Isadora inhaled sharply. “How dare you condemn me. You were a soldier in the British military. Your hands aren’t clean.”
Whit clenched his fists, the blood draining from his face. His years as a lieutenant had left scars. He seemed to take up the space of the whole room. He looked worn down, shoulders hunched, eyes withdrawn and brooding. I tried to imagine what it must have been like, to arrive on Philae and see the total destruction, to see Cleopatra’s final resting place ransacked and looted. A horror I hadn’t experienced but had felt from a distance. It was enough to bring me to my knees.
Years of Abdullah’s and Tío Ricardo’s life had been taken away from them.
“And where were you?” he asked her icily. “While your father was attacking the camp?”
“He kept me locked up in one of the chambers in the temple when it became clear I wouldn’t support his decision,” she said. “I tricked one of his men and made my escape.”
“From an island on the Nile?” Whit didn’t hide his disbelief. “Did you fly? Ride on the back of a crocodile?”
Isadora straightened her spine, color flooding her cheeks. “Just becauseI’m a girl doesn’t mean that I’m helpless. I had my purse, and I can make do with the language.”
“Your being a girl has nothing to do with anything,” Whit said through gritted teeth. “Look at my wife—if she wanted, she could make it to Paris on the back of turtle.” He clenched his jaw. “Admit it—you were a part of your father’s schemes.”
“I believe her,” I said. If I were in her position, I would hate for anyone to paint me with the same brush as my thieving mother.
Whit fell silent, strung tight as a bow. “She’s trying to manipulate you.”
“Maybe that’s what it looks like to you right now.” I went to stand by her side, our shoulders brushing. “It’syouwho doesn’t have all the information.”
Whit regarded me stonily.
“My mother had an affair with Mr. Fincastle. It’s been going on for nearly two decades, apparently.” I inhaled deeply, nervous energy making my fingers tingle. His clear dislike and mistrust of Isadora unsettled me. Not because he didn’t have due cause, but because he was married to me. In a matter of seconds, he’d learn that we were all family. “She’s my sister, Whit.”
If I’d told him that I planned to join the circus, he would not have been more surprised. “Bollocks.”
“It’s not,” Isadora said, her tone even and calm. “And I can prove it.” She wheeled around to face me. “I knew her as Mamá, but her close friends called her Lulis. She liked to stay up late and sleep away the morning. Mamá hated coffee but inexplicably liked dark chocolate. She preferred cats to dogs, sweets to salty foods, and liked her tea with milk, not lemon.”
Whit scoffed. “You could have learned this by asking around. Her old maid, perhaps.”
Isadora ignored him, her sole attention fixed on me. “She had a birthmark on her stomach, near her belly button.”
“Again, a maid could have told you that.”
“She was coloring her hair, because she hated the gray strands growing at her temples. But I always thought she looked beautiful.” Whit openedhis mouth, but Isadora’s words came out rushed, her attention now on my husband. “When she was sixteen, she fell in love with the boy who brought the newspaper to the door. Feliciano was his name.”
Whit fell silent.
There was no way Isadora would know that unless Mamá had told her. I’d only learned by accident, listening in on one of the rare fights my parents had behind closed doors and when they thought I was sleeping. Father had accused her of keeping in touch with Feliciano, but she categorically denied it. And Mamá had kept a bottle of the dye in the nightstand next to her bed in our home in Argentina. For years, I watched her rid the evidence that she was aging.
“She loved perfume from Italy.” Isadora clasped her hands tight in front of her. A girl waiting to be sentenced and doomed. “She thought it smelled roman—”
“Romantic,” I cut in softly.
She met my eyes, her back straight, hands still clenched, pride demanding that she not lower her chin an inch. She waited for me to decide, but there was never any question. I would not cast her out. I reached forward and took a hold of her hand and gently tugged. We were the same height, had the same build. We were close in age. Emotion clogged my throat as I hugged her. I peered at Whit from over her shoulder, knowing I’d find disappointment.
Whit pressed his lips into a thin slash, his arms folded across his chest. But he remained silent.
“She stays,” I said to him.
He looked away. Well, he hadn’t said no. A small step in the right direction, at least.
Isadora pulled away from me, her chin trembling slightly. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t believed me.”
“Somehow, I think you would have figured something out.” We had that in common, too. I smoothed her hair from off her face. “Will you go down and order us a tea tray? I think we’ll need it. And perhaps a cot?”
She nodded and left the room, taking care to give Whit a wide birth.His frustration radiated off him in widening circles. For the first time in three days, I was alone with my husband.
