Mariah's Prize (17 page)

Afterward he rolled over onto his back, pulling her with him. She lay peacefully sprawled over his body, her cheek over his heart and her breathing regular. Only the way she rubbed her left thigh gently over and over against his hip in a caress that he found incredibly erode told him she was awake. Because the edge was gone from, his hunger he could savor her touch and know that next time the pleasure would be all the greater for waiting. He wasn’t in any particular rush. The whole night lay before them. Drowsily he wondered what the men would think if he kept to his cabin until they reached Bridgetown.

She sighed, and her leg stilled against him. “You knew, didn’t you?”

she said softly, her words muffled against his chest.

He sighed, too. Of course he’d known, but he hadn’t expected her to feel obliged to ask. “Daniel?”

“I’m sorry.” From the way she kept her cheek plastered to his chest he suspected she was crying, and trying to hide it from him. He didn’t know which was worse, that she was weeping after she’d brought him the most intense response he’d ever experienced, or that she didn’t trust him enough to see her tears.

“Ah, sweetheart, what’s there to be sorry for?” He tried to stroke her hair to comfort her, but she shook his hand away.

“I’m sorry because I let you believe I was—was otherwise than I was.”

“Believe me, Mariah, when I say it doesn’t matter.” She might not have been a virgin, but he’d stake his life that he’d given her her first taste of pleasure, and to him that seemed the greater gift.

“I haven’t exactly come to you blameless.”

“But for gentlemen it’s different!” she cried with anguish.

“It was only once, Gabriel, I swear, and only Daniel.”

“I’d guessed that, too, sweetheart.” Gently he rubbed his knuckles along her spine, and she sighed, a great, shuddering, heartbroken sigh.

“That first time wasn’t like tonight, was it?”

“Daniel isn’t—wasn’t—you,” she said sorrowfully.

“He had asked my father for my hand, and Father and Mama both said he was beneath me, that I was too young besides, and forbade me to see him. But I did, because I loved him. I promised I’d marry him, no matter what my parents said. The night before he sailed away for the last time, I let him do what he wished. I thought if he got me with child, then they’d have to let us wed.”

Mentally Gabriel cursed himself. The women he usually took to his bed were a worldly lot who knew enough to protect themselves. Mariah wouldn’t. He fondly called her his poppet, but she was old enough to share his passion, old enough to conceive his child. Next time, for her sake, he’d have to be more careful.

“I liked the kissing well enough,” she continued, “but after that…” She trailed off, unwilling to be faithless to Daniel’s memory. God knows she’d betrayed him badly enough with Gabriel already without sharing every detail of their brief intimacy.

Not that there was so much to tell. She had met Daniel behind the hedgerow in back of the Baptist Meetinghouse. When she showed herself willing, he’d been so eager she hardly realized what was happening until she was on her back in the wet grass with her skirts crumpled and Daniel crushing her, hurting her, and there’d been splotches of blood on her petticoats along with the grass stains. The best part had come afterward, when he’d held her and told her about the house he planned to buy them once they were married. Then he’d left with the tide and taken all her dreams with him.

But her few terse words told everything to Gabriel. “Ah, poppet, lovemaking is definitely one of the things that improves with practice,” he said gently.

“Despite what the poets say, the first time’s seldom sweet for the lady.”

“With you it probably would have been.” She smiled wistfully, wary enough not to mistake his lovemaking for any sort of declaration. ‘ “No wonder the ladies are so fond of you.”

“There’s only one lady I want fond of me now.” He took her by the shoulders and pulled her up along the length of his body to kiss her, and the sound that rose from deep in her throat was filled with contentment.

He was so much older, so much more experienced. Perhaps every woman he’d been with had felt the same fire when he’d kissed her, the same delirious fever from his touch. For her, with Gabriel, everything was different and new. He hadn’t hurt her the way Daniel had, even though he was so much larger. Instead he’d made her whole body sing with joy,

taking her places she’d never dreamed ex e is ted outside of God’s own heaven. A little flush of pleasure surged through her again at the memory alone.

When she came to Crescent Hill, all she’d seen was how handsome he was, every inch the charming rogue the gossips described. She hadn’t known him the way she did now, how he could be thoughtful, and maddening, and tender, and passionate, and furiously angry, and kinder, when he let himself, than a pack of softhearted old spinsters.

She couldn’t have known at Crescent Hill because she hadn’t loved him then, but God help her, how she loved him now!

She pulled back from his mouth, propping herself up on his chest to study him. Fondly he smiled at her, his teeth white against his dark, unshaven jaw, and she felt the ache of love and desire deep within her. But beneath her fingers she could feel the uneven ridge of the long scar across Gabriel’s body, and she thought of the young man she’d watched die. How much longer could Gabriel’s luck keep him from the same fate?

“I wanted you to know, Gabriel,” she said softly, “so you’d understand. All I had with Daniel was that one night. I needed to have at least that much with you.”

“I understand, sweetheart.” And understand he did, with a painful empathy she’d never know. He’d never had even that single night with Catherine. Mariah wasn’t asking for more than this, but to his confusion he realized he was. He looked at her, her lips red and inviting from his kisses, her tangled, dark hair barely covering her breasts, her round young body lying so intimately across his own, and he tried to tell himself what he felt for her was lust alone. A week or two, he argued, and he would be done with her, the way he was with all the others. He’d see that she and her sister were both sent safely back to Newport, he’d kiss her farewell on the wharf and that would be the end of it.

But somehow he knew already that wouldn’t be enough.

He couldn’t tell what would. He wanted her with him not just in bed but at his side. He liked how she spoke her mind, even at the most inconvenient times, and how she could make him laugh and how he could tease her. He liked her quick wit, how she listened so he didn’t have to explain things twice to her, and he liked her courage and her loyalty, fine, rare things in a woman. He didn’t want to send her back to Newport. He wanted her here.

The same way he’d wanted Catherine with him on board the old Rose.

Recklessly, selfishly he’d let her come with him, and look what had happened.

He closed his eyes against the memory, his arm tightening protectively around Mariah’s narrow waist. He wouldn’t take that risk again, not with his pretty poppet. Today had been warning enough. He would leave her safe in Bridgetown, with his parents, until the old score with Deveaux was settled. Then, only then, when he’d cut the last of the old pain from his heart, would he be free to begin again with Mariah.

She curled closer into his body, guessing that he’d fallen asleep, and pulled the coverlet over them both.

“I love you, Gabriel Sparhawk,” she whispered softly, knowing he wouldn’t hear her.

“You won’t leave me.”

But already he was thinking of Bridgetown.

“Wake up, Jen!” whispered Elisha urgently.

“Something’s wrong, I swear it. Listen!”

Disoriented, Jenny rolled over in the narrow bunk and tried to focus on Elisha’s anxious face, the lantern he held too bright for her sleepy eyes.

“It’s the middle of the night, Elisha,” she grumbled, and pulled the coverlet higher over her shoulders.

“Nay, Jen, you must get dressed!” He tore the coverlet back as she squealed with protest.

“The Felicity’s have to,

stopped dead, and I swear I heard men speaking French on deck. Hurry, lamb, hurry! “

“French!” Frightened into action, Jenny tumbled from the bunk and began to pull on her gown over her shift. Remembering Mariah’s plans for the Revenge, she’d once tentatively asked Captain Richardson if the Felicity was in any danger from French privateers, but he’d only laughed and patted her cheek indulgently, promising that the war was still too new for the French to have outfitted any vessels. She would have done better listening to her sister.

“Here, Elisha, help lace me up! Oh, please God we haven’t been captured!”

He hooked the lantern on the edge of the bunk as she turned her back to him, lifting her hair clear with both hands.

“Quit your wiggling, Jen, or I’ll never get” -The door to the tiny cabin exploded inward, followed by the bearded man whose shoulder had forced the hinges. He wore brass hoop earrings and canvas trousers and a rough calimanco waistcoat with no shirt beneath it, and in his hand was a cutlass, the steel guard battered but the blade polished and gleaming. Jenny shrieked, and Elisha shoved her behind him, cursing himself for being caught without a weapon.

“Do whatever they say, lad,” stammered Captain Richardson from the companionway. Another unfamiliar seaman kept the captain’s arms pinned behind his back and held a long-bladed knife across his throat as he shoved him forward to the cabin’s doorway. His wig was knocked askew, and Richardson’s throat quivered against the blade, his round face gleaming with perspiration.

“There’s no help for it that I can see.

They have the ship. “

Jenny whimpered, clutching at Elisha’s waist. “What a wellspring of information you are tonight, Richardson!” said a third man, bemused, as he smiled from the shadows at Elisha and Jenny. He was different from the other two, slightly built but a gentleman, from his three cornered that to the cut steel buckles on his shoes, and his English bore only a hint of an accent. He, too, carried a sword, but on his the hilt was bright with wrapped gold wire, the guard enamelled in red and blue. He tapped the blade twice on the shattered door.

“So this is the young lady in question, eh?”

“Miss West’s none of your affair, you thieving French pirate!” said Elisha furiously. Deep down he knew he didn’t have a chance against three armed men, but he couldn’t bear to let them harm his Jenny.

“You all just clear off and let her be, the lot of you!”

“Ecoutez-moi, boy, I intend her no harm,” said the gentleman, clucking his tongue.

“Though your gallantry is quite touching, considering how you’ve absconded with her.”

“I mean to marry her, damn you!” Elisha began to step forward, and the bearded man raised his sword.

“No, Elisha, don’t!” Frantically Jenny grabbed at Elisha’s sleeve and tried to hold him back. She’d rather die herself than have anything happen to him.

“Don’t let them kill you!”

“Listen to her, boy,” said the gentleman.

“She’s right, we will kill you if we must. There’s four Englishmen dead topsides who’d I’d fancy rather wished they’d had such a warning. Now, mademoiselle, if I might ask you to show yourself, eh?”

Elisha shook his head, lifting his arms to shield her.

“Nay, Jen, keep back, stay where you are.”

But Jenny slipped beneath his arm to stand before him in the lantern’s light, clutching the open back of her bodice with one hand. She’d comply even if Elisha wouldn’t. Her modesty wasn’t worth his life.

Richardson coughed nervously.

“I told you she was a beauty, captain, didn’t I? Think what the sister must be like if Sparhawk left this one behind!”

The gentleman clicked his tongue again, frowning. “You talk too much, Richardson.” He stepped closer to Jenny, into the light himself, and Jenny gasped. He should have been a handsome man, with high cheekbones and pale blue eyes, but the left side of his face was horribly scarred by a long, ragged seam that ran from beneath his powdered wig to the edge of his jaw and pulled the lid of his left eye half-closed. With the flat of his sword he lightly touched Jenny’s arm.

“What’s your name, mademoiselle?”

Jenny recoiled from the cold blade on her skin.

“Jenny West.” She tried to swallow her fear, thinking how her sister would handle a man like this. Mariah always knew what to say.

“And it doesn’t matter what Captain Richardson’s told you about Mariah. She’s all the way back in Newport, safe where you’ll never find her.”

“Indeed.” The scar twisted his smile downward, robbing it of any warmth.

Eagerly Richardson inched forward again.

“I told you where you’ll find the other girl, captain. I told you how Sparhawk took” — “Captain Richardson, I grow weary of you and your faithlessness,” said the French gentleman.

“Consider what sorrow your chattering will bring to this young lady!”

Confused, Richardson tried to shake his head.

“But you—you wanted to know!” he stammered.

“You said you’d let me pass unharmed if I told you about the girl!”

“You’d part with your mortal soul to save your cargo, wouldn’t you, Richardson?” The Frenchman sighed with resignation. Without taking his gaze from Jenny, he raised his left hand in a slight, dismissive gesture, the cabachon ruby he wore on his little finger glinting red.

Behind him the man holding Richardson pulled the knife smoothly across the English captain’s throat. With a spurt of blood and a surprised gurgle, Richardson’s knees buckled and he fell to the deck, his wig tipping off his bald head as the life drained from his body. Too shocked to scream, Jenny could only stare in horror at the dead captain’s startled, empty eyes, and at the blood that seemed to have no end as it spread across his shirt, his coat, his wig.

“You murdered him, plain as day!” cried Elisha hoarsely. He’d never felt as helpless, or as fearful as he did for Jenny’s sake.

“Any judge in the colonies would see you hung for that!”

But the French captain ignored him.

“Jenny and Mariah, Mariah and Jenny,” he said in a musing singsong.

“Charming names, charming ladies. But then Gabriel Sparhawk has always had the best of taste.