The Price of Pleasure (7 page)

O
ne bloody boot.”

Grant slashed out at the growth around his knees with a gnarled stick. “What the hell does she want with one boot?” he asked himself yet again as he leveled the unfortunate bushes around him. Perhaps marking his path would prevent him from unevenly ambling in the same circle he'd made countless times already. His brilliant idea to track her from the pool last night had only resulted in his being lost.

Again, Victoria had eluded him. She'd definitely gotten the better of him. But that was about to change. He needed to get the girl on his ship, so he would be one step closer to getting her out of his life. Unfortunately, she'd turned out to be tempting. Even for a man with his control. Even when he wanted to throttle her.

She had the softest skin he'd ever felt. And when he'd stood next to her, he could smell the clean scent of her hair. But if his thoughts hadn't centered on how incredible she smelled or the sensual feel of her skin, she might not have escaped him last night.

He entered the camp after dawn, shirtless, one foot cut to shreds, his damp trousers clinging to his legs. The men all had the same reaction. Shock.

Ian got over it first, and laughed uncontrollably. “I take it you caught her!”
Laughter.
Then, in a voice imitating Grant's own, Ian said, “Sailor, your shirt's not tucked in.” He feigned a face of realization. “Oh. You're not wearing a shirt!”
Laughter.
“One boot, and it looks like your trousers are wet! To boot!” He howled at his pun.

With watering eyes, Dooley at least struggled to contain his mirth. “Sir, the snake wasn't poisonous.”

“I realize that.
Now.”
He made an effort to calm himself. “Dooley, row to the ship and get me some more clothes and another pair of boots.” He let out a breath and said with disgust, “And prepare to be here a few days longer.”

While Grant waited for Dooley, Ian's laughter died down, only to rise again. He repeated this cycle for several minutes before finally lounging back in the purloined hammock—his adopted favorite place—a strand of reed lazily perched between his lips.

When Dooley returned, Grant gathered up his clothes and changed, impatient to get out of his wet trousers.

“So. Did you talk to her?” Ian asked as soon as Dooley and the crew were working out of earshot.

Grant took his older pair of boots and collected his polishing kit, determined to ignore his cousin.

“Hah! You did.” Ian scrambled to sit up and straddle the hammock. “What'd she say? What was she like?”

“It's none of your concern,” Grant snapped. “Just go away, Ian. Go back to the ship.”

“Oh no, Cousin. Things are just getting interesting.” Ian tucked the reed into the corner of his mouth and gave Grant a too-easy smile. “You want her, don't you?”

“That's enough.” Grant swiped at his boot with the polish brush, missed much of the leather, and blackened his hand.

Ian slapped his knee and cackled. “Why am I asking? It's obvious she's got you tied up in knots.”

“I won't say this again. Leave me the hell alone.”

“So you caught her and she escaped. The nerve of the little minx, absconding with your boot and shirt! She's clever, I take it.”

She was clever, all right. In the newly declared war between them, she was winning all the battles—or, as Ian had sniped under his breath,
“Round three to Victoria.”

“You know, this whole experience could be good for you. Loosen you up a bit.”

Grant glowered at him. “I do not want to be loosened up.”

“Wound up too tight—that's your problem.”

Grant faced down his younger cousin. “Do you really want to discuss our respective problems? Solve the number of them you have yourself before you focus on me.”

“I can't do anything until I return.” Ian raised his hands in the air. “And I can't return because you sailed to the bloody other side of the world!”

Grant was unprovoked. “You ran aboard my ship.”

“Better your ship than the pack of thugs chasing me,” Ian blustered. “Or so I believed. I thought you were sailing to the Continent. Or even America. Not
Oceania.
”

“That's the thing about thugs,” Grant began as though imparting a secret. “Generally, they don't chase you if you don't owe them money.”

Ian's face fell. “I thought I was paid up. I really did.”

“You thought?”

“Some of us aren't financial wizards.” Ian shot him a pointed glare, but Grant refused to apologize for his one true talent.

“If you actually are paid up, then it has to be about a woman,” Grant reasoned. There wasn't a man in the kingdom more cosseted by ladies, and Ian lapped it up. “Some cuckolded husband probably got sick of sharing.” Besides gambling, drink, and debt, Ian had a reputation for midnight leaps from his married lovers' windows.

“At least I take what's offered to me,” Ian snapped.

Grant stomped into his boots. No, he didn't toss up the skirts of every society woman who offered. He had his reasons. None of which were Traywick's business.

When he snatched up his pack, Ian said, “Wait for me.”

Grant turned, raising one finger. The look on his face stopped Ian.

“Perhaps I'll let you go at it alone today.” With wary eyes, Ian sank into the hammock.

Later, Grant was glad to be alone as he labored up a root-strewn trail, again replaying the sparse minutes with Victoria and his own unusual reaction. If she were the society lady lifting her skirt, would he be able to resist? He feared not.

In less than half an hour, he'd been enlivened by the chase, then angered, then aroused. The cold water had had no impact on his erection—he wondered if anything would have—until she went under. Alarm had gripped him before fury overwhelmed again.

He checked his disappointment as the setting sun closed yet another day. She might return in the night. When she came back to add company to his pallet, he'd grab her.

She didn't return that night.

He knew he'd catch her, so why did he feel like he needed to see her
at that moment?
Where was his hard-won patience? His brother would be alternately amused and encouraged if he could see his notoriously unemotional sibling now.

Grant looked up at the stars. His image of Victoria Dearbourne as a helpless, sweet girl had certainly been shattered. She'd grown into a spirited young woman, but she was still a small thing, hardly above five and a half feet—well, small compared to him at least, and thin. Though he'd sensed a latent strength in her, he still was uneasy thinking about her out there in the night. Out there alone. He wanted to protect her, damn it.

And every hour of the day, he pictured how the concise, neat script in her journal had grown wild and erratic as she described that captain's assault. Grant remembered the blood that had splattered down to the page as she'd recorded the event.

The man had discovered Miss Scott and attacked, but before he could truly harm her, Victoria launched herself onto his back, trying desperately to strangle him. While reading the words, Grant had cheered her.

The cutthroat had flung her off and turned once more to Miss Scott, but Victoria had run at him again scratching and kicking. When he read how the bastard had backhanded her, Grant had held the journal so tightly his fingers made permanent indentions in the moist cover.

He'd been proud when Victoria spat a mouthful of blood on the man's boots, even while dreading his reaction. But then Miss Scott had been behind him, bringing down a rock….

Grant wasn't an emotional man, so the blinding rage he'd felt toward that bastard had staggered him.

As did his fear.

He'd felt desire for Victoria, and couldn't help comparing himself to that captain.

Christ, he wasn't anything like him. It was inconceivable to Grant how a man could hurt a woman or touch a girl.

Damn it, Victoria was no girl at nearly twenty-two. She was strong—able to hold her own. But another part of him argued that though she was older, she was still woefully naïve. She
was
strong, but still in an incredibly vulnerable position.

It wasn't until the moon had set that he slept.

 

Finally, he slept.

As Tori waited at the edge of the camp, she watched the captain contemplating the stars, his face in a pattern of scowling, relaxing, and scowling again. She'd wondered the other morning why he unrolled his pallet directly under the one break in the canopy of limbs above and decided he wanted to prevent anything, or anything living, from falling on him. Now she knew he lay so he could look to the sky.

The thought was incongruous with her idea of him as the forbidding, stern captain, but then she was rethinking him anyway. Though she had no experience, no touchstone or guide stick to determine a man's duplicity, she'd begun to believe he was telling the truth. He'd come for them.

Now to get Cammy to believe. This morning, when Tori related her exchange with Captain Sutherland, Cammy had said she feared he'd taken the information from her journal. Tori admitted that she was torn, with half of her thinking Sutherland told the truth, but Cammy had seemed more concerned about any possible journal mention of the cave.

When Sutherland's eyes finally slid closed and the rise and fall of his chest grew deep and even, the wind had picked up to sieve the palms and curl waves ashore, as though in tune with Tori's unsettled feelings. She wrapped her arms around herself. Why had the sight of him gazing up at the stars softened something in her?

Lost in thought, Tori trudged back to the cave and was surprised to find Cammy waking.

“You've made a decision,” Cammy said, stretching her arms over her head. “It's written on your face. So, do you think your grandfather sent him?”

Tori scratched her ear. “Yes.”

“Eight years after the fact?” Cammy sat up and brought her knees to her chest.

Tori sat on her own pallet and considered the question as if she hadn't already done so fifty times. “I know I shouldn't, but I think he came for us.”

“Are you trusting him because he's handsome?”

Tori flushed and stared at her toes. He
did
easily fit her idea of a rescuing knight with his tall frame packed with muscle, his expression intense and resolute, but he also exuded a sheer force of will that she had never reckoned with. He wanted her on that ship. “No, because he's determined. I got the feeling he's been fighting to find us for some time.”

“I might not trust him, but I do trust you. If you think he's taking us back to England, then that's good enough for me.” Cammy pulled her blanket closer around her. “Imagine going back after all this time. I have no family left there—that's part of the reason why I signed on with your parents—but how I've missed things! English tea, soft sunlight,
tea,
seasons other than wet and dry,
tea.”
She grinned, but then her face turned serious. “I miss riding a horse across green fields more than I can bear sometimes. I'd hoped for it for so long. Then, after the…incident, I stopped thinking of it.”

Tori knew exactly how she felt. After the second year here, the idea of a rescue seemed as far-fetched as flying. “If this Sutherland is telling the truth, then we have a lengthy voyage to look forward to.”

Cammy pulled her braid over her shoulder and smoothed it down. “But you'll be able to see your grandfather and your true home. I know your parents always planned to live there after they'd finished their studies. They would have wanted you to return to where your roots are.”

Tori's memories of her grandfather were mere sequences in her mind. She remembered him chuckling and swooping her up on his shoulders. She vaguely recalled that they'd stolen a batch of muffins from the cook and eaten them in the tree house he'd had built for her. “Cammy, if you agree with me, I'll approach him tomorrow. But I will say this—when we sail from here, it will be on our terms. I'm going to demand that we break up the voyage and get you to a doctor.” Tori's fierce words were garbled by a yawn she failed to stifle. She wouldn't have thought sleep could be compatible with this new idea of rescue, but her eyelids grew heavy.

“Get some rest,” Cammy advised. “We'll talk later.”

Tori gladly slipped under her quilt, dozing off immediately. She only slept for a couple of hours until dawn, but it was time enough for her dream of the wreck to plague her. She rose, cheeks wet, relieved Cammy wasn't inside. A shudder ripped through her. Would she ever be shed of that night?

She ambled out to lean against the cave entrance and found Cammy in the clearing blithely cutting a mango for breakfast. Tori lifted her gaze to the red sunrise. She noted the amplified colors of the sun hitting clouds and inhaled deeply. The air was heavier, cloying even, and the water was warm enough to kill fish. But then, the ocean storm season was always palpable even before it fully manifested. She wondered if those men, sitting on a ship that was like food for these reefs, knew what was about to befall them.