"Good Lord, sir, what manner of hellish creature could have-"
Before Penfeld could finish, Justin was gone, his path marked by a wild crashing through the dense
brush.
Justin could not have explained how he knew the unearthly cry had come from Emily, only that the timbre of her voice had somehow become as familiar to him as his own. An icy sweat broke out on his body as he careened down a hill, scraping his back on the serrated trunk of a totara tree. Ferny boughs whipped his face, blinding him, but still he pressed on, driven by the stark terror that by his absence he had allowed something terrible to happen to her. Time spilled back to the night when he had rushed to another beach, clutching Nicky's bloody coat like a talisman against the darkness, only to arrive a
moment too late.
He tripped over a trailing creeper and went sprawling. His cheek struck the warm, rich earth with a
thud. He shook damp tendrils of hair from his eyes and flung himself to his feet, catching a tantalizing glimpse of wicker through the trees. He hurtled into the clearing and stumbled to a halt, his heart slamming against his ribs, his breath dragged from his lungs in raw rasps.
Emily favored him with her sweetest smile. "What took you so long? I thought you'd never come."
Nothing could have prepared Justin for the sight of Emily holding court over a throng of prostrate
Maori warriors like some triumphant Amazon queen. She cradled the rifle in her arms. Her little foot rested daintily on the spine of one of the largest and most irate warriors Justin had ever seen. Even his ears were pink with fury.
Justin doubled over, flattening his palms on his knees, before she could begin to guess at the depth or bitter sweetness of his relief. Its intensity terrified him. He took a deep breath as a hard-edged fury
born of thwarted fear flooded his veins.
He jerked his head up. "What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"
Emily recoiled. Why didn't Justin look more pleased with her? She shrugged. "It's obvious, isn't it? Capturing cannibals."
Contempt iced his voice. "You, my dear, have just captured our neighboring tribe of Maori. A tribe,
I might mention, that has been quite friendly to me, at least before they made your acquaintance."
"I don't understand," she said faintly. The rifle slipped a notch in her hands. "That horrid creature waved his club at me. They were all armed. They even brought their own pot. I only assumed-"
"That 'horrid creature' was performing the te uero a ceremonial dance to welcome you to his country." Justin picked his way over several inert Maori and grabbed a long-handled tool topped by an innocuous blade. "What were they going to do? Hoe you to death?" He pulled an orangy-brown object out of the overturned pot and waved it at her. "A kumara. Sweet potatoes. Their gift to you."
"Oh, dear." Emily mopped her brow, feeling suddenly sicker than she had before.
Justin glided toward her with such lethal grace that she started to point the rifle at him. He plucked the weapon out of her arms, handling it with two fingers as if it were a deadly serpent, and tossed it in the sand.
"I'd like to introduce you to Witi Ahamera, their ariki, their chief."
She squared her chin, mustering her fading pluck. "I'd like to meet him, too. I've got a few things to
say about his tribe running about, terrorizing unsuspecting young Englishwomen."
"You're standing on him."
A brilliant heat flooded her cheeks. She followed Justin's mocking gaze down her calf to the foot braced against the bronze muscles of the Maori warrior. Her toes twitched nervously.
She looked to Justin for help, hoping he'd provide a graceful dismount, but he only smirked at her.
"Well, so I am," she said. "Who would have thought it?" She hopped off the man and tugged at his arm. He rose slowly, towering over her. She reached above her head to brush sand from his chest, avoiding
his stony glare. "If Mr. Witi would have bothered to tell me he was the chief, I'd never have trod upon him in such a thoughtless manner."
Biting off what sounded like a distinctly Anglo-Saxon oath, the chief shoved her hand away. She shrank against Justin without realizing it. His arm slipped around her waist, molding her to his lean frame. She
felt as if she'd flopped literally from stew pot to fire.
Taking their cue from their chief, the natives rose, shaking sand out of their raw flax skirts. An admiring murmur of "Pakeha, Pakeha" rose from their ranks. Emily looked around, but could see nothing or no one who might inspire such deference.
The chief jutted out his hand. All murmuring ceased. A fierce intelligence burned in his bright, dark
eyes. His nostrils flared as he pointed at Emily and bit off a string of guttural words that made her thankful she did not understand Maori.
She pressed herself to Justin, basking in his strength. "What is he saying?" she whispered.
His lips touched her ear. "You have offended his mana."
"His mama?"
Justin gave her a hard squeeze. "His mana. His honor. His pride. Mana is all-important to the Maori. Every slight, real or imagined, demands retribution. He wants to declare war on you."
She squirmed. "Why, that overgrown, jade-headed bully! Where's my rifle? Of all the arrogant, ridiculous-"
Justin clapped his hand over her mouth. The chief punctuated his newest accusation by leaning forward and poking her in the chest. She gulped.
"Cease!" Oddly enough, Justin's soft-spoken command stilled the irate warrior in mid-poke and threw
an unnatural hush over his men.
Justin kept one hand firmly anchored over Emily's mouth, but his other hand took eloquent wing as
Maori words spilled from his lips like song. Emily felt her body relax, lulled by the velvety timbre of his voice, hypnotized by the graceful flight of his fingers in the air. The natives hung on every word. Even
the chief cocked his head in reluctant attention. Justin's hand slid from her lips and cupped her chin,
tilting her face up for their regard.
Several of the men hopped back in fear, making signs in the air. A dreamy assurance melted through Emilys veins. He must be warning them never to trouble her again, telling them that she belonged only
to him and he would protect her even at the cost of his own life.
The chief made a disgusted gesture toward the white-haired man. He nodded and they climbed the hill, leading their men into the brush and leaving her and Justin alone in the clearing.
Justin released her. Emily locked her knees, fearful she might melt into a besotted puddle at his feet.
She grabbed his arm. "Thank you, Justin."
He shook her hand off, his lips twisted in scathing dismissal. "Don't mention it. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to meet with them as I'd planned to do before they were ambushed by Emily Scarlet, the
jungle princess."
He started up the hill, brushing dirt off his dungarees with a disgusted motion. Emily's hands clenched
into fists.
"What did you tell them?" she cried, refusing to be daunted by the note of desperation in her voice. She had to hear him say he cared. She'd waited to hear the words for almost half her life.