She remembered a strange summer afternoon when she was a girl. She'd been with her father visiting Elliott's country estate, and she'd gone off roaming with Alex only to drift back early and alone, a bit bored, and tired, and come upon her father and Elliott alone in the library.
She had caught them unawares only for a moment.
But it was a strange moment. They'd been before the window with their backs to the door. Elliott had had his arm around Lawrence, and he'd been talking to him in an intimate whisper.
It was something about the way the two men stood so very close, about the manner in which her father leaned close to Elliott, the way their lips almost touched, that had startled her and impressed her.
She must have made some small sound then. The men had broken off to greet her. But she'd glimpsed the shimmer of tears in her father's eyes, tears that seemed to vanish instantly.
Nothing was ever said of that moment. But on the long drive back to London, her father had held Julie tight beside him in the old carriage, hugging her with what seemed a sadness and a desperation.
"What in the world are you thinking, Father?" Julie had asked as he looked out over the passing fields.
"Nothing, my dear," Lawrence had said, "except how much all of us give up in this life, sooner or later, because we can never have all that we want. You'll find out soon enough. We're blessed, my dear. Quite blessed, but no life is without sacrifices."
Couple with that so many random impressions of Elliott over the years, bored and tired, on the periphery of parties and balls.
Well, now Elliott had the world. Elliott need never sacrifice again what he might have sacrificed years ago to marry an American heiress who had paid his debts and given him a handsome son to carry on the family name.
It did not surprise her in retrospect that Elliott had suspected Ramses of being a creature beyond normal comprehension from the moment they'd first met. It was Elliott who had followed him to the Cairo Museum on the night when Ramses awakened Cleopatra. And it was Elliott who had cared for the resurrected revenant queen Ramses had awakened after Ramses fled from her in terror.
Perhaps as penance for this, after their great journey had come to an end, Ramses had given Elliott a bottle of the elixir to do with as he pleased. And it had not surprised Julie that Elliott had drunk the elixir.
And perhaps Elliott might never come back to London, if he could avoid it, until his son and his wife were both gone from the earth. Surely he would never allow the secret of his immortality to bruise or hurt either of them. He would send home his rich winnings from the gambling tables, of course, and he would seek out that gold mine as Ramses had instructed him to do, and he would be the distant mysterious grandfather of loving children in the future who would never see the eternally youthful man face-to-face.
Now it was Julie's task to deceive both Edith and Alex as to her own transformation. And whatever her plans for the future, Julie would use the betrothal party to express her great affection for Edith and Alex, keeping inside the pain of the gulf that now forever divided them.
Out of all the people who had joined them on their Egyptian adventure, Alex remained the only one who still thought Mr. Reginald Ramsey a mysterious Egyptologist who had simply fallen into their group, who still thought the mysterious woman with whom he'd shared a night of passion in Cairo was just an old friend of Ramsey's gone mad.
And it was Julie's conviction that Alex must never learn the truth. The shock of the truth about her, about Ramses, about Cleopatra, about his own father--it would destroy Alex utterly.
No, her every thought must be for the recovery of Alex from what he had already endured.
After Cleopatra had gone to her supposed death, Alex had retreated into himself. On the ship home to London, he had confessed to loving this woman he did not truly know, but he had also vowed to forget her. He would return to the motions of living, he had insisted. They all would.
And she'd thought it a ghastly phrase then. The motions of living.
She thought it a ghastly phrase now. Surely Alex was recovering. Surely his wanting to give this betrothal party was evidence of his recovery. Surely the flow of money coming from the earl had underwritten a new confidence in Alex, a new willingness to look about him at the many eligible heiresses who would value his breeding, his title, his subtle charm.
Ramses took her hand. Somewhere a church bell chimed. It was late, and the walkway along the Seine was deserted.
"You think now of Alex or his father?" Ramses asked.
"Alex. I must confess something to you because the confession of it will free me from the need to do it."
"Of course."
"There is a part of me that wishes to tell Alex everything." Was that true? Her own words had shocked her. But yes, it was true. It was the deeper truth beyond pity, beyond sympathy.
"This is a confusion of guilt. Revealing this truth will not change the fact that you never loved h
im. And you should feel no guilt for this. This marriage was almost forced on you for financial reasons alone. None of its architects cared what might be in your heart."
"Of course. Of course. But..."
"I am telling you how you feel. Forgive me. I was a counselor far longer than I was a king. The role returns to me with too much speed."
"I wish to change him, Ramses. I never loved him. But I care for him deeply and I wish to see him changed so that..."