Tension snapped between them.
“That’s not your decision,” Constance snapped.Her tone lightened deceptively.“Besides, if we go anywhere else, it seems we’d be inviting an incident.”
“Maybe I don’t mind an incident,” Neil returned, each word darkly clipped.
“Constance might,” Ellie noted softly.
Neil’s angry expression fell into something more helpless.
“I don’t know,” Constance mused with a spark of her usual mischief.“I could be amenable to just a bit of an incident in this place.So long as we came out on top of it.”
A warm, fierce admiration rose inside of Adam, burning through the morass of guilt, anger, and worry that had been tangling up inside of him since they’d stepped up to the door.
“Still got those knives in your garters?”he asked.
Constance flashed him a white grin through the darkness.“Of course.”
“Then I’m guessing we’ll come out on top,” Adam concluded.
?
SIX
Awar raged inEllie’s chest as she stepped back into the well-lit interior of the Puri Beach Club.
When she had arrived at the glittering building, she had been consumed with thoughts of Constance’s easy assertion in the tonga—that the obvious solution to her and Adam’s dilemma was to pretend to be married.
Constance had made it sound so simple.Nothing about it felt simple to Ellie.Not when they were talking about a man who hated to lie.
She had only half listened to what the club secretary said in his office, struggling to set thoughts of fake marriage aside to focus on their mission of locating Borthwick.
Then Adam’s voice had cut through the fog.
It’s fine.
It had so clearly not been fine.The tension in Adam’s shoulders had made her look around to see who he was about to punch—and then she had understood.
Oh no,she had thought, distantly and terribly.
They left the veranda and stepped into the club’s game room.Young men and women clustered around scattered card tables.A round of billiards was in progress, the balls clicking as they raced over pristine green baize.
Constance was composed and blazingly determined.With her fashionable gold gown and elegantly styled hair, she oozed both wealth and the natural authority of someone unshakably confident of their place in the world.
Ellie’s heart tightened with admiration.
“We should split up,” Constance suggested.“We’ll be able to cover more of the club that way.”
A low murmur of laughter sounded from one of the card tables.Scotch glasses clinked musically, mingling with the snap of the billiard balls.
Constance made a haughty assessment of the space—which was very clearly not the North Dining Room.“I’ll take this one.”
Neil stepped up to her.“I’ll join you.”
His voice carried a note of challenge, daring anyone to push back at him.Ellie had only heard that sort of thing from him when he was preparing to go to war over the proper interpretation of the Eighteenth Dynasty line of succession.
Constance looked at Neil as though considering how likely he was in his current mood to try to hit someone—and whether or not she approved of the idea.
Hadher brother ever hit someone before?Ellie hadn’t the foggiest idea… but she did feel oddly sure that if he had, they would have roundly deserved it.
