by Gaelen Foley
Somehow it was easy to picture the intrepid little epiphyte lady taking this earl by the ear like an errant schoolboy and making him pay attention to her scientific lecture. Jack couldn’t help but wonder how she’d set London on its ear if she had half a chance—or rather, knock it on its pompous arse.
That thought nearly persuaded him to take her there just for the pleasure of watching it happen, but of course, he couldn’t risk it. He shook his head with the faint, reluctant smile.
The girl had pluck, he’d give her that, brains, too, but on top of all the usual perils of a sea journey, his secret mission was already complicated and dangerous enough. The rumor mills of London would be churning when he reappeared after such a long absence, and his many enemies would be watching for any opportunity to pounce. He had yet to meet a female who could keep her mouth shut when she had a secret to tell, and this one already knew too much—whether she realized it or not.
“I am sorry,” he said in a kinder tone, but with finality, “I honestly cannot help you.” With that, he stepped past her and strode out of the palafito.
Miss Farraday whirled around and came scrambling after him. He could hear her, though he didn’t look back.
“But I’ll tell you what I will do,” he continued before she could argue, her pattering footfalls dogging his long strides. “Have your father write to my offices in Port Royal. Send me a proposal. I’ll fund his research for…” He ran a quick mental calculation. “Eighty percent of the profits from any medicines he develops.”
She stopped following him, apparently in shock. “Eighty percent!” she cried. “Don’t you think that’s a bit high?”
“Of course it’s high.” He stepped up onto the boardwalk and sent her a knowing smile over his shoulder. “Ever heard of negotiation?”
“Negotiation,” she echoed under her breath. “Right!”
As he walked on, he heard her rushing after him again.
“So, maybe you would be willing to bring me to England if we could reach some sort of deal—”
“Now, wait one minute, that’s not what I meant.” He shot her an impatient look askance. “I was speaking in general terms.”
“Infuriating man,” she muttered under her breath as he continued down the boardwalk. “Would you stop walking away? Lord Jack? Will you please just wait?” A fair hand grabbed the crook of his arm and held on with a tenacity that would have impressed his bull-terrier, Rudy, the only living thing aside from Trahern that Jack really trusted.
“What do you want from me?” he asked wearily, turning around to face her. “You need to talk this over with your father.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’d help you if I could, but it simply isn’t safe.”
“Yes, I know, the sea is perilous, but I…I trust you.”
Her innocent gaze was nearly his undoing, a fact that vexed Jack in the extreme. “You trust me. Girl—” He scoffed, shaking his head. “You don’t even know me!” He pivoted and marched down the walkway in something of a daze, his heart pounding in time with the rhythm of his forceful strides. Lord, she had no business “trusting” him.
He certainly didn’t trust her. The chit was dangerous, aye, deadly, and he was getting the hell out of here. Before she found a way to twist him ’round her little finger.
Eden fumed as he walked away from her yet again. Was there no reasoning with the man? He simply laid down the law and expected everyone to—
Suddenly, she heard Papa and Connor hailing the servants from the far edge of camp, returning from their day’s journey just in time, naturally, to complicate matters.
Blazes!
“Edie! I say, do we have visitors? Who is that?” her father called, but she did not answer, for every second now was precious.
There was no time to explain to her obdurate papa.
She picked up her skirts and dashed after Lord Jack again, her footsteps pounding on the planks. “Papa’s come. Why don’t you stay and talk to him?”
“Jack Knight, you blackguard!” her father bellowed at that very moment from the head of the boardwalk some yards behind them. “Get the hell away from my daughter, sir, this instant!”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Lord Jack muttered sarcastically to her.
“Eden, step away from that scoundrel! That is a dangerous man!”
“Nice to see you again, too, Victor!” he called drily. “Don’t worry, I’m on my way out.”
Eden paused only long enough to shoot her father a quelling look, gesturing at him to remember his manners, and then she scrambled after her escaping guest again.
Ahead, Lord Jack smacked the palm fronds aside and marched past them. They sprang back into place like a green door swinging shut behind him.
Eden refused to be brushed off, though her hope was running thin. “So, it’s true, then,” she flung at his retreating back while his crewmen stared. “All you do care about is gold! You won’t help me simply because I can’t pay!”
“Sweetheart.” He swung around to face her with a frank leer that raked down over her body. “If you were on my ship, believe me, you would pay me back. You’d work it off, every penny. Only I don’t much think you’d like the price.”
Shocked to the core, she drew herself up in grand indignation. “You, sir, are not a gentleman.”
“You finally just figured that out?”
“Eden Farraday, get over here this instant!” her father bellowed. She glanced over angrily and saw Papa marching toward them, red-faced. “A word with you, sir!” He pointed to the barge. “What is that timber you’re hauling?”
“Uh-oh,” Eden taunted softly. “Now you’re in for it.”
Lord Jack glanced at her, sufficiently warned to brace for her father’s explosion.
Dr. Farraday took a closer look at the pile of wood. “Zebrawoods? Zebrawoods, you bloody plunderer! How dare you? Fifty years of growth, and you chop it down for a bit of filthy lucre? Damn you, sir—get away from my daughter!”
Instead of telling Papa that escaping Eden was precisely what he had been trying to do, Lord Jack took what appeared to be an intense personal insult at Papa’s order; she glanced over at him just in time to see the look of pure, bloody-minded rebellion that darkened his face.
“Get away from her, eh?” he growled under his breath. “Oh, so I’m not good enough for your daughter, is that it?” He sent her father a pirate grin and suddenly seized Eden around the waist, yanking her forward so that she crashed into his steely warm chest.
Before she could even react, his mouth swooped down on hers, hot and hard; in front of everyone, Papa and all, he plundered her lips in a brigand’s kiss.
Cousin Amelia would surely have expired on the spot. But Eden, alas, was not Cousin Amelia.
He started rough, bruising her lower lip in his unyielding haste, his scruffy jaw scraping her tender chin, but the instant she whimpered, trapped in his iron arms, his kiss softened.
Then she forgot entirely to fight. Her eyes fluttered closed, and for a few seconds, time floated on the wavering path of a butterfly.
His kiss deepened, widening her lips for the slow, exploratory stroke of his tongue in her mouth.
In the foggy distance, men were shouting, but she had traveled a thousand miles away from the chaos as Jack’s hand tangled sensuously in her hair. He gripped her nape as his mouth slanted over hers in hungry demand; her hands clung weakly to his broad shoulders. His tightening embrace crushed her breasts against his chest. But though he held her firmly, inwardly Eden was falling, falling from the highest treetop, pinwheeling weightlessly to earth like a winged seed. She was totally in his power and the pleasure in this sudden helplessness alarmed her.
He went on kissing her for several delicious seconds more, as though he had forgotten this was merely an act of defiance; she felt his earlier anger melting away. He tore his mouth away from hers all of a sudden with a breathy curse. When he released her, she stumbled, dizzy and disoriented, and would have f
allen off the dock straight into the river if he had not immediately reached for her and steadied her again.
They exchanged a shocked glance as he gripped her elbow and pulled her to safety. His eyes had darkened to a stormy slate blue. Then a rueful half smile curved his lips.
“You almost make me change my mind,” he whispered low, so only she could hear.
She noticed, then, with an appalled jolt, that they were caught up in the middle of a standoff.
Connor had arrived.
He had stopped in his tracks farther up the boardwalk and, upon seeing Jack grab her, he had reached for the rifle strapped across his back.
But when the Australian had pointed his weapon at Jack, a dozen sailors on the riverboat had instantly seized their Baker rifles and had taken aim at him in return. Papa had stepped in front of Connor, his arms spread, while Mr. Trahern screamed at his men to hold their fire.
“Good God!” Eden breathed, but Jack took control with a kingly roar: “Lower your weapons!”
His men obeyed without hesitation, but Connor kept his rifle trained expertly on Jack.
The look on Connor’s face told her that he wanted blood.
She had seen that look before, that terrible day in the forest. It was a memory she loathed more than anything.
Barely aware that she had moved in front of Jack, Eden lifted her hands in a calming gesture. “Connor, please. Put the rifle down.”
He stared at her in icy stillness: silent accusation.
Fear spiked through her when she read the fury in his eyes—as though he saw and understood just how much she had enjoyed Lord Jack’s outrageous kiss.
“Do as she says, man!” her father snapped. “Put the gun down! Are you mad?” Yes, Papa, he is, a little. Hadn’t you noticed? Eden thought.
Still poised to kill, Connor flicked a guarded glance in Dr. Farraday’s direction.
He suddenly swung the rifle back over his shoulder and sent Eden an icy stare that promised there’d be consequences later. He pivoted on his heel and left the scene without a word, but Eden had turned pale.
A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, for she knew that she would have to face him alone soon, and it appeared their protector’s patience with her had just run out.
Jack had no idea who the tedious fellow was who had aimed the rifle at his head, but he was used to people wanting to kill him, and at the moment, he was too drunk off her sweet mouth to care.
Her father was screaming at him, but Jack just stared at Eden, reeling with the unexpected bounty of her kiss, his senses thickened with desire. Those plump, silky lips were every bit as luscious as he’d briefly fantasized, and Jack wanted more, kisses down her neck and arms, kisses up her legs.
He thought of her story of orchids and trees, their sweet symbiosis, and felt the power of this woman shake him. Her unsullied, inward beauty somehow fed his soul.
True, he had wanted to taste her from the start, but he had only succumbed to the impulse to shove it in her father’s face. Victor’s words—“Get away from my daughter!”— were ones that Jack had heard before. They had flung him back to another place, another time, another girl.
The Irish bastard.
Never good enough.
“Stay away from our daughter.” Ah, that foolish chit he once had thought he loved. What would he not have done for her at seventeen? He’d have drunk hemlock to prove his love if Maura Prescott had asked him to, but she had thrown him over for a title.
It was a lesson Jack refused to forget, a mistake he would sure as hell never repeat—caring all out of proportion—but admittedly, he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for when he had taken Eden Farraday into his arms.
Her father marched over and grabbed her by her wrist, pulling her away from Jack and planting himself between them. “How dare you make a move like that on my daughter, you barbaric fiend?”
“Me?” Jack’s desire to protect her came out of nowhere, but somebody had to speak up for the girl. “What about you, keeping her here like a prisoner?” he boomed right back at him. “Jesus, man, look around you! Crocodiles, poison spiders, vampire bats! This is no place for a lady!”
“Don’t you tell me how to manage my daughter! She could survive in this jungle better than you!”
“Survival? Is that the best you aspire to provide for your child? Eyes down, you lot!” he roared at his crew when he noticed them watching as though it were a stage play. “What are you staring at? Look lively! Trahern!” he bellowed. “Get the damned boat started! We’ve got a schedule to keep!”
“Aye, sir.”
Jack turned back to Dr. Farraday, while Eden stared dazedly at him. “The girl wants out of here, and who can blame her? I can’t think how you mean to proceed, in any case, now that you’ve lost your funding.”
Victor froze, then looked at his daughter as though she were a traitor. “You told him?”
Eden faltered, apparently caught off guard, then she offered up a hapless shrug.
Her father glowered.
“Well, don’t get angry at her for it!” Jack said impatiently. “She’s the only one around here who’s got any damned sense! Victor, if you were half the genius you’re supposed to be, you would see that getting out of the Delta now is the only intelligent thing to do! Bloody hell.” Jack did not have time for this. He was irked and sweaty and insulted, himself, from Victor’s tirade, but the sweet thing looked so lost standing there that he at least had to try one possible way to help her—though nothing so foolhardy as taking her with him to England.
“Look,” Jack said gruffly, “the coast is very hot right now. I can take you all to Trinidad if you can be ready to go in three hours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Much more than that, and we risk running into the Spanish patrol boats. I would like to avoid an altercation—”
“Since when?” Victor retorted. “You’re rather famous for fighting.”
Jack gave him a stony look. “You’ll take my offer if you’re wise. Within six months, this war will be heating up in earnest. This could be your last chance to get out.”
Eden sent him a probing look.
“Never mind how I know,” he warned her before she could ask.
“For your information, we have no intention of leaving,” her father clipped out. “We do not run away from difficult situations, unlike some people.”
Jack narrowed his eyes, taking her father’s point like the tip of a dagger.
Victor kept on ranting, but Jack just shook his head and lowered his gaze. God’s bones, why was he wasting his time here? Pretty or no, Eden Farraday wasn’t his problem. If he wanted a beautiful girl of his own, he would buy one.
He gave her a hard look, but did not know what else to say. God knew, the whole picture was becoming very clear: the stubborn father who wanted his daughter by his side to look after him, and that other fellow who’d tried to blow his head off.
The blond man’s belligerent stance had announced in no uncertain terms that he had staked some kind of claim on Eden Farraday, whether she liked it or not.
Jack shook his head at her father. “You’re a damned fool,” he said pointedly to Victor, then jumped back onto the steamer and gave the order to move out.
He was instantly obeyed. His outbursts were rare, but they still left his crew walking on eggshells.
As the boat trundled away from the Farradays’ rickety jungle dock, he tried to follow his standard policy of never looking back where females were concerned, but unlike his delectable plaything from last night, Eden Farraday was not so easily forgotten.
In spite of himself, he cast a brooding glance over his shoulder and saw her still standing there, staring after him, her lovely face forlorn.
Though he looked at her without expression, he could not escape the guilty sense that he was abandoning one of his own in this place, very like a pirate captain marooning one of his crew on a desert isle for some nefarious misdeed.
Too bad,
girl. Life’s tough.
He knew that better than most.
She trusted him? He scoffed inwardly, shaken by the words. Nobody trusted him. Nobody should. He was an all-around bastard and damn proud of it.
Hardening his mutinous heart with a will, he looked ahead again toward the unforgiving sea.
“How dare you discuss our private business with him?” Papa demanded, turning to Eden as the riverboat and its burden of lumber receded into the distance. “You have no idea what manner of man he is! Jack Knight is a scoundrel and a blackguard, and whatever he’s doing here, stirring up trouble, I guarantee you he’s up to no good!”
“What, you don’t want me to mate with him, too, Father?” she answered under her breath.
“Mind your tongue!” he thundered, hearing in spite of her low tone. “His behavior here was unforgivable, and as for you, I have had quite enough of your impertinence! You are staying here with us, and that is final!”
Having laid down the law, Papa began marching away, shaking his head and muttering to himself about her mischief, his chest puffed out with parental indignance.
Tamping down her frustration, Eden called after her sire before he was out of earshot. “How did he get past the Spanish, do you suppose?”
“I’ll tell you how!” He stopped with a snort and turned around to face her. “Jack Knight cut his eyeteeth running guns and black-market brandy past Napoleon’s Continental Blockade. He’s nothing but a glorified criminal—which is why you are to forget you ever laid eyes on him! Why do you think he’s the bloody king of Port Royal? You’ve heard the stories about that town—a city of pirates and thieves!”
“If he’s so bad, then how do you know him?”
Papa gave her a dubious look, shook his head as he debated with himself, then wiped the sweat wearily off his brow. “Your aunt Cecily, in her girlhood, was a companion to Lady Maura Prescott, the young daughter of the Marquess of Griffith—Prescott is the family name. I was mildly acquainted with the girl, since my sister was constantly in attendance upon her. Arrogant chit, I always thought. At any rate, that is how I met Lord Jack. He was devoted to Lady Maura, but the two were not allowed to wed. They were very young and,” he admitted reluctantly, “they were in love.”