Beautiful Wild - Anna Godbersen Page 0,38

was wearing those same clothes that had looked all wrong in the dining room of the Princess, but had fared well through their ordeal. They were that same color as before, neither white nor brown, and no more or less rumpled. “So I would not have thought you would—” He paused, struggled for the word. “Disrobe.”

Laughter burbled up and escaped her mouth. To hear that euphemism, spoken by a boy who had proclaimed himself free of such hypocrisies! “Disrobe? Is this a newspaper serial for church ladies?”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“Yes. I suppose I do. Stay that way, I’ll just be a minute.” She was amazed by how quickly the dress, even with so many layers of lace and tulle, had dried. This was not the city she grew up in, where a thing, once damp, stayed damp a long time. “Don’t look,” she warned, but when she glanced up from the task of bringing her enormous skirt over her cotton knickers, and the bodice over her boned corset, she saw that he was already fastidious in looking away. “I’ll need your help with this last bit.”

With an awkward little jump, she came off the rock and toward him, holding the back of her dress closed.

“It’s just a few buttons. I know you’re a rough sort of person, but I think you can manage,” she assured him.

He made no sound of acquiescence, but he did as she asked.

Or tried, anyway. He had done half the buttons when he began to undo them again. His breath became short, and she realized he must have missed some.

Now he was slower, more careful, and it seemed a long time his fingertips moved up along her spine.

When he was done she turned to him, her expression pert. “Thank you. You can enjoy your bath now.”

As he considered his reply, she realized that she had misinterpreted his presence here.

“Oh,” she said. Her anger flared. “He sent you after me.”

Sal’s dark eyes were still reluctant to meet hers. “He said you seemed upset.”

“Did he.” She strode past him, back toward the beach.

“Vida.”

“Just like your master,” she called over her shoulder, trying very hard not to trip on any hidden rocks or roots. “You seem to think you know me well enough to call me by my given name.”

“Miss Hazzard.”

“Oh, what,” she replied tiredly as she continued through the dense hanging vines.

“That’s the wrong way.”

She stopped. Her mind rebelled. But he was right—this was not the way at all.

“And he’s not my master.”

“What would you prefer?” She half turned, but he was too obscured by the shade of the jungle to see his expression. “Don’t tell me you want me to call him your friend.”

“Your maid, who you boarded the Princess with . . .”

She squeezed her eyes closed, thinking of Nora, of what might have befallen her.

“Was she not your friend?”

“Of course she was my friend!” Vida replied with sudden fury. “She is my friend,” she corrected. “She is,” she repeated, and her anger was doused by the soggy mess of tears she could not help. “She is, oh God, please, let her still be.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s all right. So many passengers were transferred to the other ship.”

She wavered like a kite in a high wind and her hands covered her face. “But what if she wasn’t? What if she was asleep, and didn’t know the ship was going down? What if they didn’t let her on a lifeboat? What if some first-class type insisted she go back after their luggage? What if . . .”

“Stop.”

Vida sucked in a breath. Her fears had tumbled out, and all along the sunlight found its way through the high leaves, the buzz of insects and birds continued, the jungle busy and indifferent to her existence. When he began to walk, in what she presumed was the correct direction, she followed along. “How can I stop? How can I not wonder?”

“It doesn’t do anything, worrying.”

“You don’t understand. She was my responsibility. She took that journey on my account. My parents, too. And now what? Now what? I must forget her, just because I am stuck here, at the ends of the Earth and can do nothing about it? No, I will not pretend it was not all my fault.”

“You?”

Ah. There was that smirk. She had rather missed his smirk. Being smirked at made things seem normal, and she knew again who she was supposed to be. She was the formidable Vida Hazzard,