His Wicked Kiss (30 page)

On a sudden wild impulse, he was teetering—actually teetering on the verge of asking Eden to marry him—but ending her earth-shaking kiss, she spoke first.

“Jack?”

“Mmm?” he murmured, a little drunk from her sweetness.

She took his hands in hers and held them as she retreated a step and leaned back against the doorframe, mirroring his stance.

Gazing at her, he was amused to see her cheeks flushed and rosy, her moist, shiny lips still aglow. She spoke slowly, dreamily. “When we get to
London
…”

“Yes?” Her words jarred him a bit out of desire’s haze with the guilty reminder that she still did not suspect his true plans for her.

“Do you expect to visit your family during your stay?”

“My family?” Ah, his favorite subject. His faint smile tensed.

“You
do
have family, don’t you?”

“What makes you think that they’d like to see me?” He slipped his hands out of hers and put them in his pockets. “Did I mention I’ve got that ache in my knee that always means bad weather’s on the way?”

“Jack, don’t change the subject.”

He rolled his eyes. “
Eden
—”

“There’s something that I have to tell you.” Her face was set; desire’s blush had dimmed in her cheeks. “I read your sister’s letters.”

He froze. “
What
?
”

“That first day you found me on the ship, when you locked me up in your cabin. I was bored, Jack. There was nothing to do. I found them and I-I got engrossed,” she said with a penitent shrug.

He stared at her, appalled.

“I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry—but the point is this. From everything your sister wrote, I’m sure your family loves you. You should see them again when we reach
London
. Try to make things right.”

“Make… things right?” he echoed in utter shock, which promptly turned to fury. “You are
unbelievable
!
And for your information, I am not the one who made things wrong!”

“I never assumed that you were!” she assured him. “Jack, I’m only trying to help. Whatever bad blood lies between you and your siblings, I don’t want to see you let it ruin your life.”

“Ruin my life? Don’t be absurd!” He scoffed. “My life, it so happens, is better than most people’s wildest fantasies. Do you know how much I’m worth?”

“I’m not talking about your money, I’m talking about
you
. I think I know what you’re worth, Jack. The question is, do you?”

He turned away with a low curse, but she persisted, tenacious as ever.

“Is that why you work so hard, because you think you are worth nothing without all your wealth and power?”

“Leave me alone. This conversation is tedious.” His tone was merely irked, but inside he was trembling. “I can’t believe you read my private correspondence.” He pinned her with an angry glance. “I trusted you.”

“I wanted to know more about you, that’s all. Jack, I could have concealed what I did, you know, but look how I told you flat out. You
can
trust me. I’m concerned about you. You have a problem and I want to help.”

“I don’t have a problem and I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody’s help. Never have.” He glared at her. “Never will.”

She took an impatient step toward him. “I want you to hear what I have to say: Stop wasting
time
.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re your family, Jack. If I had one more day with my mother, I would pay a king’s ransom for that, but I can’t. She’s gone. And someday, you’re going to know how that feels.”

“Well, I was never adored by my family as you were, and you’re never going to know how
that
feels!”

She dropped her gaze and let out a low exhalation eloquent of a feminine struggle for patience. “I just don’t want to see you end up alone.”

He let out a rude bark of a laugh and turned away from her. “Why not? I’m used to it! Gets a little dull sometimes, perhaps, but at least this way no one can stab me in the back.”

“Is that what happened?” she asked softly. “Did someone betray you?”

“Stay out of it,
Eden
. It’s none of your affair.”

“Maybe you’re afraid that I’ll betray you, too. But I won’t, Jack, I promise. I can prove it, if you’ll give me a chance. Talk to me.”

No, he realized in reluctance, he did not feel that
Eden
would stab him in the back. But he still didn’t want to tell her anything.

Did he?

He swallowed hard, his heart pounding violently. He closed his eyes with a faint wince. He never explained himself to anyone. Certainly, he had never attempted to explicate how he had sacrificed himself for his brothers and his little sister. To this day, nobody even realized.
To hell with them
.

“Jack?”

“In a family at war,” he said slowly, his back to her, “the rest can make peace if one becomes the scapegoat. A common enemy against whom the others can rally.” His face was stony. “I became their villain. A damned lightning rod for all the wrath and anger under that roof—it all came down on me. I was the only one strong enough to bear it. But after a time, I got lost in the role.” With his back to her, she could not see his taut grimace. She could never know how alone he had been in that house. Nay, in that world. Shunned by all. “Finally, I knew I had to leave.” He thought of Maura. Her petty betrayal. “There was no reason left for me to stay.”

He heard the rustle of her skirts as she edged closer. “But that’s just it, Jack. You’re not a villain. You may have convinced the world of that and even yourself by now, but you never fooled me. Not for a second.” He felt her light touch on his back—so gentle it made him flinch. A blow would have been easier to take. “I felt drawn to you from the first moment I saw you at the ball in
Jamaica
. I think Papa sensed the way I noticed you. That’s why he pulled me away. He didn’t want to lose me to you. You see, Jack, I’ve got very good instincts. Maybe I don’t know much about the way of the world, but I know my own heart. And it tells me that behind these dark fictions you’ve raised up around yourself, you are one of the… the kindest, noblest human beings I’ve ever known.”

He pulled away and whirled around with a glower. “The hell I am!”

“It’s true.” Her eyes were huge and full of light; her youthful face was somber.

He backed away from her. “And you’ve met a total of, what—eight, nine human beings in your entire life, hidden away out there in the jungle?” he bit out sarcastically. “Don’t tell me about instincts. It’s experience that counts, and the more experience you gain, my love, the more you’ll see the jungle’s everywhere.” He shook his head. “This life is nothing but a struggle to survive. Well, guess what? Surviving is the one damned thing I’m good at. And you, you don’t know bad when you see it, because all you’ve got in you is good. That’s all you’re able to see because you’re looking at everything through the crystal-clear prism of who you are,
Eden
. But all of your purity cannot make me good.”

She was staring at him with tears in her eyes. “You learned to believe in a lie a long time ago, Jack, a lie you still believe to this day.”

“Ah, so I am deceived?”

“In a sense, yes.” She blinked her tears away. “Everything that you just said is rubbish. You are good. What kind of a man risks his freedom and his whole life’s work to help the cause of freedom? A villain? Who sends twelve shiploads of food and water to a city ravaged by an earthquake? Who takes a naive stowaway under his wing and protects her instead of treating her as she deserves? You are no villain, and I will not tolerate you speaking about yourself that way again.”

“Oh, well, pardon me.”

“I know now why you steer clear of humanity—”

“Have you looked at humanity lately?”

“You sound like Papa.”

“Except that I’m sane.”

“I can only imagine what you were subjected to when you were the Nipper’s age that made you believe these things, but I would never treat you that way. You must know that.”

“I could comment if I had any idea what in Lucifer’s name you were talking about.”

“Jack—I know about your father.”

His next sarcastic comment withered on his tongue.

He felt as though he had just been run through with a lancer’s pike, but while his face drained of every drop of color, she charged on.

“I understand now why you think everyone’s against you, why you’re so angry. Why you keep to yourself and don’t trust anyone. All those locks on your door, oh, my darling…”

He backed away from her, shocked and rather horrified that she’d heard of his mongrel origins. Reading the letters was one thing. But this was something else. He knew what came next.

He knew.

From experience.

“Don’t be angry. I’m on your side, Jack. It doesn’t matter to me, your parentage. Please, I only want to help. Is that the reason you weren’t allowed to wed Lady Maura?”

At that traitor’s name, the one person he had believed for a while had really cared about him back in those days, the past rushed back like a swarm of bats, flapping around him with tittering ghoulish laughter at all he’d accomplished for the past twenty years, reducing it to nothing. Negating in the blink of an eye all his efforts to show them he’d make something of himself, after all.

No, these memories could only remind him that he’d always be the Irish bastard, nothing more, not fit to associate with his own brothers. A bad influence. No good.

No good to the core.

“Jack?”
Eden
whispered, and through the wave of pain, he was dimly aware of her staring at him in alarm.

All of a sudden, he let out a deafening roar that shook the glass in the stern windows. With a violent motion, he swept the contents off his desk—charts and papers, pencils and ledger books crashed chaotically onto the floor.

Eden
watched them fall, then looked at him in wide-eyed fright.

Her fear grounded him once more in what he was. Why should he fight it? The darkness in him was always there. It made him good at what he did.

The crew above must have heard his howl, too, for the usual beat of footsteps across the deck halted.

Jack prowled toward her, his expression black.

Eden
looked terrified, but his little jungle redhead held her ground even when he leaned down to glare in her face.

“Who told you?”

She gulped, bending back a bit. “He didn’t mean to, Jack. I-It just slipped out.”

His eyes narrowed to angry slashes. “Brody.”

“He spoke of you only in pride, I swear! Jack—” She touched his cheek, but he knocked her hand away.

“Don’t touch me.”

Without another word, he pulled away and walked out.