Page 122 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

When the panel finishes, I make my way over to Elora, who’s sitting on the end of one of the rows. I felt her eyes on me through the whole of the last hour. It made it hard to concentrate at times. Her eyes, while being baby-blue, are far from innocent. Her eyelids slide to half mast, and although I don’t think she’s aware of it, her expression turns sultry, so I know she’s thinking about what’s going to happen when we get back to our room.

We have a few hours yet though, as I want her to think about it for a while so that by the time we return to our suite, she’s flustered and aching for me. It amuses me just to think about it.

“Well done,” she says, standing as I approach. “You were amazing.”

I give a mock-nonchalant shrug, then smile. “I perform well in the spotlight.”

She chuckles and holds out her hand, and I take it in mine, leading her down the stairs toward the Cabaret Lounge. Tonight there’s no show as such. The room is filled with round tables, and a karaoke competition is about to start on the stage. It’s not normally my kind of thing, and I’m sure it’s not Elora’s, but although she stays shyly by my side, she seems happy enough as we wander through the room until we’re stopped by Alethea and invited to sit at her table. A couple of the other panelists are there, both with their partners, as well as one of the conference organizers and his wife, so Elora and I slide into two chairs.

Elora perches on the edge of hers, her spine a little stiff, and I see her glance dart off, checking out the exits and the number of people filing in. Our table is almost in the center of the room, so I understand why she might feel closed in.

“All right, gorgeous?” I lift her fingers to mine and kiss them.

She brings her gaze to me and gives a short smile. “I’m fine.”

I lean forward so my lips are close to her ear. “All the time I was sitting at that table, I was thinking about going down on you later.” I press my lips to the sensitive spot behind her ear, then move back.

Her eyes have widened comically, and her face flushes red. “Linc!” she says, glancing around the table to see if anyone overheard.

“What?” I give my best innocent look.

She glares at me. “You’re trying to discombobulate me.”

That makes me laugh. “Where are you from, 1942?”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m absolutely going to mock you if you’re going to use words like discombobulate.” I grin at her as the waiter approaches and asks if we’d like a drink. “Do you want a coffee?”

“I’ll have a glass of Sauvignon please,” she says to the waiter.

My eyebrows rise, but I don’t comment, because it’s absolutely her choice, and I’m not her father. “What Irish whiskies have you got?” I ask when the waiter turns to me. He reels off half a dozen names, and I choose the twelve-year-old Tullamore Dew, on the rocks. He nods and continues around the table, taking orders.

The guy sitting next to me starts talking about an article he read on aerial photography, and that leads to a discussion on crop markings, which some of the others join in with. New Zealand is a heavily forested country, and that and the lack of pre-nineteenth century occupation has meant that the field isn’t a widely used one in this country. Elora accepts her wine when the waiter returns and sips it as she listens, then, to my surprise, interjects with a question about LiDAR—light detection and ranging—and how it’s able to pass through branches and leaves, and is therefore useful for mapping heavily overgrown landscapes.

Ethan, sitting next to me, looks surprised and says to her, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were an archaeologist.”

“I’m only recently qualified,” she says hastily as everyone looks at her. “I work in the National Museum in Wellington.”

“Don’t listen to her,” I tell the rest of the table, “she’s an absolute genius. She’s working on her thesis about identifying ancient bird species across the country. Not only is it going to change our view of the moa and other birds, but I believe it’ll be incredibly useful as a dating method for early settlements.”

She stares at me. “Who told you that?”

“Nobody. I’m an archaeologist, Lora. I understand the importance of stratigraphy and association.”

“That’s amazing,” Ethan says. “Bird bones are present at nearly all early sites.”

“Yes,” she says, tearing her gaze from me to look at Ethan, “and I thought that if I could provide a chronology for the various species of flightless birds, it might help as a method for dating our early sites, which is so tough because of the lack of building materials.”

Ethan goes on to question her about her work so far, and some of the others join in. I sit back and sip my whiskey, amused to watch her light up as she talks about her work.

After a while, she asks one of the others a question, and the conversation moves on to other topics.

She leans back in her chair and sips her wine again, then finally looks at me. “I’m impressed,” she says. “Nobody else guessed why I was studying bird bones.”

“Your brain works on a different level from everyone else’s,” I reply. “No way were you only interested in tracheal rings. You were always going to do something amazing, Lora. You know this could revolutionize the archaeology of early sites in this country? The date of the arrival of humans here is being pushed back all the time, and it will really help to pinpoint when the first settlers actually landed.”

Color creeps into her cheeks. “Thank you,” she says. “I know you’re going to laugh, but it means a lot, coming from you. Not just as my friend, but as an archaeologist.”

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