His Wicked Kiss (13 page)

Jack had ordered the crew to be silent and the ship’s lanterns doused. The mood on board was tense until they could be sure they had not been spotted by the Spanish. Nevertheless, a fair wind out of the south drove them along.

It was a fine night to make sail, cool and partly clear, but though tranquil, there was an eeriness to the silence and the way the bright half moon lit up the cloud clusters here and there.

Luminescent algae, famous in the torrid zone, glowed atop the waves.

“Lieutenant, what is our speed?” he asked the officer in charge of the watch.

“Five knots, sir.”

Not bad, for all our cargo
, he thought. Because they were still in coral reef areas, caution dictated a moderate pace.

They glided along under partial sail while the quartermaster made his patient soundings off the bow, on constant watch for rocks beneath the surface.

A smattering of some twenty small islands dotted the seas around
Trinidad and Tobago
; shallows and reefs surrounded most of them. Only when the
Winds
reached the edge of the continental border, where the shallow coastal waters dropped away into the abyss, would Jack give the order for full sail and full speed ahead.

For now, standing arms akimbo near the helmsman, smoking a cheroot, he passed a glance across the starry sky. “How reads the barometer, Mr. Clark?”

“Stable, Captain,” the ship’s master replied.

Jack nodded. “Steady as she goes, boys,” he murmured to the crew, strolling restlessly from the quarterdeck toward the bow. Canine claws ticked along right behind him over the spotlessly clean planks, as his faithful mutt, Rudy, shadowed his steps.

The product of a bulldog’s illicit liaison with an English White terrier, Rudy was stocky and thick-set and low to the ground, fearless despite being only as high as Jack’s knee.

He trotted across the decks as if he owned the ship, or rather the whole of the sea. Rudy had a short white coat, a black circle around one eye as though he had been in a brawl, a very silly-looking Roman nose, and the soul of a clown. The dog, in short, was the best friend he’d ever had, but Jack Knight was not the sort of man to admit such things.

“Sir, we’ve just reached a hundred feet of depth,” the quartermaster confirmed from his post on the bow, having just pulled up his sounding lines.

“Excellent.” Jack’s smile broadened. “Make sail, boys. Let’s head for the middle latitudes and rope ourselves a westerly.”

The crew muffled their answering cheer and eagerly ascended the stiff rope ladders of the rigging.

Exhaling smoke, Jack tilted his head back and watched them climb out onto the yards with unflinching bravery despite the ship’s constant wide rocking and the action of the wind.

In four minutes flat, they unfurled the rest of the magnificent vessel’s full two acres of pearly canvas, gleaming and magical in the moonlight.

It always took Jack’s breath away to see her come to life with the breath of the wind filling her sails. “She’s a beauty, is she not, Lieutenant?”

Peabody
smiled at him in perfect understanding of his sentiments. “Aye, Captain.”

“Carry on,” he said at length, leaving the watch in the second lieutenant’s able hands.

Drifting to the rails, Jack gazed down rather broodingly into the foaming wake off the bow, easy with the
Winds’
familiar rocking as she ploughed on through the waves and sent up plumes of brisk spray.

Far below, a few dolphins plunged merrily alongside them, their slick hides gleaming in the moonlight. It was a good omen and all had gone smoothly, yet Jack’s mood was a little pensive.

Regret gnawed him. The forlorn image of Eden Farraday left standing alone on the dock stayed vivid in his mind. He wished he could have helped her, but, no. As usual, Jack Knight had been cast in the role of villain. He let out a sigh and shook his head. He decided he would go back and check on her again when he came back to deliver his mercenaries to Bolivar. Next time, he would get her out of there whether her father liked it or not.

And if that blond chap tried pointing a gun in his direction again, Jack thought grimly, he would deal with him, too.

An insistent whine from below drew his distracted attention just then. When he glanced down, he saw Rudy standing beside him with his favorite stick clamped between his jaws, his tail wagging eagerly.

With a rueful smile, Jack took the stick out of the dog’s mouth and heaved it toward the stern in a long throw.

“Fetch,” he muttered, but Rudy needed no such instruction, already scampering after his prize as though the bit of timber were worth its weight in gold.

* * *

For a week,
Eden
had endured the inky cargo hold. She hid in total darkness, longing for light, for fresh air, and most of all, for any human company besides her own.

The temperature had dropped as the ship traveled north inexorably, leaving the land of summer and the tropical temperatures she was used to for climes reminiscent of faintly remembered autumns—a brisk, sunny coolness by day giving way to colder temperatures at night. Of course, where they were headed, February meant the dead of winter, though they wouldn’t arrive, she presumed, until the end of March.

In the meantime, the unrelenting blackness had begun playing tricks on her mind. There was too much time to worry about the rats she heard scratching about in the darkness. She hoped they did not grow bold enough to bite her.

Above all, there was too much time to think… about everything that could go wrong with her adventure now that she had flung herself into it. Time, as well, to contemplate the mighty captain of this ship.

Since this was a far more interesting subject, she spent countless hours pondering what Papa had told her about Jack Knight—yet somehow she only arrived at more questions.

Why, for example, had he been forbidden to marry the girl he had loved, Lady Maura? If he was the second son of a duke, why had her parents deemed Lord Jack unsuitable? Was that the reason he had not returned to
England
all this time? Had he no family there to draw him back for a visit?

And what was he
really
doing in the jungle that day in the first place? She remembered the mysterious look in his eyes when she had asked about his visit to the rebel town of
Angostura
. Papa had claimed that his mere presence in
Venezuela
meant that Lord Jack was up to no good. Collecting timber… ? No. They were hiding something, he and his men. Whatever the rogue was involved in, he obviously didn’t want her to know.

Alas, the spirit of inquiry had been nurtured in
Eden
from too young an age to leave the mystery alone. There was nothing else to do, hour after hour, so she decided to look around and see if she could find some answers.

Taking the tinderbox out of her satchel of supplies, she lit her candle with a few clicks of the flint. She knew she had to conserve her candle, but the light was such a blessing. With the small flame to guide her, she went exploring a bit.

The great rocking warehouse of the cargo hold contained no clues about Jack’s secrets, but was piled with orderly mountains of supplies. Barrels of water and wine. Various tools and spare sails. Black powder stores and cannonballs. There was plenty of food and water to see her through the long journey, but the air was fetid just above the bilge.

She did not need her physician-father to tell her that amid such ill vapors, fevers lurked. Indeed, she doubted she had another two days’ worth of breathable air down here. She realized grimly that she would have to ascend to the next level and find a new hiding place.

This she did the next afternoon, sneaking up onto the orlop deck, and here she had passed another several days in hiding. There was still no daylight to be had, for the creaking orlop, like the cargo hold, sat below the waterline, but at least there were lanterns in the cramped, narrow passageways and better ventilation. The sea air filtered down through wooden grates placed over the hatches far above, on the main deck.

The orlop also housed supplies, including the vast tonnage of goods that Lord Jack was transporting to market in
England
. The mahoganies and other tropical hardwoods took up much of the space, but there were also great quantities of sugar, rum, cotton, tobacco, and indigo. Useful items all, but nothing yielding information about the captain’s jaunt to Angostura.

In her wary explorations, ever dodging the crewmen who passed by going about their business, she had found the bread and cheese room, where the ship’s cats were on constant duty stalking rats. She found the wood shop of the ship’s carpenter, and the office of the purser, the frugal fellow in charge of accounting for all the supplies—who used what and how much.

Though she often heard the easygoing carpenter singing in the wood shop as he banged away with his hammer, and smiled in secret at the purser’s constant muttering to himself as he scribbled away in his office, balancing his ledger books and grousing about how nobody appreciated him, Eden stayed out of sight and made friends with the ships’ cats to pass the time.

Now and then, as the days passed, she sought to comfort herself by summoning up those familiar, shining images of brilliant ballrooms, elegant music, lords and ladies dancing—but it was then that she discovered there was something wrong with her pretty fantasy.

Each time she imagined herself at the ball, the man who now stepped forward from amid the swirling dancers to claim her was none other than that blackguard ex-pirate, Lord Jack.

A fortnight out from the
Spanish Main
,
The Winds of Fortune
had traversed over a thousand miles of ocean, traveling at eight knots on a steep northeasterly angle. They had cleared the warm
Sargasso Sea
and were now in the middle of the cold
Atlantic
.

Taking current wind conditions into account, Jack gave orders to change the set of the sails slightly and advised the helmsman to adjust his steerage on the wheel.

All was in order, and the captain was pleased.

The sails were in fine trim, the men cheerful in the rigging, the lookout posted in the crow’s nest. A dozen crewmen mopped the decks, while another group received their weekly training with pistols and cutlasses from gruff, tough Mr. Brody, the master-at-arms. Old Brody also served as Jack’s fencing coach and occasional sparring partner at his daily practice in fisticuffs and the other manly arts of self-defense.

The sailors stood at attention and saluted their captain as he strode past, inspecting them and their efforts, asking questions here, giving orders there, granting a few approving nods to men who had done good work.

Indeed, as he strolled the decks with Rudy at his heels, the smooth running of his prize vessel—and his worldwide company, for that matter—inspired Jack with a most gratifying sense of solid order, security, and accomplishment. And yet…

He was plagued by a deepening awareness of a large hole in his life. An emptiness. He had sensed it vaguely and ignored it for a very long time now, but it had sharpened since they’d left
Venezuela
into a nameless hunger, a gnawing urgency.

Yes, he had built up an empire and possessed a fortune to rival his ducal brother’s, but he had no one to share it with, and worse, no one to leave it to. If he died unexpectedly—and there was always a chance of that, the way he lived—everything he’d worked for, the company he’d spent his life creating, would die with him.

The solution was plain, of course: He needed sons. And if his father had had five, Jack wanted six. But getting heirs meant finding a wife, a prospect he so little relished that he had been putting it off for years.

Where could a man find a woman who would bear his children and otherwise leave him alone? As he prowled the decks of his ship, irked with the whole uneasy subject, only one tolerable candidate came to mind—Eden Farraday.

Now, there was a girl who could take care of herself. Hell, if he was smart, Jack thought, he’d marry her. Look at the conditions she was used to, he reasoned. For the kind of luxury that he could give her, she would probably do whatever he said. Her capacity for loyalty was unquestioned, having stayed with her father through his quest. By now, it was clear she’d be happy just to get out of the jungle—but Jack could give her so much more than that, if they could come to a reasonable agreement. A life of privilege, social position. A life of ease.

She deserved it more than most of the women he knew.

Certainly, in their brief meeting, she had displayed qualities that suggested she could breed him first-rate sons: strength, confidence, robust health, keen intelligence, courage, resourcefulness. Observation had also told him that she would be a good mother, for she had shown her nurturing side even to him in removing his splinter.

Considering
his
dam’s selfish ways, his future wife’s ability to love his children was of paramount importance to Jack.

Oh, all of this sounded like madness, he thought, scowling—but in practical terms perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea. By all visible measures, the redhead seemed to fit the bill.