Mariah's Prize (12 page)

“I love you more than anything.”

Stripped down to his shirt and breeches as he stood on the quarterdeck with the setting sun at his back, Gabriel stared at the pocket watch clasped in his hand and swore. Even the gun crews out of earshot could tell the captain was unhappy with them, and to a man they stared out the gun ports or over the side at the four empty barrels lashed together to make their target, a target that dipped and bounced merrily in the choppy water off Block Island and refused to be hit by even one ball of the Revenge’s ragged broadside. “A pack of boys shooting peas through reeds could do better than that,” said Gabriel sorrowfully.

“Piss poor, that’s what it was. Nigh on six minutes to load, and then not a one of you found the mark. Why, your aim’s so bad the Quaker ladies on Nantucket will likely be scooping your balls out of their kitchen gardens, wondering at what sorry articles they be.”

A few of the younger men chortled nervously at the double meaning before their older mates silenced them with swift, murderous looks.

Many of the seamen had shipped with Captain Sparhawk before, and knew his humors well, just as they knew they deserved his disappointment with their lackluster performance, and his anger, too, if he cared to show it.

“Now I know it’s but the first night, and you’re all still soft from too much fine drinking and dining and playing hide-and-seek between the trollops’ thighs.” Gabriel’s voice rose, and his dark brows gathered together. With his jaw stubbled dark and his black hair tossing wildly like a madman’s in the wind, not a sailor dared meet his eyes.

“But any day now we could meet a French flag, and they won’t sit there waiting for us to say bonjour. Not merchantmen, either, but King Louis’s navy, and I don’t want them to see what sad, sorry excuses for English fighting sailors we are. Nor do I have any particular wish to be blown into a thousand tiny fragments by French gunnery, which is exactly what will happen unless you blasted lubbers learn enough to hit them first. So do it again, damn your lazy hides, and do it right!” “Is he always this mean to his crew?” whispered Mariah to Ethan as they sat on the top step of the companionway.

“He’s so hateful I don’t know why any sailor would sign on with him.”

“Because he’ll make their fortunes, that’s why.” Ethan looked at her pityingly, disappointed that such an almighty truth had to be stated.

His station in an engagement was to see that wounded men were carried quickly below. In a practice like this one, he had nothing to do except explain the exercise to Mariah.

“Besides, cap’n’s supposed to be mean. If he ain’t, then no one minds, each thinkin’ they could do better, an’ then, like he said, we’ll all end up dressed in Frenchie garlic cloves an’ feedin’ the fishes.”

Mariah considered this as she took another bite of the cold chicken leg in her hand. At least she’d been given supper, thanks to Ethan.

The crew wasn’t going to get theirs until they hit the target. This morning, once they’d reached deep water, she’d watched them run up and down the rigging, taking in and setting out sails over and over before Gabriel had finally given a halfhearted nod of approval. In the afternoon they’d been set to mock hand-to-hand battles among themselves with cutlasses and boarding axes until her own arm ached in sympathy. Now they’d toiled at the guns for at least an hour, with no end in sight that she could see. As the owner of the Revenge, she should be delighted with her captain’s thoroughness. As another first-time sailor, she was appalled.

She studied how the wind blew Gabriel’s fine linen shirt taut against his chest and shoulders, how he’d rolled his sleeves over forearms dark with curling black hair and thick with a sailor’s muscles and. No, she ordered herself sternly, she’d no business at all looking at him that way. That kind of admiration would bring her only trouble later, when she’d need every ounce of resolution to keep him from the cabin, and from his bed, now hers. She was sure he was still too angry with her to repeat the tenderness he’d shown her last night, but she wasn’t at all certain that same anger might not tempt him to try taking her by force. Quickly she turned along with everyone else to stare at the floating barrels.

Each gun crew was firing in turn, and Mariah watched the one nearest her, captained by Alien Welsh. Welsh had served in a king’s frigate before he’d jumped ship for a woman in Boston, and though he was reputed to be one of the best gunners on board the Revenge, Marian recalled how drunk he’d been last night, and she wondered how he’d survived this day. Welsh levered the handspike that eased the black-barrelled gun into the final position for firing, barking anxious, single-word commands to the three men in the crew to haul on the training tackles. Marian covered her ears with her hands, knowing what dame next. The Revenge rolled gently with a swell, Welsh touched the linstock to the powder in the base ring, and abruptly the gun came to life, flames shooting from its mouth along with the ball, acrid white smoke from the explosion enveloping the crew, as close to a ton of hot black iron hurtled back against the ropes.

On the quarterdeck above the smoke, Gabriel was the first to see the barrels splinter when the ball hit its mark, followed by the white plume of water and spray rising high against the setting sun. A ragged cheer began as soon as the smoke began to drift away, growing louder and louder as more men realized what had happened, finally becoming a unanimous roar nearly as deafening as the explosion itself.

Gabriel grinned. It had been a sad, sorry excuse for a drill, one that would have made Deveaux dance with joy, but it had begun the task of bonding eighty disparate men into a crew who could work together, a crew he could trust. Fine enough work for the first day.

With his hands clasped behind his back, he turned for’ and toward the companionway. He wanted a clean shirt and his supper, and the chance to lie down with his eyes closed. God only knew how many peaceful evenings like this one he had left.

But he stopped when he saw Mariah. She was bouncing up and down with excitement, clapping her hands and cheering along with the others.

There were gunpowder smudges on her cheeks and on her white ruffled cuffs, but her face beamed with an open, giddy happiness that he himself could never hope to inspire.

“Mariah!” As he headed across the sloping deck toward her, wariness replaced her smile and she braced her shoulders as if preparing for a physical battle. Damnation, what did she think of him? He held his hand out to her, the gesture more imperious than he’d intended. He was too aware of the men watching him, from curiosity and lechery both, and he hated how just by her presence she’d subtly changed the entire balance of the Revenge’s company.

“Mariah,” he said curtly.

“Come. I am tired, and it’s high time I found my bed.”

i iHow dare you speak to me like that before your men? ” demanded Marian as soon as the cabin door was shut behind them. Her fingers shook so much with anger that she fumbled with the ribbons beneath her chin.

Furiously she tore her that off without untying the bow and dashed it to the deck between her and Gabriel—a braided straw gauntlet he couldn’t miss.

“I saw how they all winked and guffawed and jabbed their elbows at each other, believing me to be-to be your mistress—because of what you said!” “You made the decision yourself when you forced yourself onto this sloop.” Gabriel poured himself a tankardful of water deliberately drinking it slowly. He’d do better in this argument if he could stay calm, especially since her temper was so wildly out of control already.

“You insist you want to share my cabin,” he continued, striving to be the ideal of reason. “What else are they supposed to think? There are more than eighty of us packed into fifty feet of oak walls, Marian, and precious few secrets—even yours—won’t become common knowledge in the space of one watch. I tried to tell you that before we sailed, but you

wouldn’t listen. You thought you knew bet e ter, and now you’re howling because you’ve just realized how wrong you are.”

“Oh, you’re a fine one to speak of the value of my reputation!” She stalked back and forth, unable to stand still in the face of his infuriating calm. “You were the one who invited me to that windmill with every intention of tossing me onto my back!”

Gabriel clucked his tongue. “Oh, Mariah, such a genteel expression!

As I recall, you came first to Crescent Hill and rather flagrantly tried to seduce me into sailing for you. “

“I never intended to seduce you!” sputtered Mariah.

“I only let you kiss me because I thought you were going to say yes!”

“Only a matter of degree, poppet. And there wasn’t much ‘letting’ involved. As I recall, you were as willing then as you were last night.” He poured more water into the leather tankard, swirling it gently before he brought it to his lips.

“I’ve done nothing to your name, Mariah. No one save Ethan knew you were with me at my house or the windmill, and Ethan’s silent as the grave. Any tattering of your virtue is your own doing.”

“I’m not” -She halted abruptly, her mouth staying open longer than she realized.

“What are you doing, Gabriel?”

“I’d think that was fairly obvious, Mariah.” He tugged his shirt free of the waistband of his breeches and pulled it over his head, wadding the linen into a rough ball to wipe his face and chest before he tossed it onto the bunk.

“If we are to share this cabin, you’ll have to accustom yourself to the sight of me changing my clothing. As, I warrant, shall I with you, unless you mean to wear that selfsame bodice and petticoat for the next month or so.”

She gasped, speechless at the possibilities she hadn’t considered.

Shame stained her cheeks as she stared at his bare chest and arms, the planes and bands of lean muscle so clearly delineated beneath the whirling pattern of dark hair. Raised without brothers, her father often away at sea, her experience with half-clad men was nonexistent. Certainly she’d never seen Daniel stand before her the way Gabriel was doing now, and even if he had, Daniel had been slight and wiry, with none of the physical presence that seemed so much a part of Gabriel.

The evening was still warm, and he made no move to dress. He was as comfortable in a pair of old duck trousers and nothing else as he was in a London suit of embroidered velvet, while she was a lass from a good family who’d likely no notion of what Adam had looked like in the garden. He expected her to blush. He would have been disappointed if she hadn’t.

But what he hadn’t expected was her sudden look of concern and the way she pressed her fingers to her mouth to stifle—stifle what?

“That scar,” she said finally, her eyes concentrating on the jagged pale line that ran diagonally from his right collarbone to his waist.

“How did you ever survive a wound so grievous?”

“I’m sure the man whose sword gave it to me wonders that as well.” He tried to be light, dismissive. He’d been in enough fights that his body was peppered and crisscrossed with scars, but he’d known at once which one she meant, and he had no intention of discussing it with her.

In his mind’s eye he saw again the terror on Catherine’s face as they’d seized her, the shrill sound of her screams. “You were so fortunate you didn’t die,” said Mariah softly.

“Was I now?” He shouldn’t be so harsh with her. How could she know the truth? If she did, she wouldn’t waste her concern on him. He didn’t need it, and he didn’t deserve it.

“Aye, you were.” Slowly, she took her fingers from her lips and reached out to touch the scar. ‘“Tis always better to live than die.”

Gabriel swore and jerked beyond her reach, turning away so he didn’t have to meet her eyes. She wasn’t thinking of him. All that sweet concern was meant for a man past caring in return. Damnation, she wasn’t thinking of him.

Startled by his reaction, Marian swiftly pulled her hand away, curling the fingers into a tight little fist before she tucked it behind her back as if to punish it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean” — “If your darling Daniel drowned, then he died clean,” he said roughly.

“No blood, no scars, nothing to mar the pretty memory of a pretty boy.”

“You’re wrong, Gabriel,” she began miserably.

“I never wanted” — “Why the devil are you here, Marian?” he demanded, swinging round to face her.

“Is it really your sister you want, or have you come after my soul?”

Shaking her head, she backed away, intimidated by the raw emotions on his face. Relentlessly he followed, until she felt herself bump against the bulkhead. He took her face in his hands, his fingers sliding along her jaw, disarming her with his unexpected gentleness.

He rubbed one callused thumb along her lower lip, stroking the soft flesh as he searched her small, serious face, drinking in her innocence from the dark blue pools of her eyes.

“What do you want of me?” she echoed, her words bold though her voice trembled. He hadn’t even kissed her, and already the strange weakness

that came with his touch was there, making her body yearn for more. “What do you want, Marian?” he asked hoarsely in’re 5

turn.

“Do you want what I can offer? I can give you fire in your blood and pleasure so hot it’ll scorch your soul. There’ll be no going back, no returning to how it was, no way to undo the past. Aye, then, my sweet innocent lass, then, you can tell me if ‘tis always better to live than to die.”

He lifted his hands from her face, holding his cupped fingers above her jaw like a man shielding a spark from the wind. She stood unmoving, her face upturned toward his as if he held it still. Her lip quivered, and reflexively she licked the spot he’d touched with his thumb.

He swore softly beneath his breath, turned on his heel and left her before he lost his mind.

When Gabriel returned, the moon was sliding low in the night sky, the glow of the first dawn not far away. Mariah had let the candles in the gimbals gutter out, and moonlight reflected off the water in silvery ripples along the cabin’s bulkheads. She lay curled on the bunk asleep, her face pillowed in the crook of one arm. He smiled sadly when he saw she hadn’t undressed. She was wise not to trust him when he doubted he could trust himself. She slept with one knee drawn up, the other thrust out beneath her skirts. He longed to. kiss the curve at the back of her knee, there above her half-untied garter, one more place where he might feel her heart beating beneath his lips.