“Release me now! We mustn’t linger here. It’s dangerous—wait...” Virginia scowled into the murk by the moringa trees. “Is that mist moving toward us?”
Holmes came close to her again, and his hand slid up to her shoulder turning her toward him. The light splashed across her breasts as the lamp shook in his unsteady hand.
“It’s only fog. Please, let me...” he said, a quaver in his voice as his arm slipped around Virginia’s waist. “...I’ll give you what you want—what I need!”
“Stop!” she cried, pushing on his arm as his hand slid up to her breast. She pulled away, silenced by outrage, her mind struggling to grasp the fool’s audacity.
And could he not see that the fog had crept even closer?
“We do as we must, Miss James. Please, I’ll be quick!” Holmes grated, the hand holding the lamp pressed against her shoulder as he groped her chest. His mouth brushed her throat. “I can taste you already!”
“Stop—help!” Virginia shouted, twisting in his embrace as the hot lamp singed her back. Holmes pulled her hips against his own, but lost his balance as she struggled.
Turning in place as the governess pulled away, his legs became entangled in the long grass; he lurched to catch his balance, dropped the lamp and fell.
Holmes staggered to his knees, crying out as he stooped to retrieve the lamp for in its guttering flame he saw that the black fog had drifted out and clung to the glass.
“Miss James!” he called, looking around. She would never have entered the moringa grove alone, and he would never have considered it himself...before...but the smell had come, and his thoughts had been drowned by the throb of his heart.
There to his left other more wholesome trees grew down to the clearing.
“Virginia. Please, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” Holmes cried out, hurrying in the only direction she could have run. “I was afraid. You mustn’t tell!”
The young man moved briskly past the black trees and climbed the gentle slope before hesitating at the jungle edge where he peered into the darkness, using his pale white hand to direct the lamp’s glare into the wooded gloom.
Had he lost her? Impossible! He imagined the ranger, newly returned, and how the big man would take such news...
This was no time for cowardice!
“You come from a long line of brave Englishmen!” he said to steady his nerve, though his thoughts returned to the governess’ smooth throat. I must have her!
With a final gasp, Holmes stepped between the first small trees, and was soon weaving through the thick undergrowth and tangling creepers that infested the spaces between the many stout trunks.
The looming intensity of the jungle crushed the lamplight to a flickering spark beneath an avalanche of shadow—but he kept on. Starting, stopping and struggling through the brush as the land rose underfoot.
Holmes knew he should call out to Virginia—Miss James—but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t! She wouldn’t believe his intention to help—or his excuses for acting so barbarically.
And he could not drown out the distant voices as the others cried for Lilly.
Captain Seward had never liked Holmes, none of the castaways did...other than Lilly, but she had been such an immature thing—no more than a silly, spoiled little girl.
No wonder he had lost control of himself, and behaved so abominably with her governess. The woman was still fetching despite her maturity, and dressed in the wet cotton nightdress had proved irresistible.
Holmes imagined her body then, the rounded thighs pressing against damp cloth.
“She had no right to refuse me after such an offer!” he hissed, as shadowy images formed in his mind of the woman lying exposed upon the grass, her clothing torn, and defiance dead. He would have her. He had to have her!
“And who is this old maid to turn down Phillip Holmes?” he growled, glancing down, wondering at the chill that had suddenly clasped his ankles.
The black fog had drifted with him into the jungle and was now slithering and sliding against his boots.
“Oh Miss James!” he blurted, terrified, rushing forward, hoping to shake the fog that seemed to dog him yet.
He had to apologize, and he would be wise to do it first, to beg for her forgiveness long before she talked to the others.
...so beautiful and tempting. What man could resist with the wild night all around him.
...and what were her intentions? To be barefoot and showing naked ankle and calf while a young man was near...and the wet clothing? It was like putting an advertisement in a newspaper.
Surely, even the Texan would understand.
Holmes kept on until the dim grew more terrifying than what Captain Seward might do to him for losing Miss James.
So Holmes turned upon his heel to head back to the clearing, but as his lamp swung, its light fell upon something pale.
“Oh my God, Lilly!”
The girl lay in a tangle of dark green ferns and ivy. He had almost trod over her soft feet. She was naked to the waist and her wet night dress was hiked up to reveal her white thighs.
“Oh my...” Holmes breathed huskily, kneeling by the girl. To his left, he saw some remnant of black fog lingering in the lamplight. Among the leaves it curled, and in gentle waves the haze clung to her hips and caressed her bare shoulders.
“God help me,” he said, reaching out to brush the unwholesome stuff aside, and as he did the mist enveloped his wrist, and the action drew his palm and eye toward Lilly’s breasts.
“I’ll reckon you’re feeling her heartbeat,” Captain Seward’s voice snarled from the darkness before he stepped out of the gloom with his gun pointed at Holmes’ sternum. “And save me a bullet.”
“Lilly’s fainted—she’s barely breathing!” Holmes snatched his hand away from the girl and rose to step back. “The fog...something’s wrong with the fog.”
“Wrong’s the right way of putting what I saw, Mr. Holmes. Now, you take another step north and
