“I tripped after we got separated. I might have cracked a rib.”
I picked up a thin twig from the cave floor, twirling it in my fingers. Trying not to think about how Montgomery was helping my father while Edward, who’d come to protect me, had just kissed me.
After a minute Edward pulled a steak knife out of his pocket.
“Where did you get that knife?” I asked.
“While you were chatting over dinner, I was stealing the silverware.” He started to whittle at the pointed end of a stick. Trying to make a spear. God, were we that desperate? His grip was too tight. He didn’t know what he was doing any more than I did. He’d probably only read about spears in Robinson Crusoe.
The twig stopped in my fingers. “How did you know you’d need one?”
“Your father tried to kill me five minutes after I arrived. That was a pretty good indication.”
I rolled the twig between my fingers, scraping the thin bark with my thumbnail. At last I threw the stick into the fire.
“I came across two of the islanders in the jungle,” I said. “They weren’t like Balthazar or those big ones on the dock. They were wild. They killed one of the rabbits—ripped it in half. I don’t know what they’d have done if they’d known I was there.” I shivered at the memory of the spotted one’s piercing eyes. He’d looked directly into the bamboo grove. Had he really not seen me?
The knife paused in Edward’s hand. “That’s strange. Montgomery said no one eats meat on the island.”
I’d had the same thought. I studied Edward, impressed that he wasn’t scared out of his wits. Firelight danced across his strong features. His face belonged half cast in shadows, with warm light on the planes of his nose and forehead. He would have looked out of place in the bare electric lights that were becoming so popular in England. I wondered if we would ever again see London. In the small world of the cave behind the waterfall, it felt like we were the last two people on earth.
“So what do we do?” I asked. “We can’t stay out here forever. It’ll be a year before another ship comes.”
“Other ships must pass nearby on the way to Australia or Fiji. Montgomery said there’s a Polynesian shipping lane not far off the coast.”
“So we take our chances with a raft and hope a ship finds us?” I pulled my arms in tight, shivering. “We’ll drift off course. Or go down in a storm. Or die of thirst. You should know better than anyone.”
He sat back, staring into the fire. The tic in his jaw pulsed, just once. He’d spoken so little of what happened when the Viola sank. He didn’t have to. It was written in the sun blisters that still marred his face. “What choice do we have? Your father’s gone mad out here. What’s to say he won’t find a use for us after all? Strapped to his operating table, perhaps.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He’s my father.” I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to speculate how far Father had gone over that line.
Edward placed a finger on my cheek to turn my face back toward him. “You know how I feel about you. You don’t have to say anything in return—it doesn’t matter. I came here to protect you and that’s what I intend to do. Tomorrow we’ll find our way back to the compound. We’ll act like everything is fine—we just got lost in the jungle while exploring. And then we’ll find a way to get off this island.” He brushed my hair behind one ear. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
I studied the tender new scar that ran just below his eye. His bruises had faded, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still there, under his skin, beaten into his bones.
“What was the photograph?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Surprise registered on his face for a second. And then the fold between his eyes deepened. “What photograph?”
“You had a photograph. It was too water damaged to make out. I haven’t seen it since the ship.”
He gave a slight shrug, brow furrowed, as though thinking back to the time in the dinghy unsettled him. “I don’t remember any photograph.”
We stayed like that for some time, listening to the water in our own private world behind the falls. I didn’t believe for a minute he’d forgotten the photograph, but the secret was his own, and so were his reasons for lying. The night got cooler, and my soaking dress made my skin turn white. I self-consciously stripped to my chemise to let the dress dry next to the fire. I was too aware of my bare ankles, my bare arms. Edward’s eyes shone bright in the dying firelight, not like a gentleman anymore. But he didn’t try to kiss me again.
The closeness of the cave pressed in, as hard as the memory of his kiss. I knew Edward wouldn’t hurt me. And yet I didn’t exactly feel at ease with him.