Teresa Medeiros Page 7

  Holding her breath, she turned. The dirt floor was empty.

  She blew out a shaky breath. What had Justin said? There were no snakes in New Zealand, no dangerous animals? The musty stacks suddenly seemed ominous, blocking the cobwebbed corners from the morning sunlight. Something blunt thumped to the floor. Emily snapped to attention. From the corner of her eye she saw a shadow scuttle behind the table.

  She rose, measuring each step as if it would be her last. Her trembling fingers closed around the handle of Penfeld’s broom. She eyed the rifle hanging over the door longingly, but she would have to cross in front of the table to get it. Clutching the broom like a shield, she tiptoed toward the table.

  “Probably just a cat,” she whispered, soothed by the sound of her own voice. “Justin forgot to tell me he had a sweet little cat.”

  She got down on her knees and pinched the edge of the tablecloth between two fingers. “Nice kitty,” she crooned, easing the cloth up. “Come out and meet your auntie Emily.”

  As she lowered her head, a fat green monster galloped out of the shadows, charging straight for her nose.

  Chapter 5

  I long to hear your dulcet tones bringing me cheer.…

  A bloodcurdling scream fractured the serenity of the morning, startling a gull into soaring flight across the azure sky.

  Completely unruffled, Justin leaned back in the sand, resting his head on his folded arm. If his plan worked, the scheming little orphan would be out of his life and on her way to Auckland by nightfall.

  “Look at those clouds, won’t you, Penfeld? Magnificent, aren’t they?”

  Penfeld eyed the hut a few yards away, expecting Emily to come bursting from the door, newly healed of her affliction, as his master had promised she would. A ringing crash was followed by the thunder of wildly running feet. He would almost swear the hut was rocking.

  He took out a handkerchief and mopped beads of sweat from his upper lip. “She really should have come out by now. Perhaps I should go back and—”

  “Back in London you can’t even see the sky for the soot.” Justin tucked a blade of tussock grass between his lips, the very picture of indolent ease.

  From the hut a shrill squeal was followed by a string of colorful profanities. Clouds of dust billowed from the windows. An ominous silence fell.

  “But, sir … what if she uses the rifle?” Penfeld’s voice lowered to a horrified whisper. “Or stomps it to death?”

  Justin uncurled his fingers to reveal a handful of rifle shells. “Not loaded. Trust me. He’ll outrun her. I’d wager he’ll outlive all of us.” A smile teased his lips. “Why, it might even be snowing in London right now! Do you fancy snow, Penfeld? Doesn’t that cloud over there to the left favor a giant snowflake?”

  Sighing, Penfeld sank back into the sand. “No, I do believe it more resembles a giant teapot.” Pottery crashed. He winced. “A broken teapot, sir.”

  Emily was chasing a dragon. She slammed the broom into the floor, wishing the horrid creature would sprout wings and fly out the window. With an insolent flick of its spiked tail it darted behind the nearest stack of books. She crept nearer, picking her way over toppled books and shattered earthenware, muttering under her breath. Sweat trickled down her brow.

  She swung the broom in a whistling arc. It caught the books broadside and sent them crashing to the floor. Pepper shot up her nose; a chain of sneezes blinded her. As she stabbed wildly into the dust, she heard the thump-thump of fleeing little monster feet behind her.

  She threw herself after the sound and tripped over her own blankets. She swung the broom, swiping tin pots off the stove. They crashed to the floor in a ringing symphony. Her coat caught on the edge of the stove, bringing her up short. She knuckled her eyes and peered into the musty gloom. The beast was gone again, always one step ahead of her. Perhaps it wasn’t a dragon. Perhaps it was a very clever alligator.

  The swing of the tablecloth caught her eye. She felt a wicked grin curve her lips. Not so clever after all. Stupid enough to return to its original hiding place.

  Lifting the broom, she inched toward the table.

  “Come out, you darling little thing. Emily won’t hurt you.” Her fingers dug into the broom handle.

  A beam of sunlight pierced the dust, caressing the porcelain beauty of Penfeld’s tea service. It was the only thing in the hut left intact. Emily hesitated, formulating her plan. She would calmly coax the beast out of hiding, then obliterate it from the face of the earth.

  The monster poked its head out from beneath the cloth, taunting her with a flick of its little red tongue.

  Emily’s control snapped. A fierce battle cry tore from her throat. She charged, swinging the broom like an enraged samurai. The bristles whisked past the tea tray without so much as rattling a cup, then skimmed beneath the table. The broom handle caught in the hem of the linen cloth, jerking it askew. The tray started to slide, but it was too late for Emily to stop the momentum of her swing: She could only watch, horrified, as the tray teetered on the edge of the table for a timeless moment, then flipped. The crash seemed to echo forever. A single unbroken cup rolled across the floor, coming to rest against her toes.

  Emily cringed. She gazed at the scattered carnage, then down at herself in the deafening silence. Penfeld’s coat was furred with dust. One tattered sleeve hung by a few threads. She blew a curl from her eyes, her shoulders slumping in defeat.

  Behind her someone cleared his throat.

  She whirled around, dropping the broom.

  Through a curtain of glittering dust motes she saw Justin leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest. Beneath the slanted brim of his hat his eyes crinkled in a lazy smile. He had never looked more handsome. Or more infuriating.

  She sat down abruptly on the floor, clutching her ankle. Something scuttled out of the shadows, darting straight for Justin.

  “Watch out!” she shrieked, snatching up the broom.

  Before she could swing, Justin reached down and scooped up the creature. He dangled it above his head like a fat, scaly baby.

  “There now, my pet,” he crooned, giving Emily a reproachful look. “Did the wicked little girl frighten you?”

  Her jaw dropped. “That thing is a pet?”

  He cradled the beast to his chest. “This thing is a tuatara lizard, a veritable living fossil. They can survive for more than a century, although I dare say you’ve taken a few decades off this poor fellow’s life.”

  “Then we’re even. He’s taken a few decades off mine.”

  The lizard’s spiked tail waved near the waistband of Justin’s dungarees. Emily felt an absurd flare of jealousy as he tickled it under its beaked chin. “Poor, sweet Fluffy.”

  “Fluffy?” she echoed.

  “What would you have me call him? Scaly? Ugly?”

  “It would seem more appropriate.”

  “Ah, but your parents didn’t name you Brat, did they?”

  She snapped her mouth shut, tempted to whack him with the broom. The lizard flicked its tongue out at her. She poked out her own in return. “You might have told me you had a two-foot dinosaur for a pet.”

  He smiled with maddening sweetness. “You never asked.” He held the lizard up, examining it in the sunlight. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?” As Justin kissed its scaly head, Emily would have sworn its beady little eyes flickered in demure triumph.

  “Poor Fluffy, indeed,” she muttered. “Poor Fluffy gets all the sympathy.” She knuckled the corner of her lip, tasting blood. “What about poor Emily? I could have been killed, but nobody cares enough to fuss over me or lick my wounds.”

  Justin slanted an unfathomable look at her. Her heart thumped into an off-key rhythm.

  He gently deposited Fluffy outside the door, then shut it with deliberate care. “We wouldn’t want you to feel neglected, now, would we?”

  Emily’s eyes widened as he closed the space between them and hauled her to her feet. His hands were rough, but his mouth as it found
hers was achingly tender. His tongue glided with silky ease over the contours of her lips, lingering and soothing until a yearning ache replaced the sting. He didn’t stop then, but tangled his hand in her hair and tilted her head back. He swept his tongue across hers, branding her with his taste and heat. Her hand curled helplessly around his nape, winding in the textured silk of his hair. A moan rose from deep in her throat.

  He released her.

  Emily was so shocked she forgot to fall down. She just stood there in the middle of the floor, stunned by the knowledge that with one kiss he had shattered all her defenses, all the independence she had fought so hard to win. She was the sort of woman who could be had by her worst enemy for only the subtle eroticism of a kiss. Dazed, she touched two fingers to the tingling pillow of her bottom lip. Miss Winters must be right. She must be a very bad girl indeed.

  Justin took a step backward, unprepared for Emily’s trembling vulnerability. He had expected an enraged shriek, perhaps a slap, but not the lost expression that darkened her pretty eyes. She looked as if he had struck her, not kissed her, and it made him feel both cruel and ashamed. If she started to cry, he feared Penfeld might return to find them both on the floor, bawling like babies. He ached to touch her, but satisfied himself by plucking a dust ball from her curls.

  She sank down on an overturned bucket, wrapping her dignity around her like the shreds of Penfeld’s coat. “I fear the joke’s on me this time. I lied about my leg.” She met his gaze with aching candor. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Justin’s heart lurched. He had the odd feeling that those were the truest words she’d ever spoken to him. A wave of unexpected anger surged through him, driving him to break his own precious code of privacy. “Where is your family? Is there no one to take care of you? What is society coming to when a girl like you can roam halfway across the world without a soul to protect her?”

  “I don’t need protecting. I cherish my independence.” She lowered her eyes. “I’ve been too long dependent on the fickle whims of men.”

  He cupped her cheek in his palm, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Perhaps you’ve only chosen the wrong men.”

  “A mistake I don’t care to repeat,” she said with forced lightness, drawing away from him. “You were kind to let me stay. You knew better than anyone that I had nothing to pay you with.”

  Nothing but the cheering warmth of her chatter, the clean scent of her curls, and more laughter than the dusty old hut had heard in years. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, afraid he might beg her to stay not for another week, but for another month.

  “You can pay me,” he said abruptly.

  Her fingers knotted in her lap. She rolled her foot over Penfeld’s remaining cup, tension written in the curve of every toe. “I know such arrangements are common in a land such as this, but I don’t believe I could—”

  Justin bit off one of Nicky’s favorite oaths. Emily’s eyes widened in shock. He snatched off his hat and turned away to pace, not wanting her to see him bleed from her careless cut.

  His foot scattered a pile of books. “Is that what a kind man would do, Emily? Force you to share his blankets for a thatched roof and a plate of beans? Is that what you’re worth?” He whirled to face her. “What manner of man do you think me?”

  Justin didn’t think she could hurt him any more than she had, but when she lowered her gaze to her lap without answering, he discovered he was wrong. Dust motes drifted down to halo her disheveled curls. His throat tightened with a temptation sharper than pain.

  What if he allowed Emily to barter her tender young body as the price for his protection? Would he be a monster for wanting to blunt the sharp edges of night with the pleasure of her charms?

  “Come here.”

  An unbidden shiver raced through Emily at the smoky timbre of Justin’s voice. She untangled her fingers and smoothed the remnants of Penfeld’s coat over her thighs. She rose and glided toward him, mesmerized by the clarity of his golden eyes. How could such crystalline eyes hide such dark secrets? she wondered.

  She tilted her face to his, meeting his gaze boldly despite the faint quiver of her lower lip.

  “You can repay me …” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her brow.

  His shadow fell over her; Emily’s eyes fluttered shut in unwitting invitation.

  “… by cooking dinner tonight.”

  Emily snapped open her eyes. Justin was already striding toward the door, stepping over broken bits of china with the lazy grace she found so unnerving.

  “You’ve piqued my curiosity about one thing,” he said. “Why didn’t you just run outside when I put Fluffy in the hut?”

  “Run?” she echoed, still dazed by his abrupt mood change. “I never considered it.”

  Grudging admiration touched his voice. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?”

  Justin watched his words sink in; Emily’s eyes slowly widened to vengeful saucers. “When you put Fluffy in? When you put Fluffy … do you mean you deliberately … why, you miserable wretch!”

  She fumbled at the floor. Justin slammed the hut door just as the last unbroken cup crashed into it and shattered. Grinning, he slapped on his hat at a cocky angle. “Now, that’s my girl.”

  He strode toward the fields, the music of Emily’s curses still ringing in his ears.

  Penfeld was moping. Even the creases in his trousers looked droopy. Emily fussed over him with unrelenting cheer, bringing him conch shell after conch shell of tea heavily sweetened with precious treacle. In the course of a day, their roles had oddly reversed. The valet reclined on his pallet, his hands folded over his belly in plump wings. He hadn’t made a single remark about Emily’s miraculous recovery. Even in tragic defeat he remained tactful.

  Emily clucked into his untouched shell of tea. “This won’t do at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were sulking.”

  “A good valet never sulks, miss. He mourns.”

  “I am terribly sorry about your tea service. It wasn’t entirely my fault, you know.” She shot Justin’s back a dark look.

  Her host stood at the stove, flipping the sweet potato pancakes she had molded earlier. He had the good grace to turn around at her pointed words, but she almost wished he hadn’t. There was something hopelessly compelling about a man as virile as Justin wearing an apron. Her toes started to feel sticky, and she realized she was pouring the lukewarm tea over her feet. She dried them with the hem of Penfeld’s coat.

  “Emily’s right. It wasn’t entirely her fault.” Justin pointed his spatula at the impassive lizard perched on a stack of books. “Fluffy must have been dipping into the rum again. You know how clumsy he gets on one of his drunken rampages.”

  Emily, Penfeld, and the maligned lizard all glared at him.

  Justin threw up his arms. “I confess! I murdered those innocent cups and sugar bowls with my own ruthless hands. But I’ve promised you new ones the very first chance I get. Even if I have to swim all the way to Fleet Street to find them.”

  Penfeld’s long-suffering sigh was enough to make Emily weep. “You can’t afford it, sir. Your every halfpenny is promised to Miss—”

  Justin flashed a warning glance toward Emily. If Fluffy had been blessed with visible ears, she was sure they would have perked up.

  Penfeld snapped his mouth shut and began toying with his suspenders. Miss who? Emily wondered. Miss Auckland Strumpet? Miss Greedy Mistress with Soft Blue Eyes and Not a Freckle on Her Body? Justin obviously wasn’t channeling his fortune to his ward. Was some New Zealand beauty bleeding him dry? Did he have a shrewish paramour and five mewling brats tucked away somewhere? She supposed it would serve him right after what he had done to her father. So why had she suddenly lost her appetite?

  Their meager supply of plates had been broken, so Emily began slamming pancakes on palm fronds.

  Justin crouched beside the pallet. “Picture it in your mind, Penfeld. A gleaming vista of Waterford goblets and Wedgwood jasperware. Line
n napkins heaped like snowy Alps beside each plate.”

  The valet only sniffed. “How arrogant of me to think I could preserve a tiny corner of civilization in this wilderness, a small fragment of the mighty dignity of the British Empire in this wasteland of …”

  He droned on. Justin shrugged at Emily over his head, indicating it best to let him ramble. As they sat, picking the sand out of their pancakes, a trilling cry interrupted Penfeld’s recitation.

  A long, tanned leg jutted over the windowsill, followed by a tattooed arm waving a bottle of rum. “Greetings, most noble companions. I come bearing liquid sustenance for your delectable banquet.”

  “Doesn’t Trini know any words under six syllables?” she hissed at Justin. She was still cranky from envisioning him adrift in a welter of milk-skinned, golden-eyed babies.

  “Of course he does, but he prefers the ones I taught him.”

  “That explains why he’s so pompous.”

  Justin slanted her a dark look, but she was already taking a dainty bite of her pancake. He caught the bottle Trini tossed and splashed rum into his tea. Emily reached for the bottle, but Justin slyly eased it out of her reach. He was afraid rum and Emily might not mix. He could too easily imagine them igniting with a lethal flash, burning his lean, hungry body to cinders.

  Trini squatted in their circle and Emily hastened to offer him a pancake. Penfeld’s pancake. She ignored the valet’s protests, more concerned with soothing the native’s hunger. She didn’t have to worry about Penfeld eating her. Trini gulped down the crisp treat, then licked his fingers and grinned at her. Emily looked around frantically.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Justin slid his own food out of her reach. “Give him yours.”

  “But I’m hungry,” she wailed.

  Justin grabbed her foot and ran his thumb over the sleek curve of her instep. A decadent heat tingled up her calf. “Have I ever mentioned what succulent little toes you have?”

  She caught her breath, so paralyzed by the wicked sparkle of his eyes that she absently handed her pancake to Trini. When Justin freed her foot, it felt even more bereft than her empty stomach.