Starlight & Promises

by Cat Lindler

  “I hardly think so.” Pettibone snorted under his breath, shuffling out and closing the parlor door with a rather loud bang.

  “I suppose not.” Christian smiled wryly and directed his gaze to Samantha once again. “We were speaking about conditions.”

  “You were speaking. I was listening. I continue to do so.”

  He saluted her. “Touché. Conditions, then. First, you’ll pay all the expenses incurred.”

  “That was my intention.”

  “Next, Lord Stanbury and I will share authorship on any publications resulting from the expedition.”

  “I agree,” she said, surprised his conditions were so reasonable. “Uncle Richard should have no difficulty with coauthorship.” The tension lifted from her shoulders.

  He grinned like the hare confronting the tortoise prior to the race, his teeth flashing in his tanned face. “Fine. Now for the difficult one. This is to be my expedition. I’ll take sole charge, make all the plans, and give all the orders.” When she started to speak, he cut her off. “I’ll brook no opposition on this. I’m familiar with that part of the world. It’s primitive and dangerous, infested with sea pirates, criminals, headhunters, and cannibals. In assuming responsibility for the expedition’s safety, I’ll tolerate no interference or challenges to my authority.”

  She controlled her voice with difficulty. “I understand. I realize you have the superior experience. I shall follow your orders.” Surely that could not be too difficult. Step here; do not step there; hide behind this tree …

  “You had better. You can travel with us to Tasmania. I have friends there who run a respectable boarding-house. I’ll send reports to you when I can.”

  “No!” She jumped up, and her cup of tea went flying. It splashed across his breeches. “You go too far. I must go to the island with you.”

  He stood just as abruptly, cursed, pulled himself up to his full height. His cup dropped on the side table with a clatter. The liquid remaining in the cup sloshed out and spilled onto the table. With a handkerchief drawn from his coat, he brushed at the scalding tea on his leg. “You will not!”

  “I will!”

  His eyes narrowed, darkened. “Not!”

  “How will you find the island without me?”

  “You will inform me of its location before we reach Tasmania.”

  Her mouth quirked into a wide smile. Slowly and distinctly, she said, “No … I … will … not.”

  “Damn it, Sam,” he said on an explosive breath. He threw the soaked handkerchief to the floor. “Have you any notion of what you’re saying?” Raking a hand through his hair, disheveling it, he stalked away, pacing across the room, his large form seeming to dwarf the space. “The South Seas are treacherous enough for armed men, much less pampered society ladies. I’ve already mentioned the unsavory human elements we will meet: not might, but will. In all likelihood, we’ll encounter spiders the size of dinner plates and centipedes over a foot long, whose bite can cause your arm or leg to swell to four times its normal size.” He paused, skewering her with his gaze. “Snakes, too. Have you ever heard of the two-step viper?”

  “No, but it sounds interesting. What color is it?”

  “What color is it?” he sputtered, rumpling his hair again. “This is no joking matter. Its venom is lethal, killing before the victim can take two steps. Even the plants, deceptively beautiful, harbor poisonous spines or sap that strips skin from flesh. And were that not enough, the men I hire will be no gentlemen. You would have no privacy. I cannot afford to make a mistake and risk lives because I’m distracted by playing nurse to you.”

  Samantha returned his stare. “I have no need of a nurse. I’m far from being a child. I have no fear of your flesh-stripping plants nor two-stepping snakes and headhunting cannibals. I’m not a helpless, pampered female, but a modern woman. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself in any situation. In fact, I have a reputation as a well-respected amateur herpetologist. I accompanied Uncle Richard on many such expeditions.” Her conscience thumped her a bit at the lies. Small lies, but lies nonetheless. “I will not give you the island’s location. I shall obey you in all else, but I must go with you. This is my expedition. I have to find Uncle Richard.”

  Christian blew out an oath she’d not heard before, then said, “So be it. It’s your funeral, Miss Modern Woman, whatever the hell that means. I wash my hands of all responsibility regarding you.” He leaned forward, pointing a finger at her, his eyes hard, voice low. “But I warn you, should you disobey my orders just once, I vow I’ll turn you over to the nearest cannibal tribe and join them for dinner. If I cannot find any cannibals, I’ll shoot and cook you myself.”

  He bent over, picked up his cup, drained his coffee, and started toward the door. With his fingers on the handle, he turned to meet her gaze once more. “We leave a week from tomorrow. Be prepared and pack light. I want this agreement in a contract. Write it up, sign it, and send Pettibone over to the house with it before we leave. You’ll not board ship without it.”

  “Even the part about the cannibals and shooting me?” she asked with a tilt of her chin and a tight smile.

  The smile flickering across his mouth would have given a bull elephant pause, and he departed, throwing the answer over his shoulder. “Especially that clause.”

  After he left, Samantha allowed her nerves free rein. Goose bumps spurted across her skin when she finally realized what she had talked him, and herself, into. And, good Lord, she’d forgotten to tell him about Aunt Delia, Chloe, Gilly, and Pettibone, who had insisted on accompanying her from England and expected to come along for the journey. He would be annoyed at that disclosure.

  Mayhap that was an understatement. He would be furious!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Boston Harbor

  Christian stood on the deck of the Maiden Anne under a leaden sky brushed with wispy, mare’s-tail clouds. Hundreds of ships clogged the busy harbor, jockeying for space at the docks. Older clippers, schooners, and barques competed with more modern wooden or metal paddlewheel steamers of the Cunard Line, sporting masts and barque rigs, and the most recent propeller-driven steamships.

  The Maiden Anne possessed the qualities Christian required: speed, seaworthiness, alternate power, and defense. He knew well the dangers of South Pacific sea travel. The waters along their planned passage could range from balmy to full-blown typhoons.

  With the Maiden Anne, flexibility was key. The ship was a hybrid design, a steamship masquerading as a clipper. Two screw propellers driven by a double-expansion engine and fueled by a steam boiler provided her main power. She could make nine knots under propellers alone in calm seas, though she looked and responded more like a clipper designed for long-distance commerce, combining speed and seaworthiness. Elongated, slender, and sharp-bowed, she carried a full complement of four masts in addition to the steam engine and made better time under sail with favorable winds and currents, leaving the screw propellers for the doldrums and stormy weather. Designed to sail in the U.S.-China trade, the ship carried thirty-six small cannons for defense against sea pirates. When confronted with calamity, they would have the options of running, maneuvering, or fighting.

  Below decks space was at a premium, but Christian cared not the least for passenger comfort. Lady Samantha would have had her fill of bare-bones ocean cruising by the time they reached Hobart. He planned on it, neither wanting nor needing a woman on his hands. In the case of Lady Samantha, the thought occurred to him, he was more likely to have his hands on her. He grinned. In spite of that delightful image, he could not afford the distraction and danger she posed to the expedition and to his sanity.

  He looked over the railing, regarding the twisting movements of dozens of jellyfish species teeming in the water between the docked ships. While ticking off their scientific names in his mind, he waited for Garrett and Samantha and again wondered why he had agreed to head this improbable expedition. Was he persuaded a Smilodon still existed? He supposed it was possible, conside
ring the thousands of unexplored islands in the world’s oceans. He gave a short, bitter laugh. About as possible as humans walking on the moon, as Jules Verne described in his fanciful tale.

  Straightening, he pulled a cigar from his coat pocket, struck a lucifer on the wooden rail, and touched the flame to the tobacco. He leaned back against the rail, smoke wreathing his head. Flicking ashes into the harbor waters, he tilted his head up at the squawking call of a circling seagull and narrowed his eyes to a spear of sunlight that pierced the cloud cover. Tangy salt-sea air and lapping waves bathed his soul, propelled his thoughts. Though he had left this all behind years ago, the surroundings still lifted his spirits.

  Considering the obstacles, why was he here? What possessed him to accept her ladyship’s commission? He could say that he felt a slight obligation to Richard Colchester, a fellow scientist, but the search for a missing person was best left in the hands of the authorities.

  He contemplated the alternative. Was his motivation Samantha herself? Had he convinced himself there existed an attraction, other than lust, a pedestrian emotion easily managed? Certainly, the feisty lady fetched his attention, piqued his curiosity. Was it enough? He shook his head, drew deeply on his cigar, and rejected the thought. The lady was haughty, outspoken to a ludicrous degree for a woman, impossibly stubborn, and too high in the instep. Aristocratic ladies were not his preferred cup of tea. In fact, he despised nothing so much as a highborn lady. Memories surfaced of Lady Jane, and a bitter taste coated his throat. He shoved the painful past aside.

  Were he any judge of women, Samantha would defy him at every opportunity and make his life hell. Only one reason for his acquiescence remained—boredom. For six years he had moldered on the farm, writing books and breeding horses. He missed the field expeditions, the excitement, and the danger. Scientific curiosity still burned in his blood, although he had tamed it somewhat in recent years. As a result, he led a stale, passionless life. The opportunity presented by Lady Samantha Eugenia Colchester and the Smilodon, as improbable as it sounded, stirred that part of him still longing for the chase. The expectation of discovery engulfed him, stimulated him, and ignited a fire he’d not felt for many years.

  One last expedition, successful or not, would pacify his wanderlust. He could retire to the farm in contentment. On this final trip, perhaps he would regain some of the satisfaction in his scientific skills he once enjoyed, and it was damned good to have a ship’s rocking deck beneath his feet again. It had been too long.

  Jonas Lindstrom, a dignified, no-nonsense ship’s captain, motioned to him from the helm. Christian pushed away from the railing. Soon he and Jonas became engrossed in a discussion of charts and passages, and Christian immersed himself in the familiar details of a well-planned expedition.

  When the carriage arrived in the drive to transport them to the ship, Samantha was as jumpy as a mouse caught in a pit of death adders. Bedlam reigned in the hallway behind her. Aunt Delia directed servants and family alike in a thundering voice, sending them scattering about the house to retrieve and pack treasures she could not possibly bear to leave behind. With her round figure and unfashionably large bustle, she resembled a mushroom cap floating across the hall on tiny feet too small to support her bulk. Chloe, her blond ringlets flying, whined, tugging at her mother’s arm and begging to remain in Boston with their relatives. Pettibone countermanded Delia’s orders, sending luggage back upstairs and trying to explain that ships had severely limited space. Gilly, Samantha’s Irish maid, cried and cast mournful glances at the attractive American footman who hauled luggage downstairs at Delia’s command and lugged it back up when ordered to do so by Pettibone. The iguana basked on a foyer tabletop, bathing in a stray sunbeam pouring in from the window above the door, while he supervised the chaos with unblinking eyes and admired his image in the polished mahogany surface.

  All Samantha needed now was another argument with the abrasive and intimidating Professor Badia. No, they would more than argue. While she watched her noisy brood in perpetual motion, fingers of panic clutched her throat. ‘Twould be a proper row, perhaps even with fists swinging. No, not fists; surely he would not dare. However, ‘twould be a scene she would just as soon forego.

  At a knock on the door, she swallowed around the boulder in her throat. Her stomach churned with queasiness, and her inability to take a proper breath made her limbs light and tingly. A headache threatened to crack open the top of her head.

  When the footman made for the door, she waved him aside and opened it wide enough to slip outside, then closed it behind her. Garrett—beautiful, wonderful, gentlemanly Angel Garrett—stood on the porch, a wide-brimmed hat in his hands. She peered over his shoulder for any suggestion of a tall, dark body with piercing eyes.

  “Chris sent me to collect you, my lady,” Garrett said, wrinkling his brow, she supposed, at her furtive movements and transparent unease. “Are your bags ready?”

  “You may as well call me Sam,” she said while continuing her search for the mad scientist. “Professor Badia does. He seems to forget I’m a lady and we are barely acquainted.” She leaned to one side to see around the back of the carriage, but Professor Badia could not possibly be lying in wait there.

  A frown marred his perfect mouth. “I beg your pardon, but are you feeling quite well?”

  She jerked up her head, hand instinctively going to her mouth, and she nibbled on a fingernail. “Is he lurking in the carriage?” she whispered.

  His lips lifted in a puzzled smile. “No, Sam, he’s at the ship. Perhaps you should spill the beans to me before we meet him. You obviously have some concerns on your mind.”

  Cracking open the door without saying a word, she allowed him to look inside. The babble of shouting, crying, whining, and commanding assaulted their eyes and ears. Samantha slammed the door closed again.

  “My God!” Garrett gasped as though in pain. “Surely not all of them are coming with us?”

  She nodded.

  “And you didn’t tell him?”

  She shook her head. “I never found the perfect moment.”

  He shuddered. “Chris will murder you.”

  “Murder?” she squeaked, fingers clutching her throat like she imagined Christian might do.

  “Perhaps not actual murder, but it’s bound to be ugly.”

  His thin smile was thinner than she might have wished, and the sincerity in his voice made her quake.

  Opening the door with the caution of a man entering a feeding frenzy of starving crocodiles, he stepped into the fray, raised a hand over his head. “Quiet!”

  A hush fell over the hallway. All heads turned his way. Delia sniffed and looked affronted. Pettibone sighed and looked relieved. Chloe’s mouth fell open; she looked lovestruck. Gilly paid no attention and still sniffled away. The iguana climbed down from the table, wiggled over to Garrett, and wound around his legs.

  He looked down at the three-foot-long green reptile and sucked in a breath. “Good Lord! What the hell is that?”

  Samantha darted over, picked up the animal, and cradled him in her arms. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes in an expression of pure pleasure. “A South American iguana and quite tame, as you can plainly see. I named him Narcissus because he enjoys looking at his reflection. He is a good traveler and will be no trouble at all.”

  Garrett grimaced, pointing a shaky finger at the iguana. “He’s coming, too?”

  She nodded again, feeling as if she were transforming into one of those bobble-headed dolls sold at Harrods department store in London.

  Garrett closed his eyes, lips moving, mumbling something inaudible. Opening his eyes, he faced the others. “Listen up. Each of you, excluding the iguana, may bring only one small chest. You will leave the remainder behind.”

  They grumbled in competing voices.

  “You have exactly ten minutes to load your baggage and be in the carriage, or I’ll leave without you.”

  They flew into action with only ten minutes to accomplish the imp
ossible, managing to cage up Narcissus and sort out their belongings within the allotted time. In a cacophony of noise, they climbed into the carriage.

  As Garrett passed by Samantha, he muttered, “When he sees this … I wouldn’t wish to be in your shoes.”

  Had she a choice, neither would she. She tried to force a smile and failed.

  When the carriage pulled up to the quay in front of the ship, Samantha inched back the curtain to peek out the window. Christian stood on the aft deck with his back to the dock, conversing with a man who looked like the captain. The situation appeared hopeful. If only she could keep everyone quiet, she could sneak her family aboard without attracting his attention.

  The carriage brakes squeaked loudly enough to raise the moldering bodies from the graveyard. The coachman yelled at top volume to the dockhands for assistance. The horses whinnied more shrilly than Samantha ever heard a horse whinny. And as soon as Garrett opened the carriage door, Delia, Chloe, Pettibone, and Gilly spilled out onto the quay like chickens leaving a henhouse—squawking stridently, flapping their arms, and milling about aimlessly. Narcissus nudged open his cage door and plopped out onto the roadway. He looked around, spied Samantha, and made a beeline for her. She scooped him up before the wide-eyed dockhands could make a grab for him.

  Clearly audible over the riot of noise came the voice Samantha had dreaded hearing all morning.

  “Sam! Fetch your backside over here!”

  Her stomach twisted with a sickening lurch.

  “They are my family,” she said after she boarded the ship. Hugging Narcissus tighter to her chest, she caused him to squirm. “And gentlemen refrain from referring to ladies’ body parts in such a crude manner in loud voices in public places. I shall expect you to restrain your impulse to do so in the future.” She trusted a preemptory strike would throw him off balance, distract him from her entourage.

  He resembled the Colossus of Rhodes, legs spread wide apart, arms folded over his chest. His face was a thundercloud, his eyes so razor sharp they could have pierced a caiman’s hide.