Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(23)

And then he’d acted like an ass in front of Mr. Ginn and her imaginary rope snapped.

“Staring at your backside, that’s a given,” he continued. “I’m a man, after all. If I were a religious man, I might believe the devil himself sculpted your ass to lure me into temptation. But your front side—”

“My front side?” She spun around to face him. “My front side is what, exactly? Harsh? Odd? Too skinny? Have I been studying mummies so long that I’ve started to look like one? Because I’ve heard all those things before, so do your worst.”

He gaped at her for a moment, and then shut his mouth. Had she shocked him? Was he angry or embarrassed? Good.

“You want to know what I was going to say? Do you?”

“Say it,” she challenged.

Agitation transformed him into something foreign. His eyes narrowed to dark slashes under a rocky brow; his jaw tightened. Nothing jovial or casual or charming about him now—all of that vanished and was replaced by brute intensity and darkness.

He loomed over her, leaning in far too close. Their noses nearly touched. “I was going to say that you look goddamn bewitching in that dress, and I hadn’t realized how extraordinarily beautiful you are because all I’ve seen you wear are those ridiculous funerary outfits.” He pulled back, putting some space between them. “There. Happy now?”

Happy? Happy? Hadley’s heart nearly stopped beating.

The taut lines of his body softened. And in a low voice he added, “I was also going to say that your lily reminds me of a tomb painting I saw in the British Museum last spring, of Nebamun hunting in the marshes with a beautiful girl who wears a lotus in her hair. And that it’s lovely on you. Extraordinarily lovely.”

A strange sensation pinched her chest. No one had ever said anything like that to her. Why was he saying it, of all people? He wasn’t teasing. He couldn’t be teasing.

Please, let him mean it.

She blinked, pushing away unwanted emotion, waiting for a punch line that never came. He was so painfully attractive, towering over her in his black tuxedo jacket and white vest. His loose stance radiated confidence. Her body wanted to sway closer, as if it could drink up all his easy self-possession, all that golden light he seemed to emit.

Then she remembered what he was.

A liar. And a flatterer, too. He was good—very good. And she was a fool.

She snorted a bitter laugh. “After a man tells a woman the first untruth, the others come piling thick and fast,” she quoted loosely.

“Fair enough. I’ve given you little reason to trust me. Tell me what I can do to gain it. Swear on a Bible? Get down on one knee? Name it, Hadley.”

She shook her head, confused by feelings that tugged her good sense in different directions. In search of an anchor, her eyes followed the notch of his black tie to the broad ledge of his shoulder, limned with tawny light from the mansion. But when her gaze dropped to the crisp sliver of white cuff peeking from his dinner jacket, and his injured bare hand below, she decided to take him up on his offer.

“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.”