Almost Yours (Ladies of Scandal Book 3)

by Hilly Mason

  Knowing that Roger was in the tavern with the rest of the men, Isla went to the kitchen and took a one of the fish that had been caught that morning and carried it with her to the cargo hold.

  Golden was already whining to her when she walked over to her cage. Isla slipped the fish through the bars and crouched down to watch as the cat devoured her meal.

  “Just a little while longer, and then you’ll have all the room to run around,” she assured the lion, hoping it was true.

  “You’ve made a really terrible mistake.”

  Isla turned around. In the dim lighting that shone through the still-opened door she saw Mark. He was standing with two other men. One of the men closed the door to the cargo room and pushed a large crate in front of it.

  Isla stood up quickly. “Ye don’t have to do this,” she said, her heart beating fast. She could probably knock out a man, despite her injured shoulder. But three of them?

  There was nowhere to run. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck and behind her shirt. As she took a step back, she felt the iron bars press against her backside, but Golden was silent behind her. She could feet the cat’s hot breath against her skin.

  A sudden loud pounding on the door made her jump. Was it Jack? she wondered hopefully. Does he know I’m down here?

  “Is it the prize money ye want? I’ll gladly give it to ye.”

  “I’m not the whore in the room. I don’t want the money.” Mark said. He spit on the floor between them. “Ye played me for a fool out there, ye ken? I think it’s time to show ye your place, as it seems no one else has.”

  “It would be stupid to kill me,” Isla told him. “It’s not like ye can run away afterward. We’re on a bloody ship!”

  Mark shrugged. “We’ll just say ye fell overboard, it’s as simple as that.”

  Isla’s body grew cold, but anger flared in her heart. Like hell this was going to happen! Her hands fluttered by her side and grasped the cold, hard iron of the cage. The peg was firmly in place to shut the lion in, but it wouldn’t take too much for her move it. She wrapped her fingers around the peg and pulled.

  “And I will play ye for a fool again,” she told the man and then sidestepped out of the way just as Mark lunged for her. The door swung open as Mark stumbled. Isla saw the grey shadow of the cat lunge towards the man, catching him by the neck as he fell to the ground.

  The two other men cursed loudly. They tripped over each other as they stumbled for the door, pushed the crate aside, and escaped. Isla squinted as a stream of light burst into the cargo room and illuminated Golden, her great maws still clutching Mark’s limp body like a doll.

  Jack rushed into the room. And although she wouldn’t admit it to a single soul, she felt relieved to have him there with her.

  “Isla,” he said, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting she heard him draw an intake of breath. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Golden, enough,” Isla said, and the cat dropped the man and walked backwards to stand next to the woman. Isla crouched beside the supine man and checked his pulse. Mark was covered in blood, but his heart was still beating. She didn’t want to carry the burden of carrying a man’s death with her forever, no matter how terrible the man was.

  “See,” she said to Jack. She felt almost hysterical. “I told you I can take care of myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “They locked me in here,” Isla explained, her heart still pounding. A bubble of laughter rose in her throat. “They got upset that I won the fight. But they didn’t know what was coming for them.”

  Golden nuzzled her side. She noticed how Jack stood a good four feet away from them, obviously wary of the giant beast.

  The commotion brought several other men into the cargo area. Some of them cursed when they saw Golden and backed away.

  “This man attacked me,” she told them. “And two other men.” She didn’t get a good look at the other men, regrettably. They could be any of the men standing in the cargo room and as God as her witness she would figure out who they were.

  Once the confusion died down a few sailors administered Mark’s wounds, tied him in fetters, and led him away.

  Another man came near Golden to help put her in the cage, but the cat snarled at anyone who tried to get near her, save for Isla, and to a lesser extent, Jack.

  “She’s miserable in her cage,” Isla told the men. “She’s staying with me.”

  The sailors glanced at one another. “Uh, Isla?” Jack began.

  She turned around swiftly towards him. “What is it?” she said coldly. Beside her, the lion growled.

  He closed his mouth and shrugged. “Nothin’.”

  “Damn right,” she muttered.

  The other men didn’t appear to want to argue, especially after witnessing what the lion had done to Mark. Isla hoped she had caused permanent disfigurement.

  She walked with Jack back to their cabin. Golden trailed behind them, a silent shadow in the night.

  “After today, I just want to curl up on my bed and go to sleep,” she announced as she opened their cabin door. She turned around to the lion. “Be a good lassie and stay outside and watch over us,” she told Golden.

  “When the captain hears word that there’s a lion loose on his ship, he’ll tell you to put her back in her cage.”

  “Well, I’ll wait ‘til then,” Isla said reasonably. “But until then she’s staying with me.”

  After entering the cabin, she shrugged out of her ruined shirt and started brushing her hair from its messy braid.

  “You’re bleeding,” Jack remarked.

  Isla looked down at her hands. The skin on her knuckles had been torn from her fight with Mark. The cuts must have reopened while she was in the cargo hold. She opened and flexed her fingers, making sure she had some use from them.

  Jack grabbed the bottle of leftover brandy and poured the alcohol on a small towel. “Hold out your hands.”

  “I can do this myself.”

  “Don’t care.” He had seen her forget about bumps and cuts before. It was obvious that she only thought of them as a mild annoyance. But he wasn’t about to let these scrapes become infected out in the middle of the Atlantic.

  He pressed the cloth against her knuckles. He felt her wince, but she didn’t pull away as he continue to clean her wounds.

  “Y’know, after all these years fighting, I’ve never actually been in a real fight.” Her voice was shaking, and she was struggling to smile.

  “I should have been there with you.”

  “Ye can’t be everywhere at once.” Isla said to him. “Besides, I was able to take care of it.” She paused as she watched Jack skillfully wrap clean linen bandages around her knuckles. When finished, he turned to pour himself a drink of water. “Did you feel anything at all when you killed someone?” she suddenly asked.

  She jumped as the pitcher of water crashed to the ground, the ceramic breaking into shards.

  “Of course I felt somethin’,” Jack finally said as he bent down to clean up the pieces. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Isla whispered. “If you don’t want to hear me speak, just tell me to shut my mouth. I’ll understand. Sophia tells me to button my lips all the time.” She got down on her knees and started helping him.

  He seemed to relax a bit. “Let me do that. No, I like hearing you talk.”

  “You do?”

  Jack looked up at her and nodded. She was giving him a peculiar look, staring at him directly in his eyes. Then, her gaze traveled down to the scar on his chest, revealed by his loosely fitted shirt.

  Jack quickly turned his head away as he mopped up the spilled water with a towel. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head as though to clear it.

  “I suppose nobody will try to attack me now that I have a lion on the other side of my door,” she remarked.

  “I’ll try to find the two other men.”

  “Good luck,” Isla muttered. “
They ran like they knew where to hide.” She cocked her head, noticing something on the ground underneath her bed, and walked over to it.

  “What is this?” Isla asked, fishing the thing out. She was holding a brown leather journal that Jack had purchased in New York several years ago. He had his initials branded on the front, JTA. It was thick with many pages, and he was already three-fourths of the way finished with it.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, and then reached out to try to grab it away from the woman.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Isla said, pulling the book back out of his reach. “I’ve talked a lot about myself, yet I barely ken a damn thing about ye. I have a feeling it’s all within the pages of this book. Am I right?”

  “You can read it if you wish. It’s just scribbles and notes.”

  “Oh really?” She opened to the front page and began to read quietly.

  Jack waited in agony. It felt as though he were standing in front of her, naked. More so, it felt like she was peering into his very soul. Yet he barely made any effort to stop her. Did that mean he actually wanted her to read his thoughts?

  It was a dangerous thing he was doing. He had planned to distance himself from the woman so it would be easier for them to go their separate ways once they reached Philadelphia. But the gnawing guilt of not telling her the truth was constant.

  He was almost ready to tell her. After all, they were well on their way to America. The ship wasn’t going to turn around for her if she commanded it…

  “So your brother’s wedding was held in his wife’s village in Canada?” Isla asked suddenly, breaking his thoughts. “I’m sure that was very exciting to witness.”

  “It was. My brother and his wife are very much in love.” Poor Aki was probably devastated that her husband was in jail. He hoped she was safe from anyone who would try to seek revenge over what Milton had done.

  “Their story sounds romantic.”

  “Perhaps it would be if Milton hadn’t did what he did,” he said bitterly.

  “Is she in danger now?

  “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  She continued to read his journal until the tallow candle was about spent. She asked him about his journeys, from his dangerous travels from Philadelphia to New York, and then all the way to Canada, trading beaver pelts along the way. The most dangerous opponent, as he had written about, was the weather. Nothing had prepared them for the brutally cold winters, and if it hadn’t been for Aki’s family sheltering them from a terrible blizzard, he and Milton would have frozen to death.

  “You’re a great writer, Jack. Have you ever thought about submitting these into a newspaper? I believe people would enjoy reading about your adventures.”

  He never thought about anyone ever reading his work. “You think people would actually wanna read what I wrote?”

  “Definitely. This is better than most of the drivel out there, believe me. How about when we get to Philadelphia I can help ye find some papers to submit your work to?”

  “T-that would be great.” Except that he wasn’t planning to stay in Philadelphia.

  “Well, it’s settled then.” She leaned back in her bed and gave him a speculative look. “I never would have guessed ye to be a writer with so little you talk. You’re full of surprises, Lord Craig.”

  Yes, he was. If only she knew. He cleared his throat.

  “It must be uncomfortable sleeping on the ground,” she interjected. “This bed is big enough for the both of us.”

  He blinked at her. Was he hearing her correctly? “I dunno if that would be appropriate.”

  “Well, we’re married, aren’t we? At least on this ship?”

  Isla scooted to the side closer to the wall as Jack lowered himself on the bed next to her. His mass made the bed sink, causing Isla fall closer next to him, causing her to giggle.

  He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to squeeze her hand. He wanted to all of those things that expressed whatever the feeling he had that was growing inside him. Was it love? He had loved the woman since she was a girl. But it had been the innocent love of a boy and his first sweetheart. He was a man now, and didn’t believe love could happen so quickly.

  He didn’t want to believe.

  Because if this was love, then he would have to tell her who he really was. He would have to crush her heart, as well as his, and watch her leave his life forever.

  He would have to do it anyway, or he would never be able to live with himself.

  But for now, perhaps, he would enjoy the moment of having her so close to him. After all, what was another day of not telling her? Jack turned his head slightly and pressed his lips against her soft hair. Her uncanny eyes flickered up to look at him, a crooked smile on her face.

  You’re making a mistake, Craig, a nagging voice told him.

  “I’m growing quite fond of ye,” Isla murmured. She trailed her fingers along his jaw, and then ran them down his neck, where they rested on his shoulder. She snuggled against him and closed her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her slight form.

  “Do ye believe in fairies?” she murmured into his chest.

  “I dunno much about those types of things.”

  “I used to see fairies when I was a girl, but when I moved to England, I all but forgot about them. I felt them near me when those men were attacking me. I-I think they helped me.” She shook her head. “You probably think I’m mad.”

  “Nah, I don’t.”

  “But if I have fairy blood, as some people have suggested, does that make the Murrays part-fairy too?”

  He shrugged. Isla shook her head. “Aye, I dunno where I’m going with this. Jack, I know it’s just your job, but thanks for being there for me when I needed it.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Isla.”

  They lay in silence for a few minutes. He listened to the gentle creaking of the ship and started hoping that the minutes would drag into hours, and the hours into days. That the sun would never rise again and he would stay enveloped in this woman’s arms forever because it was the only thing that had felt right in his entire life.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wasn’t there something ye wanted to tell me a few days ago?”

  “It can wait.”

  “Hmm… Jack?” her voice was gradually becoming drowsier.

  “Yes?”

  “Why is it that a man’s pride gets hurt so easily?”

  He pondered that question for longer than he should have.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied.

  Chapter Eight

  He gazed at her long after she had fallen asleep. She had forgotten to braid her hair after she had brushed it and it spread out on her pillow like a fan.

  Jack rolled over on his side, but decided that it was more comfortable to face her. He open his eyes every now and then to make sure she was still there.

  He had been worried about her. For the first time, it wasn’t just his job, he had truly been worried about Isla’s safety. It made him angry to think that she was trapped in the cargo area with those men—those monsters. If something had happened to her, then he would never be able to forgive himself.

  But she proved that she did not need him, at least, not this time. She had the luck of having Golden nearby to assist her. But if the cat hadn’t been there.

  He didn’t want to think about it too much.

  Everything more or less went back to normal a few days after the incident in the cargo hold. Well, normal enough, considering Isla St. George now walked around not only with a hulking bodyguard, but with an almost fully grown lion as well.

  After Isla discreetly gave the captain a good chunk of money, he approved of the free-ranged lion, if it meant the rest of his men would behave properly. And indeed, the sailors gave Isla and her company a wide berth when she walked by.

  Yes, Isla’s self-reliance was proven, but Jack was still cautious. He was planning to find the two remaining men and put them in the rat-infested room where Mark now
rotted. He didn’t want Isla to come with him during his search, so he said nothing about it to her.

  She had told him offhandedly how one of the men might have had a scar on his face, but it also could have been the shadows of the poor lighting in the cargo hold. Ever since then, Jack kept his eyes peeled for a scarred man, but he couldn’t find him. He asked around, and nobody knew who he was talking about.

  A gust of wind suddenly blew through the ship and the vessel rocked violently, causing Jack to lose his footing and fall hard on the deck.

  “Storm’s coming in,” one man told him as Jack peered into the sky. Sure enough, ominous dark clouds were coming in fast. He cursed under his breath. The men around him seemed nervous. And he heard the word “kraken” uttered a few times.

  “Do you believe in krakens?” he asked Isla, who had joined him on his storm watch.

  Isla shrugged. “I’ve seen fairies,” she told him. “I suppose it wouldn’t be any less strange to see a giant squid, aye?” she grinned at him. “Let’s hope it doesn’t happen, though. I’d rather make it to Philadelphia rather than obtain proof of its existence.”

  “Me too,” Jack said. Just then, something caught his eye.

  “I need to go take care of something,” he said. “Will you…”

  “If you are wondering whether I’ll be fine with Golden, I am,” she reassured him. “Nobody has come close to bothering me since that one day.”

  And he hoped they never would again.

  After leaving Isla, he quietly followed a man into the kitchen. The kitchen was humid with whatever it was Roger was concocting in his cauldron. Roger gave him a startled look when Jack entered. Jack pressed his finger against his lips to silence the cook before turning towards a hallway. He thought he saw movement towards the door at the far end.

  Walking down the hallway, Jack cursed silently as he lost sight of the man. But he heard a sudden thud to his right, coming from a closed pantry. Puzzled, he opened the door slowly. He was greeted with a myriad of cooking supplies neatly stacked on the shelves, along with a large storage crate tucked near the back of the pantry. Jack walked in and pushed the crate aside, revealing an entrance for a crawlspace on the floor.