Winter of the Passion Flower (The de Vargas Family) Read Online Free Page A

her bare arms and
the captain trapped both of her hands in one of his, raising them high above
her head. His moist lips trailed up her neck until his soft breath warmed her
lips.
    “I sense there is much that has been left
unsaid tonight. We will explore that in due course. But first tell me the
significance of our identical tattoos.” He spoke against her mouth. The
vibration of his words on her lips sent delicious shivers shooting downward to
the juncture between her thighs. She leaned away from him, tossing her head and
black curls surrounded him. Indigo freed her arms, linked her fingers behind
his head and snared his legs in the folds of her skirt. His grip loosened as
she moved her mouth back toward his. Their eyes locked, and she moistened her
lips in a slow and sensuous movement. She moved in closer and the captain’s
eyes darkened with anticipation.
    Indigo bit him sharply on the lip as she brought
her knee up hard to his groin. Pushing him away, she spoke coldly. “You will
learn your place in the scheme of things. Do not ever touch me without
invitation. And do not ask questions about things best left unsaid.”
    Before the door slammed behind her, she
watched as he rubbed at his mouth, wiping a small drop of blood off his lip.
    * * * *
    Indigo returned to the viewing room alone
and sat staring into the darkness until the black sea lightened to a dull gray
and the first rays of dawn light crept in from the east. She had not returned
to the Amazon for thirteen years, and she pondered on all the Fates had thrown
at her with the disappearance of her crew and the arrival of Captain Dogooder,
a man to whom she was instantly attracted.
    Her eyes filled with tears as she recalled
her father’s excitement when he left for the final leg of that fateful trip.
The passionflower and its pharmaceutical properties and the moonflower and its
potential for extending human life had formed the basis of a lifetime of research
for him. He had left Indigo alone in Ilo and travelled not only into the
Amazon, but two centuries into the future to find the source of the
passionflower. He had found a wild plantation at the headwaters of the Amazon,
and had also discovered that the healing properties of his beloved
passionflower had increased tenfold over the intervening two hundred years.
    Upset at her father’s refusal to take her
on his trip to the future, Indigo had spent the day in a tattoo parlor,
ensuring the importance of the passionflower to her would be inscribed
permanently for her father to see on his return. She clearly recalled a young
drunken sailor with a Cornish lilt to his slurred voice. He had lain beside her
in the tattoo parlor on that last fateful trip. She had ignored him, and he had
been so drunk, he had paid no attention to the young girl next to him.
    Unfortunately, the Fates decreed her father
never see the magnificent passionflower tattoo on his eldest daughter’s
shoulder. Bandits had waylaid the group as they returned from the expedition.
Professor de Vargas had been buried in the Amazon jungle in 2008, one hundred
and seventy years into the future, leaving Indigo, and her stepsister Sofia,
fatherless.
    “Madame?”
    Indigo jumped when Mr. Grimoult appeared at
her side. She hadn’t heard the ascent of the perambulator.
    “Have you had any sleep?”
    “Just thinking,” she replied. “I have been
thinking of my father and how proud he would have been of our progress.”
    “It was most fortunate we retrieved his
notes from that final expedition, Madame.”
    Indigo reached over and squeezed the older
man’s hand. “It was all thanks to you, Mr. Grimoult. You risked your life to
retrieve his research papers and I am forever in your debt.”
    She stood and spoke briskly. “Now, enough
of this reminiscing. I need to be certain of one thing. Can I trust Captain
Dogooder?”
     

Chapter 2
     
    As the sun rose over the Cornish landscape,
Duke Leopold of Lorca paced around the second mezzanine ring deck of