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Her mind blanked as her perception was overwhelmed by an abundance of hard, tanned masculine flesh.

He tossed the shirt aside roughly. It landed half in her lap, Ellie’s hands automatically catching at the fabric.

Without another word, he stalked from the compartment.

Mr. Mahjoud made a single eloquent blink, then pointedly raised up his newspaper.

Constance’s frankly assessing gaze moved from the open door to Ellie, where it locked onto her helplessly dazed expression.

“Colleagues, is it?” Constance noted mercilessly.

?

The sand proved substantial. The afternoon was well progressed by the time the train started moving again, at which point Constance had worked her way through most of the contents of Mr. Mahjoud’s hamper.

Adam returned to their compartment a little later. His golden hair was still dusty from the work, though he’d clearly managed a light wash, perhaps in one of the sleeper cabins. He pulled his shirt back on, slipped his braces over his shoulders, and settled into his seat without another word.

They stopped at the small but modern railway station that sat a short walk from the rustic village of Badrashin. New telegraph wires soared overhead, following the tracks south along the river. The Nile’s flood plain was broad, flush with plantations of date palms and bright green fields crisscrossed by irrigation canals.

Behind Ellie lay the broad expanse of the great river itself, peppered with little single-sail feluccas and a slow, elegant dahabeeyah. On that larger boat, a cluster of pale Europeans played cards under a canopy in an open-air salon while an Egyptian crewman worked the rope for an overhead fan.

Mr. Mahjoud checked his pocket watch. “It is nearly four,” he announced, snapping it shut and slipping it back into his waistcoat. “The necropolis at Saqqara is an hour’s ride from here, and the return service to Cairo passes through at ten after five. We cannot make it there and back in time for the train. We will have to return home and try again tomorrow.”

Ellie felt a pinch of panic at Mr. Mahjoud’s announcement. They couldn’t afford a further delay—not when Dawson and Jacobs might turn up at any moment. “Could we find a place to stay locally for the evening?”

“InBadrashin?” Mr. Mahjoud said with a look of horror, as though Ellie had just suggested they bed down in a nest of porcupines rather than a quaint mud-brick village shaded by tall palms.

“Don’t they let visitors overnight at Mariette’s House?” Constance offered brightly, using a long white scarf to tie her enormous and very fashionable straw hat into place. “That’s right next to the pyramids.”

Mr. Mahjoud straightened, making himself a bit taller—perhaps in order to sharpen the angle at which he looked down his nose at her. “Mariette’s House is not appropriate for ladies. It is entirely too rustic.”

“Are there any Bedouin about, then?” Constance pressed with an air of studied innocence. “I have heard they are most accommodating to guests.”

With some alarm, Ellie recalled Constance’s ambition to acquire a handsome sheikh as a lover. “Mariette’s House will do nicely,” she cut in quickly. “Both Mr. Bates and I are accustomed to ‘rustic,’ and I am sure Constance doesn’t mind.”

Constance flashed Ellie a narrow-eyed look as though perfectly aware of why Ellie had made her intervention. “Oh, very well,” she agreed a little crossly. “Mariette’s House it shall be.”

Mr. Mahjoud blinked—a simple motion that somehow still exuded disapproval. “I will see about arranging transportation,” he concluded, sounding as though he were accepting a prison sentence. He shifted a seemingly bland gaze to Constance. “And restocking the hamper.”

“Oh yes!” Constance agreed, brightening. “Do see if there are any kofta sellers about. And perhaps you can find a few of those lovely little semolina cakes.”

Mr. Mahjoud’s posture was an eloquent display of dignified resignation as he walked away.

?

He returned a quarter hour later with kofta, semolina cakes, and a slightly pudgy boy towing a line of donkeys.

“Are you quite sure we can’t walk?” Ellie asked, eyeing the animals skeptically. She still had vivid memories of her sore rear from spending all day on mule-back in the wilderness of British Honduras.

“What would we do that for?” Constance returned as she nimbly mounted her beast with a hand from the boy.

Ellie’s donkey snorted.

“Need a lift?” Adam offered.

She startled as she realized that he had come to stand beside her.

“That… would be lovely,” she replied awkwardly. “Thank you.”