Mariah's Prize (23 page)

“What is it, ” Gabriel? ” asked Damaris curiously as she looked over his arm at the smudged black fleur-delis.

Without answering he seized the lantern and held it up to the shrubbery behind the bench. The glossy leaves had been bent, the branches carelessly broken by whoever had pushed through them. He swung the lantern lower, and saw the crushed and muddied grass and the deep footprints in the white stones of the path. Drifting from a twig was a torn strip of silver lace and pale blue silk, ripped from the flounced

hem of the wedding gown he’d had made for Ma e riah, the gown she was meant to wear when he made her his wife.

She was going to be his second chance at happiness. Redemption, that’s what Ethan had called her, and instead he felt his whole life crashing in beneath the awful irony. His second chance at happiness was no more than one more time to be beaten by the man who’d stolen his first love.

Dazed, Gabriel was suddenly surrounded by people, his father’s face foremost. His mother had been right. For once the old man did look worried, his bristling black brows drawn together, his mouth grim.

“Gabriel, this boy says what he’s got to tell you won’t keep.”

At first he didn’t recognize the young man with the untied yellow hair that kept falling in his red-rimmed eyes.

“Cap’n Sparhawk, sir, I’m sorry to come to you this way but I’ve grievous news, and you be the one man can help me.”

“Then spit it out, Elisha,” he said tersely, crumpling the paper that told his own misery in his fingers. Elisha Watson, Jenny West’s sweetheart. God in heaven, why did they have to arrive now, with Mariah gone?

“Everything was fine, Cap’n,” began Elisha manfully, “with me and Jen bound together here to wed, and her not suspecting it was your money what done it, just the way you swore it would be.”

Elisha gulped and stared at his feet, and Gabriel waited, giving him the time he needed to recover. Beside him Jonathan swore beneath his breath, and without looking Gabriel knew he’d shamed his father again, without the old man knowing the half of what he’d done to bring Mariah with him on the Revenge. Couldn’t he see that none of that mattered any longer?

“It was pirates, Cap’n, French pirates, the devil take them! They boarded us at night and murdered all the watch and Cap’n Richardson, too. Slit their throats like they was dumb animals, fit only for slaughter! Why they didn’t kill me, I don’t know, but I would’ve died content if it would’ve saved my darling Jen.” Elisha’s voice broke, and Gabriel felt himself tense with the certainty of what would come next. “When I think of Jen with that French bastard, him with the face marked like Satan’s own curse” — “Christian Deveaux,” said Jonathan, his voice flat.

Finally Gabriel raised his gaze to meet his father’s, and held out the paper with the black fleur-delis. “He has Ma-riah, too.”

“Dear Lord, not again!” Damaris clutched desperately at Gabriel’s sleeve, her eyes wide with fear for him.

“Thee must not go, Gabriel, thee must not even consider it! Let the others go, the navy men who can destroy this madman. But not thee!”

Gently Gabriel pulled her hand free of his sleeve, squeezing her fingers to reassure her.

“I must go, Mother. You know I must.”

“But can’t thee see that this is what he wants? This time he will kill thee, Gabriel!” Frantically she turned to her husband, beseeching.

“Thee must stop him, Jonathan. Thee must not let him go!”

Over his mother’s head, Gabriel’s eyes held Jonathan’s, bracing himself for the condemnation that was sure to follow. It was his fault that Deveaux had had the opportunity to capture Mariah and her sister.

He’d known it even before they’d cleared Newport, and now his father did, too. Selfishly he’d put his own wishes before the safety of the West girls, and this had happened. If ever he’d deserved the old man’s rebuke, this was it. Damnation, why didn’t he speak?

Slowly Jonathan reached out to lay his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Your mother’s right, lad. I won’t let you go alone,” he said gruffly.

“Together we’ll find your Ma-riah.”

Fish rotting in the hot sun, long days past being caught, a stench so powerful it could turn the stomach of any but a fisherman. That was what finally woke Mariah. Her eyes had barely opened before she felt her stomach rebel, and she scarcely managed to reach the side of the open boat before she retched. Clinging weakly to the side, she stared at the turquoise water and tried to remember how she’d come to be in a tiny fishing sloop.

“You ‘wake now, lady?” asked a man behind her, his accent thick.

“You sleep two days, two nights, with Gigot’s help. Nice an’ quiet, like lady.” He laughed heartily, pleased with himself.

Her head still spinning, Mariah turned and tried to focus, squinting up at the man squatting against the too-bright sky. He was short but powerfully built, his bare chest and arms thick with muscles beneath a tattered red waistcoat. He wore a tri com that woven from straw, and large brass earrings, and his long sailor’s queue flopped over his shoulder in the wind.

“Who are you?” she rasped, her mouth dry as sand.

“And where are we? I was on Barbados, at West gate Hall.”

The man handed her a wicker-wrapped bottle of water, and she drank eagerly, washing away the sour taste in her mouth.

“No Barbados now, lady. No more English! Now you go to French. You go to Martinique with Gigot.” He struck his chest proudly with his fist.

“I am Gigot.”

“But I don’t want to go to Martinique,” she said plaintively as she returned the water bottle.

“I’m an Englishwoman, and I want to go back to Barbados.”

Using a line for support, she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet, breathing deeply of the fresh Caribbean air. She could just remember being pulled off the bench in Damaris’s garden, her slippers dragging across the dewy grass before someone—apparently Gigot—had finally hauled her up into his arms to carry her as the last bit of her consciousness slipped away before the drug.

Two days, two nights, Gigot had said. What would Gabriel have thought in all that time? Because she had sent him away, he’d be sure to believe that she’d disappeared on her own, the way she had when she’d walked to the Lady Anne. Was he searching somewhere for her now, worrying for her, or was he relieved to find her gone?

Lord, why did she have to love him so much? She looked down at her pale blue gown meant for the wedding, the fragile silk irreparably torn and stained by dirt and salt spray fluttering around her in the breeze, and she forced herself not to think of everything she might have lost. She had survived eighteen years without any assistance from Gabriel Sparhawk, she reminded herself sternly, and there was no reason she should suddenly turn helpless and mewling without him. What mattered now was finding a way to Barbados.

Aft, nearly hidden by the sail, she could see another man at the tiller, dressed much the same as Gigot and listening closely to what the Frenchman said. She’d find no help from him, nor would she have much chance if she jumped over the side. Although like everyone else in Newport’she’d learned to keep afloat as a child, she doubted now she was swimmer enough to make it to either of the islands before them, and she’d no notion of how to sail a boat, even a small boat like this one. She’d simply have to convince these two men to turn about and take her back to Bridgetown.

“No more Englishmen, lady,” repeated Gigot, shaking his head as he, too, rose, his bare feet widespread against the little boat’s roll.

“No more Barbados. Martinique.”

“And I say no more of this Martinique nonsense, Gigot,” said Mariah as firmly as she could in the voice she reserved for recalcitrant bill collectors. “Do you understand that? I don’t know why you’ve carried me off this way or what you hope to gain by it, but if you take me back to Captain Jonathan Sparhawk’s plantation outside of Bridgetown, I’ll see that you’re paid well for your trouble, and no questions asked.”

“No questions? No trouble? Ha, lady, you are trouble! If you don’t go to Martinique with Gigot, Gigot die. No questions!”

“Oh, and I’m the queen of England—or maybe France.” Mariah clicked her tongue with disgusted disbelief. “Why would anyone want to kill you over me?”

Gigot’s round face lost its merriment.

“No anyone. Capitaine Deveaux.”

Mariah shrugged.

“Deveaux? The name means nothing to me, and I can’t imagine why he’d have any interest in me.”

They were steering toward the larger island, toward a cove with a cluster of makeshift buildings near the beach. Beyond Gigot’s shoulder Mariah spotted another fishing boat much like theirs, and quickly she darted across to the lee side, hanging on to the line with one hand while she waved wildly with the other, yelling as loudly as she could.

With a growl Gigot grabbed her by the waist and jerked her down to the deck. In an instant he was astride her, his broad thighs on either side of her hips, her wrists yanked over her head in his grasp and the blade of his knife pressed close against her throat. She tried to inch back, and the blade relentlessly followed, so tight she could feel her heartbeat throbbing against the cool steel.

“I no die for you, lady,” said the man, his mouth twisted with grim determination.

“Capitaine Deveaux wants you, and you go. Mind?”

She was too afraid to speak, too afraid to nod with the blade at her throat and her body pinned beneath his. She thought of the tiny new life she carried within her, Gabriel’s child, and she knew she did not want to die.

When she didn’t answer he jerked her wrists higher and she yelped with the pain.

“Mind me, lady?”

“I’ll mind,” she whispered, and he climbed off her, sheathing his knife.

“Be good,” he warned, “and nobody die.”

Slowly Marian sat upright, hugging her bent knees to her chest as she fought back the tears of frustration. Why would any French captain care enough about her to have her kidnapped and threaten his men with death if she escaped? It made no sense, no sense at all, and she didn’t like not knowing.

And she would get free. She would simply have to be more careful and not act on impulse. She remembered her father’s map of the Windward Islands. Martinique was not so very far from Barbados, perhaps the same distance as Newport was from Providence at home. She had no money, but to her surprise G^got hadn’t robbed her of her pearl bracelets. Surely they were worth enough to buy her passage. If this Deveaux had found Gigot to steal her away, then she could find someone else to steal her back.

She studied the cove as they drew closer to land, noting the arrangement of the buildings near the water, the boats pulled up onto the white sand beneath the coconut palms and the path that disappeared into the heavier vegetation-things she might need to know when she fled.

But the closer they came to the beach, the less the little cluster of buildings looked like the homes of decent fisher folk. The nets that were hung to dry had been stretched out so long in the sun that they’d rotted on their lines, and red-flowered vines curled up through the edges closest to the ground. In the center of the clearing stood a tall pole strung with signal flags, fluttering halfheartedly in the breeze. There were no children or old people, and the only women were three unkempt slatterns sprawled in the shade of . a palm tree, laughing and talking, each with an earthenware jug in her lap.

As Gigot jumped from the boat and guided it the last few feet through the surf to the beach, two men with battered cutlasses and pistols hanging from their belts came from one of the houses to meet them.

Lightly Gigot caught her by the waist and lifted her out of the boat, over the water to the dry sand. But Mariah hung back, her apprehension growing. Though she couldn’t understand their conversation, she knew from the way the other men openly appraised her that she was their subject, and she knew, too, that she’d have little chance of fair dealing with any of them.

One of the women sauntered forward, her skirts looped up over her bare legs and her shift pulled low over her breasts. Her amber-colored eyes narrowed with contempt as she looked at Mariah, then she spat at her feet. Mariah gasped and tried to step back, but the woman reached out and curled her long fingers into one of Mariah’s pearl bracelets to wrench it from her wrist. Instantly Gigot stepped between them and cuffed the woman so hard that she tumbled backward into the sand with a shriek.

“Allez-y, Cici. This one’s Deveaux’s lady.” Unceremoniously he grabbed Mariah by the arm and pulled her after him as he headed toward the path leading into the trees.

“We go now.”

The path was steep and overgrown, and though Gigot went first the long sharp leaves lashed at Marian’s arms and face and shredded her skirts.

With no food in her stomach, she felt light-headed from the climb and the heavy, damp heat, and by the tim they finally reached the clearing her skin was flushed and clammy and she was weaving unsteadily on her feet, dependent on Gigot’s grasp for support.

Before them was the back of a large plantation house, the whitewashed walls rosy in the late-afternoon sun. Obviously familiar with the house and its grounds, Gigot steered Mariah through the outbuildings and gardens toward a bright metallic sound, scraping and clashing. At the door of a walled garden, Gigot paused long enough to take off his that and smooth his hair before, with a deep breath, he threw open the door and led Mariah inside.

The clashing and scraping rose from two men fighting with cutlasses, the curved blades ringing each time they met each other. Though the fight was clearly only practice, Mariah, exhausted as she was, watched, fascinated by the intensity and skill the younger man showed, each thrust and parry calculated and perfect. Equally perfect was the man’s classic profile beneath his snowy wig, and the natural grace of his lean body in the soft ruffled shirt and plum-colored silk breeches.

With a final lunge, the younger man managed to disarm his opponent, catching the other’s cutlass with his blade and tossing it harmlessly onto the grass. He laughed, triumphant, and wiped his face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief while the other man bowed curtly and went to retrieve his weapon. “Monsieur Ie Capitaine,” Gigot said loudly as he shoved Mariah forward.