Page 33 of The Stolen Queen

Even though Annie Jenkins was part of this ludicrous exhibition and had convinced Diana Vreeland to take the broad collar out of the safety of its vitrine, there was something refreshing about the girl. Annie had spoken of her father in their last meeting, and Charlotte wondered how many years ago he’d passed away. No doubt her devotion to the Met, however misguided, was Annie’s way of keeping her absent loved one close.

And Charlotte knew exactly how that felt.

Chapter Eleven

Charlotte

Egypt, 1937

While Charlotte was sorry her parents couldn’t meet the new baby, she didn’t regret her decision to stay in Egypt. She and Henry were living in the middle of a bustling, cosmopolitan city, surrounded by fellow Egyptologists, and she had a baby who hardly fussed, just looked up at her with golden-brown eyes bordered by thick lashes. Henry was a very hands-on father, although he had his own unique approach to child-rearing, preferring to soothe Layla to sleep with a chronological recitation of the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom. Most of the time, Charlotte had to admit, Layla fell asleep much faster on his watch.

As the weather finally cooled, though, Henry became fidgety again, his attention less focused. One night he came home and absent-mindedly kissed Layla before rifling through his briefcase, as if Charlotte weren’t even in the room.

“Did you forget something?” she asked.

“Yes. I meant to bring back a description of a stela that needs to be reworked. I swore I put it in here.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her. “No, dummy. Me.”

Henry dropped the bag and enveloped her in his arms. “I’m sorry, my love. It’s a mess at the museum. I can barely stand it anymore.”

She knew it was more than that. Soon, the digging season would start back up, and the scholars, researchers, and archaeologists would descend upon the ancient sites like ants trailing each other to the anthill. “You want to get back out in the field.” It was a statement, not a question.

He released Charlotte and sat at the kitchen table. “Of course. I was thinking, maybe I could go until Christmas, then come back to Cairo.”

“You’d leave me behind?” The highlight of Charlotte’s day was hearing Henry talk about what had gone on at the museum, what objects he was documenting, the latest news from the other archaeologists. As it was, her brain felt underused, mired in a lethargic stupor of feedings and naps. If he went away, she’d completely lose her connection with that world.

“I won’t subject you to locusts and tar, not with a child.”

“We can live right in Luxor. You’ll have longer to travel each day, but at least we’ll be together.”

He hesitated. “I’ll think about it, all right?”

“Maybe I can work as well, if we find a baby nurse.”

His face settled into a frown. “No. Layla needs you right now.”

She didn’t want to push too hard. “Is Leon going back?”

“Of course.”

Henry and Leon had been meeting after work for some time now. When she was pregnant, Henry’s movements were a hazy part of her life, as her focus was on the child growing inside her. But now shenoticed he had dinner meetings or late hours several times a week, always with Leon.

“How’s Leon doing? He’s not trying to one-up you all the time, is he?”

“No. We’re working well as a team these days. He’s tempered in his old age.”

“Or the fact that you’re not a woman, showing him up.” She still held on to her distrust of the man, but maybe Leon had changed.

Or, now that she was a mother, Charlotte was probably no longer seen as a threat.

Which made her want to get back to work even more.

In the end, Charlotte got her way. By November, they had settled in a small house just across the river from Luxor, surrounded by palm trees and a garden full of jasmine, deep within the green oasis that spread out from either side of the Nile, a stark contrast to the sandy rock cliffs in the Valley of the Kings less than two miles away.

Most mornings Charlotte nursed Layla outside in the garden to the sound of doves cooing. While Charlotte was utterly exhausted from waking every four hours to feed the hungry child, the baby was growing quickly. Henry had been right; there was no way she could have left her behind to go to the dig, and no way she could bring her along. Instead, she sat in the garden and marveled over the baby she and Henry had created and tried to be content with all that she had.

Her body had changed since the birth. Her hips were wider, her feet half a size larger. Henry was still acting distracted, and they hadn’t slept together since the baby’s birth. One afternoon, Charlotte left the baby with Mrs. Jankowski for an hour and wandered the town’s center. She found a shop selling cotton dresses and bought onein a deep lavender. That evening, she planned to make a fancy dinner and seduce Henry, let him know that she was still his wife, not just the mother of his child. But when she returned home, Mrs. Jankowski was pacing the living room.

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