Roarke's Kingdom

“Yes, but—”

“The birds have everything they could want. Here, they are safe, they are well cared for. Why should they leave?”

“But what if they wished to leave despite all that?” Jennifer had insisted, as if there were some hidden meaning to their conversation.

Juan had shrugged his shoulders as he dug his hoe into the rich soil and stepped down on it.

“They do not try. Isla de la Pantera is too far from the main island for their fragile wings. They would not make it over the sea.” He’d looked up at her and smiled. “But it does not matter. They do not choose to—”

“They cannot choose, you mean,” she’d said, her voice sharp. “The birds are prisoners here.”

The old man had laughed as the parakeets swooped across the garden, tittering and chirping to each other. “Do they look like prisoners, señorita?”

No, she thought now, as she watched the tiny, feathered jewels settle on the lawn; they didn’t. But they were. They were captives the same as she was. Stone walls do not a prison make, some poet had said, but until two days ago Jennifer had never known how true those words were.

She put down her cup, blotted her lips with a linen napkin and rose to her feet. There was no sense in trying to take her breakfast dishes inside. Constancia would only look at her as if she’d committed some terrible crime and launch into a gentle lecture, the gist of which was that the señor had left specific orders about her welfare.

Her mouth turned down as she walked slowly toward the wide brick steps that led off the terrace. What the señor had left, she thought bitterly, were instructions for the care and feeding of Isla de la Pantera’s newest zoological exhibit.

And she was going to put an end to that.

Jennifer raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes, breathing in the mingled scents of sea and tropical foliage.

“Buenos días, señorita. It is a lovely day, no?”

She blinked. It was the maid. Lucia, she thought, or perhaps Anna. There were so many servants it was hard to keep track of who was who and who did what.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “It is.”

“May I get you something, señorita? A cold drink, perhaps, or—”

“Nothing,” Jennifer said quickly, following the somewhat sharply spoken word with a reassuring smile. “I don’t need a thing. Honestly.”

The girl smiled. “If you do—”

“If I do, I’ll let you know.”

“Bueno. I will be on my way, then, señorita.”

Jennifer nodded. Her lips felt stiff with smiling; as soon as she entered the thick rhododendron bushes that marked the boundaries of the garden, her mouth went lax.

She was waited on hand and foot, her every need attended to. Someone made her bed in the morning, turned it down at night, laid out her clothes—and at this point she had her clothes, all of them.

Later

that first day, after Roarke had so graphically made clear that she was his to do with as he chose, he’d sent his helicopter pilot to her.

“If you’ll give me the name of your hotel, señorita,” the man had said politely, “I’ll take a quick run to San Juan and pick up your luggage.”

“If you’re flying to San Juan,” she’d said quickly, “I’ll go with you.”

“Ah, no, señorita, I am sorry, but I cannot take you along.”

“Of course you can!”

The pilot had looked away from her.

“I have my orders, señorita. They do not involve transporting you to the mainland.”