His Wicked Kiss (11 page)

“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 front 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.”

Her father paused, reflecting on those long-gone days.

“My sister told me that when Lord and Lady Griffith ordered their daughter to tell her beau she could never see him again, Jack tried to get her to elope with him. Maura refused,” he said with a shrug. “Jack left
England
in a fury and to the best of my knowledge has not been back since.”

Just like you, Papa
, she thought.
An exile
.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I am in dire need of refreshment after this long and tiring day we have had. I shall want my supper within the hour. Oh, and by the way—” he added, already marching back up the boardwalk toward camp. “The shaman’s nephew has agreed to take us to the Amazon. We’re leaving in three days.”

Eden
’s jaw dropped, but Papa did not look back. She stared after him in horror, the reality of his mad quest dawning on her with a kind of delayed amazement.

It could not be! Reeling, she turned and stared hopelessly after the riverboat dwindling into the distance.

Shading her eyes against the blazing sun, she realized her only hope of ever attaining a normal life was drifting away down the
Orinoco
. Oh, this was a disaster. She could hardly believe Papa truly meant to go through with it.

Dropping her gaze to the rough planks of the dock, she dragged her hand through her hair and tried to think what to do.

It was then that her downcast gaze suddenly happened across the familiar sight of the dugout canoes hitched to the dock. Her churning thoughts halted abruptly.

She stared down at her canoe for a second—and then the idea rolled through her mind like thunder.

Yes.

Papa and Connor both had driven her to this. It was the only solution that remained.

All in one reckless, thrilling flash, she knew what she had to do.

Her pulse pounding,
Eden
lifted her gaze and stared down the river at the shrinking steamboat. It really seemed she had no choice. Leaving was the only way to stop Papa from carrying out his suicidal quest into the Amazon.

She knew deep in her heart that he would drop everything to follow her, even if it meant facing civilization again. Perhaps if he could just see
England
for himself after all this time, he would realize the world out there wasn’t nearly as bad as he had come to believe. Indeed, her running off now might be the only way to save his stubborn hide.

And then there was Connor. Leaving would also put some distance between the two of them. God willing, it would help him to see and to accept at last that she
did not want
to spend the rest of her life out here as his mate. After her kiss with Jack, it seemed he had finally taken the hint, but she knew he was angry.

She did not want to risk a confrontation with him out here in the wild, where there was no code, no rule of law to stop him from overpowering her. Out here, might made right, and Connor was the strongest of them all.

All these years, he had held back his passion out of reverence for her, waiting until she was ready, but after today, seeing her return Jack Knight’s kiss, she knew that only his fury awaited her now, and she was afraid. She had seen long ago what he was capable of; if his rage broke free, there would be no choice but to give in. Then she’d be his prisoner here for the rest of her life.