Jade Star - Catherine Coulter [3]
She rushed like a demon toward the screaming Kanola, cursing with the few foul words she’d heard from drunk sailors in Lahaina. The man turned, and she saw his hairy belly and a huge rod of flesh jutting out from his abdomen.
Jameson Wilkes caught her, pulling her back against him. “You want to watch, my dear? I’m sorry to deny you such an education, but I must.” He forced her through the hatch down to the companionway.
He knew his men would ravish the native girl. He also knew that such a sight would probably terrify this lovely creature, and that he didn’t want.
“Kanola,” Jules gasped. “You must make them stop! Don’t let them hurt her.”
“I swear to you they won’t hurt her,” Jameson Wilkes said.
“She’s my friend,” she cried, still straining against him. “Make them stop!”
“Captain, she got away from us!” Jameson Wilkes didn’t acknowledge his man’s shout. He said to Juliana, “You see, your friend has escaped. Even now she’s swimming to shore.”
“She won’t make it!” Jules cried, straining hard against his punishing grip. “We’re too far from shore.”
“Enough!” Jameson Wilkes roared. “I’ll send my men after her to save her. Now, stop fighting me!”
But she didn’t. She was swamped with terror and fury, and managed to twist about and slam her fist against his jaw.
His head jerked back, and anger filled his eyes. He held her firmly, and hit her jaw with his fisted hand. Jules crumpled where she stood.
Jules was aware of the throbbing pain in her jaw before she opened her eyes. The pain held her for a moment, then memory flooded back. She gasped, jerking upright, only to realize that she was quite naked, only a thin sheet covering her. She clutched it to her chin.
“Well, at last. I didn’t think I’d hit you that hard. Your jaw isn’t broken. I’m not such a fool as that.”
“Kanola, my friend,” she whispered.
“Quite safe,” Jameson said calmly. “My men caught up with her before she drowned and . . . escorted her to shore. You need worry no more about her.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
He shrugged. “I have no reason to lie to you, my dear. Believe what you will.” Of course the native bitch had drowned, but his men had tried to save her, but not to rescue her.
“Who are you?” she asked numbly, staring at the man who was now sitting at his ease in a chair opposite her.
“Captain Jameson Wilkes, at your service, ma’am. And who are you?”
“Juliana DuPres. My father is Etienne DuPres, a minister in Lahaina. You will return me, now, sir!” In her frenzy, the sheet slipped, and she jerked it upward.
“I wondered when you would realize how very . . . vulnerable you are, Juliana. That’s a lovely name, incidentally. It suits you.” He sat forward, his eyes intent. “You suit me, you know. Oh yes.”
Jules stared at him. She knew all about the evil men of the whalers, for her father had ranted and raved about them and their wicked, immoral ways often enough. But to be faced with one of them, to be lying in the man’s bed without a stitch of clothes on, was almost too much for her to grasp.
“She’s dead,” Jules whispered.
“No,” he said patiently. “As I told you, your friend is quite safe now. I suggest, my dear, that you think about yourself.”
“I don’t understand,” Jules said numbly. “Why have you done this? What do you want from me?”
“I am, I suppose, a wicked man in your innocent eyes, Juliana. But you needn’t worry. I am first and foremost a businessman.” She knows, he thought, studying her closely. Deep down, she knows exactly what I want.
“You’re a pig,” Jules said.
He laughed at that, but she saw that his eyes remained cold, as icy cold as the sleeting gray winter rains in Toronto, a place she could scarcely remember.
“My father will kill you.”
“Your father? Now, that’s amusing, to be sure it is. Your father, my dear Juliana,