“Enough!” Jameson Wilkes roared. “I’ll send my men after her to save her. Now, stop fighting me!”
But she didn’t. She was swamped with terror and fury, and managed to twist about and slam her fist against his jaw.
His head jerked back, and anger filled his eyes. He held her firmly, and hit her jaw with his fisted hand. Jules crumpled where she stood.
Jules was aware of the throbbing pain in her jaw before she opened her eyes. The pain held her for a moment, then memory flooded back. She gasped, jerking upright, only to realize that she was quite naked, only a thin sheet covering her. She clutched it to her chin.
“Well, at last. I didn’t think I’d hit you that hard. Your jaw isn’t broken. I’m not such a fool as that.”
“Kanola, my friend,” she whispered.
“Quite safe,” Jameson said calmly. “My men caught up with her before she drowned and . . . escorted her to shore. You need worry no more about her.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
He shrugged. “I have no reason to lie to you, my dear. Believe what you will.” Of course the native bitch had drowned, but his men had tried to save her, but not to rescue her.
“Who are you?” she asked numbly, staring at the man who was now sitting at his ease in a chair opposite her.
“Captain Jameson Wilkes, at your service, ma
’am. And who are you?”
“Juliana DuPres. My father is Etienne DuPres, a minister in Lahaina. You will return me, now, sir!” In her frenzy, the sheet slipped, and she jerked it upward.
“I wondered when you would realize how very . . . vulnerable you are, Juliana. That’s a lovely name, incidentally. It suits you.” He sat forward, his eyes intent. “You suit me, you know. Oh yes.”
Jules stared at him. She knew all about the evil men of the whalers, for her father had ranted and raved about them and their wicked, immoral ways often enough. But to be faced with one of them, to be lying in the man’s bed without a stitch of clothes on, was almost too much for her to grasp.
“She’s dead,” Jules whispered.
“No,” he said patiently. “As I told you, your friend is quite safe now. I suggest, my dear, that you think about yourself.”
“I don’t understand,” Jules said numbly. “Why have you done this? What do you want from me?”
“I am, I suppose, a wicked man in your innocent eyes, Juliana. But you needn’t worry. I am first and foremost a businessman.” She knows, he thought, studying her closely. Deep down, she knows exactly what I want.
“You’re a pig,” Jules said.
He laughed at that, but she saw that his eyes remained cold, as icy cold as the sleeting gray winter rains in Toronto, a place she could scarcely remember.
“My father will kill you.”
“Your father? Now, that’s amusing, to be sure it is. Your father, my dear Juliana, is a prig, a weak prig who can do naught but try to change all the natives into prigs. Don’t you find it ridiculous that many of the natives that have succumbed to religion now dress like English and American gentlemen and ladies? It’s all too absurd, you know. But back to your precious father. Perhaps he and your family will mourn you. For they will believe you drowned, and you will no longer exist for them.”
Jules closed her eyes, her captor’s inadvertent words careening through her mind. He’d lied about Kanola, of course. She was dead, drowned. If she weren’t, then everyone would know that Jules had been taken by a whaler.
“Wouldn’t you like to know what I am going to do with you, Juliana? Where I’m taking you?”
She felt her stomach roiling, and slowly she turned her face away from him. Obviously he didn’t realize what he had admitted. “No,” she said dully, “I don’t want to know.”
For the first time, Jameson felt a bit worried. The girl’s face was deathly pale. He rose slowly, but was wise enough not to approach her now.
“You will rest a bit, Juliana, then we will talk. I would suggest that you remain in this cabin. My men, as you can well imagine, are not always polite gentlemen.”
He strode to the cabin door, looking over his shoulder at her before he left. She hadn’t moved. He frowned. Then he heard the soft, broken sound of her sobbing, and was relieved.
Excellent, he thought as he left the cabin. She’s resilient. She would have to be. He had two weeks to bring her around before they arrived in San Francisco. He wondered, eyes lighting with greed, how much money she would bring him. Then he felt the burning pain in his belly. It came more frequently now, particularly if he were angry or upset, or filled with anticipation, as he was now. He walked from the cabin, kneading his belly and forcing his mind away from the biting pain.