Whispers in the Sand Read Online Free PDF Page B

too?”
    He was an attractive man, she realised suddenly, but even as she thought it, his face closed, and she saw it harden and the warmth vanished.
    “I am indeed, but I very much doubt it is the same one as you.” His accent was difficult to place, very faint—slightly Scots perhaps, or Irish—because that was all he said. He shifted his shoulders slightly, turning away from her, and putting his head back against the seat, he closed his eyes once more.
    She felt a surge of anger and resentment. Well, that had certainly put her in her place. How dare he assume anything about her! Turning abruptly towards the window, she stared out, astonished to find that far below them it was already dark. In the distance, she realised suddenly that she could see lights. They would soon be arriving at Luxor.
    By the time she had been through passport control and retrieved her suitcase among the teeming throng of other tourists, Anna was exhausted. She hung onto her case, grimly waving away the offers of help from a surge of gesticulating, shouting would-be porters, and joined the queue for the bus.

    The White Egret was a small boat. The brochure had shown the Victorian paddle steamer on a separate page from the other cruisers belonging to the travel company, emphasising its age, its history, and its selectness. There would be only eighteen passengers. It was a long shot, she had suspected, even to try and find a place on it, but she had made the effort because it was the closest she was likely to get to the kind of boat Louisa would have travelled on from Cairo to Luxor, and to her enormous delight and surprise they had written to say that there had been a cancellation, and she found herself allocated one of the only two single cabins.
    A hasty glance round the bus showed her that her neighbour from the plane was not there. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sorry. She had not enjoyed his rudeness. On the other hand, his would at least have been a familiar face amongst all these strangers. She made her way towards the back and sat down, her small holdall and camera bag on the seat beside her. Was she the only person there on her own? It seemed like it. Everyone else was sitting in pairs, and the level of excited conversation had escalated as the door closed and the bus pulled away. She gazed out into the darkness, feeling suddenly bleak and lonely, and then realised with an excited sense of shock which put all thoughts of her loneliness out of her head that beyond the reflections of the bus windows she could see palm trees and a man in a white turban perched on the rump of a tiny donkey trotting along the road in the dark.
    The boat—three storeys, picked out in lights with a huge paddle wheel each side—was moored on the outskirts of the town. They were welcomed with hot towels for their hands and a drink of sweet fruit juice, then they were given their cabin keys.
    Her cabin was small but adequate, her case already waiting for her in the middle of the floor. She looked round with interest. Her new domain provided her with a single bed, a bedside locker on which stood an old-fashioned internal telephone, a dressing table, and a narrow cupboard. It was scarcely luxury, but at least she did not have to share it with a stranger. Throwing her holdall, camera, and shoulder bag down on the bed, she closed the door behind her and went to the window. Pushing back the curtains and opening the shutters, she tried to see out, but the river bank beyond was dark. To her disappointment, she could see nothing. Pulling the curtains shut again, she turned back to the room. Half an hour, they had been told, until supper, and then in the morning they would be ferried across the River Nile and their first visit—to the Valley of the Kings, Louisa’s Valley of the Tombs—would begin. A wave of excitement swept over her.
    It took no time at all to unpack, to hang up the dresses and skirts she had brought with her—there was no need of a Jane