"Please come down," he begged her, ashamed at the pleading tone of his voice.
Daphne did not argue but shimmied down the tree trunk. Alexander wanted to close his eyes--or vomit--but he kept watching her as cold sweat inched down his spine. She reached a branch about six feet off the ground, then swung down by her hands and dropped the remaining distance.
When he saw her standing uninjured, briskly wiping her palms together, Alexander put his face in his hands, shivers wracking his frame.
"Dr. Murray! What is wrong with you? Do you have the fever?"
Daphne came over and stood beside him, and he grabbed her by the arms, holding her, holding on to her because he feared his own legs would crumple.
"Do. Not. Ever. Climb. Again."
Each word came out on an exhalation of air.
She looked at him like he was insane, and he knew how he acted was insane, but she did not know, she had not been there, she had never seen someone die as he had seen it happen, the blood pouring out, the body twisted and misshapen from striking the ground, the ribs and organs crushed, punctured...
"Dr. Murray, you are hurting my arms."
He released her like she was afire and stepped away from her, because if he was standing next to her he would want to grab her again and make sure she did not move out of his sight. But instead of doing what any normal, rational person would do, flee the madman, she stepped next to him and put her hand on his forehead, her own brow furrowed with concern.
"You are covered in sweat, Doctor. Are you sure you are well?"
She stood so close to him he felt the warmth of her body through her torn clothing, he saw the pulse at her throat, beating so strong, so full of life. The scent of her, a scent of woman and comfort, undisguised by perfumes or pomades, overwhelmed his senses.
He put his hands on her face, framing it, hearing the blood pounding in his ears as he pulled her to him and did what he longed to do since that night aboard ship when she smiled at him. That smile, which held all the sweetness missing from his sour life, all the warmth others received.
Her lips softened beneath his and she made a small sound, of surprise, or maybe pleasure, then her hand moved down to the back of his neck and she pulled him into her embrace.
The feeling of Daphne in his arms overwhelmed him. Her body fit his as if she'd been constructed solely for his pleasure. He moved his mouth across hers, easing her lips open and she moaned her approval, the sound reverberating in his soul. Her genuine and enthusiastic response, not the whores' practiced arts he was used to, fired his need like nothing else could. It would be so easy, so perfect to go to the next step, to pick her up and carry her into the shade at the edge of the mangroves and remove her dress.
Then the dog barked. Loudly and repeatedly.
Reluctantly, Alexander lifted his head and looked down at the bichon. It was crouched at his feet, growling, protective of its mistress.
The dog was brighter than he was. Someone had to think clearly, and it wasn't him. His emotions, so carefully tamped down for so long, were veering out of control like a runaway carriage.
He pulled himself away from Daphne, whose arm fell from around his neck as her eyes opened.
"Why did you do that?" she whispered.
"I don't know." He cleared his throat, the words sticking there because he did not want to talk, he wanted to kiss her again and discover if it was as sweet when she was not caught by surprise. He shook his head, as much to clear it as to tell himself no. "I must offer you my most sincere apologies, Miss Farnham. I do not know what came over me, to react in such an irrational fashion."
She dreamily smiled up at him, and patted his cheek. When she touched him, all he wanted to do was pull her back into his arms and finish what they'd started, a notion his unruly body was very much in favor of.
"It is all right to be irrational every now and then, Dr. Murray."
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, brushing it off his forehead.
"No, Miss Farnham. I will not lose control like that again."
"Oh."
"Do not pout, this is for your own good."
She stamped her bare foot on the sand.
"I hate it when people say that to me! Why can I not decide what is for my own good?"
"To date, Miss Farnham, you have presented little evidence that your critical thinking skills are up to this task. If we let our emotions run away with us and do what feels good, we are asking for a great deal of trouble. Right now we need to concentrate on our survival on this island."
Her head was slightly tilted as she studied him.
"I thought all sailors climbed those ropes on the ships."
"I am a surgeon, not a sailor, Miss Farnham."
"But you must have seen sailors climbing all the time without wanting to kiss them. Why are you so upset about me climb--"
"My reasons are not the issue," he interrupted her. "Do not do it again."
He was pleased at the steadiness of his voice. He needed to remember which one of them was the rational, thoughtful one, and which one was the passionate, hot-blooded, lushly curved, full-breasted...
"Doctor? Are you returning to the cabin? Oh! I found some more of our things."
She headed over to the rocks at the edge of the beach and pointed.
"See? Your jacket washed up, and one of my shoes, and some wood from the boat. I put your jacket over there in the sun."
"Thank you for that, Miss Farnham."
He was glad to have a piece of clothing back, not just for protection from the elements, but because he knew that the more he could cling to the trappings of civilized life, the more he could keep his distance from her.
Daphne walked away and he could see the glimpse of ivory skin through the back of her torn dress, and he rubbed his hand over his face.
"You go ahead. I will be up shortly," he said.
* * * *
Daphne marched up to the cabin feeling...what was that word her governess used? Disgruntled, that was it. She was definitely no longer gruntled, not after that kiss with Dr. Murray.
"Old Dr. Murray," she muttered. Ha! There was nothing infirm about that man's mouth!
The situation was bad enough before, but now that she'd kissed him, it was a whole new box of troubles. How was she supposed to sleep next to him knowing that his kisses set her blood on fire? How was she supposed to watch him parading around half-naked and not think about what it would be like if his trousers were off and he lay next to her atop the banana leaves, those skilled hands of his stroking her body.
Why, she would wager he knew things about the human body that would make him a regular virtuoso of the bedroom!
Daphne remembered a trip to a sculpture gallery in London. She'd gone with other young ladies and their beaus. The girls were more interested in flirting than art, though they "Oooohed!" over a nearly naked statue of Apollo.
It wasn't that statue that stayed in Daphne's mind. Apollo was sleek and all that was handsome, but she was entranced by a statue of Hephaestus at his forge, his brawny shoulders and broad back, arm upraised over the anvil, hands that were not delicate for handling a lyre, but corded and sinewed as they clutched a hammer.
It was a statue of a hard-working god, not an aristocratic dandy.
Pompom, oblivious to the undercurrents, trotted alongside, following her when she detoured to the pool to stick her head in the cold water.
The rest of the afternoon Daphne gathered firewood and when she made her third trip back to the campsite, there was a pile of green wood there also. No doubt Dr. "I am a natural philosopher and cannot lower myself to consort with an emotional ninny like you" Murray was doing his best to make sure they were rescued as quickly as possible.
That was a good thing, she told herself. The sooner she was back in civilization wearing proper clothes and proper hats and being courted by proper young men who knew what was important in life, the happier she would be.
Her stomach grumbled and she realized
they'd worked through luncheon, but that, too, was just fine because it meant less time sitting across from that irritating man and looking at his lips. Of course, at that moment he showed up, his hair wet and slicked back, water gleaming on his body.
She realized she was staring when he said, "I went for a swim in the ocean, then rinsed off the salt at the pool. I also rinsed my coat in the pool and as soon as it is dry I'll put it on."
He looked at her sidelong, a bit tentatively.
"Are you ready for the next step in our fish preparation, Miss Farnham?"
Since she could not maintain being angry at someone for very long, Daphne rose from where she sat on the cabin floor, dusted her hands off on her skirt and said, "What do we do next, Dr. Murray?"
He looked her full in the face at that, and seemed relieved she was not going to pitch a fit.
"Come, Miss Farnham, and bring the fish packets. Please."
She followed him out, smiling to herself over that "please." She imagined it was a word he did not offer to many people.
He took his fishing spear and carefully maneuvered the rocks away from the fire and into a nearby hole in the sand, then taking the packets of fish, placed them atop the hot rocks.
"Now, Miss Farnham, help me scoop sand over this and bury it."
She assisted him, and soon their fish were cooking beneath a pile of warm sand.
"It is like you made an oven."
Maybe he was the cleverest man in the world. Certainly he was the cleverest man she'd ever known.
"I am so glad I am castaway with you, Dr. Murray. Not that I'm glad we're castaway, but if I have to be stranded, I'm glad it's with you."
"You are the one who found the fruits and vegetables, Miss Farnham. We make a good team."
Daphne felt a warm glow spread through her chest at his words.
"We do make a good team, don't we, Dr. Murray?"
"In this we do," he said, looking at her steadily. "But you and I come from different worlds, Daphne Farnham. A ship's surgeon and a lady have little in common. In an emergency I might be called upon to treat your wounds, but I would not be welcome in your drawing room. Do not forget that, and we will muddle through this together."
His words extinguished the glow. She liked it when they were a team, working together. Even though she suspected that sometimes he was being rude to her, and other times she knew he was being rude to her, he still wanted her help. When it came to things she knew that he did not, like which vegetables were growing in the garden, he listened to her. Really listened to her, and took what she said seriously.
It may seem a small thing, to be valued for one's knowledge of turnips and pumpkins, but at the moment it meant the world to her.
He looked up at the sun through the trees.
"In about an hour, as best as I can estimate, those fish will be ready to eat."
"The eggs!"
She dashed into the cabin and came out cradling her contribution to their meals.
"Can we boil them and eat them for breakfast?"
"An excellent suggestion, Miss Farnham. I will fill the pot and put it on the fire to boil."
When he returned with the pot Daphne watched it until it boiled.
"Hah! I knew that was just a saying," she said smugly. "But how will we take them in and out of the water?"
"I believe I have the answer to that," he said. He went into the cabin and returned with a grim-looking instrument.
"Is that from your surgical chest?"
"It was not just lying around the cabin. Yes, it is from my chest." He opened and closed the device, which looked like tongs. "Crowbill forceps, Miss Farnham, used to extract bullets from hapless victims. Tonight they will be put to a much gentler use."
She shuddered at the thought of that iron tool digging around inside a human body, but in Dr. Murray's hand it looked like an extension of his arm, something he was completely at ease holding.
When he judged the eggs sufficiently boiled, he extracted them from the hot water and set them on a leaf, then sat beside her in the sand.
"There you are, Miss Farnham, breakfast. Perhaps tomorrow I will snare a bird and we will enjoy fowl for dinner."
"Oh." Daphne thought about the lovely birds winging through the air. Today she'd seen one that had the longest tail feathers ever, and Dr. Murray told her it was indeed called a longtail. It swooped and dipped over the land, soaring with a freedom she could only envy. She did not want to eat such a special creature, and said so.
"You would eat a chicken, wouldn't you?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow. He had one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee and his arm rested over that leg. He looked relaxed and younger than he usually did. She tried to remember his question.
"Well, yes, I would eat chicken, but a chicken is not beautiful. It is only a chicken."
"Ah. Then the value of a creature lies in its beauty? An interesting concept, Miss Farnham."
"You are twisting my words, Dr. Murray. And you yourself said the value of a person lay in her usefulness, so you are also a judgmental type. You are just judging by a different standard."
"That is a profound statement, Miss Farnham."
"Try not to look so surprised it came from me, Dr. Murray."
He ducked his head and she looked at him suspiciously because for a moment she thought he had smiled, but when he looked at her again his face was as composed as ever.
"We should talk about how to organize our days, Miss Farnham, to maximize our chances of rescue, and if it does not happen immediately, how to plan for our future needs."
He picked up one of the eggs and turned it over in his hand.
"I am still confident at some point someone will come to check on the cedar plantation. Until then we need to make sure we have enough food, and food of the right kind. People do best when their diets contain variety, so we want meat, vegetables, and the fruit. We need salt, but that can be obtained from the seawater. We can distill it through evaporation."
He set the egg back down.
"I do not worry about us having enough fresh air and exercise, and at this point the insects don't seem too bothersome.
"Clearly, you are in charge of our garden, Miss Farnham. What do you think can or should be done to keep it going?"
The glow returned.
"Let me think about this a minute, Doctor."
He was watching her, waiting for her answer. He did not rush her, or grow impatient with her while she hummed and thought about how to best answer the question.
Daphne cleared her throat.
"The plants are surviving untended, and that is a good thing, Doctor. It shows they're hardy. What I need to do is weed the garden, which will be difficult without a hoe, but maybe you can find me a pointed stick and I could use that. Some of the plants can be re-seeded, but I hope we will not be here long enough for it to be an issue."
"Very good, Miss Farnham. That is a task for tomorrow. In the meantime, our fish is ready."
He used his stick to push the sand away from their supper, then took the forceps and plucked the packages off the rocks and set them aside. Daphne ran into the cabin for a few bananas and some water, and when she came back Dr. Murray was snipping the vines with his knife.
"That crowbait is a handy tool, Dr. Murray."
"Crowbill," he corrected absently. "I should have thought of using it last night with the crabs."
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, opening and closing it at the hinge. She sat across from him, cross-legged, and Pompom climbed into her lap. He liked this new way of sitting. She blew on a piece of the hot fish before passing it to her pup.
"Maybe it is good to see things in a new light, Doctor. You showed me how a hairnet can catch fish and keep us from starving. Tonight you used an instrument that causes pain to help us serve supper."
He looked at her, a piece of fish halfway to his mouth.
"I believe this island sojourn is turning you into a philosopher, Miss Farnham."
"That's just silly, Doctor. Philosophers are old men with long beards."
"You will start a new fashion, Miss Farnham. Philosophers who dress in pink."
"And do not have beards."
They ate in silence, and after a few minutes Daphne said, "This fish tastes wonderful, Doctor. In fact, I do not recall fish ever tasting this good."
"Now I will wax philosophical, Miss Farnham. Your hard work today gave you an appetite, and that is the finest seasoning. This fish is very fresh, and the onions helped give it extra flavor. I imagine you eat fish in London covered in preparations from some French chef who feels compelled to demonstrate his skill and imagination with the saucepan. Sometimes, though, simple is best."
Daphne nodded in agreement.
"It is like when you braided my hair, Dr. Murray. A simple style, but practical when one is working in the garden or fishing."
Daphne wiped her hand on the edge of her skirt, then picked up the end of the braid snaking down her shoulder like a golden rope.
"It might be better if I cut it off, Doctor. Less to fuss over."
"No! I mean, there is no need for you to cut your hair, Miss Farnham. I will help you care for it."
"You don't mind helping with it?"
"Brushing and braiding your hair is not an...unpleasant activity. I do not mind."
They finished supper and cleaned up after themselves, and a long night still stretched before them. Neither mentioned going to sleep early.
Daphne felt keyed up and tense. She worked hard today, harder than she could ever remember working, and by all rights should be exhausted. But all she could think about was that kiss earlier, the one Dr. Murray regretted so much, the one opening a door she did not want opened. Daphne had been congratulating herself on resisting her own proclivities once she realized what kind of man she was stranded with--one who was beginning to resemble the hero of the gothic novels she enjoyed so much. A strong man, capable and no-nonsense. He threw more wood on the fire and by its light cared for his instruments, sharpening them, checking them for damage. There was no hesitation in his movements, his fingers caressing the cold steel as if he felt affection for these instruments of pain.
Castaway Dreams Page 15