Author's Note. I'm not sure if I ever enjoyed writing a fanfic as much as And Love Thee After, once I got back in the swing of it. I've had reviewers ask for a happy ending, which I just can't give (it's an Othello adaptation, folks). But something I can do, and something I've been wanting to do, is tell Ardeth and Delphine's love story, particularly in juxtaposition to Beni and Evelyn's not-love story. I love side-by-side plotlines; I love how they can bring out such interesting details in the opposite plot, but I've just never really done one. And this has just been one of my favorite universes, so I like the idea of using this story to explore it.

Eventually-ish, I'm going to be revising And Love Thee After, particularly for grammar/etc, but also for congruency with this story. So basically, this story might have some things that would logically be mentioned or alluded to in ALTA, but aren't (yet).

Disclaimer: The characters of The Mummy are the property of Universal Studios. The characters of Lord Carnahan, Delphine Bertrand (loosely based on the character of Desdemona created by William Shakespeare), Mara, and Jemima Willoughby are my own inventions. The term "amour fou" is French for "insane love," and means a kind of obsessive passion. I like that it's by nature a juxtapositional term, so it works for this story.

AMOUR FOU

The Carnahan Manor: Cairo, 1924

prologue

"Don't you dance, Major O'Connell?"

"I'm sorry?"

Evelyn Carnahan felt a blush rising to her cheeks, and had to look away from the American major's brilliantly blue-green eyes. She wasn't ordinarily so bold, especially at these kind of events hosted by the British upper-crust of Cairo, where she usually found herself outcast either by the others or by her own doing. Evelyn didn't have much use for parties and dances and elaborate dinners, but her father insisted that she come. Make yourself present, he'd said. You may skip every other gala from here until Doom's Day, my dear, but you must make yourself present for this. Evelyn wasn't going to put much stock in that promise, but she loved her father and she knew this was an important event for him, and it was the least she could do, she imagined. So she'd done just as he'd urged, and gone out and bought a terribly unsensible dress long enough to hide her very sensible shoes, and had caved to her brother's suggestion that she drink more champagne than was reasonably good for her. Don't think about it so hard, old mum. After a few glasses even you won't notice that you're dull and dowdy! She'd given him a playful smack on the arm, but he'd said it with a kind and affectionate smile, and she hadn't taken any offense. At least not much.

And after her fourth glass of champagne, which tickled in the most delightful way, she found herself sitting at a table surrounded by the uniformed men of the one and only General Ardeth Bay. The man wasn't at the table with them, but loitered stiffly elsewhere, nodding his handsome but stoic head at whatever it was her father was telling him about. In the midst of the lightly-tanned British aristocrats, he stood out like a rare, dark bird. By that point in the night, however, most of the guests had ceased their worried glances in his direction, and for the most part paid him no attention whatsoever. He and his suspicious band of former Legionnaires and desert warriors might have been the savior of British civility a few years ago, but like any good messiah, he was properly brushed aside as an unpleasant but necessary peculiarity. Evelyn had seen him at a dozen or more of these events, but she'd never had the courage to go and speak to him, which always gave her a distinct feeling of shame. Her own mother had been an Egyptian, after all, and equally scorned or ignored at parties, and Evelyn knew it was wrong of her to cower behind her English features instead of offering him a welcome.

Though Ardeth Bay never looked particularly in want of a welcome.

Maybe after a fifth glass she'd be foolish enough to greet Ardeth like a fellow human being, but for now, she was at a table full of his less-conspicuous former Legionnaires. Evelyn wasn't quite sure how Ardeth had managed to pull together his small army of desert warriors and the previously-wanted men of Europe, but they were a fiercely loyal bunch - a fact that struck most with both admiration and fear. "You can trust a general with men that loyal," she'd overheard her father say once. And the British nobleman he'd been talking to had raised his eyebrows and hid a scoff in a glass of well-aged scotch. "Tell that to the Roman Senate, Nigel." Evelyn supposed there was something about Ardeth Bay that conjured up images of Julius Ceasar, but it certainly wasn't that of a victorious conqueror. She could vividly imagine this crowd of bloodless and supposedly tame aristocrats stabbing him mercilessly in the back, however. From the look on Ardeth's face sometimes, he could imagine it, too.

But Evelyn knew, or supposed she knew, that his men would prevent such a thing from happening. Men like Major O'Connell, who was sitting just to her left, cautiously sipping at a glass of water. She didn't know what had brought a man like him into the ranks of Ardeth Bay's men, but a part of her was dying to find out. What had happened that a handsome, dashing American could suddenly find himself in this anemic den of Cairo's most sparkling inhabitants? His stiff posture and far-off eyes suggested that he was wondering the very same thing.

"I-I asked if you...dance..."

He startled, and choked on his water. Nervously, he shifted his weight, and beside him, someone snickered. "Oh, um...not really. I'm pretty terrible at it."

"Oh," Evelyn said, struggling to hide her embarrassment in another drink of champagne.

"But I'd - I mean, if you want to, I'd - "

Evelyn quickly shook her head. "Oh, no, don't be silly."

He swallowed hard, and took another sip of water. "Okay."

She licked her lips, willing desperately for her face to cool down. "Okay," she repeated, breathing it more to herself than to him. "I believe I've drunk too much to dance, anyway."

"You are only as bad as your partner," a voice suddenly piped in, and Evelyn looked past Major O'Connell to catch a glimpse of the slight, weaselly man sitting next to him. She hadn't noticed the other Legionnaire, and if she had, she might not have sat down at the table, drunk or no. There was something cruel and untrustworthy about his face, and she saw (or imagined she saw) the unpleasant glint of jealousy in his gaze as it shifted repeatedly to O'Connell. It finally landed on her. "You want to dance?"

He spoke with a distinctively Eastern European accent, which Evelyn might have assumed was Russian.

"Oh, um..."

Major O'Connell shot his friend a hard look before glancing back at Evelyn. "You don't have to dance with him."

Evelyn looked between the two of them awkwardly before at last forcing a smile and excusing herself. She didn't know where she was going, even in her own house, but she'd been foolish enough between all of that champagne and asking such a handsome and rugged man as Major O'Connell to dance with her. She pushed through the crowds with a sinking, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. All her life she'd been a wallflower. Surely she should know by now that's where she belonged. How many times had she heard people politely remark to her parents that she was lovely or beautiful? And how few times had a man ever approached her, ever wanted a dance or a drink or a conversation? She felt the reaches of that disparity in her heart, and suddenly wanted to cry, even though she'd only met Major O'Connell. Even though she'd been to dozens of these stupid parties, and always, always found herself lonely.

At last she found a door and shoved it open, suddenly consumed and surrounded by the dark night air of the desert. She sucked in a little breath and leaned against the wall of the house, the cold face of the brick biting into her back through the thin fabric of her dress. She looked up into the sky and found herself strangely begging for the moon, but it was lost somewhere in the sparkling, scattered mess of stars.

"Miss Carnahan?"

The quiet, tentative voice made her jump, and she turned in surprise to see Major O'Connell standing just outside the doorway.

"Oh. Hello," she said, quickly wiping the moistness from her eyes and almost cursing as she caught sight of her smudged make-up on her hand. She almost never wore make-up, and now she'd gone and wiped it all over her face in front of Major O'Connell.

He took a nervous step towards her. "Look, I'm, uh, I'm sorry about earlier."

Evelyn glanced at her feet. "It was nothing."

He let out a heavy sigh. "No, I was...rude. Look, these things are just so...I'm not used to being at a place like this. I don't...do parties. Not like this."

Evelyn looked into his kind, apologetic eyes, and smiled sadly. "Well, I've been doing them my whole life, and they haven't gotten any easier."

He chuckled. "That's comforting."

She watched him, and he watched her, and even though her heart was pounding to an exhilerating beat in her chest, she felt strangely comfortable staring into his eyes. A moment passed between them, and then he glanced down nervously and said:

"So, uh, are you still up for that dance?"

Evelyn smiled. "I'm a dreadful dancer."

He gave her a big, easy shrug, and offered her his hand. "You're only as bad as your partner."

She laughed aloud now, and took his hand, letting him lead her back into the house. The music had slowed to a safe, comfortable waltz, and she stepped into his arms and felt light as air. They swayed and misstepped and laughed nervously, and Evelyn felt herself relax against him. Between the champagne and O'Connell's lopsided grin, she felt like she was in a dreamworld - a brilliant, blue-green dreamworld she wanted to stay in forever. She wasn't sure how long she danced or when the party ended or how she even ended up back in her own bed, but at some point...at some strange point, she felt sunlight piercing hot and painful against her eyelids and woke up in her own room alone.

She tried to sit up, but her head was so heavy, she could barely lift it. She let out a moan and tried to go back to sleep, but her throat was so sticky and dry that she simply couldn't get comfortable. Loud, impatient knocking rang through her eardrums like bullet holes, and she struggled to pull her pillow over her ears.

It didn't matter; the door swung open, anyway, and she was greeted by the crisp, determined footfall of her father's shoes on the hardwood floor.

"Good morning, Evelyn," he said, his voice edged with something like annoyance. She squinted up at him, so carefully and perfectly dressed. "I missed you at breakfast this morning."

Evelyn gingerly pulled herself to a seat, nausea fumbling in her stomach and her head hanging like a weight. Her father held out a glass of cold water and two white pills.

"Have some aspirin, my dear. A hangover isn't so becoming on you as it is on Jonathan."

Evelyn wanted to laugh, but she felt too sick. She took the aspirin thankfully and sipped at her water.

"I have something to speak with you about. I was hoping you would join me for breakfast so we might discuss it alone, but it's already almost noon, and even your brother's awake now."

Evelyn nodded slowly. "I'm sorry," she whispered with a tinge of bitterness. How many times had Jonathan drunk himself into a stupor at one of their father's silly parties? And the man had yet to go and wake him up with guilt and aspirin.

"Was it a marvelous success?" she asked dryly.

Her father gave her a stern look. "Perhaps."

Evelyn raised her eyebrows, even though it sent a stinging pain between them. "Perhaps?"

"I'm being considered for the governor appointment."

Despite how wretched she felt, Evelyn perked up immediately. She smiled and said genuinely, "Father, that's wonderful!"

He nodded, glancing at his hands for a moment. "They're considering Dartmouth as well."

Evelyn waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, forget about Dartmouth! They'll choose you. They must."

Her father gave her the cool, warning edge of his watery blue eyes. "Oh, no, Evelyn. They mustn't."

She frowned curiously. "Why not?"

Her father sighed. "Evelyn, no one trusts me with the risk of another native rebellion at hand."

"But why wouldn't they?" she insisted. "No one knows the Egyptian people like you - "

"And no one pities them like me, either," he said sharply. They shared a look. "You know what Dartmouth will do."

Evelyn shook her head in frustration. "But that'll only lead to more rebellions. Surely they can see that! Penning up these people and taking away their rights were the very things that brought on rebellions in the first place!"

Her father held up his hands. "I know. Don't I know."

She sucked in a sip of water, her heart pounding. "This is pigswallow."

Her father ignored her, though, staring out the window thoughtfully. She watched him, wondering what could have possibly so consumed his attention, and was about to ask him. But then he spoke up quietly, never looking away from the clear, blue sky.

"I believe I've found a solution."

Evelyn sat up a little, staring at her father and urgently waiting for his gaze. At last he turned and looked at her, but the expression in his eyes made her strangely nervous.

"Are you familiar with Major Gabor?"

Evelyn frowned in confusion. "You mean the torturer?"

Her father's brow furrowed sternly. "He's not a torturer."

She met his gaze evenly, not bothering to hide her incredulousness. "He's a torturer, Father. Of Inquisitional proportions. Everybody knows that. What about him?"

"You met him last night at the party," her father said in an unreadable tone.

Evelyn shook her head, puzzled. "No, I don't believe so - "

"He said you sat at the same table. He asked you to dance."

Evelyn blinked, her mind rushing through the fuzzy memories of the previous night and at last landing on that brief conversation with O'Connell's companion. But the recollection offered no clarity, and she found herself more confused than ever by her father.

"Have you been speaking with him about me?"

Her father cleared his throat. "He's interested in you."

Evelyn raised an eyebrow and demanded, "In what way?"

He gave her a look. "In the usual way."

"You can't be serious."

He blinked, an airy expression clouding his eyes and making him look at once like the cold-blooded aristocrat he was.

"I'm perfectly serious. The man has single-handedly shut down entire battalions of rebels, and what's more, our people trust him."

Evelyn met his eyes evenly. "They do not. He's a Hungarian thief and we put up with him because he's delivered the desired results: dozens of Egpytian natives in prison, guilty or no. But they don't trust him, and neither do I."

"Ardeth Bay trusts him."

Evelyn sucked in a little breath, suddenly at a loss of what to say. She didn't know much about Ardeth Bay, but she did know that he was a good man, and that he was the right man to combat the Egyptian rebels...and that he'd be immediately removed from power if Dartmouth or anybody besides her father got the governor appointment.

She met his eyes, and he stared at her with something like pleading in his eyes, though Evelyn had never known her father to beg or grovel for anything his entire life.

"Please, Evelyn," he said quietly, "consider the propriety and security of the arrangement."

Evelyn attempted to swallow the dry feeling in her throat with a little water. "And what arrangement is that?"

Her father cleared his throat. "We've been discussing the prospect of marriage."

She gasped, and could barely manage to stay still from the sudden, red-hot anger that shook through her entire body. "Oh, have you? You and Major Gabor?"

"Yes."

"Am I chattel now?"

He let out a weary sigh. "Hardly."

"You'll marry me off to that dreadful little man for your own political advantages," she said bitterly, her eyes flashing. "I'm chattel. That's what you think of me."

"Good God, Evelyn," her father said, suddenly impatient, his face hard and angry. "You are twenty-seven years old! Twenty-seven! Do you really intend to loaf about this house reading books your whole life?"

Evelyn's jaw dropped. The fiery fingertips of anger struck her before the hurt could. "It's never bothered you that Jonathan loafs about here and he's thirty-three!"

"Well when I die, it's his house to loaf about in, isn't it?" her father retorted, just as fiercely. His hands curled into fists in his lap. "Confound it! For years my colleagues have told me I'd done you no favors, sending you off to college and then graduate school and all of it, but I always insisted you weren't so naive. Today I see they've been right all along. You have nothing on your own, Evelyn. You have nothing but a womb and a good name, and I suggest you use them now before one or both of them goes to rot."

Evelyn's heart pounded in her ears, and it was all she could do to stare at her father with such painful and dumb astonishment, searching relentlessly for some manner of his old affection in his gaze. At last she had to look down, blinking hard and refusing the tears that burned in the corners of her eyes.

"A womb and a good name," she echoed quietly. "Then which is it you've been discussing your political career with all these years?"

He let out a loud sigh. "Do collect yourself, Evelyn. You're much too old for such tantrums."

Evelyn clenched her teeth, taking in a deep breath and holding it until the sob in her throat loosened. She looked up at him coolly, a note of defeat in her voice:

"You would have me marry this man. You would have him in our family for the rest of our lives. You like him that much."

She thought she might have caught the flicker of doubt in his eyes, but he blinked and it was replaced by stony resolve.

"He's a good man, Evelyn. You'll see that if you give him a chance."

She swallowed hard, and for a moment felt the inklings of a foggy dream, the edges of blue-green memories and the hope of promises in dances and too many glasses of champagne. Was her father right? Was she quickly nearing the end of her prime, unknowingly propelling herself into the uselessness spinsterhood? Had she been a fool to believe there might have been something between her and O'Connell? ...Perhaps she had been. It hadn't been the dashing American who had sought her hand. What if a weasel-faced torturer really was the only man left for her now? She felt something within her slam shut, like the door of a casket, and her whole body went cold in the sunlit room.

She didn't look up for a moment, but she nodded, and said at last: "Alright. If you think so, Father."

Her father might have looked surprised, but she didn't have the strength to look up at him.

"Are you quite sure, Evelyn?"

"Yes."

"That's - that's wise of you, Evelyn. I'm very impressed. You're usually so stubborn..."

An awkward and deathly still quiet fell between them for a moment, and Evelyn lifted her glass to her lips, drinking in a deep gulp.

"Shall we set the date for New Year's? We could have a small service as soon as Delphine gets back for Christmas - "

"No. I shouldn't like to wait that long."

Her father raised his eyebrows in surprise, but only said, "Oh. Well, when would you like to have it, then?"

Evelyn's gaze flashed up to his suddenly, hard and certain as the grave.

"Immediately."