Chapter 4 #2
“The tailor?” Ellie returned absently, imagining how she’d graze her nails over the curve of his biceps as he set her down on the dinner table.
“Not the tailor, Eleanora,” Constance corrected her drolly. “Adam. About the fact that the pair of you are threatening to spontaneously combust with frustrated physical desires.”
Ellie snapped open her fan, giving her flushed cheeks a breeze.
Had it been that obvious? Or just a lucky guess?
Surely Constance couldn’t actually read minds.
Though admittedly, Ellie’s thoughts had been tumbling into wicked places with increasing frequency since they had left Cairo, where she and Adam had last had a chance to enjoy each other’s company in a private setting.
She thought of calloused hands pushing up her skirt under a sprawling desert sky. Of a curse on Adam’s lips as his bare skin glistened in the lamplight of her room.
They had opened the door to all the myriad possibilities Adam’s improvisational skills had to offer—and Ellie’s brain refused to close it again. Utterly debauched notions kept spilling out of it at highly inconvenient times.
Like breakfast.
Constance’s voice cut through the rush of Ellie’s hotly tormented thoughts. “The solution to your problem isn’t exactly a mystery.”
“It’s not?”
Her voice was edged with exasperation. “You just have to be fake married!”
“Fake married?” Ellie echoed uncertainly.
“It happens all the time,” Constance assured her dismissively.
Ellie was skeptical of that—but knew better than to argue. She focused on more practical objections. “How would Adam and I even manage something like that?”
“You just start introducing yourselves as Mr. and Mrs. Bates. Who’s to say that you aren’t?” Constance gave her a skeptical look. “You two really haven’t discussed it?”
Ellie felt as though the tonga had grown corners and she was backed into one. “We’d be lying to everyone if we did that.”
“Only to a load of people you don’t really care about. The ones who really matter would know, obviously. And what’s the alternative? Live together in sin and be utterly ostracized by society, or keep going on as the pair of you have and die of sexual frustration?”
Ellie treated Constance to a quelling glare. “Nobody dies of sexual frustration.”
Constance snapped open her fan, her tone dry. “You and Adam seem set on testing that theory.”
“We haven’t been completely deprived,” Ellie pushed back desperately.
“You have since we left Egypt. Don’t think that I haven’t been keeping track.”
“How could you possibly know?” Ellie protested wildly.
“Eleanora, it was quite clear in Cairo which nights Adam had slipped into your room to do wicked things to you. Just as it is very obvious when you two have not had the opportunity to… exorcise your sensual demons,” Constance finished with deliberate tact.
Ellie stared back at her, stricken speechless.
“Not that I don’t feel for you both. Aai is entirely too good at keeping track of us,” Constance grumbled irritably.
Ellie let the mortification wash over her—as there was clearly no avoiding it. “This would all be so much simpler if the world would accept that two people can be legitimately devoted to each other outside of the unjust and coercive bounds of holy matrimony.”
“If you’re holding out for that, I think you’ll be waiting a long time,” Constance retorted.
“You need to figure out how to live in the world as it is. And if you want my opinion, that’s going to require a little creative fabrication.
Or you can keep risking Adam breaking his neck climbing in through windows. ”
“I suppose that isn’t entirely fair to him,” Ellie admitted uncomfortably, thinking of a window in the Suez that had nearly led to Adam falling into the canal.
“Don’t get me wrong—it’s all desperately romantic,” Constance assured her. “But what are you going to do when you’re staying in a room without a window? You need to talk to him.”
“How can I talk to him when I don’t know what I ought to ask him to do?” Ellie protested.
“Be fake married,” Constance replied flatly.
“I can’t just tell Adam that I think we should become… fake married.” The words were uncomfortable in her mouth.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, it’s a further level of commitment than what we’ve discussed to date!”
“Oh. You mean that it would be a bit like asking him to marry you for real.” Constance leaned back, thoughtfully swinging her fan. “But shouldn’t a liberated suffragist think a woman ought to be able to do that?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the trouble, then? You know perfectly well how he’d respond.”
Ellie was rather certain that she did know how Adam would answer if she asked him to marry her in earnest. She was less certain of how he’d respond to a proposal that they merely pretend to be.
Her temple began to throb. “This all just feels like it’s happening terribly fast.”
“How long do you think other people spend being engaged? Maybe a month or two. You’ve been with Adam for as long as that now.”
“That still seems like a precipitously short period of time for assessing whether someone could be a compatible partner for the rest of one’s life,” Ellie asserted stoutly.
“We could argue that,” Constance allowed impatiently. “But you and Adam don’t seem too uncertain on that front, from where I’m sitting.”
Ellie slumped back with a rising sense of helplessness. “I’d be proposing we spend our lives together bound by a falsehood. Adam doesn’t really do falsehoods.”
“Eleanora—he’s an intelligent man,” Constance returned patiently. “I’m sure that he’s put all of this together himself by now. He must be expecting something along this line.”
“Then why hasn’t he said anything?” Ellie protested wildly.
“He’s probably not sure where you stand on it. He’s giving you time to think.”
“He might try talking to me while I’m thinking,” Ellie grumbled.
Constance whacked her lightly with the fan. “You are verging on the ridiculous. Tell him how you feel about all of it. Or keep torturing yourself—but do try not to set the bloody hotel on fire with your repressed lustful impulses while you’re at it.”
“It isn’t that bad.” Ellie’s cheeks flushed again.
“It most certainly is,” Constance countered. “You keep giving each other looks that you think nobody is noticing, only everybody’s noticing, and it makes Stuffy’s ears turn pink.”
“Everything makes Neil’s ears turn pink,” Ellie pointed out—even as her own blush rose at the notion of her brother noticing any such looks between her and Adam.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Constance sounded suspiciously thoughtful.
Ellie regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You’re certain that your designs on my brother are strictly platonic?”
“What else would they be?” Constance dismissed with a wave of her fan.
The tonga slowed to turn into a gated driveway.
Ten-foot-high stone walls marched to either side, disappearing into thick green hedges.
The gate was open, framed by carved granite pillars.
An Indian fellow in dark blue livery studied them as they pulled in but let both carts pass with a wave at the drivers.
“Goodness. It looks like a fortress.” Constance craned her neck back to study the walls.
“Indeed,” Ellie agreed with a pang of unease.
“Seems a bit much for a golf course,” Constance complained. “Who are they trying to keep out?”
The tang of salt and a soft rush of waves mingled with the scent of flowers in the air as the club came into view.
The sprawling two-story building was set on the edge of the sand, framed by flowering trees and soaring palms. It had been built in English style with painted shutters and striped awnings.
A columned portico sheltered the entrance, lit by flickering gas lamps.
Manicured gardens sprawled to either side, while morning glory vines tumbled over the ornamental boulders that distinguished an island in the middle of the circular drive.
A pair of enormous stone lions flanked the stairs to the front door.
“It looks nice enough,” Constance mused.
The club did look nice. So why did the sight of it fill Ellie with an odd sense of foreboding?
Clouds continued to gather overhead, and a soft gust of rain-scented wind danced over her skin.
The horse huffed out a frustrated breath as the tonga rattled to a stop. A uniformed footman came forward to help them down. Constance stepped daintily onto the carpet in a spill of golden silk and black lace. Ellie followed after her, wishing she wore boots instead of slippers.
Adam joined them. Even in dinner dress, he carried himself like a man who ought to have an eighteen-inch knife strapped to his belt.
Ellie’s nerves wrenched. Had Constance been right? Was a fake marriage really the solution to her and Adam’s dilemma? And what would Adam even think of such a suggestion?
Ellie studied his face as though she could read the answers there. His expression was uncharacteristically grim as he faced the elegantly illuminated building.
“What’s wrong?” she pressed, keeping her voice low.
“Reminds me of somewhere I’ve been before,” Adam commented quietly.
“In British Honduras?”
“In America,” Adam returned shortly.
“Is that a good thing?”
His eyes darkened with worry. “Not really.”
Neil tugged his waistcoat into place as he came to Ellie’s other side, shoulders straight under his formal attire. Her brother had always cleaned up well.
Ellie found herself assessing how Constance reacted to his appearance.
Constance wasn’t looking at Neil at all. Her eyes were on the gable at the far end of the clubhouse. “Look at all those birds by the roof!”
Dark, flickering shapes swarmed the eaves. The sight triggered an instinctive jolt of discomfort—along with chilling memories of ear-splitting shrieks in the gloom and the scrape of talons against stone.
“Those aren’t birds,” Ellie said carefully. “They’re bats.”
Constance frowned as she squinted into the growing twilight. “They must be roosting in the attic.”
“Which would be a perfectly ordinary thing for perfectly ordinary bats to do,” Ellie reminded herself aloud under her breath.
“Doesn’t mean there aren’t monsters here,” Adam warned, slipping a hand under her arm.
An Englishman in a brass-buttoned uniform descended the stairs, greeting them with the sort of upper-class accent that only came through rigorous practice. “Good evening and welcome to Puri Beach. I am Mr. Sykes, the club majordomo. Whom do I have the honor of greeting?”
Neil stepped forward, managing to disguise his nerves under an air of casual authority. “Dr. Neil Fairfax. I believe my solicitor called ahead to make arrangements for us?”
Ellie saw the majordomo give a well-schooled blink of surprise at Neil’s words. Her brother was cursed with looking a bit young for his age—but Sykes recovered quickly.
“Indeed, Dr. Fairfax,” he returned smoothly. “If you’ll accompany me to the secretary’s office so that we might sign you in?”
“Jolly good.” Neil flexed his hand as though actively resisting the urge to tug nervously at his bow tie.
The majordomo’s gaze flickered over the rest of them, skimming easily past Ellie and Adam—then hitched on Constance as she peeked into her reticule.
The bats whirled up from the gloom of the distant gable, and thunder rolled softly in the distance.
“This way, please,” Sykes directed, turning to lead them up the carpeted stairs.