Happily Ever After (12 page)

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 scarce
see much at all. She wanted to cry.