Shadow Play (11 page)

"All right," he finally said, making her jump. "It's your move, boss lady. I'm open to suggestions. What have you got to say?"

Unnerved by the gleam in his eyes, Sarah backed away, but only slightly. Twisting the
parasol in her hand, she moved about the room, chewing her lip and studying
the collection of gadgets hanging on the walls and piled high on tables and counters.

She cleared her throat. "Of course you've supplied us with the necessary foodstuffs."

No reply.

"And guns—" She stubbed her toe on a crate labeled "Ammunition" and frowned. Only then did she spy the proprietor of the store where he leaned on the counter at the back of the room, watching her through the smoke of his burning cigar. "We'll need a compass," she told him politely.

"Got it already," he replied condescendingly.

"Maps?"

The man smiled and shook his head.

"No maps?" She lifted her eyebrows and looked back at Kane. "No maps? Why, surely, Mr. Kane, you didn't overlook something so crucial as maps?"

"There are none," he said.

"Then, by all means, get some, sir."

"There are none," he repeated in the same blunt tone.

"Such an oversight is—"

"I said..." He moved toward her again, and as inconspicuously as possible Sarah backed away, until she was pressed against the counter and unable to move. She snapped open her parasol and positioned it like a shield between them, pointing the tip like a dagger toward his chest, and peering at him over the upper edge of lacy frill and ribbons.

"I said," he continued, "there are no maps. Not where we're going. They don't exist, Miss St. James, because no one has ever ventured into Japurie by land and returned."

"Am contraire"
she replied, lifting one delicate eye- brow.
"You
have, sir."

Silence prevailed as Morgan looked from her to Henry, who pursed his lips in a soundless whistle and turned for the door.

"I have every faith that you'll manage to retrace your journey," Sarah said, inching away from the counter and Morgan until she could walk without further threat about the room. She pointed to such articles as ropes, winches, machetes, and axes, only to be told time and again that they had already been purchased and were being loaded on the steamer,
Santos,
in preparation for their departure tomorrow afternoon.

At last she stood staring out the door, her face burning in frustration and anger. As usual, Morgan Kane had succeeded in making her appear the fool.

"Hey, boss lady," he called. "You forgot something."

She looked back just as he tossed a pile of clothing at her. She'd barely caught the items when a helmet came sailing through the air, which she had to scramble to catch. She regarded the coarse, drab-colored material of the breeches and shirt in her arms for a long moment before asking, "What, pray tell, are these?"

"Your clothes, of course. The proper attire for trudging through the Japura jungle." Smiling, Morgan plunked a pair of knee-high leather boots atop the clothing. "I'm certain you'll look smashing in them." Then he dropped a large bottle into the pith helmet she gripped to her chest. "One dose every night before you go to bed or you'll die of malaria. You do know what malaria is, don't you?"

"Yes," she said through her teeth.

He winked. "Just checking,
chere."

She spun on her heels and, with her parasol dragging, stormed from the shop in a flurry of petticoats and bouncing hair. Standing in the doorway and holding a match to the cigarette in his lips, Morgan watched Sarah go while Henry stood at his side and shook his head.

"You really should try harder to get along," he said.

Morgan exhaled smoke through his nose. ' 'Right.''

"I shudder to think what will happen when she learns that the story of your escaping through Japurie is all a fabrication."

"We'll be long separated before that happens, my friend."

"I feel terrible about ditching her somewhere along the way, Morgan. I like her, you know. She's been very nice to me. I think, if you tried harder to get along, she would be a very pleasant companion for you."

"For me?" Morgan laughed softly. "Not for me, Henry. I'm not clean enough to wipe the lady's shoes."

Henry regarded him with sad eyes.

More quietly, and to himself, Morgan said, "She wouldn't want me within a mile of her if she knew..." His voice faded, then he crushed out his cigarette with his boot heel and walked away.

The hour was late as Sarah sat in bed, writing a letter to Norman. Spread out before her were the breeches and shirt and helmet Morgan had thrust upon her at the supply store. So far she still hadn't put them on. She sup- posed that, in a sense, this small act of rebellion was a last attempt to hold on to the few shreds of civilization that remained available to her. When she'd arrived in Belem, she had quickly discovered how different and chaotic things were in the Amazon. The Indians wandered as free as the wind, with their bodies barely clothed. There was no order among the townsfolk, who opened and closed their businesses on a whim and set no time for meals or sleeping. During the hottest part of the day they curled up in odd places to take a siesta. At night people sang and caroused drunkenly in the streets.

She signed her name to Norman's letter. By the time he received it, he would have already heard the news of her father's death. What version of the story he would get, God only knew. Her father's associates had assured her that all suspicion of suicide would be snuffed, but she found that highly unlikely. The British did so love to gossip. By the time the news reached London, it would undoubtedly include every last horrible detail of her father's demise. Some- how she had to prove that her father had been murdered, and get those seeds to pay off his debts, or her future was doomed.

Wearily, she fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

As always, the night was stiflingly hot. She longed to immerse herself up to her chin in a tub of cold water.

She closed her eyes and dozed, dreaming of Morgan Kane surrounded by gleeful children, looking almost like a child himself. Then there were women, long-legged,
beautiful, and dark-skinned. They were worshipping him with their eyes and hands, and suddenly she was among them, reaching but never quite touching, afraid her body would experience those shameful sensations that flurried in her stomach each time he was near—but still wanting to feel them. She'd never felt that way with Norman. Norman, who was so staid, so in control. She felt safe with Norman, and ordinary, and satisfied with her life.

Morgan Kane made her feel restless and hungry for... what?

She heard a noise in the hall...

She opened her eyes and blinked sleepily, then jolted to awareness as she heard Kane's voice in the corridor. The blood rushed like fire through her body, humming in her brain, tingling in her fingertips. Rolling out of bed, she dropped lightly to the floor, her bare feet making little noise as she moved to the door and opened it a fraction of an inch.

A draft of cooler wind sluiced up the hallway, stirring the potted palms along the way. Near the end of the corridor at the top of the stairs, sleeping parrots in a cage roused, fluttered their green and red wings, and squawked before falling silent as Kane appeared. His broad shoulders and wide-brimmed hat were outlined by a faint nimbus of gold from the light below.

He moved up the narrow hall toward his room across from hers, his stride slow and fluid, his head down slightly and the red ember of the cigarette in his mouth glowing in the shadows, only vaguely illuminating his features. The breath left her as her mind and body acknowledged the dark, savage image he made amid the backdrop of shadows and foliage. He was everything forbidden to decent women; he was the fantasy that made them imagine what it would be like to be held by a man who was driven by primitive desire instead of polite convention.

Of course, she knew already. Since the night he'd kissed her on her father's veranda she had thought of little else when left alone to muse.

He stopped at his room and slid the key into the lock; the door swung open with a creak... then he turned and looked directly into her eyes.

He knew what she was thinking. Oh, God, he knew. She saw it in the narrowing of his eyes and the curving of his lips around his cigarette. She felt his gaze slide down her, from the crest of her tumbling blond hair to the tips of her naked toes. Its intensity was that hot and damning, and though some voice screamed inside her head that she was barely dressed, that the dampness of her body had no doubt turned her lawn chemise into a filmy transparency, she couldn't move. Suddenly she was a temptress, and she liked it. Such excitement surged through her that she felt winded and giddy and trembly all over. What would she do if he crossed that hallway and asked to come in? Then again, he wouldn't ask. He would just do it.

He entered his room, closing the door between them. Sarah shut her eyes and pressed her face hard against the wall, feeling her body burn.

The sun was a blazing orange ball shimmering over the caramel-colored Amazon River. It dazzled Sarah where she stood by the railing of the
Santos.
As the fiery sphere sank into the horizon, the streaked sky cast a purple-and- lavender tint over the boats that crowded the mouth of the river. The ship on which Morgan Kane had booked them passage to Santarem was white and tall like a wedding cake, with filigree and railings of shiny brass, resembling a Mississippi side-wheeler.

The decks around Sarah were crowded with passengers and cargo piled high about the railings; hammocks swayed under sparsely placed awnings. Though dusk was nearing, the air was still hot and thick with anticipation as the
Santos
let out a long blasting whistle from its smokestack high above. With a sense of resignation; Sarah realized that life as she had known it would soon cease to exist.

Dear Henry had attempted to divert her from worrying about entering the Amazon. And while in the American's presence she had done her best to act as if venturing down the river were no more bothersome to her than a stroll through Hyde Park. In truth, the idea of the Amazon didn't bother her nearly so much as the prospect of confronting King. How did one face a man and accuse him of murder— especially one as cold-blooded and ruthless as Rodolfo King? Well, she would deal with that problem weeks, or months, from now. There were other, more pressing concerns, such as surviving the journey and keeping an eye out for Gilberto de Queiros, who by now must have learned of the American's departure from Georgetown. It was Morgan and Henry's hope that de Queiros would suspect Morgan of leaving South America completely. Surely he would not be so imaginative as to realize Morgan was running
to
King, not from him.

And then there was the problem of the American himself.

Gripping the ship's rail, Sarah stared blankly at the distant shore, vaguely hearing the churning steam engines and the rhythmic slap of the paddle wheel on the water. She couldn't get him out of her mind. Her eyes searched for him constantly, and she leapt for any excuse whatsoever to confront him. Much to her chagrin, she realized she was close to becoming one of those bewitched women who so shamelessly sought his attentions, and that would never do. She was a lady, after all, and he was... fascinating. Mesmerizing. Notoriously wicked. Everything Norman wasn't.

Sarah spent the remainder of the evening resting in a deck chair beneath a bright-colored awning, updating her diary, describing the passing countryside and the river, which seemed to stretch like a sea in the distance. At some point, she dozed.

The throbbing of the engines woke her. Night engulfed her, as heavy and black as the oily water rippling in the wake of the steam-powered ship. She was startled by the brilliance of the stars overhead. Never had she witnessed such a display of celestial splendor. They took her breath away, disoriented her until she was forced to sit up and grasp the chair arms for fear of somehow falling.

"Better enjoy it while you can, Princess. This time to- morrow the night sky will be nothin' but a memory."

She turned to find the American nearby, one hip casually balanced on the ship's rail. As Kane eased from his perch and approached, her gaze shifted to the razor-sharp knife he carried on the wide leather belt that hung on his hips, then back to his face. Despite her resolve to remain un- moved, her heart did a familiar discomfiting somersault and her lungs constricted. Too easily she recalled the feel of those powerful arms sliding around her, those hands moving through her hair—making her forget that she was engaged to another man who didn't have powerful arms and whose chaste kisses left her feeling dissatisfied, though she could never really understand why. Until now...

His features masked by shadows, his thumbs hooked over the waistband of his breeches, Kane studied her without speaking. She wasn't certain she had ever known a man as remote and wary as this American.

"You'd better get inside," came his deep voice. "In another hour the mosquitoes will eat you alive."

She said nothing, just swung her feet off the chair and sat up, spilling the book in her lap to the floor. Before she could move he bent and retrieved it. He studied it the best he could in the faint light. "A diary? Fanciful, loving thoughts about your fiance\ perhaps?"

She watched nervously as he flipped open the needlepoint cover and thumbed the pages as if he had every intention of reading her very private thoughts—most of which had little to do with Norman and a lot to do with Morgan Kane.

She grabbed the diary from his hands. He grinned. "What's wrong,
cheret
Surely you've not written some- thing you'd be ashamed of?"

"What I've written is no business of yours, Mr. Kane."

''You're a saucy little thing when you get your back up.''

"Perhaps you should try harder not to get my back up."

"Now why would I do that, sweetheart?"

"So we could pass the time with less turmoil between us? I've never known anyone who so enjoyed making mis- chief with people's sensibilities."