Two
A s they rode through the streets of Cairo, Adam Bates found himself squished onto the carriage bench next to Constance’s extremely well-dressed bodyguard. Mr. Mahjoud managed to look both fussy and intimidating at the same time. The man was tall enough that Adam actually had to look up a bit to meet his eyes, which was pretty unusual for someone of his own not-insubstantial size. Couple that with Mr. Mahjoud’s air of pained disapproval, and Adam felt like he was back at Cambridge telling his tutor that he had once again accidentally set his exams on fire.
On the other side of the carriage, Ellie sat with her face plastered to the open window. Her eyes were wide, drinking up every bit of the city that she could see through streets crowded with donkeys, horses, carts, and other conveyances. She was probably picking out the respective ages and architectural styles of every building they passed. Adam would likely hear all about it the next time they had a quiet minute together, unless they got… distracted .
Then other things would happen. Things Adam definitely wasn’t supposed to be doing with the sister of his best friend.
That he hadn’t done even more of those things was entirely due to the fact that he and Ellie had barely had a moment alone together since they left the Cayo District.
After collecting their bags from the hotel Adam called home, he’d hitched them a ride on a fishing boat from Belize Town to Jamaica, where they slept out on the open deck with the captain and his eleven-year-old nephew. It’d rained the whole time. Adam put that down to the fact that it had been his first time on a boat since Ellie had tossed his lucky rock into a waterfall.
He supposed he ought to be grateful the drizzle hadn’t turned into a hurricane.
On the steamer from Kingston to Alexandria, they’d stayed in separate cabins. Adam had shared his with a pair of German engineers who spent the whole trip arguing about struts. Ellie had been paired up with an elderly widow who’d gone to the islands to alleviate her rheumatism.
Adam now knew more about steel alloys than he had ever wanted, but he counted himself lucky, missing rock notwithstanding… because the minute Adam did find himself alone with Ellie, pure and unadulterated lust took over his brain.
When he’d run into her in the empty hallway outside his room on the boat to Egypt, he’d just stopped to ask her if she wanted to try playing some deck skittles—and before he knew what was happening, he had her up against the wall with his hands on… well, things he definitely wasn’t supposed to have his hands on. They’d only barely disentangled themselves before the Germans turned the corner, shouting at each other about wind shear.
Then there had been that little incident in Ellie’s stateroom. Adam had poked his head in to let her know it was time for lunch, since she had a habit of forgetting about things like the fact that food was a requirement for survival once she started scribbling in her notebook. Only he had happened to notice that Ellie’s elderly roommate was sound asleep on her bunk, snoring lightly and evenly.
Somehow, Adam found himself taking a step inside the room as the door fell quietly shut behind him. Ellie rose from her desk, eyeing him like a starving man might look at a hunk of steak… and then he was kissing her furiously and silently in the middle of the stateroom with an old lady dozing two steps away.
Ellie had her fingers in his hair, tugging and tangling there as she devoured his bottom lip. Adam’s hands gripped her hips, kneading the firm, smooth flesh he could feel through the fabric of her skirt. He didn’t even realize he was pushing her backwards until she bumped up against the desk.
The resulting friction sent a bolt of explosive, mind-numbing pleasure shooting up into Adam’s brain—and also knocked over Ellie’s ink bottle. It had thankfully been capped, but it still rolled off the desk and onto the floor.
The bottle landed with a sharp little bang. The old lady snorted, smacking her lips as she stirred. Adam froze… with his waist between Ellie’s thighs, his tongue in her mouth, and his hands on her rear end.
Which was not a position one ought to stay frozen in.
He jumped back, putting a shred of respectable distance between them. The roommate rolled over, drawing in another snorting breath before she went quiet again… at which point, part of Adam’s brain had evilly suggested that he should go right back to what he’d been doing.
He resisted it, dragging his eyes from Ellie’s heaving, flushed neckline.
“Lunch,” he whispered hoarsely and fled from the room.
Neil was going to kill him.
Adam hadn’t seen Ellie’s stepbrother in person since their time together at Cambridge—but Neil was still one of his closest friends. They’d been exchanging letters every two weeks for years now. Neil’s were pages stuffed with details about his studies, pet theories, job prospects, what he had for breakfast…
Adam’s were shorter. He wasn’t much of a wordsmith, if the words weren’t coming out of his mouth. Adam’s letters usually read something along the lines of weather’s fine & tried some tapir jerky , or tripped on a mudslide but I found a lucky rock .
Neil hadn’t minded. Neil had never minded Adam being… well, Adam.
Neil was definitely going to mind Adam being Adam when it came to his baby stepsister. He was really going to get his socks in a twist over the fact that Ellie and Adam had spent a solid week alone together in the wilderness of British Honduras.
As for what they’d gotten up to in the hall, or on the desk, or in that cenote back in Tulan…
Adam felt awful about all of it. There was a right way of going about this sort of business—and it wasn’t throwing Ellie up against a wall while he nibbled her earlobe every time they found themselves alone together.
He wasn’t precisely sure what the right way would have looked like, given Ellie’s opposition to the whole notion of marriage… but it definitely involved coming clean to her brother and refraining from taking further liberties with her person until they’d sorted everything out.
Which he’d so far utterly failed to do.
He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head.
It’s not just that you’re lazy. It’s that you don’t think about the consequences.
The memory of those words—and of George’s Bates’s tired, disdainful expression—cut at Adam like a knife.
You can’t cruise through the world on a whim and call that being a man.
He’d spent the last decade telling himself that he wasn’t the person his father had always accused him of being— irresponsible, self-indulgent, undisciplined . But everything he’d been doing with Ellie seemed to fall right into those categories, and it left him burning with shame.
He had to make it right. Since he couldn’t do that by dragging her to the nearest altar, he was going to have to talk to her—like a reasonable, responsible adult—and let her know he was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again.
Adam would do just that as soon as he got a chance… which wasn’t now, as he rode through Cairo in a stuffy carriage, sandwiched between the door and the exasperated dragoman.
Instead, Adam found his gaze drifting down to the place where Ellie’s thigh pushed against the light fabric of her skirt as she sat across from him.
He could easily have picked up her ankle, set it on his lap, and pushed that practical green twill up to expose one of her nicely-shaped calves…
Adam stifled a groan, dropping his head back against the seat as he fought to push the notion of Ellie’s calves out of his head… and realized that Ellie’s friend was staring at him.
Constance Tyrrell reminded him of one of those small, well-bred dogs that were fully capable of hamstringing you if you crossed them. The look she gave Adam left him certain that the woman wouldn’t rest until she had squeezed every last bit of dirt out of Ellie about their travels together over the last six weeks.
The prospect made Adam feel distinctly nervous.
The carriage rolled to a stop. Mr. Mahjoud held the door for the ladies, Adam following behind them.
They stood on a narrow street fronted by tall featureless houses. Any windows that Adam could see were relatively small and completely veiled by elaborately carved wooden screens, which allowed no view of the interior. It made the area’s wealth seem fairly subtle until you noticed the polished brass lanterns and elegant stained glass accents by the doors.
Constance led them inside, and the impression of plainness vanished. Adam found himself in a luxurious entryway lined with beautifully carved panels and a richly tiled floor.
More importantly, he could smell something cooking. His stomach rumbled in appreciative anticipation.
“I will see about arranging rooms for the… unexpected addition to our party,” Mr. Mahjoud declared with a pointed look at Adam and an air of long-suffering endurance. “You will find Lady Sabita in the courtyard.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mahjoud.” Constance tugged off her gloves and hat. She thrust both of them at the dragoman, who caught them with a grimace and immediately passed them to a small, stout Egyptian servant who waited beside him. Then she hooked a hand through Ellie’s arm and hauled her forward, leaving Adam to follow.
Around a sharp turn and a short passage, Adam stepped into a courtyard that felt like an oasis hidden within the heart of the city. The space was roughly square, framed on all sides by the three high stories of the house, which were lined with balconies and more of those elegantly carved wooden screens. The building blocked out any noise that might have clattered in from the street. All Adam could hear was the tinkling of an elegant fountain and the quiet chittering of birds.
That, and the grating bray of an Englishman laughing.
“Oh drat,” Constance muttered as she glared over at a wrought-iron table where three people reclined in obvious leisure.
The first was a woman who looked a little shy of fifty, her dark hair marked by an elegant streak of silver. The resemblance between her and the petite hellion beside Adam was obvious, marking her as Constance’s mother. Beside her sat an older lady with similar features and a darker complexion. She was wrapped in a stunning rose-hued Tussar silk sari embroidered with tiny birds, her neck dripping with jewels.
The source of the donkey-like chortle was a pale-skinned guy about Adam’s age with a blond mustache and an expensive summer suit. The Mustache rose as they entered, his gaze snapping immediately to Constance. It stuck there with a look of fawning appreciation as he sketched a courtly bow.
“Miss Tyrrell!” he exclaimed. “And here I was beginning to fear that I might miss you entirely!”
If the custom-tailored trousers hadn’t already led Adam to peg the stranger as an aristocrat, the ‘good show, old sport’ accent would definitely have given him up.
Adam suppressed a sigh and hoped that fancy-trousers wasn’t going to do something that would make him want to throw the guy into the fountain. It wasn’t that he minded treating some entitled prat to a dunk—after all, he’d done it before—but indulging the habit in the home of a bunch of people he’d just met wasn’t the most responsible choice.
Plus, it’d probably get him booted before he’d had a chance to eat dinner.
The aristocrat was a hair shorter than Adam. He had the slender physique of someone who spent his Saturdays fencing at the gym before popping off for a round of polo.
“Julian! What a lovely surprise,” Constance returned with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
If the welcome was something less than entirely genuine, The Mustache didn’t seem to notice. He plucked up Constance’s hand and brushed a pretentious kiss over the back of it.
Adam resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Constance!” the middle-aged woman said in lightly accented English as she rose from the table to join them. “Julian was hoping that he would find you at home—but of course, I am relieved to see that you collected Miss Mallory safely.” She turned her gaze to Adam. “And perhaps you will introduce me to your… other friend?”
“Oh, this is Mr. Bates,” Constance explained with forceful cheer. “Mr. Bates, meet my mother, Lady Sabita Tyrrell. And this is my Aai—Her Highness Maharajkumari Padma Devi of Nandapur.”
“Royal princess,” Ellie muttered at him. “Maybe a bow instead of a handshake.”
“Yup,” Adam agreed as the stunningly dressed older woman— princess , he mentally corrected himself—rose from her chair. He bent at the waist. “Your Highness.”
“Yes, Jhia—but where did he come from?” Lady Sabita demanded, waving an impatient hand at Adam.
He wondered if the answer to that question would end up with him being the one dunked in the fountain.
“About that…” he started.
“Ellie ran into him on the train,” Constance cut in. “Mr. Bates is a professional badminton player who has come here to Cairo for training. As he hadn’t yet made any arrangements for his accommodations, I invited him to stay with us for a day or two until he gets settled.”
Adam opened his mouth to respond to this patently ludicrous story—and then snapped it shut again. What was he going to do—tell everybody he was actually a colonial surveyor who’d spent the last several weeks gallivanting around the globe unchaperoned with their daughter’s best friend?
Badminton it was.
“Oh!” Lady Sabita said with a blink of surprise. “But of course, you’re very welcome.”
“Professional badminton?” Kumari Padma echoed dryly.
Adam could feel Constance’s urgent glare, though he refrained from actually looking at her as he answered.
“Nothing I love more than whacking a few birdies around.” He worked to keep his expression serious. At least he’d remembered it was birdies and not balls.
“Bates, did you say?” The Mustache asked. “And you’re obviously an American. You’re not one of the San Francisco Bateses, are you?”
Adam’s back teeth ground together. “Nope,” he replied, turning a grimace into a thin smile.
At least that one wasn’t an outright lie. He wasn’t a member of the wealthy and powerful San Francisco Bateses—not since his father George Bates, the head of that expansive insurance empire, had formally disowned him.
If you don’t start taking things seriously, you’ll spend the rest of your life letting people down.
Thankfully, Lady Sabita saved Adam from the need for any further elaboration. “I must say—I am very cross with you, Eleanora!” she exclaimed. “Why would you choose to journey to Egypt all on your own when you might have come along with us only a little earlier?”
“I told you, Mum!” Constance shot Ellie a quelling look. “Ellie was tied up with work, and she was able to join a very nice family from Essex for the trip. The Nitherscott-Watbys.”
At the sound of Ellie’s ridiculous former alias, Adam choked. He managed to turn it into something approximating a cough.
“Sorry,” he rasped when he realized everyone was staring at him. “Just, ah… ate a bug.”
“That was certainly very kind of the Nitherscott-Watbys,” Lady Sabita said, though her tone still indicated a careful disapproval. “You must provide me with their address so that I can thank them for seeing after your friend.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Constance assured her. “And anyway, they’ve gone on to… er, India.”
“Oh?” Constance’s Indian princess grandmother smiled a little dangerously. “And where in India have they gone?”
“Kolkata?” Constance offered back hopefully.
“Well, we are all here now, at any rate,” Lady Sabita concluded. “So we shall make a little party of it.”
“Indeed,” Kumari Padma agreed blandly. “Your mother has only just invited Mr. Forster-Mowbray to join us for dinner.”
Forster-Mowbray. Of course The Mustache would have a double-barreled surname.
“I wouldn’t want to impose.” Mr. Forster-Mowbray flashed Constance an ingratiating smile.
“You wouldn’t be imposing,” Lady Sabita hurriedly assured him.
“But Mum,” Constance said a little desperately. “Surely you can see that Ellie is exhausted. She’s only just come from a very trying journey and clearly needs a quiet evening to recover.”
“That’s thoughtful of her,” Adam murmured.
“No, it’s not,” Ellie hissed back under her breath. “She’s just impatient to interrogate me.”
Adam blanched at the notion of precisely what information Constance hoped to grill out of Ellie.
“Ellie is very welcome to a quiet evening,” Lady Sabita returned shortly with a sharp look at her daughter. “She might even take advantage of the sauna—I know Sir Robert finds it most refreshing after a long journey.”
Adam’s ears perked up at the mention of a sauna. He loved saunas.
“But that would leave you at odds and ends for the evening, wouldn’t it?” Lady Sabita continued with a dire look at her daughter. “If I had not invited some charming company to dinner.”
Adam had been a San Francisco Bates long enough to know an upper class courtship ritual when he saw one—if only so he could avoid them like the plague. It was pretty clear that Lady Sabita hoped to turn Julian Double-Barrels into a suitor for Constance’s hand.
Given her princess grandma, her dad’s high-ranking position in the local government, and the seeming lack of any siblings, Adam guessed that Ellie’s intimidating peanut of a friend was most likely a substantial heiress.
The Mustache was clearly interested enough to play along. Constance seemed less enthusiastic—but Lady Sabita was obviously determined to encourage the match regardless.
At least Lady Sabita’s maneuvering meant that Constance’s interrogation of Ellie would have to wait. Her dinner invitation had been less request and more direct order .
Constance clearly recognized the difference. “Of course, Mother,” she agreed, flashing a thin, steely smile.