Starlight & Promises

by Cat Lindler

  Tears of pain stung her eyes. She turned to look at the bloodstains on her shirt. “I thought you knew.”

  His eyes darkened. “Devil take it! Had I known, I would have called a halt before now. Slip down your shirt. Those cuts need treating.”

  Too tired and in too much pain to argue, she unbuttoned the shirt, eased it off her shoulders, and grimaced at the wide, raw patches on her skin. When he wet a handkerchief and cleaned the bloody stripes, she whimpered and flinched away.

  “I know it hurts, but I have to clean the injury, or infection will set in.” He reached into his pack and withdrew a brown bottle. “Now clench your teeth, because this may burn.”

  When he poured the weak solution of carbolic acid on the open wounds, she bit back a scream, and wetness streamed down her cheeks. She dragged in a shuddering breath. “It hurts terribly now.”

  “Wait a minute, and the pain will ease.” He left her to tramp through the area beyond the campsite.

  She could not believe her eyes. What was he doing now? Chasing after some animal while she was suffering? She failed to keep the angry edge from her question. “What are you looking for?”

  “Aloe. Ah, here’s one.” He returned with a fat leaf in his hand that had a waxy skin, silver green with spiked edges. He squeezed it until a clear, jellylike sap oozed from its cut edge and rubbed the substance over her wounds. An immediate cooling seeped into her skin. After a short while, the pain ebbed to a dull ache.

  “How does it feel now?”

  She allowed a smile to creep over her mouth. “Better.”

  “Capital. You can collect wood for the fire. However, don’t stray from my sight. Have a care where you step and what you grab. Snakes can resemble branches.”

  Her good humor fled, and she sent him a goggle-eyed look. Was that a hint of mercy in his features? If so, it swiftly disappeared.

  “I hardly expect you to carry the wood on your shoulders,” he continued. “A minor injury should not excuse you from your fair share of work.”

  After she had collected enough firewood for a dozen campfires, he demonstrated the technique for starting a fire using twigs and dry grass. “Why go to all that trouble?” she asked. “Why not simply use lucifers?”

  He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Matches become wet, and you might not have any. A fire could mean the difference between life and death. You must become competent with alternative methods and using the materials at hand.” As soon as small flames appeared, he smothered them and handed her the twigs. “Now you do it,” he said, rising. “I’ll hunt for dinner. I expect to find a fire when I return.”

  “Chris—” He vanished before she could finish her objection. The infuriating man moved as quickly as a chameleon. She stared at the twigs, thinking perhaps she should have paid closer attention to Christian’s rambling. Images of sleep, a bath, and a ten-course meal had caused her mind to drift while he droned on about twigs and fire. Never did she believe he would expect her to do it.

  When Christian returned, Samantha still sat in front of the fire pit, her right thumb in her mouth, biting on the nail. The twigs lay undisturbed on the ground. He halted and silently studied her, aware of what she was going through. He recalled his maiden voyage into the field. Her pain and frustration were genuine. Why could he not simply carry her pack and start the fire? Remembering his ultimate motive, he shook his head as though to suppress the urge to give in to the sight of her misery. She would learn naught if he were to make her wilderness jaunt a pleasurable stroll. Capitulation now would ruin his intentions. He supposed he could slow down the pace … a bit. She was considerably smaller than he. Perhaps he would remove a few items from her pack. He could still make his point by the time they returned to the ship. His goal was to discourage her, not kill her.

  “Aren’t you a bit old to be sucking your thumb?” he said from directly behind her. I have something else you can put in your mouth, the devil on his shoulder suggested.

  She jerked out her thumb. When she looked over her shoulder, he arched a brow. “I cannot help but notice we don’t yet have a roaring fire.”

  “The twigs declined to cooperate,” she said in a sullen voice. “I have no option but to believe you gave me defective wood.”

  He suppressed the smile tugging at his mouth and sat on the ground beside her. “Then I suppose we’ll have to eat our dinner raw.” He pulled out a wriggling grasshopper from a pouch hanging at his belt. “But I must admit they taste better roasted.”

  Her eyes opened as wide as saucers. She scrambled away, her knees churning up the sandy ground. “That is a bug!” she screeched. “I will not eat bugs. I care not what you do to me, but you’ll not force me to eat a bug!”

  He couldn’t control his grin. “Sam, Sam, calm down. What did you expect? My returning to camp with lamb stew and meat pasties slung over my shoulder? Bugs are less disgusting than you might imagine. They’re full of energy. You enjoy lobster, do you not? And shrimp and crayfish? All are arthropods, exactly like this grasshopper. Sometimes insects may be the only meal you can capture.”

  “No!” she yelled, her eyes filled with fire. “You cannot trick me. I will not eat bugs!”

  He popped the insect into his mouth and made a production of crunching and swallowing it.

  She shuddered, her face turning green, leapt to her feet, and ran into the bushes. He heard her vomiting and shook his head. After extracting a box of lucifers from his pack, he started a fire. He caught her voice at intervals, still defiant, coming from the camp perimeter. “I will not eat bugs! You cannot make me! I shall starve first!”

  Having checked the surrounding area for snakes and other hazards, Christian allowed her to crash about beyond the fire’s circle for an hour. Meanwhile, he cleaned the fish he had caught, spitted them, and grilled them over the flames.

  “Sam, dinner is ready. Return to camp before you hurt yourself in the dark.”

  “You cannot force me to eat!” she shouted from wherever she was hiding.

  “If you say so, but this fish looks tasty.”

  “Fish?” Within a heartbeat, she stormed up behind him with a leafy branch clutched in both hands. It smacked him across the shoulders, over the head, and on his back. By the time he made it to his feet and wrestled the weapon away from her, she managed to smite him with more than a few hard licks.

  Her hair escaped the braid she had fashioned this morning and whirled in a chaotic storm about her head. She pushed the strands out of her face, features contorted with rage. Her eyes snapped, and she pointed a shaky finger at him. “You did this on purpose! You had no intention of having me eat bugs. You are trying to frighten me and convince me to quit this expedition. The same with your walking too fast and giving me a pack too heavy for me to carry. But I will not! I will not quit! No matter what evil schemes you have in your twisted mind, I refuse to buckle under to your attempts at intimidation!”

  She tossed her head, and her butterscotch hair went flying. Her face glowed as red as the campfire, eyes wild and dark. Christian had never seen her looking so beautiful. A disturbing ache settled inside his chest, right around the region of his heart.

  “I should have known”—she sucked in a ragged breath—”you would not take me on an excursion because you believed I might enjoy it, or because you wished to be nice to me, or wanted to spend time with me. You are the cruelest, most devious, most obnoxious, insufferable man I have ever had the misfortune to meet.” Tears painted muddy tracks down her dusty cheeks. “And I hate you, Christian Badia!” she sobbed. “I hate you!”

  He caught her shoulders and gathered her shaking body into his arms. While he stroked her back, her sobs subsided to hiccups. All this brouhaha over a grasshopper? He had expected revulsion, perhaps anger, but not hysteria. Perhaps he had pushed her too far. The situation wasn’t working out quite as he had planned. He wiped her face with his handkerchief. “You’re quite right. I did want you to give up. I now realize you desire this too greatly to crumble at
the slightest obstacle. I promise, no more games. Instead, I’ll teach you what you need to know to survive and help out on the expedition.”

  When she looked up, hopefulness combined with wariness lined her features. “You truly mean what you say? This promise of yours is not another trick?”

  He put genuine warmth into his smile. “Honestly. No more tricks. We’ll see how well you get along. If I’m satisfied you’ll be safe in the field without constant supervision, you may accompany us. I vow to keep an open mind and grant you every chance to succeed. When we reach Hobart, we’ll discuss it.”

  She pulled back from him and grinned. “Wonderful. Let us eat. I’m starved!”

  He suffered a pang of loss when her warm body left his arms. “Help yourself.” He gestured at the fish. “You’ll find tin plates and utensils in my pack.” While she retrieved the eating implements, he brought out a bag of native fruit he had picked earlier.

  He handed her a wrinkled green fruit. She gave him a cautious smile, and her eyes narrowed. “Is it edible?”

  “You’ll like it. It’s sweet.”

  She bit into the fruit, and juice ran down her chin. “Delicious,” she said, a mouthful of fruit and tender fish garbling her words.

  Christian had the sudden, inexplicable urge to lick the stickiness from her skin. He barely prevented himself from acting on his desires.

  While they finished their meal, the sky became ebony and the stars sharp and bright, true darkness falling over the desert. Samantha looked up with wonder written across her face. “I never imagined such an absolute night could exist. The stars are so incredibly brilliant and close. I do believe I can catch one.” She stretched out an arm and pretended to grab a star and put it in her pocket. Throwing him a triumphant glance, she laughed.

  She skipped through the camp, catching stars as though they were fireflies, and his throat tightened at her pixielike play. She was too alluring tonight. He tried to tell himself she was merely a girl, not yet fully grown, but he knew better. A woman’s fire ran through the veins of her small body and ignited him whenever he drew close. Part girl, part woman; he wanted it all. Carnal thoughts bedeviled him, and he consigned them to the recesses of his mind.

  “I love the desert,” he said, dragging his gaze away from her intoxicating play and turning to make up the bedrolls. “Only when you leave civilization can you experience true night … and quiet.” When his pointed words failed to quell her capering, he called to her.

  She gave him an impish look. “I have yet to catch them all,” she said, pointing up at the sparkling stars.

  A smile came unbidden. “Leave some to guide the sailors, Sam, and come here.”

  When she approached him, he examined her wounds, coated them with another layer of aloe, and pointed to a bedroll. “Now lie down. You’re exhausted, and we have a long day tomorrow.”

  Though Christian snuggled into his bedroll and seemed to have no trouble finding sleep, Samantha’s mind declined to shut down. Despite her anger at Christian and her body’s exhaustion and pain, her imagination spun unfettered. She speculated about Christian. He was such a contradiction, strong with a masculinity that sent her heart thumping. Conversely, he could make her want to commit murder—his. He could be tender and sensual and utterly arrogant and infuriating. She wondered what made him the way he was.

  “I know nothing about you, Chris.” She spoke more to the darkling sky than to him.

  “Of course you do,” he replied in a sleepy voice.

  She smiled at the opportunity to quiz him. “I mean, I know you are a scientist, a respectable one, and you study wild cats. I’ve read everything you have written.”

  He rolled over and folded an arm beneath his head. The dying embers of the fire outlined his long body. “Everything?”

  She sat up and bobbed her head. “Every word.”

  “Good God, Sam. You must lead a boring life and have a great deal of idle time on your hands.”

  “Not at all. I find your writing brilliant. You have such passion for what you do. Your essays reveal a deep love of wildlife. You see nature in a way few people can. What I meant to say is, I know nothing of the man behind the scientist. No one seems to. Who are you, Chris? I don’t even know how old you are.”

  He settled onto his back and slipped his hands beneath his head. “Does it matter? I have no grisly skeletons rattling around my family closet. I am what you see. My life is no more complicated than that.”

  She leaned forward. “But it is. Our roots, our upbringing, families, friends, and mentors determine who we are. Tell me something personal about yourself. I wish to know what made you who you are.”

  “I’m a private man.” A note of reserve etched his voice. “I take no enjoyment in discussing the past, because it’s simply that, over and done with. It has no relevance now. I do what I do because I take pleasure in it, and when it ceases to satisfy me, I’ll do something else.”

  She scooted her bedroll closer so she could rise above him. “Please?”

  He looked up into her eyes and groaned. “Very well, if my surrender should convince you to go to sleep, I’ll answer one personal question.”

  “Three,” she said automatically.

  He laughed and looked away. “You’re still a tough negotiator.” He brought his gaze back to her and said in a firm tone, “Two questions. My final offer.”

  She smiled. “Shall we start with your age?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Is my age truly so important that you would waste one of only two questions? Your prospects appear bleak if you were ever to discover a magic lamp with a grateful genie.”

  “I’m simply curious. You have the, ah, the strength and stamina of a man in the prime of life, but sometimes your mind seems older than Pettibone’s. And at times, your behavior is closer to that of a young man, someone of Garrett’s age.”

  He grimaced. “Very well, Sam. I have no desire for you to compare me with either Pettibone or Garrett. I turned thirty-eight this year.”

  She placed her forefinger to her lips and blinked. “That old.”

  A grin flickered across his mouth. “Practically one foot in the grave.”

  “I would hesitate to put it that way. You are quite well-preserved for such an advanced age.”

  “I thank you for the somewhat dubious compliment, madam,” he said dryly. “Now ask your second question so I can get some sleep and some of that peace and quiet for which I visit the desert.”

  “Are you a British lord?”

  Christian remained silent, his expression guarded.

  “You promised to answer two questions,” she ran on quickly, “and I recall no restrictions on particular subjects.”

  “My mistake again. When I’m in your presence, I seem to find myself in that predicament more often than not. No, I’m not a British lord. I claim ownership to no peerage. The only title I’ve earned the right to use is Doctor of Philosophy, one I gained through hard work and perseverance. You see before you merely Christian Badia, American citizen.”

  “But are you an aristocrat?” she persisted.

  His brows came together. “You intend to beat this subject to death, do you not?”

  “I find myself compelled to do so when you allow me only two questions.”

  He took a deep breath. “My father was a British earl. I was born on our estate in England, but I came to my majority in Massachusetts.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean he was an earl? A peerage is normally inherited. If your father no longer lives, the title would go to his eldest son, whom I presume from your prickly answer to be you.”

  “My father discarded his title, relinquished all claim to it, renounced it, denounced it, and became an American citizen. He petitioned the Crown to award the earldom to some other inbred drain on society.”

  “It sounds as if you admired him for what he did,” she said more softly. “Tell me about him.”

  Christian cast her a stern glance. “Is that not question n
umber three?”

  “I do believe it to be a statement and still part of question two.”

  Staring up at the stars, he said, “My father was a remarkable man but too idealistic for the times in which he lived. He was a reformer, one of the earliest. He felt true spiritual and emotional empathy for the misery he saw every day—the poverty, disease, starvation, injustice, and prejudice. Not because one man was inherently superior to another but because of the circumstances into which he was born. An accident of birth determined a man’s place in life. My father saw the established hierarchy, based on inherited privilege, conspiring to maintain the inequity.

  “He did what he could to aid those less fortunate, lobbied in the House of Lords for reform, lent his support to labor unions, and used his wealth to effect good in an attempt to change the system. He established and supported hospitals for the poor, schools, homes for unwed mothers and orphans, and employee-owned factories. And when the money was gone, he sold and gave away the contents of the estate.

  “Society mocked and shunned him. We even received death threats. The newspapers, controlled by the aristocracy, lampooned him in political cartoons, dubbing him ‘The Battersea Earl,’ referring, as you know, to the meanest section of London.”

  Her heart twisted. “That must have been distressing for you.”

  “No, Sam,” he said with a quick look at her. “It was most gratifying and quite wonderful. I championed my father’s ideals and still do. He believed inherited wealth to be unearned money tainted by the sweat of slaves and serfs and penniless croftholders for hundreds of years.

  “When we had naught left to sell, when he had given it all away, we sailed to America and homesteaded in Massachusetts, where we built the farm through our own sweat and labor. Everything I have, I worked for, and therefore, it means much more to me.”

  A frown plucked at her lips. “Do you, then, hate British lords so dreadfully?”

  “I have no hate for individuals.” He gave a short laugh. “Perhaps I should qualify that by saying, not all of them. Many are as much poor dupes as everyone else—victims of their birth. What I hate is the system that perpetuates the nobility, one that stubbornly allows an archaic institution to continue while the world changes around them.”