Mariah's Prize

mari ah prize by miranda jarrett

Miranda Jarrett is an award-winning designer and art director whose writing combines her love of history and reading. Her travels always include visits to old houses and historical restorations. Miranda and her husband, a musician, live near Philadelphia with their two small children and two large cats. She is still trying to work out how to juggle writing, working and refereeing disputes among pre-schoolers in the sand pit

Recent titles by the same author:

STEAL THE STARS COLUMBINE

Ml LLS BOON

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Miranda Jarrett is an award-winning designer and art director whose writing combines her love of history and reading. Her travels always include visits to old houses and historical restorations. Miranda and her husband, a musician, live near Philadelphia with their two small children and two large cats. She is still trying to work out how to juggle writing, working and refereeing disputes among pre-schoolers in the sand pit

Recent titles by the same author:

STEAL THE STARS COLUMBINE

MILLS BOON

For Jake, as always, with much love

DID YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK WITHOUT A COVER?

If you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was reported unsold and destroyed by a retailer. Neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this book.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.

V.

The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

MILLS & BOON and MILLS & BOON with the Rose Device are registered trademarks of the publisher.

First published in Great Britain 1999 Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

Susan Holloway Scott 1994 ISBN 0263 81921 3

Set in Times Roman JO’/z on 12 pt. 04-0001 80672 Printed and bound in Spain by Litografia Roses S.

A.

” Barcelona

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Crescent Hill, Aquidneck Island The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations June 1744

i <, I’ll lay you five guineas that the Spaniards have captured Newport! “

Gabriel Sparhawk didn’t answer. He stood at the open window with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the bright glow from the flames in the distance against the soft gray dusk and the smoke drifting out across the bay.

Men seldom ignored Anjelike. Impatiently she slid her hand beneath Gabriel’s shirt, her fingers spreading across the broad muscles of his back as she pressed her body to his.

“If the Spanish are here, then I couldn’t possibly sail tomorrow,” she murmured.

“But I’d be safe enough here with you to protect me, wouldn’t I, my pretty, brave Captain Sparhawk?”

“No Spaniard’s ever shown his long nose this far north, Anjelike, and they won’t come now, not even for the chance to ravish you.” Deftly Gabriel eased himself away from her and walked to the sideboard to refill his goblet. Even with every window thrown open to catch the breeze from the water, the room was hot, and his gold-haired mistress did little to cool the evening air. In New York, when he’d been a guest of her husband, he’d been too intent on bedding Anjelike to notice how much scent she wore, but after a week of her company in his own home, he was weary of her and of attar of roses, and thankful he’d soon be rid of them both.

“The Spaniards are done, and so is their war.”

“Don’t scorn the Spaniards, Gabriel,” said Anjelike, pouting as she twisted her fingers in the double strand of pearls around her throat.

With studied carelessness she let her dressing gown slip lower over her bare shoulders.

“You’ve made your fortune from their war.”

Gabriel only shrugged. From the Holland cambric of his shirt to the wide, polished floorboards beneath his feet, every inch of Crescent Hill and everything in it had come from his success in this war. In three years, twenty-six Spanish merchant ships had struck their colors to him, more than to any other English privateer in the Caribbean.

He’d been exorbitantly lucky and he knew it, and if there was any justice in the world he should have been equally content. He was nearly thirty-three, and God knows he shouldn’t expect much more from life. But the peace he’d sought when he’d left the sea two years ago still eluded him, and nothing—not his grand new house, not the procession of lovely, willing women like Anjelike—nothing eased the restless emptiness that still ate at his soul.

“I’m not scoffing at the Spaniards, sweetheart, only at the notion that they’re here burning Newport,” he said lightly, as the brandy splashed into the heavy blown glass.

“More likely it’s just the pipe of some drunken journeyman, set fire to his master’s warehouse. I’ll see you off tomorrow on the packet as we planned, and you’ll be back in Hempstead by week’s end. Any longer, you know, and your husband might come looking for that grievously ill friend you’ve been visiting.”

“Oh, fah on Heinrick!” Anjelike sniffed disdainfully.

“That fat old man wouldn’t lift his nose out of his counting house if I’d taken myself off to Paris and back in nothing more than my shift!”

Because he’d heard it all before, Gabriel only half listened, staring out again at the fiery glow on the horizon. There, his ears hadn’t mistaken it, the sound of a tired horse coming up the long, crushed-shell drive to the front of the house. He wasn’t expecting any guests—he seldom chose to entertain, anyway—and Crescent Hill was too far from town for casual visitors. He traced one finger along the lip of the goblet, considering the more interesting possibilities.

Perhaps the Spanish had landed in Newport, after all.

He strained to sort out the voices below as Ethan, the old seaman he kept on as a kind of steward, opened the door to the newcomer, argued with him and then slowly climbed the stairs to the upstairs chamber.

“What man is it, Ethan?” Gabriel asked before Ethan, out of breath from the stairs, could announce himself.

“Someone with news of the fire?”

The old man didn’t answer at first, instead glancing warily at the tall blond woman in the pearls and dressing gown and little else.

Self-consciously he wiped his palms along the front of his old-fashioned leather vest.

“Not exactly, Cap’n,” he hedged, “tho’ I told th’ party you was engaged.”

“Engaged!” Gabriel laughed.

“For all love, Ethan, since when did you become so ovemice? Give the man a dram for riding out, and double if he can tell me of the fire.”

“I’m not a man. Captain Sparhawk,” said the girl in

Ethan’s broad shadow, “and I don’t want your rum. I want you.”

She spoke without hesitation or timidity, and Gabriel smiled at her boldness. He couldn’t help it, not with a girl who sounded so brave.

And young. Though her face was still lost in the shadows of the hallway, the light from the candles in the room washed over her small figure, a figure with a ripe lushness that not even her serviceable woolen gown could conceal. So she wanted him. He wondered if she realized how such a request could be misconstrued. Or maybe she did know, for all her youth, and his smile widened.

“Send the chit away, Gabriel,” said Anjelike peevishly. “The creature should be home with her mother, not shamelessly annoying gentlemen in their homes.”

The girl made an abrupt noise of disgust in the back of her throat and impatiently pushed past Ethan.

“I’m no chit, ma’am, any more than you look to be the lady of this house to go about giving orders!”

Gabriel could see the girl’s face clearly now, black curls beneath her hood, full cheeks, a small chin, blue eyes and thick lashes and brows that arched in perpetual surprise, her whole face so much like Catherine’s, his Catherine’s, that he felt the shock like a sharp, physical blow.

“I’m a greater lady than you’ll ever be, you impudent little slut!”

Anjelike pulled the gown over her shoulders and drew herself imperiously straight.

“I’ll see that you’re whipped for all your froward airs, see if I don’t, and then” — “Enough.” Gabriel’s voice cut through the woman’s shrillness with all the authority of the quarterdeck. “Ethan, Madame van Riis is retiring now. See that she has whatever she needs in her room.

Pleasant dreams, Anjelike. Mind we leave at four bells in the morning.

“

With a final, murderous glance at the girl, Anjelike swept through the doorway in a rush of satin, followed by a baleful Ethan. Gabriel forced himself to look again at the girl before him. He sought differences now, desperate for anything in her face that would reassure him that he hadn’t lost his mind. He was a man who believed in reason, not superstition, and certainly not in ghosts.

“Captain Sparhawk?”

The girl was more nervous than he’d realized, her small, pale hands, still marked from clutching the reins, twisting uneasily in her skirts at her sides. Catherine would never have ridden this far alone at night, and she never would have entered any gentleman’s house unattended, nor with splatters of mud on her hem. This girl’s coloring was more vibrant, too, her lips and cheeks rosier, her expression more animated than Catherine’s languid, hothouse beauty.

Nay, the more he studied her, the more the resemblance faded elusively away, and Gabriel wondered how he’d seen it at all. Perhaps the wine or some trick of the candlelight, or perhaps only his wistful conscience, still, longing for another chance that would never come in his lifetime.

“Captain Sparhawk, sir? Are you unwell?”

Damnation, he was behaving like a bloody bedlamite! Swiftly Gabriel shook off the last of his melancholy and held his hand out to her. She hesitated, staring at his outstretched hand before she finally lay her fingers across his palm and let him lead her across the room to the two cane-backed armchairs before the open window. But though she stood before the offered chair, she wouldn’t sit, watching him warily like a bird about to take flight.

He sauntered around his own chair and leaned his elbows carelessly across the carved back. He wanted to redeem himself, and with a chair between them for safety she might feel more at ease.

“I am, ma’am, completely at your service,” he said softly, and let his smile say the rest. It was usually enough for most women. From Gabriel’s father had come that smile, along with his black hair and green eyes and the height and breadth that set him apart from other men.

“You say you have need of me?”

“Of your services, yes.” She’d blushed prettily when he smiled, the way he’d expected, but her resolute gaze didn’t falter, and she held her own with him just as she had with Anjelike.

“Two days ago I saw my father buried.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t” — “Nay, I didn’t come here for your sympathy!” she said fiercely. Her chin rose a notch higher, enough for Gabriel to see her throat work against the tears she wouldn’t shed before him.

“My father is—was—a shipmaster. Captain Sparhawk, same as yourself, and all my family’s fortunes are bound to his vessel. If my mother and sister are not to become paupers, I must find a new captain for his sloop. And I want you. Captain Sparhawk.”

“Why me?”

“Because you wouldn’t fail me.” Her voice became steady again, determined, and impatiently she shoved back the hood of her cloak, letting her unbound hair spill out over her shoulders.

“Because you know every thieving Spaniard’s lair in the Caribbean, and I could trust you to bring the sloop and her cargo home safe to Newport again.”

“A handsome enough arrangement for you, lass, but where’s the gain in it for me?” He wanted to run his fingers through that silky dark hair, lift it from her pale throat and kiss her, there, on the softest skin beneath her ear.

“You’ll have the standard captain’s shares, plus two more of my own, and of course you can add whatever private venture to the cargo you wish.”

“Of course,” Gabriel repeated dryly. He’d owned his last three commands outright. The only time he’d worked for shares had been when he still sailed for his father.

“You’re most generous.”

Happily unaware, she bobbed her head in acknowledgment.

“You won’t find a faster vessel in Newport harbor,” she said proudly.