Sucking in a breath, she heaved the backpack off her shoulders and laid it on the ground. Her heart began to hammer as she knelt to retrieve her picture of Harlan.
Their arrival had been noted.
As the sun rose, bursting through the tree-tops, Harlan’s camp began to stir. One by one, they crawled out from their tents to watch the interlopers.
Somehow, it seemed everyone watched her... Jack’s crew and Harlan’s, as well. They all stared at her, waiting to see what she would do.
Her fingers shook as she withdrew the picture she had been carting around, and she refused to look up into anyone’s eyes, especially not Jack’s.
Kell came forward and patted her on the back... at least she thought it was Kell by the friendly way he clapped her.
She looked up to find Jack, and her heart did a quick little somersault against her ribs. “Jack,” she exclaimed, and wanted to throw herself into his arms.
Panic began to take hold of her. Her meticulously memorized speech flew out of her head completely.
He dragged her up, seizing her by the arms, his fingers digging gently into her flesh.
“Sophia,” he said, and the look in his green eyes was fervent. Sophie wanted to weep at the intensity visible in his stark green eyes. “I’ll back you... however you choose to handle this. I’ll make it right...”
She knew he would. That wasn’t her concern. She wanted to tell him everything, but it wouldn’t be long before he knew. “Oh, Jack!” she cried, and tried to embrace him, but he held her at bay.
“I’ll tell him it was all my fault,” he assured her. “But you don’t have to confess anything at all.”
“Jack,” she protested. “I have to—”
He shook her gently, but urgently. “No, listen to me!” he begged her.
Sophie suddenly wanted to sob, and she didn’t even know why. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she admonished herself for being so silly.
It wasn’t as though this were goodbye.
Why was she crying?
“Sophia...” He swallowed visibly. “I just want you to know...”
Her heart squeezed her painfully. She stared into his eyes, willing him to speak. “Yes, Jack?”
“Before you go ..
His fingers clutched her harder, almost desperately, but Sophie didn’t care. The look in his eyes gave her hope.
She waited with bated breath to hear his next words.
“Jack,” she prompted when he merely stared, the look in his eyes something like fear, as though he were afraid to speak the words. But that was impossible, because Jack MacAuley wasn’t afraid of anything at all.
She swallowed convulsively.
He was her hero, her lover, her friend, and lately her mentor. She loved him fiercely, and respected him even more. She wanted to please him always.
Harlan’s camp had come completely alive in the few moments while they stared at each other, while Sophie willed Jack to speak the words.
I love you, her heart cried out.
Say it, Jack.
“Sophia!” someone shouted. It was Harlan.
Sophie peered over her shoulder to see him coming toward them, and panic beset her all over again. She clutched Jack’s arm, looking frantically at him. She didn’t want him to let go of her because if he did, she would fall flat on her face and humiliate herself before one and all.
“Jack!” she cried softly, terror-stricken, but not for the reasons he might have thought. The picture of Harlan slipped from her fingers and fell to her feet.
She was afraid he would never say it, afraid the real world would somehow take him away, afraid he wouldn’t wait for her... that he would walk away without knowing the truth—and she was still afraid of being a fool for any man.
His eyes seemed to be pleading with her.
She tilted him a beseeching glance.
His hand suddenly lifted from her arm, and gently reached out to caress her face. “I love you, Sophia,” he said, speaking the words she most needed to hear.
Her heart lifted into her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. Her throat constricted, and she couldn’t speak for an instant.
“Sophia!” Harlan shouted once more, his tone sounding overly pleased. “Here I am... over here!” he hailed her.
With a strength of determination she hadn’t known she possessed, she pulled away from Jack, but he held her fast. “You don’t have to go,” he urged her.
Sophie pushed him firmly away, wanting so much to explain, but Harlan was nearly upon them. “Yes, I do!” she assured him, and sucked in a breath. “I have to do this, Jack!” And she extricated herself from his iron grip, suddenly dizzy with joy.
He loved her!
Dear God, he loved her!
Never in her life had anyone spoken those words to her. Never in her life had she wanted someone to say them more. Her heart felt near to bursting.
She didn’t care about Harlan at all.
This wasn’t the least painful, only necessary, and she was suddenly eager to do it! She straightened her shoulders, picked up the picture of Harlan from where she’d dropped it at her feet, gave Jack one last heartfelt glance, and said again, “I really have to do this.”
And she grinned at him.
She actually grinned at him.
As she tore away from him, Jack swallowed so hard that it hurt his heart. She began walking toward Harlan, never looking back, and he stood there, feeling as though she’d ripped out his insides and then smiled as she’d done so.
He let her go.
He had no choice but to do so.
He’d laid out his heart for the taking, and she’d refused it and left him anyway.
He couldn’t bear to watch.
His gaze sought Kell’s and he found his friend grinning as well. The realization gave him pause.
What the hell was wrong with everyone?
He turned once more to Sophie, watching her stride toward Harlan... full of confidence and purpose. She was a woman with a mission. In her hand she clutched Harlan’s vandalized picture as though it were a weapon. As he watched, she lifted it up suddenly when she was almost near Harlan and quickly removed the back, tossing it over her shoulder. She removed something and then tossed the picture as well. And just when Harlan would embrace her to welcome her, she unfolded something and thrust it into his face.
He’d be damned if Kell wasn’t laughing. Jack couldn’t hear him, but his shoulders shook with mirth.
What the hell was going on?
How did Kell seem to know?
Jack moved closer to eavesdrop, thinking maybe he could bear to hear this after all.
“Oh, Harlan, guess what Jon has shared with me!” she declared as she waved a paper in his face.
“What?” her fiancé asked her, trying to examine the paper as she waved it.
And then, evidently, he recognized it, because he paled visibly at the sight of it, and Sophie said to him, “I see you recognize it, Harlan dearest!”
Curiosity needled Jack and he moved closer to Kell. “What the hell is that in her hand?”
“A letter,” was all Kell felt inclined to reveal, and he grinned at Jack.
Jack shot him a glare, and turned to watch Sophie again, his attention riveted to her now as she began to recite something aloud to everyone who cared to listen.
“... and the women here are the most lovely any man has ever beheld,’ she read, her tone melodramatically poetic, “skin so velvet brown and eyes so deep a black a man may sigh to see his own reflection in her eyes!”
“How did you get that?” Harlan suddenly exploded, his face turning a mottled red.
“And hair!” Sophie continued, unfazed by the hysteria in his voice, “Christ, I have never had the joy of touching hair so rich it flows through your hands like the mane of a fine riding horse!”
“Sophia!” Harlan protested with a gasp and tried to seize the letter from her.
“And in parenthesis...” she added as an aside, turning t
o Jack. She actually winked at him then, and laughter erupted from his lips, despite his utter confusion.
She wasn’t even angry. He’d be damned. Had she planned this all along? Why didn’t she tell him? He would have reveled in her purpose, egged her on, even. Hell, he’d have given her free passage!
She went back to the letter, waxing poetic once more. “And they love to be ridden, Jon... I know this firsthand!”
“Sophia!” Harlan objected, his tone growing angry now. His face turned a deeper shade of red.
Everyone had gathered around them by now, and every eye remained on Sophie.
“... never have I known women so earthy in nature,” she continued, louder than before, with an artistic flair of her hand. “If you experience the carnal joy of one woman’s bosom, you must not think her the exception because the next will make you yearn to feel her native soil between your toes forever and run like a savage through the jungles of her birth. You will nearly forget you are a civilized man and never again wish to languish in the misery that is Boston.”
Harlan had written that? If so, he was more an idiot than Jack had ever supposed.
Laughter erupted from the crowd.
“Sophia, I can explain!” Harlan pleaded with her. “Give me the letter, please!”
She jerked it out of his reach. “Not for all the Vanderwahl money would I be dragged so soon from this paradise!” she finished passionately.
“I can explain,” he said again, but his plea fell on deaf ears.
“Don’t bother!” Sophie said, turning away, returning to Jack.
Harlan started after her. “Sophia, my darling princess, I can explain everything!”
She whirled to face him, rounding on him once more. “Don’t ever call me that again! I have good news for you, Harlan! You don’t have to worry about the encumbrances of matrimony! Not with me! Not ever!”
Jack shook his head, realizing in that instant that this had, indeed, been her intent the entire time. This moment was what she had come for.
And he was damned proud of her for standing up for herself.
“And furthermore, you don’t ever have to leave this place if you don’t wish to!” she told him, and folded the letter in her hand, keeping the evidence. “And better yet you never again have to worry an inkling about Vanderwahl money!” she assured him.
She turned once more, leaving Harlan looking as though he’d been slapped in the face by his mother. She walked proudly toward Jack, looking every bit the woman she was, and handed the letter to him.
“It was never your money I cared for!” Harlan lied without hesitation.
“I love you, too,” she told Jack, ignoring Harlan, smiling, and then she spun on her heels once more, going back to Harlan, her demeanor suddenly fierce again.
Jack found himself grinning.
She loved him.
She’d said so.
“Oh no?” She poked a stunned Harlan in the ribs, and said, “Every man should have such an understanding fiancée, eh? And a father-in-law willing to plunk down good money in support of his cause?”
Harlan remained speechless.
“Well, you were right about one thing Harlan Horatio Penn the third! I am not wasting away! But I won’t be bearing your children—not in this lifetime!” She poked his chest once more.
“How dare you think to make me wait for you five, six more years for you to deign to return to me! And how dare you belittle my interest in your studies! And how dare you suggest that women have no patience or capacity for learning! And perhaps you couldn’t have chosen better,” she said in finale, “but I certainly can! And have!” she added with a nod.
And then she turned and left him one last time, coming toward Jack, her smile radiant.
Jack’s heart swelled with love for her.
And pride.
And joy.
She returned to him with shoulders squared, and a determined stride, confidence exuding from her person.
“You can’t do this to me!” Harlan railed at her back. “You can’t choose him over me, Sophia! It’s utterly disgraceful!”
Sophie ignored him.
“What will your father say?”
“I don’t care!” she replied, without turning.
Harlan advanced on them suddenly, his hand raised and pointing indignantly at the skies, “And don’t think I won’t tell him you’ve been carrying on with that... that...”
Jack set Sophie aside when she reached him, entrusting her into Kell’s arms.
Harlan was close at her heels.
“Excuse me an instant,” he told her calmly, and then hurled a punch at Harlan, catching him completely unawares with his false sense of security and interminable arrogance. It sent him flying backward once more onto his rear, adding another bruise to the collection on his face.
Some men never learned.
“What the hell was that for?” Harlan asked him, outraged, glaring at him.
Jack shrugged and brushed himself off. “For the hell of it,” he answered glibly, and then turned and took Sophie into his arms.
He kissed her thoroughly, thrusting his hand into her beautiful hair, reveling in the feel of it between his fingers, soft and fine. He looked at her with pride in his heart. “Ready to go, flower?”
Sophia nodded, feeling joy as never before.
He shook his head, chiding her. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this was what you came for?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and said, laughing, “Because it wasn’t any of your business, Mr. MacAuley.”
“Saucy wench!” Jack said, and grinned at her. “Is that any way to speak to your fiancé?”
Sophie ignored Harlan’s lunatic raving. She laughed softly. “Was that your arrogant way of asking me to marry you, Jack MacAuley?” She tilted him a coy look, and he teased her lips with his tongue, biting them softly.
He whispered into her mouth, “I do believe so.”
“Yes,” she said. “Only under one condition...”
“And what might that be?”
“That you let me stay with you... no matter where you are.”
“It’s a deal,” he agreed, sealing the bargain with another kiss. “I’ll just have to make you my new partner.”
“Hey!” Kell protested, though his tone was tinged with laughter.
“We’ll have to discuss the terms in depth,” Sophie assured him, smiling as she caressed the hair at his nape.
“That’s easy enough,” Jack disclosed. “You can have anything you want...”
“I already have everything I want,” Sophie said. “I have you.”
“I’m going to write your father at once, Sophia!” Harlan threatened as Jack lifted her up and carried her away.
“So am I, Harlan,” Sophie assured him, and she sighed as Jack kissed her once more. “I think this is where we’re supposed to sail away into the sunset and live happily ever after,” she proposed.
“How ‘bout we walk into the sunrise instead?”
Sophie laughed and clung to him tighter. “And live in a little white house by the lake?” he asked her playfully.
She nuzzled against him. “A tent will do just fine, thank you very much.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Jack declared.
Penn could have every grant he pleased. He could have the money and the prestige. He could have anything and everything. Jack no longer cared.
All he wanted was the woman in his arms.
Epilogue
Sophie worked by the light of a single lamp. She had crawled out of bed once Jack had fallen asleep, even though he had forbidden her to work any longer tonight.
“You’re tired, Sophia,” he’d said. “You can always finish the drawings tomorrow.”
He didn’t understand. She had to finish them tonight, before the image blurred in her mind’s eye. It wasn’t work that compelled her, however. Years ago, she had painted a wedding scene, a perfect replica of the one her mother had dreamed of... except
that the bride and groom had had no faces. Somehow, it had never dawned on her why she could not depict them, but now... now she understood with perfect clarity.
She peered back at the bed... they had bought a bed for the ship and nailed it in place. The hammocks just didn’t have enough room for the two of them, and she couldn’t imagine sleeping without his arms wrapped protectively about her. He was so handsome lying in the moonlight, and she hoped she depicted every perfect feature in her drawing. He was beautiful, and she loved him fiercely. And she understood now that she had never loved Harlan at all... that Harlan had never loved her. She understood because never in her life had she felt such a glowing warmth for another human being. It was a joy that touched every aspect of her life, like a brilliant ray of sunshine that penetrated even through the darkest clouds, banishing every shadow.
It was late but she wanted to complete the drawing before the morning when they would reach port in Belize... to send along with her letter home. She hoped her mother would see it and understand. And her father ... she knew he would. As she’d lain in bed with Jack, her father’s words of wisdom had come back to her like a light flipped on in the darkness. While she’d worried and fretted how he would view her decision to wed Jack she’d remembered something he’d said to her a night so long ago... a night not so unlike tonight, when she had labored over one of her pieces. She had been only eight years old then, but the memory of it was as clear now as though it were yesterday that he had knelt at her bedside.
“Sometimes it takes a lot more courage,” he’d said, “to follow your own dreams instead of those of the ones you love.”
Well, she was following her own dreams now, and she was happier than she’d ever been in her life. And she had so much joy in her heart that wanted everyone to be as happy as she was!
She finished the painting at last, and stared at it.
A pristine white gazebo, decorated with pure snow-white ribbons, sat in stark contrast to the opulent green lawns of her sprawling family home. Golden rays of sunshine penetrated a vibrant, rich green canopy of trees, and shone down like the touch of God himself on the couple in the gazebo. On the horizon, shiny black horses galloped in a distant meadow. She wondered if her father would understand its significance. She wondered if he would remember the tale he’d told her. She couldn’t live their lives for them, or even counsel them in matters she had no right to. But it wasn’t too late for them. It was never too late as long as there was breath in the body.
To Love a Lord: A Victorian Romance Collection Page 53
