As she stared at him, Lilah’s step faltered. When she resumed walking it was at a slower pace. Since nursing the sick aboard the Swift Wind, she knew much more about the anatomy of the male body than she had when shed left Virginia. Bare chests, backs, arms and even legs and other less mentionable parts were no strangers to her anymore. But the brief, necessary glimpses of male flesh that she had been exposed to on the ship had been strictly impersonal. Seeing Joss standing there bare to the waist, muscles sleekly powerful beneath smooth skin, the thick wedge of hair on his chest stretching from one flat brown nipple to the other before narrowing down to disappear beneath the waistband of his breeches-that was personal. He was magnificently, beautifully male, and just looking at him made her mouth go dry.
It was shameful that the mere sight of his unclothed chest should affect her so. Just looking at him aroused the most wanton feelings inside her, and she was not a wanton female. To treat him strictly as a servant would be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.
Joss heard her approach and turned to look at her, his hands dropping to his sides. His eyes caught hers, held them, then took on a bright emerald gleam that Lilah feared could see clear through to her heart. She returned his stare, determined not to let him know how vulnerable he made her feel. Lilah took a firm grip on her courage and walked right up to him, holding out one of the shells.
"Water?"
Joss accepted the shell without a word, with nothing more than a measuring look, then lifted it to his lips, and drank. Just watching the tilt of his chin and the movement of his throat as the water worked its way down unsettled her. He was far too handsome for his own good-or her peace of mind. When he finished drinking, he dropped the shell to the sand and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Lilah felt that simple gesture all the way down to her toes.
She had to get away from him-soon-or this thing that existed between them would explode. She wanted his mouth on hers again more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
"Thank you." His eyes fixed on hers again, as intent as a cat at a mouse hole. Unnerved, Lilah lifted the other shell to her own mouth and drank from it without ever so much as tasting the slight brackishness of the water. When she lowered it, it was to find that his eyes had shifted to her mouth. Her lips tightened in instinctive defense even as her eyes flew to his. Soft blue eyes clashed with hard green ones for a long moment while swirls of an unspeakable tension seared the air between them. Then Lilah deliberately broke eye contact, looking down at the empty shell in her hand. For something to do she bent to nestle the shell in the sand, taking as much time and care as if it had been made of priceless crystal. The physical action gave her time to school her expression, and give a stern lecture to her racing heart.
When she straightened it was to find him heading off down the beach. For a moment she stared after him, nonplussed, and then she picked up her skirts and ran to catch up.
"Where are you going?" she gasped when she reached his side. He barely glanced at her. Certainly he did not stop, or even slow his long strides.
"There's probably a village around here somewhere. I'm going to find it. Far be it from me not to restore your ladyship to civilization as quickly as I can."
There was a hard edge to his voice that revealed his anger. As aware as he always seemed to be of her thoughts, he had undoubtedly divined the reasons behind her flustered withdrawal. Of course he was angry. He had not yet accepted what he was, but it would come in time, just as it would for her. She had only to be strong; just until they were back in the normal structure of society, and she was no longer faced with this unsettling temptation. Danger lay in being alone with him outside the boundaries of her world.
"You really shouldn't be walking with a head injury in this heat." It was all she could do to keep up with him.
"What?" He glanced down in simulated surprise. "You mean the lady is actually concerned about her slave? Why, Miss Lilah, you surprise me!"
She stopped to glare at him. His mocking falsetto infuriated her. He kept on walking. Fuming, she caught up with him, determined not to speak until he did. Certainly she would never again express so much as a syllable of concern about his well-being! If he wanted to kill himself, that was his business!
The pace he set slowed fractionally as the sun rose until it was almost directly overhead and the heat be- came stifling. Hot little vapors rose from the sand to quiver in the air ahead of them. Not even the breeze off the ocean was enough to cool the air. Feeling her nose burn, Lilah stopped again. Watching to make certain he did not look around, she reached beneath her skirt to untie the tapes of her petticoat and step out of it. Then she wrapped the folds of white linen around her head to form a crude sunbonnet. With her petticoat on her head instead of around her legs, she felt much cooler, and if her modesty suffered, so be it. She was not fool enough to invite a heatstroke even if he was!
When Lilah caught up with him, Joss took one look at her and laughed rudely.
"How indelicate, Miss Lilah, to flaunt your underwear in public that way! Naughty, naughty!"
Furious, she stopped dead, glaring at him, but he kept walking. "Oh, shut up!" she yelled after him, the rudeness of her remark making her feel a degree better. If he even heard, he gave no indication of it. He just kept walking.
That infuriated her more than anything he could have said or done. If he was determined to be difficult, she would cooperate, she pledged grimly. Catching up with him again, she stuck her nose up in the air and trudged along beside him, waiting for his next broadside with something closely akin to relish. As he ignored her she felt herself growing crosser and crosser. She had never felt closer to committing an act of violence in her life!
They walked for nearly three-quarters of an hour without so much as a word passing between them. So far they'd seen no sign of life except for birds and crabs and lizards. If it hadn't been for Joss, Lilah knew she would have been frightened. But at the moment she was just too furious to have room left for apprehension about their situation.
Climbing over one of the small, grassy dunes that divided the beach into sections, Lilah stubbed her toe on a rock. Yelping, she hopped about on one foot, clutching its injured mate in her hand. Joss cast her a single glance that correctly assessed the degree of her injury, and kept going. Lilah's temper crackled. She would have plopped down on the sand there and then and refused to take another step if she hadn't been certain he would simply go on without her.
Limping, she followed him, fixing that wide back with a killing glare. Finally she had to skip to catch up. When she did so, she glared at him in earnest.
"You could at least be civil!" she snapped.
He glanced down at her, his expression unpleasant. "I don't feel civil."
"That's patently obvious!"
"A slave is allowed not to talk, isn't he? I don't have to entertain you as well as get you back to your fianc6, do I? Or do I? Please instruct me. I haven't been a slave very long, you know, and I'm not quite up on the etiquette involved."
His sarcasm made her do a slow burn that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on her head.
"You are the most infuriating, arrogant, obnoxious, overbearing…"
"Funny, that is exactly what I would have said to you," he said at last, stopping. "If I wasn't a slave, that is."
Those emerald eyes were blisteringly hot with suppressed rage. Lilah sputtered, unable to come up with a sufficiently cutting reply.
Joss was not in a mood to wait. He turned and stalked off again, leaving Lilah nothing to do but glare after him until he walked out of sight as the beach made another curve. Then, picking up her skirts, she trudged in his wake. Her uppermost thought was how much she would like to find a rock with which to bash him over the back of that silky black head!
XVIII
When she came around the bend, she found him sprawled facedown in the sand.
"Joss!"
Horrified, she ran to him, dropping to her knees by his si
de. Her first touch on his back assured her that he was not dead. The silky skin was damp with perspiration. He had fainted, and served him right, too! Anyone with a lick of sense would have known better than to go striding off in this heat, and with a head injury, at that.
She was glaring down at him when his eyes opened.
"What a charming sight," he muttered, the words snide, and shut his ey6s again. Lilah had to grit her teeth to keep from adding to his injuries with a hard box to his ear.
"I told you it wasn't a good idea to go marching about in this heat," she pointed out virtuously, hoping to annoy him. His eyelashes flickered, and for a moment two slits of green regarded her malevolently.
"Next time I'll let you drown," Joss said under his breath. Before Lilah could answer, he rolled over onto his back, his hand lifting to shade his eyes.
"Christ, my head aches!"
"I'm not surprised! I told you-"
"If you say that one more time I won't be responsible for what I do."
Silenced temporarily, Lilah rocked back on her heels. Joss lay unmoving, the stubbly growth of black whiskers on his cheeks and jaw and the thick pelt of black fur on his chest making him seem like some wild stranger. Her eyes ran over the breadth of his shoulders and down his arms… and suddenly she frowned. The exposed skin of his shoulders and upper arms and chest was an angry shade of deep brick red. Her own skin tingled faintly, but she didn't think she could have much of a burn with the long-sleeved, high-necked dress to cover her body and the deep flounce of the petticoat protecting her face.
"Joss."
The lack of hostility in her tone must have gotten through to him, because he lifted his hand a little to look at her. "Hmm?"
"There's shade up there at the edge of the palm trees. Do you think you can make it that far? It's just a few yards. You can lean on me, if you like. But you really need to get out of the sun."
"What, you mean your ladyship would actually willingly suffer the touch of a lowly slave? Why, I'm overwhelmed!"
Her affability was definitely not contagious, it seemed. "You are the most… Never mind! I'm determined not to quarrel with you anymore! Be as obnoxious as you like, I don't care! But you need to get out of the sun! Your shoulders and arms are as red as a lobster!"
"They're about the color of your nose, then," he retorted, but his tone was milder than before. "Actually you look rather fetching, with your nose like a cherry and that petticoat wound around your head. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that you were human."
Lilah lost her patience and stood up, almost stamping her foot in exasperated annoyance. "You are really the most despicable…!" Her voice trailed off as her eyes happened to touch on something down the beach a bit. The outcropping of sand and scrub grass that interrupted her view of the horizon looked amazingly like the promontory she had climbed when she had first awakened and thought herself alone on the beach.
"What's the matter?" Joss followed her gaze with his eyes, but the promontory meant nothing to him. He'd been well to the west of it when she'd found him.
"I think we're right back where we started." There was a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"That's not possible! We couldn't have come full circle so fast! Unless…"He frowned. "What makes you think we have?"
"That little hill over there-I'm almost sure that's the one where I found the water."
"It can't be."
"Let's get you out of the sun, and I'll go see."
He demurred at first, determined to go with her, but at last Lilah managed to persuade him of the folly of taking a chance on aggravating his injury with sunstroke. As soon as he was upright his head started to swim again. Lilah quickly slid her arm around his waist as he swayed and staggered a pace backwards. Joss leaned heavily against her for a moment, unable to help himself as a wave of dizziness washed over him. Lilah was tinglingly conscious of the intimacy implicit in the way she was holding him, her arm around his naked waist, her hand pressing against the hard flat muscles of his abdomen. If anyone should see-but there was no one to see, no one to know, and if something happened to Joss she would be all alone. Surely it was no more than her Christian duty to do what she could to help him, under the circumstances.
Joss tried to stand on his own two feet without her support, but was hit with another, milder dizzy spell. It was obvious he had little choice: accept her assistance or fall on his face in the sand. With his arm wrapped around her shoulders and her arm around his waist, they hobbled over to where the changing angle of the sun sent shade stretching out across the beach. He was heavy and his skin was damp and warm and gritty with the sand that clung to it. His faintly pungent odor made her wrinkle her nose.
"Smell, do I?" he inquired, seeing her expression.
"Just a little. I imagine I do, too."
He shook his head. "No, you don't," he said. "If that does turn out to be your hill-bring back some water, would you?"
The faintly rasping quality of his voice told her better than words just how exhausted he was.
The promontory was the same one. Lilah climbed to the top of it, found the rock pool, greedily drank until her own thirst was slaked and then filled two shells with water. More than that she could not carry, but the shells were large and would contain sufficient water for Joss for the time being.
When she returned to Joss, he was on his back. The shade had crept down a little more so that it reached a good three feet beyond where he lay. To her surprise, Lilah realized that it must be late afternoon.
Bending to settle the shells carefully in the sand, Lilah knelt beside Joss. She called his name and gently touched his shoulder. His eyes opened, flickered once, then with what appeared to be an effort of will fixed on her face.
"I brought you some water."
With her assistance he managed to lever himself onto one elbow and gulp down the water. Then he lay back in the sand once more, his posture indescribably weary.
"Was it the same hill?"
"Yes." Lilah unwrapped the petticoat from her head, wadded it up, and pushed it under his head for a pillow.
"Mmmm."
She took that as a thank you. After that he was silent for a moment as he lay there with his eyes closed. Finally his eyes opened a slit.
"You realize what that means, don't you?"
"What?" Lilah frowned. She really hadn't thought much about it, except to be pleased that she had so easily found water again.
"We're on an island-no, not even an island, it's not big enough for that. An atoll in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We've walked all the way around it and seen not a solitary sign of life except for ourselves. Unless there's someone in the interior-and I don't think there is, or we would have seen evidence of that-we're all alone."
Lilah's eyes widened. "All alone?" She swallowed as the various ramifications played through her head. "Do you mean we're… marooned?" The last word was almost a squeak.
"Exactly," he said, and shut his eyes again.
XIX
It was almost dark, and they had shifted position so that they were nestled in a little depression at the very base of the promontory. Joss still felt dizzy every time he stood up, and it had been an effort moving him this far. But he had felt it was better to be closer to their only supply of water, and she had agreed. That the puddle was rapidly diminishing Lilah had not the heart to tell him. There was still enough in it for perhaps another day or two, if they were careful. And tomorrow maybe he would feel better and they would go looking for more.
She was hungry, and she knew he must be too. But making a meal out of a crab or a lizard or a bird was beyond her. First she would have to catch it, then kill it and find some way to cook it-or eat it raw. The very thought made her shudder, hungry as she was. And Joss was in no shape to undertake the task for them both. Surely they could go one night without food. It occurred to her that it had actually been far longer than that since either of them had had a meal of any substance.
Another bodily
problem was taken care of on the far side of the promontory at the edge of the trees. When she had finished, she was rewarded by stumbling over a coconut. Another nut was nearby, and she scooped them up with all the triumph of a successful treasure hunter. Looking above her, she saw that the leafy fronds swaying some thirty feet above belonged to coconut palms. The sight was so wonderful that she wanted to jump up and down for joy. At least now they would not have to worry about starving.
Pausing only to break open one of the nuts on a large rock-she hadn't been raised on Barbados for nothing!- she hurried back to Joss. He was sitting up when she returned, his back propped against the grassy dune. It was amazing how safe just the sight of him made her feel.
"Where have you been?" he asked disagreeably, but she was too overjoyed at her find to respond in kind.
"Look," she said, almost skipping as she approached. She carried half of the broken coconut in each hand. The other nut she had left beside the rock, to be reclaimed later.
"What are those?" Joss eyed the hairy brown half- moons with something less than the enthusiasm they deserved.
"It's a coconut." Lilah sank to her knees beside him, holding one out to him. "Here, take it. The milk is good to drink and the meat is good to eat and we can use the shell for a bowl when we're done."
Joss took the shell in his hands and stared down at the milky fluid swimming in its nest of white meat with the same expression he might have worn if she'd suggested he eat a worm.
"It's delicious!" she told him impatiently, and showed him by taking a sip. Watching her, he sniffed warily at his own half. Then he took a small sip, and made a face.
"You don't like it?" Lilah was surprised. On Barbados coconuts were universally beloved. Everybody ate them just as they fell to the ground. They were like fruit in an English garden.
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