“If you’re holding out for that, I think you’ll be waiting a long time,” Constance retorted.“You need to figure out how to live in the world as it is.And if you want my opinion, that’s going to require a little creative fabrication.Or you can keep risking Adam breaking his neck climbing in through windows.”
“I suppose that isn’t entirely fair to him,” Ellie admitted uncomfortably, thinking of a window in the Suez that had nearly led to Adam falling into the canal.
“Don’t get me wrong—it’s all desperately romantic,” Constance assured her.“But what are you going to do when you’re staying in a room without a window?You need totalkto him.”
“How can I talk to him when I don’t know what I ought to ask him to do?”Ellie protested.
“Be fake married,” Constance replied flatly.
“I can’t just tell Adam that I think we should become…fake married.”The words were uncomfortable in her mouth.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, it’s a further level of commitment than what we’ve discussed to date!”
“Oh.You mean that it would be a bit like asking him to marry you for real.”Constance leaned back, thoughtfully swinging her fan.“But shouldn’t a liberated suffragist think a woman ought to be able to do that?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the trouble, then?You know perfectly well how he’d respond.”
Ellie was rather certain that she did know how Adam would answer if she asked him to marry her in earnest.She was less certain of how he’d respond to a proposal that they merelypretendto be.
Her temple began to throb.“This all just feels like it’s happening terribly fast.”
“How long do you think other people spend being engaged?Maybe a month or two.You’ve been with Adam for as long as that now.”
“That still seems like a precipitously short period of time for assessing whether someone could be a compatible partner for the rest of one’s life,” Ellie asserted stoutly.
“We could argue that,” Constance allowed impatiently.“But you and Adam don’t seem too uncertain on that front, from where I’m sitting.”
Ellie slumped back with a rising sense of helplessness.“I’d be proposing we spend our lives together bound by a falsehood.Adam doesn’t reallydofalsehoods.”
“Eleanora—he’s an intelligent man,” Constance returned patiently.“I’m sure that he’s put all of this together himself by now.He must be expecting something along this line.”
“Then why hasn’t he said anything?”Ellie protested wildly.
“He’s probably not sure whereyoustand on it.He’s giving you time to think.”
“He might trytalkingto me while I’m thinking,” Ellie grumbled.
Constance whacked her lightly with the fan.“You are verging on the ridiculous.Tell him how you feel about all of it.Or keep torturing yourself—but do try not to set the bloody hotel on fire with your repressed lustful impulses while you’re at it.”
“It isn’tthatbad.”Ellie’s cheeks flushed again.
“It most certainly is,” Constance countered.“You keep giving each other looks that you think nobody is noticing, only everybody’s noticing, and it makes Stuffy’s ears turn pink.”
“Everything makes Neil’s ears turn pink,” Ellie pointed out—even as her own blush rose at the notion of her brother noticing any such looks between her and Adam.
“It does, doesn’t it?”Constance sounded suspiciously thoughtful.
Ellie regarded her through narrowed eyes.“You’re certain that your designs on my brother are strictly platonic?”
“What else would they be?”Constance dismissed with a wave of her fan.
The tonga slowed to turn into a gated driveway.Ten-foot-high stone walls marched to either side, disappearing into thick green hedges.The gate was open, framed by carved granite pillars.An Indian fellow in dark blue livery studied them as they pulled in but let both carts pass with a wave at the drivers.
“Goodness.It looks like a fortress.”Constance craned her neck back to study the walls.
