she was the only one it hurt. ‘Look, here is our village. I must arrange some help tomorrow to carry our things to the boats.’
There was no problem here, she was known and trusted even though the villagers thought her father was most strange and the women sympathised with her lack of a husband. Cleo negotiated with the sheikh’s senior wife for men and donkeys to carry their baggage to Shek Amer in return for her own little donkey and everything that would not fit on the boats.
Quin did not enter the village with her, perhaps sensing that his presence as a strange man might be an embarrassment. He was quite sensitive, quite unlike what she imagined an engineer to be like. He was more suited to being a diplomat, Cleo decided as she stopped on the river bank to cut some greenery for the donkey’s evening feed. When she looked round for him Quin had climbed the piled sand around the temple and was standing in the shadow of one of the great pillars.
Cleo lifted the packet of letters, the knife and water flasks from the bottom of one of the panniers and heaped in the greenery, then laid the things back on the top, straightening the cord that tied the bundle of correspondence as she did so. When she had fastened it that morning she had wrapped it round once, then twisted it so the cord caught in the other sides of the little bundle like a parcel, before knotting the ends in the middle. Now one corner was creased and the cord not straight. Odd. Perhaps it had been knocked when the water bottles had been dropped in.
She lifted her gaze to the figure almost invisible in the deep shadows of the temple. Or perhaps Quin pushed the cord aside to look at the addresses on the letters. But why should he do that? She recalled her conversation with Laurent. Could Quin be spying? But all there was here was one English scholar and his daughter and a small troop of French soldiers, miles from base.
But we are going back to Cairo and he will come with us... No, that is too convoluted. To come hundreds of miles south, through all those dangers, only to find a small group to give him an entrée into Cairo? Preposterous.
She was being foolish, Cleo told herself as she took the leading rein and made her way across the scrubby grazing area and into the sand. He was just curious and she was lonely, isolated and had no one to talk to. It was a miracle she did not see suspicious characters around every corner or hold imaginary conversations with the donkey.
There was a whole world out there filled with people who had proper families, families who cared for each other and talked and shopped and went to the theatre and entertained friends. A whole world that seemed as remote as the world of the ancient Egyptians with their enigmatic monuments.
The donkey found a bush clinging to life at the foot of the temple and proceeded to eat it. Cleo dropped the rein and trudged up the slope of shifting sand until she reached the top. Here the great horizontal slabs were only a few feet above her head and she slithered down the slope inside to where Quin stood in the shadows, gazing upwards at the ceiling.
‘Look,’ he said, his voice filled with wonder. ‘The roof is painted with stars.’
‘There is Nut.’ Cleo pointed up to where a woman’s elongated figure spanned the sky. ‘This is all so unimaginably old. I was there when Napoleon made his speech to the troops outside Cairo. “Soldiers! From the top of these pyramids, forty centuries gaze down upon you.” But I know very little about it. Father just measures things. I want to dig all the sand out.’
‘And find treasure? They say there are golden coffins and statues of lapis and gilt.’
‘Is that why you are here?’ she said before she could censor her thoughts. ‘Are you a treasure hunter?’
‘No, certainly not.’ He looked bemused. ‘It is obvious, even to someone as ignorant about this as I am, that one would need teams of workmen to clear these sites.’ As her eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light she saw he was watching her. ‘I told you what I am. Do you not believe me?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. But an engineer would know how to clear something like this—’
‘I know how to clear it safely and efficiently, I just do not know what I would be looking for or what damage I might be doing,’ he interrupted her. ‘Is it very hard to trust me, Cleo?’ Quin held out his hand. ‘Let’s go out again, those four thousand years are weighing down on me.’
She ignored his hand, but they scrambled up the internal sand slope together and stood just within the sharp edge of shadow that ran along the top. Quin seemed to want to touch, she thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. That arm around her shoulders that she had shrugged off, his hand just now. But it did not feel sexual, he was not trying to grope her body as some men did before she showed her knife to them.
‘Your colour is not good,’ she observed. ‘You are grey under your tan.’
‘That makes me feel so much better,’ Quin said with a grimace. ‘I’m shattered, if truth be told.’
‘I warned you.’
‘There’s no need to be smug about it.’ He leaned back on a pillar and closed his eyes, his lashes thick and dark on the pale skin beneath his lids.
‘I am not smug, merely right.’ Cleo put her hands on his shoulders and pushed down. ‘Sit. Rest.’
Quin caught her wrist and pulled her with him as he slid down the pillar to end up on the sand, knees raised. ‘Your concern is touching. Sit down too and tend to me in the approved womanly manner.’
Cleo snorted, but settled next to him, her shoulder not quite against his. It was a novelty to simply sit during the day and do nothing. It was completely outside her experience to just sit and talk. He would think her pathetic indeed if he guessed how much this gave her pleasure. ‘My concern is simply to keep you in good enough condition to be of some help packing.’
‘I will be all right in a few minutes.’ His eyes were still closed and he rested his head back against the golden sandstone.
It was interesting to hear a man admit weakness. Thierry would never have dreamt of such a thing, he would have considered it unmanly. Cleo thought that merely foolish. It was sensible to take a rest, that was all, it did not make Quin a weakling. She studied his big hands with their long fingers as they rested on his knees. There was nothing unmanly about those hands. As she thought it he lifted the right one and slung it around her shoulders, apparently gauging her position by instinct.
‘What are you doing?’ Cleo demanded, twisting against him.
‘Hugging,’ Quin said and settled her firmly against his side. ‘Not groping, don’t panic. I’m a great believer in hugging, we all ought to do it a lot more. Human contact is important, don’t you think?’
I wouldn’t know. Cleo shrugged. Her father never hugged her, Thierry had only taken her in his arms for sex. She supposed her mother must have hugged her, but she could not remember. Mama always seemed so busy, or so tired. But, now she let herself relax a little, it was pleasant to be close to another human being, a friendly, talkative human. His arm around her shoulders was heavy, but not unpleasantly so. He made no move to touch her in any other way. She could feel the beat of Quin’s heart beneath his ribs where their sides touched and he smelt of her own familiar soap, and not unpleasantly of fresh male sweat. She probably smelled of dust and donkey.
‘Who hugs you?’ she asked. ‘Your wife?’
‘Not married.’ He sounded half-asleep.
‘Your mistress?’
