Synopsis from Amazon Canada:In the seventh installment of the Knight Miscellany series, a high seas adventure, Foley is deft as ever. This Regency romance begins in the jungles of Venezuela, where British native Eden Farraday lives with her father, Dr. Victor Farraday, as he looks for medicinal plants—but she pines for London, the company of "normal people" and the chance to find a husband. When her father reneges on his promise to return to England, Eden finds her own way out of the jungle. Rakish Lord Jack Knight—the black sheep of the Knight family—is boating down the river, after a meeting with Bolivar's rebels, when he encounters Eden. He refuses to take her aboard his London-bound ship, but undaunted, Eden rows down the river after him and stows away. When Jack discovers Eden, he installs her in his cabin for his own amusement; contrary to his intention, he becomes infatuated, and their relationship begins to break down Jack's hardened facade.
My rating: 4 stars
Excerpt:
Chapter 1
February, 1818
She wanted to dance.
Her toes in silken slippers tapped beneath the hem of her white—no, blue—no, her green silk gown, in time with the elegant strains from the orchestra.
Innumerable twinkling candles on the crystal chandeliers cast a golden haze over the ballroom, where pairs of gliding dancers whirled through the steps of the new, daring waltz: ladies in rich, pale, luminous silks, gentlemen in stately black and white.
Suddenly, through the crowd, she sensed someone staring at her. Peeking over her painted fan, she caught only a glimpse of a tall, imposing figure before the swirling motion of the dancers hid him from her view again.
Her pulse leaped. A thrill rushed through her, for she could sense him, feel him coming to ask her to stand up with him for the next quadrille.
Wide-eyed, her heart pounding, she waited, yearning for a clearer look at the face of her mystery man, her destined hero—
At that moment, a prickle of instinctual warning on her nape summoned Eden Farraday back from her lovely reverie.
Her rapt gaze focused slowly as reality pressed back in on her reluctant senses, bringing with it all the ceaseless sounds and pungent smells of another black, humid night in the tropical forest.
Instead of crystal chandeliers, a lone, rusty lantern gleamed on the bamboo table beside her hammock, which was draped beneath a cloud of filmy white mosquito netting. In place of lords and ladies, pale moths danced and flittered against the lantern’s glass, and beyond the palm-thatched roof of the naturalists’ jungle stilt-house, the darkness throbbed with teeming life.
Insects sang in deafening cadence. Monkeys bickered for the most comfortable branches to sleep on in the trees, but at least the raucous parrots had quit their noisy squabbling. Far off in the distance, a jaguar roared to warn a rival off its territory, for the great stealthy beasts’ hunting hour had come.
Its fierce echo chased away her shining vision of London glamour, leaving nothing but the artifact that had inspired it—a yellowed, crinkled, year-old copy of a fashion magazine, La Belle Assemblée, sent by her dear cousin Amelia all the way from England.
The sense of danger, however, still remained.
She glanced around uneasily, her jungle-honed instincts on alert; her hand crept toward the pistol that was always by her side.
And then she heard it. A faint and subtle hiss from much too close overhead.
Lifting her gaze, she found herself eye to cold, beady eye with a monstrous eight-foot fer-de-lance. Fangs gleaming, the deadly serpent flicked its forked tongue in her direction. She shrank back slowly, not daring to move too fast.
Seeking warm-blooded prey, the big snake seemed to sense the vibrations of her pounding heart. The species invaded many a human dwelling in the torrid zone: humans left crumbs; crumbs brought mice; and the mice brought the fer-de-lance, a notoriously ill-tempered viper with a reputation for attacking with the slightest provocation.
Its bite spelled doom.
Slim and sinuous, it had slithered up into the weathered crossbeams of their shelter. It must have gone silently exploring then in search of a plump rodent entrée, for at present it was coiled around the post from which her hammock hung, and was studying her like it wondered how she’d taste.
To her amazement, it had sliced through the mosquito netting with those daggered fangs that dispensed a venom capable of killing a large man in under half an hour. Eden had seen it happen, and it was not a pleasant death.
When the fer-de-lance arched its scaly neck into that ominous S shape, she had a fleeting fraction of a second to see the attack coming, then it struck—angry reptile snapping out like a whip, a flash of fangs.
She flung herself onto her back on her hammock, brought up her pistol, and fired.
A disgusted yelp escaped her as the snake’s severed head plopped right onto the center of her treasured magazine.
“Bloody—!” she started, then stopped herself from uttering the rest, only mouthing the epithet, for refined London ladies did not curse aloud. Still!
That dashed magazine had taken a blasted year to reach her, coming via courier by way of Jamaica. Rolling nimbly out of her hammock, Eden scowled at the wide-mouthed snake head that now marred the elegant publication. She flipped her long plait of auburn hair over her shoulder, brushed the mosquito netting aside and stepped away, shaking off her latest brush with death.
“Everything all right, dear?” her father, Dr. Victor Farraday, called in a casual tone from his work tent across the naturalists’ camp, located deep in the heart of Venezuela’s green, steaming Orinoco Delta.
She shot a distracted glance in his direction. “Fine, Father!” she yelled back and, with shaking hands, put her gun away. Lord, I can’t wait to get out of here.
With a grimace, she picked up the magazine like a tray, balancing the dead snake’s head on it, and marched stoically to the rustic railing that overlooked the wide, onyx river. She flung the head into the current without ceremony, and heard it plop down into the Orinoco with a small splash.
Well, no doubt something would eat it in minutes, she thought. That was the law of the jungle: Eat or be eaten. Sending a wary glance out across the inky river, she saw a number of red eyes gleaming by the lantern’s glow, and then a large thing submerged with barely a ripple in the silver moonlight.
Eden shook her head. Man-eating crocodiles, poisonous snakes, bloodsucking bats—and Papa said London was dangerous. Patience, she told herself, doing her best to keep her hunger for civilization in check. It wouldn’t be much longer now. They would soon be going home to England whether Papa liked it or not.
Turning to gaze in the direction of her father’s work tent, her face filled with determination. She gave herself a small nod. Yes. The suspense was torture. She had to hear Papa’s decision—now. She tore off the pages of her magazine that could not be saved and put them aside as fuel for the cooking fires, then strode out of their native-style dwelling, known as a palafito. She fixed her sights on the naturalists’ main work tent across the camp.
A ring of torches burned around the perimeter of the clearing to keep the beasts at bay, but there was little help for the mosquitoes. She swatted one away as she passed the fire pit in the center of camp, where she greeted their three black servants with affection. Their bright grins flashed in the darkness. Now that the heat of day had passed, the servants, dressed in flowing, light, tropical garb, were cooking dinner for themselves.
Eden exchanged a few teasing remarks with them and forged on. The skirts of her cotton walking dress swirled around her legs and her thick leather boots sunk firmly into the soft turf with every stride. Her forward stare was confident, but in truth, her heart was pounding as she waited for the verdict.
Ahead, beneath the three-sided military-style tent, Dr. Victor Farraday and his brawny Australian assistant, Connor O’Keefe, bent their heads together in close discussion, poring over a weathered map. The field table was strewn with the latest specimens they had collected today on their trek, led by the local Waroa shaman to where the medicine plants grew. For now, however, their new finds were forgotten. Their faces were tense and serious by the dim orange glow of the lantern.
It was no wonder why. Her treasured magazine was not the only item the courier had brought today from the outer world, smuggling their mail and a few supplies in past the Spanish fleet trolling the coast.
There had also been a letter, equally out of date, from the solicitor representing Papa’s aristocratic patron back in England. The letter announced the sad tidings that the old, philanthropic fourth Earl of Pembrooke, alas, had gone on to his eternal reward some months ago.
His Lordship’s heir, the fifth earl, was young and dashing, rumored to be quite handsome and, if the Society pages of La Belle Assemblée could be believed, he was also known as a gambler and a bit of a rakehell. The new Lord Pembrooke was building himself a fine new country house, and as far as he was concerned, all the artists and scholars, musicians and sculptors and scientists that his grandfather had for so long commissioned could go hang. So he had instructed his solicitor to say.
In short, the famed Dr. Farraday had lost the funding for his research, and Eden had nearly cheered aloud to hear it.
She had bitten her tongue, however, and suppressed her joy, for Papa had turned pale at the news, committed as any obsessed genius to his work. Oh, but it wasn’t as though they would starve once they reached England, she reasoned with a hardheaded practicality that usually balanced out her dreamy side.
A trained physician and now a prestigious author as well, Dr. Farraday had a standing offer of a highly respectable teaching post at the Royal College of Medicine in London. When he accepted it, as he surely must, it wouldn’t be long before she and Cousin Amelia would be promenading in Hyde Park among the other élégantes, causing the young bucks to wreck their stylish phaetons for turning to stare at them.
Soon—who could say?—she might actually have a normal life.
Clasping her hands behind her back, Eden cleared her throat politely to get the gentlemen’s attention.
The two scientists had been so absorbed in their discussion they had not noticed her standing there. At once, they fell silent, halting their low-toned discussion.
“Well, boys,” she said with a jaunty smile, trying with a touch of humor to lighten some of the tension they all were feeling about the sudden change in their situation. “When are we finally going to leave?”
Alas, her jest fell flat. The pair exchanged a guarded glance. Belatedly, Connor stood in the presence of a lady, knowing how she loved these small gestures of civility.
Connor O’Keefe was a tanned, blond, towering Australian, over six feet tall and twice as broad as the tribal warriors of the Delta. He was a strong man of few words and a specialist in zoology; his sensitivity to the forest animals was endearing to Eden, but more and more frequently of late, his unbroken stares made her uneasy.
“Everything all right?” he asked, resting his hands on his waist with a concerned frown. “Why did you fire?”
“A fer-de-lance got into the house. Sorry, Con, It was either your snaky friend or me.”
“Good God, are you all right?” her father exclaimed, whipping off his spectacles and starting forward in his chair.
“I’m fine, Father,” she assured him. “I wondered if Connor would take the vile thing away. Most of it’s still stuck in the rafters,” she said with a wince.
The Australian nodded firmly, then glanced at her father. “I’ll be right back, sir.”
“Yes, er, give us a moment, my boy. I should like to have a word with my daughter.”
“Of course.” Connor paused to give Eden’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re sure you’re all right?” he murmured.
She nodded and folded her arms across her middle, forcing a smile as she struggled to ignore the subtle possessiveness in his touch. Somehow, she could not bring herself to mention her uncomfortable feeling around him to Papa, who loved Connor like the son he’d never had.
Besides, it would not do to make a fuss when she knew perfectly well that they depended on Connor for their survival. He caught their food, he built their shelters, he warded off hostile Indians and the occasional stray jaguar alike.
But sometimes, when she looked into his eyes, as now, she got the feeling that, in Connor’s mind, he owned her.
Satisfied that she was safe, he nodded once and then prowled off into the darkness to do her bidding. Her gaze trailed after him warily.
“Sit down, dear,” her father ordered, gesturing toward his assistant’s empty field chair. She noted absently that his salt-and-pepper beard was in need of a trim. “We have much to discuss.”
“Indeed.” Taking the seat across from him, she launched cheerfully into her assumed role in coordinating their withdrawal from the jungle. She was her father’s nominal housekeeper, after all, in charge of the smooth running of their camp. “I figure with the servants’ help, it will take about a week to pack everything up properly. We’ll have to make special provisions to ensure that your botanical samples will stay fully preserved in the sea air, but if we can figure out some way to get across the straits to Trinidad, we shouldn’t have too long a wait before some British ship appears that can take us home—”
“Eden,” he interrupted gently, but with a tone of finality. “We’re staying.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then shut her eyes tightly and shuddered. “Oh, Father, no.”
“Now, Edie, I realize this may come as a bit of a shock, but we’re making such great strides—sweeting, you like it here! I know you do. Look at the adventures we’ve had! Rising up into the trees to explore the endless canopy! Finding birds and animals completely unknown to science!” He took her hand soothingly. “There, there, dear, don’t look at me that way,” he protested when she opened her eyes again with a crushed expression. “Think of the medicines we will bring back one day, the lives we’ll save! We can’t quit now. We simply can’t.”
She struggled to find her voice. “I thought we lost our funding. Lord Pembrooke—”
“Is a scoundrel!” he averred. “But no matter. That young cad will not impede our progress. True, we shall have to conserve on paper and other supplies, but we’ve learned perfectly well from the Indians how to live off the land. And, after all, we are British, by God! We must and shall press on.”
“Press… on.”
“Oh, yes, my dear! For, you see—” He leaned nearer, all middle-aged, boyish excitement. “I have a plan.”
Oh, no. “A plan?”
He nodded eagerly. “We’re going deeper, Edie. Into the interior.”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t mean… ?”
“Yes,” he whispered, barely able to contain his glee. “Into the Amazon!”
Her jaw dropped.
He mistook her horror for awe. “Think of it, daughter! Our grandest adventure yet—an even more complex habitat than these Orinoco jungles! The Delta has been our mother and our tutor, preparing us, it is true. Ah, but the Amazon, that is our destiny!” He squeezed her hand, trying to pass on his excitement, but she yanked her fingers out of his light hold and shot to her feet.
“You’re mad!”
“Oh, Edie—”
“I knew it! It’s finally happened, just as I always feared! Too much time in the wilderness has finally addled your wits, Papa! Good God, I’m probably next!” She clapped her hand to her forehead, but he merely laughed. “I’m not jesting—and I am not going there! Well, somebody has to put their foot down! Be sensible! There are headhunters there, cannibals, not peaceful natives like the Waroa—and God knows what all else!”
“Nonsense, Connor will protect us. I need you by my side in this, Edie. You know I cannot do without you. As long as we’re together, you will be perfectly safe. By Jove, once we’ve conquered the Amazon, we’ll return to England, I’ll give lectures on our journeys. I’ll write another book! A new narrative to rival von Humboldt’s. We’ll never need to rely on another rich patron again.”
She threw up her hands, exasperated beyond words.
He knitted his gray eyebrows together. “What?”
She had promised Mama on her deathbed that she would take care of him, but how was she to do it when the man had no care for his life?
“Father,” she said sternly, folding her arms across her chest, “you are fifty-five years old. Your hero von Humboldt was in his prime when he made that trip, and it nearly killed him.” This point earned her nothing but a snort and low mutter of offended male vanity, so she tried another tack and sat down again, staring earnestly at him. “Have you forgotten that outside these jungles, Venezuela is at war?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten,” he grumbled, scowling at the reminder. “I’m not quite senile yet. What of it?”
“To reach the Amazon, we’d have to cross the plains. The llanos are the main battlefields between the forces of the Spanish Crown and the rebel colonists.”
“So? We still have time. There’s a lull in the hostilities now. The rebels up at Angostura have firm control of the interior, while the Spanish keep to their ships on the coast. What’s the problem?”
“The problem?” She nearly laughed, barely knowing where to start. “To begin with, each side thinks you’re a spy for the other! The Spanish suspect you’re in league with the revolutionaries, and the colonists think that you’re working for Spain.”
“If they really thought that, I would have been expelled from the country by now. Dash it, Edie, as I told those blasted bureaucrats from Caracas, science is neutral! I am here for the good of all mankind.”
“Ugh!” She buried her face in her hands for a second, which muffled her retort: “You’re here because you’re hiding from the world.”
“What did you say?” he asked sharply.
With a sigh, she checked her vexation and lowered her hands to her lap. “Nothing, Father.”
“I daresay. You had better mind your tongue, my girl,” he advised, settling back onto his rough wooden stool and giving his waistcoat a dignified tug. “I grant you a long leash, it’s true, but I am still your father.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered, head down. “But…”
“But what, child?”
She held him in a searching stare for a moment. “You promised me last year that we’d be going back to England.”
This was, it seemed, precisely what he did not want to hear.
He immediately scowled and looked away, busying himself with his botanical finds. “England, England, why are you always on about that wretched place? You really think the world out there is all so wonderful? How would you know? I’ve kept you sheltered from it here. If you remembered it better, you’d thank me. It’s not all fine carriages and fancy balls, my girl. That world out there has a dark side, too.” He sent her a glance from over the rim of his spectacles. “Disease, crime, filth, poverty, corruption. There’s none of that here.”
“There’s no one to talk to!” she cried with a sudden threat of tears leaping into her eyes.
With a compassionate wince, Papa plopped down onto his stool again. “Nonsense, there’s me! I am exceedingly good company—and there’s Connor, too. Well, he doesn’t say much, I’ll give you that, but when he does, it is worth listening to. There, there, my pretty child,” he said, patting her hand with a worried look. “I assure you, we are far more intelligent conversation than you will ever find in the drawing rooms of London.”
“Just once, I’d like to know what normal people talk about,” she said barely audibly.
“Normal? ‘Tis but another word for mediocrity!” he scoffed. “Oh, Edie, for heaven’s sake, those London chits you so admire are the silliest, most trivial creatures on God’s earth, not a thought in their heads beyond ribbons and bonnets and shoes. Why the devil should you want to be like them, anyway?”
She stifled a groan. Here comes the lecture.
“Look at the advantages you enjoy here! You dress how you want, say what you want, do as you please. You have no idea how those Society girls are forever dogged by chaperones whose sole purpose in life is to regulate their every movement. You’d go mad if you had to endure it for a day. Look at the freedoms I’ve given you—the education, for heaven’s sake!”
Freedom? she wondered. Then why do I feel like a prisoner?
“I trained you up more like a son than a daughter,” he went on, traveling well-worn paths. She nearly had it by heart. “By Jove, do you think your fine London ladies can recite every known genus in the Aracaceae family? Make a bush tea to cure yellow fever? Set a broken bone? I think not,” he declared proudly. “You, my dearest Eden, are utterly unique!”
“I don’t want to be unique, Papa,” she said wearily. “I just want to be a part of the world again. I want to belong.”
“You do belong, darling. With me!”
She looked away, suddenly feeling trapped. He understood perfectly well; he just pretended not to. “Have I not been a dutiful daughter? Have I not stuck by your side through thick and thin, and looked after you, and aided in your work, and done everything you asked of me?”
“Yes,” he admitted uncomfortably.
“Papa, they say in England that a lady is a spinster by the age of twenty-five. I know you have no head for such things, but just last month, I turned twenty-three.” He started to scoff, but she lowered her head. “Please, don’t laugh at me for once. It’s not just the ballrooms and fancy carriages that interest me. I admit, I like those things—what girl would not?—but that’s only a small part of it, and I should hope that you know me better than that by now.”
“Well, what then, Edie, my dearest?” he asked kindly. “What is eating at you so?”
She looked into his eyes, feeling so hesitantly vulnerable. “Can’t you understand? I… I want to find someone, Papa.”
“Who?” he cried impatiently.
“I don’t know yet who! Someone—someone to love.”
He sat back and looked at her in pure astonishment. “So, that’s what all of this is about!”
She lowered her head again, her cheeks aflame. Having admitted her heart’s loneliness, she now rather wished the earth would open up and swallow her.
Papa slapped his thighs with both hands in sudden enthusiasm. “Well, I daresay the perfect solution has been right under our noses all along!”
When she looked at him hopefully, he jerked a not-so-subtle nod in the direction Connor had gone.
Eden turned scarlet. “Oh, Papa, please don’t start with that again!” she whispered fiercely.
“Well, why not? If all this fuss boils down to your hankering for a husband, you needn’t look far. If it’s time for you to take a man, have Connor.”
“Father!” she cried, scandalized.
“The man worships you, if you haven’t noticed.” A smile of mingled pride and amusement tugged at his lips, as if she were still a four-year-old learning the Greek alphabet. “He has my blessing and then we could all remain together just as we are, continuing on with our work. It is the most convenient situation. Well, why not, what’s wrong with him?”
Clearly, Papa had forgotten the incident in the forest when she was sixteen.
She lowered her head, not bothering to remind him, for she was loath to speak of it herself.
“Connor cares for you, Eden. There’s no arguing that. He’s proved himself a hundred times over. Well, he’s a fine, strapping specimen for you, ain’t he? Fearless, capable, as the male of the species should be. Strong, robust bloodlines. Good instincts. Sharp mind,” Papa said, ticking off his protégé's many virtues as Eden lifted her head again, folded her arms across her chest, and held her father in a quelling stare. “Of course, there’s no vicar in residence, but what’s a bit of paper in a place like this? You could be married by the local shaman—or have a hand-fasting like the Scots. Don’t fuss, girl. There’s no shame in it. It is but Nature’s course, my dear. All creatures take a mate upon reaching reproductive age.”
“Really, Father!” she exclaimed, finally mortified past bearing by his blunt scientist’s speech. “Is there not one atom of romance in your soul? The propagation of the species might very well serve for a frog or a monkey or a-a fish, but I, Father, am an intelligent, beautiful—well, reasonably attractive—young lady. I want roses a-and poetry before I’m past my prime, and boxes of candy, and drives in the park! Is that so much to ask? I want to be wooed by Town Corinthians in coats from Savile Row! I want courtship, Papa, and suitors—even one will do. Maybe I can recite every genus name in the Aracaceae family, but that only goes to show what sort of oddball I’ve become in this place!”
“Well, so’s Connor! A perfect match.”
“Will you please be serious?” She sat down again with a huff. “It won’t do, Father. I mean to rejoin the world someday, but Connor cares for civilization even less than you do. It’s torture for him when we visit your friends in Kingston Society. He won’t talk to anyone. He sits in a corner brooding and doesn’t even try to fit in.”
“Well, Eden, he’s shy.”
“I know. And I feel sorry for him—but I don’t want to marry someone just because I feel sorry for them,” she whispered so Connor, with his sharp senses, would not hear and be hurt.
“Well, suit yourself,” Papa concluded with a sigh. “But I’m afraid there is nothing to be done for it, in any case. We cannot afford passage now that our grant’s been cut. The voyage is too expensive.”
“Couldn’t you buy it on credit?”
“Put myself in debt for something I don’t even want? You would have me as profligate as Lord Pembrooke!”
“We can pay it back once you’re settled in your post at the college.”
“No! I am not taking the post, Eden. Ever.” He stood abruptly, turned away, and avoided her gaze as she stared at him in shock. “I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought,” he said brusquely. “I probably should have told you sooner, but I shall not be able to fulfill the promise that you wrenched out of me last year. We’re not going back to England, and as for London Town, I’d sooner visit Hell.”
“What?” she breathed, paling.
“I’m sorry to break my oath to you, daughter, but you’re all I have left, and I’ll be damned before I’ll ever expose you again to that vile, stinking cesspool of a city that killed your mother,” he finished with a bitter vehemence that stunned her almost as much as his shocking revelation.
Dr. Farraday threw down his pen with an air of weariness, looking slightly haggard in the lantern’s glow.
Her mind reeling with disbelief, Eden told herself he didn’t really mean it. He was just so shattered, still, from Mama’s death. Tears filled her eyes for the pain that still haunted him and had set both their lives on this strange course. She rose and moved closer, laying her head on his shoulder. “Papa,” she whispered, “it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t save her.”
“I was her husband and her doctor, Edie. Who else am I to blame? God?” He sounded calmer now. Defeated. He put his hand atop hers on his shoulder, but did not look at her. “There, there, child. I shall be fine in a moment.”
No, you won’t. It had already been twelve years. She hugged him for a long moment around his trim middle with an ache in her heart. “Papa, we can’t stay out here forever.”
He said nothing.
“I know you’re only trying to protect me, but do you really think Mama would have wanted this—for either of us?”
“Your mother, lest you forget, is the reason we are here.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Every cure we find exists in honor of her memory—”
“Stop punishing yourself,” she whispered, hugging him again about his shoulders. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to cut yourself off from the world this way.” She didn’t bother mentioning that he was cutting her off from the world, too. She leaned her head against the side of his, feeling so helpless to heal his hurt. “I know you seek to honor her with your work, Papa, but if you ask me, what she really would’ve wanted… was grandchildren.”
She shouldn’t have said it, she realized a second too late. Papa stiffened, shook his head, and then simply closed down as emotion threatened to overwhelm his logical brain.
He withdrew before her eyes, turned his back on her, and peered into his microscope, escaping the pain and dreadful loss inside the orderly circumference of that tiny world, just as he had for years.
“The expedition to the Amazon goes forward,” he said in a monotone. “I am sorry you are unhappy, but we must all make sacrifices, and the desires of one individual are of no consequence beside the greater good. You will accompany me just as you always have; I am your father and that is my answer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
His bristling posture made it clear she was dismissed.
Eden studied his tense profile, at a loss. She did not know what else to say, what to do. There was no reasoning with him when he fell into this black and distant mood. Any significant talk of her mother was always the catalyst for his stony withdrawal, most of all the future together that he and his wife would never have.
Eden blinked back tears and turned around without another word, walking back numbly to the palafito.
Connor looked at her in silence when she came in. He was leaning against the post from which he had removed the dead viper. Eden glanced in his direction, but could not meet his probing stare, wondering if he’d overheard Papa’s mortifying suggestion that they mate.
The Australian folded his brawny arms across his chest, watching her with a hunter’s patient, somber gaze.
Shaking her head, she went past him. “He’s mad. He’s going to kill himself and both of us in his quest to save mankind. The Amazon!”
But of course Connor was already aware of her father’s plans. For all she knew, it might have been his idea. “Whatever your father might have said, you know he’d never mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” Feeling trapped, Eden went to the railing and stood for a long moment gazing at the night-black river.
She heard Connor’s heavy footfalls approaching behind her. He came and leaned beside her at the railing. From the corner of her eye, she saw him staring at her. “It’s going to be all right, Eden. I’m not going to let anything happen to the two of you.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home.”
“No, Connor, it’s not. You belong here—I don’t!” she exclaimed angrily, turning to him.
His broad, strong face darkened. Did he understand at last what she was trying to tell him? He lowered his gaze and turned away in stony anger, swiftly stalking off to leave her alone again. Eden closed her eyes for a second and let out a measured exhalation. When she flicked them open again, her desperate gaze tracked the Orinoco’s inky course that led for many miles down to the sea. The great and deadly river. It was the only way into these impenetrable jungles. And the only way out.
No comments:
Post a Comment