by Gaelen Foley
She ignored the looks and kept her head high, though her cheeks flamed crimson. Their rude gawking and whispers helped her experience firsthand what Jack had gone through all his life.
A few people smiled at her, as though to assure her that they did not hold her culpable for her husband’s outrageous behavior, but having their forgiveness for herself alone only made her furious.
They did not know Jack. He was no villain. He was her lion, her love. They did not understand him.
But you do, her conscience chided, and you should have known better. You should have been gentler with him.
In short, she should have kissed him back.
She’d had her chance to prove her loyalty and failed him. It broke her heart to see it now, but she knew the charge was true. She could have wept to know the hurt she had caused in the very place where he was most vulnerable. Outrageous as his scandalous kiss had been, now he felt betrayed. Finally, she saw that.
But how could he ever think she preferred the ton to him?
She could not live without him.
He was the rock of her life.
It was just so hard for him to believe that because no one had ever loved him before.
When it came down to it, Eden realized, her words back there in the library were empty. She would have gladly given up London for him, gone and lived in a palafito in the middle of a jungle swamp, rather than let her darling scoundrel ever doubt that he was everything to her, sun and moon and stars.
Aye, with Jack instead of Connor, life in the jungle might indeed have been pure paradise.
She could only pray it was not now a paradise lost.
Thanks to the garden ladies’ interference, by the time Eden burst out the front door of the mansion into the night, Jack was gone.
A chill crossed her heart, for she feared that, this time, unlike at Ireland, he wasn’t coming back.
The rain had stopped, but the air was warm and wet. The trees and tall bushes of the sculpted grounds still dripped, dark, hulking mounds of deep greenery in the night. A few outdoor lanterns on graceful posts threw off watery globes of orange light, barely warding off the pitch blackness.
Eden wrapped her arms around herself and walked numbly down the front path, trying to spy him. Her steps were like those of one lost in a dark forest; her feet carried her all the way to the far edge of the graveled carriage loop. Her dancing slippers were soaked through from the wet ground, ruined, but she didn’t care.
Jack.
Oh, this couldn’t be happening. He had left her.
He was gone. Tears filled her eyes; her mind reeled.
“Jack!” she yelled into the void, then whispered his name again as two tears spilled down her cheeks.
He was really gone—and if she had thought she was alone in the jungle, it was nothing compared to this. The whole world seemed abandoned.
She stood there trembling, still searching the darkness for him, and fighting back a sob.
They couldn’t leave it like this. If something went wrong, she might never see him again. Never get the chance to tell him how much she loved him. To say that she was sorry—yet again. Oh, this love business was so much harder than it looked.
She drew in a jagged breath. Perhaps if she hurried, she could still catch up to him before he sailed away.
Fighting to regain her composure, she decided to ask Damien to take her down to the Knight Enterprises docks at once.
Jack might not want to see her, but she would make him listen and would not leave him alone until he finally believed her again when she told him how she felt.
Without another moment to lose, she pivoted and headed back inside.
As she started to walk back toward the house, a deep voice suddenly called her name from somewhere off to her right.
“Eden!”
She drew in her breath with sudden hope, but when she whirled around, she could not see anyone.
She scanned the area, not sure who had spoken.
Then, from among the dense greenery that flanked the mansion, a tall, powerful figure stealthily emerged from the shadows, coming out into the open. Plain clothes. A guarded posture. He walked toward her across the wet grass. As he came closer, the lamplight glimmered on his blond hair.
She narrowed her eyes, unsure if they were playing tricks on her again. “Connor?”
“Eden. Is it really you?”
“Connor!” She hesitated, torn between running toward him in happy reunion with one who was all but family to her, and running away, instinctively alerted to some nameless danger by the strange light burning in his eyes. Choosing neither in her hesitation, she stayed in place, but he joined her at the edge of the graveled carriage loop within a few strides, and warmly grasped her offered hands.
Her sense of this moment was surreal. Had he truly been standing outside the conservatory staring at her?
“Oh, Eden. I can’t believe I finally found you. Thank God you’re safe!” He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“What are you doing here?” she cried, absently noticing the swath of dark wool cloth slung over his shoulder.
“Looking for you, of course! Let me see you now. Oh, Edie, you look so beautiful,” he said reverently, gazing at her expensive gown and her elegantly coiffed hair. “Just like the ladies in your magazines! I can’t believe I finally found you.”
“I can’t believe you’ve come!” she answered. “I-I thought I saw you through the window in the conservatory—Lord, you gave me such a fright! But then you were gone, and I thought I had just imagined you.”
“Yes, well, I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiled. “The servants wouldn’t let me in. I had to make sure I had the right place. It wasn’t easy to find you. I saw Lord Jack, too,” he murmured, gazing at her. “He was yelling at you.”
Her face fell, then she lowered her head. “Yes, we had a bit of a disagreement tonight.”
“Eden, your happiness means the world to me. I should hate to think that any man would ever raise his voice to you.”
She smiled wanly at him. “Thanks, Con. So, where’s Papa? Please tell me he’s come, too?”
“Well, he’s still on the boat moored in the Thames. Would you like to see him? I could take you there now.”
“Of course I would! I was just heading to the docks myself.”
“You were?”
She nodded. “Jack’s brother can take us there in his carriage.”
“Wait,” he said as she started to pull away. “Eden.” Connor’s face had darkened with a look of concern. “I think I’d better warn you that your father’s been through a lot since you ran away.”
She paled. “Is he all right? He’s safe—?” The reminder of what she must have put them through chastened her. This night would be a reckoning in more ways than one.
“Yes, he’s safe,” the Australian conceded.
Thank God. She lowered her head. “He’s angry, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Connor nodded. “A bit. He misses you—so very much. He needs you, Eden. He has often told you so. I would be lying if I said he wasn’t very badly hurt by the way you left.” He stared at her in his unnerving way, which she had managed to forget until just now.
She was beginning to wish he’d let go of her hands.
“But for all that, he still loves you,” he said softly. “Indeed, he wouldn’t want to live if he couldn’t have you by his side.”
The fixed intensity of his gaze led her to gather that Connor was not really speaking of Papa’s sentiments at all.
She inched back from him a bit, though he still held her hands, one gloved, one not. “Well, I-I am married now, Connor, and I’d love to come to the boat to see Papa, but I have to talk to my husband first—”
“No, come now,” he coaxed softly. He released her gloved hand, but possessively kept the one that was bare.
Failing to notice the way he flicked his fingers up into his sleeve like a gambler reaching for a hidden
ace, Eden suddenly felt a sharp prick in the flesh of her gloveless hand and let out an abrupt cry, yanking her hand away.
“Ow!”
He grabbed her hands back again with a lightning-fast movement, as though he had expected that. “Hush, now,” he whispered. “It won’t do you any harm. Just relax.”
Confused, she looked down and saw a tiny spot of blood on her hand, as though she had just been bitten by some strange jungle insect. “Connor, what was…?”
“Here. There’s a chill tonight. This will keep you warm.” He whipped the length of dark wool cloth off his shoulder and unfurled it.
It proved to be a capacious hooded cloak, which he draped around her shoulders with a swirling motion.
“Thank you, but’s’not necess’ry.” She frowned, wondering why the words came out all slurred.
“I insist.”
When she looked up at him in alarm, still baffled by the dot of blood on her hand, Connor’s face, staring at her, curved in a blurry wave.
Grotesque distortion.
“What have you done to me?” she whispered in horror.
“I’ve come to take you home, my love.”
An image flashed through her mind of the animals Connor had frequently stunned in the jungle with a blow dart dipped in a tranquilizer made from a mild curare. He used to drug the animals, study them, and then free them again when they awoke.
But she knew now he’d never let her go.
He caught her smoothly as her legs buckled under her and the world began turning black. Connor pulled the cloak’s hood up, concealing her face as he dragged her back into the shadows.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
The Knight docks were bustling as the crew prepared to put out to sea. All supplies and materials had been loaded, and now the crew were rowing the jolly boats back and forth, ferrying all their rowdy recruits out to the massive gunship.
Jack had waved down Ballast and Higgins in one of the cutters. The pair of seamen greeted their captain with hearty enthusiasm, not noticing his dark mood. They rowed him out to The Winds of Fortune, anchored in the middle of the deep, wide river, and he had gone aboard—to considerable fanfare, as it turned out, for Brody was already showing the newcomers the sort of discipline and order to be observed onboard this ship.
“Captain onboard!” the old master-at-arms bellowed. “Salute!”
The rookery boys seemed startled by this order, but they did as he said, haphazardly saluting him.
Jack gave them a dry nod and marched toward his day cabin to receive a report from Lieutenant Peabody. Within another hour or so, they could be underway. But as Jack toured his ship, making sure all was in a state of perfect readiness—which it was, nearly—he soon realized that if he had thought to escape Eden at sea, he had overlooked one small fact.
Every inch of The Winds of Fortune now reminded him of her.
From the depths of the very cargo hold, where she had stowed away, to the life buoy closet where he had found her; from the day cabin, where he could still picture her scowling at him from the bathtub, to the place up on deck where he had seen her get washed overboard during the storm. She was everywhere, in his head, in his heart.
He saw the stern gallery, where they had first spoken in playful flirtation about having children together. And now it was about to become a reality.
There was no place to escape her on this ship. Her presence permeated every narrow gangway. It had soaked deep into the planks and brightened every inch of canvas. But nowhere was his sense of Eden stronger than in his sleeping cabin, where she had given him her virginity, and where they had pledged each other their hearts.
It was here that Jack found the sparkly blue sea-princess gown that he had first given her to wear when she had arrived on his ship without a stitch of extra clothing or a penny to her name.
He sat down slowly on his berth, holding her dress, caressing the fabric, letting its softness slip through his fingers. He was so distracted by his tangled longing for her that he had forgotten to set all the locks on his cabin door when he’d walked in.
Or maybe he just didn’t need them anymore. Maybe he was tired of locking out the world.
He closed his eyes, smelling the dress, trying to catch one last whiff of her scent. How can I possibly go without her for six months?
Eden.
Their love had become the living fabric of his life. And he was about to tear it irrevocably, in a way that he wasn’t sure it could be sewn up again.
So, she had yelled at him back in their host’s library, lost her temper. So what? Who could blame her? She had good reason to be angry. It was her first ball and Jack had ruined it. She had been looking forward to it literally for years, and the night had been one big disaster. I didn’t even dance with her. He couldn’t dance, but surely Eden was worth him making a fool of himself.
Ah, what the hell am I doing?
By all outward appearances, it looked like he was marshaling up the forces for a noble cause, but deep down, Jack knew the truth: He was merely running away.
Not because he feared that Eden didn’t love him. But because he knew that she did.
It sounded a little irrational even to him, and so it was. He was out here trying to justify his bastardly existence by doing grand deeds that no one else could do, but now he finally saw what Eden had been trying to tell him all along. He didn’t have to live this way anymore. Somebody finally loves me exactly as I am.
It was worth infinitely more to Jack than all of the gold in his coffers. He had finally laid hold of the one treasure that money could not buy. But if he went away now, he would jeopardize that.
He stood up slowly and folded the gown to give back to her. If she needed a little help these days in remembering who she was, perhaps this would jar her memory. But Jack knew he could not go. He had never been more sure of anything. If he left tonight, he knew he would regret it for the rest of his life.
He walked out of the sleeping cabin feeling half a ton lighter, and went to tell Trahern that he was giving him the mission.
The lad was right. Jack had done his part. Besides, there were practical reasons not to go, especially now, after their scandal in the ballroom.
If he hadn’t attracted enough notice before simply by being Jack Knight, now, in hindsight, he saw that the triple scandal of the earl in the fountain, the titillating rumor from the maid, and above all, the very public kiss that Jack had planted on his bride tonight all would serve merely to rivet London’s full attention on him and Eden.
That made it impossible for him to slip away unnoticed. The minute the ton marked his absence, everyone would be asking where he had gone.
It was going to look entirely suspicious. Eden would be left to try to explain it, and he hadn’t prepared her for that.
He had to go back. He was now a hindrance to the mission, thanks to his angry reactions this night. His presence would draw public scrutiny like the beam of a lighthouse shining on their illegal activities—and he was not the only man whose fate hung in the balance. By Whitehall’s decree, signing up to fight in South America was forbidden. If Jack drew undue attention to the mission, all of his stouthearted recruits could face charges, as well. He had to cover for them, and the only way to do that was to stay put.
Besides, in order to return to England in time for the birth of his child, he’d have to reach South America without a snag, no storms, no calms, then resupply and immediately turn around and come right back. But by then, hurricane season would have started. If he risked sailing through it, he might never look upon his firstborn’s face at all.
He knew the time had come to give Trahern his chance to take the top command.
Jack simply had to trust that all his training had stuck, and that the young man was fully capable of finishing this mission without him, especially with men like Peabody, Brody, and Higgins to back him up. The lad deserved the chance to make his fortune, after all. If he was serious about courting Amelia Northrop, te
n thousand pounds in the bank would go a long way to persuading the girl’s barrister father to welcome the suit of such a gallant and capable young man. The job was worth at least that much to Jack.
With the start of a smile spreading across his face, Cap’n Jack went to find his right-hand man.
As for himself, he wanted nothing but to hold his darling stowaway again and beg her forgiveness for acting like an absolute boor.
Before long, he had settled with Trahern with a few final words of caution and advice; he had clasped hands with Brody, asking the old cudgel to look after the lad as a personal favor to him. His request granted, Jack had bid his men fair winds. He wasted no time in rushing back to the Pulteney Hotel, where he expected to find his wife gathering up her things under Damien’s watchful eye.
He ran up the staircase, taking them two at a time, but when he burst in to their suite, it was dark.
Silent.
He stepped inside, closed the door behind him uncertainly, and took a few steps into the sitting room, hoping against hope that she might be in her chamber lying down. Well, if not, he reasoned, he’d simply go back to the ball and collect her.
“Eden?”
He felt rather than heard the whisper-soft rustle of motion a few yards behind him. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the French doors onto the balcony had been left open.
The curtains billowed slowly on the night breeze. A servant might have committed the oversight, but Jack knew neither he nor Eden would have made a blunder like that. Not under the circumstances.
He suddenly realized the suite was not empty, and it wasn’t his wife who was here. He knew the feel of her presence, aye, as well as he knew his own.
His senses narrowed in on the unseen presence he detected, and at once, he reached for his knife. “Who’s there?”
Ruiz stepped out of a pool of shadows in the corner, near the curtains that draped the French doors.
Two more black silhouettes materialized out of the darkness, trained assassins from the team Ruiz had brought to Jamaica to murder Bolivar and his entourage.
Jack looked around at them, closing in on him, and prayed to God his wife was still at the ball.