Only You: Duke of Rutland Series III Page 5

  With her back to him, she laid down, crossed her arms and curled into herself. Tears welled. She drew a shattered breath and then another, desperate to hold back the flood that would surely erupt if she let go. She deserved everything that had happened to her.

  A shadow loomed and she looked up. Nicholas reached down and tucked his coat around her. “You need this more than I, Alexandra.”

  “But I couldn’t possibly—” His coat slipped off her shoulder and he pushed it back up.

  “Yes you can. I insist. You’ve been stronger than any woman I’ve known, facing unbelievable terrors.

  You have cheered and consoled me. You have fed and cared for me. You have put up with my brutish moods.” His voice deepened. “You have saved my life.”

  His mouth quirked as he slanted his handsome head to the palm tree where he had tossed the contents of his stomach. “You even possess the indelicate art of telling me, I told you so.”

  Her bottom lip quivered. She didn’t deserve his praise. Whatever she’d done was purely for self-preservation. Survival. Two people had a much better chance fighting off their captors and, in fact, it was Lord Rutland who’d fought off Damiano. She would never have had a chance against the beast.

  Maybe Lord Rutland wasn’t the rude man she’d thought him to be. Perhaps his condescending, boorish behavior was his shield to keep from getting hurt. That he thought to praise her, to give her credit for saving his life… She had to be wrong about him. A warm feeling flowed through her. Her stomach fluttered.

  Nodding, he pulled a long breath. “You are like a sister to me, Alexandra.”

  “Sister?” The apology she was about to give died on her tongue.

  His chin rose ever so slightly, as if satisfied with himself.

  So, they were sister and brother. Apparently he thought it wise to be straight forward with their relationship. Being stranded on a deserted patch of earth and all.

  Alexandra offered a weak smile.

  She rolled over, hiding beneath his coat, grateful for the warmth. Did he think she had insinuated a romantic inclination? Unable to think of anything she had said to make him think of that possibility, she burrowed further beneath his coat, her humiliation complete. She was powerless to escape her reality…and…his scent.

  An affiliation with a duke would be impossible. With her vague history, she was far beneath that connection.

  If only she could cork her melancholy in a bottle and cast it into the sea.

  He moved to his log and soon his gentle rhythmic snoring could be heard in tandem with the waves that washed upon the beach. He lay huddled in a ball to keep warm. In his weakened state, what if he caught a chill and died? Alexandra sighed. She rose, clutching his coat to her. For the first time in her life, she laid next to a man, covering them both with his coat and sharing their body warmth. Just like on the ship…this was about survival. They needed one another.

  Chapter 5

  Nicholas sat up, his coat sliding off. Where was Alexandra?

  He shielded his eyes from the sun’s brilliant rays and scanned the horizon. Perched like an ancient warrior princess, her knife cleaved to a long stick with twine, she stood poised atop a rock with teeth-gritting determination. She pulled back and threw. Her spear whooshed through the water.

  Alexandra squealed, pinning her spear to the sandy bottom. “Nicholas, I have caught a fish.”

  He splashed into the water, grabbing hold of her silvery prize before it slipped away. “You are worth your weight in guineas, Alexandra.”

  He hauled the flapping treasure ashore in his arms, whistling a jaunty tune while gutting the fish. Real food. Alexandra laid the fish’s body over hot coals and it steamed its fragrance. Nicholas washed his hands in the surf. He scanned the beach and did a double-take. An indentation in the sand was grooved next to where he had slept. His whistling dropped in a rapid decrescendo. Had she lay beside him?

  “You were cold and I-I—”

  The air grew thick. Errant strands of gold hair clung to the perspiration that glistened on her pinkened cheeks. Did her bottom lip tremble? Nice and full.

  Tight and controlled, his breath eased out in a low delay. “Kept me warm. We’ve stared into the face of death, Alexandra. Conforming to conventional standards departed with the outgoing tide. Your kindness speaks volumes. Please know, I am a gentleman and honorable.”

  After a short breakfast, they set out to explore the earth on which they inhabited. The air, redolent of wildflowers and the sweet scent of sea breezes caressed the high valleys, rolling up over the green covered peaks, and then rising to touch the bluest sky.

  As they walked, the jungle came to life. Birds twittered, a coconut plopped on the ground, triggering small animals to scamper under Casuarinas. He spotted an occasional, curly-tailed lizard sunning itself upon a slab of limestone and a herd of goats strike a path up the mountain. Beasts of prey seemed nonexistent. No tracks in the soft earth to mark their presence other than the hooves of swine and goats.

  The going was not easy, having to stop every few minutes to regain his breath. Despite the fish, his stomach gnawed with hunger. To mark a trail, he broke limbs and slashed trees with Alexandra’s knife. The sun heated the skin on his back and arms. Alexandra pulled up beside him, her breathing coming in short spurts, fracturing the quiet.

  How did she evoke such innocence? As a thief, she had seen more of the world than he had. Had more skills apparently.

  He exhaled on a note of regret. “Kidnapped, stripped of everything, dealing with Portuguese slavers and now cast upon this infernal earth, I realize how ill-equipped I am to survive. I have no knowledge, tools or weapons other than the knife you possess. I am useless.”

  “You are hungry and it’s hot,” she said, resting her hand on one hip and wiping her brow with the other. “Are you so woeful because you are used to an army of servants waiting on you?”

  Is that what she thought of him? A macaroni who could not fend for himself? His nerves tensed. “I will die here and no one will know where I’ve been cast-a-way.”

  She laughed at him, and then fingered a tall orange and blue flower. “I’m selfish, Nicholas. You need to build me a shelter before you die. I need protection from wind and rain.” She smiled, the kind of smile that could melt his old Jesuit tutor and make him forget his vows.

  “Bird of Paradise.”

  “I have never seen such majestic colors. I can breathe the colors.”

  Breathing? He stopped breathing for a moment, mesmerized by the color of her eyes, dark-ringed with golden lights in pools of turquoise. He shook his head and stooped to pick up a coconut from the many that spread across the ground. Anything to remove himself from her enchantment. He cracked open the coconut, drank and pressed the vessel into her hands to drink.

  “We must find a water source.” He chewed a piece of coconut and pushed on. “To capture one of those fat swine I saw herding through the forests, consumes me. If only I had a bow and arrow, or better, I could try your spear. If we are to survive, I will have to hunt for food to supplement our diet. The coconut and fish have revitalized me, but I will get sick of the redundancy.”

  “Do you hear it?” She turned west, cutting through thick vegetation. He followed. She leapt over strangler vines and roots, fast and independent as the caprices of the wind. A stitch grew in his side. Drawing closer, the thunder grew louder.

  She drove through head-high elephant leaves, halted, her mouth dropping open. He came up beside her, and he, too, stood in awe, his world full of magic things.

  The most desirable spot in the world with beauty beyond his wildest imagination lay before him. Cascading plumes of sweet water tumbled down a fern softened cliff, dancing with multi-colored hues, and then blending into a cobalt melting of silver mist before plunging into a deep jungle pool. Lime bursts of parrots chattered in the tree tops. Beneath a cerulean sky, a carpet of scarlet, yellow and orange flowers sparkled with droplets. He filled his lungs with the fragrance and warm tr
opical air.

  She laughed and dove in, splashing the water up over her with the gleeful state of a child. He dove in after her, taking great gulps of fresh water. He back-floated for a while, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Likely owed to her sea captain father, she swam with elegant ease, wild and natural as the gulls that soared above the sea. She dove under the fall, surfacing and lifting her head to the flowing water. Nicholas followed, her innocent enthusiasm contagious, the water rushing over him, cleaning away sweat and salt and grime.

  She crawled up on a flat moss-covered rock, her chest heaving with exertion and lay in the sun. He hitched himself up on the same rock, sitting next to her. The trees murmured to one another, swaying in a gentle breeze, smelling of allspice and flowers. A half rainbow descended from the mists over the glade.

  But it was her dazzling beauty that arrested his attention. Her hand lay over her heart, concealing one breast. A dark nipple puckered and protruded through the fabric of her other breast. Golden hair fanned out from beneath her and there was color to her face, a flush that lent her skin a radiant glow.

  Sister? Had he really called her a sister? It was all he could do not to crawl on top of her and… he raked his fingers through his damp hair.

  “Nicholas, you will not die here. You must agree we have been blessed with this boon.” She waved a hand to the trees that bordered the lagoon. “I have never seen a place so lovely. Bright colored orchids and fruit hang everywhere.”

  He wasn’t thinking about orchids and fruit. The garment she wore was completely diaphanous. He tried not to look at how her chemise stuck to her like a second skin, tried not to look at the curls of the deep vee between her legs. His hands fisted with the criminality of a woman to appear like that. But who was present to enforce the law?

  A hummingbird flew suspended over the pool. Beneath, the current swelled and elongated. Nicholas shifted. The ease in which she displayed herself cemented his theory on her profession. He remembered her request aboard the Santanas, and that request lingered, evoking all kinds of depraved imaginings. She had wanted him to—

  “In time, I know you will catch us a pig to roast.”

  “Pigs?” Wicked and carnal came to mind, leaving his personal pride and integrity in tatters. Had she no idea how his principles were tested?

  He stood, turned to hide his physical reaction to her. “Let’s go,” he groused. “The sun is high and I want to explore more.” He glanced over his shoulder, saw how disappointed she was to leave. “We can come back again. The lagoon is an excellent water source.”

  He shouldered through colossal ferns, keeping ahead of her. He enjoyed women, some unique and adventurous creatures welcomed his attentions in and out of bed. There was one actress he still recalled with a degree of fondness.

  This nymph could care less about him.

  Her prophecy that he would not die in this place irked him. “You won’t allow me to be gloomy, will you, Alexandra?”

  “There is no time to be gloomy. We must catch fish to smoke and preserve, and gather fruit to dry in the sun.”

  “None of which I have any experience in doing.”

  “I will teach you and we will do everything together.”

  “We will be here for a long time, won’t we,” he said, not really a question.

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. A month? A year? A decade? Who knows?”

  He did not have a month or a year, much less a decade. The uncertainty would surely drive him mad. He had to get back to England. Stumbling over a lumpy ground root, he clung to a curling vine that snaked around the tree’s trunk in suffocating loops. “How will we build a shelter with your knife as our only tool?”

  “There is that,” she conceded. “We will make do.”

  “I wish I had your optimism.”

  She sighed. “Have you always been this miserable, Lord Rutland? I don’t like gloomy. I like people who make me laugh. I honestly think it is the thing I like most, to laugh. I think it cures a multitude of ills and sure beats crying and whining.”

  “I prefer to be moody and grim.”

  “I can tell. You’re very good at it. Must have practiced your whole life. Your spirit of pessimism is to be admired.”

  Nicholas grumbled.

  “You think you are cast upon a horrible desolate habitation, void of all hope. But you are alive. You are no longer a prisoner bound for a life of slavery in some godforsaken place. You are not starved, and perishing in a barren location that affords no sustenance. There appears to be no wild beasts to hurt you. The climate is agreeable. And you are not alone. You have me to speak to. You must count your blessings.”

  She was right. He was a master at despondency. He must shake off the past of anger, blame and guilt over his father.

  The spongy ground sank beneath his step with decayed vegetation. He scraped his chest, easing through a stand of bamboo, and then ran his hands along the tall sturdy trunks. He could build houses, had helped several of his tenants at one time. “This would make an excellent building material.”

  “That’s the way I like you to think, Nicholas.”

  “The problem is cutting it without proper tools.” Never had he felt so impotent.

  He continued for an hour, trekking through the dense green undergrowth, dodging around a swarm of leaf-cutter ants. The air grew thick and heavy, his stamina tested with the heat and climbing. He held back branches for Alexandra to pass through and she smiled up to him.

  What circumstances had led her to the lifestyle of a thief? Had she been orphaned by the sea captain with no one to turn to other than the streets, and then choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity? She had offered no explanation of her history and he would respect her privacy.

  “Why not treat our sojourn here as a quest?”

  “A quest? To what end?”

  She pushed a tendril of hair back from her eyes. “I haven’t decided yet. But when I discover one, I’ll let you know.”

  “What you have offered so far, Miss Elwins, is denial of our grim reality.”

  “You are just like Jay Thompson, defiant as a bear in defeat.”

  His nostrils flared with the smell of rotting fruit. Pieces and parts of her didn’t add up. She could swim, cut rigging and could read, yet she was a thief. Did she have a lover in England? On the ship, hadn’t she intimated a relationship with a man who was kind and giving? “Who is Jay Thompson?”

  The ferocity of his question startled her, and they stood so close his breath stirred the wisps of golden silk that framed her face.

  “I cared for him. Whenever things didn’t go his way, he’d stamp his foot and pout.”

  Nicholas glowered. “Sounds immature for a man.”

  Her laughter tinkled over the mountain and he couldn’t help but be ensnared by it.

  “Goodness, no. Jay is nine years old, a little mulish and at times, peevish and impatient. Did my best to tease him out of his doldrums. He was a mischievous boy, prone to throw apples off the cliff at the Cornett sisters when their carriage passed the road below.”

  Nicolas scowled. He did not like being compared to an intractable nine-year old. “You did not correct him?”

  She kept a straight face but her lips quaked. “I might have tossed a few down myself.”

  He gave a look of mock horror. “Very improper, Miss Elwins.”

  “To think I am in the esteemed company of the Lord of Virtue who never performed one mischievous thing in his life.”

  He couldn’t deny the way she challenged him nor her infectious laughter. “I might have tossed a tomato or two.” He stopped and leaned against a tree, swiping at the sweat across his face.

  She patted his shoulder. “It will take a while before your strength returns.” She produced a mango and they feasted on the sweet orange flesh.

  “What I wouldn’t do for a round of beef,” he said.

  She skipped ahead of him, following a well-worn animal path. Nicholas threw down the suck-cleaned seed. He
didn’t like being led, in fact, the view annoyed him. She had long legs, well-rounded hips. He snapped a branch in two.

  What matter to worry about the distant shores beyond them when he saw the dancing light in her eyes, which were continually filled with excitement? He studied this woman-child who could look so far ahead. Mayhap they would be rescued within a month. They would return home, he to his family and Alexandra to what? Save for this interlude, he’d probably never see her again.

  He watched the sway of her hips and the ripe bounce of her full breasts. Mistress? He could set her up in a home near his London townhouse, visit her whenever he had the inclination…all the time. He’d buy her gowns and jewels…take her to the opera...interludes in the country. Alexandra stretched out over satin sheets, her golden hair fanned out over a pillow, her body quivering with the pleasure he’d give her. She was a narcotic, an opiate. He could not get enough of her.

  She had saved his life.

  She deserved better. He frowned. He didn’t like the idea of her living a life of crime. He’d return her to her sea captain father and settle an amount on her so she could live without the risk of having a noose around her neck.

  Nicolas swallowed. How was he going to keep his hands off her?

  They came out on a cliff overlooking the sea. “I don’t like the look of those clouds forming. We need shelter. So far, we have experienced gentle weather and warm trade winds. Exposed to the elements for long, we will perish,” he said.

  As if he divined the heavens, the skies opened-up and doused them. Huddling beneath an outcrop of rock, and shivering, Nicholas said, “Exactly my point. I regret spending so much time at the lagoon. The sun is past its zenith, descending to the west. We will have to return. We can’t make it to the summit in time.” He was ornery and knew it.

  “Oh, Nicholas, how you cleave to an abiding sense of tragedy.” She waved an airy hand over the glistening palms, as if ordering the deluge to stop. “See, the rain has abated as quickly as it arrived and a brilliant pearl of a sun has lifted in its wake.”