From This Beloved Hour.pdf

'ABDUL HAS OFFERED TO GIVE UP THE CHASE."

Sharp sarcasm edged Peter's words. "Damned good of him to give you up, don't

you think? Not every man would make such a sacrifice out of gratitude."

Jenny was stunned. "Do you mean that because you saved Sheikh Abdul's life,

he's agreed to stop seeing me?"

"Exactly. But I told him his kindness is unnecessary, since there's obviously

nothing between us."

Nothing! Against her will a sudden image leaped into Jenny's mind - the image

of how Peter had reached for her, his hard chest pressing against her, his

mouth hungry, burning with commanding heat. She had run her fingers up his

strong back and into his hair, feeling the silky softness of tousled

strands....

So Peter considered that nothing! Well, then, Jenny thought, let the sheikh

pursue me....

WILLA LAMBERT

is also the author

of this SUPERROMANCE

2-LOVE'S EMERALD FLAME

These titles may be available at your local bookseller or by writing to:

Worldwide Reader Service

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Canadian address: Stratford, Ontario N5A 6W2

Published, July 1982

First printing May 1982

ISBN 0-373-70.023-7

reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by

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All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of

the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or

names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown

to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

The Superromance trademark, consisting of the word SUPER?OMANCE, and the

Worldwide trademark, consisting of a globe and the word Worldwide in which the

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Worldwide Library.

Printed in USA.

CHAPTER ONE

"THE BENNU," he said, referring to the hieroglyph of a heron with two long

feathers growing from the back of its head. The man had quietly joined Jenny

in the small alcove on the first floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. She

was facing a sandstone relief that had been saved from the area around Abu

Simbel when the Nile had been backed up behind the multimillion-dollar Saad

al-Ali - the Aswan High Dam.

She was surprised by his company. Though the museum was kitty-corner from

the Nile Hilton, and therefore quite accessible to tourists, most of them

usually kept to the more impressive Tutankhamen exhibit located on the second

floor. Jenny was saving that until last, rather like saving a fine dessert to

be savored after a thoroughly enjoyable and deli-ciously filling meal. She

assumed the man was a tourist - he spoke perfect English, albeit with a

thoroughly enchanting accent that was more British than American. She should

have been forewarned by the fact that he was able to identify a key figure in

hieroglyphic script. Jenny knew very few people, besides her colleagues in the

archaeological profession, who were so thoroughly informed. "Yes," she said,

turning to him, quite prepared to further define the heron character so he

would know he wasn't the only one with a modicum of knowledge on Egyptology.

Despite being handicapped by the warehouse dimness for which the Egyptian

Museum was notorious, Jenny had recognized him immediately.

"It really isn't a heron at all, you know," he said, failing to notice in

the poor lighting how the blood had drained from her face. "It represents the

phoenix - that legendary bird that lived for five hundred years before

converting its nest into a funeral pyre and cremating itself in the searing

flames." He held up his hand as if to prevent an interruption. In truth, Jenny

hadn't found her voice yet. It was caught somewhere at the base of her throat,

where it had become lodged when she first realized who he was. "But there is a

happy ending," he continued, "for it emerged anew from its own ashes to live

for another five hundred years - give or take a hundred years, of course."

He smiled - a very attractive smile. If he'd been smiling from the

beginning, she might not have recognized him, because his pictures always

showed him as very somber. Oh, yes, she had his picture - several of them, in

fact, culled from archaeological journals and magazines. She had faithfully

filed them in an album begun in 1922. Not that he had been alive in 1922. No,

the album's first pictures hadn't been of him but of his grandfather, followed

by his father, then by him.

"I do believe you have a place in the United States called Phoenix, do you

not?" he asked. Jenny got a strange feeling at the roots of her hair, a

feeling that shivered its way down to the soles of her feet. She had assumed

he had recognized her, too. However, if that were the case, she couldn't

believe he could still be blas6 about it. "It's in Arizona, isn't it?" he

asked.

"Arizona?" Jenny said, sounding very much like a parrot and feeling silly

because of it.

"Phoenix, Arizona," he elucidated. "That is the place, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes," she admitted, trying desperately to get her thoughts back into

some semblance of order. If he could carry this through with such aplomb,

Jenny was determined to match him. Her whole problem was that she hadn't

expected this ordeal quite yet. She had arrived in Egypt early just so she

would have time to get herself mentally prepared for their scheduled meeting

in Hierakonpolis. Oh, she had told herself she needed the extra days so she

could take the leisurely boat trip up the Nile to the excavation site, but the

real reason had been her need for a little time here in Egypt to prepare.

"It symbolized the morning sun rising out of the glow of dawn," he said. For

a moment Jenny didn't know what he was talking about, then she realized he was

still giving her a lesson on the heron hieroglyph. She found his patronizing

attitude just a little insulting. He must have known she was as well

acquainted with what he was saying as he was.

"Hence it was conceived as the bird of the sacred sun-god, Re," he

continued. If he sensed her growing chagrin, he certainly didn't let on. "It

represented the new sun of today emerging from the body of the old sun of

yesterday - a manifestation of Osiris, the symbol of resurrection and light."

He finished off with a quote from Job that, some scholars argued, indicated

that the phoenix legend had passed over into Judeo-Christian teachings: "'Then

I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.'"

"'Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who

satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy. youth is renewed like the

eagles,'" Jenny shot back, glad her voice had finally lost its confused

squeak. Her quotation had come from Psalms. While neither reference probably

had anything whatsoever to do with the phoenix, although that mythical bird

had always been represented as an eagle in Greco-Roman art, she had at least

proved she could match him obscurity for obscurity.

"I say, that's very good!" he complimented her, seeming genuinely

appreciative. Jenny really couldn't believe he hadn't expected her to be as

knowledgeable on the subject as he was. She might not have got her education

at Oxford, but she had all the accreditation in their mutually shared field to

match him diploma for diploma. There were some people who might even have

said, after her work at the dig at Avaris on the eastern side of the Nile

delta, that she was far more qualified to work on this excavation at

Hierakonpolis than he was. "My name is Peter," he told her. "Peter Donas."

She automatically held out her hand. She hadn't wanted to. At least that's

what she told herself. Hers had merely been a natural reflex born of

introduction after introduction at lectures, college teas, or while meeting

the never ending stream of academicians who moved in, out of and around

Jenny's circle. She certainly wanted her hand back the moment he took it,

finding he held it far longer than was prescribed by good etiquette. She would

have pulled it away by force, except she found that the power in his calloused

fingers had somehow drained her of all her strength.

"Yours?" he asked, making her wonder whether he was referring to her hand,

which he wouldn't release. Her fingers seemed insignificant within the cupping

of his powerfully larger ones.

"Yours?" she questioned, unsure just what he was asking. She continued to be

a little muddled, this whole scenario somehow unnerving her. She didn't know

why their meeting couldn't have taken place later, as scheduled, instead of

now. She had so hoped to be calm, cool and collected.

"I've already told you my name," he said, clearing up the problem and

delivering a delighted laugh. "Peter Donas, remember? What I was hoping, of

course, was that you might tell me yours. I know you're American because I

overheard you ask the guard back there a question about the present location

of Ramses II's mummy and I detected your accent. So, since we both speak a

common language and are both far from home, I was hoping you might not take

too unkindly to some company."

She did find the strength to pull back her hand. What's more, she managed

with a force that surprised him. She had to admit, however, that he was

exceedingly quick in his recovery.

"I assure you," he said with an accompanying laugh of apparent pleasure, "my

intentions are purely admirable. I have nothing more sinister in mind than a

mutually shared wander through these murky halls and then, perhaps, a bit of

tea back at the hotel. By chance are you staying at the Hilton, too?" Jenny

was furious. Whereas she had blanched stark white upon first seeing him

standing beside her, she was now a dark pink. He stepped back just a bit, as

if to verify that he wasn't about to leap at her. "Really, I'm all innocence,"

he assured her. "Cross my heart; hope to die. All I'm suggesting is walk, talk

and tea."

Apparently he thought she was concerned that he might try to make a pass at

her there in the alcove of the museum, thought she was upset because he

appeared to be some kind of lothario out to sweep a poor young - twenty-nine

wasn't all that old - American tourist off her feet. Yet that was not what was

bothering her. He hadn't recognized her; that was the trouble. She had known

him right off, but he still hadn't recognized her. Which meant he'd thought

she hadn't known the bennu hieroglyph from that of a ba - a depiction of the

Egyptian soul by a bird's body with a human head. No wonder he'd been so

surprised when she'd shot back her biblical text about youth renewing itself

like an eagle. It had been bad enough when he'd confronted her, engaging in

harmless small talk. To find he'd been assuming from the start that she was a

Miss Everyday Tourist was frankly a blow to her ego - professional and

otherwise. He should have known. He should have recognized her. She was Jenny

Mowry. His grandfather had jilted her grandmother. Jenny and this man might

well have been brother and sister had Geraldine Fowler and Frederic Donas got

married.

"Jenny Mowry!" she wanted to scream at him. "Remember my treatise on Crete?

I said that Crete was all that remained of Atlantis after it had been

destroyed by the volcano on Thira, and you came out publicly and said my

theory, while not a new one, was still as much poppycock as it had always

been." What audacity to call a person's work and research poppycock when he

couldn't even recognize her as he stood right next to her! The lighting was

bad. The lighting was very bad. But the lighting was definitely not that bad.

"You'll have to excuse me; I've got to go," she said, hearing her voice sound

with strained breathlessness. She wondered why she couldn't make her legs

follow through with her intentions, put one foot in front of the other to move

her right out of there. Possibly she thought that he would yet come to see who

she was.

"Let's talk over tea, then," he said. "You're heading back to the hotel now,

you say?"

"No," she answered. "I didn't say that, as a matter of fact."

"Oh," he said, seemingly chastised and a bit at a loss.

She should have moved right then and there, swept right by him out through

the large vestibule and into the hot dusty Cairo street. Then, when they met

again in a few days in Hierakonpolis, he would realize his faux pas. "Tea?"

she said instead.

"Tea?" he echoed.

"You did offer to buy me tea, didn't you?" she asked, as if he were the

awkward one. She had a better grasp of the situation now and felt more in

control. "Or did you?"

"Yes, of course," he affirmed. "I did indeed offer you tea. I was, however,

somehow under the impression that you had said no."

"You've no doubt heard it's a lady's prerogative to change her mind?" Jenny

said. "Well, it might be a hackneyed and unfair truism, but I have changed my

mind. Actually, I'd love that cup of tea." What she wanted to do was get them

out into the full light of day. She wanted that bright Egyptian sun to shine

down on her like a spotlight, pointing out her honey-colored hair that haloed

her oval face like a lion's mane; pointing out her dark brown eyes, her pert

nose with its five freckles, her sensuous but not too sensuous mouth, her

dimple, her skin that unlike that of so many blondes tanned to even

perfection. Then she would see that flicker of recognition sparking at last in

his golden eyes. Yes, golden eyes - dark and rich gold. Jenny had seen such

eyes only on certain birds of prey. No, that wasn't quite true. The eyes of

the birds had been piercing, decidedly dangerous. Peter's eyes were a warm

gold that pulled her toward them, seduced her into an awareness of them even

more intense than her awareness of the attractive squareness of his jaw and

the dimple in his chin that would have made her want to reach up and touch it,

had his eyes not kept drawing her back to them.

"Great!" he said. He took her upper arm, obviously thinking she would have

trouble negotiating the corridors of the museum, when in fact she had got

around quite nicely before he had appeared on the scene. If there was anyone

who needed help in seeing in the inadequate lighting, it was he. She had

certainly had enough light by which to see him. She didn't pull away though,

having successfully fought down the impulse. After all, it was gentlemanly

courtesy on his part, and Jenny, though she believed in women's rights and

wanted equal work opportunities, equal pay and equal recognition of her

qualifications, still enjoyed having doors opened for her, hats tipped and

gentlemen stand to greet her whenever she entered a room. She couldn't very

well jerk away from his hold without being unduly impolite, but his hand was

doing something to her it shouldn't have been doing. Not that she could really

put her finger on what was bothering her, because she couldn't. He wasn't

holding her too tightly. He wasn't even moving his fingers. His hand was

simply there, simply sending these funny little vibrations up her arm, into

her throat and breasts, down---She found consolation in knowing he would be

taking his hand away soon enough once he realized just whom he had in tow.

Thank God, daylight! There it was right up ahead, framed by the massive open

doors of the museum's main entrance. It wouldn't be long now. Just a few more

steps. One, two, three----

"Ohhhhhh!" she groaned, not believing she had tripped. There hadn't seemed

anything on which to trip. Yet there she was, stumbling in the dimness of the

Egyptian Museum, as if she had to give Peter Donas some valid excuse for

having taken the liberty of putting his hand on her arm in the first place.

"Gotcha!" he announced triumphantly. He had her all right, like an octopus -

all arms. Such big arms they were, too. Such strong arms. And how hard his

chest felt beneath his shirt as her uncertain steps brought her into direct

contact with him when he turned to stop her fall.

"I'm fine," she said. "Really, I am fine." She was trying very hard not to

sound as if she had just tripped over the edge of a precipice and was still on

her way down.

"They're supposed to be remodeling this place soon," he told her, his arms

no longer wrapping her, his chest no longer hard against her breasts. He was

back to just his hand on her arm. "They're scheduled to use some of the

revenues from the recent Tut exhibit that went on world tour."

They exited into the sunlight, and to Jenny's increased chagrin he still

didn't recognize her. In any case, he didn't give any indication he did. "The

museum was dark, but at least it was cool," was all he said when they paused

on the porch outside the large ocher-colored building. "It must be over a

hundred out here." She was somewhat mollified by the fact that he was

obviously having trouble seeing anything at the moment. One hand shielded his

golden eyes, the other still held her arm, as if he expected her to stumble

down the steps leading to the courtyard. She rationalized that where the

museum had been too dark, the outside was too bright. She was squinting, too,

and he could hardly be expected to recognize her with her face all screwed up.

So if he couldn't recognize her in the dark of the museum and he couldn't

recognize her in the light of the Cairo sunshine, the next step was to go into

the better lighting of the hotel. Although she continued to have no problems

seeing him.

He was bigger than she had thought he would be. She was five foot seven, and

he towered more than five inches above that, making him taller than six feet.

He looked younger than his pictures revealed - probably because he always

seemed so sober in the photographs. Editors of scientific journals had a

penchant for somberness, thereby instigating rumors that no one in the

scientific community ever had any fun. Which simply wasn't true.

Peter remained intent upon getting Jenny across a street congested with

traffic that ranged from an expensive Mercedes to a cluttered donkey cart. The

herd of goats that suddenly came barreling around the corner added to the

mess. Jenny could never get used to seeing livestock parading through the

middle of busy streets in a metropolis of close to ten million people. Peter's

grip tightened on her arm, warning her that she had better stop or risk

getting run over by a vintage-model American car that would have been

relegated to the wrecking yard in the United States. Not only was it still

running in Egypt, but it would probably continue to run for a good many years

to come, held together by prayers and chicken wire.

Ahead loomed the Nile Hilton, a modern structure among a conglomeration of

new buildings and old. Cairo was one more of those age-old cities trying to

make the transition from past to present. What resulted was a hodgepodge of

East meeting West and old meeting new, all of which left the visitor imagining

he was caught up in a time flux that tossed him from medieval minarets one

minute to glass-and-chrome discos the next.

Jenny glanced sideways, once again taking in Peter Donas in full sunlight.

Damn, he was handsome, although that had nothing whatsoever to do with

anything! He and she had been destined long before they'd been born to meet as

enemies. That this meeting was progressing the way it was now was only because

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