The Diamond King (40 page)

Something kept echoing in his mind. “You said you couldn’t go home. No ... longer, you said. Why?”

“Drink and I will tell you.”

He drank, fighting not to bring it back up again. She held his head up. He could not even do that.

That fact shamed him. He drank what he could, then fastened his gaze on her. “Why can you not go back?”

“Mr. Murray was in Vit�ria,” she said. “He came with the British frigate to rescue me.”

He tried to understand her words. They made no sense. “How ... ?”

“Your friend the governor, I suppose. He or someone on the island had heard Brazil mentioned. The British arrived and are prowling the coast. David Murray decided to come with them.”

“Then why did you not go with him? Or was he ...” He left the words unsaid, but the implication hung in the air. Was he unsuitable?

“In fact, he is very nice. Even kind. He did not try to stop me from coining to you.”

He questioned her with a glance.

“I told him I could not marry him.”

He tried to understand, but his consciousness was fading in and out. He tried to imagine the encounter between a man who had come to rescue his bride only to discover she did not need rescuing.

Why had she risked everything to warn him? Mickey could have done that. Or Burke.

Meg. It must be for Meg.

God, but he was hot. He had wished an hour ago for heat, but now it was burning him up inside.

He couldn’t think any longer. Couldn’t reason.

He closed his eyes and hoped the foul mixture he’d just consumed worked.

The priest returned at dusk.

He spoke again in poor Spanish as he squatted beside Alex.

“The fever has ebbed,” Jenna said. “Will the shivering return?”

“It has been three days since he started taking the bark,” he said. “It should begin to work.”

“And if it does not?”

“Then it is God’s will.”

“It wouldn’t be my will,” she said angrily. “There must be something else we can do.”

“You are not Catholic?” he asked.

“Nay.”

“And the captain?”

“I do not know for sure, but he is Jacobite,” she said. “Does it make a difference?”

“It could,” he said wearily. “I must know if I should give—”

She suddenly understood. “No,” she said. “No.”

“Then pray, senhorita. He does not have much strength left.”

“Food. Is there anything he can eat?” She grasped for a piece of hope. Any hope.

“Tomas is hunting. If he finds anything, we can make a broth.”

“And Burke?”

The priest smiled. “He is very devoted to your captain. It is all we can do to keep him away.”

“He has been with him for years.”

“Then I will send him to you. I thought you wanted privacy.”

“He will want Burke,” she said.

“So be it; I will send him.”

She watched him leave, then sat next to Alex. He seemed to be breathing easier, but was that just wishful thinking? She touched his skin. It still felt hot to her. She wanted to bathe him with the water available in the jug, but that might wake him. He needed sleep more than he needed to be clean.

The sun sank lower, and the air started to cool. Still, she did not move. She wanted to be there if he needed her. Burke appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, carrying something wrapped in cloth. He nodded to her and sat down.

She was surprised that he said nothing. No bluster. No questions. Perhaps that indicated, more than anything could, how serious Alex’s condition was.

Dark settled around them, pitch black, since not even moonlight filtered through the heavy foliage. Jenna changed position slightly, but stayed where she was. So did Burke.

At some point, she went to sleep. She wakened in the thick, almost sodden air. Each time it took her a few seconds to realize where she was. And she would look down at the shadow that was Alex, and touch him lightly so as not to wake him while making sure he was still there.

His body was still warm, but not as feverishly hot as it had been. The chills had not returned.

Please let him get well.

One time she heard Burke moving about and felt his gaze on her though she saw nothing but shadows. He did not say anything and yet there was a quiet but strong understanding between the two of them. They did not need words.

Then her eyes closed again.

She woke to a gray dawn stretching across the sky. Burke was sleeping not far away. She looked down, and found Alex staring up at her. She touched his forehead. Still slightly warm but nothing like earlier.

He caught her hand. “You should not be here,” he said.

“I could not stay away.”

His dark eyes had more life in them than hours ago. “I do not want you to get ill. You should leave.”

“No.”

His lips twisted into a small smile. “Have you always been this stubborn?”

“Nay,” she replied. “Just since I met you. You seem to bring it out of me.”

He sighed, and she knew it took every ounce of his strength to even talk. Still, he looked better than he had.

“Can you eat?”

“Aye,” he said; then looking a little surprised, he said again, “Aye.”

“Then you are getting better.”

“It was your warmth last night,” he said.

“You remember that?”

“Aye,” he said slowly. “I felt your warmth coming into me. You would not let me go.”

She swallowed hard.

He moved and she saw him wince. She took his hand and held it tight. She felt the pressure of his fingers against hers, and the pressure comforted her. There was strength left in his body.

“Burke brought something last night. I think the priest sent it.”

He gave her a weak grin. “Then I am not so sure I am hungry after all.”

She touched his cheek. “Aye, you are.” She gently untangled her fingers from his and directed her attention to Burke. “You brought food?”

He grimaced. “Some might say so.” He unwrapped something and handed it to her.

It was some kind of hard bread along with a strip of cooked meat. She wondered if it was snake, but she was not going to ask. Instead, she returned to the captain’s side and offered it to him. He took it and chewed slowly, each bite obviously an effort.

She watched him force one bite after another. Each seemed to take more strength than he had but he tried until his hand fell to his side.

“Some water?”

“Aye.”

She cradled his head with her arm, holding it high enough to allow him to drink better. He gulped it down.

“How ... how did you get here?”

“I walked,” she said simply.

He chuckled. It was a weak chuckle, but a chuckle, nonetheless.

“You do feel better,” she observed with satisfaction.

“Aye, but then I could not have felt worse,” he said.

“I noticed,” she said. “I was worried about you.”

“You should worry about yourself, lass.”

She smiled at the word he chose. There was an odd intimacy in it, an admission perhaps of all the small—and large—steps they had taken together.

“I do,” she assured him. “But it seems your life and ... health is important to my own.”

He flinched. “This Murray ... you did not like him?”

“I liked him very much,” she said.

“He blamed you—”

“Nay, he blamed me for nothing.”

“Then why ... ?”

“I told him I loved someone else.”

She saw the information register in his face. “You cannot.”

“One does not choose whom they love or do not love,” she said.

He closed his eyes. He was denying her words. Refusing to accept them. After a moment, he opened them again. “Where are we?”

“We are a day away from Vit�ria,” she said. “Your... companions doubt the British can track us. But they are taking precautions.”

“Burke?”

“He’s here.”

“The money?”

“He has it,” she assured him.

He sighed wearily as if he had exhausted all his strength in those few questions.

“Rest,” she said.

“We have to get back to the ship.”

At least it was “we” now, Jenna thought. “Not yet. Get some rest, and we will start tomorrow.” She took his hand in hers, surprised that his fingers tightened around hers.

But he was weak. Ill.

Tomorrow? When he gained strength?

She would not let herself think that he would not touch her when fully returned to himself. That he again would become the loner that he seemed to take such pride in.

At the moment, she did not care. All she wanted was to see those blue eyes fill with the light and stubbornness and curiosity that had so attracted her. She wanted to see him stride impatiently across the jungle paths to the deck of his ship.

She would sacrifice anything to see that happen.

The chills returned. Alex shivered, but they were not followed this time by the violent shaking. The cycle that had so racked him was changing, the intensity fading.

He woke to find Jenna sleeping in his arms again, and tried to keep from moving. Her warmth seeped through their clothes and it was life-giving to him.

But more than her body warmth was life-giving.

She made him want to live, to fight to live.

Even in the dirty, muddy trousers and shirt she wore, her hair gathered into a braid that fell over her shoulder, she looked beautiful. Even with the weakness that sapped his body, he felt a surge of desire deep within him. He would have believed that impossible a few days ago.

He wanted her in so many ways. He’d been startled to see her, but then not completely surprised. That was the most amazing thing of all. He had come to expect the unexpected from her.

Inside, she was every bit the adventurer that he was, and knowing that she had sacrificed marriage and a family and security for him was humbling.

He just was not sure that he could give her what she wanted, what she needed, what she deserved.

He did not know whether he could ever stop running, ever stop trying to wreak vengeance on the British. And now that a peace treaty had been reached, he would be hunted across the British empire.

She deserved more than that.

She stirred, sleepy eyes opening and looking at him, comprehension slowly dawning, then they lit with delight. She raised one of her hands to touch his face.

Too late, he thought of the danger involved. “You should not be so close, lass,” he said. “I would not want you to get this illness.”

“You are better,” she said. “And the priest said it does not spread from one person to another.”

He shivered slightly, but it was nothing like the cold he’d felt before. “I am not so sure of that,” he said. But the fingers of his right hand found hers, and wrapped around them.

“You should have gone with the Englishman,” he said. “You would be safe. From the British, from this forest, from illness.”

“But my heart wouldn’t be safe,” she said softly, uncertainty in her eyes, her voice.

He had no reassurance for her. He could never have reassurance for her. He’d given up on his own life months ago, even years ago. It was not self-pity but awareness that he was a marked man, in more ways than one. He’d been scarred on his face and leg, and in his heart. He did not think he could ever care for someone as much as Jenna should be cared for. Protected. Loved. He had blocked out feelings for so long that he did not know how to feel any longer. He felt a thousand years old, and he did not know how long it might be before he totally lost the use of his leg. A French doctor had said ...

“Your heart would be safer elsewhere,” he said.

“It doesn’t understand that,” she replied.

“You can go back. You’ve given me the message. One of the
bandeirantes
will take you. You can live well and have many children.”

“Mr. Murray has some problems of his own,” she said. “He may not be there long.”

He tried to understand that. From what little he knew, her prospective husband was a wealthy plantation owner, wellborn and well situated.

“His wife was a quadroon,” she said. “He—and his children—are not accepted in Barbados.”

He was stunned. He knew what the word meant. He knew what it would mean in English society, even the English society on a faraway island. No wonder Murray had wanted a bride he’d never met, or one who had never met him.

“Your luck is none too good, my lady.” He could not keep a cool note from his voice. So that was the reason she had come for him. The marriage planned for her was unsuitable. At least the man was honest enough to explain it.

She withdrew her hand from his grasp and moved away. “Do you think that is why I came to you? Because he’d married a quadroon?”

“It was not exactly what you had expected, was it?” He wanted to think the worst of her. He did not want to think she would have come all this way just for him. He did not want that.

Fire lit her eyes. She was clearly furious.

“Nay,” she said. “It was not what I had expected. I had not expected to like him. But I did. I had not expected to admire him, but I do. He had the courage to marry the woman he loved. He had the fortitude to take the censure of his neighbors to raise his children alone after she died. He did not let fear rule his life. Which makes Mr. Murray a far better man than you.”

He felt the contempt in her voice and it was far worse than the illness that had so recently plagued his body. He wanted to see joy in her expression again.

I had not expected to like him
. The Englishman could offer her more than he could. And there were children.

Jenna loved children.

“Why did you come here?” He thought he had asked the question before, but the previous hours were a haze in his mind. Had he asked or had he dreamed?

“I told you, I had to let you know about the peace treaty. I feared you would walk into their arms.”

“Mickey could have done that.”

“Mickey could not have gotten to Vit�ria on his own,” she said coolly. “The
Ami
could not return without being endangered. The Portuguese trader that brought me did so because I was a woman in need.”

He felt loss at the distance she—or had it been himself—put between them. He had hurt her with his implied accusation. Hadn’t he meant to do that? Was not that the best? Would the Englishman not be the best for her, particularly if she liked him?