Page 2 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke (The Marlow Family Secrets #6)

Egypt, December, seven years later

John let the handle of the spade rest against his midriff, set one hand on his lean waist and wiped his brow with his forearm. Then he lifted the wide-brimmed leather hat from his head and tipped his gaze to the endlessly clear, blue sky.

God, it was hot here, but it was the middle of a bloody desert.

‘The skin, please.’ He looked at one of the native men in his train. Almost instantly the waterskin was in John’s hand.

The warm water slid down his throat, relieving the dryness.

They’d found a new tomb but it was buried beneath centuries of sand.

Dropping his hat back on his head, John bent and resumed digging. His blade slipped easily into the sand, but half of each shovel load slid back into the hole. He cursed and increased his pace.

‘My lord, I have it!’ Yassah, the man who’d been John’s right hand for years, called. John let his spade fall and moved to where Yassah worked, dropping to his knees to scoop out sand with his bare hands.

‘It is the entrance.’ There was a flare of excitement in John’s chest. The hours of hunting and digging were worth it for this moment of success.

Before Egypt, John had drifted, despondent. This was why he had come and this was why he had stayed.

‘It is open, robbed,’ Yassah stated. He was on his knees too.

Empty. Damn . But there would still be the paintings. John leaned back, resting his buttocks on his heels. ‘Hand me the spade, let us clear it.’

Later, John sat beneath the canopy before his tent, in a canvas chair, his feet resting on the sand.

The sky was red, and the sun glowed on the horizon about to fall.

Then suddenly it literally dropped over the edge of the world, leaving only the blue-black darkness and a million glinting stars, the stars he had seen painted on the ceiling of every temple.

The sun never set like this in England – like a scarab beetle had run off with it. That was the ancient Egyptians’ explanation for the sun that descended in a rush.

He drew on the tip of a thin cigar, letting his hand fall when he exhaled.

The tomb they discovered today had been an official’s. It was empty, but it was not treasure which excited John anyway. It was the emotion of the search and the find.

John took another draw on his cigar.

He was in a thoughtful mood, brooding. The images from his hated recurring dream crowding into his head. It had come to him again last night, and it always made him feel melancholy.

His gaze reached up to the darkness and the stars. The black of night was like gleaming polished jet here, not the dull pitch it was at home.

When his grandfather had packed John off on the grand tour to sow-his-wild-oats abroad, the intention had been for John to return with his youthful dissipated fire burned out. But nothing in England drew John back.

He was a child in the dream, looking through the window of his grandfather’s grand black coach.

He saw his mother, with her dress clutched in one hand as she ran behind them, reaching towards him.

His stepfather was there too, behind her, his skin flushed red, his expression one of fury.

But it wasn’t only a dream, it was a memory.

A memory John had never asked to be explained.

A memory he had never told any of those who were there that he had.

His grandfather had taken him from them. John had never understood why.

His childhood had been lonely before that.

Perhaps that was why he felt so comfortable in a desert.

He had been returned to his mother a few weeks later.

But that memory, which his head constantly echoed in a dream, was the defining moment of his life.

The point he had been torn in two, by his grandfather’s will and his mother’s love.

One was hard, cold and aggressive, the other warm, welcoming and enchanting.

The second had been a childish pleasure, he had outgrown it.

What abided in him now was the barren land his grandfather had cultivated.

Before that moment, he had not been allowed to speak of his mother and never been told why.

John’s earliest memory was of his grandfather saying he had no mother, she was dead.

Which John knew was a lie even at the time.

She had visited him at boarding school and written to him for years and then she had come and taken him away in the middle of the night.

She had run away with him. His memory, his dream, was of the moment his grandfather had found them and taken him back.

She had taught him kindness and consideration, empathy and understanding, while his grandfather had encouraged the constant restraint of emotions and harsh judgement of others.

Now, John felt constantly angry. This was the reason he had stayed abroad. He was his grandfather’s monster. The years spent in Europe had taught John that.

He took another drag on his cigar, then exhaled.

When he had arrived in Paris, he had been his mother’s child, na?ve and foolish – the proverbial lamb to be slaughtered.

Obvious prey for the she-wolves hunting those grounds.

He had been seduced by their world and fleeced.

It had taken months to learn the art of disengagement.

That experience had left him bitter, and his grandfather had achieved his wish, John did not trust a soul.

The choice he had made after that was the only one open to him – not to go back. Not going back was the only way he could win the battle against his grandfather.

Then he found Egypt, and a purpose, something beyond himself. Something which made him feel emotions. The only problem was this loneliness at night.

When it was dark, the isolation became stark and these childhood memories flooded in. In his youth he had covered them with friendships. In his dissipated years he had smothered them with sex. He had nothing to do with women since he arrived in Egypt, so there was no hiding from thoughts here.

He thought of his stepfather, half brothers and sisters. It was Christmas in four days. His family would be together, he alone. Occasionally he wrote home to tell them he was still alive.

He took another drag on his cigar, clearing his thoughts.

He did not wish to think of his family, or England. His thoughts turned to the tomb he had found today, and what he would do tomorrow to learn more about whoever had been buried there.

* * *

A brush in his hand, John lay on his stomach, cautiously sweeping sand away from the painted wall-plaster of the tomb they had discovered four days earlier. The colours were so bright they could have been painted days ago.

‘My lord!’ John looked across his shoulder. Mustafa, his man servant who usually stayed in camp, was looking through the couple of feet-wide hole John and others had dug through from the entrance.

‘My lord! This letter came from England.’

Mustafa waved the thin paper as though it were something wonderful.

John glanced at his chief excavator. ‘Yassah, would you carry on without me?’ He shuffled backwards out of the tomb into the blazing midday sun.

As he stood, he brushed the sand from his clothes, then took the letter.

It had a mark showing it passed through Alexandra a month ago.

He recognised the writing as his stepfather’s.

In England, his family would be on his stepfather’s small estate today, celebrating Christmas.

On occasions he had spent Christmas with them.

Most often, he had been forced to spend it with his grandfather.

Either way, Christmas did not bring forward many fond memories.

John broke the red wax seal that had held the letter closed on its long journey.

His grandfather would be horrified if he saw the calluses on John’s hands.

Glancing up, John thanked Mustafa and then began walking towards the canopy his men used at prayer times.

He stopped in its shade and opened the letter. A second separate folded sheet fell out. He held that aside and read.

The letter was dated August, months ago.

Dear John,

I have grave news regarding your grandfather…

John read the letter stiff with shock. His father’s words were carefully couched but the meaning was clear, the Duke of Pembroke was dying.

He could be dead by now, John thought, his hand covering his mouth.

His lips were dry, and the sun beat down on his back, but inside he felt like ice. His hand swept back his hair.

This meant he had to go back. He had been bred to take over his grandfather’s title and estates. The choice was no longer his.

It struck him, he should be feeling grief. Sadness. He did not. He had never cared for the old tyrant. But he did feel strangely suspended, as though time had stopped. As though it would never start again. He did not want to go back.

John looked at the other letter and saw Mary’s effervescent writing. Mary was his eldest sister, the first child of his mother’s second marriage. She was just sixteen, approaching her first season in London high society.

She had clearly written in a hurry, scribbling a note to include in her father’s letter. She told John she needed her big brother home to lead her in her first waltz. She vowed she wouldn’t dance a single one unless he came.

Their grandfather’s death would postpone her debut, she obviously did not know he was ill, or the Duke had not been at death’s door when this was written.

Whatever the situation, John would not shy from his responsibility, he had to go back.

‘Mustafa!’ John turned.