Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

Jules squared her shoulders and gave him her most insolent, contemptuous look.

“Well, well,” Jameson Wilkes said, giving her an appraising look as he drew to a halt only a foot away from her. “As I live and breathe. If it isn’t the new Mrs. Morris.” He swept off his hat and gave her a mocking bow. “I must say, my dear, I think I prefer you in your natural state, sprawled on your quite lovely back on my bed. But then again, ladies’ clothes tend to drive men’s imaginations wild. Oh yes indeed.”

She felt a searing pain in her stomach and vaguely recognized it as fear. He can’t do anything to you! “Well,” she said in the coldest voice she could find within herself, “if it isn’t that dishonorable, filthy pig of a man. Mr. Wilkes, your clothes bespeak a civilized man. How strange and how disturbing that appearances are so deceiving.”

He sucked in his breath, wanting nothing more than to fling her over his shoulder, perhaps beat her senseless, and remove her to his house. He wouldn’t force opium down her, oh no. He wanted her to know everything, feel everything he would do to her. Instead, he said with a short, humorless laugh, “How very brave you are, my dear Juliana. And so very insulting.”

“It is quite easy to be so with you, sir. Although sir denotes a gentleman, doesn’t it? How silly of me to make such a mistake.”

“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” he said very softly. “You think yourself safe from me, don’t you? You and that damned husband of yours.”

“Well, of course,” she said, hoping her voice sounded confident and contemptuous at the same time. “I am married to a man, an honest man, and—”

“And he saved you that night. Ah yes, I found that out, but not until you’d returned from Maui with him, married. He and his Sydney Ducks, the worthless scum—”

“Certainly like should recognize like! But in this case, Mr. Wilkes, their actions were noble and honorable. I should prefer any number of them to you.”

Jameson Wilkes got a hold on himself, but it was difficult. The smart-mouthed little bitch! God, he wanted to touch her! “And how do you like marriage, my dear? As I recall so well, you didn’t know at all what it was men did to women. Do you like your husband plowing

your little belly with that huge rod of his? Ah yes, I know he’s a huge man—heard it from many of our more colorful ladies in this city. They’re pining for his return to their respective beds, you know.”

Jules sucked in her breath, her face going white. She knew he was lying, knew Michael wouldn’t touch another woman, knew . . . Get a hold of yourself! “You are a pig and a bastard,” she managed to say, her voice almost pleasant. “If ever you speak to me again, my husband will kill you. Or I will.”

“Such language from a missionary’s daughter,” he said, his eyes glittering down at her.

“One must be appropriate at all times,” Jules said. “Unfortunately, I do not know appropriate language to fit your character. Perhaps the Sydney Ducks do.”

With that parting shot, she turned on her heel and marched away from him, her head held high. She didn’t pause even when she heard his mocking laugh behind her.

“We will see, Juliana!” he called after her. He found that his muscles were knotted with tension, and he forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. The thought of Saint Morris taking her, sating himself in her lovely body, made him want to spit, which he did. He suddenly remembered how very pale she’d become suddenly when he’d spoken so mockingly about her husband plowing her belly. Why? he wondered. Or had she turned pale at the thought of Saint Morris fucking whores? He strode thoughtfully across the street. Could it be, his thinking continued, that the bloody doctor was soft, had listened to his young wife’s pleas, and hadn’t yet taken her? He was, after all, a doctor, a man reputed to be kind and gentle, despite his great size. The stupid sod! It was something to think about, indeed it was. After all, he had married her out of obligation, nothing more. Wilkes’s lips thinned. It was impossible to believe she was still a virgin, even though he wanted to, very much. No matter. He would still have her. He rubbed his hand over his stomach at the familiar burning pain.

He had all the time in the world, and he knew he must go very slowly and carefully now. Saint Morris was a highly respected man, with powerful friends. But Wilkes would find a way, he certainly would. He was smiling when he entered the El Dorado saloon some ten minutes later.

James Cora was leaning against the long mahogany bar, a thick cigar in his mouth. “Looks like you just won yourself a pot of money,” he observed.

“Not yet,” Wilkes said smoothly, “but one never knows. How about a whiskey?”

“If I tell Michael,” Jules said in an agonized whisper to her pale image in the mirror, “he will go after Wilkes. But Michael is honorable, and Wilkes isn’t. He would hurt Saint, I know it. He would hire men and they would hurt him, maybe even kill him.”

She turned slowly from the mirror, not knowing what to do.

“And it would be all my fault.”

“Did you say something, Jules?”

Jules whirled around at the sound of Lydia’s voice. “Oh no, I was just thinking out loud.”

Lydia frowned at her young mistress. She didn’t look well, not at all. She said, “Saint’s downstairs taking care of a Chinese who got his arm cut open. If you want to talk to him, he’ll be done in ten minutes, I’d say.”

“Yes, thank you, Lydia.”

Saint was gently suturing Ling Chou’s thin forearm. “Did you know that old Bonaparte wanted to march on China after he’d gotten Russia?”

Ling Chou, who was gritting his teeth, not making a sound, because a man shouldn’t complain, blinked at Saint. “No hear that,” he managed.

Saint hadn’t either, but he continued, “Yes, sir. Way back in 1811”—was it 1811? he didn’t remember—“when he was making his plans, he said to his military advisers, ‘After Moscow, it’s on to Peking, to make myself emperor of the world.’ ” Saint set the last stitch. “Of course with men like you there, Ling Chou, the little man wouldn’t have stood a chance. Sometimes I think it’s a pity that he didn’t go to China first—would have saved a lot of trouble for England and France. I’ll just bet there wouldn’t have been a Waterloo. You men would have taken care of him just fine.”

“You think so, Saint?”