Happily Ever After (5 page)

She’d left her trunks in he carriage, under the
driver’s watchful eye, while she’d set out on foot to find the elusive Miss
Deed, and she was heartily glad she had done so because the docks were a crush.
She scarce could move amid the swarming crowd of workmen, passengers, fishermen
and pickpockets.

A particularly dirty little boy of about thirteen
latched on to her purse and tugged with all his might. With such a precious lot
of money in her possession Sophie was far too vigilant to fall victim to his
thievery. She jerked her purse back and the boy went stumbling onto his
backside. He peered up at her in surprise. Before she could say a thing, he scampered
to his feet and scurried away.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she shouted
at his back, and then guilt pricked her. She had so much and the poor boy had
so little. If there hadn’t been quite so much money involved she might have
just given it to him. He disappeared into the masses, leaving behind only a
greasy stain on her silk ivory purse where his grimy hand had been.

“Damnation,” she muttered to herself, brushing off
her purse. Good girls didn’t curse, but she was privately picking up the habit
and it felt quite good somehow. She would feel even better once she plucked her
darling fiancé’s head as bald as a baby’s bottom!

During the struggle she had dropped her address
card on the ground and she bent to retrieve it. They had given her a port
address that seemed to be all wrong. Lifting the card, she inspected the ships
at anchor ... The Lady Ann ... The Alaskan ... The Prodigious ... no Miss Deed
... but the address was near, she was certain.

“Pardon me, sir,” she said to a passing gentleman.

Apparently he was in too much of a hurry to be
bothered, because he kept walking, though not without casting her a harried
glance.

Sophie glared indignantly at his back, loathing
men all the more in that instant.

The caw of seabirds filled the air as she turned
once more to inspect the crowd. Spying someone who appeared as though he
belonged on the docks, Sophie lifted her skirts and hurried after a shortish
fellow with sun- bleached hair who stood leaning against a lamppost smoking a
cigarette.

“Sir!” she called out, waving at him. As she
neared, he tossed down his smoke and tamped it out, then turned and walked
away, blatantly ignoring her.

Sophie gasped in outrage, unaccustomed to such
outright rudeness!

“Sir!” she shouted a bit louder than before, and
started after him, deciding he must not have heard her. No one had ever just
ignored her! Still he didn’t turn, merely continued along his merry way,
walking at a brisker pace, and Sophie couldn’t keep up. She spun abruptly,
confused, and smacked into something solid that hadn’t been there previously.

She banged her cheekbone against a chin. “Ouch!”
she cried. A strong arm caught her before she had the chance to bounce back
onto her rear.

It was a man.

“Oh my!”

Very
definitely a man!

His shirt was unbuttoned and left undone. That was
the first thing she noticed, blinking. For an instant she was transfixed by the
sight of a very well-defined, very muscular chest, smooth and bronzed by the
sun.

The summer heat dizzied her—at least she
thought it was the heat. “Oh my!” she said again.

She stood there an instant too long, dumbfounded,
rubbing her cheek with one hand while clutching the address to her breast with
the other.

“Pardon,” he said, with some surprise.

“Pardon m-me,” Sophie stammered, but had yet to
look into his face. His bare chest held her transfixed.

Good Lord, didn’t they arrest people for running
about that way? Her cheeks warming, she glanced up finally, peering into the
most vivid green eyes she had ever seen in all her life ... green eyes that
were crinkled with amusement—at her expense, no doubt.

Sophie wasn’t in the mood. And yet it
was
her fault. She had run into him.

She knew she must appear addle-pated, but she
couldn’t help it. Not even her father had bared himself so shamelessly before
her an as an only child she had no brothers.

Flustered, she stared up at the man who held her
steady in his arms, despising him if only for his gender.

He had the audacity to grin at her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, wriggling free of his
scandalous embrace. “Do you mind, sir!”

His hands dropped at his sides and she cast him a
disapproving glance.

“Not at all,” he answered much too glibly, and he
had the audacity to wink. “Indeed, it was my pleasure,” he added, and his lips
curved into the most infuriating smirk she had ever spied.

Sophie gasped softly, her cheeks flaming. Outrage
tied her tongue. She hated being reduced to an impotent rage.

“Sir, you are no gentleman!” she exclaimed,
narrowing her eyes at him.

“Madam,” he replied, mocking her, “I never claimed
to be.”

Sophie took a step backward, gathering her
composure. Somehow it didn’t give her the distance she needed.

“I do believe they’ve a phrase for your state of
undress,” she said as coolly as she was able. “It’s called indecent exposure!
And I believe you could be arrested for it!”

His grin widened. “Oh, really?” His tawny brows
arched in obvious amusement, irritating her all the more.

Cad!

Sophie cocked her head in reproach. “I suppose you
think that’s quite amusing?”

“Actually,” he replied, affecting a mock-serious
expression and tone, “yes, I do.” But his eyes fairly twinkled with good humor
and she wanted nothing more in that instant than to box him in the nose! If
there had ever been anyone in her life that she had taken an instant dislike
to, it was this man without a doubt!

“You are an arrogant churl!”

“And you are blushing, Miss ...”

“My name is none of your concern! I most certainly
am not blushing!” Sophie countered, but she was, in fact, because she could
feel it. Her hand went to her cheek and she rose on her tiptoes to face him
squarely. “However, even if I were, sir, you are quite rude for pointing it
out!”

He swiped at his chin, and lifted a brow. “Are you
aware that you spit when you yell?”

“Ohhh!” Sophie exclaimed, infuriated. “I most
certainly do not!,
spit
” She
shuddered with outrage. “Why am I talking to you?” she asked herself,
frustrated, and dismissed him at once. “If you will excuse me, sir, I have
business to attend!”

She didn’t bother to ask him about the address she
was looking for. She attempted to go around him to the left, but he apparently
had the same instinct. When she moved to the right, so did he.

Exasperated, Sophie glared at him and, without
thinking, lifted her hand to his bare chest, standing him off.

“Please, sir!” she begged, and realized at once
where she had touched him. She jerked her hand away as though his flesh singed
her.

He merely chuckled in reply, and Sophie felt hot
with indignation. She glowered at him, and if she could have barreled through
him in that instant, she would have. She slid past him and didn’t look back,
even as his robust laughter followed her.

She’d be quite glad never to set eyes on that man
again! Rude, infuriating creature!

Even if he did have the most incredible green eyes
she had ever had the misfortune to peer into, he was the most common wretch she
had ever met!

“Miss!” he called after her. Sophie’s heart
fluttered at the sound of his voice, but she refused to turn. She kept walking,
clutching her ... purse—oh, God, where was her purse!

She spun about, her heart leaping into her throat,
and found him standing there smiling incorrigibly, dangling her purse, with its
precious burden, from a single finger.

“I think you dropped something,” he said, his tone
rife with repressed laughter, his green eyes glinting.

Without a word, Sophie marched toward him and
snatched her purse from his hand, then turned and left.

It was men like that, she decided, that made her
eternally grateful to be a woman!

She didn’t know why Harlan was so obsessed with
discovering primitive man. All he had to do was look about him: In Sophie’s
estimation, mankind had not progressed very far!

CHAPTER 3

As
it turned out, The Miss Deed could scarce have passed for a ship, more like an
oversized boat.

Sophie
discovered it nearly hidden between two bright shining vessels, a fossil of
days gone by, with its sails stripped bare, the rigging dangling like long
thirsted vines.

She
frowned at the sight it presented.

Several
men were working aboard the vessel, but one in particular stood out, kneeling
over yards and yards of material, inspecting it... or so it appeared.

“Excuse
me,” she interrupted, “I am trying to locate one Jack MacAuley.”

A
reply seemed to die on his lips as he turned to acknowledge her. For an instant
he merely stared, as though he were somehow dumbstruck by her presence. Sophie
hardly thought of herself as the sort to render a man speechless, so she
concluded it must be her manor of dress. Judging by his own attire, she doubted
he was accustomed to seeing a lady call on a man so boldly—certainly not
here on the docks.

Stepping
carefully down onto the deck without an invitation, Sophie approached him,
though warily. She had heard horror stories of women abducted, their bodies
discarded into the river, never to be heard from again. But she had to trust
the man if she intended to take passage aboard his ship. Really, she told
herself, there was nothing to be afraid of ... except this rotting deck.

She
grimaced as she stood looking down at the weathered plank, half-afraid it would
give way and she would plunge down into the decaying bowels of the vessel.

Her
stomach rioted a bit and she experienced an instant of panic, but she took a
deep breath and stared the man in the eye.

He
had yet to speak.

“Hello?”

Maybe
he couldn’t speak English, she decided. Many of those who found work here on
the docks were immigrants who hadn’t the linguistic skills to work elsewhere.
Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he could easily be of Latin descent, and it
certainly would make sense that Mr. MacAuley would employ a Spanish-speaking
crew, considering the destination.

“I
…” She pointed to herself. “Am looking …” she pointed to her eyes For Mr. Jack
MacAuley,” she repeated more slowly, enunciating her words more carefully.

“He’s
not here,” the man answered without any accent at all.

“Oh,
good!” Sophie said. “You speak English quite well!”

He
gave her a bemused sort of look.

Smiling
reassuringly, Sophie approached him once more. “Do you know where I might find
him?”

“Jack?”

Sophie
clutched her purse before her, taking comfort in the persuasive nature of its
contents. “Mr. MacAuley, yes. Have you any idea where he might be?”

The
man had yet to rise to greet her, but Sophie excused his ill manners ...
considering.

Someone
must introduce good manners, she decided and extended her hand toward him. “I
am Sophie Vanderwahl, and I wish to speak to Mr. MacAuley concerning a business
matter of sorts.”

The
man blinked, his big brown eyes looking wary. “Vanderwahl?” he said.

Sophie
kept her smile broad and nodded, though he appeared distinctly guarded suddenly.

“Damn.
Sorry,” he said, rising finally, seeming to remember himself at last. After
wiping his hand first on his trouser, he shook her hand. “Not sure where my
manners ran off to. Kell Davenport, Miss Vanderwahl. Nice to meet ya.”

Sophie
nodded. “And you,” she countered politely.

“Jack’s
not here, but he’ll be back soon if you’d care to wait.” He motioned for her to
sit perhaps, but there wasn’t any place Sophie cared to seat herself. Her gaze
swept the deck, and she suppressed a grimace of disgust. Somehow she felt
transported to a distant past, where comfort and the barest necessities were
practically nonexistent. “Yes, thank you,” she replied, but stood, clutching
her purse to her breast.

He
interpreted her reluctance correctly. “It’s an old ship,” he said in
explanation, although it didn’t really seem to be an apology. Instead there was
a note of pride in his voice.

Sophie
nodded pleasantly and tried not to sound too disdainful. “Oh, really?”

“Yep.”
He swept a reverent glance over the ship. “An old warship, we believe,
reconstructed to serve as an exploratory vessel. We found it nearly
unseaworthy, and restored it. It turned out well,” he told her, and clearly
believed it.

Sophie
had doubts as to whether it would even remain afloat. She tried not to look as
skeptical as she felt.

“Why
yes, it did,” she agreed, swallowing at the lie. She looked about, trying to
envision what he saw. “Very quaint,” she relented, and decided the man was
utterly blind. Still, if he had faith in the vessel, who was she to question it?