Chapter 41
?
Forty-One
Ellie was still gaping after her departed friend and her brother when Adam hooked a hand around her waist and propelled her back into the palace.
They ran directly into Mr. Mahjoud. The impeccably dressed dragoman stared down at them with an air of tired exasperation.
“Connie’s in the washroom,” Adam burst out before Padma’s agent could open his mouth to speak.
He spun Ellie around and marched her down the hall away from both Mr. Mahjoud and the noise of the party. They turned a corner, and Adam steered her through a random door.
Ellie stopped just over the threshold, staring at an array of glassy-eyed beasts. The frozen menagerie included a rhinoceros, a tiger, an ostrich, four different types of deer, and a mongoose. Several large fish were mounted on the wall.
It would all have been quite alarming, had the animals not been stuffed.
A pair of ornate armchairs stood in the center of the display next to an elaborate standing ashtray.
Both the furnishings and the taxidermy had been meticulously maintained but felt unused.
Ellie was left with the impression that the space had belonged to one of Vijay’s more sportsmanlike royal ancestors.
Her impressions didn’t go any further, because the rest of her mind was still reeling with what she had just seen. “Adam, they were… Neil was…”
Adam shut the door and planted her in one of the chairs. “Sure looked like it.”
“But it was never supposed to be… They shouldn’t have been…” Ellie’s words choked off. “They were only pretending!”
Adam collapsed into the other chair, slumping back against the seat in a posture of stunned surprise. “Don’t think they were pretending that.”
Ellie pushed to her feet, pacing compulsively between the ostrich and the tiger.
“I recognize that these things do happen. I cannot even say I am entirely surprised by it. I did have some suspicions after our adventures in Egypt, though both of them insisted there was nothing at all untoward going on. And I recognize that forced proximity can be a powerful force for romantic entanglement.”
Adam’s gaze dropped appreciatively to the close-fitting lines of her evening gown. “You don’t say.”
“You are trying to distract me,” Ellie accused crossly.
“Now why would I go and do a thing like that?” Adam put his hands behind his head in a way that made his substantial biceps press against the fabric of his jacket.
Ellie threw up her hands. “They have known each other since they were children!”
Adam cocked an eyebrow.
She put her fingers to her temples. “That doesn’t really mean anything, does it?”
His expression grew more serious. “How are you feeling about all of it?”
“How am I feeling? They are two grown adults. It’s hardly for me to comment about what they get up to with each other.”
“Didn’t ask you to comment.” Adam eyed her knowingly. “I asked you how you felt.”
“How can I know that? I have no idea what’s even going on between the two of them, beyond the fact that they’re…” She forced the word out as her cheeks flushed. “Kissing.”
“That was a bit more than just a kiss, Princess. That looked like wild, unadulterated—“
“Yes, I know!” Ellie blurted out before he could go any further.
She went back to pacing. Adam snagged a handful of her skirt as she passed. He gave it a tug, and Ellie stumbled between his legs, catching herself against the back of the armchair.
Her hands were braced to either side of where Adam sprawled across the velvet cushions. His gaze roamed lazily up her body—pausing significantly on her bosom. He lifted his eyes to her face as her cheeks burned.
“Pretty sure you do,” he finished with a smirk.
“You’re incorrigible,” Ellie accused breathlessly.
Adam chuckled.
Ellie gave up on regaining her balance with any sort of dignity. She sat down on his knee instead. “But do you think it’s serious?” she asked, sobering.
“I think serious is the only way your brother knows how to do things,” he pointed out gently.
Ellie groaned. “Of course, you’re right. But Constance…”
“…cares about him,” Adam filled in deliberately.
“She’s cared about him for a while now, even when she was justifiably furious at him back in Egypt.
I know she’s talked about running off to have an affair with a trapeze artist, or a pirate captain, or whatever the hell else, but I don’t think that’s what this is to her.
And not just because Neil’s about the furthest thing you could get from a pirate captain. ”
Ellie thought of what Neil’s sock drawer looked like—extremely organized—and how many hours he could spend poring over Herodotus before looking up, blinking like a man waking from a thousand year sleep and wondering what century he had landed in.
“True,” she concurred with a grimace.
Adam slipped a comforting arm around her waist, and Ellie finally voiced the bigger fear that lurked inside of her. “What if she breaks his heart?”
“If she does, it’ll heal.”
“You sound awfully sure of that.”
“That’s because I am. But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.”
“You don’t?”
Adam’s hand traced up her back in long, soothing strokes. “Nope. If I were a betting man—”
“—which you are,” Ellie dryly inserted.
“I’d put my money on the two of them getting married, and then having a whole lot of—”
“Don’t say it!” Ellie queasily pictured Constance’s legs around her brother’s waist.
“—kids,” Adam finished with an unapologetic grin.
Ellie stilled.
His prediction was perfectly reasonable. If Neil and Constance were involved in a more serious way, then children might very well be in their future—but not just any children.
They would be Ellie’s nieces and nephews. Her family.
The picture bloomed to vivid life in her mind.
Sturdy legs crawled over ruined funerary chapels in a sprawl of sand. Neil would be yelling at them to be careful, and Constance would show them where to find even more dangerous things to get into.
Ellie could hear exactly the groan her brother would make. She knew how he would give in with helpless laughter as one of those children—a little girl with a mane of gorgeous ebony hair—jumped into his arms and demanded a hug.
The vision was so vivid—so real—that it stole Ellie’s breath, squeezing her heart like a clenched fist.
Adam lifted a scarred, calloused hand to gently brush the moisture from her cheek.
Ellie startled at the touch, bringing her own hand to her face. “Why am I crying?” she gasped out, her voice breaking.
“I think you’ve gotta tell me that,” Adam replied softly.
Ellie let herself fall against him, curling into his side in the chair with her legs across his lap. His arm cradled her warmly as she rested her face against his broad shoulder.
The words spilled out of her like a confession. “I want that for them. Adam… I want it for them so badly, it hurts.”
“Guess we know how you feel about it, then,” Adam commented warmly. “Though I thought you didn’t like kids.”
“I would like their children!” Ellie countered defensively. “I can do that, you know, and still not want any of my own.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Adam cheerfully agreed as he held her. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll be a great aunt.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ellie grumbled skeptically—even as a more rebellious part of her brain gleefully imagined what that role might be like.
She could offer the children helpful instruction with their Latin conjugations. Lead them on an excursion across the Saqqara plain, pointing out the various layers of habitation visible in the exposed structures.
Of course, as these were Constance and Neil’s children, some of them would wander off in search of cobras to befriend, while others would get stuck on a single panel of hieroglyphs and refuse to move until they had translated them in their entirety.
But that would be all right, Ellie decided comfortably as she nestled against the warmth of Adam’s shoulder—more than all right, really. In fact, Ellie found that the notion made her happier than almost anything she had ever thought of before.
A terrible new worry burst into her brain, and Ellie sat up. “What if they muck it up? Neil is terrible at this sort of thing!”
“He’s not that bad.” Adam read her expression and let out a breath. “All right—maybe he is that bad. But Constance sure as hell gets what she sets her sights on.”
“What if she gets him and then realizes she doesn’t really want him?” Ellie fluttered with panic at the notion.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?!”
Adam stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “Because your brother’s a damned good man, Princess.”
Moisture welled up in her eyes once more at the certainty in Adam’s voice.
“He might not always get it right the first time,” Adam continued. “Hell, he’s practically got a knack for putting his foot in things—but his heart always steers him true in the end, no matter what he’s gotta go through to get there.”
Tears streamed readily down Ellie’s cheeks. She couldn’t quite manage to speak at first, nodding instead. “You’re right,” she finally warbled out, her voice ridiculously uneven.
Adam laughed helplessly at the sound. He raised a pleading hand. “I’m sorry. I’m just not sure I’ve ever seen you like this before.”
“That’s because I am not prone to fits of feminine weeping!” Ellie protested stoutly—even as the cursed tears kept streaming down her cheeks.
“Nothing feminine about a good cry,” Adam asserted authoritatively.
“You would say that,” Ellie grumbled back irritably.
Adam’s hand smoothed over her back. “She’s your best friend.”
“She is!” Ellie wiped away more tears.
“And he’s your brother.” Adam’s hand continued to move in slow, tender strokes along her spine. “And not one that you had all along, which I’m guessing means you remember what it was like before he got there.”
Ellie couldn’t answer him. She gazed at him helplessly as the tears kept falling.
He brushed the pad of his thumb over the damp staining her cheek. “It all makes perfect sense to me.”
“Of course, it makes sense to you,” Ellie countered, warmth and a helpless irritation mingling in her words. “You’re Adam Bates.”
She kissed him, holding the rough texture of his cheeks gently between her hands. Her skin was cool with the echo of her tears as she grazed her lips tenderly over his own.
“Think you’re ready to face the party again?” Adam gently prompted when they were done. “Because it’s starting to feel like all these dead animals are staring at us.”
Ellie recalled herself. It did seem like the ostrich, the rhinoceros, and the tiger were pointing their beady eyes right at where she and Adam were sitting. “That is rather unsettling, once one notices it.”
“Let’s go get some treats,” he asserted and hauled her to her feet.