Free The Buried Pyramid by Jane Lindskold

in Uncle Neville’s eyes as she glided in.
    He really does think I’m pretty, she thought, and felt a trace surprised.
    Out west any white woman was still awfully rare. Even a plain as dirt spinster of forty might find herself getting loaded down with marriage proposals, so Jenny hadn’t taken too seriously the calf-eyes that followed her around at just about every box social or church dance. Back east, the recent war had done its part to whittle down the number of eligible bachelors. She hadn’t had suitors lining up to visit on Sunday afternoons like some of the girls.
    There had been a few, of course, the nicest of them Tommy Mullens, the middle brother of one of the girls in Jenny’s year, but nothing had come of that other than a few good conversations. Uncle Neville’s obvious admiration felt just like Papa’s had—warming and completely nonthreatening.
    They hadn’t gotten much beyond Jenny’s thanking her uncle for his compliments on her dress when a solid rap on the front door announced their caller.
    As soon as Stephen Holmboe crossed the threshold into the parlor, Jenny knew that she was encountering a genuine English eccentric. Later she would learn that Stephen was in his mid-twenties, but at that moment he appeared both older and younger. Part of this was due to his attire which was, even to Jenny’s American eye, at least fifteen years out of date. Men’s fashions hadn’t changed as dramatically as had women’s, which had gone from hoops to bustles, and from bonnets to dainty hats. However, it had not remained stagnant.
    Stephen Holmboe wore checked trousers with a matching loose-fitting jacket designed in the high-buttoned style. His cravat was wide and flowing, matching the solid off-white of his shirt. In short, he was quite the swell—but a swell who would have been out of style even a decade before. Mr. Holmboe’s manner of dressing his brilliant golden blond hair continued this motif. It was longer than was currently fashionable, as were his bushy side-whiskers and mustache. Curtseying to Mr. Holmboe’s bow, Jenny felt rather as if she were being introduced to an enormous ambulatory dandelion.
    She might have been put off by this eccentric vision, but the blue gaze that met hers and darted quickly away was both shy and sweet. Stephen’s smile was kind, and his mannerisms closer to those of a boy of fifteen than a young man of twenty-five. Within moments of their being introduced, it was evident to Jenny that Stephen Holmboe possessed both energy and enthusiasm in abundance.
    “Hullo, Sir Neville,” he said. “Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea. These ginger biscuits look smashing.”
    Stephen loaded one broad-palmed hand with sweets, took his cup in the other, and only afterwards seemed to realize that seating himself without spilling something all over the carpet was going to prove difficult. Jenny inclined her head toward a chair with an end table conveniently near.
    “Perhaps there?” she suggested.
    Stephen grinned, managed to drop his cookies onto the table, and then set the tea cup down after.
    “I certainly won’t starve you, Stephen,” Uncle Neville said tolerantly. “Cook has even supplied more than sweets.”
    “Smashing!” Stephen repeated. “Viands suitable for a king. I shall probably devour everything in sight and then start on the upholstery. I think I forgot to eat today. Got absorbed in reading up for our expedition. Lost track of time. Would have forgotten this except that you’d dropped such ominous hints—and my sister dragged me out of my book.”
    Jenny helped herself to a small iced cake, more to cover her amusement than because she was very hungry. Having expected another stiff and formal Englishman—quite possibly one with a chip on his shoulder, who would certainly disapprove of her—she found this ebullient young man a relief. However, she could understand why the conventional and conforming English might find Stephen annoying.
    Neville dismissed the