Author's notes: Cheers to Liz for pointing out that laudanum is odourless and tasteless. Er, don't expect me over for dinner any time soon. ;)

Caution: Rick uses a bit of bad language in this section. Well... I (and Evelyn) think he's entitled. ;)

11.

"Their loyalty had been won with money, and as soon as the source of funds dried up, their devotion withered."

~

I've never been what can properly be called a light sleeper--one can't be, you see, having grown up with the likes of my brother. Particularly if one's bedroom window overlooks a convenient trellis on the side of the house farthest from one's parents' bedroom. Jonathan can creep like a cat when he so chooses, provided he's sober. So, while I was somewhat accustomed to intermittent rustlings and scrapings (and the occasional drunken stumble into the dresser) and slept through them easily, various other disturbances--such as several loud thuds emanating from the sitting room--were bound to wake me.

I sat up, disoriented; my head still didn't feel quite right. But as I was awake now, fully awake, I decided I might as well get out of bed. I changed my skirt (really, I thought, what had I been thinking when I got dressed that morning?), then sat down at my dressing table to powder my face and put my hair up properly. As soon as I caught sight of my reflection, however, I immediately got up and went in search of a scarf. The last thing I needed was for Jonathan to see my throat in its present condition. If he made a silly joke--or, worse still, tried to be brotherly and sit Rick and I down for a well-intentioned lecture--I might find out if it were actually physically possible to die of embarrassment.

The entire time I was digging through my suitcase, I kept hearing the strangest noises outside my door. I wondered what on earth Rick and Jonathan could be doing--it sounded as though they were trying to hit each other with the furniture! While that wouldn't have been particularly out of character for my fiancé, Jonathan wasn't generally disposed to amateur athletics unless they involved bats or guns and a whole gang of his foppish fellows.

Then I heard a high-pitched whinny--Sir Hugo Brice-Boynton, no doubt. Jonathan had always been one of his favourite hangers-on, and now that we'd come into a bit of money, he suddenly claimed to be one of our oldest and dearest friends. Jonathan had even angled to get him an invitation to the wedding, but I'd put my foot down. I never liked the man; he was overly inclined to view women as appendages, second-class citizens, and it took a lot of work on my part to ensure that Jonathan didn't absorb too many of his rather disagreeable opinions.

I found the scarf and put it on as best I could. It looked odd and didn't match the rest of the outfit, but no matter; Sir Hugo and his entourage considered me a rather gauche and badly-dressed representative of my inferior gender in any case, and Rick didn't particularly care what I wore... as long as it's buttoned properly, I amended mentally, my thoughts momentarily drifting.

I felt quite sure I could convince Jonathan and his friends to take their noisy little party elsewhere, on the grounds that I was ill and needed rest and quiet. Then it would be a simple matter of ensuring Rick that I didn't immediately require either. He was so careful of me sometimes--but I wasn't made of glass, and I wouldn't shatter in his embrace. The sooner he learned that, the better off we'd both be.

Having decided on my plan of action, I walked out of my bedroom--and into a horrific scene. Jonathan was slumped over the coffee table, unmoving. Rick was nowhere to be seen. The sitting room was a shambles, with books and papers and settee cushions strewn all about. Sir Hugo and two of his nasty little friends were busily engaged in adding to the mess. They were searching the room.

"What are you doing?!" I demanded. It wasn't until a second later, as all three men immediately advanced upon me, that I realized how utterly foolish it was to try and confront the lot of them--especially since I was the person they'd expressed such particular interest in the other evening. At least, I assumed it had been them, and their actions now gave me no reason to doubt that assumption.

I tried to retreat into my bedroom, but one of them, a small, weaselly fellow, managed to get between the door and the jamb and grab hold of my arm before I could slam the door shut. He dragged me out, then pinned both my arms behind my back, holding me in front of him. I struggled and shouted for Rick, trying to worm free, but the man's grip was like steel. When I kicked out at him, he wrenched my arm so hard, I thought at first that he'd dislocated it at the shoulder.

"I wouldn't scream, darling girl," advised Sir Hugo in an amiable tone. "Your fiancé won't be springing to your aid, or anything of the sort, I'm afraid." He gestured in the general direction of the settee with his gold-topped walking-stick. "He's, er, just having something in the way of forty winks, eh?"

The man behind me marched me over far enough that I could see Rick, lying prostrate behind the settee. I had only a glimpse of him before I was jerked back to stand before Sir Hugo again. My heart sank. Neither Rick nor Jonathan appeared to be wounded--they must have been drugged, I concluded. There was simply no way that these three men alone could have overpowered Rick otherwise.

"Keep looking," he ordered the third man, who went back to tossing things randomly about the room.

"I know what you're after," I told him. "And I'll give it to you, as long as you leave once you've got it."

Sir Hugo looked almost impressed. "By Jove, could it be? A reasonable woman?"

"Not bloody likely," grunted the man behind me. I debated whether to kick him again, but decided that would probably prove counter-productive in the long run.

"I give you my word, Evie, my dear. As soon as you furnish us with what we came for, you won't see the likes of me again."

"It's in Rick's pocket."

"Ah! Is it, now!" Sir Hugo smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, and the fact that his teeth were a nasty shade of brown did little to improve it. "Now, now, little one, you should know better than to lie to your old Uncle Hugo. The first thing we did, once he finally had the good sense to drop off, was to search through his pockets."

That threw me. I'd been certain Rick would keep the amulet with him.

"And please don't try to tell me it's in your bedroom, my dear," he continued. "We had a fellow in there already, as you may have guessed--one of the local chaps. He thought we were quite balmy, I dare say, although we paid him well--and you certainly put the fear of God into him when you woke up and began thrashing about in the netting! I thought it was quite clever, dressing him up like an Egyptian, since you seem to think of little else." The rotter seemed to think he knew me, just because we'd met and he'd spoken with my brother about me once or twice. He moved to the settee, sat down, and picked up a glass from the end table, making himself at home. "You see, Evie, old thing," he continued, "I've had a spot of trouble lately with the Department of Antiquities."

"Good," I spat.

He ignored my comment, but the man who held my arms behind my back tightened his grip.

"They're cracking down, don't you know. Collectors aren't as welcome here as they used to be. So, when I'd got my hands on a bit of something, well, I decided the best thing would be to put it to one side, and then retrieve it later. And your brother, helpful chappie that he is, is a great hand for holding onto something and keeping it out of sight."

"Jonathan would never have done that to me." I harboured no illusions about my brother: I knew he was a liar, a swindler, and a thief. But I also knew that he loved me, and would never willingly put me in danger.

Sir Hugo laughed and slapped his knee. "Fawhaw! Right you are! Right you are indeed. Clever girl. But Jonny didn't know what he'd got, you see. Hadn't the faintest bloody clue. He told us he wasn't going to give it to you until after the wedding... but then he changed his mind. Not a very reliable chap, is he?" He poked Jonathan in the ribs with the head of his walking-stick. "He couldn't, for the life of him, remember where it had gone after you'd unwrapped it."

Jonathan didn't stir, and I felt myself going cold all over. I couldn't even see Rick, apart from his legs, but he didn't seem to be moving either.

"What did you do to them?" I asked. "If you've hurt either of them..."

Sir Hugo actually looked insulted. "Hurt? What d'you take me for?"

"You look at the dirty great bruise on my brother's face, and then ask me that again." My anger was slowly coming to a boil. Really, who did this man think he was?

He waved away my concerns airily. "An unfortunate accident--he's got quite a bit of fight in him for such a little fellow. We didn't expect him to struggle so, that was all."

"You shot at us the other night!"

"Another unfortunate accident. My dear, you really do need to learn to count better--the address in the note was next door. You would have gone barging in--as you seem dashedly prone to do, if you don't mind my saying so, old thing--someone would have overpowered you, taken what we needed, and that would have been the end of the whole silly affair. It would have been a brief, if unpleasant, sort of a thing, but you wouldn't have had to worry about it that much... now, of course, it's all thoroughly bolloxed, and if I don't get what I'm after, I'm afraid I may have to, er, um, start murdering people." He examined his manicured fingernails, as if he were hesitant to get blood under them. "In any case, Jonny and your, er, beloved are just having a bit of a lie-down. They'll wake up none the worse for wear, don't you trouble your pretty head over it." He reached into his own pocket and pulled out the amulet that had been my brother's wedding gift, fiddling with it absently.

"Look, what are you playing at?" I demanded. "You've already got the amulet! Why don't you just leave?"

"My dear girl," he began, standing up and coming towards me.

I straightened. "I am not your dear anything, you hateful man. You can't come in here, attack my brother and my fiancé, go through our things, threaten to kill us, and then expect me to stand here and listen to your prattle as though we were old friends."

"As you like," he replied neutrally. "However, you seem to be under a bit of a misapprehension, eh? The fact of the matter is, the amulet was never our target. Silly thing's made of nothing but bloody paste."

"I knew that," I replied, with all the dignity I could muster. I'd been hoping they didn't know it.

"Now, why don't you be a good little girl and tell old Uncle Hugo what you did with the wrapper from your pretty present, hmm?"

"I don't remember."

Without preamble, he lashed out, dealing me a vicious backhand blow across the mouth. "Please don't lie to me, old dear. I don't like to strike a woman. 'Tisn't sporting, don't you know. Now, where is the papyrus?"

My lip was split and bleeding, and I could feel it starting to swell. "I don't know!" I shouted. I wasn't trying to be brave, either--I honestly couldn't recall what I'd done with it. He moved to hit me again, and to buy myself some time, I said, "All right! All right... tell me why it's so important, and perhaps I'll give it to you."

The brute behind me cranked my arm until I screamed. Sir Hugo made a peremptory gesture, and the pressure eased.

"That's perfectly all right. After all, as an amateur of all things Egyptian, like myself, it might interest you to know." He smiled his disgusting smile. "I was rather surprised, I must say, that you didn't recognize the thing's value immediately. After all, you must have read it."

I hadn't. Since a certain incident, involving a certain book, I had an understandable prejudice against reading texts of whose provenance I couldn't be quite certain.

"No? Well, it was a wordy little blighter, so I'll paraphrase, if you don't mind... you may have noticed the picture of Tefnut on the thing. Well, my dear, old Akenaten may have been balmy as a bat, but he wasn't stupid, was he? He and his wife used the twin gods Tefnut and Shin as their own personal symbols, divinity on earth, reincarnation, and whatnot. Eh?"

"Shu," I corrected. "Not Shin."

For a moment, I thought he was going to slap me again. Instead, he merely pinched my cheek--hard. "Bad things happen to little girls who talk out of turn," he said mildly. "Now then, where was I? Ah, yes. Tefnut's likeness was used to represent Nefertiti. Symbolism and all that rot. That little piece of paper you so carelessly tossed aside actually contained directions to her tomb!"

"Oh, and I suppose you were going to go there?" The idea of Sir Hugo and his effete friends weathering the desert sands would have been laughable, if not for present circumstances. "Without a permit or even a letter to the Department of Antiquities?" I realized it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but he didn't need to know that. What frightened me was that Sir Hugo Brice-Boynton was, literally, a few feet away from the greatest treasure find of this century--and as when he and his half-wit companions began to search my room, they couldn't possibly miss the suitcase I'd left sitting on my bed, unlocked. What they'd do with us once they found it, I didn't know, but I doubted it would be pleasant. My only advantage was the fact that they'd already sent someone to go through my things; perhaps the man hadn't informed anyone that he'd been unable to finish the job before I woke up. Still, I had to get these men out of here, and quickly. There was only one option as far as I could see--and if it didn't work, I'd really be in trouble.

"Look here, enough chit-chat," he snapped. "Where is the sodding thing?"

"I'll get it for you, if you'll only let me go..." I feigned a sob, ducking my head so he wouldn't see that I was dry-eyed, then bit my swollen lower lip hard enough to call up some genuine tears. "Please, Sir Hugo, I--I won't try to cause any trouble. I promise." I affected a pleading look, blinking so that the drops stole pathetically down my face.

He nodded approvingly. "I say, that's more like it." He nodded to the man behind me, who administered a final twist to my arm before letting me go.

"It's in my handbag," I told him. "Let me bring it to you." I nearly tripped over Rick's outstretched leg in my haste to get to the table--and my heart leaped into my throat as he stirred, groaning faintly. I wanted to say something to him, to see if he was all right, but I couldn't give him away until it was safe...

Reaching my goal at last, I snatched up my bag, pulled out my pistol, and pointed it at Sir Hugo and his villainous friends.

"Oh--oh, I say, old girl, you wouldn't--" Three pairs of hands sprang into the air, almost in unison.

"I wouldn't push your luck, if I were you," I suggested. "Don't move, gents." I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do now. I didn't want to shoot any of them, but we couldn't all just stand there like living statues, waiting for Rick to wake up.

Sir Hugo seemed to sense my dilemma: he began inching his way closer to the door, forcing a chuckle. "All's well that ends well, eh, what?"

"I said, don't move!" I repeated. "This is loaded!" At least, I assumed it was. It had been when I saw it last.

He sneered contemptuously. "You don't even know how to use the bloody thing."

I levelled it at his heart. "Try me."

"You wouldn't shoot a compatriot, would you, Evie? An Englishman and a gentleman--and nobility, no less? Don't want your name in all the papers back home, do you?" He continued to move, more confidently now. "After all, what harm is there in collecting and trading a few artifacts here and there? It's not as though the idiot natives know the value of such things--they'd sell their own mothers for a song." He reached for the door handle, his expression insufferably smug.

"You are everything that is wrong with this country," I told him. And I squeezed the trigger.

Of course, nothing happened, because I'd forgotten to take the bloody safety off.

A lot of things happened very quickly after that: Sir Hugo sprang forward and knocked the pistol out of my hand. He grabbed at me; I yelped, swore, and kicked him in a place that need not be specified. He let out a yelp and crumpled in a heap. The other two men both came at me. Then Rick seemed to come from out of nowhere, and tackled the man who had held me, knocking him unconscious with one punch. He dealt with the second man equally quickly, slamming him into the wall until he slumped to the ground. With Sir Hugo, though, he wasn't as fast--or as merciful.

"You wanna fight? Huh? Why don't you try me on for size?" He dragged him to his feet and held him up with one hand, then jabbed him in the mouth with the other. Not what I'd call sporting, but then, neither is drugging people--or smacking them when their hands are behind them. "Come on, stand up. Or do you only fight with girls?" He delivered a punch to the chin, then another to the face, in rapid succession. There was a sickening crack, and I was certain Rick had broken Sir Hugo's nose. "Maybe she didn't want to shoot you, you bastard, but I sure as shit will." He released his hold, and a second later the pistol was in his hand. He aimed it squarely at Sir Hugo, who was kneeling on the floor, bleeding copiously from his mouth and nose. "I said stand the fuck up!"

Sir Hugo tottered to his feet.

I placed a cautionary hand on Rick's shoulder. "Don't," I told him.

"You can't tell me he doesn't deserve it," he growled, working the slide.

"Please, don't." I wasn't about to do anything as stupid as get between him and Sir Hugo, and I certainly wasn't going to suggest that we let any of them go free. "We'll take them to the police."

"Dammit, Evelyn--!"

His gaze never strayed from his quarry for a moment, but I could tell that he was in the midst of an inner struggle. Every instinct he had told him to pull the trigger--as I had tried to do when I'd had the chance. I wasn't going to condemn him for something I nearly did myself. But I hadn't been able to; perhaps because, subconsciously, I knew it was wrong. And I wasn't about to let Rick do something I knew he'd regret later.

"Please, Rick," I repeated.

Rick gestured to Sir Hugo with the business end of the firearm. "Against the wall. Hands behind your head," he ordered curtly. When Sir Hugo hesitated--he'd been holding one hand over his nose to staunch the flow of blood--Rick barked, "Now!"

Sir Hugo obeyed.

I ran to Jonathan and checked him over. His skin was clammy, and he was breathing slowly and quite shallowly. I shook him and called his name, but he didn't so much as twitch. "What did you give him?" I demanded.

Sir Hugo didn't even have the grace to look ashamed of what he'd done. "Laudanum."

"How much?" I shook him more forcefully, trying to reign in the sick feeling of panic that had begun to take hold of me. "Jon, for heaven's sake..."

"It's probably in the wine bottle, too," Rick pointed out. "The one we thought the hotel left the other night. Right?"

Sir Hugo nodded.

"And then there was the whiskey," added Rick, grimly.

My hands flew to my mouth, and I cried out. No wonder I'd felt so vile that morning--I hadn't been merely hung over, but drugged.

Rick cracked a sardonic smile. "Still don't want me to shoot him?"

"Shut up and tell me what to do!" I exclaimed, dragging my brother off the table and laying him out on his back. His face was pale, his slack lips a sickly bluish-grey. I could hear him struggling for breath.

"How the hell should I know? I'm not a doctor!" To Sir Hugo, he added, "If anything happens to him, I won't just shoot you--I'll kill you with my bare hands. And it won't be quick."

"Come on, Jonathan..." I pleaded. "Breathe!" Completely at a loss, I did the only thing I knew of to revive someone in a dead faint: I slapped him as hard as I could. Then a second time on the opposite cheek. When his eyelashes started to flutter, I very nearly burst into tears.

"What's all that noise?" he mumbled, and tried to turn over. "Can't be morning already..." Then he began to retch, and I helped him to sit up, propping him against the armchair and reaching for the wastepaper basket.

"There, now, you're going to be fine," I told him. He had begun to be sick in earnest by this time, and it was not pleasant. "That's it, get it all out of your system... you'll feel much better."

"I can't believe you tried to take on three guys by yourself," Rick muttered, shaking his head. He cursed under his breath. I pretended not to hear, reasoning that he was entitled.

I couldn't believe it either. I wondered if his shoot-first-and-ask-no-questions attitude was starting to have an influence on my own way of thinking. "They started it," I said, quite truthfully.

"Uh huh."

He and I exchanged looks. "Are you all right?" I queried. His face was a funny colour--but at least he was standing, which was more than I could say for my brother. Jonathan coughed and spat into the wastepaper basket, mumbling incoherently. "Not going to be sick, or anything?" I pressed, knowing Rick would never willingly admit to being anything but fine until he fell down dead.

"Head's killing me," he grunted. "But I'll live."

"Evie, I do believe I'm dying," was Jonathan's contribution to the conversation.

I petted his back. "Shh. Don't be melodramatic, dear. Head down... there we are."

"How about you?" Rick asked.

"I'm fine." My shoulder was a bit sore, but that was neither here nor there.

"Your mouth is bleeding," he informed me tightly. His voice was controlled, and his arm never wavered as he continued to hold Sir Hugo at gunpoint, but I could almost feel the white-hot anger that emanated from him. "This guy hit you?"

I nodded, and wiped the blood from my lip with my sleeve. My biting it so hard had undoubtedly made it worse, but I wasn't about to make excuses for the man after everything he'd done.

He turned back to the Englishman, who was visibly trembling now. "You so much as look at her wrong, and I'm gonna shoot you," he informed him quietly. "And I'll aim low."

Jonathan stopped heaving and moaned feebly.

"So," I began, keeping my tone light and conversational, "are you going to ring up the police, Rick, or shall I?"