Page 136 of Empire of Shadows

Ellie considered it.

“I suppose that is fair,” she allowed.

She looked up at his face. It was familiar even through the deep shadows, and at the sight of it, something in her chest started to glow warmly.

Without further warning, the tent flap flew back. Ellie startled as Mendez stuck his head inside with a lantern in his hand.

“Oye—you!” he said, waving a hand at Adam. “Boss had them rig a hammock for you.”

Adam paused at the threshold to glance back at Ellie. The look he gave her made the hairs on her arms tingle.

“Try to get some sleep, Princess,” he said.

“You as well, Mr. Bates,” Ellie returned evenly.

And then he was gone.

?

Twenty-Six

The next morning,the caravan set out far later than it would have on one of Adam’s expeditions. Of course, Adam’s expeditions usually involved no more than four or five guys. This was easily seven times that size, with a couple of dozen mules to boot.

You needed a lot of mules if you were going to drag books out with you into the middle of nowhere.

When the long line of animals and men finally did get moving, it wove into the bush at a crawl as it followed the route Adam had mapped out. Adam ground his teeth against the urge to move faster. Breaking off to make his own more efficient way along the trail would probably have raised a ruckus. After all, he did have an armed guard trotting along in his wake.

It seemed Staines, the pomaded guy from Dawson’s tent, had been assigned to monitor Adam. Staines looked like the last thing he wanted to do was hike at a snail’s pace through the uncharted wilderness behind an unshaven, grumpy bakra.

Adam glanced along the snaking line of the caravan until his eyes stopped on Ellie’s figure. She was mounted on a mule and looked damned uncomfortable with the position. Flowers and Mendez flanked her to either side.

Adam still wasn’t sure what to think about their conversation the night before. A small, terrible part of him had feared that Ellie had lied to him because he simply wasn’t worth telling the truth to. He’d been relieved to know that wasn’t the case… maybe a littletoorelieved.

Feelingtoorelieved meant that what the woman thought of him had become pretty damned important to him—that it was something he cared about.

Aw, hell. Who was he kidding? He cared.

Well, he could enjoy knowing she cared as well for a little while longer… until their forced marriage solidly killed that dead.

Adam didn’t waste any time being offended that Ellie wasn’t excited about the idea of being stuck with him for life. He knew it wasn’t personal. Even if Ellie hadn’t been dead opposed to the entire idea of matrimony, Adam certainly wasn’t the kind of man she would have chosen for herself. She’d probably want some nice, mild guy in a waistcoat who shaved regularly and never once caught himself smelling a bit like a rotten lizard. Someone who could read books with her and chat about Aramaic semantics over dinner. He’d probably be a professor of something.

That made Adam think of Dawson. He quickly amended the theory—not a professor. Maybe a nice school teacher. Yeah, that felt right. He’d be from one of those girls’ schools that actually taught them things besides balancing books on their heads.

And he’d definitely be the kind of jerk who took on a bunch of extra charity students on the side.

Instead of that, Ellie was going to get Adam. It kind of made him feel awful for her, even as he also imagined himself socking that schoolteacher right in the waistcoat.

Adam startled. Why was he fantasizing about beating the schoolteacher? The guy had never done anything to him. He didn’t even exist.

The conundrum of that left him with the creeping and uncomfortable sensation that he was missing something important… something that stalked him like a jaguar in the fog.

Well, whatever that was, he’d worry about it later. Right now, he needed to focus on more practical concerns.

British Honduras was a small colony, and the community of men who did expedition work there was even smaller. Adam knew most of them, so he hadn’t been surprised when he started picking familiar faces out of the crowd at the camp once it was light enough for him to actually see everybody.

He had figured out Nigel Reneau was manning the cookfire when he tasted last night’s dinner. Adam could have recognized Nigel’s hudutu, a mouthwatering Garifuna fish stew, just from the smell.

Then there was Arturo Velegas. The old Mestizo fellow looked a bit like a gray-mustachioed grandpa who should be dozing on someone’s porch. He was actually one of the best hunters and trackers in the business.

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