BUSINESS
Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.
Category: Angst, drama, romance.
Rating: M
Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.
Chapter Eleven
The next evening, Alfred was furious. "Bloody Med-Jai."
He stalked into the bedroom with a steaming teacup and sank into the nearest chair, flinging the teacup onto the coffee table and steepling the tips of his slender fingers to his mustache. "They have cancelled the artifact agreement. Typical of the heathens. I don't know why I should be so surprised."
Marjorie let the newspaper softly drop into her lap, and folded it in half, creasing the seam with the edge of her fingernail. She folded it in half again. Then she said: "Why?"
"Damned if I know."
"Is he – are they – allowed to back out of an agreement like this? Can't you impose legal action?"
"Of course not. It was never signed on paper. It was a spoken agreement between me and the chiefs. We were expecting to sign today."
"But then?"
"But then the bloody bastard Ardeth Bay returned from a bloody skirmish with the bloody Belgians in bloody Alexandria."
The name sounded like a malediction coming from her husband's mouth, and Marjorie experienced an involuntary shudder of distaste at the way he had squeezed it so nasally into the air. Ardeth, Ardeth, Ardeth, she thought. She realized that she didn't want anyone else to say it except for her, in secret hours.
Ardeth.
"And he's the leader of the tribes, darling? The most powerful chief? Is that right?"
"Yes, and he said no. He's swearing up and down that he and his men will keep on pursuing their rightful property until we relent. It's going to be a war, Margie. Innocent British blood will be wasted on those damned heathen trinkets."
"Darling, please. Don't be melodramatic. It doesn't become you. The only thing that will be wasted in this is time."
"We'll be stuck here until we rot, and they'll mummify us, Margie." His eyelids were fluttering incessantly, like dusty moths' wings. "They'll mummify us and sell our bodies in the souks to tourists."
She listened to the lazy thud-thud-thud of the ceiling fan revolving above her, and waited until his frustration abated. "So we'll still be living here, I suppose," she said when she could no longer keep her silence. "We won't be traveling back to England this week. We'll be here until this affair blows over."
"I could positively die."
"This Ardeth fellow…" she said. She halved the newspaper again, and pressed down on the crease, leaving a smear of black ink against her thumb. "He must be a passionate man."
"You know how the tribesmen are."
"Passionate?"
"Passionate."
And now she found it difficult to continue looking at the red and peeling and sunburned face of her husband; she dipped her head down to the newspaper in her lap. Underneath it, underneath her dress, she could feel him still. A dull ache that reminded her of him with every step.
She couldn't look at her husband.
"He's an insistent man," she said. "He's willing to fight for what he believes."
"Bother." He grunted. "It almost sounds like you're defending the son of a bitch."
Ardeth, Ardeth, Ardeth. The jingling of her earrings as he had thrust against her. He had been large, but it had only truly hurt when he had pulled himself from her. The slick suction of his exit, the collapse and emptiness within her as he had lowered her to the ground.
"Don't be absurd, darling," she said. "I'm merely playing the devil's advocate. Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer, as they say."
"Well, don't keep him too close, or you'll catch lice."
"Really, Alfred. You can be quite the gentleman."
"I can be something else, too," he responded, leaning forward in his chair and trapping her hand within his. "I can be passionate."
His skin was smooth and cool, and she found that she was giggling, giggling as she pulled away from that unmarred softness. "Stop it, you."
"Charlie's gone with Samira for the rest of the day."
"Not now, darling."
"Margie, I need this. Do what you did that night, in front of the window."
"I'm on my cycle, Alfred," she said. "No."
His smile withered and he withdrew his hand and grasped for the teacup beside him on the coffee table. He lifted it to his lips and said above the brim of porcelain: "Do you think he's a handsome man?"
"Who? Rudolph Valentino? Of course."
"Bully on Rudolph Valentino. I meant Ardeth Bay."
"Darling, he's abhorrent. He has tattoos on his face. His hair is longer than mine. Does he even speak our language, or does he simply chatter on in Arabic?"
"He speaks English quite fluently, in fact."
"I wouldn't have known. How is Charlie? Is he going to the pyramids?"
"He is a handsome man, you know, for a tattooed Arab," Alfred said. "It almost covers up the fact that he's desert scum."
"If you say so, darling."
"Do you know Richard Thurston?" he asked. "The professor of English at the University of Cairo?"
"He lives on the fifth floor with his wife, Elaine, I believe."
"Elaine lusts after the tattooed bastard, even though she's only seen him twice."
"How do you know?"
"Richard discovered her diary last week. He read it. It was positively lurid. He told me over tea that she had the literary skills of a pornographer, his wife. The poor fellow almost drowned himself in drink."
An inexplicable anger took hold of her, and Marjorie furled her hands into fists to keep from tearing at the newspaper. "How unfortunate, Alfred."
"I agree. Who knew that behind the gentlewomanly exterior was a filthy little—"
"How unfortunate that her husband found the need to read her diary."
"Don't tell anybody, Margie. We have our appearances to keep up, as do the Thurstons. Poor man."
"Would you read my diary if you found it?"
"Margie, you don't keep a diary." He swallowed the rest of his tea. "I say she's a whore."
TO BE CONTINUED…