His Wicked Kiss (16 page)

“Leave the kid be, Ballast,” Higgins spoke up, taking a brave step toward the much larger man.

Ballast shoved Higgins and sent him falling back against another cluster of sailors, who caught him. “Why don’t you go lick Cap’s boots for a while? That’s all you’re good for!”

Jack was already in motion, marching forward to break it up, but at the last moment, Ballast reached out with a bold laugh, trying to grab her again, and
Eden
reacted in self-defense, her blade flashing in the sun; Ballast fell back with a garbled curse, a nasty slice across his tattooed forearm.

The crew’s raucous laughter turned to shocked gasps.

“Why, you little maggot.” Ballast drew his knife. “I’ll gut you for that!”

“Try it if you want a bullet in your brain,” the girl replied with admirable self-possession. “But I overestimate you, sir. It’s clear you haven’t got a brain at all!”

At that moment, a gust of wind whipped away the handkerchief tied around her head, and her gorgeous mane of coppery locks came tumbling down around her shoulders, blowing in the breeze.

Every man present gasped aloud—and stared.

“Enough!” Jack jumped down off the quarterdeck into their midst with his cutlass drawn. “This girl is under my protection,” he announced as he passed a brutal glance across the crowded decks. “If any man lays a hand on her, I will personally hang him from the bowsprit. Understood?”

There were a few sheepish “Aye-aye, sirs,” as the men cleared out of his way.

Ballast repented of his rash behavior now that his captain was on deck. He lowered his shaved head as he gripped his bleeding wound. “We, uh, found the stowaway for ye, Cap,” he mumbled.

“So I see,” Jack said crisply. “Get to the sickbay. You are bleeding all over my deck.”

“Aye, Cap.” Ballast sent
Eden
a look of lingering disbelief as he went slinking off to seek the surgeon’s care. Jack would deal with him later, and the gunner surely knew it.

“Back to work, men!” Trahern commanded.

“You heard him, ye malingerin’ rotters!” Brody barked, reappearing on deck at that moment after his fruitless search of the orlop deck. The men looked lively at the master-at-arms’ gravelly bellow.

Jack sent
Eden
a wrathful glance. It was nice to know the chit could take care of herself, but bloody hell!

He turned to her, read the belated terror in her eyes, and suffered a sharp pang of self-reproach for letting them make sport of her. Still, he trusted he had made his point.

Jack held out his hand. “Give me back my gun.”

Her green eyes were wide, still filled with fright. She swept the surrounding crew with a rattled glance. “Not on your life,” she said with a gulp.

“
Eden
, you’re already a stowaway, and you stole my weapon in front of my men,” he said softly. “Don’t make this any worse for us both than it already is.”

She wetted her lips with a nervous flick of her tongue and again eyed the crew. “But, Jack—”

“I’m the one you’d better worry about now,” he warned in a low voice. “Give me back my damned pistol.”

He waited immovably; the crew paused in returning to their tasks and looked on in palpable tension as the fierce little female stowaway dared refuse the captain’s order.

Jack flicked his fingers impatiently, beckoning her to hand the gun over; he stretched out his waiting palm.

The same hand from which she had dug out the splinter. In the old parable, the lion never forgot the kind deed, and spared the youth who had helped him.

Jack stared at her intensely.

She agonized over the decision, the war of emotions transparent on her lovely face, but after a long moment, she slowly yielded, handing it over.

Jack clasped his weapon and thrust it back into its holster. “There. Wasn’t so hard, was it? Now the knife.”

“No!”

He flicked his fingers again.

“It’s mine! You can’t have it!”

He stared at her.

“No, Jack, please,” she begged him in a pitiful whisper.

“Hand it over,” he answered in a hard tone. “You’ve got no choice.”

“You’re a bully!” she yelled with a flash of renewed temper.

He raised an eyebrow. But he had ways of getting her compliance. “Hand me that knapsack,” he said to Trahern, who had taken hold of it. The lieutenant handed him the canvas knapsack that Jack had pulled off
Eden
’s shoulder. “What’s in here, my dear?” he asked her, for the bag was very light.

When she failed to answer, he opened it and glanced inside.

Aside from an orange in the side pocket, stolen from his cargo hold, the knapsack contained nothing but some pressed leaves in waxed paper.

He knew what it was, but eyed her sardonically, trying to prod her into giving up her weapon. “Weeds?”

He took the orange, tossed it to the Nipper, and then handed the bag back to Trahern. “Throw it overboard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No!” she cried. “Mr. Trahern, please, you can’t!”

“Why?” Jack demanded.

Trahern hesitated, looking from his idolized captain to the lady stowaway and back again, torn between duty and chivalry.

Eden
lifted her chin and pointed to the bits of pressed plants. “Those are not
weeds
, as you know well. They are botanical samples from my father’s research—plants with healing powers. I am taking them to
London
to show to Lord Pembrooke.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, Jack. Really.”

“Captain,” he corrected her, putting her in her place, given the circumstances. He would not be addressed with such insolence in front of his men.

She lifted her chin. “
Captain
, they are rare and precious plants that the scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens will want to seed for their greenhouses!”

“Fascinating. Trahern, throw it in the ocean.”

“Yes, sir.” Crestfallen, his lieutenant continued toward the rails.

“No!”
Eden
cried.

“Wait,” Jack ordered.

“Please.” She gazed at him in exasperation.

“Very well, Miss Farraday,” he resumed in a consummately reasonable tone. “Give me your knife, and I will spare your weeds.”

His offer only got him her glare. Then she muttered, “You want it? Fine. Here it is!”

Without warning, she hurled her machete—it flew through the air and plunged into the mast quite near Jack’s head.

The crew let out amazed exclamations at her defiant display of prowess, no doubt impressed by her aim.

Jack’s eyes glowed with pride as he gazed at her for a second. He glanced drily at the large knife still shuddering from the impact, the blade sunk about two inches into the wood.

The wild woman, his future wife, folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, still furious, but looking decidedly pleased with herself.

“Miss Farraday,” he reproached her with an indulgent
tsk, tsk
. “You stabbed my ship.”

Though she held her chin high in a show of grand defiance,
Eden
knew she was defenseless after having been disarmed. But when Lord Jack started toward her with that strange, murderously tranquil smile on his face, she blanched and spun around, seeking any escape route.

There was nowhere to flee. Her heart pounded. Her frantic gaze scanned the sun-splashed decks and homed in on the rigging.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he chided, grabbing her around her waist as she tried to scamper up the nearest sturdy rope ladder.

He pulled her bodily off the rungs of the mainmast shrouds and slung her over his shoulder, plopping her into place with a hearty clap on the rump.

She let out a small shriek at the indignity and fought him as best she could, but Jack was undeterred, easily restraining her flailing arms and legs. He had the nerve to laugh at her struggles.

“Put me down, you blackguard—pirate—beast!” she yelled, even as it became very clear which one of them was in charge; but that didn’t stop her from fighting, never mind the fact that all that stood between her and one very large, very powerful, very annoyed ex-pirate was whatever shred of chivalry still dwelled within his breast.

A dubious hope.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Cap,” a cheeky sailor said with a wink as they passed by.

Jack shot him a scowl. “Roll a barrel of fresh water into my day cabin. Chit smells like the bilge.”

“I do not!”

“Aye, sir.” The sailor snapped to it.

“Yes, you do.”

“Food and drink, post-haste,” he ordered another. “Stop kicking me, Eden.”

“You deserve it!”

“I’m not the one who stowed away,” he reminded her as he carried her past the great steering wheel of the ship, past a group of gaping, wide-eyed young sailors. Lord Jack maneuvered her in through a door on the quarterdeck.

“Put me down, damn you!”

“Such language!” he exclaimed mildly. “You won’t make many fine friends in
London
talking like that.”

“You,” she informed him, dangling precariously off the cliff of his huge shoulder, “are an ogre.”

He set her down on her feet with a plunk, smirked at her in the most deliberately provoking way, and then went back to the door to accept the delivery of the barrel of fresh water.

Dry-mouthed upon finding herself alone with him, she tugged her father’s borrowed jacket back into place and stole a nervous glance around at the room into which he had absconded with her.

After so many days in the dim, utilitarian storage areas, she was admittedly impressed by the sprawling stateroom’s smart, masculine style. To be sure, she had come quite a few steps closer to civilization.

The captain’s day cabin was a handsomely appointed business office with dark wood paneling, brass wall sconces, and a few oil paintings in gilded frames. It had a curious floor covering of stretched canvas that had been painted with black and white squares to resemble marble tiles; from the low, beamed ceiling above hung a pewter chandelier centered over the round worktable in the middle of the room.