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anyone. I’ve often thought it was left out of my character. It’s hard to kill someone when you feel no hatred for him.” He shot Jared a wry glance. “However,
you
don’t suffer from a lack of hate.”
    “No, I have an abundance of it. Enough for both of us.”
    “Yes.” They had come to the longboat drawn upon the sand, and Bradford began to push it into the surf. “Which is why I left the matter in your hands.”
    And everything else, too, Jared thought without resentment. When Bradford had been saddled with a thirteen-year-old orphaned nephew to raise, he had resolved the issue by simply treating Jared as if he were a grown man instead of a boy. Jared had attended his first orgy shortly after arriving at his uncle’s London lodgings and in the following years was never chastised for drunkenness or licentiousness. The one and only beating he’d received was when Bradford had thought he’d ridden one of his horses too hard. He suspected Bradford loved his horses far better than any human being.
    But it was a passion they shared and one that had probably been Jared’s salvation.
    He didn’t have Bradford’s head for liquor and soon found he couldn’t ride in a race while reeling in the saddle from drunkenness; therefore, it was only sensible to embrace moderation. He’d also learned that if you cuckolded too many husbands, you were in danger of becoming ousted from court, where all the interesting racing took place; therefore, liaisons were formed with carefully chosen demimondaines.
    Until tonight.
    He had been right not to pursue the lust he had felt at the moment the girl’s hands had been on him. He had thought himself a jaded womanizer, but she had somehow managed to touch something soft in him. For an instant her loneliness and vulnerability had reminded him of the boy he had been, the boy who had come back from France and used every bit of recklessness and ferocity at his command to hide the pain and desolation. Now that he had found Deville, he could permit no hint of softness to hinder him.
    Besides, virgins could be trouble even in this society, where an untouched state was looked upon only with friendly scorn and amazement. He should be content with the women who swam out to the
Josephine
and offered themselves. Tonight he would rid himself of this lust with Lihua or her sister and forget all about Kanoa.
    And tomorrow he would seek out Deville.
    Lani met Cassie in the stand of trees at the foot of the hill leading to the cottage. “Come quick,” she said as she thrust Cassie’s riding habit at her. “The old woman is pacing like a tiger.”
    Cassie jumped from Kapu’s back, ripped off the sarong, and hurriedly dressed.
    “What kept you so long?” Lani asked.
    Cassie avoided Lani’s glance. “Nothing.”
    Lani’s shrewd gaze narrowed on Cassie’s face. “I think your ‘nothing’ may be ‘something,’ but we have no time to talk now. The old woman has no idea you went to my village. I told her that you hiked up to the volcano to be with your father. She may spit venom but won’t punish you, if you keep silent.”
    “I’ll keep silent.” Cassie pulled on her boots, trying to subdue her exasperation. Such a waste of effort to dress and undress for the benefit of one poisonous woman.
    “You always say that you’ll keep silent,” Lani said, “but you seldom do.”
    “I lose my temper.”
    “And taste the old woman’s sting.” Lani frowned in concern. “Be careful tonight. With your father away I may not be able to save you.”
    Sometimes Lani could not save Cassie from punishment even when her father was at the cottage, butshe always tried. Cassie felt a warm surge of affection as she looked at Lani in her starched blue gown and high-bound hair. Life was probably more difficult for Lani than for herself. After running free on the island until her sixteenth year, Lani had come to her father’s bed and a household ruled by Clara Kidman. Cassie remembered well those first