The Companion Read Online Free PDF Page B

drawing room except for the roll of the deck and the wind whipping at their hair.
    “Ian Rufford,” he almost growled. “Your servant, madam.” He actually turned away, not even waiting for her reciprocal introduction.
    She should simply race across to the stairs below. It would be most improper to stay and speak to any man without an introduction other than his own. She might have been in Africa and the Levant for these ten years, but even she knew that. Still, she did not like being snubbed.
    Beth grabbed the rail to steady herself. “Elizabeth Rochewell.”
    He turned back, surprised at her boldness. His eyes raked her as though he knew something about her she might not want anyone to know. She was acutely conscious of her short stature. Could he see her brown complexion in this light? Probably not. He could see her black pelisse and her kid half boots, fashionable, if moderate in style. She was glad Lady Metherton had talked her into buying them as part of her mourning clothes, even if this man was not the kind to care for fashion.
    “What brings someone like you to Tripoli, Miss Rochewell?” His voice was indifferent.
    “Someone like me,” she mused as she turned out to the sea, determined not to let her anger show. He didn’t think much of women or at least women who looked like her. “Someone like me was on an archaeological expedition with my father in the desert.”
    Behind them, a man’s voice called out, “Luff up handsomely, there!” A sail flapped.
    “Treasure hunting, like Lord Elgin?”
    She didn’t look at him. She didn’t trust her eyes not to betray her outrage. “Searching for knowledge, Mr. Rufford, about who we are, and where our kind has been.”
    “And you thought you would find that in the barren deserts of North Africa. . . .”
    He made it sound childish. “The desert holds many secrets. Look at the lost city of Petra—it gives us two thousand years of history and more.”
    “Petra, what is that?” She had piqued his curiosity.
    “You don’t get about much, Mr. Rufford, if you haven’t heard of Petra. Discovered seven years ago in Palestine—a treasure trove of knowledge. A paper was read just last year at Somerset House before the Royal Society.”
    “Yes. Well. I have been otherwise engaged for the last two years. No time for announcements of obscure archaeological discoveries.”
    She shot a stealthy glance at him, remembering the scars. He was leaning out over the rail again, watching the ships of the convoy, now closing in around them. Had he been in prison? Why? His aura of danger took on a more palpable form. She let her words race on. “It was not obscure. It was a very important discovery.”
    He looked her over once again. Those full lips curled in a tiny smile that might have been a sneer. “So now all the bored aristocrats are wandering about the desert looking for meaning to their lives, even women. Did you discover anything important?”
    She repressed a gasp. His rudeness deserved that she justwalk away, or rather lurch away toward the quarterdeck ropes. But she could not resist a setdown of a more telling nature. “I discovered that all the guesses about the age of the Sphinx in Egypt were only that—learned guesses, but very wrong.” She paused. “You have heard of the Sphinx, have you not?”
    He did not answer her sally. But he examined her once again. “Wrong.” He let his disbelief hang in the air, just short of derision.
    Beth turned to him, leaning against the rail for balance. “Yes. Wrong. I became interested in the patterns of erosion, Mr. Rufford, when I was looking into the geological phenomena around Petra and how those ravines came to be there waiting for a city to be carved out of them. I thought one might use erosion to date things. And I did, in a way.”
    “What way?” He was reserving judgment now.
    “Erosion comes in several varieties: the kind made by wind and the kind made by dripping water, for instance, and they leave very