“And I’m guessing the British administration here wouldn’t tolerate it any more than they do back in London.”
“But isn’t Nandapur a royal state?”
“It’s a British tributary,” Adam corrected her.“Constance’s uncle has the power to run a lot of things his way, but the Raj would jump at any excuse to depose the family and annex Nandapur outright… like finding out that the maharaja is romantically involved with his lawyer.”
Ellie felt a flare of quick anger.“How desperately unfair!”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?”Ellie pushed back angrily.
“As it happens, yeah.But that’s not an opinion everybody shares.”
“I have never much cared whether my opinions were popular or not,” Ellie grumbled.
Adam chuckled warmly.“No, you sure haven’t.”
Sympathy tugged at her.“It must be terribly hard constantly having to hide what the person you love really means to you.”
Ellie’s mind caught up to the words that had just come out of her mouth—and connected them to the man lying beside her with a lurch of guilt.“But then, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Adam gently pushed her back down onto the floor, bracing himself over her.“Pretty sure I’ve made my opinion about that clear.”
Ellie’s corset was hanging from a shelf on the wall.Her chemise and drawers lay in opposite corners of the room.
His trousers were draped over a paint bucket.
“You might have,” she allowed—a mite breathlessly.
“Then one of these days, you’re going to have to stop apologizing for it.”
An enticing sense of threat darkened the words.Adam’s skin brushed against her own like silk every time she inhaled.The sated feeling of the moment before was rapidly evaporating, replaced by a rising swarm of very appealing possibilities.
“What are your feelings about preventatives?”Ellie blurted out.
Adam’s expression blanked with surprise.“Say what?”he demanded, half choking on the words.
“You know.”Ellie’s cheeks flushed.“Devices designed to interrupt the natural consequences of the act of…”
“I know what they are, Princess.”Adam’s eyes twinkled.“Curious where you heard about them, though.”
“The Cairo book bazaar,” Ellie informed him.“You remember when we paid it a visit before we left for India?I might have accidentally purchased a very informative volume by Mr.Richard Carlile on the prudent regulation of the principle of love.”
“That the one you were gonna use to teach Connie Latin?”
“Er… no,” Ellie awkwardly corrected.“That was a different volume of very great—er—scholarly interestwhich sadly escaped our possession.”
Adam’s mouth twitched with suppressed humor.“I see.”
He moved off her.The change did make it easier for Ellie to concentrate—even if she somewhat regretted it.He propped himself up on an elbow at her side instead, gazing down at her.
“It’s only that as creative and enjoyable as yourimprovisationshave been,” Ellie offered tactfully, “it seems to me that there’s another area of activity we might explore if we had a reliable method of preventing the potential complications of conception.”
She gave in to the impulse to raise her hand to Adam’s arm, exploring the smooth, taut texture of his skin.
The hungry, appreciative look he gave her in response sent a shiver over her skin despite the languid heat of the afternoon.
“Unless you think we’re not really missing out on much,” she added diplomatically.
