His Wicked Kiss (7 page)

As she held his stare, however, unable to look away, she marveled at what fascinating eyes he had. In contrast to his sun-bronzed complexion, they were the turquoise blue of
Caribbean
waters. She detected a sparkle of amusement in their depths as he perused her, not quite successful in masking his roguish astonishment.

“You do see her, my lord?” the young officer asked. “Please tell me I have not gone mad in the heat.”

“Trahern,” he ordered in a calm, authoritative tone, not taking his eyes off her. “Stop the boat.”

* * *

No, indeed, the tropical sun had not addled his assistant’s wits unless it had cooked Jack’s, also, for he, too, saw the luscious young redhead in the tree. Straddling the thick bough, she swung her feet a bit self-consciously right above the spot where the pilot now managed to bring the boat to a halt.

Finding any sort of female on a branch above the
Orinoco
a hundred miles from any human settlement might have been rather a shock, let alone a stunning beauty with big emerald eyes and, from his quick assessment, perfect proportions.

Her long chestnut mane hung unbound. Wet with rain, she slicked it back from her face as he watched her, his stare following the auburn tendrils that twined over her delicate shoulders. She wore a light green walking dress with frilly pantalets peeking out from underneath before they disappeared into thick brown boots. Jack could not help staring.

Her face, a softly rounded oval with a light speckling of freckles, glowed with rain; she had high cheekbones with a peachy complexion and a straight, perfect nose.

Though not normally given to damsel rescues and other good deeds, he shook off his momentary daze, more than happy to make an exception and play the hero in this case. “Good day, miss,” he greeted her, prepared to offer his assistance. “I see you’ve gotten yourself into a spot of trouble up there.”

“I have?” she asked warily, tilting her head. “How’s that?”

Jack furrowed his brow. Her self-possessed response startled him; he had expected more of a cry for help. He glanced discreetly at his men; they shrugged, as perplexed as he.

He turned to the girl once more as she drew off her leather work gloves and then picked a leaf out of her hair with a small scowl. “Is everything, er, quite all right?”

“I think so,” she said warily, eyeing him as though he were the oddball. “Is everything all right with you?”

“Of course.” Jack was nonplused and beginning to wonder if they were speaking the same language. “That doesn’t look very safe,” he pointed out. “Do you need help getting down?”

“Oh!” she answered with a sudden, startled laugh. “No, I don’t need any help getting down. But I’m sure you’re very kind,” she added indulgently.

Jack stared at her in perplexity. “What the blazes are you doing in that tree?”

“Studying epiphytes.”

“Epi-whats?” Higgins muttered.

“Orchids,” she clarified.

“Those parasitic flowers growing all over the trees,” Jack told him in a rather jaundiced aside, folding his arms across his chest. A comparison to most of the women he knew came to mind, but he kept it to himself.

“Orchids are not parasites!” the young lady informed him with great indignation.

Jack cocked an eyebrow.
Hmm
. Not only had the chit not fled in terror of him, but now she dared contradict him to his face.

Obviously, she had no idea who he was.

“Quite the contrary,” she continued, “and I can prove it if you like, for I have just made a most astonishing discovery!”

“Have you?” he echoed, certain that her discovery could not be any more astonishing than his present one—namely, her.

She nodded emphatically. “I have just learned that the symbiosis between the epiphytes and these canopy giants goes even deeper than we ever previously suspected!” She looked irked with herself the moment she had blurted it out, as though she realized after the fact how tedious scientific conversation might be deemed in some circles.

Jack was secretly amused and gave her the slightest encouragement. “You don’t say.”

“Shall I explain?” she offered, lighting up.

“I don’t think she gets out much,” Trahern murmured under his breath.

“By all means,” Jack invited her, masking his amusement. He silenced his chuckling men with a curt order.

Visibly pleased by his interest, the little oddball warmed to her topic. “Oh, it’s very exciting! These orchids, you see, have flourished on this tree branch for many generations, lived and died and then decayed right here on this thick bough, until eventually, over a number of years, they’ve created their own little bed of soil and mulch, right here on the branch. They don’t need any soil of their own to grow in, of course—far from being parasites, they have special roots that allow them to suck the water right out of the air, you see, like this rain.” She held out her cupped hand to catch a few raindrops as she looked up into the drizzling canopy.

When she tilted her head back, his stare homed in on the damp white fichu tucked into the neckline of her gown, a gauzy covering that clung to her demure cleavage.

“Is that… right?” he murmured faintly, struck by a jolt of unexpected lust.

“Quite. Here!” Leaning down to toss a purple flower to him, she nearly gave Jack a fit of apoplexy in his certainty that she was going to fall out of the tree and straight into the mouth of a crocodile. But she was blithely unconcerned for her own safety. “Today I discovered that these little orchids give back to the tree that shelters them in the most wonderful manner.”

“How?” he asked, drawn in to her little mystery in spite of himself, and perhaps just a wee bit enchanted.

“They feed it. Look.” She lifted up a cross-section of what appeared to him to be mere grubby turf. “When I cut into the orchids’ bed of soil here for closer study, I discovered that the tree had actually begun sending these little rootlike structures right out of the
branch
so that it could take in nutrients from the mulch that generations of decaying orchids had created here. Don’t you see what this means?”

Jack attempted to answer, but thought better of it. He just shook his head.

She laid her hand on the massive branch that she was sitting on and gazed up wistfully into the canopy. “They give to each other, neither harming the other. This great big mahogany gives this tiny, delicate flower shelter and solid support, while the orchid, in turn, creates nourishment to help feed the tree and keep it strong. They live together in perfect harmony, and isn’t it just so… beautiful?”

Jack stared, mute with a very male sense of admiration.

He wasn’t much for botany, and though miraculous, the arrangement between the flower and the tree did not seem half as rare and beautiful to him as this dainty, eccentric little bluestocking.

He knew now who she was.

His acquaintance with Victor Farraday and his younger sister, Cecily, went back to their days in
England
twenty years ago, though both he and Victor were expatriates now. The last he had heard, the famed naturalist had disappeared into the Orinoco Delta and had not been heard from since.

“You’re Dr. Farraday’s daughter,” he informed her.

She straightened up proudly with a nod. “And you are Lord Jack Knight—though Jack is really just a nickname for
John
. So I’m told.”

If he had been astonished before, he was now thrown completely off kilter. “You know me?”

She laughed. “I saw you before. At an assembly ball in
Kingston
.”

“Really?” he echoed again, even more faintly this time. The world was feeling more than a little topsy-turvy.

“Yes,” she declared with great certainty. “I believe you had on a black coat.”

“You were at a ball I was attending and I did not notice you? Highly unlikely—ah, unless your father made a point of keeping you out of my sight.”

“Perhaps,” she admitted with a slight hint of flirtation sparkling in her eyes.

Jack was not quite sure what to make of it, but he gazed at her with a cautious half smile. Either she had not heard, isolated in this wild place, that he was the Devil incarnate, or was too starved for human company to care.

As someone who had little use for the human race in general, Jack found himself strangely moved by her shy but eager smile.

Fancifully, he thought her like a beautiful half-wild princess of this mysterious emerald realm—or a wondrous rare forest animal that had never seen Man before and did not know enough to be afraid.

Total innocence.

But noting the pistol and machete that she wore strapped to her slim waist, he gathered in deepening respect that the lady knew how to take care of herself. No doubt Victor had trained his daughter well in survival skills. To be sure, one look in her green eyes, with their forthright expression of confident determination, warned Jack that she had also inherited her father’s brains.

Epiphytes, indeed.

He cleared his throat. “Is your father, er, at home, Miss Farraday?”

“No, he went to visit the Indians—oh, but don’t go! He should be back soon. Would you like to wait for him? Come and see our camp. I could make tea!”

“Tea? Well—that’s very kind, Miss Farraday, but, ah, it’s ninety degrees.”

“No, it’s only eighty-seven! Oh, do come and have some pineapple, then. Please?” she begged him prettily. “We
never
have any visitors or news from the outside world. Come and visit for a while—just to be sociable? Papa will be back soon, I promise!”

Jack and Trahern exchanged a guarded glance.

Sociability had never been Jack’s forte, but his chivalrous assistant shrugged and gave him a discreet nod expressing his sympathy for the young beauty, who was clearly starved for human company.

“Is that a yes?” she prompted with abundant optimism.

Trahern elbowed Jack covertly.

“Oh, all right,” he grumbled at the lieutenant under his breath, resigned to it, for in truth, he hadn’t the heart to deny the chit. Besides, he knew better than anyone that the war would be heating up over the next few months. Dr. Farraday deserved a private warning to get out of
Venezuela
while he still could.

Jack lifted his chin and met her eager stare. “We would be pleased to visit with you, Miss Farraday, but only for a little while. I’m afraid we’re on a very tight schedule—”

“Hooray!” she cried, rousing a gasp of fright from Jack as she stood up blithely on the branch with catlike balance. “Bring your boat just around the bend, there’s a dock there—oh, but do be careful, please. It’s a bit rickety and you wouldn’t want to fall into the water.”

“Uh, crocodiles?” Trahern ventured.

“Piranha,” she said sweetly.

“Do you need help getting down from there?” Jack started, certain she would stop his heart with her acrobatics, but she just laughed.

“Hardly,” she said with a chuckle, seizing hold of a sturdy hanging vine. “I’ll meet you below.”

And then, grasping the ropelike liana in both hands and, twining it around one trim, shapely leg like the deuced trapeze artist at Vauxhall, Eden Farraday went whooshing off the branch and swung away into the leafy obscurity of the jungle, her red hair flying.