Mariah's Prize (19 page)

One last time she took the paper from her pocket and read the faded ink again. Five thousand guineas the man had owed her father. To find the man would be a wonder in itself, and to coax the money from him an out-and-out miracle, but she had to try. With five thousand guineas to her name, she might be able to convince Gabriel to stop privateering and return to Crescent Hill.

Seated in the stem sheets of the Revenge’s second boat, Mariah looked between the twin rows of men at the oars toward the wharf and the town they were quickly approaching. From the harbor, Newport’s waterfront was many colors, weather-silvered shingles or whitewashed clap boarding rosy red bricks and shutters that were blue and green and yellow.

But Bridgetown was only white, a blinding, unrelieved white that sparkled in the sun, with every house and building, even the streets, fashioned from the same white coral rock. Beyond the town the land undulated in gentle hills, all green from the cane plantations that were the island’s only crop.

Blue water, white houses, green land and people the color of ebony.

Mariah had never seen so many Africans in one place. In Newport there were thirty, maybe forty slaves at most, and that many again as freemen. But here the English were outnumbered, their fair hair and ruddy skin standing out among the men who toiled along the docks.

“Careful now. Miss Mariah,” said Alien Welsh, beaming as he helped her from the boat. He had let his beard, white blond and curling, grow on the voyage from Rhode Island, and with his broad, flat face he looked like a goodnatured sheep.

“Don’t want the cap’n sayin’ I didn’t treat you fine, nor old Ethan nippin’ at my heels, neither.”

“They won’t hear otherwise from me. Alien.” Mariah shook out her skirts and looked past him to the crowded,

busy streets. Off the water, the day seemed even hotter, the sun glittering relentlessly from the white buildings and streets, the air more oppressive, and beneath her stays her shift was already plastered damply to her back and arms.

“Now if you’ll direct me toward the inn” “— ” Nay, miss, Ethan says I’m to go wit’ you an’ keep you safe until th’ cap’n claims you,” declared Alien stubbornly, his legs spread and his arms folded across his wide chest to block her path if she tried to leave without him. ” A fair little lass like you would be gobbled up in a place like this.

“

Mariah sighed impatiently. Lord, did they all think she needed protecting?

“Very well, then, but let’s stop dawdling in this sun. The inn is called the Lady” — “Th’ Lady Anne,” said Alien proudly as he shouldered a path for her through the crowd. “Ethan told me. We all knows the Lady Anne.”

One look at the inn and Mariah knew too well why her father had known the Lady Anne, too, just as she knew why Gabriel never would. On a once fine town house closed in on either side by other, meaner buildings, the faded signboard with the lady herself hung crookedly from its post, and on either side of the well-worn doorstep the white walls were stained with the leavings of past customers. Exactly the kind of third-rate tavern where Mariah’s father had felt most comfortable drinking and gaming, away from the disapproving-eyes of the better sort that included her mother.

“Wait for me outside,” said Mariah, fingering the gambling chit in her pocket. The Lady Anne looked like a most unpromising place to find five thousand guineas, and she’d rather the Revenge’s entire company didn’t learn of her fool’s errand. As it was, she still hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to explain it to Gabriel.

“I’ll go look for Captain Sparhawk.”

Welsh shook his woolly head.

“Nay, miss, my orders was to stay wit’ you.”

Marian smiled winningly. “You stay here and watch for him. If he’s not within, I’ll come back directly.” She lowered her eyes demurely.

“Besides, Alien, I need to visit their necessary.”

Speechless with embarrassment, the sailor flushed beneath his tan and nodded stiffly, and Marian hurried through the open door before he changed his mind. Inside she paused, letting her eyes adjust to the murky shadows of the taproom.

“In or out, ye hussy,” whined a man’s nasal voice from deep in the room.

“Like th’ bawd said to th’ drunken vestryman, you’re no good at all to me when you’re stuck twixt and between.”

Quickly Marian stepped inside. The room was empty except for two mulatto women in tawdry gowns on the bench along the fire wall, their faces relaxed in sleep, and both as worn as the table and chairs around them. Years of candle and tobacco smoke had darkened the walls and beams overhead, and although the shuttered windows were thrown open, the air within was stale with last night’s ale and rum and the stench of the unwashed customers. It was worse than those Mariah had seen in Newport, but she’d come this far and she wouldn’t run now.

Besides, with Alien Welsh outside, how much trouble could find her?

“Away with ye, chick-a-biddy,” ordered the whining man, “if yer only business be in gawking.”

This time Mariah could see that the voice belonged to the keep, a slack-faced man barely visible behind the grillwork of his bar. At midday, he was his own best customer,

and cradled in his hand on the counter was a half-empty bottle of rum.

“But I do have business with you,” she said, inching toward him.

“I’m looking for a man who was here throwing dice last winter.”

The keep snorted derisively.

“Last winter! There’s been a precious lot of water out wit’ th’ tide since then!”

“You would remember this game, I think. He lost five thousand guineas to my father.”

His whistle through the gap in his teeth was low and appreciative.

“I

might be recalling something o’ that, though me memory turns more faulty ev’ry day. “

Mariah was expecting that, and slid two silver coins across the counter. Immediately they disappeared into the keep’s grimy bird et waistcoat. “What come oyer daddy that he be sendin’ a chit like ye be on his errands?”

“He’s dead,” said Mariah, “and I mean to collect what’s owed him. The man’s name, if you please, and where I might find him.”

“Hey ho. Bob, what pretty have ye found for me today?” The sunlight from the open door was blotted out by the newcomer, but Mariah didn’t turn.

“The man’s name, sir,” she repeated urgently, “and where he lodges!”

Two hands grasped her waist and pulled her back. With a shriek Mariah seized the rods of the bar’s grill and held tight.

“Let me go, whoever you are!”

The man who held her guffawed, and Mariah nearly gagged as his breath flooded over her. “Who she be. Bob? By th’ black spy, but she be a plump little piece, an’ fresh as country cream!”

The keep shrugged, drinking deeply from the bottle. “Ah, some little ladybird, lookin’ for th’ cove what cheated her daddy. Mind, if ye take her, th’ silver in her pocket’s mine by rights, for findin’ her for ye.”

“You’ve no rights to anything, you fat thief!” yelled Mariah.

“Alien!

Alien, help me! “

Still hanging tightly to the rods, she twisted around to look for Welsh. But the place across the street where she’d left him was empty, and as she turned the man who held her grasped her jaw and tried to turn her mouth to meet his. He was unshaven and stank of onions and stale sweat, and as angry and frightened as she was, Mariah was sure she’d rather die than let those lips touch her own. She jerked her head free and kicked him in the knee as hard as she could.

“Alien!” “Fight me, will ye, ye little bitch?” The man swore, and roughly tore her fingers from the bar. She lunged forward, desperate to regain her hold, but effortlessly the man slammed her against his body. Still plunging and twisting to free herself, she felt the man’s fingers against her skin as he ripped her gown off her shoulder, felt his wet lips, his yellow teeth against her bare skin.

“Let her go or you die.”

Abruptly the man turned around, dragging Mariah with him. In the doorway stood Gabriel, his arm raised and steady, the sunlight behind him glinting off the silver inlays on his pistol’s long barrel.

“I found her first,” blustered the man, his arm tightening around Mariah.

“No flash buck’s goin’ to take what’s mine!”

“My name’s Captain Gabriel Sparhawk, and I’m no flash buck.” “Sparhawk!” Mariah felt the fear that shivered through the man, and wondered that Gabriel’s name alone could do that. But then she’d never seen Gabriel like this before, his eyes hard as green ice, the lines carved deep around his mouth, all of him calm and cold and very, very deadly.

“If ye kill me, ye shall kill the chit, too!”

“Oh, you’ll find my aim’s better than that. But I’d rather not soil the lady’s gown with the spattering of your brains.” Gabriel cocked his head slightly to the left, appraising.

“And she is a lady. My lady.”

“Take her, then, an’ th’ devil claim ye both!” The man shoved Mariah before him and swiftly reached into his coat for his knife.

Off-balance, she stumbled forward, and all she saw was the spark and the acrid white smoke, rising up from the flintlock that followed the gunshot. The two mulatto women were instantly awake, screaming and clutching each other, and the man who’d held her was swearing and gasping from the floor where he’d fallen as he cradled his shattered, bloody right hand with his left.

Stunned, Mariah stared at Gabriel, his expression unchanged as the gunpowder smoke drifted about him. Slowly he lowered the pistol to his side, and now she saw Alien Welsh, his face equally grim, behind him in the doorway.

“Come along, Mariah.” Gabriel didn’t look at her, his eyes instead intent on the writhing, wounded man.

“You’ve caused trouble enough.”

“I’ve caused trouble!” she exclaimed indignantly, settling her hands on her hips as her torn bodice slipped off her shoulder. With the danger seemingly gone, anger quickly overcame her-fear.

“You might have killed me, Gabriel! Since when do gentlemen go into town with pistols on their belts?”

“Since you. Miss West, keep giving me reasons.” He hooked the gun at his waist and pulled off his coat.

“Here. Cover yourself.”

While Mariah tugged the torn sleeve higher over her i shoulder, she only glared at the offered coat.

“Stop giving orders, Gabriel. I’m not one of your crew.” } “Very well.” He tossed the coat over her bare shoulders, barely able to contain his fury. What the devil was wrong with her? Didn’t she realize how close she’d been to real harm? When he’d seen that bastard’s hands on her, he could have killed the man in an instant, without any remorse, merely for touching her. So why wasn’t she soft and trembling in his arms, grateful for her deliverance like any normal woman would be, instead of yowling at him like a fishmonger’s wife?

With no more gentleness than the other man had shown, he seized her by the arm and yanked her toward the door. He tossed a coin to the boy who held his horse, and before Mariah could argue more he lifted her up and across the saddle and then climbed behind her. He nodded curtly to Alien Welsh, who looked as wretched as a man his size could. Well, let him, thought Gabriel grimly. What had he and Ethan and the rest of them been thinking, letting Mariah go off by herself like that?

“Could you please possibly tell me where we’re going?” asked Mariah with icy politeness as he turned the horse’s head away from the waterfront and toward the hills.

“I’m taking you to my father’s house, where I trust my mother will do a better job of keeping you from mischief than my men did on the Revenge. She, at least, won’t have her head turned by a pretty face.”

“No, Gabriel, I won’t! I don’t know your parents. I want to stay on the sloop. That’s where I belong, not” — “No more, Mariah.” Angry as he was, all he heard was her defiant refusal, and none of the panic that colored it.

“And not another word until we reach the house.”

It was another order, but one Mariah felt she had little choice but to

obey. How could she have any sort of reasonable conversation when she was being jostled and bounced against the horse’s neck, clutching at a fistful of its mane with one hand and Gabriel’s coat over her torn bodice with the other? Not that she feared she’d fall. Gabriel’s arm around her waist was like an iron band, not protective because he cherished her and wanted her safe, but because he’d fought for her and won, as if she were no more than the bone contested by two mongrels. By now she knew the difference and it only fueled her anger and anxiety.

He couldn’t make her stay, she told herself. She didn’t belong to him.

If anything, he should be listening to her orders because he was sailing her sloop. He couldn’t possibly leave her behind.

The road to his parents’ plantation curved along the hillside overlooking the bay, the crushed white coral crunching like broken ice beneath the horse’s hooves. She knew he was driving the horse too hard in the heat, with flecks of foam from the animal’s mouth flying onto her skirts. When they reached the house, a black man trotted forward to catch the reins Gabriel threw to him. Mariah had only the briefest impression of the house—long and low and white, with porches along the front that faced the sea—before Gabriel was pulling her off the horse and up the steps.

“Wait, Gabriel, stop,” she said breathlessly, trying to stop. She’d lost her that at the Lady Anne, her hair was half unpinned, her clothes torn and stained. What would Mrs. Sparhawk make of her like this?

“I can’t meet your mother like this!”

“You won’t. She’s visiting and won’t be back until next week.” His eyes narrowed, inspecting her critically.

“By then you should have had time to make yourself decent enough for her.”

With his fingers tight on her arm he led her through the

t (0 Oo what shall it be, Gabriel? ” asked Mariah, her voice shaking.

“Will you tie me to a chair to keep me here, or perhaps your father has chains to manacle me to the cellar wall like a slave?”

“My father doesn’t own slaves, Mariah, any more than he owns chains.”

He had never seen a woman who could look so bedraggled and forlorn and yet be so infuriating at the same time, and he was torn between wanting to punish her and wishing to tell her how much he’d feared for her, to kiss her and reassure her, and himself too, that she was all right.