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“Leave Egypt?” Ellie echoed helplessly.

“You have lost your job. Your family think you are on a very extended holiday in Bournemouth—but I should imagine after two months they might be starting to worry that you’ve run off to join a carnival,” Constance noted wryly. “So what is your plan, exactly? Unless you intend to stay here in Cairo with me indefinitely.”

Ellie stiffened. “I am not interested in living on anyone’s charity.”

“It’s not charity if it’s among friends, Eleanora,” Constance reminded her tiredly.

Ellie lifted her chin. “When I have finished what I need to do here, I will return to England and seek other employment.”

“What sort of employment?” Constance lounged back against the colorful pillows.

Ellie’s shoulders fell. “The only employment available to a university-educated woman without a reference is most likely to be…teaching.”

She ground out the word like a curse.

Constance studied her fingernails. “Probably at some backwater school for girls. And you abhor children.”

“I don’tabhorthem,” Ellie returned defensively. “I just find them exceptionally tedious and believe they serve as tiny anchors binding a woman further into the virtual slavery that is the reality behind modern marriage—”

“Yes, yes. Tiny anchors,” Constance interrupted quickly. “But tell me, now… where exactly is Mr. Bates in this scenario?”

Ellie opened her mouth to respond… and realized she hadn’t the foggiest idea what to say.

Fear swept over her, numbing her skin despite the soft warmth of the Egyptian evening. Her hands clenched, gripping the sturdy folds of her twill skirt.

“Mr. Bates has taken a leave of absence from his position in British Honduras,” she elaborated carefully. “He can extend it for perhaps another month, but after that he must either return or give up his position. Of course, as he is a man, he has far more options for employment at his disposal,” she grumbled.

“But would he go back to England with you?” Constance pressed, her expression serious.

Ellie closed her eyes as the weight of Constance’s gentle question swept through her.

WouldAdam go back to England with her?

She thought of the rich, powerful current of affection she could see in his eyes when he looked at her. The warmth in his voice when he spoke her name.

He hadn’t hesitated for a breath before agreeing to accompany her to Egypt—but that was Egypt, as part of a desperate quest to thwart a pack of villainous thieves. Would he feel the same way about following her to some backwater English village?

Ellie tried to imagine Adam in a place like Netherwallop or Upton Snodsbury—and failed. He was too big and wild to fit into some remote little hamlet. Asking him to confine himself to a place like that felt like an enormous sacrifice.

Constance spoke carefully into the silence where Ellie’s answer should have been. “You know, you wouldn’t necessarily have to teach—or work at all—if the two of you stayed together.”

Ellie latched on to the far more comfortable feeling of indignation that Constance’s suggestion aroused. “I am not interested in making myself a dependent, even upon a man whom I trust entirely not to take undue advantage of the situation! And anyway, such an arrangement would only really make sense within the confines of a marriage.”

“You are forgetting the most obvious alternative,” Constance pressed.

“And what is that?” Ellie returned skeptically.

“Just take him as your lover!”

“What?” Ellie squeaked. “I couldn’t possibly!”

“Why not?”

“For all of the reasons we talked about before! Never mind that the gentleman involved would need to agree to it.”

“That is not usually a major obstacle, as I understand it,” Constance declared authoritatively.

“You don’t know Adam,” Ellie pushed back. “I’m afraid that despite all appearances, he is desperately honorable. He was already insisting on telling Neil about our travels together, and that was before we’d even—”