She did not approve of violence, but she did respect courage, and Alex had displayed it over and over again.
They traveled throughout the day until evening, then drew up to a sandy bank. The priest warned her not to go close to the water. She watched Burke help Alex step from the canoe. She wanted to give him her own hand, but she feared it would be rebuffed.
He gave her a weak yet devil-may-care smile as he leaned against a tree and watched the others establish a site, chopping down enough foliage for them to move around. No fire, though.
She felt helpless, not sure what to do. Despite his smile, she knew he was keeping distance between them as he’d done since Martinique. She did not know whether he really believed the accusation he’d made earlier about her not wanting the Englishman because he’d married a quadroon, or whether it had been one of his shields to keep from being involved.
She felt a sudden need for some privacy. She also wanted to wash the clothes she was wearing, but that would mean going toward the river. She looked at it, and saw nothing that should keep her from it.
Jenna looked at the priest, then headed outside the circle.
“Senhorita?”
“I need some privacy,” she said.
“Do not go beyond the sound of our voices,” he said.
“Aye.” She did not look at Alex as she left. Months ago, she would have been mortified to have been in this position. But after the past few weeks, she’d accepted the fact that everyone had the same needs and it made no sense to be embarrassed by it.
She went a short distance but the voices were still loud enough to be obtrusive. Too near. She took a few more steps. She could still hear voices though they were more faint. She heard the buzz of insects and felt something on her arm. She looked down and saw a leech on her arm. She’d had several before and knew she couldn’t take it off herself.
She took care of her needs, her ears straining to hear the voices. Just as she was pulling up her trousers, she felt something fall on her. Thick and huge. She screamed as a giant snake began to wrap itself around her.
The moment Alex heard Jenna scream, he struggled to his feet, pulling his knife from its sheath. Burke was on his feet also, as was Tomas and their guide. Alex grabbed the guide’s machete as he ran toward the sound.
She was just outside their small clearing, a huge snake wrapping itself around her. Her eyes were wide and terrified. More terrified than he had ever seen them. The snake’s head was close to hers. Too close. Any swing of the machete might also hurt her.
She screamed again and he knew he could not wait. He was a swordsman. The machete was more awkward, but he had no choice. He only hoped the strength he suddenly felt was true strength.
He went straight for her and, with a prayer he hadn’t uttered in years, raised the machete and took off the snake’s head with one swing. It took every ounce of strength he didn’t think he had. Only fear made it possible. The remainder of the snake fell, writhing, on the ground. He threw the machete down and grabbed Jenna, folding his arms around her shaking body.
He held her tight. Her clothes had been splattered with blood from the snake. He took her hand and led her away, back to where they had left their belongings.
Alex couldn’t even imagine the horror. It would have horrified him. He had seen snakes, come close to an alligator, caught a disease, but the thought of that snake, especially it wrapping around her, was more terrifying than facing Cumberland’s cannon. And she would not have undergone the experience if it were not for him.
He ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She leaned against him. His head lowered and he touched her face with his lips, first around her eyes, then across her cheeks. He knew his own hands were shaking and not from the disease that had so invaded his body.
His heart cracked as she looked up at him, her blue green eyes slightly glazed, her legs unsteady.
It had been involved before. He’d liked her, admired her, wanted her. Yet she hadn’t breeched the barriers he’d erected against caring and letting someone care about him. Now they were crumbling like a riverbank in a flood. She walked into trouble. She ran into danger. She waltzed into disaster. She’d done it all for him.
Dear God, how he wanted to protect her. How was he going to do that in the pitiful state he was in? The blow to the snake had been luck. Luck driven by desperation such as he’d never known before, not even the Culloden. He couldn’t do it again. Right now, he wondered how he was even keeping on his feet.
She felt so good in his arms. So right. She tasted like heaven as his lips dusted her face with featherlike kisses.
He swayed. Weakness buckled his legs, folded him to the ground, taking Jenna with him. He moved so she would land on top of him. When her gaze met his, the glazed look was gone. Instead, a trace of mischief sparkled in those startling eyes. “We are a good pair,” she said. “Neither of us can stand.”
Pair. It had a seductive sound to it. Seductive in more ways than one. He moved slightly, turning her around.
She seemed suddenly to be aware of her own appearance, the blood and grime of the jungle on her clothing. And of his own sorry state. “Did I hurt you when I landed on you?”
“Nay, lass. Not in that way.”
She looked down at her clothes. “I should wash.”
“Aye.”
“You, too,” she said.
Only then did he realize he hadn’t escaped the blood.
“I did not know there were snakes that big.”
“I have heard of them,” he said, “but I have never seen one until now.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He shrugged. “If I hadn’t killed it, one of the others would have.” But the rawness in his voice belied his shrug. So did the hand that clasped hers. “You can still wait for the British …”
She put a finger to his mouth. “Nay. I have cast my lot with you even if you … do not want me.”
Do not want me. If she only knew.
He could not let her go. He should. But he couldn’t. Dear God, she had come so close to dying.
His hand brushed her hair back from her face, resting for a moment on her cheek.
“Senhorita?” The priest had returned.
She moved then, rolling over and sitting up in one movement.
“We have brought you some water to wash,” the priest said.
“It will take a great deal.”
“Sim, for both you and the senhor.”
“No more snakes?” she asked.
“I think not,” he said in his broken Spanish. “Perhaps next time you should not go so far.”
“I did not go very far at all.”
“In this forest, even a few steps can be too many, senhorita.”
He stooped beside Alex, a twinkle in his eyes. “But I sense everything is now all right.”
Alex did not think so at all. He thought of the other snakes in the forest, the alligators in the river, the flesh-eating fish, the “bad air” illness he had. He did know one thing. If they ever reached the Ami, he would make sure he never stepped foot in Brazil again. He had aged twenty years in the last few moments.
She reached for one of the jugs of water Tomas had brought them and tore off a piece of her trousers. She wiped her face clean, then tore off another piece and did the same for him. Alex knew he should move away, or insist that she use all the water for herself, but her touch was so light, the gesture so tender, he could not move, could not resist, could not say nay. He was so tired. The cycle of fever, chills, and shakes had been gone for longer than at any time since its onset, but he was still infernally weak.
It was dark when Jenna finished. Mickey and the bandeirantes had made repeated trips to the river for water, then disappeared while she changed into a dress and washed the sailor’s clothing she’d been wearing. She hung them up on a branch and hoped they would be dry the next day. She did the same with Alex’s shirt.
She saw only shapes. They had
no fire because smoke might lead any pursuers to them. Her eyes had become accustomed to the deep gloom of the forest where there was only a glimpse of a moon and a few stars directly overhead.
She’d needed to keep busy to keep from thinking about what had happened earlier. She could still feel the tightness around her body, the horror of the snake.
Jenna did not want to be alone. Physically alone. Even the presence of seven men nearby did nothing to ease the trembling despite her attempts to ignore it. She did not want anyone else to see how frightened she was. How frightened she still was. She did not think she would ever regard this forest benignly again.
She moved next to Alex. But she couldn’t reach out again. She had been rebuffed before. He had taken her in his arms, but that was in reaction. Now he’d had time to build his defenses again.
And she did not want his pity.
Still, she needed the sense of safety she always felt with him. To her surprise, he pulled her close to him. He didn’t say anything. He just held her close.
The trembling subsided. The horror started to fade.
She felt safe again.
But for how long?
Chapter Twenty-six
She screamed. The snake was twisting itself around her, tightening its body and squeezing the breath out of her. She flailed out, but it just kept wrapping around her.…
Her hand were seized, imprisoned. Her panic intensified until she heard soft murmurings and felt lips touching her face.
“It’s all right, love.” She heard the softness of his words, felt his protectiveness as he wrapped his arms around her. His body tightened against hers.
He was shirtless, and her hands reached out for him, touching the warmth of his skin. He was alive. She was alive, and she needed to feel every bit of that life. She was completely clothed, yet their bodies sought each other even through the layers of cloth. She felt him growing hard beneath his trousers and her body remembered how he had felt weeks ago in Martinique. Heat puddled inside her.
Despite his body being weakened by the illness, his warmth and need comforted her, even as it sparked fires inside. His lips caressed her face, then her lips, and they were clinging together, both with their own need. If she hadn’t been fully clothed …
But she was, and he was weakened from his illness, and there were other people around and …
The passion was there, the need was there, the celebration of being alive. He parted his lips and she parted hers, and his tongue began a lazy seduction. Her fingers played with his back and she felt him grow rigid.
She wanted him. She needed him even more.
Their kiss deepened, his lips rough and demanding and as desperate as her own. She wanted to whisper that she loved him, but she feared that would cause him to move away, and she did not want that. She wanted him with her, against her. In her. She wanted his heat and passion and power.
Her body pressed closer to his.
Then nothing mattered, not the other sleeping bodies in the clearing, nor the silent guardian who was sitting on an incline, watching the river. Not the future nor the past. Nothing mattered except Alex.
Under the rough blanket, she unbuttoned his trousers, and felt him pull up her dress and the one petticoat she wore. She wasn’t wearing a corset. She moved closer to him.
His fingers fondled and teased, and then he entered her. It wasn’t the wild, exultant joining of weeks ago, but there was an intensity as well as gentleness that bespoke of care and longing and sweetness. She swallowed her sounds of pleasure and rejoiced in the living and belonging and in the tenderness evident in his every touch. She felt his seed flowing through her, the warmth of it, and then the shudders of pleasure.
He fell back and she snuggled next to him, her head on his chest, where she heard the sound of his heartbeat as she slowly fell asleep.
The sun woke Alex. His arms were still around Jenna and she was sleeping. He wanted to brush hair from her eyes but he did not want to wake her.
She’d had a bad night. She’d awakened screaming, her hands batting at him. No, not at him. At the snake. He had calmed her, murmured soft words in her ear, comforted her. And then … then …
She had finally gone to sleep again. His body had continued to respond to her closeness. He swore at himself. She was too vulnerable.
So was he.
He was her refuge now. Perhaps she was his, too. He hadn’t wanted it. He had not even expected it. Yet somehow she had become more important to him than any person before. He had loved his family, doted on his younger sister, cared deeply about the children he’d found, but he’d never felt one with anyone before. Jenna had, quite simply, become part of his heart and soul.
But was that the best thing for her? It was, he knew now, the best thing for him.
He felt her stir, then she opened her eyes and gave him a sleepy smile. “Thank you,” she said quite formally, even as she stretched out and part of her body rubbed against part of his. He felt himself responding again.
He was better. No fever. No chills. He swallowed hard, afraid to really hope they might be gone for good. He knew, though, that the British were not gone, nor were they likely to be.
He had to get Jenna to safety. To the Ami, and then they would find a haven.
He smelled something roasting and looked around. A small fire was blazing. It was covered by a wood brace and leaves to dilute the smoke. Pieces of meat had been skewered over the flames.
He brushed hair from her face—it had worked itself loose from the braid she wore—and straightened her clothing as best he could.
He ran his hand down her arm. “You are going to be hot.”
“I planned to wear the trousers again,” she said. “Perhaps they are dry now.” Her eyes lit in a face colored by the sun. “I’m beginning to discover the advantages of being a male. I will truly hate to go back to wearing dresses and corsets and stockings and petticoats.”
She was making light of yesterday. He grinned. “You look a lot better in trousers than most men.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Really?”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Really,” he confirmed.
“I must look terrible. My hair … my face. My mother said ladies always protected their faces.”
“And they look pale and unappealing,” he said.
She looked surprised. But then she always had when he’d offered a compliment. Now he wished he’d offered more. He suspected she had received very few.
But now was no time to linger. Tomas was tending the fire. The priest had piled up everything else, other than their clothing, near the clearing’s edge. They were obviously ready to go, and were lingering only to eat. Alex took his arms from her and sat up. “I think they are ready to go as soon as we eat,” he said.
She rose, her dress wrinkled and soiled, partly, he knew, because of their lovemaking last night. She looked at the meat on the fire and wrinkled her nose in a way he remembered. Snake! Nothing was wasted here. He wondered whether she could eat it.
She looked toward the forest, her eyes clouding. She needed another moment of privacy, and he understood completely. “This time I’m going with you,” he said.
She appeared to consider which would be the worst: the lack of modesty or being in the forest alone. The latter won. She nodded.
He leaned toward her, speaking so softly she knew no one else could hear. “I will never ever let anything happen to you.”
How could he do that if he abandoned her once they reached the coast and the Ami?
She asked no questions, though. Instead, she took the clothes hanging on a branch, investigated them thoroughly, then headed for a tree. More than a week on land, and she still had the lolling gait of a seaman.
He longed for the rolling deck of a ship, for the new, fresh breeze and skies unshielded by trees so thick you felt you could not breathe.
He followed and when she stopped, he gazed around, looking for anything that might present a danger. He sa
w nothing. He nodded his head, then turned around, averting his gaze. Other than a monkey jumping from one tree to another, their movements seemed to have stilled all other living creatures.
Then she was next to him and she held out her hand to him. He looked at it for a moment, then took it and held her close. She touched his cheek. “The illness has gone away.”
“For the moment,” he said. “The priest said it can come back at any time. It could even hide for years, then recur.” He heard the emptiness in his own voice.
She looked at him. “I love you,” she said simply.
He stilled. A muscle jerked in his throat. He’d known it. He knew she was not the kind of woman who would sleep with a man unless she did. Or thought she did. He’d kept telling himself it had only been the danger and adventure. He could do that no longer.
“You should despise me,” he said. “You never would have been in such danger yesterday were it not for me. You wouldn’t be in this place.”
“I came here on my own,” she said simply as she pressed her fingers to his mouth to quiet his self-condemnation. “I make my own decisions.”
“You did not make them when I took your ship.”
“Nay. But all the others were mine.”
“I am a wanderer, lass.”
“It may be that I am, too.”
“It has been only a few months. Being a fugitive becomes old. You do not make decisions. Decisions are made for you.”
“There are places to go.”
“Not now.”
“Aye. I have heard that the American colonies are a vast place. You can get easily lost.”
“You also need a sound body.”
“I think you have a very sound body,” she said with a smile.
He grinned despite himself. She kept surprising him. She would never be boring. Or predictable.
“You see what you want to see.”
“I see someone who can do whatever must be done,” she said. “Someone with honor and courage and strength. Burke said you could have escaped Scotland long before you did if you had not continued to pick up children.”
The Diamond King Page 33