More Than You Know by Jo Goodman Read Free Book Online Page A

sustained beat, then a slow return to normal rhythm.
    Rand slipped his hand around her upper arm. “Are you really going because I've offended you?” he asked. “Or is it something else?"
    Claire raised her face. “I don't know what you mean."
    He couldn't tell if that was the case or not. Yesterday he had been hard pressed to notice her; this morning he couldn't seem to help himself. There was an awareness here that he did not think he was mistaking. Certainly he felt it. Rand was only willing to lay so much of the blame on last night's rum and the lingering effects of Jeri-Ellen's stale perfume.
    Rand changed the subject. “Where would you go on board Cerberus? If you walk away at every slight, then you'll be in the water before we make Charleston."
    "I imagine I'd go to my cabin, Captain,” she said levelly. “Not walk the plank."
    Rand eased his grip slightly. “Will you have a seat, Miss Bancroft?” He felt her agreement in the relaxation of her body. If not a complete surrender, it was at least some measure of progress. Rand helped her find the sofa again. She sat but did not let go of her reticule this time.
    "I wasn't wrong about your brother, was I?” he asked.
    Claire shook her head. “No, not wrong. But you made Tipu sound as if he were of no account. He's my brother and I care very much what's happened to him."
    "Perhaps more than your father?"
    She didn't answer immediately and when she did, she didn't deny it. “Differently than my father."
    Rand waited, prepared for her to say more, certain she was on the verge of it. He watched her hold it in, almost as if she was absorbing the silence to withdraw into herself. She was paler than she had been a moment before, drained by the effort to contain what she felt.
    "Solonesia is a chain of more than twenty islands and atolls,” Rand said. “How will you know if we come upon the right one?"
    "Eight are inhabited. When I left, my father was working on one that was not. The one the natives call Pulotu, the spirit land."
    Rand shook his head, wondering at Sir Griffin's folly in choosing to set foot on what was no doubt sacred ground. “Then it's guarded by tikis."
    "Seven tiki women. I call them the sisters."
    Rand felt his heart lurch. “Seven sisters,” he said quietly, as if he did not fairly resonate with the deep chord she struck. “That's your name for them?"
    "Yes,” she said. “Like in the Mother Goose rhyme. It seemed an obvious name for seven goddesses. I'm certain I didn't hear it anywhere else. The natives of Solonesia don't willingly talk about the guardians or set foot on Pulotu. There is a very powerful tapu there."
    "Sacred spell."
    "Yes."
    "But your father risked going there anyway."
    "He didn't believe in the tapu. He said the tikis were there to warn navigators away from the shoals."
    Rand was coming to the conclusion that Sir Griffin was a talented botanist but a poor historian and sailor. The sandbars that created the shallows around some of the islands would have posed no problem for the outrigger canoes used by the Polynesians. They would not have placed the sacred stone images to warn fellow explorers about the shallows.
    He did not mention this to Claire. Instead he asked, with a trace of humor, “Shoals? I have to also worry about grounding my ship? Is there anything else that should concern me and my crew? An abnormally large population of sharks, for example. Or wild boars once we're ashore?"
    Claire's voice contained hope she had not thought she could realize. “Do your questions mean that you'll take me? Am I to return to Solonesia with you?"
    "I believe we can come to terms."
    * * * *
    For the second time in two days Rand was a guest at the Duke of Strickland's London house. This occasion was dinner. The invitation to join Strickland and Claire had arrived that afternoon, not long after Claire would have returned home and informed her godfather of Rand's capitulation. To Rand's way of thinking, she hadn't let a moment