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“But surely you could give me just the tiniest little hint,” Constance pressed. “Seeing that we’re…”

She pretended to catch herself and pushed a becoming little blush into her cheeks. It was a trick she had practiced at some length in her vanity mirror, in case she should ever need to put her charms to work to foil an enemy.

“Connie!” Julian exclaimed. “Dare I hope that you have developed a tendre for me?”

“Oh, you will embarrass me utterly!” Constance hid her face behind the sporting magazine.

That way he couldn’t see her grin.

“By no means!” Julian assured her. “I should be the last one to blame you for such a thing. How could you help it?”

Constance dropped her carefully assumed persona, her eyebrow cocking at the sheer self-absorption of his response. Thankfully, Julian had turned to gaze off into the distance as he said it, which gave her a vital moment to fix an expression of brainless admiration on her face before he noticed anything.

She certainly had her fish on the hook, at any rate… Now to reel in her catch.

“Though I did wonder about our compatibility when you presented yourself at the house back in Cairo,” she mused thoughtfully.

“You did?” Julian echoed, clearly bewildered. “But my grandfather is a duke!”

Constance fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Not because of that!” She batted him again with the magazine—perhaps just a hair harder than she needed to. “I only mean that… Well, discovering that you are involved in something so important—and perhaps just a little dangerous?—makes me see you…differently.” She trailed the magazine down his sleeve, dropping her voice a husky octave.

“I see!” Julian burst out.

“I am afraid I am quite drawn to men ofaction,” Constance emphasized.

She gave his arm a little squeeze—and had to hide a dart of surprise. His triceps were more solid than she had suspected for someone who presumably spent most of his time lounging about reminding people of his prestigious family tree.

Julian puffed up a bit. “It’s not something I can share openly, of course,” he told her confidently. “I must allow the rest of the world to think me a mere sportsman.”

“That must be hard for you.” Constance leaned her cheek against her hand and blinked up at him admiringly.

With another target, it might have been a bit much—but Constance didn’t put much stock in Julian Forster-Mowbray’s powers of discernment.

“Not really,” Julian declared regally, casually studying his manicured nails. “One grows used to living a double life when it is required of you.”

Constance wanted to snort. Really, she deserved an accolade for this performance. It was a pity her only audience was a stuffed crocodile.

“Have you been doing that for very long?” she pressed.

“Well, I would say that this is my first trulycriticalmission,” Julian admitted a little uncomfortably. “Such things don’t exactly come up all the time. One must simply be ready for them.”

Constance leaned closer. The shift took her in range of a heady nose of Julian’s cologne, which he must have applied liberally before dinner. It nearly made her sneeze.

“Is it so great a matter as all that?” she prompted breathlessly.

Julian was briefly torn by indecision—and then crumbled like a wall made of biscuit. “I suppose I can show you just a little something.”

He popped up from the couch and crossed to a trunk beside the bar, where he opened the lid and pulled out a slender bundle wrapped in dusty velvet. Returning to the settee, he laid it on the coffee table and pushed the fabric aside.

The sun had set as they talked, dropping the world around them into the gloom of dusk. One of the crew had come through a few minutes beforehand to light the lamps that were liberally suspended from the posts and rafters of the canopy. They cast a warm illumination over the salon—and the object that Julian had just revealed.

Nestled amid the velvet was a leather scabbard, cracked with age. The hilt of a sword protruded from the top of it, wrought from yellowed bone inlaid with gold filigree.

This was not what Constance had been angling for, of course. She had been hoping to prompt Julian into a further confession about the nature of his business in Egypt—but perhaps the sword could still lead her there. To her admittedly inexpert eye, it looked like the sort of crusty old thing that Ellie would go mad for.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed, a bit at a loss. “It’s very… large?”

She winced at the word, which she might not have chosen had she had a bit more time to think about it.