Cay wanted to rattle off the list of credentials of her artistic education, but she made herself keep quiet. His remark about the laundry reminded her that he knew things about her family that must have come from someone who knew them. The logical person was Uncle T.C., but she’d never known him to talk about much of anything except plants. Whatever the source, Alex knew personal, private things about her and her family. However, it was strange that Alex didn’t seem to know that Cay could draw and paint. Usually, she had a sketchbook and pencils with her. She rarely went anywhere without the means to draw what she saw, but on the night she met Alex, she’d been going to a ball, so her drawing equipment had been left at home. And since then, everything had been so new and strange that she hadn’t thought much about art.
Now, it seemed that Alex’s not knowing about her might be a very good thing. “You said that anyone could draw. If I remember correctly, you said, ‘How hard can it be?’ Can you draw?”
“A bit,” he said. “Believe it or not, I had a drawing master who trained in London.”
“You were meaning to take on the job of recorder for yourself, weren’t you?”
“I thought about it.” Alex was smiling.
She wanted to kick him! What else had he kept from her? “How about if we both do a few drawings and let Jamie decide which of us will record this trip for posterity?”
Alex kept smiling. “Lass, I should warn you that I was the best in my class at drawing.”
“Were you?” she asked, trying to sound impressed.
“Aye, I was. I liked going out into the heather and drawing the animals I saw. If I hadn’t been a horseman, I could have . . .” He shrugged. “What training have you had?”
“Mrs. Cooper’s Academy for Young Ladies,” she said quickly. “We used to paint china teacups.” This was true, but she didn’t tell him it had been when she was four and she’d painted her family’s portraits on the cups—which had made her mother hire the first of several private drawing masters.
“Did you now?” He was smiling so hard it was nearly a smirk. Alex was confident that he’d win any artistic competition. If his sister was good at art, Alex was sure Nate would have told him so, and since he hadn’t, Alex figured that she’d had only a little training. Teacups! She had no idea what a journey like this required. She had to be able to draw fast and accurately.
“Is it a deal?” she asked. “We’ll have a competition and we’ll let Jamie be the judge. If he says that I’m no good, then I’ll return to the boardinghouse and stay there until Tally comes for me. Is it a bargain?”
Alex frowned. She was saying all this with such confidence that he thought there was a trick. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing. I just want to go with you and I’m going to do my absolute best to outdraw you. If you’d suggested pistols at dawn I might try to do that, too.”
“All this so you can go with this man Armitage?”
“That and other things.”
“Tell me, lass, is it the man or his money you want?”
For a moment, she had to fight the urge to slap him, but she refused to sink to his level. “His money, of course, since, according to you, I want to marry men even though I have no love for them. Maybe you think I’m incapable of love. Is that what you think? That I’m too coldhearted to love anyone?”
Alex was blinking in confusion. “How did we go from drawing to cold hearts?”
Cay threw up her hands in disgust. “You’re an idiot, and worse, you’re a male.” She moved past him with a gesture that said she was sweeping aside her skirts so they wouldn’t touch scum like him.
Alex leaned his head back against the wall of the building and looked upward. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that maybe he’d just agreed to let her go on a very dangerous trip into the wilds of a jungle. And the worst of it was that he had no idea how it had happened.
Sixteen
Alex watched Cay walk toward the dock. Her head was up, her chin out, and she walked with the determination of a man about to enter into a fight. In spite of himself, he couldn’t help feeling proud of her. It was impossible to believe that this was the same girl he’d first met.
But his pride in her didn’t quash his resolve to keep her from going on the trip. He couldn’t tell her that the real reason he didn’t want her with him was because he knew that if they spent more time together, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of her. He couldn’t spend more days watching her strut around in her snug little breeches and not touch her. Since they were supposed to be brothers, they’d no doubt be expected to spend the nights together in a tent. How could he do that?
When they’d first started traveling together, Alex had been so angry, so full of rage and hatred, that he could have slept next to a dozen naked women and not taken advantage of what they offered.
But Cay, with her bright outlook on life, her belief that anything could be done, had changed all that. But Charleston and what had been done to him there now seemed something that wasn’t real and had never actually happened.
He watched her smiling up at Grady and telling him that she and her brother were to have a competition to see if she would go or not. Alex didn’t like to feel smug, but he was sure he’d win. He’d always been good at capturing on paper the likeness of whatever he saw. He hadn’t told her, but his father had brought watercolors back from a trip to Edinburgh, and Alex had made many pictures of landscapes. He knew he’d be good at what Grady wanted for the trip, so winning was going to be easy.
What would be difficult was consoling Cay when she didn’t get to go with them. He imagined a sweet scene where she was crying and he’d comfort her. He’d be firm but sympathetic, and tell her it was for her own good. He was sure she’d eventually understand that he was right.
Tomorrow morning they’d part, and there’d be tears in her pretty eyes and he’d remember them throughout the perilous journey. His hope was that while he was away, Nate would find some answers, and when Alex returned, maybe he could clear his name.
When he was no longer tainted by injustice, he’d get his horses back, and he’d go north to Virginia to find Cay. If she wasn’t already married to some cold, unappreciative boy who would never find out what she was really like, he would . . . He liked to leave that thought to the future.
Cay was waving her hand toward him, wanting him to come forward. It looked like she had the competition set up to begin. Smiling, Alex went toward the dock.
“Is this all right?” Mr. Grady asked, nodding toward the two work stations he’d had Eli and Tim set up. Wide boards had been leaned against crates, large pieces of paper on them, pens and ink beside them.
“Young Cay wanted a pan of water,” Mr. Grady said to Alex. “Do you need one?”
Alex had no idea why she wanted water along with her ink, but he shrugged it off as he sat down on a crate, put the pen and ink beside him, and picked up his makeshift easel.
“Since, as you know, we’ll be traveling,” Mr. Grady said, “it’s sometimes necessary to record things quickly, therefore, this will be a timed documentation. You will have three minutes to draw what you see. Whether it’s the dock, a person, or a bird, is up to you. I just want to see what you can do in a short time.”
Cay sat down on the rough wood of the dock, her legs folded, and looked at the blank piece of paper. Everything that her teacher, Russell Johns, had yelled at her ran through her head. When he’d first arrived in America from England, just two years before, he’d been destitute. He knew no one, and her mother said he had a broken heart, but not even she could get him to tell her what had happened to make him so unhappy. Her mother had hired Mr. Johns to teach her daughter, but, truthfully, Cay didn’t think she’d ever pleased him. He wanted someone who devoted her life to art, but Cay didn’t want to do that. Now, she could hear his voice as he gave her lessons in drawing pictures of movement. “Draw faster!” he’d shout. “Do you expect your brothers to sit still and wait for you?” Cay had learned how to
rapidly sketch her brothers playing at ball or riding their horses in just a few strokes. With ink, she’d had to be sure about her lines, with no hesitation, because errors couldn’t be fixed. After three months of work on these quick drawings, Mr. Johns had finally grunted. He didn’t compliment her, but he didn’t complain either. For Cay, it had been the height of praise.
Mr. Grady took out his pocket watch, looked at it, and said, “Go!”
Cay worked with both hands. In her right hand, she had the pen, which she frequently dipped in ink, while she put the fingertips of her left into the water. As she drew in quick, bold strokes, she smeared the wet ink with the water to create shadings of her scene.
When Mr. Grady called time, Cay lifted her pen and stood up. The skinny boy, Tim, smirking at her as though he was looking forward to seeing her fail, swaggered across the deck to see the picture she’d done.
Eli went first to Alex’s drawing. “By all that’s holy, but that’s good. I thought T.C. could draw, but you’re far better than he is.” He looked at Mr. Grady, who was staring at Cay’s picture in silence. “You’ll have to hire this man for the job.”
Mr. Grady said nothing, just stood beside Tim and looked at Cay’s drawing. Curious, Eli went to them.
Alex was watching Cay and trying to repress a grin. After what Eli had said, Alex was sure the contest was over. “Come on, la—” He caught himself. “Cay, don’t be disheartened. We can’t all have—”
He broke off when he saw her drawing. In just three minutes she’d captured the wharf, the river, the sky, and Eli with a fishing net on his lap. There were lines and shading, some thick, some thin, some light, some dark. In Alex’s opinion, the drawing should be framed and put in a museum.
All the men, Tim, Eli, Grady, and Alex, turned to look at Cay.
“I know it’s rough, but I’m out of practice,” she said. “I promise I’ll do better on the trip.”
Alex was the first man to recover himself and turn away. Without a word, he started down the street toward the boardinghouse.
“I think my brother’s angry at me,” she said and took off running after him.
“You have the job,” Mr. Grady called after her, his eyes still on the drawing on the board.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Eli said.
“He missed that ugly bird on the post,” Tim said, and the other two men glared at him.
“The pelican wasn’t there a minute ago,” Eli said.
“I do believe, Tim, you’re showing a bit of the green monster.” Mr. Grady picked up the drawing and studied it. “I think I’ll send this home to my mother. She always wants to know about my forays into the dark unknown. Now I can show her.”
Cay caught up with Alex outside the boardinghouse, and she was glad to see that neither Thankfull nor her half sisters were about.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Alex said under his breath. “Did you feel good about making fun of me?”
“You were the one bragging about your abilities, not me.” Cay was bewildered by his attitude. She never would have guessed that he’d be a sore loser. “Are you angry because I can paint better pictures than you can?”
He gave her a look that told her that was an absurd idea.
“Then what’s made you so angry?” As soon as she said it, she knew. “You’re angry because you don’t want me to go with you.”
“I haven’t made that clear?”
She was glaring at him, her hands on her hips. “You were so sure you were going to win the contest that you made a bet with me, but you had no intention of honoring your wager, did you? You’re a vain man who can’t admit he was wrong.”
“Put your arms down! No male ever stood like you are.”
Cay was so angry she could hardly speak. “Try and make me.”
Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side of the building, and down a path that led through the palms and shrubs that grew along the edges. Within minutes, they were out of sight of the settlement. Halting in a clearing, he turned back to her. “You don’t seem to realize how dangerous this trip is going to be. There are creatures living in this Florida that people have never seen. You could be killed in any number of ways. You could be—”
Cay took a step away from him, her eyes wide as she came to a realization. “You’re not afraid for me to go on this journey. There’s something else. I traveled with a wanted murderer, with men chasing me, hunting me wherever we went, but you weren’t afraid for my safety then. You and I built fires, we broke into a store, and you took time to dance with me. There’s another reason you don’t want me to go with you, isn’t there?”
“No, of course not,” he said quickly, but he avoided her eyes.
She stepped closer to him and bent her head so she could look up into his eyes. Sometimes, with his heavy beard, it was difficult to see his expression. “I like to think,” she said softly, “that in these last weeks you and I have become close. We’ve been through a lot together, so aren’t we friends?”
Alex started to answer her, but they were in a quiet place, surrounded by lush greenery, with the calls of birds in the background, and the fragrance of flowers around them. He couldn’t help himself, but he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. At first, it was a gentle kiss, but Cay leaned back and looked at him in astonishment. She blinked a few times, her long lashes making shadows, and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
He knew that in spite of all her talk, she was very inexperienced, so he was gentle with her, his lips on hers soft, undemanding, but she pressed her body close to his and deepened the kiss. She opened her lips under his, inviting his tongue into her mouth.
It took all his will power, but he thrust her away from him. “That was ill done!” he said, his heart pounding, his breath coming fast.
Cay’s heart was also beating hard, and she was looking at him in wide-eyed question. “The other men I’ve kissed weren’t like you.”
“Will you put me on your list of suitors?” His remark was more angry than he’d meant it to sound, but he didn’t like to think of her kissing other men.
“I’m going to put you at the top of all my lists.”
She said it with so much enthusiasm that he laughed. She always seemed able to make his ill humor go away.
“Now do you see why I can’t take you with me?” he asked.
“You mean because you desire me above all things in life, and because I make your blood boil?”
“More or less,” he said. “At least now you see that you and I can’t travel together, and we certainly can’t stay in the same tent.”
“You do have a problem.” She turned away for a moment, then looked back at him. “Are you in love with me?”
“I’ll be honest with you, lass, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to love again. Maybe a person gets only one true love in his life and I married mine.”
Cay tried not to show her disappointment. She wasn’t in love with him, either, but a girl liked to think there were at least half a dozen men pining away for her. “So it’s just . . . nature that’s the hindrance to our traveling together.”
“Aye, nature.”
She held out the sides of her breeches. “That I’m wearing men’s clothes doesn’t help dampen your feelings?”
“If anything, that makes it worse. If all women start wearing men’s trousers and showing the true form of their legs, I don’t know how we men would be able to stand it.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen as many legs of women as I have,” Cay said. “I can tell you that there are more unsightly ones than there are nice ones.”
“Is that so?”
“Are you laughing at me already?”
“’Fraid so, lass. It seems to have become a habit.”
She put her hands on his chest. “What if I promise to do nothing to . . . to stir your blood?” She took a step closer to him. “What if I swear that I’ll behave myself every moment of the trip?”
Alex put h
is hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. “One kiss and you turn into Eve. Get over there and do not touch me.”
Cay moved away from him, but she couldn’t conceal her smile. Alex was making her feel like a female. After what seemed like weeks of being thought of as a boy, with those awful girls pushing themselves on her, it felt, well, powerful to be considered a woman. It was lovely to feel desired, to be wanted.
She turned back to face him. “Please let me go with you, Alex. I’m sorry for your . . . your male desire, but I promise that I’ll do what I can to stop it. I’ll be nasty and hateful to you at all times, and I’ll kick you if you get within three feet of me. I don’t mean to bring up anything bad, but I saved your life. When you needed help, I gave it to you. That night, when neither Uncle T.C. nor Hope could go, it was me or no one else. I was very frightened, but I did it anyway. And except for the time when I tried to cut your throat, I think that, all in all, I’ve been rather nice to you.”
“What you’re saying is that I owe you.” Alex’s face was serious.
“Actually, yes.”
“Tell me, do you really want to go or are you that afraid of your brother?”
“Tally? I’m not afraid of him at all, but he will ridicule me, and make me feel truly awful.” She threw up her hands in frustration and turned away for a moment. “Don’t you see what this means to me? If I were to go home now, my father would never let me out again. He’d be so afraid that something awful would happen to me that he’ll lock me in my room and throw the key down the well. My maid would have to send food up a rope through the window.”
“Not to mention the chamber pot.”
“Ladies don’t talk of such things, and you can laugh all you want, but if I have to wait here for Tally to come fetch me, and for Adam and Nate to solve the murder mystery, my father will see me as someone who has to be guarded at all times. He’ll think that to protect me he’ll have to keep me under permanent house arrest.” She sighed in frustration. “In the end, he’ll probably marry me off to some Scottish cousin who can slay three dragons before breakfast.”