Mariah's Prize (2 page)

“She was French built not five years past.”

That mouth was made to be kissed, he decided, not to babble on about ships and shares.

“You’d trust me with this paragon sloop to go achasing after Spaniards?”

“Faith, no!” For the first time she smiled, her small face lit from within, and he was enchanted.

“I’d be twenty times a fool to ask you to do that now, when there’s scarcely a Spanish ship left afloat!”

So her dead father’s sloop was some fat-bottomed merchantman. Did she really expect him to be content with mere trade after the heady cat-and-mouse of privateering?

“Though of course I mean to trust you. I must, if you’re to sail for me,” she was saying.

“And because you’re already so prosperous, I could count on you not to cheat me like most of the other swinish masters I could name in Newport.”

Gabriel, chuckled. She was remarkably forthright for her age, and quite accurate about the other captains.

“Don’t laugh at me. Captain, I beg you!” Impulsively she stepped closer to him, near enough for him to smell the salt spray in her hair. Her breasts swelled invitingly above the tight lacing of her stays, and he willed himself not to look down and frighten her away.

“The others laughed at me, too, and I know you’re not like them.

You’re not like them at all. “

Her dark eyes searched his face for the answer she needed.

“I know it’s not customary for women to speak of business with men. Captain, but I have no brothers, and my father’s death has left me no choice. I hoped you might understand.”

Oh, he understood well enough. The pretty child was trying to seduce him.

“Truly, I hoped you might.” She lowered her eyes, from modesty or mere uncertainty, he couldn’t tell, and her voice slid down to little more than a whisper.

“In Newport, ‘tis said you are vastly fond of ladies.”

“So I am, lass, and vastly fine you are, yourself.” Gently Gabriel ran one finger along her jaw to her chin and slanted her face up toward his. “Are you, then, one more reason I should agree to your terms?”

She stayed silent, so still he wondered if she’d forgotten to breathe.

Strange how her seriousness seemed more tempting than all of Anjelike’s practiced seductions. He tried to remind himself she was a captain’s daughter, a girl from a decent family with a maidenhead reserved for the man who married her. He hadn’t stayed a bachelor this long without a healthy sense of self-preservation. If he’d any reason at all, he’d send her away now.

Now.

Instead he slowly bent down to kiss her, his fingers cradling her chin. She stiffened with surprise, her hands balling into tight little fists at her sides. She needed time, and he gave it to her, gently coaxing her lips apart to taste the velvety sweetness of her mouth.

Gradually he felt her relax, her small hands creeping up to rest against his chest. Her first tentative responses grew bolder, and soon she was answering him, her mouth exploring him and liking what she found. When Gabriel slipped his arm around her waist and drew her closer she leaned into him with a tiny sigh of contentment. Even in his arms she was direct, eager to share the new pleasure he was giving her. How long had it been since he’d kissed a woman as guileless as this one?

Not since Catherine. Not since a lifetime ago.

And his life now had no place for girls like this one. He didn’t want to sail in her father’s old sloop, trading second-rate rum in the Indies, and he certainly didn’t want a wife. Though her father was dead, there were sure to be uncles and neighbors to defend her virtue if he dawdled with her much longer. A girl like this was too dangerous. Reluctantly, almost too late, Gabriel broke away.

“Pretty child,” he said softly, stroking the curve of her cheek with his thumb, and she sighed, low and soft.

“I don’t even know your name.”

Her eyes fluttered open as if she’d just awakened, and with a breathy gasp she pulled free of his embrace. As she backed away she touched her fingers to her lips, still moist from his.

“Don’t look so scattered, lass.” Frustration made him gruff. Damn, he wanted her, and he wasn’t used to denying himself where women were concerned. He hoped she wouldn’t look down to the front of his breeches and see exactly what she’d done to him.

“I’ve stolen nothing that might be missed on your wedding night.”

She flushed clear to the rounded tops of her breasts, and he thought of how much he’d enjoyed those breasts crushed against his chest.

“Your name, poppet. You’re asking much of me, and you haven’t favored me yet with who you are.”

“It’s Mariah. Mariah West. And you can stop playacting, Captain Sparhawk.” Her smile was unexpected, sharp with regret of her own.

“Whatever my name, I’ll hazard you’re still going to refuse me, aren’t you?”

Was he really that obvious?

“I’m sorry, Miss West, but it wouldn’t suit either of us. I’ve had my run of luck with the sea, and there’s precious little that might tempt me to return.

Not even you. “

“I know the truth. I don’t please you,” she said stiffly.

“You don’t need to explain.”

“And you don’t need a rogue like me in your life.” He smiled, hoping to soften the rejection. “Leastways, not just yet.”

“I told you I didn’t need any explanations. Captain.” She pulled her hood up, stuffing her hair under it, and clutched the sides of her cloak tightly together over her breasts for good measure.

“I’ll go, and you can return to your—your other pursuits.”

She didn’t say goodbye when she left the room, and neither did Gabriel. As the heavy front door closed behind her, he dropped into the armchair and stared out at the bay.

Damn, he hadn’t even asked her about the fire. She’d made him clean forget about it. Worse yet, she’d made him remember things he thought he’d put behind him forever. Wearily Gabriel rubbed his hands across his eyes. Pretty little poppet. He wished he’d kept her, after all.

How bad could a crowd of angry male relatives be, anyway?

“She’s gone then, Cap’n?” asked Ethan with surprise, and with the familiarity that made him a better shipmate than servant.

“Didn’t think ye would be lettin’ that one fly away. Not wit’ her so favorin’ your Miss Langley.”

“You thought she resembled Catherine? I didn’t see it.”

Ethan snorted in disbelief and squinted suspiciously at his captain.

“Ye didn’t let her tell ye, did ye now, Cap’n?”

Absently Gabriel ran his thumb over and over the chair’s curving arm piece. “She told me her father was dead, and she wished me to take his place on his sloop.”

“Nay, ye treated her like ye do most ev’ry woman, Cap’n, tryin’ so fast to cozen her petticoats o’er her head that ye didn’t let her tell ye her news. But she told me, Cap’n, she told old Ethan on account of I’d listen.”

Indignantly Ethan seized the used goblet from the sideboard and stuffed it under his arm to take downstairs for washing.

“That sloop o’ her father’s is the Revenge, the selfsame Revenge you’ve been cravin’ to buy yerself if ye weren’t so busy pretendin’ ye had set yer rovin’ aside. The sleekest sloop for privateerin’ ever sailed from Newport, jus’ like she says.”

“What of it?” Gabriel hid his surprise well.

“She also said she wouldn’t waste her time chasing the handful of Spaniards left in the sea.”

“Ye didn’t even let her tell you about them bonfires, did ye?” The look in Ethan’s eyes was perilously close to pity.

“We’re at war wit’ the French again, Cap’n, just an’ fair an’ by order o’ the king his self That sweet lass says the whole blessed town’s gone mad with joy, counting all the money to be had from running after French prizes. The French, ye hear me?”

The old sailor turned and contemptuously spat between the andirons into the cold fireplace. “Ye always do prattle on about wanting a second chance to set your mistakes to right, Cap’n. Well, that little Miss West jus’ offered ye that chance for salvation. An’ ye jus’ turned it down.”

q^tqts^q

>jhe had made a fool of herself.

There was no other way for Mariah to look at it. A hapless, helpless, simpering fool. She ripped the hairbrush through the tangles in her hair, tangles that had come from riding to that man’s house last night with her hair untied. Because Daniel had always admired her hair loose, she’d been vain—no, foolish—enough to believe that Captain Gabriel Sparhawk would like it that way, too.

She winced as the brush caught in a snarl. Because Captain Sparhawk was supposed to be nearly as old as her father and far more successful as a privateer, she’d imagined him as gray-haired and fat-bellied and quite safe, despite the rakish reputation he had among Newport gossips. She had only meant to smile and try to flatter him into agreement, nothing more.

But instead Gabriel Sparhawk was more handsome than any man she’d ever seen, young or old, so handsome that she’d clear forgotten her reason for coming and let him kiss her instead. Her cheeks burned again from shame. How could she, Mariah West, have let herself forget the fine, noble love of her Daniel for the practiced seduction of a man like Captain Sparhawk?

She started at the pounding at the front door, the heavy, regular thumps that were meant to be heard by every neighbor up and down the street. Swiftly Mariah coiled her hair on her head and tied her cap over it as she hurried down the stairs. In the hallway she passed her mother’s tear-swollen face, peeking uncertainly from behind the drawing room door. “What can they want, Mariah?” her mother asked tremulously. With her words came the strong taint of Geneva spirits, the same solace that had finally killed her husband.

“Won’t they leave me in peace?

Have they no respect for my loss, my grief? “

Mariah glanced at the front door, trying to guess who was on the other side. Duns and collectors were nothing new to her family, and they’d only grown bolder with her father dead.

“I’ll speak to the man. Mama,” she said gently, touching her hand to her mother’s arm.

“You rest now. I’ll send him on his way.”

Her mother was still dressed in the gown she’d worn to the burying two days before, the lace neckerchief soiled and trailing forlornly from her shoulders. Behind her Mariah could see the hangings and blinds drawn against the daylight, and guttered candles across the mantelpiece. Three guineas’ worth of the finest spermaceti candles at the very least, thought Mariah with dismay, three guineas that they didn’t have now melted into a greasy lump on the woodwork.

The thumping at the front door grew louder, and with it came low, growled threats. Mrs. West’s red-rimmed eyes widened with fear, and she scuttled back into the drawing room.

Quickly Mariah closed the room’s paneled door after her mother and made certain the lock was latched. She’d have to talk to her mother, and soon, but for now Mariah was determined her mother should have all the peace she wanted. She smoothed her apron over her skirts, took a deep breath to calm herself and with both hands threw open the heavy front door.

“Master Oakes,” she said to the man on the step before her, his arm frozen awkwardly overhead in mid knock She knew the chandler from all the cordage and canvas he’d sold to the Revenge, and from the bills she’d found with the others that her father hadn’t paid.

“Master Oakes. Perhaps you are unaware that my father is newly dead?”

“Oh, aye. Miss Mariah, I know it well enough,” said Samuel Oakes, his ruddy, jowly face thrust belligerently close to Mariah’s.

“Whole town knows he died Tuesday night and went into the churchyard on Thursday, and that he’s a-laughing with the devil now over all the money he left owing us.”

“Mr. Oakes!” Mariah sucked in her breath.

“I’ll thank you not to speak of my father so, not with him scarcely laid in his grave!”

“Pickled in it’s more the truth, girl.” Already the summer day was warm, and he swabbed his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.

“Your old man died owing me more’n twenty-five guineas, and I’ll not be leaving your doorstep until you pay me, hard money.”

Mariah held her place in the center of the doorway. From her experience with other tradesmen, she doubted he’d try to force his way into the house—making the debt public before the Wests’ neighbors would be very much more in Oakes’s favor—but she still hated the way he was threatening her, standing far closer to her than was proper.

Already passersby were beginning to dawdle and eavesdrop.

“You can stand on my doorstep until Judgment Day,

Master Oakes,” she said firmly, ” and I still won’t be able to give you what I don’t have. “

“Sell the bloody sloop and you’ll be able to pay us all!”

“Yes, and then where will my mother and sister and I be left? I’ll tell you the same as I’ve told the others, sir, and that’s that the Revenge is not for sale. Once I’ve found a master for her” — “When hell’s frozen cold as a whore’s heart, you mean!” Oakes snorted.

‘“Tis common knowledge that every captain worth the name’s turned you down.”

“Once I’ve found a master,” repeated Mariah stubbornly, “I’ll send her out against the French, and I promise you she’ll bring back more prizes than any other Newport vessel! Then you and every other man can come and I’ll honor my father’s debts fair. But not now, and not when he’s scarce at peace in his grave!”

“Hold your tongue, Oakes! Let the poor lass be!” called a man from the growing crowd, and gratefully Mariah looked to find him. But instead her eye stopped at the flash of salmon-colored skirts and pale gold hair as she recognized her sister. Jenny, her head ducked and her hand linked through Elisha Watson’s arm as they tried to hurry by unnoticed.

Mariah slammed the heavy door shut behind her and slipped past the chandler. “Good day to you. Master Oakes,” she said quickly, unwilling to let Jenny escape yet again.

“Be easy that I’ll pay you your due as soon as I can.”

Not waiting for his reply, Mariah hurried down the street after her sister. Reverend Dr. Thomas and his wife were invited to dine that evening, and since Mariah had had to turn away the one remaining serving girl last month, she’d need all the help she could to ready both the meal and Mrs. West for company. And granted, though Captain West was seldom home while they’d been girls, his memory deserved more than this from her sister, running off to do heaven only knew what with Elisha.