Happily Ever After

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  CHAPTER 10

  Sophie located the kitchen easily enough.

  Like the matron’s desk in a schoolroom, the stove sat in the center of the room, facing a multitude of tables, so that the cook would be forced to face the men he would feed.

  She grimaced at the thought, imagining the galley filled with starving men, all of them waiting on their supper, banging impatiently on the tables with enormous wooden spoons. The pressure to deliver would be high, and Sophie resolved to come early in the morning to begin cooking.

  After looking at the sooty old contraption, she was glad she’d come to inspect it. But even after close scrutiny, she couldn’t quite understand how it was supposed to work.

  Opening the oven door, she stared into the oven’s bowels, trying to decide whether it was in fact an oven... or whether one was supposed to burn wood inside it and cook on top. There wasn’t any wood to be seen, or coals, either... but there might possibly be another compartment for that beneath. She poked her head into the dark chamber, trying to see what she could see. Goodness! It was spacious enough to roast a man inside! She found herself inside the oven up to her forearms, trying to peer down into the lower compartment.

  There, indeed, she spied wood, though how the devil one was supposed to get new wood down inside there, she had no clue.

  Carefully, so as not to get herself dirtier than she already was, she began pushing against the sides of the oven, testing it, looking for a removable panel. Nothing budged, and it occurred to her suddenly that she could probably remove the grating on which she was leaning.

  She had already checked the supplies, and there was ample bread to be heated and slabs of meat to go with it. It was probably best to do something extraordinarily simple with her first attempt, and leave the more difficult tasks for later. Still... she would need the oven to heat the bread.

  “Well, well,” came a familiar voice.

  Sophie gave a startled little shriek and instinctively tried to look to see who had come in, banging her head on the roof of the oven and yelping in pain as she fell once more onto the soot covered grating.

  Much to her dismay, she discovered the way into the lower chamber and plummeted, hands first, into the gray ash and what remained of the charred wood.

  “Ouch!” she cried, and tried to lift herself out before she could cause any more damage. A log rolled beneath her palm and she lost her balance entirely, toppling head first into the ash. A cloud of soot exploded in her face, and she sputtered and coughed.

  His voice was sarcastic, as always. “Imagine finding you here.”

  She heard his footfalls as he came around behind her, and was at once mortified at the sight she must present with her bottom poking indecently out of the oven and her feet waving at him.

  “What in the hell are you doing, Mizz Vanderwahl?”

  By Jude! She was beginning to loathe the way he said her name, as though it were a blasphemy! “What does it look as though I’m doing?” she snapped, and coughed as she stirred another cloud of ash.

  Wretched man!

  “Looking for something perhaps?”

  Yes! Sophie thought at once. Her dignity—something that seemed to be stubbornly eluding her these days!

  “Go away!” she begged him, but knew he was too much of a cad to adhere to her wishes.

  “And miss the show?” he taunted. “I don’t think so.”

  Wicked, wicked man!

  By the sound of his tone, Sophie thought he must be enjoying this immensely. She dearly hoped he was! The rotten louse! This was the thanks she got for trying to help? Some days it just didn’t serve to get out of bed.

  There was only one way she knew to salvage her pride... with a sense of humor and her grandmother’s wit. Her father’s mother could curdle milk with mere words, but she’d rarely meant a single unkind word she spoke. It had merely been her way of showing affection.

  “Gee, I thought I’d dust a bit,” she told Jack sweetly, her voice echoing within the cavernous oven. “Your hired help has been remiss, I think.” She wiggled backward, and managed to get her feet on the floor.

  His sarcasm doubled. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” she informed him quite coolly, trying to extricate herself with as much aplomb as she was able, “I wasn’t particularly looking forward to grease with my bread in the morning. Oh, my! You should see it,” she told him. “I really think you’d be quite appalled!”

  With her feet back on the ground, she backed out of the oven all the way, wincing at the sting in her left hand as she put pressure on it to lift herself out. It hurt enough that she daren’t use it again. Bracing a hand behind her, on the oven door, she used it as leverage to drag herself up, and yelped in surprise as the oven door fell off, then again in pain as it landed on her heel.

  “Ouch!” she exclaimed. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to cry. With some annoyance, she pushed the oven door aside, and once removed from the oven, she stood straight and faced him squarely, refusing to cow before his acid tongue.

  His brows were both arched high, and Sophie could tell he was trying hard not to laugh.

  The awful wretch!

  He placed a hand to his jaw as though to appraise her—as though she were a work of art to be studied. Let him be amused at her expense!

  “I take it you were personally mopping up the grease?” he asked her.

  Sophie ignored the insult. She knew she was an awful sight, dirty as she was, though it certainly wasn’t very gentlemanly of him to say so. “It might have been polite of you to help,” she chided him, and kicked the oven door again, wishing it were his shin instead.

  Jack eyed her with amusement. Indeed, it might have been polite of him to help, but he wasn’t in the mood to help Penn’s appointed saboteur.

  He bit his lip, trying not to burst into laughter at the sight she presented, his anger half-fled now. He’d be damned if she wasn’t standing as straight and tall as a bloody totem. Proud little chit.

  He couldn’t help himself: She was easy prey. He lifted a finger and dragged it softly across her cheek, smearing grease, then inspected his finger. “Looks like you missed a spot,” he said, and then actually did laugh at her answering expression.

  She actually fumed. She shook her head indignantly, and ash rose like smoke from her hair.

  “You are an insufferable man!” she exclaimed, her cheeks blushing pink wherever there wasn’t grime.

  Never in his life had he seen a more lovely and hilarious sight.

  From her waist up she had grease marks on her dress and skin where she had been pressed against the grill—her face included! Her hands were black with soot, and when she lifted them off her dress they left a print as dark as night. The tip of her nose was as black as a dog’s nose, and her hair was covered with a blanket of ash.

  Saboteur she might be, but she didn’t look the least bit threatening, and more than slightly comical.

  “I really don’t see what’s so blessed funny, Mr. MacAuley!”

  The laughter Jack was working so hard to contain erupted suddenly. “Oh, but if you had a mirror!”

  She stomped her foot, and ash billowed from her hair again and his laughter escalated, despite her outrage—or perhaps because of it. He couldn’t tell. She just didn’t bring out the best in him.

  He tried to calm himself. “Oh, but you do look lovely, Mizz Vanderwahl,” he teased.

  She had the nerve to look wounded then. Wench. He’d caught her practically red-handed looking for the telegrams and she had the gall to look hurt! He wanted to take the beautiful little shrew over his knee and paddle her delicious backside—and oh, it was delicious. He couldn’t have gotten a better gander at it if he’d asked for it. Pert and round as it was, it had made him yearn to pat it as she wiggled her way out of his oven.

  “Will you please stop calling me Mizz Vanderwahl!” she railed at him. “You manage to make it sound like an obscenity!”

  His laughter subsided a bit, and he gave her a poin
ted glance. “You’re the one who refused my request to be on a first-name basis.”

  “Well, I’ve changed my mind!”

  Infuriated, she swiped her hand across her nose and managed to paint it blacker. Jack barked again with laughter.

  Sophie’s feelings were hurt.

  She would have liked to have said that his hilarity didn’t affect her, but it did. Tears pricked at her eyes. She’d tried to do something nice and he had the audacity and bad manners to make fun of her misfortune!

  She doubted there was a shred of her pride left to salvage, but still she tried. “If you will excuse me, Mr. MacAuley,” she said evenly. “I think I’ll go wash!”

  “You do that,” he allowed, and fell back into another fit of hilarity.

  With as much self-dignity as she could muster, Sophie walked past him to the door, casting him an indignant backward glance. And by Jude, she would have kicked him like the oven door if she’d not been raised better.

  She glared at him. “You are ...” She wanted to call him bad names but not a single one came to mind. “... a wretched bully!”

  He guffawed again, and Sophie turned her nose up into the air and marched away, leaving him to his unwelcome merriment. His laughter followed her through the mess hall and clear to her cabin.

  She looked down at her hands when she reached the captain’s dining hall and saw that they were black as coal. With her left hand she reached down for the knob to let herself into her room and shrieked in pain.

  “Ouch!” she cried out, and jerked her hand away without opening the door. It felt as though half a dozen tiny needles had pricked her, but she couldn’t see anything but accursed black when she inspected her hand again. Then again, the light was dim and she could scarce see much at all. She wanted to cry.

  Whatever had made her think she could repair the damage between them? Why did she care so much what the man thought of her? Who on earth was Jack MacAuley to make her feel less than human?

  He’d followed her, and had the effrontery to sound concerned. “What’s wrong, Sophia?”

  Sophie swallowed her tears. “Why should you care?” Her nerves were near the point of shattering. It had been a terrible day—a terrible week—ever since she found out about Harlan! She had wasted three whole years of her life and wanted some justice for his making her out to be a fool! How could that horrible cad waste her father’s money spending time in the Yucatan dallying with other women?

  “I hope it rots and falls off!” she declared wrathfully, and spun around to face Jack MacAuley.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing is wrong!” she lied, sounding too much as though she were trying not to cry. “Nothing at all!” she repeated a little hysterically, and then added, just to be sure there was no mistake. “I do not like you, Mr. MacAuley!”

  He pulled himself up the ladder and sauntered toward her, but Sophie stood her ground.

  “I don’t like you much, either, Mizz Vanderwahl” His green eyes turned almost gray in his anger. With his laughter gone, his jaw was set, and his words were heavy with meaning. “You’re a spoiled, rotten brat used to getting your own way, but at least I don’t seem to need to list your shortcomings every time I see you!”

  His accusation set her aback.

  Did she really do that?

  “Look,” he continued, having won her silence, “I know I don’t fit into your crowd!”

  Sophia blinked at the wounded sound of his voice.

  “Your kind never lets a man forget where he came from,” he told her. “He can work his ass off to earn his degree and prove himself, but no dice! Well, I’ve news for you, Mizz Vanderwahl, because you’re no damned better than me!” His green eyes were dark with wrath. When it comes time to piss, we all do it just the same way.”

  Sophie winced at his animosity, at the anger apparent in his words. She didn’t know how to respond, particularly since she was hardly going to point out that she didn’t think it was anatomically possible for men and women to relieve themselves in exactly the same manner.

  “There is no need to use profanity,” she protested weakly. “I’m quite capable of understanding your frustrations without it.” Her gaze fell to her injured hand, and she studied it, unnerved by the heat in his eyes.

  If he had intended to make her feel responsible for all his ills, he’d certainly succeeded. Sophie felt properly chastened. There was truth in what he said. Everything derogatory she had heard about him at the university had been in reference to his upbringing—not a single objection had been raised about his intellect.

  In fact, Harlan had been assured even the most basic things... such as attendance at the university... but this man standing before her had likely had to fight to earn every honor he had achieved. A new sense of respect welled up inside her for him, but it didn’t matter, because he really didn’t like her at all, and he hadn’t felt the least hesitation over telling her so.

  The silence between them was deafening.

  Sophie peered up through damp lashes to judge his expression. His fury had cooled a bit from his eyes as he stared at her upturned hand, and when he met her gaze, it expressed mostly concern.

  “Let me look at it,” he demanded gruffly.

  Sophie nodded and offered him her hand, palm upturned.

  He brushed it softly with his fingers, and Sophie winced in pain. He tried to blow the ash away to no avail, and then peered up at her with a sympathetic expression.

  “It’s full of splinters from the wood,” he told her, and then stared at her until she was forced to avert her gaze once more. Somehow, she couldn’t hold his glance without feeling heat in her cheeks. “Will you trust me to get them out?”

  Someone had to do it, and she hadn’t the least idea how to proceed. The last time she had gotten a single splinter in her finger, her mother had stuffed a kerchief in her mouth so she wouldn’t scream, and then had squeezed until Sophie thought her heart would stop, all the while railing about how men had lost entire hands from infections that had set in after getting tiny splinters. She’d been admonished to behave properly—like a lady—and never to slide down banisters like pernicious little boys.

  Jack’s expression begged her trust, and she took a deep breath and nodded.

  CHAPTER 11

  Taking her by her good hand, Jack led Sophie inside his cabin, kicking the door shut behind them.

  Sophie felt a moment’s hesitation as she heard the click of the latch as it closed. Her heart leaped a little at the sound. But he merely dragged her over to his washbasin and released her hand long enough to fill it with clean water. That done, he turned around and seized her good hand, then held his hand out for the other. Sophie stepped forward, and he positioned her in front of him, before the washbasin. He then stood behind her and placed his arms around her, embracing her.

  Sophie swallowed convulsively at the feel of him standing behind her, his body hard and quite male. He took her hands in his and began to wash them gently, the gesture such an intimate one that Sophie suddenly found it difficult to catch her breath. He reached up, releasing her only long enough to seize a bar of soap, and then he returned to bathing her hands. The soap slid through their fingers with silken ease, and his big hands moved with amazing finesse. A quiver went through her at the sensation. He washed both her hands but took great care with her injured palm, making certain to clean the area thoroughly but ever so gently, patiently, never speaking a word to her as he worked.

  Sophie was mesmerized by the sight of their hands intertwined.

  His arms were around her. They were alone and the door was closed. The realization shuddered through her.

  The moment seemed to go on endlessly and the air was suddenly thick with anticipation.

  But nothing happened ... except that he put the soap away and lifted up a towel, then guided her over to his desk. Still without a word, he lifted her up, as though she were no more than a child, and set her atop his desk.

  But Sophie was not a
child.

  She was a woman.

  And she was far too aware of his hands on her ribs, beneath her breasts as he lifted her. Fleeting though the embrace was, it left her breathless and titillated in a way she had never felt before. She watched him light a lantern and turn the flame up so that it was bright enough to see by, and then he dragged his chair before her and sat. Sophie’s heart beat erratically. Her breath quickened.

  The lantern cast a golden hue on his face, turned his tawny hair a deep, rich bronze. He was really quite stunning a man, and she couldn’t help but stare. She knew it was far too bold of her, but he wasn’t watching her this instant, and she allowed herself the liberty ...

  “This is going to hurt just a bit,” he warned, peering up sympathetically into her eyes.

  His green eyes seemed to glitter with the flame, hypnotizing her. She tried to find her voice to speak but couldn’t. Again she nodded, swallowing, far too aware of the man sitting before her ... her hand cradled within his.

  He tried to be gentle, Sophie could tell, but tears sprang to her eyes as he began to work to remove the splinters. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and tried not to cry out.

  He knew she was trying hard to be brave.

  Jack tried not to smile at her expression.

  She looked so much like a little girl, with her eyes scrunched shut and her lips tightly pressed, as though bracing herself for her punishment.

  Despite the truth of his accusations earlier—she was a spoiled brat—he admired her grit at the moment. Telltale tears welling in her eyes, but she didn’t shed them.

  Christ, when he’d looked up into those huge wide eyes, he’d wanted to draw her into his arms and hold her, tell her everything was going to be all right.

  His emotions warred now as he watched the play of emotions across her face.

  On the one hand he wanted to despise her for what she was doing—spying for Penn. On the other, he wanted to care for her, keep her from harm, soothe her. And at the heart of it all was an intense attraction between them that set him on his ass every time he was in her presence.