Page 15

“No.” Constance gave the animal a cozy scratch. “This is Egypt. There are cats everywhere. And now you are going to tell meexactlywhat you have been up to.”

“Well,” Ellie said a little nervously, “since we last spoke, I have discovered the remnants of a mythical city, come up against the most dastardly cabal of villains—”

“Not that,” Constance cut in. “I want to know about you and Mr. Bates.”

Ellie bristled. “How is my connection to a man more important than the discovery of a secret civilization that completely upends our understanding of the Mesoamerican world?”

“You know full well why,” Constance retorted. “Now spill.”

The cat blinked at Ellie unsympathetically. She sensed the mouth of an inevitable trap closing over her.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea where to begin,” she protested weakly.

“Try the beginning, then,” Constance replied impatiently.

“I met Mr. Bates in British Honduras, where after a few… less than fortuitous encounters, he was kind enough to agree to serve as my guide to the interior of the country. In that capacity, we engaged in a somewhat precipitous expedition to the Cayo District, which is the area of the colony least cataloged by modern survey—”

“Have you kissed him?” Constance demanded.

“What?” Ellie’s cheeks flushed. “What would make you think… How is that the most important…”

“That’s a yes, then,” Constance declared with a wicked note of triumph. “Have you done anythingmorethan kissing?”

“I haven’t even admitted to kissing!”

“You didn’t have to.” Constance made an airy wave. “It was clearly implied. But has he actually made love to you yet?”

“Constance Tyrrell!” Ellie retorted in scandalized tones.

“Don’t act like I’d judge you for it,” Constance returned breezily. “I’ve been considering taking a lover myself.”

“You—what?” Ellie burst out, forgetting her own embarrassment.

Constance flipped over onto her back, the tabby moving irritably and unhurriedly out of her way. Her hand flashed out, unerringly plucking a date from a platter that had been left out on the little table nearby. “It’s hardly unreasonable. You see, Mum and Bapa have begun to insist that, as I am approaching the age of twenty-four, I must more seriously consider the matter of marriage. In fact, if I have not agreed to a choice of husband by my next birthday, they say there must be…consequences.”

She contemplated the date in her hand as though the plump, sweet fruit were a jewel she was thinking of purchasing.

“Consequences?” Ellie echoed. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Well, of course they can’t technically marry me off against my will,” Constance replied. “But if they were to lock me up inside until I relented, I am sure I’d go mad and take the next man who came knocking simply to escape, even if he was some dried up old buzzard.” Constance paused, considering. “Perhaps Ishouldpick a dried up old buzzard. Then I might outlive him and enjoy myself in the full bloom of young widowhood. I have always thought I would be best suited to a life of independent adventure. It is not as though I haven’t the money for it, and I feel certain that traveling the globe while engaging in a series of wild and temporary affaires du coeur would keep me quite content with my lot.” She frowned. “Though that plan would be ruined if my elderly husband turned out to have unusually robust health and live to a hundred.”

“I suspect an old buzzard might prove more trouble than he was worth, even if he did turn out to be fortuitously short-lived,” Ellie offered. “But what does your Aai have to say about all this?”

Sir Robert and Lady Sabita were both generally kind-hearted people whom Ellie knew lacked any real gift for torment, however much they might be driven to extreme measures out of concern for their daughter’s well-being. Constance’s grandmother, on the other hand, was a five-foot force to be reckoned with. When Maharajkumari Padma Devi chose a battle, she won it—without exception.

“So far, she has supported my determination not to settle for a man I do not think fully suits me,” Constance replied. “Aai has always professed the belief that a lady ought to know herself first before she chooses a partner… but lately she has dropped a hint or two that perhaps I am taking longer about the matter than I ought to be.”

Constance’s breezy expression dropped, replaced by a flash of fear.

“If Aai decides that I have delayed for too long, there will be no getting around it,” Constance admitted. “She is fully capable of devising the most dire consequences for me… and that is without even considering those thirty-nine favors I owe her.”

Ellie was familiar with Padma’s policy of counting the incidents in which she intervened to save Constance from trouble or help her get away with something she should not have been doing as ‘favors.’ Constance had been accumulating them for years now, with Padma calling in only a handful over that time.

But when the favorswerecalled in, there could be no refusing them—not least because Padma now had a veritable pile of dirt on Constance’s past adventures… and Ellie had no doubt that Constance’s grandmother knewexactlyhow to use it.

“Thirty-nine!” Ellie repeated, aghast. The number sounded like a curse.

“Indeed,” Constance confirmed direly. “And so, if she comes to agree that I have taken too long to choose, I am frankly terrified to think of what it will mean for me. Ugh!” She threw her hands out, sprawling across the cushions. “Not one of them is capable of conceiving that I might live a perfectly full and happy life without the burden of a husband!”