Authors: Gaelen Foley
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
“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.
Tall and hard, dressed all in black, Lord Jack Knight lit his cigarillo off the torch in his hand, then leaned down with an easy motion and ignited the cannon’s fuse.
One… two… three…
“Boom,” he murmured, the cheroot dangling from his unsmiling lips as the big gun’s thunder crashed across the valley. Screaming out of the iron barrel, the cannonball flew through the night like a comet, its fiery reflection flashing across the black glassy surface of the
Orinoco
.
It streaked down from the dark skies to slam into the giant rock that jutted up from the middle of the river, the famous Piedra Media, used as a marker to record the depth of the seasonal floods—a serviceable target.
Direct hit.
On the flower-laden terrace behind him, his Creole audience burst into applause, hailing their new cannon with the same hearty zest that they applied to every area of life.
“Bravo,
Capitán
!”
“Well done!”
Jack ignored them.
The leading citizens of Angostura had built their elegant stuccoed villas along a well-situated ridge overlooking the river; and so, from the terrace of the Montoya home, the wealthy Creole leaders of the revolution had a fine view of the accuracy and power of the weapons he had obtained for them.
“This is a wonderful piece of artillery you have given us, Lord Jack!”
“Should help you ward off the Spanish if they come up the river,” he muttered. “So should these.” He snapped his fingers at his assistant and pointed to the several dozen crates of fine Baker rifles that he had also brought them.
It was a pity Bolivar could not be present for the demonstration, but the rebel leader was off trying to turn his rather pitiful band of half-breed peasants and illiterate farm boys into an army.
God help ‘em
, Jack thought, for at this very moment, fifteen thousand royal troops waited on their ships for the order to attack.
King Ferdinand of Spain, Bourbon puppet of the Hapsburgs, an all-around unpleasant fellow by most accounts, newly returned to his throne now that Welly and the boys had beat Napoleon, had decided to flex his half-forgotten power, and had sent the largest force ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the colonials’ hopes of liberty.
Jack had his reasons for getting involved. He was more cynic than idealist, but he never could tolerate a bully, and it was plain to see that if somebody didn’t help the poor sods, there was going to be a slaughter.
“Here you are, sir.” His trusty lieutenant, Christopher Trahern, handed him one of the precision rifles, already loaded.
Jack lifted the weapon to his shoulder, drawing a bead on one of the unpleasant vampire bats that flapped up and down the inky river in a swooping zigzag.
“What’s the range on that thing?” inquired Don Eduardo Montoya, the owner of the villa, and one of the rebels’ top financiers.
“Two hundred yards. Accurate if you are.”
Crack!
The crisp report of the rifle echoed down the hillside of the town as he shot the blood-sucking bat right out of the night sky. Pleased, he handed the Baker back to Trahern. “Reload for Mr. Montoya.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Down on the docks at the foot of the hill, his men were still unloading goods from the riverboat in which Jack had arrived less than an hour ago. Hardened as they were to close fire, even his stalwart crew looked a little nervous with all the hotheaded revolutionaries firing off their new British guns.
“Let me try one of those!” exclaimed Carlos, Montoya’s son of twenty summers.
Tearing himself away from the trio of young beauties who had been fawning on him, the handsome young
Jack sent the lad a wry, assessing glance, having already pegged the Casanova as an incorrigible seducer of the servant girls. Not that he could blame the lad.
Damn
, he thought with a surreptitious glance in the young beauties’ direction.
South American women
. Even the servant girls looked like Helen of Troy.
Jack noticed one of them watching him with wary interest. Delicious creature, with caramel skin and a veil of smooth, black hair that hung to her waist.
When his stare homed in on her, her dark eyes widened. She dropped her gaze with a wildly unsettled look and fled, disappearing back into the house, ostensibly returning to her duties.
He let out a low sigh, pursed his lips, and looked away. Ah, well.
Terrified another one
.
His ruthless reputation must have gone before him, as usual.
Carlos grabbed the reloaded Baker out of Trahern’s able hands and put the rifle to his shoulder, giving it a feel. “Ah, I’ll kill a hundred Spaniards with this little beauty!”
Jack snorted, resting his hands on his holstered waist as the boy took aim. “Just try not to get yourself killed.”