Suddenly, the capuchin let out a warning
screech and fled up into his leafy towers. Eden froze, scanning
the branches around her and praying she did not see an early-waking
jaguar.
Her heart pounding, she listened in fright for any sound above the
soft, steady patter of the rain on the leaves and searched the surrounding
canopy, knowing full well the animal’s spotted coat made it
almost impossible to see until it was too late. She was trying to
decide if it was better to be eaten there on the branch or to tumble
into the river below, when suddenly, she heard voices.
Male voices, many in number.
And they were speaking English!
Turning to stare in the direction the capuchin had first looked,
she now beheld a most astonishing sight.
People!
A squat, tubby river boat pulling a barge piled with timber was
emerging slowly from around the river bend.
Whatever are they doing here? she wondered as she stared with excitement
bubbling up in her veins. Never mind that! This could be the opportunity
she had been praying for.
As the boat drifted closer, she studied the rough-looking men at
the rails and lounging under the canvas shade on deck. Admittedly,
they did not look like a promising lot, resembling so many pirates.
Many were shirtless in the heat, their swarthy hides tattooed and
sinewy. Hope rose, however, when she noticed a young blond man striding
toward the prow.
Unlike the others, he was quite fully dressed, though perhaps slightly
wilted in the damp jungle heat. He seemed unwilling to be daunted
by it. With his gentlemanly cravat in good order, cuffed white shirt
sleeves neatly fashioned in self-conscious propriety, and ebony
knee-boots, he looked like a proud and very correct young officer.
Her heart fluttered. Gracious, he was the handsomest creature she
had seen in ages . . . until, following his progress, her gaze came
to rest on the magnificent man that the younger fellow now joined
at the rails.
An indescribable awe--or fascination--came over her as she stared
at their kingly leader. She had studied animals long enough to be
able to pick out in an instant which was the dominant male, and
there was no question whatsoever that he was it.
He appeared in his late thirties, and good Lord, he was big. He
even had an inch or two on Connor, she reckoned, with several stone
in pure muscle over Papa. The imposing stranger looked surprisingly
at home in the jungle setting. A knotted red bandana hung around
his neck in the Spanish style; he wore a loose white shirt, having
apparently discarded coat and waistcoat in the heat. His shirt fell
open in a V down to his breastbone, baring his glistening, muscular
chest.
The fine white linen had turned translucent in the rain and clung
to his massive shoulders.
Below, he wore dun-colored breeches that disappeared into shiny
black boots.
Eden realized something all of a sudden.
I know who this man is.
Lord Jack Knight, the mysterious merchant-adventurer who had turned
himself into a shipping magnate worth millions--one of the most
powerful men in the West Indies. Kingston society had swarmed with
stories about the enigmatic man. Black-Jack Knight, some called
him. It was said he owned large portions of Jamaica, and had a fleet
of eighty ships, with warehouses on every continent. His company
was based in Port Royal, but she heard he lived outside the town
in an elegant, white-stuccoed villa that sat on a cliff overlooking
the sea.
Some people claimed he had ill dealings with the smugglers who plagued
Buenos Aires. Others whispered he had actually helped the Americans
during the War of 1812, and since he was British-born himself, that
would have made him all but a traitor if it was true.
There were darker rumors still, tales involving acts of piracy in
his shadowed past, but as far as Eden knew, no one had ever dared
confront him in order to find out.
Well, blazes, Eden thought, her stare intensifying, I don’t
care if he’s Blackbeard himself if he can get me out of here.
Seeing the way he carried himself, it was easy to believe that such
a man could wrest his fortune from the untamed sea. Power, boldness,
and vitality emanated from every line of his towering physique;
he held his head high with an air of intelligent command. His square
face was framed by dark sideburns, his tousled hair the same dark,
warm brown as the toppled mahoganies his boat was pulling.
“Look!” the blond young officer suddenly cried. “There’s--“
He squinted in disbelief.
“There’s a lady in that tree!”
The crew let out with marveling oaths and exclamations, following
the direction of his pointing finger.
The sight of her there, sitting on the branch that overarched the
river, must have been so unlikely that most of them seemed to find
it quite hilarious.
She clenched her jaw and colored a bit, but refused to be nonplused.
She rested one hand behind her on the bough and leaned back idly,
trying to look nonchalant.
One sailor slapped his thigh as he guffawed. “If them grow
on trees in these parts, Cap, you can drop me off ’ere!”
She forced a longsuffering smile as a few of them bellowed with
laughter, but Lord Jack, with a mystified look, walked toward the
bow as the boat drifted closer, coming within a few feet of Eden’s
perch.
The light rain trickled down the adventurer’s broad forehead
to his thick, dark eyebrows.
He had deep-set, hooded eyes and a large but aquiline nose. A day’s
beard shadowed his rugged jaw, adding to his dangerous aura. His
lips, she thought, looked a little chapped.
And altogether kissable. The unbidden thought quite startled her.
“What species of bird is that, do ye reckon?” one of
his men persisted, rousing more laughter from his mates.
Turning redder by the second, she frowned, thinking their master
just a little wanting in manners for not silencing their sport.
Indeed, she was beginning to feel more than a tad foolish, herself,
knowing full well that tree-climbing was hardly included in how
La Belle Assemblee advised young ladies to behave.
Alas, here she was being stared at by a magnetic, thoroughly compelling
man whose fleet of ships might just be her only ticket out of here--a
man whose direct and confident gaze made her heart beat faster.
As she held his stare, too fascinated to look away, she marveled
at what pretty eyes he had. In contrast to his sun-bronzed complexion,
his piercing eyes were the turquoise blue of Caribbean waters. She
detected a sparkle of amusement in their depths as he perused her,
not quite successful in masking his roguish astonishment.
“You do see her, my lord?” the young officer asked.
“Please tell me I have not gone mad in the heat.”
“Trahern,” he ordered in a calm, authoritative tone,
not taking his eyes off her.
“Stop the boat.”
#
No, indeed, the tropical sun had not addled his assistant’s
wits unless it had cooked Jack’s, also, for he, too, saw the
lovely young redhead in the tree. Straddling the thick bough, she
swung her feet a bit self-consciously right above the spot where
the pilot now managed to bring the boat to a halt.
Finding any sort of female on a branch above the Orinoco a hundred
miles from any human settlement might have been rather a shock,
let alone a stunning beauty with big emerald eyes and, from his
quick assessment, perfect proportions.
Her long chestnut mane hung unbound. Wet with rain, she slicked
it back from her face as he watched her, his stare following the
auburn tendrils that twined over her delicate shoulders. She wore
a light green walking dress with frilly pantalets peeking out from
underneath before they disappeared into thick brown boots.
Jack was entranced and could not help staring. Her face, a softly
rounded oval with a light speckling of freckles, glowed with rain;
she had high cheekbones with a peachy complexion and a straight,
perfect nose that bespoke excellent breeding.
Though not normally given to damsel rescues and other good deeds,
he was more than happy to make an exception and play the hero in
this case.
“Good day, Miss,” he greeted her, prepared to offer
his assistance. “I see you’ve gotten yourself into a
spot of trouble up there.”
“I have?” She tilted her head with a frown. “How’s
that?”
Jack furrowed his brow. Her self-possessed response startled him;
he had expected more of a cry for help. He glanced discreetly at
his men; they shrugged, as perplexed as he.
He turned to the girl once more as she drew off her leather work
gloves and then picked a leaf out of her hair with a small scowl.
“Is everything, er, quite all right?”
“I think so,” she said warily, eyeing him as though
he were the oddball. “Is everything all right with you?”
“Of course.” Jack was nonplused and beginning to wonder
if they were speaking the same language. “That doesn’t
look very safe,” he pointed out. “Do you need help getting
down?”
“Oh!” she answered with a startled laugh. “No,
I don’t need any help getting down. But I’m sure you’re
very kind,” she added indulgently.
Jack stared at her in perplexity. “What the blazes are you
doing in that tree?”
“Studying epiphytes, of course.”
“Epi-whats?” Higgins muttered.
“Orchids,” she clarified. “In fact, I have just
made a most astonishing discovery!”
“Have you?” Jack echoed, certain that her discovery
could not be any more astonishing than his present one--namely,
her.
She nodded emphatically. “It appears the symbiosis between
the epiphytes and these canopy giants goes even deeper than we ever
previously suspected!” she blurted out, speaking out of plain
nervousness, he guessed.
“You don’t say,” he replied rather cautiously.
“Shall I explain?” she offered, lighting up.
“I don’t think she gets out much,” Trahern murmured
under his breath.
“Please do,” Jack invited her, as he folded his arms
across his chest and masked his amusement. He silenced his chuckling
men with a curt order.
Visibly pleased by his interest, the little oddball warmed to her
topic. “Oh, it’s very exciting! These orchids have flourished
on this tree branch for many generations. They have lived and died
and then decayed right here on this thick bough, until eventually,
over a number of years, they’ve created their own little bed
of soil and mulch, right here on the branch. They don’t need
any soil to grow in, of course--they’re air feeders with special
roots that allow them to suck the water right out of the air, you
see, like this rain.” She held out her cupped hand to catch
a few raindrops as she looked up into the drizzling canopy.
When she tilted her head back, his stare homed in on the damp white
fichu tucked into the neckline of her gown, a gauzy covering that
clung to her demure cleavage.
“Is that . . . right?” he murmured faintly, struck by
a jolt of wild lust. It took him completely off guard.
“Quite. Here!” She tossed a purple flower down to him
with a dazzling white smile. “It’s an advantage for
them, really. Anyway--” She leaned toward Jack with a confidential
air, nearly giving him a fit of apoplexy in his certainty that she
was going to fall out of the tree and straight into the mouth of
a crocodile. “Today I discovered that these little orchids
give back to the tree that shelters them in the most wonderful manner.”
“How?” he asked, drawn in to her little mystery in spite
of himself, and utterly enchanted.
“They feed it. Look.” She lifted up a cross-section
of what looked to him like grubby turf.
“When I cut into the orchids’ bed of soil here for closer
study, I discovered that the tree had actually begun sending out
these little root-like structures right from the branch so that
it could take in nutrients from the mulch that generations of decaying
orchids had created here. Don’t you see what this means?”
Jack attempted to answer but thought better of it. He just shook
his head.
She laid her hand on the massive branch that she was sitting on
and gazed up wistfully into the canopy. “They give to each
other, neither harming the other. This great big mahogany gives
this tiny, delicate flower shelter and solid support, while the
orchid, in turn, creates nourishment to help feed the tree and keep
it strong. They live in perfect harmony together and isn’t
it just so . . . beautiful?”
Jack stared, mute with a very male sense of admiration. He wasn’t
much for botany, and though miraculous, the arrangement between
the flower and the tree did not seem half as beautiful to him as
this dainty, eccentric little bluestocking.
He knew now who she was.
His acquaintance with Victor Farraday and his younger sister, Cecily,
went back to their days in England twenty years ago, though both
he and Victor were expatriates now. The last he had heard, the famed
naturalist had disappeared into the Orinoco Delta and had not been
heard from since.
“You’re Dr. Farraday’s daughter,” he informed
her.
She straightened up proudly with a nod. “And you are Lord
Jack Knight--though Jack is really just a nickname for John. So
I’m told.”
If he had been astonished before, he was now thrown completely off
kilter. “You know me?”
She laughed. “I saw you before. At an assembly ball in Kingston.”
“Really?” he echoed again, even more faintly this time.
The world was feeling more than a little topsy-turvy.
“Yes,” she declared with great certainty. “I believe
you had on a black coat.”
“You were at a ball I was attending and I did not notice you?
Highly unlikely--ah, unless your father made a point of keeping
you out of my sight.”
“Perhaps,” she admitted with a roguish little grin.
“You know--” She paused and gave him a look that nearly
knocked him off his feet. “He isn’t here right now.”
Jack swallowed hard and felt his heart beat faster. “Oh, really?”
he murmured in a deeper tone.
“Yes, really,” she replied, a devilish twinkle in her
emerald eyes. She bit her lower lip, trying to hold back a distinctly
naughty smile.
Well, now. If he did not know better, he might actually think the
chit was flirting with him--the feared, ferocious, the formidable
Jack Knight?
Impossible.
Certainly she was not fleeing him nor showing any sign of fear.
He looked away, feeling a bit confounded. Either she had not heard,
isolated in this wild place, that he was the Devil incarnate, or
was too desperate for human company to care. Whatever the reason
for her friendly manner, Jack was both puzzled and pleased.
He scratched his cheek self-consciously and then glanced over his
shoulder at his watching men, who quickly busied themselves doing
nothing, pretending not to be absorbed in their exchange. He scowled
at them, then looked up at Miss Farraday again, wary and unsure
what to make of the pert young siren.
She smiled at him again with a warm, engaging enthusiasm that young
ladies in civilized places were taught to hide behind downcast eyes,
total obedience, and maidenly silence--the same demure creatures
who fled from him. This one stared straight at him with curious
interest and a definite mind of her own, and Jack hadn’t the
foggiest notion what to make of her.
Fancifully, he thought her like a beautiful half-wild princess of
this mysterious emerald realm--or a wondrous rare forest animal
that had never seen Man before and did not know enough to be afraid.
Total innocence.
But noting the pistol and machete that she wore strapped around
her slim waist, he gathered in deepening respect that the lady knew
how to fend for herself.
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