She was so beautiful.
Though he couldn’t see her, he imagined her lying beneath him, her rich auburn hair spread like molten copper about her perfect face. And those eyes ... golden like honey, and sprinkled with emerald dust. He cursed the darkness in that instant that he couldn’t see them ... that he couldn’t read her expression.
Did she regret it already?
He surely didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Wouldn’t.
She was silent, and Jack told her, “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that, Sophia?”
She sounded breathless, the same as he did. “How long?” she asked him, and he had to smile at her question.
As a matter of fact, he didn’t remember a moment when he hadn’t wanted to kiss her, and yet he couldn’t honestly give her the exact instant he’d first realized.
“Since you first kissed me,” he told her, and knew it was a lie.
He’d wanted her before then.
“Oh!” she replied. He wished he could see the color in her cheeks. And then she added, sounding as though she were holding back an embarrassed giggle, “I don’t suppose I should apologize, then?”
Jack grinned down at her. “Not on your life,” he assured her, and chuckled.
There was silence between them then, and after a moment she said, “I’m very sorry about your papers, Jack.”
Jack didn’t want to think about that just now, didn’t want to remember who she was. “It’s all right. I managed to save most of them anyway.”
“Still... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
He wanted to believe she had nothing to do with Penn, other than the obvious. He wanted to believe her when she’d said she missed her fiancé and wanted only to see him... and yet a part of him recoiled at the very possibility... because he wanted her for himself.
“You don’t really believe I would steal from you, do you?” She sounded hurt by the prospect.
Reality smacked him in the face.
She was some other man’s fiancée... engaged to be married to someone other than him.
On top of that, he wasn’t entirely certain he could trust her. His answer was honest when he gave it. “No.”
He couldn’t believe she would kiss him like that if she could so easily turn around and stab him in the back. And still... she wasn’t being completely honest with him... because no woman in love with someone else could kiss another man like that.
At least he hoped to hell it was true.
Chapter 19
“She’s not what you think,’ Kell said, coming up behind him.
Jack glanced up from his work, annoyed that the only thing Kell ever seemed to have to talk to him about was Sophie. “No?” he asked, though he was beginning to sense it as much himself.
“No,” Kell answered, and came to sit on the desk. The portrait of Harlan Penn caught his attention and he lifted it up, arching a brow as he inspected it.
Jack tried hard not to notice the picture, as much as it irked him. In fact, he’d like to send it flying across the room, and would have happily let his desk burn down just to get rid of it. But it belonged to Sophie and so he just ignored it.
“You know something I don’t?” he asked Kell, sensing it was so. Kell never kept anything from him, but somehow Jack felt this time he was.
Kell’s reply only provoked him more. “Maybe.”
Jack studied his friend. “You like her, don’t you?”
Kell flipped the picture down against his thigh and grinned at him. “Everyone likes her, Jack.”
Jack knew it was true.
“Except you, ye rotten bastard!”
“I like her just fine,” Jack countered, and it was a hell of an understatement. He liked her more than just fine... he liked her too damned much.
“Do you?” Kell pried.
Jack sat back in his chair, studying the smug expression on Kell’s face.
“What is it you’re trying to tell me, Kell?”
Kell stood again, took another look at the picture, and said, “If you’re too blind to see the truth then you don’t deserve to know.” And then he set the picture down facing Jack and walked away.
Jack watched him go with narrowed eyes, thinking they had known each other far too long. He sighed deeply and his gaze returned to the portrait of Penn.
His brows drew together as he focused on the picture, and he reached out to grasp it in his hand.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, and chuckled.
The artwork wasn’t his.
Penn sported two horns on his head and a third on his chin, and his eyes were filled with dollar symbols. The look suited him. Jack shook his head and laughed outright. He glanced at the door and thought about calling Kell back to hound him for whatever information he’d gotten out of her, but he knew Kell well enough to know he wouldn’t give it—not if he’d made up his mind not to, and it seemed he had.
“I’ll be damned,” he said again, and set the picture down facing him, so that he could enjoy it while he worked. His mood, as he sat again, was much lightened.
Suddenly he heard the shouts, and he nearly knocked the desk over in his haste to discover the cause of the commotion.
“I’m perfectly all right,” Sophie assured Randall who was shouting at her to come down, trying to calm him before he managed to rouse Jack. It wasn’t as though it were windy and the seas turbulent. The ocean and sky were both at peace after last night’s storm, and Sophie didn’t see the first reason why she couldn’t manage a simple repair. If a man could do it, she could do it. That much was certain.
“Miss Vanderwahl,” Randall shouted up at her, “please come down from there!”
Sophie ignored him, climbing higher up the makeshift ladder. Apparently, through the night, the winds had further rent a hole she had inadvertently put in the sails—enough that it was visible from the deck below and she didn’t want the rip to worsen. She would certainly take precautions, but she would not be deterred.
She wanted to do something nice for Jack.
They had awakened that morning arm in arm on the floor. He’d held her through the night while the storm had raged, and she’d pretended to sleep on while he’d risen with the bright morning sun, taking care to tuck her in before leaving. He’d brushed the hair from her face... so tenderly that it had made her heart twist with longing.
“Miss Vanderwahl,” Randall protested, and then was joined by Kell, who thankfully remained quiet while staring up at her as though he thought her mad.
And perhaps she was, because all she could think about was Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack. What in damnation was wrong with her?
A crowd began to gather on deck, but Sophie ignored them, determined to be of some use. She had found needle and thread in storage, and by their enormous size she determined they were intended for just such an occasion. She might not know how to repair sailcloth precisely, but she was hardly beyond figuring such things out.
Once she reached her destination, however, the size of the rip dampened her resolve. From below, it had seemed small enough, but up close, she began to wonder if she would do it any good. Even so, it didn’t hurt to try. She took the rope she had coiled on her arm and tied it first about the masthead, and then about her waist, securing her position, lest she slip and fall. That done, she braced herself to work and removed the needle from her dress. It was already threaded; she had done that before coming up. And if she should need more thread, she had that at the ready.
All was well until Jack shouted up at her, startling her.
“Goddammit, Sophia! Get down here!”
She dropped the needle.
Sophie peered down at Jack, glaring at him. “Look what you made me do!” she railed at him.
“Get down here, Sophia!”
His tone of voice grated on her nerves. “I will not!” Sophie countered. “How dare you use that tone with me!” If he were concerned about her, there were far better ways to show it! At any rate, she was j
ust fine, except that now she had no needle to sew the sails. Irritation welled up inside her.
“Do you have any idea what the hell you are doing?” he asked her, with the emphasis on the word hell. He set his hands on his hips as he glared up at her. “Or do you make it your duty to run around looking for trouble? In all my blasted days, Sophia Vanderwahl, I have never met a more undisciplined woman!”
If there had been anyone aboard ship who hadn’t known she’d climbed the masthead, he certainly knew it now.
Undisciplined, was she?
Anger surged through her. Were she a man up here, Sophie doubted her efforts would have been viewed quite the same way. A man would have been considered conscientious and constructive.
Undisciplined, bah!
“I’m fixing the sails!” she informed him smartly, and tried to look as dignified as she possibly could under his tirade. Everyone was watching. “Not that someone like you would bother to appreciate that,” she railed at him. “Ungrateful man,” she muttered under her breath.
“I see,” he said. “So that’s what you are doing up there.”
“Yes.”
“And you planned to just stitch it up with needle and thread?”
“Of course,” Sophie responded. “Isn’t that how you fix torn cloth?”
He was silent a moment in the face of her logic, though his fury was evident in his very stance. And then he said, “I don’t know how the hell you fix that cloth, but any idiot would know not to try to fix it while the wind is ripping through!”
“It’s not windy!” Sophie argued. Merely a gentle breeze. Nothing that should have hampered her repairs. “You are being ridiculous, Jack.”
“Sophia,” he continued, sounding harassed now. “If you don’t come down from there, I’m coming up!”
Sophie bristled at his threat. It made her feel like a wayward child, and not even her mother had given her such abuse. Then again, she’d hardly ever done a single thing for which to be reprimanded, so afraid of her mother she had been.
She refused to be cowed. She was no five-year-old with a muddy dress to be chastened. She was an adult, and a free-thinking one at that!
She smiled down at him, a challenge in her tone. “You just do that, Jack MacAuley—and why don’t you bring me the needle you made me drop while you are at it?” All at once, the crew below began to search the deck, as though looking for the needle.
“Sophia!” Jack shouted.
“I think it’s there... near Randall,” she instructed him, ignoring his directive. If he wanted her down, he could very well ask, politely. She had no reason to remain now without her needle, but she wasn’t going to bow to his every command.
Randall dropped to his knees, searching. Sophie doubted he would ever find the needle, and in truth, she had no idea where it had fallen. Jack had startled her so.
Rude cantankerous man!
“That’s it!” Jack said, throwing up his hands in obvious disgust of her and practically lunging at the masthead before taking hold of the ladder and climbing it much too agilely. Sophie bit her lip, frowning at him. He couldn’t very well drag her down against her will. It wouldn’t be safe to simply pull her down after him. Instinctively she tightened the knot at her waist, and then just to be certain she tied another and pulled with all her might. She didn’t wish to fall victim to his rash anger.
“I was only trying to help!” she assured him when he was halfway up. She tested the rope once more, growing more anxious the closer he came.
“Please don’t help!”
“I don’t understand why you are so angry!”
Neither Jack.
He couldn’t explain the fear that had knotted in his gut the instant he’d spied her up on the masthead.
The woman was insane!
No more was he merely concerned that she would sink the boat. If she kept this up, she was going to end up six feet under. Jack was going to have to lock her up to keep her safe from harm!
He climbed swiftly, thinking only of reaching her, not questioning the inexplicable hysteria he felt inside at the thought of her up there.
He almost had her, was within arm’s reach, when he placed his foot a bit too heavily on the ladder rung. It gave way beneath him.
“Jack!”
He reached out for the masthead, embracing it as he went sliding downward. In the same instant, he felt a sharp tug on his scalp, only an instant and then it was gone. He landed heavily on the next rung down, and he heard it snap, too. Down he went again, groaning in pain. For an inscrutable moment, all he could think about were his jewels. There had been no way to protect them in his slide down, and he went black now with the pain. The next rung down held fast, and he stood there, hugging the masthead, coming aware next of the burning in his hands.
When reason returned to him, he peered up into Sophie’s horrified expression.
She held her hand outstretched and in it she held a lock of his hair. Jack’s brows drew together in shock at seeing it. His first instinct was to reach back and find the bald spot, but his arms were wrapped tightly about the masthead, and he’d be damned if he’d let go.
She peered down at it, and then again at him, her brows lifting in supplication. “I’m sorry, Jack. I... I tried to stop you.”
Words would not form.
In his mind, he imagined tying her to her hammock, wrapping mile after mile of rope around her, cocooning her away from the world. In his fantasy, she shouted pleas to be released, but he steadfastly ignored her, silencing her with a brutal kiss before turning and walking away, then locking the door.
He should have followed his instinct, and never let her aboard this bloody ship.
Chapter 20
You’re lucky this isn’t worse,’ Sophia scolded him.
Jack merely looked at her.
“I was only trying to help,” she defended herself.
“Dear God, please! No more helping!”
“But I want to!” she protested.
Stubborn woman.
He admired her fortitude but the pain in his hands made him resolute. It was his turn to sit grimacing while she removed splinters from his hands—big fat ugly splinters. He leveled a stern look at her.
“No more, Sophia, do you understand? No more bloody helping!”
She sat on his desk before him, digging out splinters, wincing as she worked. “I’m sorry,” she said, and sighed. “This is all my fault.”
Jack wasn’t about to disagree, but neither did he say anything. It was clear by her expression that she was guilt-ridden enough already.
“I suppose my education falls somewhat short of instruction for the world at large.”
He smiled at her, softening his insult with a wink. “You do pretty well for a spoiled little rich girl.”
Sophie laughed softly, but the self-deprecating tone had pricked at his heart.
“You know…” He met her gaze and said, somewhat more soberly. “The simple fact that you’ve rolled up your sleeves to help is a good sight more than I expected from you.”
Sophie shrugged. “As you pointed out … I wouldn’t quite call it help.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sophia.”
Sophie couldn’t help it.
It seemed everything she attempted, she failed. She’d thought herself so well-schooled because she’d managed her parents’ household so smoothly. In truth, she was almost afraid to attempt anything more. Only sheer stubborn will made her keep trying. She refused to be defeated by menial tasks. She was determined to be of some use to Jack, to be an integral member of his crew... to make up for the damage she had caused. Much of his research had been ruined. Somehow, she had to atone for that. Perhaps she could try to redraw the pictures?
She was good at that.
She walked over to the washbasin, picked up the soap and a washcloth, tossed them into the basin, and then lifted the basin out of its table and brought it back to his desk, still thinking about his research. Many of the pages had
survived, damaged though they were. She could redo them for him.
She soaped up the rag and then lifted it to his hand, cleaning it gently.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, her tone filled with concern.
“Yes!” he cried out.
“I’m sorry,” she offered genuinely, and gentled her touch.
His own drawings had been good enough to give her a vision of the objects he had tried to capture. She would begin as soon as possible.
Anyway, this was really all Jack’s fault: Never before had she been embroiled in so many disasters. He was a terrible distraction. She had lived a very reserved life, never indulging in anything that wasn’t entirely proper. She didn’t know anything about cooking or cleaning, or any of the other domestic chores her parents had hired help for. She’d never even had to lift a finger to turn out her own lights. The servants had always taken care of everything. If she’d fallen asleep with the lights on, reading, they were always there to put them out.
And now that she finally had the opportunity to do things for herself, to prove she didn’t need anyone, she was stumbling all over herself and endangering others with her puny efforts.
It made her feel very much a failure.
She couldn’t blame Jack for forbidding her to help anymore. She really wouldn’t blame him if he locked her up in her cabin and took away everything with which she could possibly cause more damage. She couldn’t even read without putting everyone at risk. What made her think she could do something so responsible as share in Jack’s career?
She only wished she could prove herself somehow.
She blinked suddenly, looking up at Jack, only just realizing what she had been thinking.
What made her think she could do something so responsible as share in Jack’s career?
She swallowed uneasily, quite certain she must be mad to even entertain such a notion.
And yet she had thought it.
She brushed the cool, moist cloth over his hands, but his eyes seemed to bore into her own, searching. He looked at her, as though trying to read her thoughts, and Sophie fidgeted under his scrutiny.
Did he know what she was thinking?
To Love a Lord: A Victorian Romance Collection Page 43
