His Wicked Kiss (8 page)

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, as though some master gardener had turned off the mechanical waterworks in a huge, glassed hothouse.

As the riverboat maneuvered around the bend to the Farradays’ bush camp, Jack and Trahern had barely recovered from their amazement at their intrepid young hostess’s display of jungle prowess, but they found the small dock awaiting them ahead, just as she had specified.

Three dugout canoes bobbed in the
cano’s
gentle current. As their pilot steered the boat closer to the dock, Jack stared in fascination at the primitive-looking stilt-house alongside the river.

“Remarkable,” Trahern murmured, sounding as fascinated as he was. “It’s like a scene out of
Robinson Crusoe
.”

Jack leaned with hands braced on the boat’s railing, musing as he stared. “A man could live his whole life here without tuppence to his name,” he said quietly, and the thought sparked an even more intriguing question in his mind.

Was it possible that, being raised in this place, so far from the corrupting influences of civilization, Miss Farraday had grown into that rarest of species—a woman who did not care for a man’s worldly possessions or social standing—a woman who could not be bought?

Noise from his crew stirred Jack from his thoughts. The men guffawed and wolf-whistled, seeing the frilly ladies’ underthings hanging on a makeshift laundry line. The frown he shot over his shoulder silenced them, but privately, Jack was rather entertained by it himself.

She was going to turn five shades of scarlet over this.

Fixing his gaze on the shore, Jack pulled on his brown jacket in spite of the heat. Their hostess deserved at least that much courtesy from him, but there was no way in hell he was donning a waistcoat.

The boat’s gangplank banged down onto the precarious little dock, and he strode toward it across the deck.

Trahern hurried after him.

Jack stopped the rest, holding up his hand. “Stay aboard,” he ordered. “The slightest sniffle or cough from you all could spread to the Indians here and they’ll die. We’ll be underway again in a quarter hour.”

“How did you know that?” Trahern murmured as the two of them marched down the gangplank to the dock.

“I’ve been reading Victor’s book.”

“Oh!” Trahern was visibly surprised.

Jack led the way, stalking down the rustic hemp-and-plank boardwalk, which was raised some inches over the forest floor.

Behind them, the blazing tropical sun came back out over the river, burning off the temporary coolness from the rain. The broad leaves above still dripped, however, as they entered the netherworld gloom of the emerald jungle.

The plants and young trees on either side of the walkway threatened to take it over, while countless lianas hung down from the branches above. Ahead, he saw a flicker of movement, pale swishing skirts. His male senses pricked up.

Light footfalls pattered closer, their rhythm vibrating toward him down the planks. A shy silence followed. He searched the greenery. Where was the little imp? Stopping at the lattice of a chest-high fan palm that arced across the path, he saw curious green eyes peeking at him through the pinnate fingers of the palm frond.

His heart beat faster. With a gentle motion, he slowly pushed the broad, flat leaf aside—and there she stood.

He held her wary gaze with a strange sense of soft delight. The girl was even lovelier up close. She gave him a guileless smile, then her glance flicked past him.

“Miss Farraday, allow me to present my assistant, Lieutenant Christopher Trahern.”

The younger man bowed to her. “Miss Farraday.”

“
Eden
, please,” she corrected them both with a warm, rather bashful smile. “We are not so formal here. Welcome. This way.”

She showed them up the walkway until they reached her scientist father’s elaborate camp ringed by unlit torches on bamboo stakes set every few feet apart. The thirty-foot clearing had a fire-pit in the center; across from the stilt-house were two large military-style tents, one closed, the other open on three sides.

The open tent contained a large work table with two microscopes, several compasses, a small scale, and an array of more obscure scientific instruments. A few black servants went about various tasks, but stopped and gaped at the strangers, then grinned and waved.

Eden
introduced them all. She showed them into the stilt-house, informing them it was called a
palafito
. Inside, there were a few hammocks slung here and there, and makeshift pieces of furniture that led Jack to suspect they were standing in the young lady’s bedroom.

One bamboo table held three stacks of old books that were moldering in the unwavering humidity. Shakespeare, Aristotle, Rousseau, and the poetry of Scott.

“I see you like to read,” Trahern observed while Jack examined a long, native blowgun hanging on the wall.

“Oh, yes. Well, there’s not much else to do around here.” She cast him a demure smile over her shoulder and then whacked the top off a pineapple with her machete—deadly aim with barely a glance.

Jack marveled privately and shook his head. Eden Farraday was surely the strangest female he had ever met in his life. She proceeded to carve the pineapple into flat, neat slices with a series of unhesitating blows. He watched her warily, hands on hips. “You’re pretty good with that knife.”

“You should see me with a blowgun,” she replied with a saucy smile, turning to offer him a piece of the sweet, juicy fruit.

He took it with a guarded nod of t
hank
s. Trahern accepted a slice, too, then Miss Farraday helped herself to a piece and invited her servants to have the rest if they desired it.

Meanwhile, Jack inspected a dainty music box that sat on a shelf next to a few other small tokens of civilization: a foggy hand mirror, a hairbrush with a rusty pewter handle.

“Isn’t that pretty? It plays Mozart.” She came over to Jack and opened the lid of the music box. A few lingering notes rose out of it before dwindling into silence. “It needs to be wound up again.” She glanced at him with somber eyes. “This once belonged to my mother.”

He looked askance at her, reminded anew after these many years that Victor’s wife was dead from a fever outbreak that had hit portions of
London
some twelve years ago. A sad fate for a physician, failing to save his own wife. No wonder Farraday had turned his back on the medical profession. None of his art could save her.

Dr. Farraday had explained in the introduction to his book that, after his wife’s death, he and his only child, a daughter, had moved to the
West Indies
. Some Creole friends trying to cheer him from his despair had suggested a short visit to the
Orinoco
jungles, knowing his longstanding interest in natural philosophy and the sciences. He had thought it might be good for his soul, so he had agreed to the trip. In the forest, however, the bereaved doctor had caught a fever that ought to have killed him, but his life had been saved by the application of unknown herbal remedies from an Indian witch doctor.

According to his book, Dr. Farraday had known then that his life’s purpose was to discover the secrets of the ancient Indian cures and the jungle plants from which they were made; this knowledge he intended to bring to the civilized world one day so that more lives could be saved.

His book failed to mention that the good doctor had dragged his daughter into his dangerous quest along with him. Now that Jack knew the truth, it made him rather angry, though he did not show it. This was no place for a young girl. “I am sorry about your mother,” he offered in a brusque tone.

“It’s all right.” She smiled wistfully and set the music box back on the shelf, refusing to dwell on her loss. “So, what brings you gentlemen to
Venezuela
?” Withdrawing to lean against the post behind her, she took a bite of pineapple.

“We were just, ah—” Trahern started.

“Visiting friends,” Jack said smoothly.

“I see,” she murmured with a shrewd nod. “Friends up at Angostura?”

Jack and Trahern exchanged a discreetly startled glance, both rather taken off guard, for neither could miss the knowing tone of her voice. For his part, Jack was mystified.

Most females of their acquaintance at least pretended not to have a thought in their heads aside from dancing and soirees and the latest style of gowns, but this girl had practically asked point-blank if their visit was political in nature.

“No matter,” she said with an airy wave of her hand, dismissing the topic as though she did not wish to make her guests uncomfortable. “It’s of no concern to me if you help the rebels. Frankly, I hope they win, though Papa insists that science is neutral.”

“Nobody said anything about helping the rebels, Miss Farraday. We’re here on business,” Trahern corrected her with a charming smile, still mistaking her, Jack suspected, for a female who could be managed. “We do a large trade in tropical hardwoods, you see. We merely came to collect those trees you might have noticed on the barge.”

“Ah, yes. About those trees.” She sent Jack a questioning glance that expressed her well-founded skepticism that the head of Knight Enterprises should have come in person to collect a mere haul of timber, but she did not press the matter, shrugging it off with the noblesse of a Town hostess. Jack watched her, fascinated. But as she wiped the corners of her mouth daintily with her fingertips, he realized this new subject proved no safer.

“I saw they’re mostly rosewoods and mahoganies,” she said, “but I noticed a few zebra woods among them, and I do hope you didn’t cut too many of them down.”

“
We
didn’t cut down any of the trees, Miss Farraday,” Trahern said. “We bought them from a local dealer.”

“Yes, but they are so very rare, you know. The zebra-wood takes fifty years to reach maturity. If too many are cut at one time, the groves cannot replenish themselves.”

“Their rarity is what makes them so valuable, Miss Farraday,” Jack spoke up in a cynical tone, irked by a fraction at her chiding. “The fine furniture-makers of
London
will pay handsomely for them.”

“
London
?” she breathed, coming away from the post all of a sudden. Her eyes widened as she took a step closer. “Is that where you’re headed to next?”

He nodded. “Why do you ask?”

She stared at him intensely, then bent her head, as though growing tongue-tied all of a sudden.

He lifted his eyebrow. “Is something wrong, Miss Farraday?”

“Oh—no. I-It’s nothing, it’s just I—have so often wished that I could go there.”

“To
London
?” he drawled. “Whatever for? The weather is cold and so are the people.”

She lifted her astonished gaze to his. “No, they’re not!”

“Of course they are. ‘Tis a miserable place. I’m only going ‘cos I have to.” His tone was idle, but he was speaking more candidly than she might have known.

“Why do you have to?” she demanded.

“Got to get rid of those trees, o’ course.” He could not resist teasing her a little. It wasn’t as though he could tell her the truth. “God knows, if Prinny gets a zebrawood table, so must every hostess in the ton have one to grace the entrance hall.”

His jaded words roused a chuckle from Trahern, but Miss Farraday did not look at all amused.

“I’m sure they’re not as bad as you say.”

“No, indeed, they’re worse,” Jack murmured, his eyes dancing with his newfound sport of baiting her. “Pompous, idle. Trust me, love. I know that lot like the back of my hand. My elder brother is a duke, after all. Trahern, maybe Hawkscliffe’s duchess would like a zebrawood table, what do you think?”

“Charge him double.”

Jack laughed, then winced as pineapple juice dripped into his splinter. “Ow.”

Miss Farraday frowned at him, looking a little unsure about whether it had been a good idea to invite him for a visit, after all. “What is the matter?”

He mumbled it was nothing.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Just a splinter from loading up the wood.”

“Let me see that.” She marched over to him and seized his hand, prying his closed fist open. She inspected the pinlike fragment of wood buried beneath his skin, then sent him an arch look. “Zebrawood, I warrant.”

“Well, I do try to keep in the fashion.”

“You deserve this splinter, I daresay. Nevertheless, I am going to help you, Lord Jack. Sit down, please.”

“No, t
hank
s. It’s nothing. I’ll attend to it on my ship—”

“Sit!”

Jack lifted his eyebrows at her tone that brooked no argument.

“No open wounds in the jungle,” she stated. “That is a rule.”

“Open wounds?” He scoffed. “It’s barely a scratch.”

“It’s a large scratch, and it’s deep. Trust me. If you don’t take care of it right away—well, you don’t want to know what can happen.”

“What can happen?” Trahern asked, blanching.

“I’m sure you don’t want me to tell you. Gentlemen, trust me, it’s very disgusting.”