“In time, I know you will catch us a pig toroast.”
“Pigs?” Wicked and carnal came to mind,leaving his personal pride and integrity in tatters. Had she noidea how his principles were tested?
He stood, turned to hide his physicalreaction to her. “Let’s go,” he groused. “The sun is high and Iwant to explore more.” He glanced over his shoulder, saw howdisappointed she was to leave. “We can come back again. The lagoonis an excellent water source.”
He shouldered through colossal ferns,keeping ahead of her. He enjoyed women, some unique and adventurouscreatures welcomed his attentions in and out of bed. There was oneactress he still recalled with a degree of fondness.
This nymph could care less about him.
Her prophecy that he would not die in thisplace irked him. “You won’t allow me to be gloomy, will you,Alexandra?”
“There is no time to be gloomy. We mustcatch fish to smoke and preserve, and gather fruit to dry in thesun.”
“None of which I have any experience indoing.”
“I will teach you and we will do everythingtogether.”
“We will be here for a long time, won’t we,”he said, not really a question.
She shrugged. “Perhaps. A month? A year? Adecade? Who knows?”
He did not have a month or a year, much lessa decade. The uncertainty would surely drive him mad. He had to getback to England. Stumbling over a lumpy ground root, he clung to acurling vine that snaked around the tree’s trunk in suffocatingloops. “How will we build a shelter with your knife as our onlytool?”
“There is that,” she conceded. “We will makedo.”
“I wish I had your optimism.”
She sighed. “Have you always been thismiserable, Lord Rutland? I don’t like gloomy. I like people whomake me laugh. I honestly think it is the thing I like most, tolaugh. I think it cures a multitude of ills and sure beats cryingand whining.”
“I prefer to be moody and grim.”
“I can tell. You’re very good at it. Musthave practiced your whole life. Your spirit of pessimism is to beadmired.”
Nicholas grumbled.
“You think you are cast upon a horribledesolate habitation, void of all hope. But you are alive. You areno longer a prisoner bound for a life of slavery in somegodforsaken place. You are not starved, and perishing in a barrenlocation that affords no sustenance. There appears to be no wildbeasts to hurt you. The climate is agreeable. And you are notalone. You have me to speak to. You must count your blessings.”
She was right. He was a master atdespondency. He must shake off the past of anger, blame and guiltover his father.
The spongy ground sank beneath his step withdecayed vegetation. He scraped his chest, easing through a stand ofbamboo, and then ran his hands along the tall sturdy trunks. Hecould 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 propertools.” Never had he felt so impotent.
He continued for an hour, trekking throughthe dense green undergrowth, dodging around a swarm of leaf-cutterants. The air grew thick and heavy, his stamina tested with theheat and climbing. He held back branches for Alexandra to passthrough and she smiled up to him.
What circumstances had led her to thelifestyle of a thief? Had she been orphaned by the sea captain withno one to turn to other than the streets, and then choked by thethorns and brambles of early adversity? She had offered noexplanation of her history and he would respect her privacy.
“Why not treat our sojourn here as aquest?”
“A quest? To what end?”
She pushed a tendril of hair back from hereyes. “I haven’t decided yet. But when I discover one, I’ll let youknow.”
“What you have offered so far, Miss Elwins,is denial of our grim reality.”
“You are just like Jay Thompson, defiant asa bear in defeat.”
