Mariah's Prize (28 page)

Well into the cove, they crossed beneath the bow of Deveaux’s ship, Figaroa answering the hail from the lookout in French. Though Mariah couldn’t understand his response, she was certain from the ribald laughter that followed them across the water that he’d explained her presence in the boat with crude directness. Automatically she stiffened, trying to look indignant and aloof.

“I told you, senora, you’ve nothing to fear from me,” Figaroa whispered sharply in English.

“Remember why we’re here, and what you’re supposed to be, eh?”

He jumped into the shallows to pull the boat up onto the white sand, and Mariah climbed out over the prow, carefully cradling a large crockery jug of rum, rum the Spaniard swore now carried enough laudanum to fell a horse. Figaroa slung his arm across her shoulders, his steps weaving a bit as if he’d already tasted more than his share of the rum, and he led her up the winding path to Deveaux’s house.

She had only seen the house from the back, and here overlooking the water the formal facade was far grander than anything she’d ever seen in New England, with carved stone flourishes over each tall window and a sweep of stone steps leading to the double front doors. But waiting in the shadows of the palms were the guards that Deveaux was never without, the moonlight picking out the barrels of their pistols.

Elegant but cold, the house was just like the owner, decided Mariah grimly, and with an ugly side to hide, as well.

Her mouth grew dry as they came around to the back of the house and the familiar door to the prison. Unlike the night when she and Jenny had escaped, there were now three men standing guard at the doorway, and her hopes rose a fraction higher. Deveaux wouldn’t bother guarding a dead man. Figaroa called out to the guards, his steps growing more erratic as he leaned against her, and with a start Mariah realized her role in rescuing Gabriel was about to begin.

“You’re cup-shot, Figaroa, Ixan smell th’ stink o’ rum from here,” answered one pf-the men. To Mariah’s surprise he spoke not only in English, but Connecticut English, at that.

“You’d best get yourself back t’the ship afore Cap’n Deveaux sees ye here wit’ a wench. You know his orders about women.”

“Eh, but the little sweetheart wants to see the English cap’n you’re watching, Thompson.” Figaroa ran his hand possessively down Mariah’s arm to rest on her hip, and she forced herself not to flinch. Instead she shook her hair from her face the way the tavern women near the docks did, her brass earrings swinging, and rubbed her hip against Figaroa’s side.

“Thefamoso Gabriel Sparhawk with his wings clipped!”

“Not much left t’see,” said Thompson with a careless shrug.

“Deveaux’s been none too gentle. Takin’ a special interest in breakin’ this one, he is.”

Sickened, Mariah remembered the crippled, mutilated woman who’d brought their food, and the obvious pleasure Deveaux took in his cruelty. Dear God, what had he done to Gabriel?

Thompson smoothed his hair, smiling at her.

“Ifn you want t’gaze at a lion o’ a man, lovey, there be far better ones about than that poor bastard in there.”

“57, si, but you know how women are,” said Figaroa impatiently.

“A man who’d trade his neck for love! Makes them sick with delight, just considering it. Here, muchacha, if you want Senor Thompson to let you in to gawk, you might have to share your rum, eh?”

Figaroa prodded Mariah, who belatedly offered the jug to the other man. Thompson took it and drank in long, greedy gulps. He smacked his lips with satisfaction, holding the jug just out of Mariah’s reach, and the second man grabbed it from Thompson to drink his share, too.

“This rum be fine enough for beginnings, lass,” he said suggestively, squinting to get a better look at her in the dark, “but there’s other, better ways t’coax my favor.”

His mouth still wet with rum, he leaned close to kiss Mariah, and without thinking she slapped him so hard he staggered backward into the shrubbery. At once she gasped, wondering if she’d just cost them the chance to free Gabriel, but instead the other men were merely guffawing at

Thompson’s expense. He tried to pull himself out of the bushes, but fell wobbling backward while the others roared with laughter.

Her heart pounding, Mariah darted forward to rescue the jug from the second man and try to offer it to the third, still standing in the darkest shadow of the doorway. If he didn’t drink it soon, he’d be the only one left standing when the drug in the liquor claimed the other two, and they couldn’t risk that.

‘“Ere ye go, Thompson, back on yer pins!” The second guard held his hand out to help Thompson until he, too, began to sway precariously and toppled over into the bushes.

With a drunken whoop, Figaroa slapped his thigh.

“Eh, muchacha, your drink’s too strong for English heads! But this other one, he’ll do better, I swear by the saints he is no such weakling!”

Taking her cue, Mariah walked toward the last guard, swinging her looped-up skirts around her hips as she held the jug with both hands and willed him to take it from her. He had to drink and fall down insensible like the others so she could take the ring of new keys he wore at his waist and free Gabriel.

Relief washed over her as the man finally reached for the jug, relief that disappeared as soon as he spoke, his familiar face beneath the straw tri com now clear to her in the moonlight.

“So, lady, you wish to serve poor Gigot the same way I served you?

Make me sleep and sleep, while you do how you please? ” With genuine sorrow Gigot pushed the jug ;

away with the back of his hand.

“Non, lady, I will not j drink. Diego, how you not know her? An anglaise ? Truly I her rum took your wits.

Come, we take her to Capitaine 1

Deveaux, and I will split with you the gold for her capture. “

“Deveaux would not give us his gold now, Gigot, any more than he has before,” said Figaroa, his feigned drunkenness vanished. He spat in the dirt beside the Frenchman’s feet, and in a single swift motion his knife was in his hand.

“Deveaux can go to hell, eh? The girl stays with me.” “Traitre!” Gigot crouched down low and flung off his that, the blade of his knife flashing in the moonlight. Mariah backed away, her hand pressed across her mouth with horror as she watched the two men slowly circle each other. She remembered the night when the thieves had attacked her and Gabriel in Newport, and she’d seen then what damage a long sailor’s knife could do.

Figaroa attacked first, lunging as Gigot darted sideways, his long braid swinging across his back. Then, so quickly that Mariah couldn’t tell who moved first, the two men closed in on each other, falling to the ground in a wild tangle of flailing arms and legs. Over and over they rolled in the dust until with a loud grunt Gigot arched stiffly backward and then suddenly fell still.

Unsteadily Figaroa rose to his feet, his bloodstained knife clutched in his fingers. Breathing hard, he looked at Mariah and slowly shook his head twice. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words only a gurgle of blood trickled over his lips, and the last expression in his eyes was confused surprise before he crumpled dead across Gigot’s body.

For a long moment, Mariah stared at them and the spreading dark stain of their blood in the dirt. God in heaven, what would become of her now? Without Figaroa, she was on her own again to find Gabriel and to somehow get them both to the Revenge. But she couldn’t let herself panic, not for Gabriel’s sake or her own. She raised her head, straining her ears to listen for any sound that could be another guard coming to investigate, but all she could hear was the thumping of her own heart. How much longer would her luck hold?

She kneeled down beside the two bodies, and fighting her revulsion, she forced herself to roll Gigot onto his back. His tattered waistcoat slipped back, and she gagged when she saw the long, ragged knife wound beneath his ribs that had killed him. Swiftly she pulled her gaze away, and with shaking fingers pulled the ring of keys from the belt around his waist, wiping them clean on the dead man’s waistcoat. Dear Lord, she’d never seen so much blood.

She unhooked the lantern from the wall and with it in her hand hurried down the long hallway to the three cells. When she and Jenny had been here, they’d been the only prisoners, but from the scufflings and snores behind two of the doors she guessed to her dismay that Deveaux now had a fuller complement of “guests.” Too short to look through the grated window, she’d have to open each door in turn and hope she’d chosen the right one. She fitted and turned the key into the first padlock and with both hands lifted the heavy bar from the door, praying she’d made the right choice.

“Gabriel, are you there?” she called breathlessly as she pulled the door open.

“Gabriel, I—oh. God in heaven!”

Though she’d thought she’d been prepared for what she might find, how she found him still shocked her and cut straight to her heart. Heavy iron manacles bound his wrists, and the chains were fastened to the wall high enough to keep him dangling by his arms, his bare feet tantalizingly grazing the stone floor. He was naked except for his breeches, his body covered with angry purple bruises, and his head hung limply forward, his long, untied hair shadowing his face. He didn’t move when she called his name,

and as she rushed across the narrow room to him she feared again she’d come too late.

“Oh, love, what they’ve done to you!” She couldn’t keep from crying, and she didn’t try. Crushing down on her was the awful certainty that he’d suffered all this for her.

“I wasn’t worth this, Gabriel. Dear God, I loved you so-much!”

His voice was thick and so hoarse she barely heard it.

“You’re not real. The devil take you for trying to trick me! You’re not real, damn you!”

“But I am real, Gabriel! It’s Mariah, and I’m really here. Look at me, love.” Standing on her toes she reached up and touched his face as gently as she could.

“I’m here for you.” “Mariah.” He breathed her name almost like a prayer, daring to hope that she really had come. How or why didn’t matter. In the long nightmare of this day, her memory had been the only thing that had let him keep his sanity. Too many times had he thought he’d heard her voice call to him to believe it now, but her touch, her fingers on his cheek, he couldn’t dream that. Slowly, painfully, he lifted his head to look at her from the eye that wasn’t blackened and swollen shut.

“My pretty poppet.”

Through her tears her smile was so tight that it hurt.

“Come, I must get you down. We don’t have much time.”

On the ring of keys was one she knew must fit the manacles, but she’d need something to stand upon to reach the lock. Swiftly her gaze swept over the room’s scant furnishings, past the crude bedstead and the bucket in the corner to stop at the carved, gilded armchair with the red brocade coverings in one corner. Too easily she could imagine Deveaux sitting there, his wrist elegantly cocked and a half smile of pleasure on his face as he directed the men who tortured Gabriel.

Mariah shoved the chair across the floor and climbed on the seat, finding a small joy in putting her bare, dirty feet on the silk brocade. If she balanced on the narrow arm and stretched up tall, she could just reach the padlock. With a rusty scrape the key turned, the chains dropped through the ring in a rush and Gabriel collapsed to the floor with an anguished groan.

Immediately she was beside him, pulling the iron rings from his wrists as he struggled to sit. Hell, he was so weak. He didn’t want her to see him like this. She needed him to be strong, and he had nothing left, not even for her. His eyes were squeezed shut and his breathing ragged and shallow from the pain of the blood returning to his arms.

Wordlessly he let his head fall against Mariah’s shoulder.

“Oh, Gabriel, love, I’m so sorry.” As gently as she could she took his hands and began rubbing them in her own, forcing the life into them, and he stifled another groan of agony.

“Do you think you can walk?”

“No choice,” he croaked.

“Not really. We have to go now.”

“Where are the others?” He tried to look past her for his men, Rawlin and the rest of them. They should be here to help Mariah, no matter what she’d told them to do. He’d counted on them to escape and rescue him, though he damn well wished they’d been a bit quicker about it.

“Rawlin and Watson and” -She sighed, thinking sadly of Figaroa.

“There aren’t any others. Just me.”

Gabriel frowned, for it made no sense. No woman, not even Mariah, could have come here on her own. Using her for support, he clumsily pulled himself upright, his legs threatening to buckle beneath him.

The simple effort left him pale and sweating, and he clung to her shoulders with real desperation. There was not much left that they could do to him, but if they found her again it would be different. Deveaux wouldn’t let her slip away twice.

“The guards” — “The ones outside won’t bother us, but I can’t swear how long before the rest come.” She slid her arm around his waist and felt him wince from the contact. For the first time she could see his back and the bloody, dirty latticework a lash had made, digging deep into his flesh and muscle, and again she gasped.

‘“Tis nothing, lass, I’ve survived worse.” He took a deep breath and tried a few tentative, limping steps.

“Come. I can’t risk Deveaux doing the same to you.” “To me!” She stared at him, aghast. “Gabriel, you great fool, he’s nearly killed you because of me already!”

His hand trembling, he pressed his thumb to her lips.

“Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”

She nodded, loving him more then than she ever had before. “But Gabriel, we must” — “I love you too, Mariah. And I’ll wager that’s the truest answer I can give.” He lifted his thumb away from her lips and touched his own before he smiled as tenderly as his battered face would allow. As a declaration, he knew it wasn’t much, not nearly what she deserved.

When this was done, he’d tell her again and again, and show her, too, how much he loved her. “Now on with you, Mariah, while this feeble old man can still hobble after.”