The Jackal's House by Anna Butler

Author:Anna Butler [Butler, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63533-944-4
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

I DIDN’T return to Abydos until the morning of Christmas Eve, two days later than planned.

Doctor Elserafie had insisted on a few days of rest and recuperation and was most reluctant to allow me to fly back with one arm out of commission. He repeated this advice on Christmas Eve, not long after the Cairo dawn was signaled by the call to prayer being tunefully wailed from a nearby minaret, warbling its way into my room through the shutters.

“It was cut, not bloody amputated! It won’t kill me to fly.” I jerked my head at Todd, indicating the door. “We’re going this morning. Get our stuff.”

Elserafie took two rapid steps backward, miming consternation and alarm and holding up his hands. Heart of a lion, obviously, when faced with a little firm dissent from his patients. Todd, however, merely nodded and smiled at the doctor in a way that was far more ferocious than my little growl.

The good doctor had tutting in disapproval down to a T. He checked the stitches in my arm, rewrapped the wound with fresh bandages, sighed heavily, and conceded that there was no sign of infection. So long as I kept the wound clean and dry, wore a sling, and had someone take out the stitches in ten days, I should be fine. He then washed his hands of me, literally and metaphorically, and departed with his dudgeon somewhere in the stratosphere and only slightly mollified by the prompt payment of his bill.

“All the same,” Todd said, collecting all my belongings onto the bed while I struggled to get dressed one-handed. “I was thinking of borrowing the Khedive’s motor launch and taking you back to Abydos in that.”

I am sorry to say that I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache. “Good Lord, by the time this expedition leaves Aegypt, that poor man will be sitting in his empty palace in his second-best pair of drawers and thanking heaven you at least left him his smalls.”

“They wouldn’t fit. Probably wouldn’t work out anyway… no. It would take a couple of days to get upriver, and I’m not happy about leaving the two-seater here. If we have to get everyone up to Abydos in a hurry, we’ll need it to get you back here to fly the Brunel.” He hefted the baggage onto a porter’s trolley. “Let’s go, then. The sooner we get there, the sooner Mr. Edward can take over nursemaiding you.”

“You’re coming with me to Abydos?”

“I was told to deliver you, personal-like.” Todd signaled to the two Gallowglass guards who’d spent the past three days sitting outside my hotel room door. They collected the bags and packages, then led the way down to the hotel lobby, looking reassuringly hard and competent. “I’m likely to get my head handed to me on a platter when we get there, but hook or crook, Captain, you’ll get back to Abydos in one piece.” He glanced at me and grinned. “Provided you don’t crash us on the way there.

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