I tried to tell myself it wasn't going to be so bad. I tried to tell myself we could do it. I tried to tell myself that, after all, this wasn't the first time I had stepped into a jungle, but...

The "but" was the problem.

But back then, we'd had supplies.

But back then, we'd had maps.

But back then, we'd had Karim.

And most of all, back then, we'd been prepared. We'd known what kind of predators we might meet and how to counter them. We'd known the political and geographical situation. We'd had easy access to drinking water, and, last but most certainly not least...

I had not been bloody pregnant!

"Tell me," I wheezed, sinking against a nearby tree trunk to keep myself from collapsing, "whose brilliant...huff, huff...idea was it again to...huff...go to this hellhole called...huff...the Caribbean?"

"I seem to remember you mentioning that 'a nice holiday in the Caribbean would be just the thing right now', Mrs Ambrose."

Crap! Why did he have to have such a good memory?

"Ehem, well..." I cleared my throat. "Let's get going again, shall we? We'd better not waste time talking."

"Indeed, Mrs Ambrose."

I took a last deep breath and, straightening, once again started forward into the jungle. The deeper we ventured into its depth, the more I hated this steaming green hellhole. Even without a corset, the thick dress and several layers of undergarments I was wearing were like a sweat-soaked prison trying to choke me to death. Add to that the weight of Ambrose Junior I was continuously lugging around, and I was not a happy camper.

Blasted jungle!

But then again...I had been in a jungle once before, hadn't I? And back then, I had already discovered an amazing remedy to the sweltering heat.

I smirked.

This jungle was already steaming. Why not make it a little more steamy?

I raised my hand to the top button of my dress.

"No!" an icy growl came from behind me.

I cocked my head, not turning around. "What do you mean? You don't even know what I'm planning to do?"

"I can guess. Don't even think about it."

"Oh don't worry," I assured him. "I've already finished thinking about it. Next comes the doing."

And, with those words, I opened my dress and let it slide down to the ground. Maternity gowns were such a wonderful thing. So loose, and easily disposable.

I heard a gruff, masculine sound from behind me as the dress dropped to the forest floor. Hm...what had it been? A bullfrog with hiccups, maybe?

"Aaah!" Stretching, I gyrated my hips and massaged my back. "That's so much better. Don't you agree, Dicky Darling?"

"Hnngr."

Oh dear, there was this mysterious sound again...

Picking up the dress, I wadded it up into a roll and, with one of the sleeves, tied the bundle together. With a glance back, I smiled at my husband. "Would you like to take off something too, dear? It's amazingly freeing in this heat. Maybe your tailcoat?"

Icy eyes bored into me, very welcome in the miserable heat of the jungle. "No, thank you."

"How about your underpants?"

"No."

Spoilsport.

We continued through the jungle in silence—though not quite the same kind of silence as before. With Mr Rikkard Ambrose's icy stare boring into my swaying derrière from behind, it was quite a bit more...oppressive.

And, incidentally, also so much hotter.

How can an icy glare be hot, you ask?

You've obviously never met Mr Rikkard Ambrose.

I couldn't help but grin.

"You know..." Swaying my hips just a little more, I tapped my chin, deep in thought. "I'm wondering how it would feel if I took off my—"

"There are snakes in this place, Mrs Ambrose. Poisonous spiders. Scorpions intent on crawling all over bare skin."

"You are intent on ruining my fun, aren't you?"

"Completely and utterly."

I decided to keep my clothes on, for now. That had nothing to do with me suddenly feeling mercy for Mr Rikkard Ambrose, or with the heat lessening. No, those matters hadn't changed. Instead, it had more to do with the fact that I knew he wasn't bloody joking about the snakes, spiders and scorpions. Joking? Ha! This was Mr Rikkard Ambrose we were talking about!

Hm...what did roasted scorpion tail taste like, I wonder...?

No! Bad Lilly, bad! Scorpion tails aren't for eating!

Blasted pregnancy cravings!

Repeat after me, Lilly: Do not nibble on scorpions. Do not nibble on scorpions.

For a while, that mental mantra took up quite a bit of my concentration. And by the time the urge to chew poisonous critters faded, I had other problems. Like the growing ache in my legs. And the fiendishly humid air that was more easily to swim in than to breathe. And the bloody heavy bump I was lugging around with me!

Note to self: trekking through the jungle is a lot easier when you aren't pregnant!

Not that I was going to say that out loud, of course. Ha! Not in a million years! Mr Rikkard Ambrose already had enough delusions about the superiority of the male gender. No need to indulge him.

Especially in cases where he might be partially right. God, I wish I was a man right now! Blasted pregnancy!

Ruthlessly squashing down that deplorably unfeminist inner voice, I soldiered on, fighting to ignore the ache in my back and the spasms in my legs.

Ignore it! I told myself over and over again. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore i—

I managed just about two minutes.

"Mrs Ambrose!"

I blinked at the sudden shout behind me. Why did he suddenly sound so panicked? It wasn't like...oh? Strange. Why was I suddenly kneeling on the ground? I didn't remember sitting down. I...

"Mrs Ambrose!"

Thud!

***

The crews of escort ships numbers one and two were not having a good day.

"Where. Are. They?"

"Ehem, well...you see..." The captain took a step backward, away from the bristle-bearded, heavily armed maniac in front of him—until his back bumped against the railing. Briefly, he wondered whether he shouldn't take another step back in spite of this. Surely, the krakens would be preferable company, considering his current conversational partner.

"No," growled the wall of muscle and beard. Was there actually a face behind that? The captain couldn't be sure. "No, I do not see. Which is the problem. I do not see a trace of Ambrose Sahib or his wife anywhere."

The bearded bugger reached down and...holy crap, was he caressing the hilt of a bloody sabre? He was! Suddenly, the captain very much wished for the company of krakens. Who the heck let this man on board?

On the other hand, who would try and stop him?

"They're not here," the captain tried to explain slowly and carefully, just in case it was too difficult of a concept to grasp, "because we haven't found them yet."

"I know." The growl that came from the oversized man he definitely shouldn't have let on his ship made his knees wobble. "What I want to know is why!"

Because omnipresence is a bit above my paygrade?

The captain decided to not say that out loud, however. Despite working for Mr Rikkard Ambrose for quite a while, he wasn't suicidal. Yet.

"We already docked in Santo Domingo once and sent word to Mr Ambrose's local agent," the captain tried to justify himself. "Reinforcements should arrive in a week or two, and they'll surely find—"

"I do not want to know what will happen in a week or two. I do not want to know what the reinforcements will do. I want to know what you are going to do, right here, right now!"

The captain took a deep breath. Was there any reasoning with this blockheaded oaf? (Who probably was a really, really nice guy, who surely wouldn't use his sabre on an innocent seafarer, right?)

"You might not have noticed, but we only have two ships available, and it's a pretty big ocean. They could be anywhere! That is, if they haven't drowned alread—"

The look in the bearded bodyguard's eyes quickly made him clamp his mouth shut.

"What did you say?"

"I, um...was saying they're surely alive! Yes, definitely! But, err...with only two vessels, it's simply going to take a while to find them."

"A while? You had better rethink your approach then, unless—" Suddenly, the big bodyguard broke off. His eyes seemed to go out of focus. It took the captain a moment to realize the mountainous man was staring past him. Slowly, he turned around. With rising dread, the captain's eyes fell on one of the lifeboats hanging behind him.

No! That big, bearded bastard couldn't possibly be planning to—

The bodyguard cocked a bushy eyebrow. "Only two ships, you said?"

"No," said the captain. "Oh no, no, nonononono!"

"Yes!" the bearded mountain said, the grip on his sabre tightening. "Definitely yes!"

***

Dizziness overcame me, and darkness flooded my vision from all sides. I felt myself fall forwards, and the jungle floor rapidly approached my face—when, suddenly, I felt a pair of strong arms come around me from behind.

"What," a cold voice whispered into my ear, "do you think you are doing?"

"Um...falling?"

"I can see that." There was a moment of silence. Then... "We will make camp."

"But we haven't found any water yet! I can still go on! I—"

"We. Will. Make. Camp."

I decided not to continue arguing after that. Mostly because my head was still swirling like a spinning top. It's rather difficult to continue marching forward when you can't distinguish forward from up or down anymore.

"Bloody hell!" I muttered, clutching my head.

"Are you feeling ill? What's wrong?"

"N-no, I'm perfectly fine, I—"

Suddenly, the ground swayed, and I found myself face-first in a fern. Blinking, I looked up at Mr Rikkard Ambrose.

"Oops?"

He did not look amused.

"You." He stabbed a finger at me. "Sit!"

"Oy! I'm not a dog!"

"I know." He turned around and started clearing an area of ground. "I have two of those, and they usually do as they are told."

"Hey!"

"Sit!" He repeated. "I'll erect the camp."

I opened my mouth to argue—then shut it again. It was only just then that I realized it would probably be best if we did stop now. The sun was fast sinking beyond the trees, far quicker than I was used to from jolly old England, and once it was dark, we would hardly be able to see our own feet, let alone the path ahead.

It wasn't long before he had cleared a spot of forest floor and set up a campfire. A few more minutes, and merry flames were flickering between the trees, even as raindrops started to fall from above. He pulled out the crabs from his makeshift bag of folded leaves, and broke off a branch as a makeshift skewer.

I hesitated for a moment...

Darn it! I swore to myself I wasn't going to do this again!

...then reached out to help him.

Bloody hell!

So what if cooking was a horror straight from hell? We were in this together! I wasn't just going to let him do all the work alone!

Or at least that's what I thought. Before my fingers could even reach the food, a hand clamped around my wrist.

"Don't." A pair of deep, dark, fathomless eyes met mine.

"But—"

"Sit," he ordered, pushing me down against a moss-covered tree. Without really meaning to, I sagged against it, only now realizing how exhausted I'd really been. "Rest."

"But—"

"That is an order, Mrs Ambrose."

One corner of my mouth quirked up. "Order as in the orders that, if given to me, you promised I would never have to obey?"

One muscle in his cheek twitched. "Yes. Exactly."

"Ah." Nodding happily, I leaned back against the tree. "Just checking."

Soon, the meat was sizzling over the campfire, making me salivate. An impressive feat, considering we were on water rationing, and I'd hardly drunk anything all day.

"There you go."

He handed me one of the skewers. Greedily, I started chomping down on the deliciousness that was crab meat. It hardly took two minutes before all of it was gone, and I sank back against the tree with a satisfied sigh. Judging by the bulge of my belly, I had suddenly jumped from around twenty weeks pregnant to thirty weeks. Wasn't I an amazingly efficient mother?

"Come here."

An arm came around my shoulder and I felt myself being pulled against a familiar, solid chest, sheltered under the overhanging branches of an old tree. My eyes started to drift shut—that is, until I felt Mr Rikkard Ambrose's hand sliding up my leg.

Holy...! Is he going to—?

Then his fingers started to move.

--------------------------------------------------------------

My dear Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Just so you know, Crabs are not normally roasted on skewers, at least not in the Caribbean. There are much better ways of preparing them, but I am sticking with Mr Rikkard Ambrose being no expert in the subject of Caribbean cuisine.

Yours Truly

Sir Rob