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But she couldn't release him. In the graceful robes, he looked more than ever otherworldly. The pure precious love she felt for him was sharpened to the point of pain.

"Do you know what's happened?" she whispered. "A woman in the museum was murdered and they are accusing you of the crime."

"I know, my dearest," he said softly. "The death is on my head. And worse horrors than that."

She stared at him, trying to accept his words. Then the tears rose once again, and she covered her face with her hands.

She sat on the bed, staring stupidly at him. Did she understand when he told her the dress was a very fine dress? She mimicked the words of the gramophone in perfect English. "I should like a little sugar in my coffee. I should like a bit of lemon in my tea." Then she fell silent again.

She let him button the pearl buttons; she stared down in amazement as he tied the sash of the pink skirt. She gave an evil little laugh and lifted her leg against the heavy gores of the skirt.

"Pretty, pretty," she said. He had taught her that much in English. "Pretty dress."

She brushed past him suddenly and picked up a magazine from the dressing table and looked at the pictures of the women. Then in Latin, she asked again, What is this place?

"Egypt," he told her. He had told her over and over. Then would come the blank look, then the look of pain.

Timidly he lifted the brush, and brought it down through her hair. Lovely, fine hair. Hair so black there were faint glints of blue in it. She sighed, lifted her shoulders; she loved him brushing it. A low laugh came from her lips.

"Very good, Lord Rutherford," she said in English. She arched her back and moved her limbs languidly, a cat stretching, her hands exquisitely graceful as she held them poised in the air.

"Bella Regina Cleopatra," he sighed. Was it safe now to leave her? Could he make her understand? Perhaps if Malenka stood outside in the street before the bolted door until he came back.

"I must go now, Your Majesty. I must get more of the medicine if I can."

She turned, stared at him blankly. She didn't know what he was talking about! Was it possible she could not even remember what had happened moments before? She was trying to remember.

"From Ramses," he said.

There was a spark in her eye, then a deep shadow over her face. She whispered something, but he didn't hear it. "Kind Lord Rutherford," she said.

He pulled firmly on the hairbrush. Her hair was now a great soft drift of rippling waves.

The strangest light had come into her expression; her mouth was slack; her cheeks flushed.

She turned and stroked his face. She said something quickly in Latin that meant he possessed an older man's knowledge and a young man's mouth.

He puzzled over it, trying to think as she looked into his eyes. It seemed his own awareness of things drifted in and out; one moment she was this deeply afflicted creature he must care for; the next the great Cleopatra, and the full shock of it struck him again.

Luscious, this woman; the seducer of Caesar. She drew closer to him. It seemed the shrewdness had returned. Then her arm went up around his neck. Her fingers stroked his hair.

Warm her flesh. Dear God, the same flesh that had lain rotted and black beneath that dirty glass, thick and impenetrable as tar, that mass.

But these eyes, these deep hazel eyes with the tiny flecks of yellow in the pupils, impossible that they had sprung alive again from the dark filth. The filth of death.... Her lips touched his suddenly. Her mouth opened against his and he felt her tongue sliding between his teeth.

Instantly, his sex stirred. But this was madness. He was incapable. His heart, the pain in his bones, he could not possibly ... She pushed her breasts against him. Through the cloth he felt their throbbing heat. The lace, the pearl buttons; they only made her seem all the more deliciously savage.

His vision blurred, he saw the naked bones of her fingers as she reached to force his hair back off his forehead, as her kiss became more insistent and her tongue plunged deep into his mouth.

Cleopatra, the lover of Caesar, of Antony, and of Ramses the Damned. He closed his arms around her waist. She went back on the lace pillows, pulling him down on top of her.

He groaned aloud, his mouth gnawing at her. God, to take her. His hand gathered up the silk skirts and plunged between her legs. Moist, hot hair there, moist lips.

"Good, Lord Rutherford," she said in Latin. Her hips knocked against him, against his sex bulging and ready to be free.

He opened the few buttons quickly. How many years had it been since the thing was done in such haste? But there was no question now of what was meant to happen.

"Ah, take me, Lord Rutherford!" came her hissing whisper. "Plunge your dagger into my soul!"