She said it with such self-importance that Jack wanted nothing more than to toss her off his ship on her delightful little rear. On the docks, when he’d watched her saunter away, those delicious hips had swung with unmistakable feminine allure—not to mention a cockiness that surpassed the egotism of most men. He had nearly laughed when she’d realized she’d abandoned her purse. The expression on her face when she’d spun to face him had been worth the wait.
Lovely little vixen.
Reluctantly Jack accepted her handshake, though he couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm from his voice. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure, Miss Vanderwahl?”
His body stirred, an unwelcome reaction to the warmth of her hand in his own. It was the same response he’d had when faced with her on the docks, despite that she’d looked at him with utter revulsion. He didn’t particularly enjoy his lack of control. He preferred to choose the women to whom he was attracted.
Arrogant little brat.
“I would like to buy passage aboard your...” She glanced about, wrinkling her nose. “... ship.”
Her obvious lack of appreciation for the historical vessel Jack had procured and then spent long hours laboring to repair, provoked him. “Would you now?”
He didn’t need the distraction of a woman aboard his ship. Particularly when she was the first to attract him in far, far too long.
She nodded, resolute. “Yes, indeed, I would! And I am prepared to offer you a substantial sum for it.” She cradled the conspicuous purse, rocking it in her arms.
“Are you?” Jack asked, and then without ceremony went on, “What the hell for? We’re not on a pleasure cruise, Miss Vanderwahl, and neither are we some poor little rich girl’s private yacht to be paraded into the harbor of her choosing!”
“Mr. MacAuley!” she protested. “There is absolutely no need for such rudeness! I would hardly have mistaken this ship for either, I can assure you!”
“The answer is no,” Jack said, dismissing the proposal without discussion. He turned and walked away, leaving Kell to deal with her.
He didn’t want her around.
Period.
He could tell right off she was trouble. She’d turn his ship upside down faster than a monsoon. He turned to climb down the ladder to the lower deck to find her standing there, hands on her hips, her purse swinging from her hand.
“You can’t say no yet!” she informed him rather indignantly. “I haven’t even given you my offer!”
“I can, and have,” he said resolutely, and dropped down to the lower deck so he couldn’t see her.
He heard Kell’s chuckle and stifled an expletive when he glanced up to find she was peering down at him. “Three thousand dollars!” she exclaimed. “I’ll give you three thousand, Mr. MacAuley!”
“No.”
He wasn’t going to waver.
She had a lot of nerve asking him for help when her fiancé was the bane of his existence and her father was Penn’s deuced ally.
Jack didn’t want any part of any of them.
“Five thousand!”
Jack stooped to enter the mess hall, ignoring her.
The ship had been refurbished so that its two previous levels had been made into three. The lower deck housed the kitchen, the cook’s office and chamber, the mess hall, two officers’ quarters, the captain’s dining area and cabin. The bottommost level was used predominantly for storage, and also housed four smaller cabins, in which Jack wondered how any grown man could sleep much less stand or piss. Everyone else would sleep in the mess hall, in hammocks that hung from the ceiling and would be put away each morning. It was a primitive arrangement but it would do just fine.
Still, it was cramped quarters below, and Jack foresaw a permanent backache maneuvering the lower decks. Only the kitchen and captain’s dining area and cabin had any real comfort to them—comfort meaning a man could actually stand upright.
He heard her feet drop on the polished wood, and then her dainty footsteps followed behind him. He rolled his eyes.
“I’ll give you five thousand dollars!”
“I heard you the first time and I don’t need your money, Miss Vanderwahl.”
He heard a thump, and presumed it was her head as she entered the mess hall. It was a low ceiling.
“Ouch!”
“Watch your head,” he warned too late, and kept walking. He couldn’t suppress a grin as she cursed softly in his wake—a very unladylike gesture that for all its vulgarity sounded absolutely adorable.
“It looks to me as though you do need my money!” she countered, sounding quite determined.
Jack clutched the rung of the ladder that led to the captain’s dining room, ready to hoist himself up.
“Wait, please!”
She sounded almost frantic now.
“Please listen to me, Mr. MacAuley!”
Why the hell should he?
He climbed halfway up, then stopped. Neither her father nor his committee had ever listened to a word he’d spoken in their presence. He didn’t have to listen to a damned thing his daughter had to say. Still, curiosity made him linger.
“I’m desperate, Mr. MacAuley! Please!”
He peered down at her, tilting her a curious glance. “Desperate?”
“Yes, please!” she begged, and Jack found he liked the sight of her down there, her cheeks rosy and her eyes smoldering up at him like molten gold. She had a hand to her forehead, rubbing it gently, as though soothing a wound. She had, in fact, whacked her head, and he might have been concerned, except that she was as full of fire as she had been on the docks. Contemptuous, spirited—no, passionate—and desperate, her own word.
The question being why was she desperate?
“You have a knot on your head, Miss Vanderwahl.”
She covered her forehead daintily with her hand. Her brows knitting. “How kind of you to point that out.”
Why did she want passage and why did she choose Jack?
“I do believe it’s going to bruise,” he taunted her, thinking she must be vain to be so bloody beautiful. Those lips made him crave the taste of her. “A nice fat bruise, deep purple maybe.”
“Really, Mr. MacAuley!”
She scowled up at him but held her tongue, and Jack had to smile because he knew she was struggling to keep her temper. She couldn’t hide the fire in her eyes, however. He could swear they were glowing.
Saucy chit.
She really was desperate, it seemed.
“Why?” he persisted. “Why my ship, Miss Vanderwahl?”
She cocked her head backward a bit, looking as though she were suddenly at a loss for words.
“Why?” she echoed, looking stupefied.
“Yes, that’s what I want to know ... why?”
“W-well,” she stammered, “why not?”
He started back up the ladder.
“Wait! You are bound for the Yucatan, are you not?” Jack had the fleeting suspicion that Penn might have sent her to spy on them. He wouldn’t put it past the idiot. Someone had been checking up on them, and Penn had made his name by stealing the theories and grants of others—Jack’s in particular.
He stopped, looking down once more. “My destination isn’t a secret, Miss Vanderwahl.”
“Yes, yes I know ... I know ... but you just don’t understand.” She pressed her hand to her head, and her expression turned pitiful. “I simply must go with you!”
“Must you?”
“Yes! You see, I can’t stand being away from Harlan so long, and I think I will die if I don’t see him soon!”
Irritation welled up inside him.
The last thing Jack needed just now was a spoiled little rich girl who was missing her fiancé—particularly when that fiancé had stolen grants right from under his nose, grants Jack had worked hard to win.
Harlan Penn had worked with him one year, had been privy to all Jack’s research. Jack had just about had a grant pinned down, had worked hard to woo the powers-that-be, and then Harlan
had run to them, twisting Jack’s research, both against Jack and for himself, snatching the grant money Jack had been waiting for right out from under his nose. Before Penn’s interference, Jack’s theories had been deemed “bold and innovative, free thinking.” Afterward, Jack had been named a blasphemous charlatan, and accused of wanting nothing more than press. Penn had known just what to say to turn their heads. He had plucked out bits of radical summations from Jack’s theories and used them against him, his only counterevidence being conventional theology, and then had walked away with the rest, using it as his own.
“I’ll give you seven thousand dollars!” she exclaimed. “Seven thousand dollars and the first thousand is right here!” She thrust her purse at him.
So that’s why she’d been looking so smug; the damned thing was filled with bribe money. Everyone had his price, and she thought his would be mere money.
“I’ve taken the liberty of opening an account for you at my bank,” she continued presumptuously, “and I can deposit the remainder at once!”
Damn her, it was tempting.
But he wouldn’t carry the little fool to her own funeral, much less to exchange spit with the man he most held in contempt.
Everybody knew, it seemed, except his china doll fiancée and puppet father-in-law-to- be, that Harlan Penn used his academia as a convenience. The man no more took his studies seriously than he did his fiancée. He had accompanied Jack on his first trip to the Yucatan, and Penn had spent most of the time entertaining women in his tent rather than working. Penn was lazy and oversexed, in tune only with his own pleasures. Jack had felt sorry for the fiancée Penn never spoke of. It had been obvious to Jack, even then, that it was Maxwell Vanderwahl’s fortune to which Penn was so intent to be married.
Still, it irked him that she could toss around money so easily when he had paid out of his own pockets nearly every cent he had for this meager little ship. He’d had to scrounge so deep into his personal finances that he hadn’t even had money enough for all the extensive repairs the ship needed. Most of his crew were volunteers as committed to their expedition as he was, scholars, not seamen, who cared enough about their journey to put little things like comfort and pay aside.
“Let me get this straight... you want me to take you to the Yucatan because you miss your boyfriend so much that you can’t live without him?”
Something like fury flashed in her eyes, but the expression was so fleeting that Jack had to wonder if he had seen it at all.
“Yes,” she replied firmly.
“No!” Jack exploded. “Ask your daddy for a ride!” He dismissed her once and for all, hoisting himself up the ladder, muttering about the overconfidence of men—and women—with money. He’d like to build a bonfire and burn every last bill.
“You don’t understand!” she cried, and he could hear the ladder creak under her slight weight. He made a note to fix the thing before someone took a nasty spill. “My father wouldn’t let me go!”
Jack spun on her, giving her his fiercest glare, hoping it would scare her away. She was nearing his cabin, and in his present mood, he’d just as soon tell her yes, drag her into his bed, and seduce the haughtiness out of her.
In fact, he’d almost enjoy doing that only to get back at her weasel of a fiancé. But he liked to think he was a better man than that.
He liked to think so, but damned if those pouting lips weren’t begging to be kissed. Had Harlan ever even kissed her? Jack, in fact, wasn’t a gentleman. He hadn’t been born to seasoned manners and cultured words. He and Kell had both come from a different world than hers.
“Maybe your daddy isn’t so brainless after all,” he suggested.
“I beg your pardon!”
“Poor little rich girl... you should listen to your papa!”
She hesitated just a moment and then lifted herself onto the lower deck. “That really isn’t a very nice thing to say!” she reproached him.
Jack stood there staring at her in disbelief, and had to restrain himself from taking her into his arms, kissing her brutally, teaching her a bloody lesson for following strange men practically into their bedrooms.
She stood facing him without backing down, without fear, and he thought she was either stupid or truly desperate—the sort of desperate that made you truly stupid.
She reached out and touched his arm tentatively, but Jack could feel the plea in the barest touch. “Mr. MacAuley. Please, you don’t understand how important this is to me. Please... please… ”
Jack wavered suddenly, seeing the sincerity in her eyes.
Penn didn’t deserve such loyalty. He didn’t deserve the passion so apparent in her resolve.
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars,” she offered, and he knew that she had reached her limit. There was, for a moment, fear in her eyes while she waited for his answer. “This is possibly the most important thing I have ever done in my life!” she appealed to him. “Please... I will make myself useful. I will do anything you say ... please ...”
Damn it all to hell!
If Sophia Vanderwahl wanted to squander good money to spend two weeks spewing her guts out over a ship’s rail, who was he to stop her?
Jack might be principled, but he sure wasn’t stupid. He could use the money, and his crew could use some pay.
“All right, damn it!” he said, and grumbled after.
Her eyes lit up.
With the light shining down on them from above through the nets, her eyes looked almost like nuggets of gold, with specks of green.
Beautiful.
“Oh my! Did you really say yes?” She clapped her hands together joyfully.
Jack was going to sorely regret this, he could tell already, and he’d be damned if he’d let her dripping enthusiasm dampen his irritation, so he said sternly, “Be here before four P.M. tomorrow, packed and ready to go, or we leave without you!”
She shrieked so loudly Jack winced at the sound, and then she hurled herself at him with the force of a cannonball.
The feel of her body pressed to his sent a jolt through him. He let her hold him as she laughed with glee, not daring to touch her. He kept his hands outstretched, his senses reeling.
“I’m already packed!” She jumped up and down, hugging him happily, her arms going about his neck, choking him. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! You won’t regret this! You won’t! I promise!”
He already did.
With every little leap of joy, he could feel her nipples, aroused with excitement, clear through her dress. The sensation tortured him mercilessly.
He stared up through the nets, trying to get hold of himself, holding his breath, trying not to notice anything at all... not her sweet feminine scent or the mint of her breath ... especially not the sudden burst of heat in his groin ... and saw Kell peering down at them.
The bastard was grinning.
CHAPTER 5
It was going to be a long voyage.
Sophie dragged what Jack would allow of her baggage down one ladder and up another. She peered up through the netting at clear blue skies and white billowing sails and wondered irately why she couldn’t have just removed the netting and tossed down her luggage rather than tow it after her up and down ladders.
He hadn’t even bothered to help her, merely carried on with his work, and even if she was feeling just a wee bit grateful that he’d refused to allow her to bring aboard three more pieces, she wasn’t about to relinquish her annoyance.
He’d placed her in a tiny cabin near his own that was barely big enough to sleep in. One couldn’t even stand upright in it. Nor could one wash within it, or do the necessary. Absolutely primitive!
Sophie thought perhaps he’d been hobnobbing with savages far too long.
The water closet, for example, was disgraceful. It was no more than two donut-shaped seats on the fo’castle that hung out over the side of the vessel. Really, what did they expect her to do? Hoist up her skirts in full view of his crew and let it rain down on the little fishies in the sea
? The very notion made her shudder. Men were absolutely shameless.
However, she was determined to make the best of the situation. She began to whistle a merry tune, telling herself that she would make do, that she would not complain, because she had promised to do nothing that would make him regret his decision—but mostly because they weren’t so very far out from shore, and she wouldn’t put it past Jack MacAuley to toss her overboard and make her swim back. He was that rude.
So she tried to whistle as she made her quarters more comfortable, giving it as much of a homey feel as she possibly could. She couldn’t quite manage a tune, because she didn’t really know how to whistle. It wasn’t seemly for a lady to whistle, her mother said, and of course Vanderwahls never did anything unseemly.
Removing her portrait of Harlan from her suitcase, she set it on a small shelf at her bedside—not because she adored him so much that she couldn’t live without his image, but because it served as a reminder of her mission ... and because she’d hidden his letter in the back of it. She didn’t want it out of her sight.
She was going to get satisfaction from him if it was the last thing she did. Harlan was a rotten louse, and she wasn’t going to rest until she gave him a piece of her mind—not until she had the pleasure of seeing him wretched at the thought of losing her father’s money.
She had completely misjudged him. She had thought him an honorable man.
Suddenly feeling the urge to draw, Sophie retrieved her pencil and pad from her baggage. She couldn’t go anywhere without it. Somehow, it was as essential to her as breathing. She sat back on the cot and began to draw.
She’d hoped Harlan would love her—as her grandfather had loved her grandmother. Her own parents were merely tolerant of each other, partners certainly, but confidants ... or lovers... she didn’t think so. They traveled together often, but rarely told the same tales on their return, and Sophie had long ago surmised that the only time they spent together on those extended trips was the time spent en route.
She sighed at the thought, but hardly blamed her father. Her mother had always been a trifle overbearing. As their only child, Sophie had been expected to behave as an adult from the instant she had been able to walk and talk. Her mother had allowed nothing less.
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