could hear the rumble of voices inside through the transom. She looked left and right and saw that a man had paused at the door down the long hallway. Wooden cabinets lined the paneled walls, muting the sounds of traffic outside the ministry.

  She peeked inside the basket she carried as if to reassure herself that she’d not traumatized the tiny cargo. Soft mews escalated as light fell on the blanket. Closing her eyes, Brianna mentally checked her posture. She could do this.

  Besides, she had another reason for being here, which had nothing to do with kittens or her desire to see Major Fallon.

  The man sitting behind the desk, a red fez perched sideways on his shiny black hair, looked up as she entered. He widened his eyes, and the expression on his face changed to one of bewilderment. Four men dressed in long cotton thawbs sat in the waiting room. Her hand went to the top button on her bright blue cotton shirtwaist. Although long-sleeved and collared, it stood open at her neck. She wasn’t underdressed, but neither was she buttoned up like a sausage. Her lapis-blue jacket matched her split riding skirt.

  “I would like to see Major Fallon,” she offered helpfully, and considered lying about an appointment as the man wasted a great deal of time flipping anxiously through the ledger in front of him.

  Clearly flustered, he raised his eyes. “I see no appointment.”

  “Perhaps if you can just tell the major that—”

  The door to the inner office opened. Michael stood in the doorway, shrugging into his uniform jacket, his gaze going from his secretary to her. He looked every bit as tall and dashing as he had when he’d taken her on the dahabeeyah, stripped her naked, and told her that her French lettres wouldn’t fit him.

  “Major Fallon.” Her heart beat a little too loudly in her chest.

  His eyes paused on her. “What are you doing here, Brianna?”

  “I needed to see you.”

  A shadow darkened his jaw, contrasting with the silver of his eyes. He was devastatingly handsome and, with his implied lack of civility, dangerous to her mind.

  Brianna watched as his gaze shifted to his secretary. “When is my meeting at the consulate?”

  “In an hour, effendi.”

  He said something in Arabic to the men waiting to see him, then turned with a silent invitation for her to follow. Brianna walked into the inner sanctum of his office. There was nothing impressive for her gaze to latch onto as she glanced at the paneled walls. Nothing except the man wearing the British uniform who now sat with his elbows resting on the desk and his hands folded.

  Staring into the murky shadows of the room, she swallowed that dirty little lump in her throat. She didn’t understand what had happened between them on the houseboat.

  She didn’t want him sleeping with other women, but neither did she want him controlling her life—as if he had some indelible right by his masculine virtue to claim ownership of her, when men had mistresses all of the time. Her desires were no different than his.

  “Come inside, Miss Donally.”

  Turning to close the door, Brianna didn’t need to see his eyes to know that they slid down her body, but when she glanced at him, he’d turned his attention to the papers on his desk, gathering them up into a pile and setting them aside.

  She held her tote and the basket next to her. The mewing sound of the kittens seemed louder. “You loo
k fatigued,” she told him.

  “Thank you, Brianna.” He crossed one wrist over the other as she continued to stand. “Would you care to sit?” He motioned to the worn leather chair facing the desk.

  “I’ll make this brief, Major.” Brianna said. “Whatever happened between us the other day meant something to me. I think it did to you as well. Yet, I’ve not seen you in six days, and you seem quite content with that arrangement. Personally, I think that you’re a…misogynic charlatan.”

  “Misogynic?” He raised a brow, and she thought she glimpsed mirth in the subtle shift of his mouth.

  “Reclusive, and a closed-minded…fraud.”

  “Is that what you came here to tell me?”

  Brianna withdrew the book in her bag and set it before him. It had shown up unexpectedly at the mission yesterday. “A Tale of Two Cities,” she clarified, as if he didn’t know how to read. And because he was treating her so indifferently. “It’s mine.”

  Michael slid the book across the desk. “‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”

  The opening words of the book caught her. “‘It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,’” she answered.

  His gaze lifted. “‘It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.’”

  Brianna regarded him in open admiration. He shared the same passion for romantic prose. She sat in the chair. “You read.”

  “Indeed.” A smile curved his lips. “Actually I read quite well.”

  “I mean—” She cleared her throat. “You know the book.”

  “My tutor was a literary connoisseur of Charles Dickens. I had the pleasure of hearing him read once.” He opened the book and saw her name emblazoned on the cover. “Why did you bring this here?”

  “That book was part of the effects that were with me on the caravan.” Her hands folded and tightened in her lap. Streamers of light seeped through the tightly cinched blinds behind him and heated the room. “It was part of my possessions that I had in my trunk when the caravan was attacked. I found the book yesterday at the mission among other books that were donated. Surely whoever donated it would have seen my name inside. Can you trace where it might have come from?” she asked.

  Michael shut the cover. His eyes had grown darker. “Usually stolen merchandise has been taken in trade many times over before it finally comes to our attention. Who brought you here today?”

  “Christopher’s driver. I’m in the brougham.” A smile flirted at the corners of her mouth. “I should feel safe with the two men that you have following me at all times. For purely professional reasons. Not at all because you might care about me.”

  He walked to the front of the desk, where he crossed his arms. His uniform pulled at his shoulders. “Is there anything else, Brianna?”

  She stood, her skirts whispering with the movement. “Why haven’t you contacted me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She dropped her gaze to her hands as they traced a gouge on the desk. She stood so close to him that she could smell the sandalwood used to scent his soap. “I think that if you quit now you’re missing out on a great opportunity to get to know me, Major.”

  Glancing into his face, Brianna hadn’t realized that tears had welled, and by then it was too late to look away. He’d restructured the boundary between them—widened it with a buffer zone the size of Great Britain. But she felt his respect for her and knew that it wouldn’t take the skill of a civil engineer to build a bridge over the gaping chasm that had somehow opened between them. She wanted to be with him enough not to throw everything away on a tantrum.

  “Heaven forbid that I ever learn how to whine prettily, so that you might want to offer me your handkerchief.”

  He dabbed both of her cheeks with his sleeve. “One whiff of my handkerchief, I promise, and you would be cured of whining.”

  Laughing at his response, she picked a piece of lint out of her mouth. “I didn’t come here today to weep.” She cast him a sidelong glance. Traffic from outside intruded.

  He leaned to look down at the noisy basket on the floor. “Are you planning, then, to invite me to lunch? Though I would impugn your dubious choice of fare.”

  His rejoinder drew a modicum of relief. “I thought perhaps you might take this basket to Yasmeen and the children.” She set the basket beside him with some uncertainty, worried that he’d say no. “The alleys around the museum seemed to be filled with homeless creatures.”

  Michael leaned back on his palms. Then he shocked her by laughing. She took note of the warmth in his eyes.

  “Do you think to find homes for all the strays in Cairo?” he asked.

  “It’s not right that any living creature should be abandoned.”

  When Michael didn’t reply, Brianna turned her attention to the buttons on his uniform. “Have I told you how nice you look in scarlet?”

  “Are you a woman who yearns for a man in uniform?”

  “I quite liked you out of uniform, Major. Would you like to know which version of you I prefer?” She looked him in the eyes.

  His gaze drifted over her with lazy thoroughness.

  Where it touched, she felt only a sweet fever, a raw surge of desire. Then he smiled ruefully and sinfully. Brianna realized that his hands were on her arms, and he pulled her between his legs, trapping her from breast to hips, the illicit memory of their previous mating hot between them.

  “I suppose I’ve kept you too long.” Her heart beat faster.

  “Perish the thought.”

  Light color rose in her cheeks. Looking into her face Michael discovered the duplicity inside him, for he wanted her. It shone in his eyes and strained against his trousers as he held her intimately against him.

  In a languorous upward arc, she entwined her arms around his neck, and kissed him. His open lips parted from hers, but she drew him back with her hands in his hair, and heaven help him he found satisfaction in her arms.

  He’d never quite tasted lips like hers, and grappling with the reality that he was quickly losing control, he took her kiss, opened her lips and let her tongue inside. He caught it. Sucked on it. And drank in her gasp of surprise. “Have you always been this bold?” he said against her lips, absorbing the luxury of unbridled sensation of her hands on him.

  “I like the way you taste.”

  She captivated him. Her scent. The press of her body against his. “You like control.”

  “I like feeling alive.” She leaned on her toes to kiss him again. “You make me feel that way. That can be the only explanation for thinking of you constantly. I’m dizzy with the desire to go sailing again.”

  The adeptness that had helped lead him in the past had deserted him. He kissed her parted lips, and there his tongue ravished hers with a tender savagery that had tightened his hand around her nape to deepen his possession.

  She groaned when his hand slid up her thigh and touched her intimately. He smiled at her response, the splendor of that sound beating through his senses. Pulling her against the length of him, he noted in some remote part of his mind that all the control was back in his hands. “Do you need me then?” he managed with little inflection in his voice, his hand absorbing the heat of her through her drawers, and he knew that she must feel the restraint in his touch.

  “I must,” she said. “I do need you. But I dislike being manipulated,” she managed breathlessly.

  “But you like my touch.” He smiled into her heated eyes, feeling as though a little of heaven had opened before him. He could make her come in his arms, he thought.

  Her lashes lifted, revealing deep pools of blue. His eyes stared into hers. Then his gaze lifted to the transom, and he put her from him. “This is not a good place to do what I want to do with you at the moment.”

  “Will you let me know about the book?”

  Michael moved to open the door. He had a full schedule of meetings today, and he was about to cancel them all for her.
“I’ll do what I can.”

  Her hand hesitating on the latch, she leaned on the door. “I want to go sailing again, soon.” Lips curving into a warm grin, she took the sunlight with her when she shut the door.

  After she left, Michael stared at the empty walls and the two dead plants that had practically shriveled to dust in his care—and felt something reckless stab at his chest. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he shook his head, and his gaze went to the kittens.

  She was a vixen, he thought, who knew exactly what she was doing to him.

  “Do you need anything, effendi?” His secretary peered around the door into the room. It irked Michael that the man continued to tiptoe around him like a deranged rabbit.

  “Cancel my appointments.”

  Michael walked behind the desk and flipped up the blinds with one finger to look down on the street. Brianna sat in the brougham. The weight of her hair was smoothly netted at her nape, and as the sunlight painted the horizon gold and dappled the ground with light and shadow, she took that moment to look up. He let his eyes go over her with a possessiveness that showed pleasantly enough in his gaze—when all he wanted at that moment was to take her back to the dahabeeyah and continue what they’d started.

  She was fearless.

  A splash of vivid color in his unvivid brown life.

  And he was intrigued by the poetic vision of a woman who gave him a perpetual erection. Until this morning, he’d not realized that he had done a poor job of keeping Miss Brianna Donally out of his head.

  “When Halid arrives, tell him that I’ve gone to the Old Quarter.” Watching as Brianna disappeared past the curve in the street, he shifted his gaze across the park, to where his men pulled out onto the street.

  Michael finally turned back into the room. He didn’t believe that Brianna’s book showing up at the mission was some cosmic coincidence. “I’ll be out of the office for a few days.”