Thirteen
W ith two bowls of lentils in his hands, Adam set out to face the music.
Neil hadn’t come back to the house since he’d run out an hour before. The lion’s share of Neil’s angst seemed to be coming from the whole busting-into-his-tomb and possibly-costing-him-his-job thing… but Adam knew the revelation that he’d been running around with Neil’s sister hadn’t helped.
At all.
When Adam had first shown up at Cambridge University, he’d been a big, awkward American who couldn’t spend more than ten minutes staring at a book before he realized he’d just read the same sentence six times and gave up. He hadn’t fit in with the guys who didn’t bother even trying to read, because they were mostly stuck-up rich kids in need of a good dunking. And he’d figured the ones who actually did read were probably a lost cause, since it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that all Adam knew about history was what he managed to pick up during lectures when his mind wasn’t wandering.
Neil had definitely been one of the reading guys, but he’d started sitting next to Adam in their Greek class, asking him questions about America or what his thoughts were on the historicity of the Iliad. Before Adam quite knew what was happening, Neil had absorbed him into a friendship like some kind of osmosis.
He still wasn’t sure why Neil had picked him, of all people. Adam certainly hadn’t asked for it, but he’d been grateful all the same. Neil—whose mind was practically exploding with things he’d read in books—had never once made Adam feel like an idiot or a failure. He’d just start rambling at Adam about the reliability of Roman accounts of early Celtic culture, and before Adam knew it, he’d be theorizing about ancient British kinship structures right alongside him.
He liked to think he’d given something back to Neil as well. Fairfax definitely wasn’t the kind of kid who jumped at the chance for an adventure, but Adam was pretty sure Neil had enjoyed that prank with the stuffed emu and the incident with the soda canister and the Dean’s miniature schnauzer more than he’d let on.
To Adam’s even greater surprise, he and Neil had actually stayed close even after Adam blew off his final exams and ran away to Central America. Neil had asked for Adam’s address, but Adam hadn’t actually expected to hear from him. He’d figured the whole ‘quitting university out of spite’ thing would’ve made star-student Neil realize how little they really had in common—but then the letters had started coming, and they’d come like clockwork every two weeks for seven years. Hell, there were probably three of them waiting for him back in Belize Town even now, full of ramblings about Middle Egyptian grammar and how Neil missed plum tarts—and had Adam seen the latest excavation report from Teotihuacan?
Adam hadn’t, but it wouldn’t matter. Just like Adam never made Neil feel bad for being bookish, Neil had never made Adam feel lousy for using books as paperweights—even when he really did intend to try to read them.
Maybe that was the real secret to why they’d stuck together. They’d never made each other feel less for being who they were.
It was pretty lousy for Adam to repay all that by ruining the guy’s sister.
Not that he’d meant to… but even after he’d found out that Ellie was Neil’s Peanut, he’d kept making bad decisions.
Hot, passionate bad decisions with his hands and his lips and his… well.
Friends didn’t do that, and Neil would have every right to cut Adam out of his life over it. But Adam couldn’t let that happen, because Neil was Ellie’s brother. He was always going to be a part of her world, and if Adam had any hope of sticking with her—whatever the hell that might end up looking like—he owed it to her to try to make things right, no matter what he had to do to earn that.
He figured the effort would at least involve getting verbally torn up, down, and sideways. Maybe even taking a solid punch to the face… not that Neil could hit all that hard.
So that was the plan. Face the music, get what he deserved, and hope that on the other side of it there were still enough fragments of their friendship left to come to some sort of peace.
He found Neil on the path by the canal. The narrow waterway lay maybe a dozen yards from the house, but it was far enough to be out of earshot and past any fall of light through the meshrabiyeh screens over Sayyid’s windows.
Tall, slender palms rose around them. Beyond the narrow, gleaming water at Neil’s feet, the landscape turned from shaded garden to sprawling, starlit fields.
It wasn’t the smartest spot to hang around in the dark. In fact, it looked to Adam like exactly the sort of place where you might expect to find a lurking crocodile.
Adam wondered if maybe Neil didn’t know about crocodiles—though you’d think a guy who had been in Egypt for two years now might’ve learned at least the raw basics of survival.
Then again, Neil had never had a particularly strong instinct for self-preservation.
Adam would’ve felt a little better about walking into a potential encounter with a croc if he’d had his machete in his hand instead of two bowls of dinner. Thankfully, he had a solution for that problem.
“Take this, would you?” Adam pushed one of the bowls at Neil.
“What?!” Neil exclaimed, whirling in surprise and nearly stumbling into the canal.
Adam wondered if he’d have to drop a bowl in order to catch him, but Neil managed to right himself, arms wheeling.
“Why did you sneak up on me like that?” Neil demanded.
“Pretty sure I was making plenty of noise,” Adam offered back. “It’s a hell of a lot better to scare a crocodile off than come up on it unawares.”
“Crocodile? What crocodile?” Neil looked around wildly.
“You’re standing in a swamp.” Adam glanced over the edge of the canal. “Looks all right for the moment. Still, wanna take one of these?”
Neil awkwardly accepted his dinner, which freed up Adam’s hand. The bowl he still held was stuffed with rice and lentils topped with chunks of ripe tomato, salty olives, briny cheese, and a big folded hunk of flatbread to scoop it up with. Adam would’ve normally dived into that kind of meal with relish—but his appetite was lacking.
With a sigh, he set the bowl into the crook of a tree branch.
Neil’s own supper remained forgotten in his hand as he continued to stare morosely out at the fields.
Adam wondered how to broach the subject that had brought him out there.
So about your sister…
It wasn’t his finest turn of phrase, but it was the best he’d been able to come up with.
“So…” Adam started.
“This is all patently ridiculous!” Neil burst out. “We’ve paraded into unsurveyed burial chambers, crawled through unstable tunnels—and now we’re hiding in the house Sayyid didn’t even tell me he had—and for what? Because Ellie thinks the British Athenaeum for Egyptological Studies is in the pocket of some cabal of dastardly villains looking for magical artifacts?”
“That’s… well, not entirely inaccurate,” Adam awkwardly admitted. “But the way you’re putting it…”
“My funders aren’t unreasonable. ” Neil paced along the bank of the canal, gesturing with his bowl still in his hand. “They certainly won’t be happy that we entered the burial chamber contrary to their instructions, but I’m sure that if I… if I just explain…” He stopped short, his face pale with panic. “Mr. Forster-Mowbray is perhaps not the most scholarly in his inclinations, but I’m sure if I tell him that it was all a terrible… Or scorpions!” he burst out, clutching the bowl to his chest. “I could say that we were assaulted by a… a whole… flock?”
“Nest,” Adam filled in tiredly.
“—A whole nest of scorpions! So of course we had to retreat to the burial chamber for safety reasons!” Neil closed his eyes and let out a moan. “Oh, blast it. This is a mess! And you—you, of all people! Showing up on the wrong bloody continent, waving around enormous knives and talking about gunshots and glowing bones… I know you enjoy a good prank, Bates, but this is really beyond the pale!”
“Prank?” Adam echoed.
The word sounded a little dangerous. He hadn’t intended for it to come out that way. After all, he was there to apologize to Neil, whatever that ended up requiring of him—not get his hackles up in the first two minutes.
“What else could it be?!” Neil waved his arms—one hand still precariously clutching the bowl. “Unless it’s all part of some bizarre scheme to win over my sister—and I haven’t even begun to share my thoughts on that subject. What are you doing here with her? I can’t imagine what I’m going to tell David and my mother about all of this. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but my best friend has ruined your daughter and dragged her off to the other side of the world where she is now invading people’s tombs and raving about magical artifacts!’”
Part of Adam distantly recognized that this was the point at which he should start apologizing. Unfortunately, that part was rapidly drowned out by a fierce and indignant burst of temper.
“Ellie’s not raving,” Adam shot back.
“She thinks she has a glowing bone! ” Neil raved back.
“That’s because we found one! ” Adam yelled. “Along with a four-foot-wide, creepy as hell, extremely magical mirror! And before you start calling Ellie crazy, you’d better know that I touched the damned thing too, and it showed me exactly where to find my knife! So what—you gonna think both of us are lunatics?!”
Neil gaped at him as though that were precisely what he was thinking, but he was just prudent enough not to blurt it out.
“And how did you and my sister find this magic mirror, then?” he retorted instead on what he clearly thought was safer ground. “When you were gallivanting around the wilderness together, completely unchaperoned, with no mind at all for the utter havoc that would wreak on her reputation? How did she even end up in British Honduras in the first place? Was that your fault, too?”
“Ellie made it to British Honduras all on her own,” Adam snapped back, anger heating his skin.
Neil blanched. “How is that better? That’s not better! That’s… that’s terrifying! How am I going to explain this to our parents? This is Egypt—it’s not the middle of nowhere! Somebody is bound to recognize her, and then what? If word gets back to London of what the two of you have been up to…” He stopped, eyes widening. “What have the two of you been up to?”
Adam’s anger deflated.
“Er… about that…” he started awkwardly.
Neil gaped at him with a new level of horror. “But you did say you hadn’t yet… yerrgh,” he finished, choking on the rest of the words.
“We haven’t!” Adam quickly assured him. “There hasn’t—yet—been any… of that…” He caught himself, pulling in an uncomfortable breath. “I mean—if we’re talking about the thing that I think we’re talking about.”
“That… That’s…” Neil backed up a step, stammering. “Do you realize that implies that there are other things we aren’t talking about?”
Adam shifted uncomfortably in his boots. “I mean, in a purely rhetorical sense, there are always going to be things other than the things that we’re talking about…”
He trailed off weakly.
“Just tell me what you’ve been doing with my sister!” Neil demanded.
Adam drew in a breath. This was what he had come out here for, after all. He owed it to Neil—and to Ellie. He needed to tell the truth, and then take whatever hell broke loose as a result.
Now he just had to figure out where to start.
“Well,” he began carefully, “first there was some… boating. And then we had this little problem with a waterfall. Some… kissing might have happened after that. And then some more kissing on another boat—the one to Egypt—and, uh…”
“Is that all, then? Just kissing?” Neil pressed hopefully.
“Yes,” Adam assured him with a brief rush of relief.
Neil’s expression flashed with a reluctant unease. “What sort of kissing?”
Adam was glad that he had already set his bowl down. He was pretty sure that the time had come for him to take that punch in the face. At least now, he wouldn’t end up both punched and splattered with lentils.
He drew in a breath and spat out the rest. “The kind where she’s got her legs around my waist, and I’m holding on to her—”
“ Stop! ” Neil shouted, throwing his free hand over his eyes as though it would make the visions of what Adam had just described disappear from his brain. “Just… please… Have you… Do you even have the foggiest notion…”
The words struck like something sharp in Adam’s guts. “Of what?” he pushed back unevenly.
“Of the damage that you’ve done!” Neil shot back loudly. “Of how completely irresponsible this is! Had you no thought at all about her reputation? To the impact that would have on my mother and David? Did you think for even a moment about what you were doing?”
The words dug deeper, striking at Adam like stones— irresponsible, damage .
Had you no thought at all?
He felt as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice. Before it lay the cold glass of a mirror, reflecting back everything about himself he’d been afraid of. That he was irresponsible and thoughtless. That he never considered the consequences.
His father’s voice echoed through his brain. Impulsive, reckless, selfish…
Neil was still talking. “And as to how I’m supposed to explain this to our parents, I can’t even begin to fathom… She’s my sister, Bates!”
At Neil’s words, the pressure building up inside of Adam suddenly snapped—and something else poured out of him, hot and powerful as a geyser unleashing.
“ I know! ” he roared back. “I know exactly who she is, and she’s a hell of a lot more than just your sister! She’s a scholar and a rebel—and the smartest damned person that I’ve ever met, and that includes you, along with everybody else at that damned university. She’s resourceful, and clever, and braver than she’s got any right to be. She’s principled and passionate, and the last thing she needs is somebody—brother or otherwise—telling her what the hell she’s supposed to do with herself! I know I screwed up, all right? But what do you think—that I’m some scoundrel dragging her down the path to ruin? Ellie’s about as easy to drag as an elephant! I’m not dragging her anywhere! I’m… I’m…”
Adam trailed off—because the truth was, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing with Ellie.
That was precisely the problem.
Nothing about this conversation was helping to fix it. Adam had come out there to apologize, not get into a shouting match.
With a herculean effort, he reined his temper in and tried to go back to something at least remotely approaching reasonable.
“Look,” he said carefully, pinching the bridge of his nose, where he could feel a headache threatening to pound in. “I’m just trying to explain…”
“And I’m just trying to protect her!” Neil shot back angrily. “Because that’s my job , Bates!”
Adam’s temporary victory over his anger fizzled out like a dud firecracker. “What do you think this is? Do you think I set out to seduce your sister and then leave her in a ditch? You’ve known me for over ten years , Fairfax! We’re supposed to be friends! Do you honestly believe I’m that kind of person?”
“Friends don’t spend god-knows-how-long running around in the wilderness with each other’s sisters!” Neil retorted. “Or… or kissing them with… with leg-wrapping! Or…”
A colder, sharper emotion washed over Adam—one that felt uncomfortably like hurt. It mingled with the hefty dose of guilt that had taken up proprietary residence in his gut, right next to the one mouthful of lentils he’d managed to eat. “Right,” he bit out shortly. “Got it.”
He pivoted on his heel and began to walk away. He made it three steps before another impulsive and almost certainly bad idea took hold of him, forcing him to whirl back.
“You say it’s your job to protect your sister?” Adam snapped. “Then where were you when she was trying to get into university and the scholarship people kept telling her that she was a waste of money because she’s a girl? Or when her classmates told her she should stop ‘taking up space’ in the library?”
Adam took a step closer, the anger whipping through him like the winds of a storm. He jabbed a finger into Neil’s chest, forcing him to stumble back a step. “Or how about when she got out of school and the whole world slammed the door in her face when she dared to tell them what she wanted to do with her life? That’s right—you were waltzing down your own gold-paved path to exactly what you always knew you would do. And you didn’t once look back over your shoulder to see her standing there behind you— your sister , who’s as smart as you are, if not smarter—and who could do that job you were so damned worried about ten minutes ago as well as you can, if not better. But she’ll never get a chance, will she? Because she’s shut out of it on account of her being a woman—and because people like you keep pretending there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!”
Neil paled with a different emotion. “I… I didn’t…”
But Adam wasn’t waiting for him. “You know what probably matters a hell of a lot more to Ellie than her virtue in the eyes of society?” he burned on relentlessly. “Maybe knowing she has a brother who actually believes in her. One who might use his oh-so-important position in the world to do something to help her live the life she’s always dreamed of—the life you got handed on a damned platter!—instead of worrying about where the hell she’s been putting her legs!”
Adam’s words rang out over the flat, still silence of the fields. He felt the shocking weight of them even as he slowly absorbed that he’d probably just blown any chance he had at earning Neil’s forgiveness.
He couldn’t entirely regret it. None of what he’d said was wrong, even if he’d left out all the other things he’d meant to own up to when he came out here.
I knew better, and I did it anyway. I’m going to do whatever I have to in order to make it right.
I’m sorry.
Beside him, Neil emptied of anger like a deflated balloon, his face drawn into lines of dismay.
“What can I do?” he demanded helplessly. “ Hire her? You think I wouldn’t? I know what she can do! I’d do it in a minute, but the funders would never have it! They’d call it nepotism, or… or—I don’t know—something even worse, and then we’d both be out!” He held his bowl of lentils in both hands. It trembled furiously. “I can’t change the world for her just because it’s unfair!”
Adam’s joints ached as though from the steady pressure of some unseen weight. “The world doesn’t change. Not unless we make it—you, me, everybody. We’ve got to keep rattling the bars, even though they feel like they could never possibly break. Because maybe if enough of us do, something’ll finally give.”
He drew in a long breath. The night air tasted of river. Crickets chirped into the silence around them.
“I’m the last one in any position to stand here and moralize,” he continued quietly. “But Ellie really could’ve used a brother who rattled the bars for her.”
Neil slumped back against the trunk of a palm tree. He looked exhausted. A breeze whispered through the fronds overhead, setting them rustling as the water rippled softly against the banks of the canal.
“Are you going to marry her?” Neil finally asked without looking at him.
Adam found the other side of the palm trunk and leaned against it. He looked up. Through the lace of the leaves, he glimpsed a sky thickly scattered with stars. “Ellie’s got… strong opinions about marriage.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Neil replied dryly. “But… surely she must see… I mean, given the situation…”
“That it’s the most reasonable thing to do?” Adam filled in thinly.
“Isn’t it?” Neil asked desperately.
Adam didn’t answer. Was it reasonable to ask someone to take part in an institution they hated—and with pretty damned good reasons?
He’d told Ellie before that he didn’t want her to change her mind about marriage, and he’d meant it. But where did that leave them?
Maybe some small, miserable part of him had been hoping that somehow Ellie would find a way to be okay with the whole marriage thing. That the problem would just go away.
He felt worse about that part of himself than he did about the part that’d gone out and taken all those irresponsible liberties with Ellie’s legs.
But if he truly took marriage out of the equation, what did that leave them? Was there a path to the future that they both could walk together—and still be who they were at the end of it?
“I’m…” Neil started tentatively. “I’m trying, Bates. But this… all this…”
His voice trailed off. Adam nodded, even though Neil—on the far side of the trunk—couldn’t see it. “Yeah,” he agreed—as though it were the answer to everything and nothing, all at the same time. He closed his eyes, sinking back against the tree. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m trying not to cause any more hurt. I’m… not always all that good at it. But I’m trying.”
“I know,” Neil replied quietly. “And for whatever it’s worth, I’m not sure I’m really any better.”
Something about his quiet admission, floating to Adam through the whispering darkness of the night, lifted just a little bit of the weight from Adam’s shoulders.
“Thanks, Fairfax.” The words came out rough and uneven, tight with something that felt close to tears.
“We should probably head inside,” Neil offered back, his tone unexpectedly tense. “As it occurs to me that log on the other side of the canal might not actually be a log.”
Adam spun around the tree for a better look. A pair of beady yellow eyes gazed back at him, glinting in the dim light of the moon.
“Yup,” Adam concluded. “Definitely time to go.”
Light flashed to them from the bright rectangle of an open doorway on the far side of the garden. It framed Constance’s petite figure.
“Adam!” she called out, voice ringing like a bell. “Bring Stuffy! Sayyid has translated the box!”
“Shall we?” Adam offered.
Without waiting for a response, he hooked a hand through Neil’s elbow and hauled him toward the house.