The soothing call of sleep rushed to her quickly. Yet as she reached the border between slumber and wakefulness, she realized it was a cruel twist of fate. Just when she found herself loving them the most, her time—not only with Constantine but with William—would be coming to an end.
Chapter 27
Four Days Later
“Constantine, come along!” Elara insisted.
Constantine looked up from his brother’s desk and smirked as he found his wife bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking at him with an expression of great annoyance. Even if a different kind of relationship had bloomed between them, he still very much enjoyed vexing her.
“Augustus’s ship is going to be docking within the hour! I want to be there at the precise moment he steps off it,” she said testily.
“We will get there in good time,” he replied, shifting his gaze back down to the mess of paperwork he had created that morning, “I just... Something is clawing at the back of my mind. Something you said? Or Mr. Merlot said? I feel like there is something here that we have missed.”
Elara tsked, and he knew her well enough now that he did not have to look up to know that she had balled her little fists on her hips.
“What does it matter? We will have Augustus; we can ask him any questions we have,” she replied with growing annoyance.
But what if you are right? What if my brother has lied to me? What if the trouble he got himself into with Evander is way beyond what I can protect him from?
As Constantine’s thoughts churned, he realized something. Elara had grown to trust his word, and in turn, he had started to question his brother’s. Her vehemence for Evander’s good soul aligned with the man Constantine once knew him to be, and for the first time, he was questioning his blind loyalty to Augustus.
“I am almost done looking around,” Constantine said, sweeping an arm around the room’s disastrous state. “Just let me finish, and then we will depart for the docks.”
Elara’s brows perked into a challenging expression as an impish smile twitched on her lips. She drew closer, causing heat to spread across Constantine’s chest. The last few days they had shared together had been…extraordinary.
“You have ten minutes,” she warned breathily, stopping her lips just as they were about to brush against his own. “Or I am leaving without you.”
Constantine smirked, and before Elara could move, his hand flew up to her throat. He pulled her into a savage kiss. Pleasure raked over his skin as Elara let out a contented sigh upon his lips before kissing him back with equal fervor.
“Ten minutes,” he panted in agreement, pulling away.
Satisfaction rolled through him as he took in her bruised lips, flushed cheeks, and hooded gaze. Still, a pang traveled through his chest.
What is going to become of us after we speak to Augustus?
Still trying to catch her breath, Elara nodded, and after taking a greedy, sweeping look down his body, she turned and left him to his search. It took a moment for Constantine to pull himself back to the task at hand. Elara had a way of distracting him in the most wickedly wonderful ways.
Then he adjusted his suddenly too-tight breeches, drew his focus to the desk, and went back to his search. The room was absolutely destroyed. So far, he had taken out and shaken every book from the shelves, looked under every potted plant, knocked at every wall to listen for a hollow space—and still, nothing. The last place to search—one he had gone through weeks ago—was the desk.
Constantine sat down in the leather, high-backed chair and, once more, began pulling out drawers. A few minutes later, he was still empty-handed.
“There has to be something in here,” he murmured, looking at the open and now empty drawers. “There has to be something!”
He pounded his fists into the top of the desk in frustration, and that was when the top drawer on the right let loose apop. Curious, Constantine looked down into it and saw that the bottom was now crooked, with one end jutting up just a little.
A false bottom?
Constantine quickly swiped the papers off the top of the desk, his hands shaking with excitement as he found the silver letter opener he was looking for beneath the useless papers. He picked it up and jammed the tip into the small opening, and the thin piece of wood pried away. He quickly tossed the false bottom aside and stilled as he saw a thick, dark brown leather portfolio in the hidden drawer. Discomfort ripped through him as helooked down at the thing.
Augustus was keeping secrets from me after all.
Taking the portfolio out, Constantine hurriedly unwrapped the leather cord around it and opened it up atop the desk. Again, a sharp pain shot through his chest as he looked at the records.
“Red H. Green E. Five and a half hgt. Eight and a half stone. Seventeen. Nine hundred pounds,” he read aloud. “Black H. Brown E. Five two. Eight stone. Nineteen. Eight hundred pounds. Honey H. Blue E. Five three hgt. Nine stone. Twenty. Seven hundred and fifty pounds.”
For a moment, Constantine looked at the long list, trying to decipher what the words and numbers meant.
He frowned, turning the page. The next sheet was a series of shipping records, ports of origin listed alongside dates and cargo weights, but the cargo was not named. Only numbered. He turned again and found a letter, unsigned, written in a hand he did not recognize.
