Author's Note. I always feel like I should update this story in pairs, since it's contrasting these two relationships. We'll see how long I can keep up the steam for that.

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 Willoughby House: Cairo, 1925

"Would you like to hear a confession, darling? A 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned' sort of confession?"

Beni had been staring at the marvelous mosaic that covered the ceiling over the bed, frowning with jealous interest at the glinting image of a naked, golden-haired woman embracing a swan while a cloud of cherubs looked on. He blew out a trail of cigarette smoke and turned to look at Jemima curiously.

"What?"

She propped herself up on her elbow and turned to look at him, gesturing with her cigarette between her fingers.

"I said I have something to confess."

Beni looked at her for a moment before turning his attention back to the ceiling and said, "Okay."

Jemima snuffed out her cigarette in the silver ashtray on the bedside table and slid closer, leaning over him and blocking his view of the ceiling with her pretty, smirking face.

"I've been reading about you," she told him.

Beni looked into her mismatched eyes with an air of boredom. "So?"

She reached a hand to his face, and then kissed him. Her lips trailed over to his ear and she whispered, "I've been reading about you for weeks now. Ever since the papers said you were the one who obtained the bombers' confessions, I've read anything and everything about you I could find."

Beni's brow furrowed, and he glanced at the woman in the mosaic suspiciously. "Why?"

Jemima let out a sigh, kissing his neck now. "Because, darling. You positively fascinate me."

She sat up, looking into his eyes again. "Were you really a thief, right here in Cairo?"

Beni looked at her strangely. "Yep."

"And is it true about impersonating clergymen in France? Is that really what landed you in the French Foreign Legion?"

He snickered to himself and nodded. It had been a long time since anyone had drudged up that time in his life. In 1919, during the first rebel outbreak, he was asked about it over and over. Everyone wanted to hear the story. But most everyone had forgotten it by now.

Everyone except Jemima, apparently.

She gave him her most devilish smile. "Am I the worst - the absolute worst - jezebel you've ever heard of if I told you after I read that, I simply had to sleep with you?"

Beni looked at her curiously, a smug sense of entitlement slowly leaking into his expression and causing him to smirk.

"And do you know what else, darling? I adore that you don't take your wedding ring off. It positively exhilerates me. Now, tell me I'm not the worst jezebel you've ever heard of."

He gave her a dubious glance, and she giggled.

"Now, really, darling. You were hearing confessions in France. You can't possibly tell me I'm the worst you've ever heard of."

Beni smirked. He liked that vicious and unapologetic little smile always lurking in the corner of her mouth.

"A woman once told me that she was cheating on her husband with his sister."

"No!" Jemima gasped in delight. "Darling, that's marvelous. Isn't it deliciously ironic? People used to tell you their deepest sins as a matter of principle; now you've got to beat it out of them. You simply must tell me more."

But Beni shook his head, glancing at the watch he'd left lying on the bedside table. "I'm going to go."

She took his arm, gazing up at him persistently with her strange eyes. "Now wait a moment, darling, I haven't even gotten to the crux of my confession."

He snorted and sat up anyway, swinging his legs over the side of the massive bed.

"Surely you know by now there's nothing worse than leaving before a woman's reached her climax."

Beni turned and looked at her, an amused sneer on his face. "You're a slut."

Jemima raised her eyebrows in surprise, but didn't appear offended. "Actually, darling, it's quite the opposite, but that's not what I'm getting around to."

He scoffed incredulously and got out of bed, picking out his pants from the mess of clothes scattered across the floor like puzzle pieces.

"Well, now you've made me feel as if I must tell you. You're the first man I've been with since Ollie, and he was the first man I'd been with ever, and I was a perfectly loyal wife to him, even though I never meant to be. He was wealthy and older and my family was in debt, so I thought I'd marry him and do as I pleased. But he was such a good man that I simply couldn't. So darling, if I seem forward, it's from a lack of conjugal relations, not an excess of them."

Beni let out an impatient sigh. "I don't really care," he told her briskly. And then, with a note of bitterness, "But you were pretty eager to kiss O'Connell."

Jemima laughed. "Well, darling, I don't think that counts. I've kissed gobs of men. Gobs of them, darling. A kiss is a trifle. But do you know what sex is?"

Beni glanced up from buttoning his shirt.

"It's a weapon, darling," she said with a mysterious little smile.

He finished buttoning his shirt and took his watch from off the side table, glancing at it again.

"But anyway," Jemima said, brushing off her last statement with a wave of her hand. "What I'd like to confess is this: as much as you fascinate me, I've asked you here for another reason entirely."

Beni glanced up at her with suspicious eyes, his fingers frozen on the cufflinks he was twisting into his shirt sleeves. She leaned forward, that same coquettish smirk on her face, but her eyes grave.

"I think some of the servants are stealing from me."

His expression immediately dropped to boredom with the weight of a scoff. "Of course they are. Look at this place."

Jemima pulled herself to a sitting position impatiently. "No, I don't mean like taking a silver fork here and there or pocketing an earring from the floor. I mean they've taken a rug off the floor, and three paintings off the walls."

Beni stared at her for a moment in surprise. "Really?"

"Really," she said, an edge creeping into her voice. "They detest me, you know. They think I only married Ollie for his money - which, of course, I did, but still. They've no right to steal things right out from under me."

He shrugged. "So call the police."

She gave him a little smirk and quirked an eyebrow. "I thought I'd take a slightly more effective route."

Beni met her implicative gaze with shrewd, level eyes.

"I'll give you anything you like," she said, mischief creeping into her features. "Or do any depraved little thing that enters your wicked mind."

He nearly smiled. "Alright. I want your engagement ring."

Jemima raised her eyebrows, glancing at the enormous diamond glinting bright and hard in the beams of afternoon sunlight that streamed in through the windows.

"Well," she sighed. "Aren't you the ruthless one."

He did smile now.

She glanced up at him with an unreadable expression in her haphazard eyes. "I don't suppose I could negotiate you down a tad."

Beni shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. "Make me an offer."

Jemima sighed thoughtfully and threw back the covers from her body. He watched with a greedy sort of delight as she got out of bed, and frowned when she picked up a silk robe from the floor and put it on.

"What's that sour look on your face for?"

Beni scowled distastefully at her robe. "I thought you were going to do something 'depraved.'"

Jemima let out a short laugh. "First off, darling, considering the fact that I've only been with two men in my whole life and you've seen considerably more women - many of whom were professionals - I must assume we have two entirely definitions of the word. Secondly, I find it hard to believe that a man who just asked for a ring worth fifteen thousand pounds would settle for the sort of thing any mildly charming university chap can talk a schoolgirl into doing."

Beni let out a dark chuckle, eyeing the ring enviously. "Did you say fifteen thousand pounds?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that's what I thought."

Jemima beckoned him to follow her to a door on the far side of the room, situated just next to the bathroom. She pulled a key from her robe and unlocked it, slipping inside. Beni went in after her.

The room was small and cramped, and every wall was lined with drawers. At the opposite end of the room, only a few feet away from them, was a built-in vanity with a tall mirror.

"What's this?"

She gave him a thin smile. "My jewelry box."

It had been years since Beni had had to steal to survive; his promotions through the ranks of Ardeth's men, funded by Cairo's tax payers, had more than covered the cost of living - which wasn't even to mention the bloated bank account he'd been given sole access to for marrying Evelyn - and it had been some time since he'd scratched a squalid existence in the streets. He didn't have to steal anymore, but it was a habit and he liked it. And just standing in that likely million dollar room made his palms itch. Jemima turned her attention to a particular row of drawers and began pulling them out thoughtfully.

Curiously, Beni did the same. The first draw he opened revealed a heavy sapphire and diamond necklace that beckoned him like a provocative and experienced concubine.

"When you got married for money," he said, "you did it right."

Jemima laughed, at last finding the piece of jewelry she was looking for. She pulled out a bright and cheery gold-link necklace and held it out to him. His lip wrinkled with insult.

"Is that a joke?"

She met his eyes evenly. "Is this your pleasant way of telling me you'd like to make a counter-offer?"

Beni scoffed and pulled out the sapphire and diamond necklace he'd been lusting after earlier. She looked at it and let out a sigh, pursing her lips together thoughtfully.

"You want that," she said, not even bothering to raise it to a question. He nodded, an impish grin on his face. "That's worth more than my ring."

He shrugged. "So give me the ring."

Jemima raised an eyebrow. "You know you can't counter-offer with something more expensive."

He met her gaze with a hard, even glare. "Just how important is that shit your servants took to you?"

Her jaw tensed, and she looked from him to the necklace again. "That necklace belonged to Marie Antoinette. Everyone knows Ollie bought it for me."

But Beni was unmoved. "This is what I want for finding out who stole your furniture."

She met him in the eye. "I can still call the police, you know."

A grim smirk wheedled its way into his features. "Then call them."

Jemima watched him for a moment longer before letting out a defeated sigh. "Fine. But if I see that around your wife's neck, I'll scratch her eyes out."

Beni pocketed the necklace triumphantly. He turned and left the room, telling her over his shoulder. "I don't care what you do to my wife."

"Well I'll scratch your eyes out, then."

She slipped out of the room behind him and locked the door. She turned around and faced him with a sigh, straightening her shoulders and letting her defeat slip off like a silk nightgown.

"Now that that's settled," she said, "how can I make your workspace most condusive?"

Beni looked about the bedroom incredulously. "You want to do it in here?"

Jemima gave him an easy shrug. "No, wherever you like."

"The kitchen," he told her so quickly, it gave her pause. She nodded her head and led the way out of the room. "Aren't you going to get dressed?"

She glanced over her shoulder and gave him another alluring smirk. "It's my house, isn't it?"

He let out a greasy chuckle and watched the slick, shiny fabric of her robe flutter against her legs. No wonder the servants hated her. How could anyone concentrate with their employer's self-entitled little wife gallivanting around in almost nothing at all?

"Who would you like to speak with first? The person I suspect it is?"

Beni shook his head. "No. Never the guilty one."

Jemima glanced over her shoulder at him. "Then who?"

"The person who will be most scared."

She gave him a savvy smile. "A woman."

Beni rolled his eyes. "Do you want me to be here all day? No. Never a woman, if you can help it."

Jemima stopped in her tracks, turning around to look at him curiously. "Really? Is this some sort of honor code?"

He scoffed. "Women have a higher pain tolerance."

She gave him a skeptical look. "Darling, I don't believe that for a moment, and I'm a woman myself."

Beni met her eyes with petty condescension. "Women give birth. Didn't you give birth?"

"Yes, but under a bloody ton of ether."

If it was even possible, his expression became even more smug. "That's interesting. The women who work for you did not get to use ether."

Jemima's face was marked by reluctant realization, and she conceded, continuing on down the stairs.

"Then who is the most likely to be scared?" she asked quietly.

Beni met her curious eyes with an expert's sneer. "Do you have any men with wives and children?"

She nodded.

"Little children, not adult children. People who depend on him."

Jemima considered this briefly. "Kareem's wife is due with a baby soon."

Beni smirked. "Then go and get him."

She nodded her head obediently and pointed him in the direction of the kitchen, hurrying off to find Kareem. Once she was out of earshot, Beni let out a self-satisfied chuckle and occupied himself with finding something to eat in the cupboards. He stumbled upon a basket of dates and helped himself. He was half-way done eating it when Jemima arrived with a young, confused Arab man at her side.

The man's dark eyes became quite wide and frightened when he met Beni's cold, nonchalant gaze. He sputtered something about the devil in Arabic, and Beni let out a sigh.

What transpired exactly was a mystery to Jemima. She watched Beni ask Kareem something in rushed, commanding Arabic, and saw the servant shake his head fervently, pleading out words and fast as his mouth could manage. Within about a minute, tears were streaming down Kareem's face, and Beni had finished his fig.

After a very brief silence, Kareem barely muttered two names. Beni gave him a sinister smile, and must have said something dismissive, because Kareem nearly darted out the door.

Jemima stared at him in confusion.

"What just happened?"

Beni shrugged, picking up another date. "Ali and Gafar did it. They had a debt to pay off with their landlord, and they figred you were too drunk and stupid to even notice what was gone." He took a bite of his date, waving his hands and doing an exaggerated, mocking impression of Kareem's sobs: "He tried to stop them, 'but they just would not listen!'"

But Jemima's face remained skeptical and puzzled. "But why did he tell you? What did you say to him?"

Beni swallowed a bite and shrugged. "I did not have to say anything. He knew who I was."

She shook her head. "Then why all this nonsense about pain tolerance and such? Why did you want to do it in the kitchen?"

"Because I was hungry."

"You're unbelievable."

Beni smirked at her shocked and vaguely irritated expression. "Give me back that necklace. I'm not giving you Marie Antoinette's necklace for doing something I could have done myself."

He scoffed so loudly he choked on his fig, and somehow manage to chuckle condescendingly between fits of coughing.

"You think you could have done that?"

She was taken aback. "Well, I could have asked him as well as you did. Kareem's a trustworthy fellow - "

"Kareem thinks you're a drunken idiot just as much as Ali and Gafar do. The only reason he told me anything was because I am Major Gabor."

Jemima stared into his eyes steadily, a strange expression coming over her usually charming face. She ran her tongue over her lips thoughtfully, and glanced at her bare feet on the floor for the sliver of a moment before flitting up to his with an entirely new expression. She closed the distance between them and kissed him hard. He put his fig down and busied himself with untying her robe.

"You're going to come back, aren't you?" she asked breathlessly. "They've no respect for me at all, but they'll have to start listening if you're here."