Page 97 of Empire of Shadows
“If anything, that makes a pretty good case for going forward,” he countered.
“But all of your things went down with the boat!” Ellie protested.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Just how much do you think I cart with me into the bush, Princess?” he asked.
Ellie looked around their primitive campsite.
“More than this?” she awkwardly offered.
“I mean—a little,” he admitted. “But not bythatmuch. The more you have, the more you carry. If we were planning to camp out here and conduct a proper survey for the next four weeks, maybe I’d have brought some more gear along—but we’d still be sleeping rough. We’re not exactly swimming in funds at the surveyor general’s office. The guys who come out here with tents, cots, and afternoon sherry are privately funded, and they’re looking for stuff they can make a whole lot of money off of. I’ve always been a man of relatively simple needs.”
He punctuated the declaration with another sip of his rum and then passed her the bottle.
“That is an understatement,” Ellie retorted before once more filling her mouth with the rich, golden taste of the rum.
She felt a little happily loose in her limbs. Her thoughts, too, ran easily—lightly dancing from one thing to another. Ellie was carried along in a current that smelled of spice and vanilla. Her attention skipped from the big, capable knife at Adam’s belt to his hands, which were roughened from the work she now knew he did when out in the back country.
He was still talking. Ellie only half listened to it as her eyes settled on the way that the firelight flickered along the strong angle of his jaw.
“It makes more sense to try to cut our way overland to the Belize River,” he said. “There’ll be some traffic there even at this time of the year, where the Sibun’s likely deserted for the next fifty miles. We could build a raft, if we had to, and try to float our way back—but I’d sure as hell rather catch a lift, if we can. And if we’re heading that way anyway, what’s an extra day or two detouring to check out this city of yours?” He took another swig.
“Why aren’t you married?” Ellie asked.
Adam spat the rum into the fire. The flames roared up in response.
“Where the hell did that come from?” he spluttered.
In truth, the question had been the sort of rogue thought that Ellie would normally have judiciously kept to herself… as was the next one, which spilled out of her mouth just as easily as the first.
“I mean, you’re reasonably good-looking…” she began.
Adam gaped at her, then snapped his mouth shut.
“You aren’t indigent, despite your unorthodox lifestyle,” Ellie continued. “You are well-educated, with good overall career prospects. You must be rapidly approaching thirty…”
“I'm twenty-seven,” he said back. He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, and then took another deliberate swig of rum.
Part of Ellie’s brain watched the whole scene unfold with a sense of horrified embarrassment, but it seemed to be walled off from the neurons that were actually making her mouth move.
“Surely some woman has set her cap at you by now,” she rambled, “and most men of your position would’ve at least been thinking of settling down. I hardly expect you’ve been remaining celibate—”
Adam choked.
“—but there are other features of a marriage which most men seem desirous of acquiring.” Ellie’s mouth firmed into a grimmer line. “After all, the relationship has been structured to accrue all the possible benefits to them at the expense of the women involved.”
“You—ah—speaking from experience there?” he prompted tentatively.
Ellie recalled with a start that she was supposed to be masquerading as a widow. She was reminded—very uncomfortably— that she still wasn’t being completely honest with him.
She needed to remedy that… and yet the thought of doing it now—of how it would so quickly and thoroughly shatter this quiet camaraderie by the fire—made her chest feel tight.
“Sorry,” he went on without waiting for her answer. “I’m not looking to pry. But… to answer your question, since youhaveasked it—I am not married because I don’twantto be married.”
“But why not?” Ellie demanded, guiltily latching on to the change in subject.
“It just… wouldn’t work out.”