Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

Juliana felt bile rise in her throat as she looked down at the tray of food Jameson Wilkes had brought her. In normal circumstances she would have wolfed down the delicious-looking beef and boiled potatoes.

“You will eat, my dear.”

Her head jerked around at his very calm, hated voice. She’d seen him leave but hadn’t heard him come back into the cabin.

“I can’t,” she said.

“I am prepared to make allowances for your shock, Juliana, but not when it comes to your health. I assure you that I will not allow you to become a skinny wraith. Now, eat.”

“I’ll vomit,” she said viciously. “All over your beautiful cabin!”

“If you do,” he said very softly, coming to stand beside the narrow bed, “I will let you spend your days up on deck in full view of my men. And you’ll be stark naked, my dear.”

She took a bite of the potatoes.

“That’s better. You will finish all the food on your tray, every bit of it. I will be your dinner companion, so to speak.”

“I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Wilkes—”

“You may call me Captain.”

“Nothing at all, save to insist that you return me to my parents.”

“You know, Juliana, you are really looking quite bedraggled. Your hair is encrusted with salt and tangled like a witch’s mop. After you eat, I’ll let you bathe. It will make you feel better, and undoubtedly make you appear more appetizing.”

“I want to go home,” she said, and he heard the break in her voice. She raised pleading eyes to his face. “Please, please, take me home.”

“You seem like a bright girl, my dear, too bright to waste your energies begging for what I cannot do.”

“Cannot?” she nearly yelled. “You mean you will not! What do you want with me? My parents have no money!” She choked on a bite of beef.

“Your show of spirit does not displease me,” Jameson Wilkes said easily. “Would you like me to thump your back?”

Her eyes widened in terror and she shrank back against the headboard of the bed.

“Finish your dinner,” he said, sitting back in his chair, his arms folded calmly over his chest.

Kanola, Jules thought, she’s dead. He’ll kill me too. She’d tried, during the long hours he’d left her alone, to reason out what was happening to her, but her grief and her fear had left her mind numb. She ate mechanically, chewing every bit of food ten times, as her mother had taught her to do.

When Jameson Wilkes removed the tray from her lap, Jules didn’t move. She stared straight ahead at his shelves of books, saying nothing.

“Would you like to bathe first or shall I tell you where I’m taking you and why? You’ve gone mute on me, huh? Very well, my dear, listen well. We are bound for San Francisco, but I believe you already know that. As to your fate, I promise you it won’t be so bad. You see, Juliana, I will sell you to the highest bidder at a very special auction. With your looks and your virginity, only a rich man will be able to pay the price. I venture to say that you’ll be well treated. Indeed, I would say that the man who purchases you will keep you in some amount of luxury. In short, Juliana, you will be a rich man’s mistress.”

She looked at him blankly. “What do you mean, a man’s mistress? You mean some man would hurt me?”

Jameson Wilkes could only stare at her for a long moment. Then he laughed. “A missionary’s daughter,” he said more to himself than to her. “How can you be so ignorant, having grown up in Lahaina? You do know what prostitutes are?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Terrible men pay money to debauch—”

“These so-called terrible men pay women money, my dear. And the native women are among the most unrestrained females most men have ever encountered. Now, a mistress is much more prized than a simple prostitute. A mistress is beholden to only one man. If she behaves well with that one man, she in turn is treated well—quite indulged, really. It is not a bad life.”

“You would make me a prostitute, then?”

“You have the insistence to cut through euphemism. Yes, plainly, you will be a prostitute.”

“But you said that prostitutes are willing to do what they do, that they—”

“Unfortunately, you will not have that choice,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “But it is not impossible, Juliana, when the man who purchases you, let us say, eventually has had enough of your charms, that you could marry and settle down with children, or even return to Maui, if you wish it.”