“Not that they have chosen anything of the sort,” Ellie continued.“They have both made it quite clear this engagement is nothing but another of Constance’s mad schemes.Why, Neil spent most of breakfast looking as though he was about to lose his tea.That’s hardly what one would expect from someone harboring a secret tendre.”
Adam’s mouth quirked with mischief.“Wanna bet?”
“Bet?”Ellie echoed indignantly.
“Wager,” Adam elaborated.“Gamble.”
“I know what a bet is.”
“You win, and I won’t smoke anything for the rest of the month,” Adam vowed.
“The rest of the month?”Ellie pressed back dryly.
He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.“The year?”
Ellie considered this narrowly.“It’s July.”
“That’s still five months.”
“It’s not that I disapprove on moral or hygienic grounds,” she quickly went on.“I don’t even mind the smell, really.”
Adam grinned at her wickedly.“How about the taste?”
Ellie had admittedly become quite familiar with the flavor of tobacco when Adam’s tongue had explored her mouth.
“I should say that depends upon the particular blend,” she answered carefully, conscious of the twelve-year-old girl riding a short distance ahead of them.
Adam laughed, deep and rollicking.Vanika twisted in her saddle to look back at them.
“It’s only that some physicians have suggested there might be a link between tobacco use and certain ailments of the lungs,” Ellie continued, lowering her voice.
“I only do it every once in a while.”
“We don’t know what frequency might expose you to risk!”
Adam brushed his knuckles along the line of her cheek.“Interested in keeping me around, huh?”
Ellie tilted up her chin.“I should think that I have made that rather clear by now.”
Adam’s attention drifted lazily to where her trouser-clad legs hugged the saddle.“I can think of a few ways you’ve gotten the point across.”
The heat seemed to rise—which ought to have been impossible as it was already sweltering.
“A full year,” Adam declared.“July to July.”
“A full year?”Ellie tried to disguise her interest.“With no tobacco whatsoever?”
“Or any of the other stuff they smoke around here,” Adam solemnly promised.
Ellie’s curiosity sparked.“Are there other things they smoke in India?”
“Your turn,” Adam ordered instead of answering.
Behind them, Constance was cheerfully rattling on at Ellie’s brother, who looked hot and tired.All of that was perfectly normal… except that her brother was actuallylistening.Ten years ago, he would have been exasperatedly waiting for Constance to leave him alone or reeling with bewilderment at her flood of commentary on something he couldn’t begin to understand because it didn’t involve ancient history or dead languages.
Neil and Constance were adults now.Why wouldn’t he listen to her?That was what friends did—and they were friends, weren’t they?
It was all perfectly friendly.
