Occurs during Seeing a Large Cat.

All rights to characters, places, and story themes belong to the author of the Amelia Peabody Series, Elizabeth Peters. I am merely borrowing them.

And now an excerpt from Letter Collection B –

My Dearest Lia:

I have no idea what had come over me – I feel as though my common sense has completely left me. A situation has arisen; I may have gone too far, and I would appreciate your advice.

I have written you earlier describing Miss Dolly, have I not? Well, it would seem that she is not as easily gotten rid of as I had originally thought. She has gotten her claws into Ramses like a kitten, and refuses to let go – I told you what she said after he had helped me save the goat - "I hope you aren't hurt, Miss Forth, but perhaps if you had a gentleman companion of your own to watch over you, Mr. Emerson would not feel the need to come to your rescue every time you got yourself in a scrape." As if I need Mr. Emerson to do anything for me! If he hadn't of been so cursed gallant and let me be, my foot would not have slipped, and he wouldn't have had to help me down the cliff.

It's not as if he enjoys rescuing her either. He and David have been running around Luxor every evening well into the night dressed as natives, following her and the Colonel around, waiting for Scudder to attack. He has attacked once before, and again the other night. When I found out that Ramses had been hurt, I made them promise not to go off without informing me, and yet Ramses and David still refused to confide fully in me. So I went to the Professor – and I'm glad I did.

We had a quick council of war, the Professor and I, and we agreed to add a little laudanum to Aunt Amelia's evening drink. We left just after she went down for the night. We made our way to the dahabiya, the Professor hiding in my room, and I going to Ramses' room to figure out their plans for that night. After confessing to me what he had planned, he condescendingly allowed me to watch him disguise himself. He hates when I refuse to allow him his privacy, but he wasn't fully undressing, and I do love pushing his buttons. As Ramses left to attend to his post, I went to inform the Professor what Ramses had planned, and then went up to the deck to wait with David. He is such a gentle soul; he would not refuse to allow me my due.

I was almost asleep against his shoulder when Scudder showed his face – well, not literally. He was in the water, swimming for the Valley of the Kings, where the Colonel and Miss Dolly were staying, when Ramses jumped in after him. We were not the only ones prepared for an attack. The Colonel came running up to the water, firing his riffle at anything that moved! Ramses was lucky to receive only a crease in his forehead. An inch more, and he wouldn't have survived. To our knowledge, Scudder was not injured. Once the Professor had rescued Ramses from the water, and gave the old bugger a very loud lecture on shooting his riffle wildly, we decided to bring Aunt Amelia into out confidence.

As it turned out, she had deduced, from different evidence of course, the same conclusions we had. She requested the boys stay at the house the next evening instead of on the dahabiya alone. This is when my common sense took a leave of absence.

The afternoon after our midnight adventure, the Colonel and Miss Dolly came to the dig to offer apologies. You should have seen Miss Dolly falling all over herself when she saw Ramses with his head wrapped in cloth as if he had just come home from war. She made quite a fool of herself. And I don't know what happened Lia darling, but something in me snapped. On several occasions he has vehemently admitted to not appreciating her attentions, but I did notice how he watched her – she dresses almost like a woman of the streets, with her low-cut dresses, and corsets that must restrict all but the least amount of oxygen necessary to keep her from keeling over. I was not jealous of her, but of his attention to her. He used to watch me like that once, but something has changed in him recently. A lack of interest, I assume.

I will not bore you with the events of that day, it is not necessary to my narrative. I had been seething with quiet fury all day over Miss Dolly, and had come up with a plan to distract Ramses from her. After everyone had gone to bed, I put my plan in action. I busied myself for a few hours until I knew everyone would be asleep, and then I slipped into my new nightgown – you know the one, you helped me pick out. You joked that it would be improper for me to wear it on any night but my wedding night… Well, I wore it that night, that almost gave Ramses a heart attack with it. I slipped out of my room to his, and cracked the door open. I knew he would wake at any sound – he has always been a light sleeper. He is not as practiced as Aunt Amelia is, and usually remains momentarily groggy. When he woke, all he could do was stare. I made sure to stand in the moonlight in a way that made my garment near see-through. All I had planned was to stand there and allow him a glimpse of my shadowed, unencumbered form and walk away so he felt as if it were a dream. But he reacted quicker than I had anticipated. When he asked me what the matter was, I was so flustered at being caught that I told him I had had a nightmare. He invited he in, and I ended up making something up on the spot. I don't even remember what I said now... but by the time I had finished, he looked as if he had seen a ghost.

I was so caught up in receiving comfort from him, a gesture he rarely provides, that I asked him if I could stay with him for a short time. He agreed on the premise that I leave the room long enough to allow him to put on his trousers. I had no idea he slept sans garments. I felt even more anxious than before when I learned this most interesting fact. He must have had them right by the bed, for it took only seconds for him to put them on - I wasn't even at the door when he said I could turn around. When I did turn around, it was my turn to be stunned - he was standing in the middle of the room - shirtless, boot less, and with only his trousers pulled up and left undone, he looked magnificent. He was watching me as if I were about to do something he disapproved of.

Now don't get me wrong, my girl, I had seen Ramses in similar states of undress, but there had always been other circumstances keeping me from appreciating how much he has grown. And believe me when I say he has grown everywhere - tall and lean, the contours of his muscles showing quite nicely in the moonlight. I felt improper - if I understand the word correctly - to be in his room, with him like that, in my thinnest nightgown. To cover my reaction of seeing him presenting himself so intimately, I pretended to be quite distraught, and hugged him so as to hide my blushing face.

As he loosened my hold, I expected him to sit and chat with me. Instead, he took my hands in his and led me to the bed. As he slid back under the sheets, he kept them raised for me to follow. Moonlight spilled onto the bed from his window, and lying next to him, I felt my anxiety grow. I wasn't sure whether I regretted wearing my new nightgown or not, but I kept the covers down below my hips. The night air was cool, but I felt quite warm, especially in my face and lower regions. My stomach kept doing little flips.

Even during the months they had spent with the Sheikh, I doubt Ramses or David have had any experience spending time with a woman... Ramses looked positively terrified. I thought since he could practically see through my nightgown, his shell might crack and he would do something ungentlemanly, but his English heritage won out. He simply turned over, and refused to look at me. He seemed so uncomfortable, I decided to make my escape - but the next thing I knew, I was waking up with Ramses staring at me. I shudder to think what I had done to earn such a face - I was having quite the intimate dream, not surprising considering the situation I was currently in, and it would have been incredibly embarrassing if I had made any noises. Even after I awoke, my lips were still tingling as if he had really been kissing me.

I was feeling quite irrational now - how dare he be so calm when I felt as if I were melting from the inside out! So I took matters into my own hands... I grabbed his arm and pulled him up onto his side, pressed my body right into him, and wrapped his arm around my waist. The moment I started to move, I felt him. I had studied the male reproductive member during my courses this past summer, but had not imagined anything like it. It only took moments for his arousal to become apparent - by the time I had gotten comfortable, it felt as if a steel rod were being pressed against my backside. I have no idea how long it took him to fall asleep, it felt like hours, but when he did I slipped out of his embrace, and left, happy with what I had accomplished.

My apologies dear, Ramses is your blood relative, you must not wish to be privy to those details. But trust me, I will have no more stories like that. The next morning, Ramses was in quite a disagreeable mood - he barely spoke to me at breakfast, except for the usual greeting. He went so far as to put off leaving the house until he absolutely had to, and even asked Aunt Amelia to accompany us to the temple. I have a feeling he would not be happy if I brought the subject up for discussion. Even if I had the courage, Ramses and I are rarely alone to have such a private conversation; I can barely admit my inappropriate behaviour to you, let alone to David.

You're probably wondering by now why I would need advice. Well my darling, I'll tell you. It would seem that I can not get that night out of my head. I think about it all the time, and imagine scenarios in which I had been a little braver, or Ramses had been a little less gentlemanly. And if any other female came to me with these kind of symptoms, I would tell her it was quite obvious. My question for you is this: what should I do about it? We have grown up as siblings, but the emotions I am experiencing for him are far from familial. Do you think he'd understand? Probably not. He has such a strict belief in right and wrong – there is no gray areas with him which is damned annoying. He would think I had gone mad.

This is where I will leave off, my sister. I hope you are well. Please pass my love on to the others, and I look forward to reading your response to my dilemma.

Always yours,

Nefret

This concludes this excerpt from Letter Collection B.