a different kettle of fish altogether.’ He glared around at the bar where the waiter was busy serving a group of people who’d just arrived and were clamouring for cocktails. ‘No bloody concept of service,’ said Jimmy O’Brien loudly.
A few feet away, Hannah and Leonie grimaced at his rudeness. Emma cringed in her bamboo chair. This was a disaster. It didn’t matter that she was sitting in the balmy night air with the vibrant city of Luxor yards away and the treasures of the Nile waiting to be explored: she was on holiday with her father and he was going to ruin everything.
‘I’ll get the drinks,’ she announced suddenly, thinking she just had to get away before her father said something utterly offensive about the waiter.
Watching Emma practically run to the bar, her face bright pink with embarrassment, Leonie nudged Hannah: ‘Poor girl isn’t going to have much of a holiday if he carries on like that all the time. The man’s a pig and she’s mortified.’
‘I know,’ Hannah nodded. ‘But what can you do? He’s her father and she’s stuck with him.’
Leonie grinned wickedly. ‘Maybe not.’
Taking a deep breath, she rose from her seat and sailed across to the O’Briens’ table, one bracelet-bedecked hand outstretched.
‘Isn’t it a coincidence!’ Leonie trilled, shaking a surprised Jimmy O’Brien’s hand with the grace of a dowager duchess, flowing pink silk shirt rippling around madly. ‘Fancy Emma working with dear Cousin Edward in KrisisKids. Now that’s what I call a small world. I’m Leonie Delaney, from the Wicklow branch of the family.’ She took Anne-Marie’s limp hand and shook it gently, trying not to flinch at the cold-kipper sensation of the other woman’s handshake.
‘We’re the merchant banking side, rather than the political side. Daddy couldn’t have borne it if we’d gone into politics,’ Leonie added in a softer voice, as if this was some great family secret, ‘so low rent. De-lighted to meet you all.’
Hannah watched her in astonishment. One minute, Leonie had been sitting quietly; the next, she was a human dynamo, her collection of brass and enamel bracelets rattling as she twirled her curls in her fingers and pretended to be a merchant banking toff. It was a bravura performance, Oscar-winning stuff.
‘Edward Richards,’ Leonie was saying to Mrs O’Brien, determined to get the message home. ‘Dear Cousin Edward – Big Neddy is what we’ve always called him.’
Hannah nearly choked as her new friend described as ‘Big Neddy’ the elegant and aristocratic man she’d seen in the papers when he was a politician.
‘Of course,’ Leonie drawled in her recently acquired posh accent, ‘he hasn’t been to Delaney Towers for months. Daddy and Mummy do miss him.’
Realization dawned in Anne-Marie O’Brien’s face. This flamboyant woman with the unsuitable heavy make-up and that bizarre metal necklace thing was actually related to Emma’s boss, the madly rich and well-connected Mr Richards. He came from one of Ireland’s most famous political dynasties. This strange Leonie woman must be one of his cousins on his mother’s side. Well, Anne-Marie thought, arranging her face into a welcoming smile, the rich were allowed to be eccentric. Some of those computer millionaires wore nothing but jeans and desperate old T-shirts. You never knew where anyone came from any more.
And if Edward Richards’ cousin was on this cruise, then it must be one of the better ones, no matter what Anne-Marie’s suspicions had been when she’d seen the size of her cabin.
‘So pleased to meet you,’ Anne-Marie said in her breathy voice. ‘Anne-Marie and James O’Brien, of O’Brien’s Contractors, you know. Emma,’ she added, as Emma arrived with drinks and a wicked smile on her face at the sight of Leonie sitting with her parents, ‘you naughty girl, you should have introduced us to Leonie and told us who she is.’ She waggled a reproving finger at her daughter. ‘Why don’t you and your companion join us?’ Anne-Marie added.
‘We thought maybe Emma would sit with us,’ Leonie said dead-pan, ‘and leave you and your husband to enjoy a romantic evening à deux.’
Anne-Marie blinked at her, while Emma watched in a state of growing puzzlement. Her mother loved using French expressions, yet here she was staring at Leonie as if she didn’t understand à deux. How weird. Then again, this entire conversation was straight out of the X-Files anyway.
She felt bad about letting Leonie mislead her parents, but it would be blissful to have someone else to talk to on holiday. After an entire day with her father and no way of escaping him, she’d have gone off for a chat with someone in a straitjacket if they’d asked her.
‘That’s kind of you,’ said Jimmy O’Brien, who didn’t speak French but didn’t want to let on.
Emma’s mother was still staring at Leonie blankly. ‘What were we talking about again?’ she asked in a plaintive voice. There was something not quite right about her tonight, Emma felt. Something vague and distant. Her mother was never vague.
Leonie took charge. She relieved Emma of the two glasses of mineral water, put them down on the table in front of the O’Briens senior and slipped an arm through Emma’s.
‘We’ll leave you to it,’ she said sweetly.
‘What did you say to them?’ asked Emma when they were out of earshot, feeling as if she should scold a little bit.
‘I lied and said I knew your boss,’ Leonie said quickly, not wanting to get into a detailed explanation of her wicked ruse. ‘Said we wanted to chat. I mean, I know how it is with parents, they probably feel you’d be lost without them, when Hannah and I both know you’d like a bit of time out. And it gives them a chance to be on their own, second honeymoon stuff.’
Emma raised her eyebrows. Second honeymoon indeed.
Leonie stood in front of the Temple of Hathor and knew why she’d come to Egypt. Blazing white heat shone down on her, lighting the dusty scene with a burning white intensity. The temple in front of her, carved by the fiercely proud Rameses II for his beloved queen Nefertari, was beautiful.
Rameses’ own temple at Abu Simbel was twice as breathtaking: towering figures of the great king himself looming over the tourists, majestic and exquisitely proportioned. To stare up at the fierce face of the great ruler made the long trip in the bus worth it. Just standing there in the desert sun, listening to the age-old sounds of hawkers trying to sell their wares and the hum of insects droning lazily overhead, Leonie felt as if she could have stepped back in time. She wondered what it must have been like to be one of the archaeologists who’d discovered the fabulous temple after it had lain buried in the desert sands for three thousand years. Or even better, she clutched her golden Egyptian cartouche pendant to her chest, imagining what it would have been like to be the Egyptian queen, Nefertari, honoured by all, beautiful, covered with priceless gold jewellery and awaiting the grand opening of the temple. Lost in her magical world of romance, Leonie felt exhilarated and dazed at the same time.
This was what people felt when they saw the Taj Mahal, she thought reverently. Stunned into silence by the physical proof of what mankind could do. For love. Like the Taj Mahal, built as the biggest love token ever, Nefertari’s temple had been built by her besotted husband because he loved his wife so much. No other Egyptian ruler had ever built such a monument, the tour guide had explained as the bus trailed slowly along the road in convoy from Aswan deep into the Nubian desert. They built temples in their own honour or richly decorated great tombs for their journey to the afterworld. But a temple dedicated to one they loved, never.
Imagine being loved so much by such a great king, Leonie thought dreamily. Imagine such a symbol of enduring love in your name…
‘Leonie, the tour’s starting. Are you coming?’
Hannah’s