Chapter 4
?
Four
Two hours later
Ellie fanned herself against the heat as the tonga rattled along a quiet residential street.
The open-air carriage was shielded by a canvas canopy and drawn by a single horse.
It encountered little traffic as they rolled along, the business of the festival now concentrated around the Gundicha Temple, where Lord Jagannath would arrive later that evening.
Ellie could hear only a distant rumble of noise from the celebration, the sound merging with the rattle of the tonga’s wheels against the pavement.
Their party had been split, as the vehicles were too small to seat four. Ellie shared hers with Constance. Neil and Adam followed behind.
The Puri Beach Club, where Borthwick had sent the stolen manuscript, was a private membership establishment that catered to Puri’s British population.
It hadn’t taken very long back at the hotel for Mr. Chowdhury to acknowledge that a group of English people stood a far better chance of getting access than any of his local agents.
The solicitor had pulled a few strings to arrange for a temporary membership under Neil’s name, deeming him the most respectable of the bunch.
Mr. Chowdhury had tried to convince Constance to stay back with her royal relatives—a suggestion she had flatly refused.
I’m the only one here who knows how to pick locks or throw a knife.
Adam had countered this, at which point Constance had quite reasonably noted that he could hardly get into the club with a machete strapped to his waist under his dinner jacket.
At least Mr. Chowdhury had accepted custody of the dog. Ellie could only imagine what sort of trouble Kalb might get up to in a private club.
Not that the solicitor had looked very happy about it—but then again, neither had Kalb. The dog had watched Adam leave with an expression of heartrending mourning potent enough that even Ellie had felt a bit bad about it.
Their mission—spelled out in no uncertain terms—had been to ascertain where on the property Borthwick was staying.
“And nothing more,” Mr. Chowdhury had ordered. “Borthwick is inordinately dangerous. His Highness and I have resources that can take care of the rest.”
Constance had looked perfectly content with this restriction—which left Ellie feeling suspicious.
Her friend sat beside her on the bench of the tonga, decked out in a dinner gown of gold silk with black lace accents and fashionably puffed sleeves. The color perfectly set off her complexion.
Ellie’s gown was green with a wrapped bodice and narrow sleeves cropped at her elbows. She was lucky to have it, as she hadn’t packed a dinner dress when she had left London several weeks earlier. Constance had arranged for this one with a seamstress in Cairo.
“They do dress for dinner on ships, you know,” Constance had pointed out with a note of resigned exasperation.
“Not the one I took to British Honduras,” Ellie had countered.
“That was a glorified freighter. You’ll find Aai travels in a slightly more refined style.”
Ellie had wanted the dress to have pockets.
It did not.
“I hope this place isn’t dreadfully uptight.” Constance flipped open her fan and cooled herself with it.
The sun was lowering to gold on the horizon, the light filtering over the rooftops beneath a thick layer of dark clouds. Odisha was rolling into its annual monsoon season, and the thick air was tense with the promise of rain.
“Of course, it will be uptight,” Ellie retorted. “It’s a private club.”
“Not all clubs are dull. Some can be downright wild.”
Ellie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Since when have you been running off to wild clubs?”
Constance waved her fan airily. “I didn’t say I’d been. I’ve just heard of plenty of them.”
“I believe this one has a golf course.”
Constance snapped the fan shut, grimacing. “Definitely uptight, then.”
She grew uncharacteristically quiet as they rode past the tidy facades of some of Puri’s finer houses.
“I suspect Aai might be preparing to join the fray over my marriage prospects,” she offered at last.
The driver cheerfully ignored them. It had been clear when they were loading into the tonga that his English was limited to directions and monetary exchange.
“You’re thinking of that comment she made on our way to the festival,” Ellie elaborated.
Our Kondi has been most exacting in her standards for a husband… perhaps a little too exacting.
“It’s more than that,” Constance returned tautly. “I know when Aai’s preparing to take sides on an issue. One can hardly grow up with her in the house and not learn to read the signs. It’s more or less a survival mechanism.”
“What does that mean for you?” Ellie pressed worriedly—because she had been worried for her friend ever since she had learned of the deadline Sir Robert and Lady Sabita had set for their daughter to choose a husband or risk facing consequences.
Pressure from Constance’s parents was bad enough, but the prospect of her royal grandmother wading in was another kettle of fish entirely. Padma was formidable at the best of times—and she always got what she set her mind to.
Constance’s mouth firmed into a grim, determined line. “It means that it’s time to consider more extreme measures.”
Ellie felt a thrill of alarm. “Such as?”
“An engagement with your brother.”
Ellie’s mind took a moment to catch up with her ears. Then she choked. “You… what…?!”
“Not for real!” Constance rolled her eyes. “Just for a little while. We’d find a way out of it when it was no longer necessary.”
“How?” Ellie squeaked wildly.
Adam glanced up with a concerned frown from the other tonga, which trailed just out of earshot behind them.
Ellie gave him a wave, plastering a reassuring smile on her face.
“I haven’t worked out all the details yet,” Constance breezily dismissed.
Ellie fought down a low hum of panic. “And Neil is… amenable to this?”
“I’m sure I can talk him into it.”
Ellie paled. “So, you haven’t actually spoken with him about it yet.”
“I haven’t determined whether it’s strictly necessary. Why alarm him in the meantime? You know how he can be.”
Ellie knew how he could be.
“But why Neil?” she pressed desperately.
“If you hadn’t noticed, we aren’t exactly overflowing with eligible men in our traveling party,” Constance pointed out. “It’s not like I could ask Adam to do it. That would be terribly odd.”
“It’s not odd to ask Neil?”
“Not really,” Constance returned lightly.
Ellie stared at her. The prospect of asking the next question made her wish she could squirm out of her own skin. “But do you harbor any actual… er… romantic inclinations toward my brother?”
“Don’t be silly.” Constance dismissed the idea with a wave.
“It’s only that you did once suggest making him your…”
Ellie’s throat dried up on the word.
“Lover?” Constance filled in easily. “Well—yes. But that was just a passing notion.”
“So you aren’t attracted to him,” Ellie clarified hopefully.
“I didn’t say that. Your brother cuts a reasonably fine figure.”
Ellie wondered when the carriage had begun to spin.
“But there’s a substantial difference between being attracted to someone and actively planning to lure them into bed,” Constance finished helpfully.
“There… is?” Ellie frowned as she thought of her own sense of physical attraction, which had been roused from years of relative dormancy to raging, hungry life by Adam Bates.
It had most definitely involved luring him into bed.
Not that she had to lure very hard.
“I have no interest in making love to your brother,” Constance asserted.
Ellie tried not to look queasy at her words. “Only to fake engage him.”
“If it should become necessary.” Constance cast Ellie a careful look. “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“What on earth does it have to do with me?”
“You are my best friend,” Constance pointed out. “And he’s your brother.”
A new dart of worry pierced through the mess of uncomfortable feelings roiling Ellie’s gut. “You would make it clear to him that it’s a fake engagement?”
Constance waved a dismissive hand. “It’s hardly fake if only one of the parties involved knows it.”
“Well, then,” Ellie returned awkwardly. “It’s hardly any of my business—assuming Neil is willing to participate.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Constance blinked with surprise as though the question truly hadn’t occurred to her.
It might not have. Constance made her mad plans hard to resist.
Back in the other tonga, Neil was waving his hands enthusiastically as he chatted at Adam—which meant he was probably rattling on about the provenance of a historical place name or the ongoing effort to translate Cretan hieroglyphics.
Would Neil go along with a fake engagement to help Constance escape from the pressure to choose an actual husband?
Ellie wasn’t at all sure that she knew the answer to that question.
“They do tidy up nicely,” Constance murmured appreciatively beside her.
Ellie’s focus shifted from her brother to the man beside him. “Adam hates jackets,” she commented distractedly. “I’m surprised he had that one with him.”
Adam wore his dinner dress well, the jacket hanging elegantly from his frame, but something about the sight felt wrong. Ellie fought against an odd impulse to shove the garment off his shoulders.
“Aai made him get one,” Constance informed Ellie.
Ellie didn’t answer. Her mind was busy picturing how Adam would look once she got the jacket off him. Better, she thought, conjuring up the precise gleam he’d have in his eyes as he gazed down at her in his shirtsleeves—deeply appreciative and tinged with lust.
“She has excellent tailors,” Constance added, fixing Ellie with a knowing look.
The shirt wasn’t right either, she thought distractedly. She really ought to get rid of that as well—tug loose each of the buttons one by one until she could run her hands over the strong, solid expanse of his chest.
“Have you considered talking to him?” Constance pressed.