Page 40 of Heiress Gone Wild

Standing on the tips of her toes, she stirred, her body moving against his. Given how tightly he held her, it was an infinitesimal move, but the pleasure it wrought was so acute, so unexpected, that she cried out in surprise against his mouth.

Without any warning, he tore his lips from hers, his embrace slackened, and his hands reached up to clasp her wrists and pull her arms down from his neck, an abrupt withdrawal that forced her eyes open.

“There,” he said, his voice a harsh rasp in the quiet room. “I hope I’ve cleared up any absurd notions that I’m like your damned father.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he put his hands on her arms and eased her to one side, then he opened the door, and walked out, leaving Marjorie in a stunned, breathless tumult as he shut the door behind him.

His body afire, his mind in chaos, Jonathan strode down the ship’s corridor, desperate to reach the deck—not the sheltered first-class promenade with its opened windows and strolling passengers, but the outer deck, where the bracing air of the open sea could cool the desire blazing inside him, put his priorities back in order, and help him regain his sanity, though he feared he might be fighting a losing battle.

His first look into Marjorie’s velvety brown eyes and his first glance over that goddess body had been enough to spark his desire, but taking her into his bedroom and putting those jewels around her neck had flared that spark into flame. In the five days since, he’d been trying desperately to snuff it out, but after that blazing kiss, it was clear he’d failed, and if he kept on this way, he’d be burned to a crisp long before he got anywhere near Africa.

Anyone would think youweremy father.

An appropriate way for a ward to regard her guardian, and quite understandable from her point of view. He ought to have been glad and relieved she viewed him in that light.

Glad? Relieved? What a crock.

He’d been appalled by the comparison and frustrated as hell. When a man was burning for a woman, the last thing he wanted to be told by the object of his desire was that he was like a father to her. Hearing that, any red-blooded man would have hauled off and kissed her.

But he wasn’t any man. He was her guardian. That put what he’d done utterly beyond the pale, and now, he didn’t know whether to laugh at himself for being a humbug or flog himself for violating the trust Billy had placed in him.

Jonathan paused and leaned against the ship’s railing, breathing deep as he worked to bring his body back under his control.

All his guardianlike protections, all his lectures to her on proper behavior, and all his reminders to himself of his duty, and yet he’d just become the very thing he was trying to protect her from.

When he’d seen de la Rosa halfway through her door, it had ignited within him an unmistakably protective rage, but not one borne of any paternal feeling, as his subsequent actions had so ignobly proved.

When she’d pulled him into her room, he hadn’t even thought to stop her. When she’d railed at him for acting as if he was her father, it had insulted his masculine pride and provoked him beyond bearing. And when he’d pulled her into his arms, he’d tossed his promises to his best friend straight out the window.

Jonathan stared out to sea, pushing thoughts of Marjorie aside, making his mind go back six weeks, to his final visit to the sanitorium in Denver.

I never told you before, but I’ve got a daughter.

The smell of the ocean faded away, replaced by the dry mountain air of Colorado. The rush of the sea breeze was lost in the sound of hacking coughs. The view before him of endless blue water gave way to one of the lungers, their emaciated bodies lying on cots in the doorways of their huts—his friend among them, his face drawn and pale, a blood-spattered towel in his hand.

The doctors had already told him Billy’s death was imminent; what he had not expected was his friend’s deathbed revelations.

Her mother’s family was society, top of the tree in Johannesburg. Prettiest woman you ever saw. She had subalterns and the sons of English lords swirling around her like flies around honey. But she chose me. They cast her off for it, you know. Her family.

Billy had known about Jonathan’s mother—how she had been similarly ostracized and how well Jonathan understood that sort of injustice.

Marjorie’s been at a finishing school back East, learning to be a lady, but it won’t do her much good without connections. You’ve got those. I want my girl to have the best of everything, all the things I can’t give her, all the things her mother gave up when she married me. Balls, pretty dresses, parties. Society, you know. Marjorie’s like any girl. She wants those things. Promise me she gets ’em.

Jonathan’s eyes stung. His chest hurt. The memory of pine-scented air made him feel slightly sick. He didn’t want to think of this; he’d spent weeks pushing it away. But now, he made himself remember it, forcing it back to the forefront of his mind, where it needed to be if he was going to keep his word.

I want her to marry the right sort of man, her mother’s sort, a real gentleman and nothing less. Not some fortune hunter out for the money. And not some dream chaser like me and you. You know what I mean?

He knew. Propping his forearms on the rail, he bent his head, cradling it in his hands as the last, labored words he’d ever heard his friend say rang in his ears.

I’ve got no kin. Her mother’s folk won’t take her—my fault. She’s got no one else, so I made you her guardian. Jessop drew it all up. When I’m gone, you’ve got to look after my little girl, take care of her money like you did for me, keep the fortune-hunters away, and see she’s settled proper when the time comes. Promise.

He’d promised. He’d never considered doing anything else.

And then, just minutes ago, after knowing the girl less than a week, he’d broken that promise. For lust.

Slowly, Jonathan lifted his head and straightened away from the rail. He’d let people down in the past, he couldn’t do it again. He’d given Billy his word, and by God, he was going to keep it.

Even if it killed him.

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