Objects Of His Obsession (15 page)

But Benedict had met the man as
well, and that had not been his judgment.

But then Hamer could be
prickly, and justifiably egotistical and short with others.

He was not a likable man, but
then he didn’t have to be.

However, Kingsley had taken an
interest in Hamer’s second-in-command.

And eventually, after several
informal tours of the Valley of the Kings, during a private dinner at his club Benedict
had finally decided he could trust the man. Trust him enough to confide his
belief that he knew where the next great tomb might be found. He didn’t have
the money to finance the dig, which could take years before the exact spot was
pinpointed. He desperately needed help.

But time was ticking. And as
much as Benedict admired Hamer, bastard or not, and would always defend him and
give him every ounce of the credit he deserved, he would not subsume his
ambitions forever to help Hamer realize his.

For the man would demand just
that if he could.

No, Benedict had his own
dreams, and he would follow them. One way or another.

Kingsley had offered him the
beginnings of an escape during that dinner, late last year. They’d
corresponded. Kingsley had written of forming a group who would back him.

Benedict had assented. The pool
of money required could prove massive. He had some idea of the fortune Hamer’s
backers had poured into the search, over years, before the tomb had been found.
Hamer had been one dig season away from having that financing pulled.

The last day Benedict had spent
in London had been taken up by a long lunch with Kingsley. And the results had
been good. Beyond good. He had his money, his backing, and Kingsley and his
group would be applying for a permit for the following dig season.

Kingsley himself would be
coming out to Cairo in a few weeks to begin the process.

Which had been why Benedict had
given Hamer his notice. And the firm assurance that he would complete any
training that Blackwell, already an old hand at digs in Egypt, would require.

The future stretched ahead, and
it was good. Benedict was a patient man. Time would pass, his work here for
Hamer would be honorably complete, and his own, true work would begin.

And he was a man that if he did
not have that work – any work – to keep him occupied, would be
going quietly insane with the loneliness and loss grinding at his gut. Tearing
at his heart.

Evander.

That
last night, Christ–

The morning had been nothing.
Polite goodbyes, his excuses. That last sight of Evander, one of him coming to
stand next to Juliana in the portico of the house, watching Benedict climb into
the trap. Juliana’s hand had reached out, fingers lacing through her husband’s.

Which was as it should be.

He was hers. Not Benedict’s.
And that sight had been a necessary reminder.

But God, how his eyes ached for
the sight of the man. His heart… And his body. Hell, no wonder he’d thrown
himself so hard into his work. Which did nothing to help. The hot, sweaty
nights often ended with Benedict taking himself in hand, stroking himself
roughly to completion, eyes closed and no fantasies required. Just the heated
memories of exactly what Evander and he had done together.

Memories so wild, yet so pure,
he had not even looked at another man since.

At some point, he supposed he
would.

He would have to. A life could
not be lived alone forever.

But now … and for some time
coming, he suspected that memories of Evander would give him the only ease or
companionship he could bear.

~~***~~

Dig season began and Lucius
Kingsley, after an initial visit of a few weeks, headed back to London, a few
months later returning to become something of a fixture on the Cairo social
scene.

Egypt had caught Kingsley in
its net, Benedict suspected, just as it had him. And the man, in his late
thirties, already a widower with a son in boarding school back in England, conducting
his business empire from Egypt and looking for new opportunities in the Near
East, clearly felt he had no reason not to linger in this new, exotic and
exciting atmosphere.

Benedict met with him on a
regular basis, but in truth, his work for Hamer was all encompassing. It
allowed little energy or time for anything else. And Kingsley, while he and his
agents were progressing the necessary paperwork through, had become a fixture
on the expat Cairo social scene. Kingsley, a millionaire many times over, was a
prize for many. Not simply because of his wealth, but, as a widower, he was
being discreetly pursued by many women and from the gossip that Benedict
occasionally could not help but hear, was enjoying the fact.

It made no difference to Benedict.
He enjoyed the man’s quick intelligence, his eccentricities, and more
importantly, his very obvious aim to not interfere in Benedict’s side of the
business once he’d completed his work this season for Hamer. Once he’d struck
out on his own.

Which could not happen fast enough.
He was working in consort with Hamer and his team in extracting, oh so
delicately, the pieces, large and small, working with the trained photographers
and artists who were documenting the pieces in situ and then, later, in the
conservation laboratory, set up some distance away. There the items were
finally crated up and sent by rail back to Cairo. Blackwell was working with
him well, and more importantly, could speak easily with the workers, the
laborers and carpenters who were part of this massive endeavor.

Hamer had realized early that
the project would call for a number of specialists. They had come in last
season. Hamer, aided by Blackwell, would be dealing with them once Benedict had
left the dig.

“It’s true, he is not happy to
have you leaving,” Kinglsey was saying, over a late supper at his club. For
once he looked serious. “News has not gotten out that you will be leaving the
dig, but he has pre-emptively become somewhat … disparaging of your abilities.
He has been dropping hints here and there. I’m certain that when you do finish
up, his inference will be that he had to terminate your employment.”

Which, considering that this
was now Benedict’s fifth year solid year of working with the man, was scarcely
fair nor honest, but summed up what Benedict had expected.

Hamer could be a vindictive and
selfish bastard.

He nodded, sliced into some of
the chicken on his plate, made himself eat it. This was the first decent meal
he’d had a chance to get today.

Abruptly Kingsley ceased
speaking and rose to his feet, a grin on his sharp, clever face.

“Casterwell!”

Benedict, in a frozen haze,
remained seated. Stared at the plate before him.

He could see the immaculate,
uncrumpled suit that the man wore as he forced himself to turn his head. Glance
up.

Evander.

Sweet Jesus. Ingrained good
manners made him stand up, turn around.

This was less dream than
nightmare.

The black lashed, turquoise
eyes met his blandly, that distinctive, low voice drawled, “Yeats. How good it
is to see you again.”

In a daze, his face carefully
schooled to polite immobility, Benedict held out a hand to shake Evander’s.

He had a flashback to that hazy
summer afternoon in London. The Athenaeum Club. Half a year ago? More? Yes. It
had begun then.

His life. He had been reborn
then. The man he had been, had ceased. And the man, Evander’s creation, the man
unleashed,
released
, because of that
steel will, that pure determination and lust, had been born out of the wreckage
of the old.

If nothing else, no matter what
heartache it had caused him, he was eternally grateful for the gift of his own
truth, revealed, that Evander had given him.

Evander took his proffered hand,
shook it, as if all of this was perfectly normal. That grip, sizzling through
his every nerve ending. Hell,
damnation
,
Evander, here, in the midst of a cool Cairo evening … or at least, what passed
for chill here.

It
was
an insane dream. Some prequel to another of the hot, erotic
dreams that haunted Benedict. Which he fell asleep, exhausted by the days work,
both dreading and hungering for.

“Casterwell,” Benedict nodded.

Kingsley gave Benedict a foxy
grin as Evander took a seat at the table, waiters rushing to set a place before
him. Evander looked utterly at ease. Benedict glanced about them. The club was
half empty. One or two interested glances had been thrown their way before
those eyes were returned discreetly back to business.

Benedict took his seat at the
same time as Kingsley. As he did so a waiter came to the table, placed a snifter
of brandy beside Evander as if it had already been ordered.

He took it and raised it to
that hard, carnal mouth. Paused, eyed Benedict over the rim of the glass.
“You’re attempting to hide it and doing it well, but you are permitted to say
that my appearance here is a surprise.”

“It is,” Benedict allowed.

He glanced down at the food on
his plate.
Fuel
. Told himself that he
would finish it shortly, but reached for his wineglass.

“So ask Evander what he’s doing
here,” Kingsley prompted dryly, a glint in his eyes.

Since Kingsley was most
definitely heterosexual, and had no reason not to think that Evander or Benedict
were otherwise, Benedict forced himself to shrug. He lifted an eyebrow, smiled
at Evander. “Like everyone else, you’re giving in to curiosity and want a tour
of the site. Hamer will be happy to see you there. Thanks to your grandfather’s
collection, he will consider you several rungs above the usual sightseer.”

Kingsley snorted. “You mean,
like me?” He cut Evander one of the shrewd, sharp sideways glances he was known
for. “Hamer marked me down as a jumped-up tourist and made it very clear that I
was being shown the site on sufferance. Not that I blame him. You go out there,
the place is swarming with sightseers. Bit vulgar of them, really. They get in
the way of the workers. Not that I can speak, having been one of them.”

“Indeed.” Evander lazed back in
his seat, turquoise eyes shifting from Kingsley to Benedict and back again. He
had never been more inscrutable. “So, Lucien, you bloody fox. It’s late and our
friend has clearly had a bastard of a day. Why don’t we tell him the real
reason I’m here? And no, Yeats, it has nothing to do with Hamer.”

Lucien burst out laughing and
shook his head. “Certainly. Benedict, you knew that you had a trio of backers. Silent
partners with myself. You weren’t too damned interested in their identities. Well,
we’ve all decided the veil of secrecy is unnecessary. Evander is one of those
backers. He’d been concerned that his grandfather’s … somewhat piratical reputation
would cause problems with the authorities here, and slow us getting the
permits. Fortunately, that has not proved the case. Hunt, our other partner, is
on some damned tour of Ceylon at the moment. Running a tea empire apparently
occasionally requires oversight. He sends his apologies.”

Benedict parted his lips to
speak but could think of nothing to say.
Fuck
.
Fucking hell, what was there to say?

Why hadn’t he been more
insistent on knowing the identities of the other partners?

Because, aside from his
eccentricities – an obsession with the latest in motoring engineering,
resulting, it was rumored, in a converted barns worth full of semi-functional motor
cars, not to mention an expert knowledge of Tesla’s work and an obsession with
the possibilities of moving pictures – Kingsley had a sterling reputation
as a steady, straightforward man.

And in his hunger to find an
honest, reliable backer – one whom Benedict felt he could work with, for
the next five or ten years, in his search for what he was certain from his
research was the as-yet unfound tomb of a lost pharaoh – Benedict had
simply taken Kingsley’s word on the excellent reputations of the men who would
be part of the financing group. Had not bothered to dig deeper. Read through
the fine print of the contracts. A truly stupid, inexcusable error.

An honest man would not lie to
him, he’d believed. And he had been, frankly, desperate for that funding.

And Kingsley had a reputation
for impeccable dealings.

But then so did Hunt. So did
the Duke of Casterwell.

No fools, any of them, tough
operators, all of them, but in truth, all three individuals that any sane man
looking for backing would be overjoyed to have as financiers.

So why did he feel that Evander
had played some colossal trick on him?

Because
he damned well has, every instinct he had was screaming it at him.

He took a mouthful of wine,
swallowed it down and allowed it to hit his system – Evander had been
correct, it had been one hell of a day and the alcohol hit him harder than
usual, thank God. He turned his gaze towards the turquoise-eyed bastard who had
just damned near given him a heart attack.