The chair at the head of table seven had been empty since the soup course. Elizabeth watched it as the steward cleared the third setting, lifting the untouched crystal glass with the practised discretion of a man paid never to notice anything.
She noticed everything.
Across the table, Fitzwilliam de Bellefort reached for the salt he did not need and smiled at nothing in particular.
"You know something," Elizabeth said quietly. It was not a question.
He looked up. His expression was one she had catalogued already: amusement wearing the costume of surprise. "I beg your pardon?"
"The ambassador." She kept her voice level, her eyes on his. "His chair. You have looked at it four times since we sat down, and each time you have looked away rather too quickly for a man with nothing on his mind."
Fitzwilliam set down the salt. "My dear Mrs Darcy." He leaned back with the ease of a man who had never once been uncomfortable in his life. "Don't get hysterical. He probably got off at Aswan to see one of his mistresses, got thoroughly drunk and missed the boat. It would not be the first time, I assure you."
Elizabeth felt the colour rise in her face. She had not been called hysterical since she was nineteen years old and she had not cared for it then either. She held his gaze for a moment, long enough for him to know she had heard every syllable of it, then let her expression settle into something softer.
"Mr de Bellefort," she said, and her voice was almost a purr. "Fancy a gin and tonic?"
He blinked. She saw it: the small recalibration behind his eyes. Then he smiled, and it was, she had to admit, a very good smile indeed.
"That would be perfect," he said. "Lizzy."
She held her expression perfectly. Only her eyes, for the briefest moment, betrayed her. She hated that name. He knew it too, she was certain of that.
He rose and took her hand, and his fingers were cool and dry and entirely certain of themselves.
The evening air met them at the door to the deck. Somewhere aft, a phonograph was playing something French. The outside bar glowed amber at the stern, and the Nile moved dark and soundless on either side, carrying them all, she thought, towards whatever came next.
She would find out what he knew. She always did.
The barman set two glasses on the rail and Fitzwilliam reached for his without taking his eyes off her.