“That,” she said, nodding her chin at his hand. “Tell me what really happened to your finger.” Give me something real I can trust.
Lowe lifted his bad hand and cradled it in his other, rubbing the scarred flesh with the pad of his thumb. “I haven’t told anyone since I left Egypt.”
“Not even your family?”
“Not even my closest friend.”
Was that a lie, too? She couldn’t tell. “Go on.”
“It’s not half as exciting as you’re expecting,” he said, stalling.
Was he waiting for her to revoke the request? Because she wouldn’t. And after a long moment, he sighed.
“It was early September,” he finally said. “My uncle had just moved us from Alexandria to Philae. It’s an island, you know. Two islands. Nothing there but half-flooded ruins and ancient temples . . . a handful of archaeologists, locals making money ferrying tourists. We were working near a section of colonnade, and one day when my uncle was traveling in Aswan, I missed the last boat and got stuck on the island overnight with a few of the local workers.”
Lowe turned and kicked at the edge of the reflecting pool. “I was supposed to be building scaffolding for the excavation. But the Nubi workers and I decided to have a few stiff drinks. By the time we got to the scaffolding, I was less alert than I should’ve been.”
“Drunk, you mean.”
“Fairly.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose, looking so much more sober than she’d assumed he was earlier when he was juggling his wineglass.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was sawing a board with my right hand,” he said, pantomiming, “and holding the board with my left. And I couldn’t get a good grip, so I switched angles and, well, to be perfectly frank, I sawed my own finger clean off.”
The blood drained from Hadley’s face.
“Granted, it was only to the first joint. I suppose the drink numbed my reaction and nerves. But we were stuck on the island with no doctor—no nothing. All I could do was bandage it up and drink until I passed out. By the time my uncle returned the next day and they got me to someone who could stitch it up, I was feverish. Infection set in. A few days later, I had to have the rest of it amputated or risk losing my whole hand.”
“Good heavens,” Hadley murmured.
“Took a couple of months to heal properly. I was almost useless to my uncle. Hard to work in the sand and dirt with one hand. Hard to do much at all when you’re in constant pain. That’s actually when I started deciphering pieces of the temple walls. Sheer boredom led me to the djed. Not a glamorous story, I’m afraid.”
Hadley didn’t intend to reach for his hand, but when her arm began moving, she didn’t restrain herself as she normally would have when it came to her actively touching someone. The warmth of his skin penetrated her silk glove as she lifted it to inspect the scars in the light spilling into the courtyard. “It’s not immediately noticeable that it’s missing,” she said. “Less conspicuous than a middle finger.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” A gentle smile curved his mouth.
Well. Couldn’t hold his hand forever. But as she withdrew, he held on to her, just as he had when they first met in the train station. This time she didn’t fight it.
“I’ve often worried that I might never be able to touch a woman again without her having to swallow disgust in order to tolerate it.”
“I suppose that would depend on the woman.” A practical observation, or that was her intention, but the way his head tilted, just a bit—the slightest of movements—she knew he’d read more into it. Perhaps she didn’t mind that he did. She certainly liked the sturdy feel of his hand holding hers. Some stranger living inside her head wistfully imagined that very hand running up her glove to her bare arm. Just a test, to see if she could “tolerate” it, as he’d said. Just the thought made her stomach flutter nervously.
“You don’t think it’s grotesque?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m an admirer of the grotesque and grim.”
Lowe squinted one eye. “Are you flirting with me, Hadley Bacall?”
“I really wouldn’t know where to start,” she replied honestly.
A nearby couple shuffled past them to the other side of the pool. Lowe tugged her out of their earshot, into an awning’s shadow. His head dipped lower, his face an inch away from hers again—only this time, she wasn’t sure what intimidated her more: the angry Lowe, or the Lowe that looked as if he might ravish her right there in the dark of the courtyard. “What’s the verdict? Do you trust me now?”
“Maybe.”
“Only maybe?”
“Temporarily. Until the next lie.”
“Maybe I won’t tell another lie tonight. Maybe I’ll be so virtuous, you’ll nominate me for sainthood.”
“Refraining from deception for one night is hardly virtue.”
“Mm-hmm. Expert on virtue, are you?”
“Expert on several things, but virtue isn’t one.”
“Happy to hear it,” he said with a conspiratorial grin. “You know, I always thought the wicked deserved their own sort of canonization. It’s tough being immoral. Requires skill and perseverance.”
“And a certain amount of natural talent, I’d think.”
“Most definitely. I like to believe I was born bad. Shifts the burden of blame to my bloodline.”
She chuckled softly.
“Fan,” he murmured in Swedish. “You should do that more often.”
The scent of laundry starch wafted when he lifted his good hand to her, slowly. The tips of his fingers traced the petals of the lily at her ear, sending a cascade of tremors through her hair, across her scalp, down her neck. It lit up her nerves and cells and spread like wildfire.
Pleasure.
She barely recognized the feeling. All her muscles tightened to hold back a shudder. Good God, it wasn’t even a real touch and she was drowning in it. Perhaps it was halfway real, because she realized he was still holding her hand. Or she was holding his. Someone was gripping harder. It might’ve been her.
His head dipped lower. He inhaled the blossom and whispered, “Intoxicating.”
He was so close. Close enough for her to catch a faint note of vanilla in his pomade. Close enough to shield her bare arms from the cool night air. Close enough that the lapel of his jacket brushed against her nipples.
Her breath caught as another wave of tremulous pleasure waterfalled over her skin, and she was drowning again. So very near. She wanted to lean her cheek against his. Wanted his mouth on—
A nearby booming voice tore into her thoughts.
“Dinner is served in ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen.”
SEVEN
WITH A START, HADLEY dropped Lowe’s hand and looked around. Across the courtyard, a servant held a door open and beckoned the stragglers.
The loss of Lowe’s warmth was acute and nearly painful to her confused body. Her mind slogged to catch up. “We should . . . dinner,” Hadley said dumbly.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, of course.”
“I was supposed to be helping Father with . . .” Helping with what? Why wasn’t her brain working properly?
“Introductions,” he offered helpfully.
“Right.” Introductions. Yes. Something to focus on. Good.
They shuffled inside the hall, a short distance that seemed to take years to traverse. In a daze, she managed to introduce him to a few board members and one of the other curators before they were forced to hunt for their place cards and sit down for dinner. Oliver was seated to her left and Lowe was across from her, next to her father. She guiltily kept her eyes on the silver and china, as if nearby diners could guess what had recently transpired in the courtyard.