by Unknown
Furthermore, he was just as guilty of inflicting unintentional wounds as Danielle was. He knew very well what she'd thought of his earlier comments, and, though he'd apologized for being so harsh, he hadn't made any attempt to disabuse her mind of her misconception. He saw now that he should have. He should now.
The question was, should he tell her or show her? He might convince her, if he was willing to admit his failings and doubts. Then again, he might not. And, not only was he not at all certain he could bring himself to be that open, he might succeed only in frightening her. She believed in him, felt safe with him. He didn't want to undermine that feeling of security, however false.
He wouldn't mind showing her, except that he couldn't count on privacy. And he wasn't about to toss her as if she were a dockside whore, even though he was more sexually frustrated than he could ever recall being in his life. For, although he wasn't unaccustomed to even longer periods of abstinence than he'd endured lately, he'd never lived in a woman's company, even to sleeping beside her every night, and abstained. He didn't relish the idea of beginning something he couldn't finish, only to prove a point.
On the other hand, his discomfort couldn't get much worse than it was already, and he found that he couldn't simply ignore Danielle's misery and refuse to console her. He reached for her, circling her slender upper arm with his long fingers, and urging her to turn to him rather than pulling her. "Come here, Danielle."
She lifted her head, giving him a look that was half hopeful, half scared, but she came to him, moving into his arms willingly, trustingly. He lay her back against the riverbank and covered her mouth with his own in one fluid movement, urging her lips open for a deep, heated kiss without preamble. She tasted of sweet, tart berries . . . of Danielle. She tasted of willingness, of giving, of wanting. It was like strong, rich wine, and it went to his head in an instant, sundering good intentions, all thought, so that his kiss took on the desperation of a substitute mating.
He pulled her fully, tightly against his length, insinuating his knee between her thighs, pressing against her that part of himself that yearned achingly to become a part of her. She lifted towards him, and the little sanity that remained to him deserted him entirely. He reached for her breast, cupping it, kneading it, and suddenly, possession of her mouth was no longer enough. He withdrew, saluted her face briefly with nuzzling kisses, and began a downward foray along her throat. He wanted to taste all of her, possess and explore every inch of her flesh. He'd tasted and explored her throat, shoulder, collarbone, and the upper slope of her breast, and was approaching his goal when some sound, different from the other evening sounds, finally penetrated the heated fog of his brain.
He went perfectly still, listening for it to come again, and finally lifted his head. He relaxed fractionally when finally he identified it. But his brain had cleared somewhat, and rational thought returned. Reluctantly, but with grim determination, he pulled away from her, trying to steady his ragged breathing.
Mutely, she reached for him, beckoning him back. Uttering a groan, he bent his forehead to hers, nuzzling her nose with his own, kissing her once, twice, and again in a way that was slightly more heated than chaste, vastly less than what he wished.
She made a sound of protest when he rolled to his side, taking her with him and snuggling her lightly against him. He dropped a kiss on her forehead, rubbing her back soothingly. "Hush, sweetheart," he murmured against her hair. "I didn't mean to tease you or myself," he added wryly. He lifted her hand and placed it above his pounding heart. "Do you see this as the reaction of a man who doesn't want you to a point of desperation?" He moved her hand lower, gritting his teeth as pleasure akin to pain went through him at her hesitant, curious touch. "Or this?" he managed hoarsely.
She looked up at him. "Then take me," she said simply.
He uttered a sound that was midway between a groan and a chuckle. "Don't tempt me, dear heart."
The look she gave him then was plainly uncomprehending, doubting, more than a little accusing.
He began to doubt his own sanity. "You guarded your virtue well before you came to me. Can I be careless with it now?"
Danielle frowned slightly. "But, they know . . . ."
Adrian released her and sat up. "They speculate. They can't know anything. And I won't treat you so casually as to relieve all doubt. If I did, it would leave you open to the vilest sort of talk -- aside from making you the target of every Tom, Dick, and Harry that came along. I've a good sword arm and a tolerable eye with a pistol, infant, but I expect, even in this wild land, it would be frowned upon if I were to begin a wholesale slaughter of every man that looked at you askance."
She stared after him in blankest amazement as he moved down the bank to pull a second wildly flopping fish from the water. In a moment, surprise, disbelief, and a tentative pleasure began to seep through her. Why, she thought, he talked as if he thought she was . . . a lady! The possibility was so incredible she found it very hard to accept. And he wanted her. Not only that, but he thought her attractive enough that other men might desire her!
Something warm, uplifting, and strengthening surged through her. It was a budding of feminine self-confidence. After all the years of being abandoned, shunned, unwanted, and unloved, someone actually wanted her. Someone wonderful.
That realization made her spirits soar, kept them flying regardless of the hardships and travails they faced as they continued their journey northward. Her optimism and good spirits were such, in fact, that both Bull and Lavinia began to look upon her with deep, genuine loathing, and even Adrian looked upon her askance from time to time.
Chapter Twenty-One
They reached the St. Marys several days later, hardened, seasoned adventurers by now. Lavinia was the exception, of course, but, although she was as sun-burned, riddled with insect bites, ragged, and weary as all the rest, she was no worse off. She managed to keep up well enough, and she'd ceased to complain incessantly. She continued to complain from time to time, but it was by rote more than anything else, with very little venom.
They'd feasted on the last night they'd spent near the shores of the St. Johns, for Adrian's snares had yielded a large hare, and his makeshift fishing line had brought in three enormous fish. It was well that they did. They'd had little since.
The trail they followed had wound shortly after leaving Fort St. George to verge upon a vast expanse of marshes, marshes that had seemed to go on forever. Game was sparse there, or rather, the sort of game they had the means to capture. They'd come, eventually, upon a small pond. They hadn't lingered.
The creature that ruled that domain was the stuff of nightmares. Enormous, he looked to be any where from eighteen to twenty feet long. Broad of back and so short-legged it might have seemed ludicrous if not for the lethal looking claws on his feet, he had a horny, thick hide that had the look of steel plated armor. His snout was long and blunted. His eyes a beady, malevolent yellow, and his mouth, which he opened to show them was big enough that he might easily have swallowed a large dog in one gulp, was full to overflowing with wicked looking teeth.
At their unwary approach, he swelled himself up to nearly twice his normal size, issuing a hissing challenge. The entire party came to an abrupt, immediate halt at the sound, staring at him with incredulity. He opened his mouth then and let loose a bellowing growl that literally shook the ground beneath their feet.
Bull, Danielle, Captain Tyler, and even Lavinia, had scaled the nearest trees almost to their tops before the bellow faded. Adrian had beat a hasty retreat as well but refused to subject himself to the indignity of climbing a tree, unless it came after him.
He studied it appraisingly. Nothing that huge, he felt certain, could move very quickly, particularly since it was obviously more a creature of water than land. Taking his pistol from his breeches, he checked the load, aimed, and fired.
No one but Adrian was really surprised when the bullet merely bounced off. Moreover, the thing proved that it could
, water creature or not, huge be damned, move with amazing speed when it wished to. Adrian joined them in the tree.
"You pissed him off," Danielle observed. "Jiminey! I hadn't heard they had bleedin' dragons here!"
Adrian's look was exasperated. "I despair of ever curing you of the lamentable habit of reverting to vulgar street parlance. But, yes, he does look a bit annoyed. He is not, however, a dragon. I believe this rather large reptile must be a crocodile. I'd heard they had them here, much like those in Africa, but I confess I hadn't thought they grew nearly as large as this. I wonder if it's edible."
"Well, I beg your pardon!" Danielle snapped indignantly. "I had other things on my mind at the time! And it looks to me like, if anybody's going to do any eating around here, it'll be him!"
"No, no," Captain Tyler spoke up. "That is to say, they're scavengers, so I've heard. They only eat carrion. The local savages call them alligators, I believe."
"Well, then, that's all right," Danielle retorted sarcastically. "Here I thought he was plannin' on eatin' me fresh. It's a bleedin' relief, so it is, to know he's only goin' to kill me now and wait until I'm good and ripe for eatin'!"
"If you do not make her shut her mouth, Adrian," Lavinia snarled from her tree across the way, "I swear I'm going to yank every garish red hair in her head out by the roots!"
"Well, just sashay on over here and give it a try!" Danielle retorted baitingly.
"Danny," Adrian warned sternly, though amusement lurked in his gray eyes, "strike 'bleeding' from your vocabulary, if you please."
"I didn't use it once when I was talkin' to that bleedin' sow!" Danielle objected heatedly.
Bull spoke up for the first time. "What I'd like to know is when you're plannin' on killin' the bleedin' monster!"
"I shouldn't think anything short of point blank range between the eyes would do the trick. If you'd care to try it, I'd be most happy to lend you one of my pistols."
Bull allowed that he'd just as soon not, and they watched the creature for close on half an hour from their perch in the trees above him. After a time, an enormous, bright pink water bird settled in the edge of the pond and began searching for food amongst the lily pads that grew in profusion at the water's edge. The alligator turned and lumbered over to the pond's edge, paused there for so long they thought he might stay there, and then with a splash and lethal whip of his tail, dove in, disappearing from sight. He resurfaced within a few feet of the tall, leggy bird. The bird, apparently sensing danger, sidled, fluttering his pink wings, and, in the blink of an eye, disappeared.
They stared at the satisfied alligator in open-mouthed shock. "I think," Adrian commented, "now would be a good time to leave."
They gave the next pond they came to a wide berth. Fish would have been welcome, but no one was that hungry.
They were fortunate enough to come upon a tangle of well-laden wild grape vines towards evening. None were ecstatic about it, but they all ate their fill. For, although they were heartily sick of berries by this time, the tart fruit at least assuaged their stomachs' painful clamor for sustenance.
They broke their fast with wild grapes the next day before moving on, though Danielle, at least, did so under protest. She would have rather gone hungry and informed Adrian of it in no uncertain terms. She'd fainted the day before, however, and though she swore it was from the heat, Adrian, who was well aware of just how little food she'd had in the past few weeks, wasn't convinced. Moreover, though he wouldn't admit it, even to himself, the incident had left him badly shaken, and his temper, therefore, was shorter than usual. She would eat the damned grapes, he informed her through gritted teeth, or he would force them down her throat.
She informed him that he was a bully, but she forced herself to eat, choking down a handful, despite her stomach's strenuous protests. She was promptly violently ill for her pains. If it hadn't been so horrible, painful, and humiliating, she might almost have relished it, for it gave her the opportunity to point out where Adrian's bullying had gotten her.
She was sorry for it, once said, however. For, once she recovered sufficiently to take a good look at him, she saw that he looked, if anything, more shaken than she was. And, as warming as the look of worry in his eyes was as he checked her for any sign of fever, she didn't like to be the cause of it.
"You're sickening with something," he said flatly, unconvinced by her lack of fever.
"I'm not," Danielle protested. "Really, I'm not. I'm just tired of grapes. That's all."
"Then I'll find you something else," he returned grimly.
It was on the tip of her tongue to make a jesting remark about running down to the market place, but Adrian didn't much look as if he'd take jesting in good part at this point. "Perhaps we'll catch some fish tonight," she said instead, placatingly. "Captain Tyler seems to think we must be getting near the St. Marys."
"Perhaps. But you need something now."
"Then I'll take some grapes and eat them slowly. I expect I just tried to eat them too fast. I always used to get like that when I hadn't eaten much in a while," she lied, for she couldn't recall ever being sick before in her life, not the way she just had at any rate. But she was glad for the lie, because Adrian apparently believed it and was relieved.
She did manage to eat a few without giving her lie away, but she was more relieved than she could say when they came upon the St. Marys not long after mid-day. She felt decidedly dizzy and wobbly legged. It was a vast relief to be able to drink her fill of the tepid waters and settle down for a short rest while Adrian and Bull went off to reconnoiter up river and down to find the best place for crossing. They returned a little more than two hours later with the happy intelligence that they'd found a downed tree bridging the river only a few miles down stream.
It was only a slight exaggeration. The tree, which was perhaps eighteen inches in circumference at its base, narrowed almost to a point, a bushy, submerged point, that ended perhaps ten feet from the other bank. Lavinia took one look at it and refused to have any part of it.
Bull went first, trying to walk it. He fell at about its mid-point, caught himself, and swung back up, and finished his trek on his rump. He didn't dismount when he reached the end. He didn't get the chance. The tree top was so flimsy it simply bent beneath his weight and dropped him in. It was seen, however, once he regained his feet, that the river came only up to his chin, and he was able to wade out without too much trouble.
Captain Tyler went next. He started on his rump and ended hanging beneath it when he slipped around its sides. He managed to make it most of the way hand over hand but finally lost his grip and swam the remainder of the distance.
Danielle was elected to be next. She eyed the tree with some trepidation, trying to remember just how she measured up to Bull. Try though she might, she could not convince herself that she was any less than a full head shorter than Bull, however, which meant that the water level at the other end ought to just about reach the top of her head. Adrian offered to carry her over, but she liked that idea even less, and finally she sat down and removed the bindings from her feet, shoving them in the pockets of her breeches before she took an experimental step onto the tree. It bobbed and swayed in the water, and she paused a moment, checking her balance.
"Perhaps you should try it sitting," Adrian suggested.
"It didn't work very well for the captain, now, did it?" Danielle pointed out with a false grin of bravado.
"Then I'll go with you. If we fall, I, at least, can swim."
She bounced on the tree a couple of times. "I don't think that would be such a good idea. Seems to me this thing's about to roll off as it is." She moved then, before Adrian could dismiss her argument and join her, skimming across the fallen log with all the grace of a dancer. In actuality, she was not only scared silly, but it took every ounce of concentration she could muster, and put a severe strain on muscles she hadn't even known she had, to hold her balance for the length of the tree. She proceeded more caut
iously as she neared its limber top and finally paused, bouncing experimentally to see just how much give she could expect.
Adrian, whose heart had jumped into his throat the moment she danced blithely across the fallen tree, felt his control snap at this latest act of foolhardiness. "Stop playing on the bloody tree, Danny! You're going to break your neck. And, if you don't, I'm going to wring it when I get my hands on you!"
She turned abruptly and walked back towards him for several feet, sent him a fleeting glare, but vouchsafed no comment as she turned and faced the opposite bank once more. She would have. She would have burned his ears good, except that she was afraid that even the small effort it took to talk would break her concentration and send her into the river. She stood poised for several moments after she'd turned to face her objective again, gauging the distance, testing the spring in the tree trunk. She drew in a deep breath, uttered a silent prayer, took two running steps, landed hard on the springy tip, and launched herself towards the river bank. She didn't quite make it. But then, she hadn't expected to. She'd only hoped to land close enough to shore that she could wade out as Bull had.
For a moment, as the water closed over her head, panic closed in as well. She managed to get her feet under her despite the slippery river bed beneath her, however, and in a few moments she emerged, gasping for air, but triumphant.
Adrian, she saw, was more than half way across the river. He paused when she surfaced and glared at her for several moments before he proceeded. He had a distinctly unpleasant gleam in his eyes, however, and Danielle decided not to wait on him. She waded ashore with more haste than dignity, throwing a look back over her shoulder to see if he was gaining on her. He was. Steadily.
She didn't stop when she reached the bank but retreated several yards onward, stopping at the edge of the forest to gauge his temper. It looked foul. Really foul. "I wasn't playin'," she snapped as he emerged from the river, swiped the water from his face, and started towards her purposefully. He didn't say anything. His expression didn't alter. He simply came on. "Well, I wasn't!" she said indignantly. "I had to get across, didn't I? Seemed like the best way to me, takin' a runnin' jump."
