Lady of Heaven Read Free Page B

She writes about visiting the dig when they were removing
the artifacts.”
    Morgan smiled faintly. “I know,”
she replied. “I read that, too. Pretty amazing.”
    Fox shook his head, half in
agreement, half in wonder.  His gaze returned to the journal for a moment
longer before finally removing his glasses.
    “Amazing, yes,” he agreed, looking
at her. “But what does this journal have to do with the papyrus?”
    The smile faded from Morgan’s lush
lips and the dimples vanished. She stood up and rounded the desk again, taking
hold of the journal and carefully thumbing through it until she came to the
last page that had any manner of writing on it.  She opened the book,
displaying the pages fully; on the right hand page was a massive brown stain
with streaks all the way off the page.  The page itself was warped as a result.
Something wet had been spilled on the page, had run and finally dried, leaving
the warped paper.
    “See that stain?” she asked.
    He glanced at it. “I do.”
    She could see that he wasn’t
particularly concerned with it so she decided to throw caution to the wind and
tell him everything at this point. She reckoned that she had nothing to lose;
she had his interest. Now was the time to spring the rest of it.
    “You need to read her entire
journal, Dr. Henredon, to see what a truly remarkable woman my
great-grandmother was,” she said frankly. “She and my grandfather were two of
the great explorers of early Egyptian studies.  They would comb the Cairo
bazaar for ancient artifacts and maps, getting to know the locals to find out
where the tombs and monuments were located.  If you read these pages, then you
see that they would find ancient places to study them; not plunder, but study. 
They wanted to understand the history of Egypt to enrich their knowledge, not
necessarily to amass wealth although they do have a significant collection. 
But it seems to me that the collection was their way of preserving something
they’d come to love very much; Egypt and its people.  They didn’t do it to
boast about it or to sell it for gain.  They did it to save it.”
    Fox was watching her carefully, the
way her lovely mouth moved and the way her nose wrinkled when she spoke.  He
realized he was becoming more interested in the woman by the moment in spite of
everything; he could feel his interest moving from initial attraction to
something else. Morgan Sherburn was beautiful, intelligent and well-spoken. He
didn’t know the first thing about the woman, but what he did know had him
quickly captivated.
    “I can appreciate that,” he said
evenly. “It’s admirable. But it still doesn’t explain why you need me to
translate the papyrus. “
    Morgan took a deep breath,
collecting her thoughts.  Her gaze moved back to the journal on the table.
    “My great-grandparents returned to
Britain after spending six months in Egypt on their honeymoon,” she said
quietly. “They returned because my great-grandmother was pregnant with my
grandfather.  He was born in 1923 and when he was about six months old, they
returned to Egypt because my great-grandmother just couldn’t seem to stay away.
She had come to love it.  When they came back the second time, according to her
journal, they reconnected with friends and ended up purchasing a papyrus that
was said to have been recovered at a dig in ancient Thebes. My great-grandmother
wrote about this papyrus in her journal; she said that an antiquities dealer
told her it contained the details on the burial on the Lady of Heaven, the
Mistress of The Gods, the Mother of the Lands and The Great Wife.  The
translation he gave her is even written in the journal. He told her that the
papyrus gave clues to the tomb of Isis and my great-grandmother, ever the
adventurer, set off in search of it.”
    By this time, Fox was looking at
her as if she had lost her mind. “What did she find?”
    Morgan put her finger on the
stained journal page. “She didn’t,” she