The Price of Pleasure (5 page)

G
rant had a sinking suspicion that he'd been watched bathing.

Yes, the weeds suddenly bobbing near the falls could have been caused by an animal, but he suspected not. When he returned to the camp and saw his men scrambling toward the bushes to lose their breakfasts, he was certain. Ian woke, looked up from his pallet at the scene, and through a yawn decreed, “Round two, Victoria.”

Grant concluded the same. She'd done this. He ground his teeth. If she wanted to turn this into a battle of wills, he'd oblige.

What a way to start the day—annoyed, exhausted, his body pained and recently ogled by a young woman. And what he wouldn't give to have that situation reversed, he thought, then flushed.

Ian rose, inching up in stages. “There's something on my body that
doesn't
hurt,” he croaked. “Can't say what it is just now. It'll come to me.”

Grant understood. Even after his swim, his head pounded in waves. And his back—he was certain someone had grabbed his shoulders and shoved a knee into his spine during the night.

Ian hobbled around camp. “Dooley, you have any food you'd trust?”

“No, Master Ian, not yet. I just don't understand. It must've been bad water. Or maybe a dirty cask.” Dooley looked so pained when he said the last that Grant was tempted to tell him what he suspected. Then he remembered his sister-in-law describing her time aboard Derek's ship. Two dozen men had blamed her for a poisoning and clamored hourly for their first female keelhauling. For Victoria's sake, he'd have to let Dooley take this one on the chin.

Ian announced, “Grant, I'm going with you.”

Grant simply looked at him.

“Why? Because I'm starving and wouldn't chance anything here. Since you ordered the crew to remain in camp, my best bet's to go with you.”

Grant shouldered his pack and couldn't hide a wince. How had the damn thing gotten so heavy since last night? “If you complain like you did yesterday, I won't be responsible for my actions.”

“Understood. I won't complain like yesterday,” Ian promised as they started off. “I'll either complain a little less or a bit more.”

As noon approached and the sun stabbed the canopy from directly above, Grant concluded he would not have better luck with Victoria than on the previous day. In fact, he had the impression she mocked him—staying close but just out of reach, sending them on punishing trails to marshes, seep holes, boulder-blocked paths.

When a fly lighted on Ian's face, he slapped his cheek hard enough to leave a handprint. “That one had
bulk,
forgodsakes,” he mumbled. “You know how explorers are always writing in their journals about the jungle, comparing it to a woman? A woman indifferent to your suffering? I believe it! This jungle's a rutting bitch.”

Grant didn't agree. No, indifference would be preferred. The jungle toyed with them, suffocating them, protecting them from the sun, yet collecting its heat to weaken them. Grant wasn't an explorer by nature. His philosophy was to expend all that energy making home so satisfying you'd never want to leave. He'd be happy to be tied to one land, if it was the right one, his entire life. Wasn't that the purpose of this trip? To claim Belmont Court?

He froze in the trail, coming face-to-face with an immense spider. Bigger than his hand, it sprawled eerily among the geometric patterns knitted in its web. He bent beneath it and tossed a loose warning back to Ian. Seconds later, Ian bellowed a curse.

Grant hurried back to see Ian's head entangled in the web, the dusty brown spider attached. Ian scrabbled backward, the web and spider wafting after him. Yelling, batting, retreating, he barreled through a copse of low trees directly into more webs, a cluster of them glinting in the sun. He gave a harsh cry, arms flailing like a windmill, harvesting each one as though on purpose. Finally, he toppled over, covered in web, swatting spasmodically. Grant reached him and brushed the spiders free.

“Christ, Grant,” he said, sounding baffled. “Why didn't you tell me there was a spider?”

“It was over half a foot long—I didn't think you could miss it. Besides, you've made it past everything else in the trail.”

“Everything else?
I didn't see anything else!”
Lips thinned, Ian clutched the earth at his sides. “I've had it with this antediluvian muddle! I tell you right now. I'm done and you can go to—”

Grant slid his machete free and raised it high. Ian's eyes grew wide. “I take it back! I'm not complaining!” But Grant had already swung the blade, slicing through a leaf near Ian's hip.

There, on the ground, just beside Ian's splayed fingers, was a footprint.

 

“How'd the morning go?” Cammy asked when Tori strolled in. Strips of spiky palm fronds littered the floor around her. One green sliver had caught in her hair and protruded upright.

“The sailors got a taste of island life,” Tori said with a grin. It faded when she saw Cammy was weaving a broad-brimmed hat, most likely for her. She hid a grimace at the bright feathers scattered all over the floor, soon to be hat plumage. Cammy was enjoying herself, but a milliner she was not.

“And the big one? How'd he react?”

“Sadly, we'll never know. He didn't eat.”

“A lunatic drunk who doesn't eat?”

Tori chuckled. “I think he's actually the captain. He left to go bathe.”

One red eyebrow cocked. “Bathe?”

Curse it! Sorting the feathers by color grew very important. “He left in that direction,” she said airily.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, very well,” Tori said, lifting her face. “I followed him to the falls and watched him.”

Cammy's eyes grew bright. “Did he undress completely?”

Tori folded her lips in and nodded, blushing anew.

Cammy sighed, resting her chin in her palm. “Was he handsome?”

Tori paused, wondering how to convey how heart-stopping she'd found his huge, rugged body. “The most handsome man I've seen in years.”

“In years? Well, aren't you the amusing one today?” Cammy stabbed a bright yellow feather into the finished hat. “Spying on naked men agrees with you.”

Tori flashed her a quelling look, then crossed to the fire pit. She dug up an ember and added tinder she'd gathered during the day. Kneeling, she blew against the twigs, feeding in larger branches, and soon a fire crackled to life. “Are you hungry?”

Cammy laid the hat aside and sat down on a driftwood log near the fire. “Unceasingly, no,” she said, anxiously stretching to the warmth. “Am I ever? I've forgotten everything about
appetite
except how to spell it.” She frowned. “And that might be gone as well.” Biting her lip, she reached down to draw letters in the dirt.

Tori pasted on an excited smile. “Well, you're going to want to eat tonight. I've found a good supply of taro.”

Cammy looked up with a grimace. “Taro. Delightful.”

Tori sighed as she placed a halved taro and a butterflied fish on their makeshift grill, forcing her mind away from visions of tarts, milk, shepherd's pie, and rain-wet apples straight from the tree.

 

The footprint led them to a previously hidden trail winding up a steep grade. When they climbed it to a clearing on a small projection of land, Grant's breath whistled out. Her camp, her shelter was here. He turned in a circle taking in every detail.

Two handwoven hammocks stretched between palms and swayed in the breeze. A fire hearth dotted the middle of the clearing, with rocks and driftwood logs bordering it. The structure was strategically wedged into the aerial roots of an extensive banyan tree, with walls made of sail connected to a reinforced bamboo frame. A square of densely woven palm made up the aslant roof, and a porch with rails coiled in jasmine fronted it. This was permanent. A home.

“Look at that,” Ian breathed. “We can be sure some men made it off the ship.”

“For once, I agree with you.” Grant slid his pack to the ground on his way to the ladder. “Guard the trail,” he ordered, leveling a finger at him. “Don't let anyone get past you.”

“Anything for the cause,” Ian answered, and promptly sank into one of the hammocks.

Grant climbed tentatively on the hollow bamboo rungs, but they held. He pulled back the canvas door flap and leaned over to enter….

 

“Did you hear something?” Tori asked, glancing around in every direction.

“No, but then your ears are better than mine.” Cammy tried on the hat and looked in their one fragment of mirror.

“I thought I heard footsteps.”

“I don't see how. No one could ever slip up on us here.”

Tori relaxed and lay back on her pallet, using her bent arm as a pillow. “You're right. We've taken every precaution.”

“But did we have to take this one?” Cammy grumbled.

Tori picked up a feather and idly ran the tip up and down her nose. “A fox continually moves her den.”

Cammy pursed her lips at the moist cave walls looming around them. “I thought there'd be more satisfaction in outfoxing him.”

 

Empty.

She was gone again, elusive as ever. Grant shut his eyes for a long moment, getting his irritation under control, then opened them to find books littering the room, stacked in every corner, and all well read. He flipped open one that was decaying slower than the others. Many of the pages were marked, and copious notes filled the margins.

A pearlescent comb atop a rough-hewn table caught his attention. He crossed, noticing the floor had no give, even under his weight. When he picked up the carved comb and ran his finger over its smoothness, he noticed a single strand of hair. It glowed white and gold in the flickering sunlight.

A basket of folded linens occupied one corner, a stolid trunk another. He bent to the trunk's lid and opened it, the rusting hinges resisting. Inside were more books, and among them he found a weighty journal bound with a strip of linen.

A journal by Victoria Anne Dearbourne, 1850

Though it was the worst invasion of privacy, Grant gently opened it, hoping to garner some insight into who had survived and how. As he read the beginning pages, he strove for detachment—he had a job to do—but for once in his life, he wasn't successful. He scrubbed a hand over his face, recoiling from the knowledge of what had happened to this family. It was worse than he'd imagined. Grant had had only one real tragedy in his life, and yet this young girl had borne one after another. When she questioned if she was to lose two parents, something in his chest tightened.

The journal also confirmed his suspicion that her father hadn't made it off the ship. Dearbourne not only had been a renowned scholar, he'd had a reputation as a man of honor. That he'd stay behind was no surprise. So no men had made it here? He skimmed through and read about Victoria planning the shelter. She'd done this?

He flipped back to near the beginning.

He closed the pages softly, flushing as though he'd been spying on someone. Yet that feeling didn't stop him from tucking the journal into the back of his trouser waist before climbing down the ladder.

Victoria wasn't here alone. Unless Miss Scott had died too, there were two women on this island.

When Ian noticed Grant was back on the ground, he asked, “What's it like inside?”

Grant didn't want to admit it was damned impressive. Seeing the shelter anew, he marveled that Victoria had designed it. He studied how the banyan's roots enveloped the structure and had begun absorbing the platform, making it that much more sturdy. He noted old knife scars on the wood around the joists and realized she'd cut wedges out to fit the baseboards.

Amazing. She'd known exactly how much to cut without killing the root. It was an ingenious idea—letting nature do her work. The attention to detail was remarkable.

“It's durable,” Grant answered, and didn't elaborate. He snatched up his bag and stowed the brittle journal inside.

“Are we staying here from now on?” Ian rocked in the hammock.

“We'll go back to the beach.”

“It's going to rain soon, and that hut looks watertight.”

Grant shook his head. “No, we go back.”

Ian flashed him an impatient look that turned defiant, then leapt up to untie and steal the hammock. Grant let it go and followed him, pausing only to glance back one last time. After reading the journal, he recognized that Victoria had compiled the notes in those books. He'd wondered if she could still read, but now knew she'd made a study of all of those texts. Her intelligence continued to impress. Except when she used it against him.