Where the Library Hides (Secrets of the Nile #2)

Prólogo

PRóLOGO

“Marry me instead.”

The words ricocheted around the room, finally hitting me square in the chest, where each syllable felt like a smack.

I licked my lips, forced myself to speak through the haze. “You want to get married.”

Whit kept a steady gaze on me, blue eyes searing and red rimmed, and said with no hesitation, “Yes.”

“To me,” I said, needing clarification. Some light to cut through the fog. I pushed away from him, and he let me go. I eyed him uneasily as I rounded the bed, needing something tangible in between us. The distance cleared my head from the scent of whiskey curling around him, smoky and rich.

Again his reply came sure and quick. “Yes.”

“Married,” I repeated, because clarification was still in order. He had been drinking and, by the look of it, not one tidy glass. “In a church.”

“If need be.”

“It’d have to be,” I said. The idea sounded normal and sane. Unlike our conversation. Getting married in a church was something I would have done—seemingly in another life. The one I’d been groomed to live in Buenos Aires. I would marry the handsome Ernesto, a young caballero my aunt approved of, and presumably live as her neighbor, where she could keep an eye on me for the rest of my life. There would be no trips to Cairo. My days of drawing temple walls in my sketchbook would be over. Instead, my time would revolve around someone else and, eventually, my children. I could see that future as if I were already living it. My heart raced in protest, and I had to remind myself I was here in Egypt.

Exactly where I wanted to be.

Whit arched a brow. “Is that a yes?”

I blinked. “You need an answer right this moment?”

Whit swept his arm across my luxurious hotel bed, currently covered in skirts with ruffled hems and jackets with brass buttons. To my horror, several pairs of stockings were strewn over a plump pillow, next to my favorite chemise, which was practically threadbare. He followed my gaze and then, with admirable restraint, didn’t remark about my underthings.

“I don’t necessarily need one right now, but I’d prefer one, yes,” Whit drawled. “For a little thing like my peace of mind.”

His manner was beginning to infuriate me. This was one of the most important decisions I would make, and if he wanted me to take it seriously, then he should, too. I shoved my clothing off to the side, then bent to drag my suitcase out from under the bed and dropped it onto the cleared-off space. Without ceremony, or care for wrinkles, I began throwing in my clothing. In went my Turkish trousers, cotton shirts, and pleated skirts. I bundled up my underthings and tossed them inside.

He looked at the growing pile in my trunk with alarm. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” I tossed in my satin slippers, the boots I wore while on Philae, and leather heels. I looked around the room, my hands on my hips. What else?

“We are in the middle of a conversation and you already have one foot out the door.” Whit reached forward and pulled out several articles of clothing, and then he removed the pair of boots I’d dropped in.

“Excuse me, but I am packing,” I said, shoving a shirt back into the trunk.

“Nowhere on this planet would anyone call what you are doing packing,” Whit said, eyeing my balled-up shirt in disgust.

“Now you’re being mean.”

“I asked you a question, Inez.”

I glared at him and held out my hand for my boots. “I need those.”

“Not right now you don’t.” Whit dropped them onto the floor and, without taking his eyes off me, grabbed my trunk with both hands, turned it upside down, and dumped everything back out.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?” he asked.

Cielos, he was insufferable . “You’ve been drinking.”

“So?”

My voice rose by several unladylike decibels. “ So? How do I know if you mean it?”

Whit rounded the bed. Sure on his feet, his hands steady. His words weren’t slurred. They came out clear and sharp edged, as if they were the last ones he’d say in front of a firing squad. “ I want to marry you .”

I gestured to the Inez mountain sitting on top of the bedding. “Despite the mess.”

Slowly, he touched the tip of his index finger to the corner of my mouth. “No one else.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a delicate underthing had slipped off the bed and onto his shoe. I bent to retrieve it, but he beat me to it. He carefully placed it on one of the pillows.

I detected the faintest blush blooming high on his cheeks.

It occurred to me then that I’d never seen Whit blush.

I’d seen him messy and smirking, furious and amused. But never embarrassed. It was this sight that reminded me of who I was dealing with. Whit was my friend, maybe even the best one I had. He’d kissed me when we thought we’d die trapped in that tomb, the air slowly turning against us, quietly dangerous. He had held my hand in the dark and shared his biggest regret with me.

When someone had dared to hurt me, he’d ended them.

This was the man asking for my hand.

“I’d give you more time,” Whit said, “but you’re leaving the country .”

That was true—my uncle wanted me gone. For my safety, as if he could protect me still when I had already lived through the horror of seeing my cousin shot in the head, not ten feet away from me.

Elvira.

Pain stabbed my heart, and the cloud of confusion descended again. It seemed impossible that I’d never see her mischievous grin right before breaking one of her mother’s many rules. Never hear her voice or read another one of her stories. Her life had been cut short, a book closed forever, the ending written as a horrifying nightmare.

I had to stay in Egypt for her.

It was my traitorous mother’s fault she was gone. Grief held on to me like a tightened fist, and a sob worked its way up my throat. I ruthlessly tamped the emotion down, searching for another that wouldn’t leave me on the floor.

Anger simmered in my blood, just under the surface.

More than anything, I wanted to hunt my mother down. Force her into prison where she could rot for eternity. I wanted her to tell me what she had done to my father, if he was still living, trapped somewhere and only she knew how to find him. Papá’s words from his last letter to me swam in my mind.

Never stop looking for me.

I could do nothing from another continent.

I understood at once what Whit was implying. If I married him, I would have free rein over my fate. It made my head spin. A destiny uncontrolled. Access to my fortune, no longer dependent on my uncle, and as a married woman, I would no longer need a chaperone everywhere I went. Whit’s offer was appealing. And there was the other thing. The thing I couldn’t have predicted when I first set sail for Egypt.

I had fallen in love with Whitford Hayes.

I loved him with my whole heart, despite my head telling me to have better sense. But I loved him in a way that meant forever. I hadn’t known for sure until this moment, as I stared into his face, which was somehow vulnerable and remote all at once. Terror gripped me. I’d never felt so stricken, so raw, so exposed.

Again my head said, What you’re feeling is utter nonsense .

She sounded stern and convincing.

“Think it over, then. And let me know.” He smiled faintly, and his next words sounded more like himself. “Preferably before you get on that train to Alexandria.”

He left, the door closing with a measured click.

To the empty room I said, “Miércoles.”