Bright Hair About the Bone Read Online Free PDF

archaeology and I’ve read a good deal of ancient history. I can even decipher a line or two of hieroglyphs…I see I’m boring you?”
    â€œNo, no. My expression is one of incredulous fascination. I quiver with curiosity to know where you are leading me with all this.” He took from a drawer a sheet of college writing paper, unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen with a provoking flourish, and sat, head tilted, all compliant cooperation. Anything to get rid of the girl.
    â€œGood. We’re ready then. My intention is to foster the career of a friend and colleague, a Miss St. Clair…Stella St. Clair.”
    â€œSinclair?”
    â€œNo. Not quite.” Laetitia spelled out the surname. “Miss St. Clair is a talented, though at present unqualified, archaeologist, and she is seeking to fill a position which has recently come vacant on a dig in France. This is where I hope to enlist your help. I won’t presume to dictate—I’ll leave the wording to you. Choose whatever formulae come most readily to mind, but the substance of your letter should be this: You are recommending to the attention of the recipient—more of him later—the bearer, a Miss Stella St. Clair, graduate—yes, I said
graduate
—of this university. Having covered herself with glory during her time here…no…better, I think, say that she achieved title to an honours degree of the second class…Miss St. Clair has subsequently spent a year in Egypt working with the celebrated archaeologist Professor Sir Andrew Merriman (who will also bear testimony to the good character and capacity of the said lady) and is certainly well fitted for a position with a foundation of the highest order and international reputation. Now—you are writing specifically to an American academic. Here are his details.”
    She handed a note over the desk and he read, intrigued despite himself,
Charles Paradee, Directeur, Fondation Archaéologique Américaine.
The address was in Fontigny, Burgundy, France.
    She paused for a moment, then added, “And you’d better assure Mr. Paradee that your protégée speaks perfect French.”
    â€œFrench?”
    â€œI understand it to be the lingua franca of Burgundy,” she replied annoyingly. “And that is one point at least on which you need have no bad conscience. Miss St. Clair’s mother was French. Felix, stop puffing and blustering and what-iffing and get on with it! No one will ever find out. And if they do, you may say I held a gun to your head. I’ll confess to it.”
    Ten minutes later, a final draft was approved, folded, and tucked away in her bag, which she closed with a triumphant click.
    â€œAnd what guarantee do I have that this little show of pettiness is to be the end of your attempts at coercion and not merely the first of a succession of demands?” Dalton wanted to know.
    â€œGuarantee? None at all. I am no gentleman, Felix. If there’s anything more I should need, I shall be back for it. And…would you really call it coercion? I’d call it blackmail. You should pray that the pursuit of my career takes me away from this snug academic world of yours and distracts my attention from your affairs.”
    â€œLook here! I would like your Miss St. Clair, whoever and wherever she may be, and any other performers in this Grand Guignol you are staging, to understand,” he said carefully, “that should there be repercussions, I shall take steps to protect my reputation.” Then, catching a cynical grey eye, he shrugged and adjusted his tone. “I wish her every success and you also, Miss Talbot. I shall watch your future career with some interest. I hope your success will lead you on to further—and farther—triumphs in lands distant from Cambridge. I believe wonders are to be unearthed in Italy…or Crete…or Ur of the Chaldees! The scorching sands of the Mesopotamian desert