Three Redeemable Rogues

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  “You think it’s Penn?” Kell turned one of the telegrams so that he could reread it himself.

  “Who else would benefit from our absence from the Yucatan?”

  “And yet you aren’t really a threat to him, Jack. He has backers. You don’t. Why should Penn give a damn whether you show up on your own or not?”

  “Because he’s a lazy, cheating pretender, that’s why! I’d be willing to wager he hasn’t the first clue what he’s doing down there. Even Penn will need something to throw at the investors. If they believe he’s sitting there twiddling his fingers and diddling howler monkeys, he won’t see another dime.”

  “Is the expedition up for review?”

  Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That I’m not sure of. To tell you the truth, I thought he pretty much had free rein, with his father-in-law on the board.”

  “They aren’t married yet, Jack,” Kell reminded him, and Jack had the impression it was more of a suggestion than a mere statement of fact.

  He eyed his friend with annoyance. “Might as well be,”

  “So you think Penn put her up to spying?”

  Jack eyed the papers, thumping his fingers, considering them thoughtfully. “Who else? Why wouldn’t she spy for him? She loves him, right? She’s his fiancée.”

  Kell’s brows lifted suggestively. “She doesn’t look to me like any lass who’s missing her lover. And if she were so concerned about Penn’s affairs, I would think she’d simply ask her father.”

  Jack peered up at him through narrowed brows. “They aren’t lovers,” he corrected, disturbed by the very prospect—and more at himself for giving a damn.

  What the hell did it matter if they were lovers? They were engaged to be married. That was enough. Why should he give a damn whether Penn had bedded her or not?

  That annoying half smile of Kell’s returned. “Defending her, are we?”

  “Hell no!”

  Kell’s grin actually widened at his vehement response, and Jack nearly turned the desk over, dumping him on his ass. “You’re a bastard, you know that, Kell?”

  But he really didn’t mean it and Kell knew he didn’t as well. As proof, Kell merely laughed at his slander. “Keep it up, buddy, and I’ll let you sail this prehistoric tub all by yourself.”

  “You do that,” Jack warned him, his own smile returning, “and I’ll send you back to Boston on a deuced raft!”

  Kell shook his head and laughed again. “No the hell you won’t! Who the devil would you argue with? You’d die of sheer boredom, MacAuley!”

  Jack grinned, knowing it was probably true, but he jabbed back anyway. “I’d get a better debate out of a bag of bones!”

  Though his and Kell’s friendship had existed most of Jack’s lifetime, they’d never spoken a kind word to each others’ faces—behind each other’s backs for certain. Kell was probably the best friend a man could hope to have and Jack respected him as he did no other.

  “I can just see you now, stubborn bastard ... wandering aimlessly about the seas, babbling like an idiot to yourself ’cause no damned body will put up with you, Jack MacAuley, you know it good ’n’ well.”

  Jack was forced to laugh at the hellacious picture Kell painted. “You’re a heartless bastard,” Jack said without meaning.

  “Yah yah,” Kell agreed. “What can I say?”

  Indeed Kell was a bastard, but he knew Jack didn’t mean it that way, and he really didn’t seem to have any problems about it anyway. It was just a fact his friend lived with.

  Jack reached out and punched him lightly on the thigh. “Not a damned thing to say. Just don’t go changing on me now. At least I know what to expect from you.”

  Unlike someone else he knew.

  He’d suspected her of spying when she’d first come to him, but he’d blown it off, thinking it too far-fetched. Well, he should have followed his gut—the papers scattered before him assured him that much. He certainly would from now on. He hadn’t achieved all that he had by ignoring his gut.

  “How do you intend to handle it?”

  Sucking in a weary breath, Jack considered the telegrams. No names mentioned... no proof... no real evidence—not really, because they didn’t even say clearly what they were about. All of it was purely circumstantial.

  “Nothing for now,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “Personally, I think we should just sit back and let her hang herself. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”

  Kell nodded in agreement.

  “But I’m not letting her out of my sight,” Jack added. “I don’t trust her.”

  Kell’s grin returned. “You mean you don’t trust us!”

  Jack smiled thinly. “That too.”

  “She’s a sweet one, for sure!”

  He knew damned well Kell wasn’t referring to her disposition.

  “Don’t worry, Jack, she’s had your name tattooed on her forehead from the instant you saw her. No one would dare touch her, you know that.” He jumped down off the desk before Jack could object, and continued, “Anyway, I’m sure watching her won’t be a hardship for you. It’s not as though you know a damned thing about sailing this dinosaur anyway. Suppose you have to keep busy somehow since you’re no use to me.” He winked at Jack. “Have fun, buddy!”

  “You never let up, do you?”

  Kell shook his head in answer. “Someone has to keep you in line,” he countered, and left with a chuckle. “I’m going to count some sheep before my shift. I’ll leave Mizz Vanderwahl to your capable hands.”

  Jack’s thoughts had already drifted to their unexpected guest. “All right,” he said absently.

  When Kell was gone, he gathered the evidence, then set it neatly within his desk... and went in search of his beautiful little spy.

  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 pointed 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 scarcely 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.