The Price of Pleasure (Sutherland Brothers 2)

"I didn't imagine it could be this..." He trailed off, eyes widening. "I can't feel my feet. Bloody hell! I can't feel my feet!"

Leaving Ian to stumble around and ascertain that he was still bipedal, Grant ignored the stinging of his own abused body and pushed on.

"Slow down, Grant," Ian pleaded.

He faced his cousin. "You fall behind, you get left behind. I hope you've kept track of where you are."

Ian peered around him at the tangle of trees and vines with what could be called a cool panic. "I didn't because I knew you would."

Such was the way of their relationship.

"Then you'd best keep up." Grant sustained such an unrelenting pace for more reasons than one. He'd found Victoria and, yes, he was one step closer to realizing his goal, but he also wanted to make sure she was safe. He considered her under his protection now. Yet at this moment she was alone, a young, slight woman--albeit a fierce one--somewhere on an untamed island that was shaming strong men.

Throughout the day, his anger over her tricks had given way to guilt when he thought about chasing her down; yet after seven months--seven months--she'd been at his fingertips. Even now, his fingers curled at the thought. But then her face appeared in his mind. The look in her eyes, the confusion. He hadn't wanted to scare her, but he'd done just that.

She'd been through enough--years without comforts or civilization, and both parents possibly dead. Of course she'd be afraid. He could almost understand why she'd put him into that fall and nearly beheaded him with the sapling. He couldn't quite reconcile her poking him with a stick and taunting him, but perhaps she was putting on a brave front.

They searched until a three-quarter moon rose in the sky, then limped their way back to the camp. At his crew's curious looks, Grant said, "We'll find her tomorrow." His tone was authoritative, but he wasn't nearly as convinced as he had been.

When Dooley bustled over to hand him a tin cup of coffee, Grant sank onto a horizontal palm, stupefied, drinking without thought. Finally, even that became too arduous. Too weary to drink, he threw the rest of his coffee into the sand, then mustered the energy to grab his pallet.

He unrolled it under a break in the canopy, and even after the others slept, he lay looking up at the too-bright stars, thinking about the turn his life had just taken. He had actually earned Belmont's payment for the search, the last thing the man had to offer: his home. When the earl died, Grant would assume ownership of the sizable but declining Belmont Court. He would finally have his own home, his own people.

Yet this mission had always been more than that. Victoria's grandfather, with his sad eyes and palpable loneliness, had somehow convinced him that his family might yet live.

Grant had never felt particularly heroic, but if they were out here, he had wanted to save them. Now he was so close to bringing at least Victoria back. She'd managed to stay alive. To thrive somehow. But she couldn't go on indefinitely. She needed to be saved even if she didn't have the sense to realize it.

"Have you come up with any ideas?" Cammy asked. She took her second bite of banana, patted her sunken belly as though full, and considered breakfast over. No wonder she continued to lose weight, Tori thought. The bones of her wrists and her collarbone jutted beneath her skin, and her cheekbones were sharp in her face.

Resolving to make her eat more, Tori paced the small hut. The floor of banded planks beneath her feet creaked but didn't give. "Lots of ideas. Just none that are feasible. I simply can't see us sailing away in their ship while they stay on shore scratching their heads."

"What a perfect solution!"

Tori raised an eyebrow at Cammy. Luckily, Cammy was joking. "We need more information about them."

"Yes, what if the rest of them are good? What if the man chasing you was a...a drunk?"

Tori shook her head. "No, he was dead sober."

"A lunatic, then?"

She opened her lips to say "no," but then remembered his eyes. Though focused and ice-blue cold, they had looked a bit...savage. "Then why would they send him in an advance party?"

"They were sick of him on the ship? Or in the process of marooning him?" Cammy mused. "You may have helped them!"

Tori sank down cross-legged on her straw-filled mattress. "I suppose anything's possible."

"So how do we walk this line once more? Play the risk of them leaving us against the possibility that they'll kidnap us for villainous reasons?"

Tori felt her neck and shoulders tensing. What a critical walk. One misstep..."If I saw a woman on deck, or a child even, I'd feel better about approaching them."

"Or perhaps even a chaplain."

Tori nodded. "I'll just have to get a better look. Maybe sneak down to the beach."

"Why don't you stay up here and use that?" She pointed to the spyglass standing in the corner of the hut--standing because it could no longer telescope in.

Tori's gaze flickered over it. "That artifact? The end glass is cracked down the middle."

Cammy pursed her lips. "Well, you won't see any worse--you'll just see two of everything."

"Right now, they'll never find us up here, but if I use that, the glass might reflect," she countered. "And if I can see them, they can see me."

"Wait for a cloud and hide under the brush." In Cammy's mind, the subject was closed. "Tori, do be careful."

Tori sighed. "Cammy, do stay here."

And so minutes later, Tori was crawling on her stomach, digging her elbows into the dirt, lugging a rusting, broken spyglass with her and cursing Cammy for being lucid for once.

She brought the glass around, setting up her view, chin on the back of her flat hand, then waited what seemed like hours for a passing cloud. It moved shyly, as if someone just out of her eyesight beckoned with a crooked finger. With the sun finally cloaked, Tori swung the spyglass down, prepared to divide everything she spotted by two.

In the lengthy space of cloud cover, she saw no women with their skirts billowing on the deck of the ship, no children playing among them--no black-robed chaplain--just a pack of common sailors.

Her heart sank. She knew all about sailors.

Tori scuttled backward, then returned to camp, her mind a knot of ideas. She found Cammy lolling in her hammock outside the hut, nearly rocked to sleep by the sea breezes.

"Good afternoon, Tori," Cammy said with a yawn. "Did you catch any fish?"

One, two, three, four, five..."I went to reconnoiter the ship, remember?"

Cammy's eyes widened, but she covered her surprise. "Of course!" She moved to a sitting position with practiced movements. "I was jesting."

Tori narrowed her eyes. "Is the forgetfulness getting worse?"

She sighed. "How would I know? If I made a determination, I'd just forget it."

Cammy had once described her episodes of vagueness, saying they were like when one first wakes up in the morning, disoriented. And often as easy to shake off. At times, she attributed them to some spoiled food, other times to an underlying sickness.

"Tori, don't keep me in suspense...."

"There was nothing there that we'd hoped to see. I don't understand it. Captains and first mates often sail with families."

"They could be inside."

Tori shook her head. "The cabins would be like a furnace on a day like today. Anyone able would be on deck beneath the tarpaulin."

"What flag did they raise?"

"The Union Jack." Their nationality wasn't reassuring. The last crew had flown the same flag. And Britain impressed just as many convict crews as any other country. Tori sat on a driftwood log. "I was thinking about our 'the rest of them are good' theory."

"Doesn't that mean we have to counter with a 'the rest of them are bad' theory as well?"