Chapter 6
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SIX
A war raged in Ellie’s chest as she stepped back into the well-lit interior of the Puri Beach Club.
When she had arrived at the glittering building, she had been consumed with thoughts of Constance’s easy assertion in the tonga—that the obvious solution to her and Adam’s dilemma was to pretend to be married.
Constance had made it sound so simple. Nothing about it felt simple to Ellie. Not when they were talking about a man who hated to lie.
She had only half listened to what the club secretary said in his office, struggling to set thoughts of fake marriage aside to focus on their mission of locating Borthwick.
Then Adam’s voice had cut through the fog.
It’s fine.
It had so clearly not been fine. The tension in Adam’s shoulders had made her look around to see who he was about to punch—and then she had understood.
Oh no, she had thought, distantly and terribly.
They left the veranda and stepped into the club’s game room. Young men and women clustered around scattered card tables. A round of billiards was in progress, the balls clicking as they raced over pristine green baize.
Constance was composed and blazingly determined. With her fashionable gold gown and elegantly styled hair, she oozed both wealth and the natural authority of someone unshakably confident of their place in the world.
Ellie’s heart tightened with admiration.
“We should split up,” Constance suggested. “We’ll be able to cover more of the club that way.”
A low murmur of laughter sounded from one of the card tables. Scotch glasses clinked musically, mingling with the snap of the billiard balls.
Constance made a haughty assessment of the space—which was very clearly not the North Dining Room. “I’ll take this one.”
Neil stepped up to her. “I’ll join you.”
His voice carried a note of challenge, daring anyone to push back at him. Ellie had only heard that sort of thing from him when he was preparing to go to war over the proper interpretation of the Eighteenth Dynasty line of succession.
Constance looked at Neil as though considering how likely he was in his current mood to try to hit someone—and whether or not she approved of the idea.
Had her brother ever hit someone before? Ellie hadn’t the foggiest idea… but she did feel oddly sure that if he had, they would have roundly deserved it.
“Fine. Stuffy’s with me,” Constance declared.
She strode over to one of the card tables and inserted herself among the well-dressed young people gathered there. Her introduction resounded through the room, brightly charming and unimpeachably confident.
Neil lingered beside Ellie and Adam. His shoulders were tense as he studied the reaction of the group to her arrival.
“She can handle it,” Adam quietly asserted.
“Can you?” Ellie pressed, looking at her brother.
“I’ll manage,” Neil returned without taking his eyes off Constance.
He strode over to join her.
The diamonds at Constance’s ears glittered as she casually introduced him, one of the men at the table rising to pull out a chair for her.
The club secretary had been primed to see Constance as Indian—but the people in the game room were being bombarded with her aristocratic English voice, her finishing school carriage, and her elegant dress. They wouldn’t dare snub her yet—not when she might turn out to be somebody important.
Constance knew how to play that part very well.
Neil was a stiffer presence behind her, shaking his head at the fellow offering him a drink. His ready, watchful posture held the air of a guard dog.
Ellie turned back to Adam. Tension tightened his jaw as he looked across the club.
“What about you?” she asked quietly.
Adam looked startled by the comment. A deeper emotion flashed behind his blue eyes. It looked like pain. “Don’t worry about me.”
Ellie opened her mouth to protest.
Adam stopped her with a pleading look. “Not here, Princess.”
Ellie brushed his hand with her fingers. He gave it a tight squeeze before letting her go.
“North or south?” Adam asked, looking at the doorways leading off to either side.
“Somehow I doubt we’ll find out as much about Borthwick if we go north.” Ellie grimaced.
“Probably not.”
Constance laughed. The sound was brighter and sharper than usual, edged like a weapon. Ellie shot her a worried look.
“How many knives do you think she’s wearing right now?” Adam asked.
Ellie startled at the question. “Two?”
“My money’s on four.”
Ellie glanced up at him with a burst of gratitude.
Adam was right. Constance could handle herself.
She threaded a hand through his arm. “South, then?”
Iron straightened Adam’s spine as he faced the room, a tropical-themed lounge with rattan chairs and potted ferns. “‘Sound trumpets and let our bloody colors wave,’” he muttered.
“Henry the Sixth?” Ellie commented, recognizing the phrase.
In response, Adam flashed her a hint of his usual hell-raising smile.
Ellie patted his arm, her mouth quirking wickedly. “‘Cheer up your spirits. Our foes are nigh.’”
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An hour later, Ellie pushed into the ladies’ retiring room with a breath of desperate relief.
She despised making small talk. She was also terrible at it.
How long was she supposed to natter on about horses or the weather?
Whenever she tried to bring up a genuinely interesting subject—like the natural mummification properties of certain peat bogs—people responded with blank or frankly disapproving looks.
Thankfully, Adam had turned out to be adept at making people comfortable and then steering the conversation around to local authorities like Colonel Borthwick. Ellie had found it frankly shocking. She had half expected him to pin a lizard to the wall with his machete and then light up a cigar.
The Adam she had seen in the lounge had been a different person, one perfectly equipped to navigate this privileged space—but then, why wouldn’t he? He’d been born to this life until he had left it to build a better one for himself.
Then Ellie had noticed the tightness in the lines that braced his smile.
He hates this, she had realized with an uncomfortable jolt. He hated every minute of it, and yet he was doing it anyway.
The ladies’ room was a narrow space of floral wallpaper and polished teak. It felt like a respite after the tense exhaustion of navigating the lounge.
The night was hot and the club stuffy, even with screens open to catch the breeze from the veranda. Intermittent rumblings continued to promise some sort of storm, but the rain hadn’t yet broken.
Ellie stopped at the vanity counter to press a damp towel to her face. The wet cloth was cool against her skin. She ran it over the back of her neck.
A voice spoke from behind her, bright and sharp as glass. “That tall American you’re with—is he staying in Puri long?”
Ellie looked up into the mirror mounted on the wall to see a woman of perhaps twenty in a fashionably low-cut gown amply accented with cream colored lace.
“Excuse me?” Ellie prompted, struggling to catch up.
“Unless the two of you are together,” the woman corrected smoothly. “I didn’t see any rings and thought you might be cousins. Very… distant cousins.”
Her smile was cold and white.
“But if I have it wrong, I wouldn’t want to cut in,” she continued. “That would hardly be cricket, would it?”
Ellie was left with the distinct impression that the woman did not feel the least bit inclined to bind herself to what might be considered ‘cricket.’ She was being toyed with, the way a bored cat might bat around a beetle it found on the floor.
The cat in the retiring room was admittedly lovely. Her pearly skin lacked any of Ellie’s freckles. Her golden hair was elegantly styled. She held herself with the willowy posture of someone who had been trained in social graces.
Ellie choked as she realized that she had absolutely no idea how to answer the woman’s question.
Were she and Adam together? Of course—but not in any way that a creature like this would understand.
He is mine, body and soul, Ellie burned to say. I know the groan he makes when you touch him in the right place. I have tasted the salt of his tears on my lips. And you will keep your filthy claws off him.
Uttering any of that wouldn’t have been exactly ‘cricket’ either.
She and Adam weren’t wearing rings. They weren’t married. They weren’t traveling as a couple or even the vague approximation of one. He was the friend of her stepbrother and nothing more so far as the world this woman came from was concerned.
Adam would never be tempted by a creature like the one coldly and contemptuously watching Ellie through the mirror. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was.
It still bothered Ellie deeply that she had no easy way to shut the harpy down.
“He’s leaving soon,” she bit out instead. “We all are.”
“Pity.” The woman dabbed a bit of powder on her nose. Snapping her compact shut, she treated Ellie to a savage smile. “Enjoy your evening.”
She drifted from the retiring room.
Ellie wondered distantly whether she ought to start carrying daggers in her own garters. She pictured what the woman’s face would have looked like had Ellie thrown up her skirts to adjust her stockings and flashed a blade at her.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” she muttered as she tugged sharply on the green fabric of her gown, meeting her own angry hazel glare through the mirror.
If you want peace, prepare for war.
Pivoting from the glass, she shoved out of the room half-blind with frustration—and ran directly into someone who was passing by.
Her human obstacle stumbled back a step as Ellie bounced off him.
“Now see here!” he spluttered… in the irritatingly familiar tones of Professor Dawson.
Who was very clearly here in Puri.
The professor brushed off his waistcoat with a red-cheeked indignation. “You might try watching where you’re going, young lady!” he blustered.
Ellie stared at him. Had the man truly failed to recognize her?
Then it clicked. He hadn’t bothered to look. She was just another female in a dress to him.