Mariah's Prize (27 page)

Wounded or dead, he’d be of little help to Mariah.

“Where is she, Deveaux? You have me now. That’s what you wanted. Where are the two women?”

“I told you I don’t know.” Without taking his eyes from Gabriel, Deveaux picked up the sword and stood.

“Your little bonne femme and her sister have flown away without any assistance from either one of us.”

Gabriel watched the other man closely. He’d heard how badly he’d wounded Deveaux in their last fight, but this was the first time he saw the scars for himself. No wonder there was more than a touch of madness to the man now, and no wonder, too, his own reputation had survived so well the years in Newport with an advertisement like Deveaux’s twisted face still in the Caribbean.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why indeed?” Deveaux shrugged his velvet-covered shoulders.

“At first I didn’t believe Rivera, either, when he claimed they’d escaped from his keeping. Such little girls, to defeat a man like Rivera! But he kept to his story with his dying breath, so I suppose we must give credence to it. Certainement, with your ship as brazen as a signboard on the horizon, I was sure that you’d come for them—until now, of course.”

“Damn you, Deveaux,” said Gabriel quietly, almost conversationally, as if a gun in the hands of a man who hated him weren’t pointed at his heart, as if he weren’t furious over what could have happened to Mariah and Jenny. It was, he knew, his only recourse for dealing with Deveaux. “Two young women, wandering unguided in the jungle.”

“Oh, it’s a terrible waste, I’ll agree.” Deveaux sighed dramatically as his pale eyes glinted with pleasure. “Pretty little creatures, your two. I’d rather anticipated displaying their newly learned … accomplishments for you. But at this time of year the fer-de-lance—a serpent, you know, found nowhere else but my little island—is at its most poisonous, and that’s only if the two-legged snakes of Martinique don’t find the ladies first. In my distress over Rivera’s failure, I fear I may have offered a bounty on their recapture, with no stipulations as to condition upon return.”

Gabriel fought the impulse to lunge at Deveaux and throttle him outright for what he’d done to Mariah and her sister. He remembered the chains on the bed in the other cell and the stories of how Deveaux, his handsome face destroyed, could no longer bear to leave any other’s beauty unmarked. Desperately he tried not to think of Mariah in his hands. Not his sweet poppet, her creamy, flawless skin as fine as China silk, as soft as cut velvet, and the way her round, high breasts quivered when she lay naked on his pillows and laughed at some silly jest.

With enormous effort he kept all emotion from his voice.

“If you have harmed her, Deveaux,” he said slowly, “I’ll make you beg for death before I’m done with you.”

But Deveaux only laughed, the sound echoing with eerie distortion down the hallway.

“Brave words from a man in your situation, Sparhawk. What would you do to me, eh? Carve the other side of my face like a feast-day pheasant? Maim me, dismember me, by way of a prettier punishment?”

“Return my sword,” said Gabriel evenly, “and I’ll see what ideas present themselves.”

“Won, mon ami, you have already done your worst to me. But you, ah, you still have so much to lose. If she still lives, if you survive, would your little girl love you as much without your handsome face? If your body were broken and bent, would she still seek your bed? Would she want a husband who was less than a man? What I mean to offer you, Sparhawk, is a chance to test your love.”

Abruptly he turned and thrust Gabriel’s sword into the straw-filled mattress behind him, leaving the blade swaying gently back and forth beneath the weight of the hilt. Deveaux stared at it, his eyes focused on the heart-shaped guard of the hilt. With a twist of his hand, his men stepped forward to roughly bind Gabriel’s wrists.

If she still lives, if you survive. Deveaux’s words mocked Gabriel as the tarred cords cut into his skin. From the moment he’d met Mariah, he’d longed for the second chance at love and happiness that only she could give him. Had it really all come down to this?

A chance to test his love. It was nearly dawn when the little boat

that Diego Figaroa had hired finally bumped against the steep side of the Revenge, but Mariah was the first to climb up the swaying rope ladder and clamber onto the deck, the tattered remnants of her silk gown fluttering around her.

“Ethan!” She threw her arms around his shoulders with a joyful whoop, ignoring his embarrassment.

“Oh, Ethan, I can scarcely believe I’m back!”

“And happy we are to see ye, miss,” declared Ethan as belatedly he pulled off his knitted cap, “delivered back to us all sound an’ safe.”

She laughed, feeling like a true prodigal who’d finally returned, and beneath her feet the Revenge’s swaying deck did feel like home, in a way more than Newport itself. Crowding all around her were familiar faces, surprised and wondering in the lantern light to see her back, and she hadn’t realized how very much she’d missed them all. But the face she wanted most to see wasn’t among them.

Her smile fading, she disentangled herself from Ethan.

“Where’s Captain Sparhawk, Ethan?”

“Captain Sparhawk?” Ethan’s discomfort was unmistakable.

“Eh, he’s below, miss. But miss” — “I’ll surprise him myself,” Mariah said quickly. Whatever that “but” had begun could wait until she was alone with Gabriel. She turned to help Jenny, climbing uncertainly over the rail with the assistance of two admiring sailors and followed by Figaroa.

“This is my sister, Ethan, Miss Jenny West. You know she’s as much the Revenge’s owner as I am, if you can bear two of us on board. And this is Mr. Figaroa, who saved our lives and brought us here tonight.”

“Eh, Miss Jenny!” Grateful for a distraction, Ethan beamed and touched his forehead.

“The one what Elisha’s always a-sighin’ and a-moonin’ after! At least to see ye now, I’ll grant the boy’s got reason enough for being’ addled!”

Jenny’s smile seemed so shaky that Mariah was certain she’d cry.

“You knew Elisha?”

Ethan nodded fondly.

“Knew him, know him, aye, how couldn’t I, miss, when the poor moonstruck whelp’s been underfoot every minute since the cap’n brung him aboard?”

“Aboard here? Now?” Slowly Jenny shook her head, not daring to believe what she was hearing.

“But I saw him struck dead on the Felicity.”

“Struck he was, miss, an’ still got the knot to prove it,” said Ethan.

“But dead he ain’t, not by half. He’s the one what came to the cap’n an’ told him Deveaux had you for prisoners.

“Course he ain’t here right now, but he’s alive, no mistake.”

“Elisha’s alive? Alive, you say? Oh, thank you, thank you!” Weeping now with happiness. Jenny flung her arms around Ethan, and for the second time that night he found himself awkwardly supporting one of his owners.

“Praise God, Elisha’s alive!”

Stunned, Mariah knew that somehow, some way, Gabriel had done this, had brought Elisha back from the dead and onto this ship for Jenny.

No, he had done it for her, Mariah, the same as he’d come after her to rescue her. No matter what he’d done in the past, he’d always come back, just as he’d promised. Now that she was finally here, she couldn’t bear another moment apart from him.

Quickly she slipped away from the others and ran down the steps of the companionway to the cabin. Remembering all the things that she and Gabriel had done in that cabin made her breathless with anticipation, and without knocking she threw open the door and rushed into the arms of Gabriel’s father.

“Ah, lass, so you’re safe after all,” said Jonathan, trying to smile as he politely overlooked her stammering apology.

He was leaning heavily for support on Gabriel’s desk where he’d been sitting when she’d surprised him, his shirt rumpled and his jaw grizzled from a long, sleepless night.

“But then you’re looking to hear that from my son, not me. I’d hoped it was his boat when I heard your hail.”

He didn’t have to explain to Mariah. Already she knew what had happened.

“I’m too late, aren’t I?”

With an exhausted groan Jonathan dropped back into Gabriel’s chair, running his fingers through his long white hair.

“The thought of you in Deveaux’s hands drove Gabriel nigh mad, and he had to go after you.

He never dreamed you’d find a way to free yourself. Damnation, why couldn’t you trust him long enough to stay put? “

“I wasn’t sure he’d come,” she whispered miserably.

“Not after the night of the wedding. Not after I’d sent him away.”

“You sent him away? For God’s sake, Mariah, the boy loves you more than his own life!” said Jonathan harshly, striking the desk with his fist.

“He never told me!” she cried defensively.

“Not once has he ever said he loved me!”

He stared as her coldly.

“Maybe you weren’t listening.”

Too numb to speak, Mariah looked down at the deck. Strangely she could hear the same words in her mother’s voice and the disappointment behind them.

Jonathan sighed and slumped back in the chair.

“Ah, it’s no matter now. Gabriel’s clever enough. Likely he had to lay low for a spell on the island when he found you’d flown, and he’s on his way back to us now.”

“Nay, senor,” said Figaroa from the open doorway.

“If he’s not back by now, then Deveaux’s got him. No use pretending otherwise.”

Jonathan glared at him.

“Who the hell are you?”

Figaroa drew his shoulders back, appraising Jonathan.

“A friend of Sparhawk’s, senor. That’s enough for you to know.”

“No friend of my -son would be calling me senor,” declared Jonathan.

“You’re one of those damned guardacostas, those Spanish thieves sailing out of Cartagena, aren’t you? Pirates, that’s what you are, more of the same lot my son’s been trying for the last five years to clear out of these waters.”

“And a pretty profit he’s made doing it, hasn’t he, senor?” Figaroa’s sly grin flashed white against his black beard.

“Spanish do lars in his pockets, English guineas in mine. Guardacosta, privateer or pirate, only our flags mark the differences among us.”

“Damn your insolence, you rascally don!” To Mariah’s surprise Jonathan swiftly pulled a pistol from the desk drawer.

“Off this ship, I say, or I’ll have you thrown over the side!”

“But he means to help Jonathan!” Mariah rushed to the Spaniard’s side.

“He’s served as Deveaux’s lieutenant, but he’s ready to abandon him for Gabriel. He’s the one who found Jenny and me and brought us here, and never expected a farthing in return. Look, I still have the bracelets you gave me!”

Jonathan muttered, but slowly lowered the gun.

Figaroa leaned across the desk.

“Sparhawk’s the only man with the ship and the cunning to destroy Deveaux, senor” he said, “and I mean to see him do it.”

“The devil take Deveaux!” thundered Jonathan as his fist struck the desk again.

“I want my son! If you can do that, I don’t care if you’ve sailed for the man in the moon. You can have whatever you need, guns or men.”

“And I’m coming with you, Mr. Figaroa,” said Mariah quickly, before her resolve could falter.

“Because I was there, I know the prison beneath Deveaux’s house, and I know the way out.”

“Your place is here, Mariah,” said Jonathan sternly.

“You’ve done more than enough to confound Gabriel as it is.”

She raised her eyes to meet Jonathan’s, steadfastly accepting-all the guilt his cold green eyes offered.

“I know Gabriel wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for me,” she said softly.

“I have to help bring him back. Whatever it takes.”

1 that night, Mariah sat in the stem of a small boat as Figaroa deftly guided them over the foaming wavelets toward the shore. She tugged the rough hounscot shawl over her bare shoulders against the spray. As part of their plan, she was dressed in cheap, common clothing he’d provided for her—a coarse linen shift with a sleeveless bodice laced tightly over it, and short, bright petticoats that barely reached her bare ankles—and with her hair loose and brass rings in her ears, she felt as brazen as the women she’d seen on the beach with Gigot. At least that had been her goal, and from the way Figaroa was leering at her, she guessed she’d succeeded well enough.

“They’ll believe you’re who I say, no problema,” he said, grinning as if he’d read her mind.

“But then men always believe a pretty faqp, eh?

You keep quiet, and do like I said, and everythuf will go fine. “

“I’m sure it will.” Mariah nodded, a quick, nervous twitch of her head that betrayed her anxiety, and pulled the shawl even higher as she stared out at the dark mass of the island before them. Only for Gabriel would she have agreed to anything so reckless, going off alone with a Spaniard she scarcely knew.

And for Jenny. She’d never forget her sister’s face when she’d learned Elisha had disappeared with Gabriel. As foolhardy as Figaroa’s plan seemed, she felt she had little choice but to join him. Yet when they’d pushed off from the Revenge, Jonathan’s face at the rail, and Ethan’s beside it, had been very long, indeed.

“Don’t lie, senora.” Figaroa laughed, his thick, tattooed arms effortlessly drawing the oars through the dark water.

“You’re worried plenty. / worry you! But I swear by all the saints you’re safe with me. I only want women who want me, and you only want Sparhawk. Ha, that old man can’t see it, maybe, but you’re Sparhawk’s woman. Your heart is on your face. But we’ll find him for you, senora. We’ll steal your man back from under Deveaux’s long French nose, eh?”

This time Mariah didn’t answer. All the Spaniard’s bravado wouldn’t change the odds, two of them against the scores of men Deveaux kept on his island. Nor were Gabriel’s odds any better. Each hour that had slipped by without him returning to the Revenge meant another hour he was in Deveaux’s hands, another hour in which he could die. Continuing to live in a world without him was unthinkable. Unconsciously her hand slid low over her belly, and yet again she prayed their child would know its father.