Free The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig Page B

weren’t coerced? You went of your own free will?’
    ‘You sound horrified, Miss Balcourt. You must admit, it is the chance of a lifetime for a scholar.’
    Amy’s mouth opened but no sound came out.
    Richard was right; she was horrified.
    For an Englishman to accompany his country’s enemy… to disregard all duty and honour in the pursuit of scholarship… Couldn’t he have waited for the English to take control of Egypt before pursuing his pyramids? And how could any man, any thinking man, any intelligent man with a modicum of feeling, have anything to do with a nation which had so cruelly and senselessly slaughtered so many of its own people on the guillotine! And to disregard all that for the sake of a few tombs! It was a slight to his country and a slight to mankind.
    But, if she was being quite, quite honest, what stung most wasn’t the slight to mankind, but the sense of betrayal his words caused. It was utterly ridiculous. She had known the man all of two hours. One couldn’t really claim betrayal after two hours’ acquaintance. Even so, in those two hours, it wasn’t as though he had lied and claimed to have fought for the English and then let slip by accident that he had been with the French.
    He had been witty and interesting and charming. He had argued antiquities with Amy as though she were an equal, and not just a young girl who had never been out of the country and knew only what she had stumbled across in her uncle’s library. Good heavens, he had even told her, in the most sincere of tones, that he was honoured to know her. In short, he had committed the crime of acting as though he liked her and the even greater crime of charming her into liking him. And then to reveal that he had defected to the French…
    Suddenly, the man seated across from her took on all sorts of sinister attributes. The smile that a half an hour ago had seemed genial was now mocking. The gleam in his green eyes that had been good-natured became sinister. Even the dark hues of his clothing went from elegant to dangerous, the sleek pelt of a panther on the prowl. He was probably quite practiced at gulling the unwary into liking and trusting him. Good heavens, for all she knew he might be a French spy! Why else would he have been back in England? The logical part of her brain, the bit that always sounded like Jane,reminded her that he might very well have family back in England he wished to visit. Amy silenced it.
    Across the table, Richard raised an eyebrow at her in silent inquiry. The gesture made Amy want to whack him over the head with The Proceedings of the Royal Egyptological Society.
    Amy struggled for words to voice her revulsion. ‘Scholarship is all very well and good, but after what the French did – while your own country was at war with them! To join the French army!’
    ‘I wasn’t in the French army,’ Richard corrected. ‘I merely travelled with them.’
    Amy rediscovered her voice and her vocabulary. ‘Egypt was a military action first and a scholarly expedition second! You can’t claim not to have known – I’m sure even the savages in the wilds of America knew!’
    ‘Priorities, my dear, priorities.’ Richard realised that he was being provoking, but something about the way Amy was looking at him, as though she had just discovered nine dismembered wives in a cupboard in his bedchamber, brought out the worst in him. The fact that he agreed with everything she was saying annoyed him even more. He brushed an imaginary speck of lint off his sleeve. ‘I chose to concentrate on the second.’
    ‘You chose to ignore the thousands of innocent people slaughtered on the guillotine. You chose to range yourself with a murderous rabble against your own country!’ Amy retorted.
    How many people had he saved from the guillotine since he had first joined Percy and the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel? Fifty? A hundred? One lost count after the first few dozen. Richard was trying to remain calm and urbane, but