Now that the feeling was out, he was having a hard time pushing it back under control.
Since arriving in India, Neil had been overwhelmed by the noise, beauty, and color of the place.Everything was a surprise—like the fact that he had somehow ended up dancing at the festival earlier that day.To anyone watching, it would have looked as though he had known exactly what he was doing.
Neil had not known what he was doing.He remained at a loss to explain how he’d done it anyway.
Usually, Neil rooted himself in a new place through its history.He had known next to nothing about India’s past when he’d learned that he was coming here.He had been frantically catching up, interspersing his study of the Ramayana with texts about the Mughal empire or the conquests of Ashoka.The research hadn’t been even close to enough, leaving him feeling as useless as a piece of excess baggage that Constance’s grandmother had insisted on hauling with her.
Except for the fact that he could see through time.
Neil shied away from the thought, just as he’d done for weeks now, ever since his friend and former excavation foreman Sayyid had ruthlessly put the notion into his head.What good was it anyway?Neil didn’t have the slightest notion how to use this supposed power of his.He had tried, of course, spending over an hour staring at the town of Suez to see if he could spot any sign of the ancient Greek trading settlement of Clysma hidden beneath the modern buildings.
He hadn’t.Nor had he seen any echoes of the Ethiopian conquest of Socotra as they’d steamed slowly past the island on their way out into the Indian Ocean.
But he had known that the spire of the chapel at Fort George in Madras was a later addition to the structure.It had come to him with a feeling in his bones that made him want to saw the architectural feature off and toss it into the sea.
Neil’s magical past-seeing abilities turned up whenever they bloody felt like it, not when he commanded them.They were just frequent enough to leave him questioning everything he thought he knew about his own academic abilities without offering a damned thing in return.
How many of Neil’s insights over the years had been prompted by his supernatural powers rather than his scholarship?Could he even still call himself a historian and archaeologist?
Not that he’d shared any of this with Ellie, Adam, or Constance.What could he possibly tell them?Would they even believe him?Or would they think he’d gone completely mad?
Mad, Neil thought dully.
He forced his attention back to the game room.He couldn’t afford to keep slipping into daydreams.He had a job to do, even if he didn’t have the foggiest idea how to do it.
“So then he said, ‘I know you are—but what about the horse?’”the posh fellow at their table announced, eliciting a screech of laughter from his companions.
What had his name been again?Frederick?Rupert?
“Jolly good one, Bunty,” said the man beside him, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
Bunty,Neil reminded himself with a burst of rage.
The rage was out of proportion to what more or less amounted to a batch of uninteresting toffs talking about cricket.Neil had spent plenty of boring hours around people who had never heard of a funeral stela, never mind knowing how to translate one out of Middle Egyptian.He had never had to actively work to keep himself from punching them in the face before.That feeling was new, and he wasn’t at all comfortable with it.
Constance pushed up from her chair.“I think I need a drink.”
Bunty rose with her.“I’ll fetch something for you.Champagne?Gin and tonic?”
“Aren’t you a darling?”Constance tapped him playfully on the arm.“But I’d like to stretch my legs.Dr.Fairfax will escort me.We’ll be back in a tick.”
She slipped her hand under Neil’s arm and flashed the table a glittering smile.
The others fell back into conversation as he and Constance walked away.The speculative glances and furtive tones made it perfectly clear who they were talking about.
Neil’s hand clenched reflexively.
“They don’t know anything about Borthwick,” Constance reported under her breath as she steered him into the lounge.“I think we need to find an older set if we’re going to track him down.Champagne, please.”
The bartender pulled a bottle out of an ice bucket, filling her a slender glass.
Neil looked down at Constance’s lovely, heart-shaped face, and the thought idly skipped through his brain.I think I really would hit them, if any of them tried to hurt her.
But wasn’t Constance far more capable of that sort of thing than Neil?She had already bested Neil in a fight before—though admittedly at the time, Neil had lost his glasses, could barely see a thing, and was armed only with a book.
Perhaps he’d do better if he were ready for it.
Neil’s brain flooded with images of his hands on Constance’s arms.Her strong thigh thrusting between his legs as she tried to trip him.Neil using his greater weight to roll them, pinning her to the floor…
