Mariah's Prize (21 page)

Certainly his father’s temper hadn’t lessened a whit with age. To listen how he railed at him now, here in the same room where only a

quarter hour past he’d been loving Ma 3

riah, made Gabriel feel like he was six again instead of thirty-three.

“What’s your poor mother done to deserve such disrespect from you, eh, boy?” thundered Jonathan, his voice raised loud enough for a quarterdeck. Both men stood, neither willing to give the other the advantage of height.

“To find you here, without warning and after four years, on the floor of her drawing room rutting away at some weeping child with her clothes torn apart!”

“Mariah’s not a child. Father,” said Gabriel as calmly as he could, determined, this once, to keep his temper.

“She’s eighteen, of age by anyone’s reckoning.”

“And young enough to be your own daughter, if what your brother’s said of your precocious appetites is true.” Twice he thumped the walking stick on the floor for emphasis.

“You must have paid handsomely for a piece that young.”

“Damn it. Father, she’s not some five-shilling strumpet!”

“True enough,” agreed Jonathan shrewdly, clearly pleased to have gotten that much from Gabriel.

“Your women tend to be more costly. So what poor husband were you cuckolding today?”

“She has no husband. She came with me freely from Newport on board the Revenge.”

“The armed sloop new to the harbor this day.” Jonathan smiled with grim satisfaction.

“You’re going after the French now, aren’t you? All the Spaniards you slaughtered for their gold weren’t enough. I should have known a new war would draw you out.”

With a deep sigh he lowered himself heavily into the armchair, and for the first time he looked like an old man.

“You know full well that this will break your mother’s heart all over again.”

Gabriel winced, knowing his father was right, but he didn’t try to defend himself. There wasn’t any point. To his father, privateering was no better than pirating, and because long ago Jonathan had lost a ship and nearly his life to pirates, he had little interest or sympathy in Gabriel’s reasons for leaving the family’s own shipping business to become a privateer. Not that Gabriel had wanted to explain to anyone why he’d gone out to fight the Spanish. Then the pain had been too new and raw, and now it was too late.

“It’s only one cruise, Father,” he said.

“The sloop belonged to Mariah’s father and now to her, and I” — “The girl’s father was a Newport man, a shipmaster?” Jonathan interrupted impatiently.

“Did I know him?”

“Edward West?” Gabriel shrugged carelessly.

“You wouldn’t have known him. Father. A low, drunken man, a miserable excuse for a captain, unworthy of his daughters.”

“Captain West of Water Street. Oh, aye, I knew him well enough, and his father, Ezra, before him. Wed Letitia Martin, didn’t he? Traded mostly in sugar and rum. And now my son has debauched his daughter, ruined her good name with his whole crew and his own mother as witness.”

The undeniable sadness in his father’s voice caught Gabriel off-balance. Most men would be proud of a son who’d made his fortune in the king’s service and had half the women in the colonies swooning over him. But his father, he knew, wasn’t one of them. His father expected more, and always had. Impulsively Gabriel reached out to put his hand on his father’s arm, as if by touch he could make up for all the disappointments he’d brought him over the years.

“You’ve gone to the devil this time, boy.” Ignoring the hand on his sleeve, Jonathan shook his head wearily without looking at his son.

“You’ll marry this lass, Gabriel. If you don’t, I’ll see that the governor tosses you in his prison and keeps you there until your damned French war is done.”

Mariah sat stiffly on the bench, her back straight as Hepzibah first brushed her hair with long, even strokes, then rubbed it carefully with a scrap of silk to make it shine, and finally began to roll and pin each piece of hair in place into a glossy crown of curls. Mariah wore only her stays and shift and stockings—pale rose stockings—for though she could see the sun sinking lower through the open window, a red ball that stained the blue Caribbean crimson, the evening air was still stifling. She would wait until the last possible moment to dress, or rather, to be dressed, so she wouldn’t wilt the delicate patterned silk of the gown lying on the bed, and the flowers she’d carry wouldn’t be picked from the garden until after she was dressed.

Everything spoiled in this miserable climate, thought Mariah.

Everything.

For two weeks she’d only seen Gabriel at dinner, and then his father and his friends had kept him so busy with talk of the French war that he’d scarcely found the time to nod at her across the room. He had much to do, that was all, and she told herself it was such business that kept him away from her. Business, not neglect. But what did she expect with this preposterous marriage his parents were forcing on them both? Before, when he told her she had a place in his life, she let herself hope that mdybe he had come to love her as’ she did him.

But what kind of love could grow when forced like this?

“You shouldn’t set yourself to worryin’, miss,” said Hepzibah critically as she paused to pat at Mariah’s bare throat and chest with a cool, damp cloth before she dusted more powder on her skin. Hepzibah had been borrowed from the next plantation, since Damaris kept no lady’s maid herself, and though Mariah had always wondered what such a luxury would be like, tonight she found the girl’s attentions only one more gift she didn’t want.

“In Bridgetown, worryin’ makes ladies melt away like th’ dew before th’ sun. And why should you be a-worryin’ at all, miss? Tonight you’ll have most ev’ry woman on this island sighing wit’ envy, wishin’ they was in your place an’ marryin’ Captain Sparhawk!”

Mariah didn’t want the envy of women she didn’t know. She wanted to be back home on her own island with her sister and mother. She gazed out the window to the harbor, forlornly searching again for Jenny’s ship.

No one else seemed concerned by the Felicity’s delay—winds and weather, an overcautious captain—but Mariah hadn’t stopped wishing that her sister would arrive safely, and in time to be here when she stood with Gabriel before the redfaced Anglican minister. Jenny could have wed Elisha at the same time, so there would have been at least one happy couple for the guests to raise their glasses to.

“Do you like the gown, Mariah?”

Mariah closed her eyes for a moment at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, trying to control the wild beating of her heart before she turned on the bench to face him. He’d opened the door without her realizing it, without asking her permission or knocking, and as he stood there with his hand resting on the polished knob he was so breathtakingly handsome that she almost wept. He was wearing the same green velvet suit she remembered from the windmill, and foolishly she wondered if he’d remembered, too, and selected it for that reason.

“Is the gown of your choosing?”

“Aye. Though she won’t admit it, there are some things best not left to my mother.” Pointedly his gaze swept to her legs.

“I sent you three pair stockings. I’m glad you picked the rose ones, though I’d scarcely flatter myself that ‘twas to please me.”

Though he’d seen every inch of her naked, she still felt unbelievably wanton sitting before him half-undressed with Hepzibah arranging her hair. Strange to think that in an hour, when she and Gabriel were husband and wife, such conversations would be considered wholly respectable—or at least as respectable as anything involving Gabriel could be.

“I chose the rose ones because they best suited the gown,” she said stiffly.

“A more diplomatic answer than I’d expected from you, Mariah.” He smiled so slightly that Mariah couldn’t tell if he was truly amused.

“Although you still haven’t said whether you like my selection or not.”

“This gown is even more beautiful than the one from Madame Lambert’s shop.” Lord, how did he manage to stand there wearing so much clothing and not show the heat? She felt sure she’d melt the way Hepzibah warned, just from the way he was looking at her.

“But you knew that already, or you wouldn’t have asked my opinion.”

“Another neat reply, though this time more astute than politic.

Perhaps I shall have to abandon calling you poppet, as you wish. “

He glanced at Hepzibah.

“Leave us. Miss West will call you.”

“Oh, but Captain Sparhawk, sir, it don’t be proper for you to be here now with Miss West before you’re wed! Mistress Sparhawk told me not” “Hush now, hush.” Smiling at the maid, he briefly touched his forefinger across his lips. “Mistress Sparhawk won’t know unless you tell her.”

The maid turned scarlet with pleasure at his attention, dipped a quick curtsy and left the room, making sure her skirts swept against Gabriel’s legs as she squeezed past him.

Unwilling to watch, Mariah looked into her lap. To see him flirt so unthinkingly with another woman hurt.

“You could always marry her,” she said defensively once they were alone.

“She told me every woman on Barbados envies me tonight.”

“You don’t agree?” he asked softly. He doubted she knew how much she tempted him, her breasts raised invitingly by the tight lacing, her bare shoulders glistening with the same soft sheen that her skin always took when passion or anger warmed her blood. But now he wanted more from her than desire alone could satisfy.

Hidden by her skirts, her hands gripped the sides of the bench.

“Don’t try to sweeten the truth, Gabriel. I no more want this wedding than you do.”

He hadn’t come here expecting that sharpness from her, and it surprised him.

“Then why did you agree to it?”

“Why did you?” she asked in return, her small chin lifting belligerently.

He didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure himself, any more than he knew why he’d come to see her now, before this sorry, trumped-up excuse for a wedding. These days he didn’t seem to know much of anything.

If he’d really wanted to, he could have found a way to buck his father’s threat. He’d done it often enough before, but this time he hadn’t even tried. Fighting his father could mean losing Mariah and he couldn’t risk it. She’d become a part of his world, and a part of him, and he couldn’t bear to lose her, even if it meant marrying her with his father’s pistol jabbing him in the back.

So why was he having such a hell of a time telling her how he felt? He wanted to give her more than the easy, pat endearments he’d whispered to all the other women, and ruefully he knew that now, when it mattered so much, he’d become as tongue-tied as any mooncalf cabin boy. Once he’d finished with Deveaux, he would make all this up to her. He’d begin again, woo her the way she deserved.

But for Mariah, each moment he stood there in silence before her stretched like an endless, painful hour as he didn’t even bother to explain to her. The last time he’d told her she had a place in his life, if not his heart, but now he didn’t even seem to want to offer that.

“You don’t have to pretend for my sake, Gabriel,” she said, struggling to protect herself against his silence.

“I never wanted to be your wife, and I still don’t.”

He stood very still, studying her against the fading light of the setting sun. What had his parents told her to make her like this? Not even his father would have threatened her with prison.

“Once you loved me,” he said carefully, “and I think you still do. You don’t have to go through with this, Mariah, not unless you wish it.”

She shook her head and looked into her lap. She wondered that her eyes were dry. If ever there was a time for tears, this was it. “I have no choice, Gabriel,” she said in a voice scarcely more than a whisper. He was feeling trapped enough without her adding her sad little reason, and she wouldn’t do that to him.

“None at all.”

“I don’t believe that of you, Mariah,” he said firmly.

“No one—not your mother, not mine—can make you do anything against your will.”

“But you can, Gabriel, and you already have.”

“Mariah” -Swiftly she turned away from him.

“It’s bad luck for you to be here now. Go, please, before your mother finds us together again.”

“I’ll leave if you wish it, Mariah,” he said at last, “but| I won’t give you up.” < This time she heard the door as it closed softly behind ;

him, and she didn’t say the words that might have made | him stop. It was too late for any words to help either of them now.

As stiff as a wooden doll, Mariah let Hepzibah dress her, tying and pinning the elaborate gown in place” easing on her slippers, clasping on the twin pearl bracelets that were the gift from her new father-in-law. One last time Hepzibah dusted her shoulders with rice powder.

“There now, miss,” she declared, pleased with her handiwork, “you are perfection itself!”

Mariah stared at the elegant young woman in the mirror and saw nothing of herself. “I should like to walk in the garden alone for a few moments, Hepzibah,” she said, her voice hollow.

“Please tell the others I shall join them shortly.”

“But Mistress Sparhawk said you was to go down with the old captain, that he’d come for you when all the guests was here!”

“Mistress Sparhawk will understand,” called Mariah as she escaped down the narrow back stairs, her full skirts over panniers brushing against the whitewashed walls. Three minutes later she stood in the darkened garden alone, Hepzibah’s last careful dusting of powder already sacrificed to the moist evening air. Before her the windows of the house were gold with candlelight, and women’s laughter and men’s voices drifted out through the open sashes. Behind her lay the murky shadows of the tropical garden, the white blossoms of the begonias ghostly pale against the dense foliage, alive with the shrieks and calls of a hundred strange birds and animals Mariah couldn’t name.

She sank down on a teakwood bench and pressed her palms to her cheeks.

In Newport this late in August, there was already a chill to the air after sunset, a hint of autumn and winter to come, but here there was no respite from the heat, no evening breeze rising from the water.