Sparhawk's Angel (20 page)

"
When
you sleep," said Jerusa archly.

"Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Nick slapped down his fork with a clatter. He'd been careful to guard the hall this morning for Rose before she'd scurried back to her own room to wash and dress, just as he'd come down now before her to stave off the questions.

Jerusa shrugged elaborately, reaching for another roll. "The children reported that when they tried to come say good-morning, you wouldn't answer, though they were sure they heard you laughing in your bed. Quite put out, they were."

"I don't see what that's—"

"
Then
," continued Jerusa, refusing to be interrupted, "then I had a tray sent up with tea for Miss Everard to spare her the trial of coming down for breakfast, only to have the maid tell me her bed was quite empty and cold, while your door, my dear brother, was still shut and locked against the world."

Nick snorted and picked up his fork again to attack his eggs. "No proof of anything at all, except that you're still as inquisitive and impertinent as you've always been."

"There now,
ma ch
é
rie
, I
told you he would not be amused," said Michel indulgently, lolling back in his
chair with his fingers arched together in a little tent before him. He wore a
striped dressing gown over his shirt and breeches, his gold blond hair already
perfectly tied back in a silk bow. "You cannot treat Nickerson like one of your little children. What he does behind his locked door is his own affair."

"At least it should be." Jerusa frowned as she buttered her roll, her teasing abruptly changed to concern. "You will tell him, won't you, Michel?"

"How can I not?" With a sigh Michel leaned forward across the table, his expression abruptly losing its indolent charm. "You have put your hand in a nest of vipers,
mon ami
. I have learned all this only this morning, from the letter of a, ah, friend. Did you not know that Miss Everard is betrothed to an officer in King George's navy, Captain Lord Eliot Graham?"

"Oh, aye, I knew," said Nick, his mouth full of egg. "She told me herself when I made her my prisoner."

"Then you would have been wise to listen," said Michel seriously. "The man is not pleased by what you've done.
Non, non
. Not only has he forbidden the ransom to be paid for her release, but he has also sworn to rescue her and capture you, not as a privateer, but as a pirate, and see you hung accordingly."

"He can bluster all he wants," said Nick with the same supreme self-confidence that always served him so well in battles. "I have Rosie."

Impatiently Michel tapped his fingers on the tablecloth. "But you don't understand,
mon fr
è
re
. This man Graham—ah,
bonjour, mademoiselle!
I trust your health is much improved?"

At once Nick was at Rose's side, his arm protectively around her shoulder. He had never seen her look more radiantly lovely, dressed in a cream-colored gown embroidered with pink flowers and more flowers, real ones, tucked into her hair. Her cheeks glowed with happiness, and her eyes were bright with love for him alone.

God in heaven,
love
, love for him. No wonder he couldn't help smiling like a fool as he bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead.

But while he was oblivious to the others in the room, Rose was not, her cheeks now pink with discomfiture as well as pleasure. Nick's sister had been very kind to her, but how would she feel when she realized Rose's new relationship to Nick, begun under her own roof? Especially when they'd been discussing Lord Eliot, the man to whom she was still betrothed. Oh, what they must think of her!

With her fingers still twined in Nick's, she made a little curtsy of acknowledgment to Michel. "I am quite fine, thank you,
monsieur
," she said carefully. "But pray continue what you were saying. I believe you were speaking of Lord Eliot."

"It was nothing,
mademoiselle
," said Michel, sweeping his hand gallantly to welcome her to the table. "The gossip of men, eh?"

"If it pertains to Lord Eliot," said Rose, "then I would like to hear it." Michel could try to charm it all away, but she wasn't going to let him. He would have told her outright if it truly had been nothing but gossip.

Nick could feel her uneasiness, and he drew her closer. "She's right, Michel," he said. "If it has to do with Graham, then she—nay, we both should hear it."

Michel looked from Rose to Nick and back again, his fingertips drumming faster, and then once to Jerusa, who nodded. It was the look on his sister's face that put Nick on his guard that what was coming might be very bad indeed.

"Very well,
mademoiselle
, if you insist," said Michel, making it clear enough that he'd no wish of his own to speak. "Your
fiancé has not taken the news of your capture well. He has sworn to save you from Captain Sparhawk, and hang him for a pirate."

Rose gasped, horrified. Less than an hour ago she had still been lying blissful and contented in Nick's arms, her happiness so complete she would have sworn nothing could disturb it.

"But Lord Eliot can't do that!" she cried. "Nick is a privateer, sailing for his country with all the proper papers! Lord Eliot has absolutely no grounds for—for wishing to hang him. My God,
hang
him!"

"Hush, love, hush," said Nick gently, holding her close. "He hasn't strung the rope over the yardarm just yet. He'll have to catch me before he can do anything. The Caribbean is a grand place for hiding, Rose, and I'd like to see the frigate fast enough to catch the
Angel Lily
."

"Not just one frigate, Nick," said Michel. "Four. Because of Graham's influence, and because soon the English fleet will leave these waters for the hurricane season, the admiral has granted leave to Graham plus three other captains to hunt you down. By stealing away this lady, you have become a great, bloodthirsty villain in their eyes."

"But Lord Eliot has no right to do that!" Desperately Rose clung to Nick, wishing there was something, anything she could do to keep him from suffering on her account. "I don't want to be rescued. I want to stay here, and so I shall. He can't recapture me if I don't wish to be retaken, any more than I wish any longer to marry him!"

Michel's drumming fingers stopped, his face turning dark with concern. "But you haven't told him your decision,
mademoiselle
?"

"Of course not," said Rose promptly, though her face grew warm again. "I only decided for certain last night. It's impossible now for me to marry Lord Eliot. I love Nick, and he loves me." Too much was at stake for her to be shy about admitting it now.

Again the looks shot back between husband and wife, silently saying more than words alone could express.

"
Ma chérie mademoiselle
," said Michel gently. "I can sympathize with your new attachment to my wife's delightful brother, but you have perhaps acted more from your heart than your head. When the British learn you are here—which,
certainement
, they will, or may even know already—then those four fine frigates will come to crouch outside our harbor like lions on our doorstep."

"He wouldn't dare blockade St. Pierre," said Nick incredulously. "Not over this!"

"He would, and he will," said Michel. "There is nothing so dear to
l'Anglais
as his honor, and this man Graham feels his has been sorely mocked. No French or American vessels will be able to come or go from St. Pierre until you and the lady are given up to him. If we are not as prompt as he wishes, then he may choose to fire on our town. And as much as I cherish your friendship, Nickerson, I cannot allow that to happen."

"Blast and damnation, neither can I," thundered Nick. "I can clear the harbor within two hours. I'll take Rose along, too, and then those bloody English bastards will see what it means to chase me!"

"What, and play cat and mouse with him until eternity?" cried Rose, pulling free of his embrace. "How long before they catch you? A week, a month, as long as Christmas if you're monstrously lucky? Haven't you spent enough of your life running, Nick, to have it end like that, too?"

Running, always running
. Her words echoed Jerusa's so closely that Nick almost stopped to think instead of shouting.

Almost, but not quite. "Hell, Rose, you heard Michel! There's no other way!"

"Oh, yes, there is, Nick," she said, her eyes flashing as she awkwardly tried to fold her arms before her breasts with her customary defiance. "I shall go immediately to St. Lucia—alone—and speak to Lord Eliot myself."

"
Non, ma chérie
," protested Michel. "That is not what I intended at all."

"Why not, when it is the obvious answer?" she asked. "I shall tell Lord Eliot that any attachment between us is done, and that he must stop this foolishness at once. At once."

Appalled, Nick stared at her. There was so much still unsaid between them, an entire future that she would put in jeopardy by this one impulsive act. "I can't let you do that. The danger of it, and your arm, and—and damnation, Rose, I love you! I love you, and I won't let you go!"

Though her jaw rose higher, he saw how her chin was trembling. "Yes, you will," she said. "I love you, too, Nick, but that gives you no more authority over me than Lord Eliot."

"Don't be ridiculous, Rose!"

"I've never been more serious in my life," she said. But as she looked at him, her defiance crumpled, and she reached out to rest her hand on his arm, her worried gaze searching his face for understanding. "It's because I love you, because I wish you to be safe, I will go to St. Lucia."

"And for exactly the same reasons, sweetheart, I'm not about to let you go," he said, his anger tempered by the memory of the passionate lovemaking they'd so recently shared. He didn't want to quarrel with her now, and as stubborn as she could be, he refused to do it. "There's bound to be another way, and I'll be damned if I won't find it. And that, Rosie, is final."

He reached out to draw her back into his arms, and wearily she went to him, resting her head against the familiar hollow of his shoulder. She wished she could let him take care of everything. She wished they could go back to the big bed upstairs and kiss and talk and make love and sleep in each others' arms all through the hot summer day and night until they'd finally wake and find that all their problems had vanished like the morning mist.

But no matter what Nick promised, nothing was final.

And God help them both, especially not this.

It had seemed so obvious to Rose before, so rational, the only possible solution. And to her surprise, it had been appallingly easy as well.

Nick and Michel had left the house after breakfast, off to meet with friends of Michel's, and Jerusa had become so entangled in the usual chaos of her four children that no one had noticed when Rose had slipped down the back stairs and through the garden and hurried to the beach where the smaller fishermen's boats and island traders' sloops were drawn up on the sand. The first man she'd approached had agreed to take her across to St. Lucia that night; the distance was only twenty miles, the moon would be no more than a faint new crescent, and the gold guinea that Rose hesitantly offered was more money at one time than the man had seen in years.

The hard part came later, when she had to keep the guilty excitement from her face at the dinner table. She'd never been a particularly adept liar, and she'd blushed when she'd stood to excuse herself from the rest of the meal on account of a feigned headache. Nick's brow had instantly furrowed with concern, and it had taken all her willpower not to admit her falsehood. He had nearly carried her up the stairs to her room, and she had tried to smile as he'd tenderly kissed her good-night on the forehead, all the while knowing how angry and betrayed he would feel in the morning when he learned she was gone.

And how hurt. Lord, she knew she'd hurt him, but she was doing it all for his sake. She could only pray that by the time she returned, in a day at most, he'd be able to understand and forgive her. It was, truly, the only way.

But now that the Frenchman who'd brought her here to St. Lucia had vanished with her guinea, she wasn't as certain. How could she be? She was a woman alone, perilously alone, in the middle of the night in a makeshift town inhabited almost entirely by soldiers and sailors and prostitutes. Already she'd been accosted and propositioned by a group of sailors far too drunk to have acted on their offer, but she didn't want to wait to find others who could.

She took a deep breath and crossed the street to the tavern that the Frenchman had told her was the favorite of all the English officers. Unlike nearly every other place they'd passed on their way from the wharves, at least this tavern had no drunken men sprawled in the street before it, no raucous sounds of fistfights within or women shrieking from the open windows. The swinging signboard overhead was newly painted, bright with an elaborately gilded rampant lion that doubtless reflected the prices of the liquor served inside. If she'd find Lord Eliot anywhere on Pigeon Island, thought Rose, it would most likely be here.

Her heart pounding, she pushed open the door and stepped into a small, close hallway. The tavern's host, red-faced and sweating from the heat, sat on a tall stool near the stairs, his eyes narrowing as he studied Rose suspiciously by the light of the candle in the sconce behind him.

"Away with ye, ye hussy!" he said sharply. "We don't welcome your kind here. Begone now, and ply yer trade elsewhere."

"I am not a slattern," said Rose with a sharpness that matched his own. She drew herself as tall as she could and stepped more into the light of the candle. "I am Miss Rose Everard, the daughter of Sir Edmund Everard, and I have come to see Captain Lord Eliot Graham on most pressing business—private business—and I'll thank you to fetch him directly."

"Will ye, now." The man grunted, reconsidering her clothing and her accent. "We'll see what his lordship thinks, eh?"

He beckoned and she followed, down a narrow paneled hallway to a small back room. Though the windows were open, the air was so thick with tobacco smoke that Rose could barely make out the men clustered around the round card tables, with others leaning over to watch the game.