Mariah's Prize (22 page)

The twenty-third of August, her wedding day. She would always remember it now. She wondered where the summer had gone, how the days had slipped by so effortlessly since the June night when she’d met Gabriel. Beneath his spell on board the Revenge she’d had no sense of time passing at all, not until Jonathan had mentioned the date at breakfast yesterday. The twenty-third of August meant her courses were sixteen days late, and because she was never late, she didn’t doubt that the fervent prayer she’d made for Daniel had instead been answered with Gabriel.

She closed her eyes and tentatively lay her hands across her belly.

She felt no different, looked no different, yet her life was irrevocably changed. She had wanted so much to tell Gabriel tonight, but this way was better. This way he couldn’t say she’d trapped him into the marriage that neither of them wanted. She tried to imagine what their child would look like and couldn’t. Dear God, how could she bear the child of a man who’d never once said he’d loved her?

She gasped with surprise when the sweet-smelling cloth was pressed tightly over her nose and mouth. She tried to cry out and only inhaled more of the odd fumes, and when she struggled to push aside the hand that held the cloth her fingers were clumsy and weak. Fleetingly she thought again of Gabriel, and then without a fight she slipped headlong into the waiting darkness.

Jenny sat on the narrow cot with her feet curled up beneath her to keep clear of the centipedes and large black beetles that crawled from the damp walls and scurried across the stone floor. The grid of sunlight that filtered through the single high window had shifted far enough across the opposite wall so that she knew it was late afternoon. By the time she counted to one thousand, the crippled woman would come with her dinner and fresh water for the bucket in the corner. Only four days had Jenny been here, and already she’d learned to pass the hours with such small diversions, to try to keep her mind as blank as the walls before her so the horror of remembering wouldn’t swallow up what remained of her sanity.

Dear God, there was so much she wanted to forget! There had been more bodies tumbled across the Felicity’s deck, the bodies of Newport men she’d talked and laughed with on the voyage now silent forever with their throats slit like their captain’s. Below the deck the horses that were the brig’s cargo had neighed and kicked wildly against the bulkheads, panicked by the scent of the fresh blood that soaked the decks. It seemed to Jenny that she and the horses were the only things the Frenchmen had left living on board, and as the longboat had pulled away from the Felicity’s side she had felt the same terror that had made the animals scream and plunge.

Jenny curled herself more tightly on the straw-filled mattress, fighting the remembered panic all over again. At least the horses had had each other for company. None of the Frenchmen spoke English except for their leader, the gentleman with the scarred face, and once he’d seen Jenny seated securely between two burly oarsmen, he’d turned his face toward his own ship and ignored her completely, just as he had since they’d brought her to his plantation and locked her in this cellar. The other men, often clearly drunk, came to peer at her through the grated window and make gestures and suggestions that were unmistakable in any language, and each time Jenny caught herself thinking indignantly what Elisha would say to them for treating her like this. But then she’d remember that Elisha was dead, and the pain of her loss was so sharp that she wished they’d killed her, too.

Jenny looked up as she heard the footsteps in the hallway outside. It was too soon for the woman with her supper, and besides, she never wore shoes or boots. This sounded like a man, no, two men, maybe more, and fear rose in her throat. All they’d taken from the Felicity had been poor Captain Richardson’s strongbox and her. Maybe now she’d learn why she’d been valued as much as the gold, but as the key scraped in the lock, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, after all. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” said the man with the scarred face, bowing from the waist with his cocked that tucked under his arm. He smiled cheerfully at Jenny, as if they were old friends meeting on the street, as if the two other huge, bearded men with pistols and swords on their belts weren’t lurking in the hallway behind him, staring coldly, hungrily at Jenny. “Forgive me for being an inattentive host, ma cher,” he continued. “My time, alas, has not been my own these last days. But we shall talk now, shall we not?”

He nicked his hand with the cabachon ring, and a servant scurried into the room with a carved armchair. Without bothering to make sure the chair was anywhere but behind him, the man nipped up the skirts of his coat and sat, his legs crossed with careless elegance. Gently he waved his that back and forth before his face like a fan, the silk eyelash trimming along the brim fluttering with the motion.

“I have nothing to say to you,” said Jenny, her wavering voice betraying her as she tried hard to sound scornful and aloof.

“I don’t speak to pirates.”

“And I don’t, as a rule, speak to filthy, ill-bred English chits.” He was careful to keep the scarred side of his face turned away from her.

“But since I’m not a pirate, I’m willing to overlook your lack of breeding.”

“If you’re not a pirate, I don’t know who is!” She twisted her fingers in the edges of her skirt and willed herself not to cry.

“By English law you’d be strung up and rotting at the mouth of a harbor for what you did to Captain Richardson alone! And for the others… the others…” She faltered when she remembered Elisha.

The Frenchman sighed impatiently.

“I sail for my own king, mademoiselle, not that I owe you any explanations. I don’t bow my head to any Englishman’s law. And I’d advise you to remember such things before I tire of your whining and listen instead to my men. I am your only protector, you know.” He lifted his hand with the same airy, dismissive gesture that had ended Richardson’s life.

“My men wouldn’t be as particular. I doubt they’d even grant you choice of which one took you first—though after the tenth man or so you’d likely be beyond caring.”

Sickened, Jenny knew he was telling the truth.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“Why didn’t you kill me at once like the rest?”

“What I want, mademoiselle, is to hear all you know about an old friend of mine.” He leaned back in the chair and set his that in his lap, making a little tent of his fingers on the black beaver crown.

“A

privateer like myself, but from your town of Newport, sailing for your fat Hanover king. Gabriel Sparhawk, oui? Captain Richardson assured me that you know him most intimately. “

“I don’t know him at all,” said Jenny anxiously. How could her fate depend on Captain Sparhawk?

“I’ve never met him—never even seen him!

It’s my sister he fancies, not me. I swear to you I don’t know anything! “

“You know more than you realize, ma cher,” he said easily, bouncing his fingertips together.

“The name of his ship, perhaps?”

“Oh, of course I know that, because the Ship belongs to my mother and Mariah and me,” said Jenny with relief.

“It’s the sloop Revenge, bound for Barbados and then to cruise the Caribbean. Eighty-two men, twelve guns. She’s the first privateer out of Newport against the French, and Mariah and Captain Sparhawk just outfitted her so everything’s new and fresh.”

“So Richardson said, too. Between the two of you, you must be telling the truth.” Watching her closely, he forgot to keep his head turned, and the sunlight from the grate fell harshly across the scar.

“But I would have you tell me more, little Jenny. Tell me of your sister. Is she in love with Sparhawk, or better yet, is he in love with her?”

Confused, Jenny shook her head.

“I don’t know. I believe Mariah is fond of him and he of her, but I cannot say if they love one another.”

“Of course she is in love with him. Every woman he meets falls under his spell,” he said harshly, all pretense of good humor gone.

“They’re all panting, eager slatterns for the brave, handsome Captain Sparhawk, like the cock in the barnyard with his choice of willing companions!”

“Not Mariah!” exclaimed Jenny, too indignant to be afraid.

“Why should your sister be any different, eh? He smiles at her, he calls her pretty love names, and she will spread her legs for him like every other little English whore.”

“You’ve no right to say such things about Mariah! I know my sister, and she’d never lie with a man who wasn’t her husband, especially not one so old as Captain Sparhawk.” She raised her head, wounded for her sister’s sake.

“It’s most impertinent of you to say such things of any lady, particularly when she’s my sister!”

He stared at her, his pale eyes cold and his mouth set, until with a conscious effort he forced his features to relax and once again turned his profile toward her.

“You are right, mademoiselle,” he said.

“Pray forgive me. You have been most cooperative, and deserving of better from me.”

Gracefully he rose to his feet, and the servant hurried forward to take the chair. He glanced around the bare cellar room as he settled his that on his flawlessly powdered wig, and when he smiled at Jenny, she shrank back, suddenly more frightened than she’d been since he’d appeared at her door.

“You’re lonely, aren’t you, ma cher?” he asked with false, suggestive concern. “You need companionship. You are too young to relish this solitude, non?”

“No—I mean, yes.” Panicking, Jenny remembered the company he’d suggested before, and swiftly shook her head.

“I’m happy enough. Truly.”

“Happy, are you? Then you’re as false as every other of your sex. Jenny, shedding empty tears for your dead lover.”

“That’s not true! I loved Elisha, and you killed him!”

He smiled again, pleased.

“So, perhaps, I did.”

“I hate you,” said Jenny vehemently through the tears, real tears she couldn’t contain.

“I don’t even know your name, but you killed my Elisha, and for that I’ll always hate you!”

“My name is Capitaine Christian Saint-Juste Deveaux,” he said softly.

“And as for hating me—ah, ma petite, I’ve scarce begun to give you reasons for that.”

“Mariah?” Gabriel’s heels crushed the ground white stones of the path as he walked swiftly through his mother’s garden. Damn that simpering servant girl for letting Mariah escape! He didn’t really expect to find her in the garden where she’d said she’d be. In the strange mood-she’d been in, she’d probably struck out for Bridgetown and the Revenge by now, determined to leave him standing like ,a solitary idiot before the minister.

But she wouldn’t get far. He’d seen to that. First he’d checked the stables to make sure she hadn’t taken a horse, then he’d sent servants with lanterns down the road to town. With luck they’d haul her back before any of his parents’ guests were the wiser. “Mariah? Mariah, damn your foolishness!” Barbados wasn’t Aquidneck, and Bridgetown wasn’t Newport. He thought she’d learned as much after the scene at the Lady Anne. She’d no business wandering around this island unattended, especially not in pearl bracelets and a silk gown.

Desperate thieves and rogue sailors, runaway slaves and brothel procuresses—didn’t she realize the danger she’d be courting wandering about on her own? Likely she’d risk it all, he told himself grimly, and gladly, too, if it meant she didn’t have to marry him. Had she really come to hate him that much?

“Mariah!”

“Thee hasn’t found her yet, Gabriel?” asked Damaris. The lantern she carried illuminated the concern on her face. “Thee has been searching for nearly an hour.”

“Oh, aye, and doubtless Father’s had to make excuses to his friends, hasn’t he?” Wearily Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair. Four years he’d been gone, and it might have been yesterday, the way he’d slipped into exactly the same old patterns with his family. “I can hear him now.

“Blast it all, the bride’s cut and run, but who can blame her, with the prospect of my wastrel, blaggard son for her groom?”

“Hush, Gabriel, thee is being unjust. Thy father would never speak thus of thee, not on this night. He’s as worried as I am.” She sat on the teakwood bench and hooked the lantern on her arm, the neat efficiency of her movements peculiarly comforting to Gabriel. Among the things that hadn’t changed in his family was his mother, the only constant peace in the Sparhawk storm, and for that alone he’d always be grateful.

“Thee mustn’t concern thyself with the others. If they’ve noticed the delay at all, they’ve decided it’s no more than maidenly reluctance on Mariah’s part, quite proper.”

“Reluctance! Damnation, Mother, Mariah would rather run off among the snakes and sugarcane than marry me!” He struck his fist against the trunk of the cedar beside the path, wondering how he’d make her understand.

“A fortnight ago she said she loved me, and now she can’t bear to be in the same room with me! I know it’s Father’s fault, I know he’s gotten to her and told her”

“Gabriel, sweet, thee has lost thy senses,” said Damaris firmly.

“Listen to me. Thy father has said nothing to Ma-riah. Not a word, mind thee? Besides, the poor child loves thee too much to believe anything ill said of thee.”

“Then why did she leave?”

“Perhaps it’s thy own doing, Gabriel. For a man who is so fond of women’s company, thee is still quite ignorant of their feelings. Has thee ever told Mariah that thee loves her in return?”

“For God’s sake. Mother, surely she must know that!”

“She won’t unless thee has told her. She’s very young, Gabriel, and frightened, too, of what thee has made her feel. She’ll be back, and she’ll wed thee, but she needs to be told that thee cares for her, that thee loves her above all others.” She smiled sadly and held her hand out to him.

“As thee does, my sweet lad, doesn’t thee?”

She shifted sideways on the bench, her plain silk skirts rustling, and patted the seat beside her to encourage him to join her. With a sigh, he dropped down on the bench. “Mariah’s different. Mother, though I can’t” —He stopped abruptly, his eye caught by a flutter of white in the grass at his mother’s feet. Frowning, he plucked up the paper and unfolded it beside the lantern.