Mariah's Prize (26 page)

We can discuss Captain Deveaux’s preferences all you wish, but for now, muchachas, consider yourselves my prisoners. “

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1 he man lit the floating wick in the crude lamp on the table in the middle of the tiny house’s single room, then dropped onto the bench along the wall, the long-barreled pistol resting across his thigh.

“You’re the two Englishwomen Deveaux’s been keeping, aren’t you? Madre de Dios, what I’d give to see his face when he learns you’re gone!”

Mariah didn’t answer. With no other place to sit except the man’s bed, she preferred to stand. Jenny beside her. Exhausted and discouraged, she had little fight left. She’d already offered him the bracelets and money in exchange for his help, and he’d laughed outright. By the flickering lamplight, the man’s bearded face was too crafty to offer her any hope, and she knew it was only a matter of time before he returned them to Deveaux.

“Sisters, aren’t you? Night and day, noche y dia—like the moon and the sun.” He smiled wolfishly, stopping just short of licking his lips.

“No wonder Deveaux’s so certain Sparhawk will come for a pair like you!”

“If you’re going to take us back to him, than pray do it swiftly,” said Mariah wearily. Because the man hadn’t bothered to unbar the shutters to the two windows, the room was stifling and close.

“You’re eager to return to Deveaux?” Frowning, the man leaned forward, fingering the pistol.

“You are Sparhawk’s woman, aren’t you?”

“How many other Englishwomen does that madman have prisoner?” Mariah put her palm to her damp forehead.

“I’m Mariah West, and this is my sister Jenny and yes, I’m the woman who was to wed Gabriel Sparhawk!”

“The one man in these seas who can kill Deveaux!” crowed the man happily.

“You have seen what your man has done to Deveaux’s handsome face, Jesus, how with but one cut of his sword he made him as ugly as his soul! What he will do now in the holy name of vengeance, now that Deveaux has dared touch his woman!”

Sickened, Mariah closed her eyes to stop the words she didn’t want to hear, stop the spinning of the little room around her. Since that night long ago in Newport when Gabriel had killed the two thieves, she’d known he was capable of killing swiftly and efficiently. She didn’t doubt that Gabriel had been the one to disfigure Deveaux, and when she remembered the long, jagged scar that seamed Gabriel’s body, she now knew it was Deveaux’s work. When they met again, one of them would die. “He has lied to me and cheated me for the last time, the bastardo,” the man was saying. “For years I had been my own master, until Deveaux’s treachery left me the choice of hanging or joining him. I chose life, but what slavery it is under him! A lieutenant on his precious ship, eh, under him it means nothing, pays nothing! But now I will see him ruined, I will see the skin flayed from his breathing carcass, and I will dance on his devil’s grave!”

In her mind’s eye Mariah saw Deveaux’s deadly sword practice, the polished blade flashing in the hot sun, but now she saw Gabriel there, as well, heard the clash of steel as their swords met, the final gasp and cry as one of them fell, one of them died. No matter which one it was, she would be the reason. It would be all her doing if Gabriel died. “Mariah, it’s Jenny. Your sister, Jen.” Mariah tried to focus on Jenny’s face peering down at her, trying to make her have two blue eyes full of concern instead of four.

“You fainted, but you’ll be well enough now. I had Diego open the windows before he left.”

“Diego?” Weakly Mariah tried to rise, but when Jenny pushed her against the pillow she didn’t try again. She was lying on a bed, the lime-washed walls around her belonging to a room she didn’t recognize.

“Who’s Diego, Jen?”

Jenny couldn’t hide her relief.

“He’s the man who found us in the jungle. Diego Figaroa. He’s gone to find some food for you. You frightened him when you fell over like that, plopping right down at his feet.”

Mariah sighed and sipped water from the battered cup that Jenny offered her.

“Likely he just saw his chance to dance on Deveaux’s grave slipping away, laid out on the floor.”

“Don’t be so harsh, ” Riah. ” Jenny settled back on her heels on the floor, working her fingers through the tangles in her hair.

“Whatever his reasons, he’s going to help us get home. He says they sighted the Revenge to the southeast this afternoon, so your captain’s come after you, just like everyone said he would. Everyone, that is, but you.”

“The Revenge here!” Mari ah struggled to rise, her legs tangling in her skirts, her head still swimming.

“Dear God, Jenny, we must go to them now! I have to warn Gabriel before Deveaux finds him!”

“Not until tonight,” said Jenny, again gently pushing Mariah onto the bed.

“Diego says Deveaux has the whole island out looking for us. He says

we’ll be safe here be 9

cause Deveaux doesn’t know about this place, and anyway, he still trusts Diego. Look, it’s almost dawn now. If we try to leave by daylight, they’re sure to catch us. Besides, “Riah, you couldn’t walk ten feet without tumbling over onto your face again. You rest, and tonight we’ll go with Diego.”

“But if I don’t see Gabriel” — “If you don’t wait until tonight, you won’t see him at all, and let that be an end to it.” Jenny looked at her sideways, her face still bent over her hair.

“I thought you didn’t love Captain Sparhawk, ” Riah. I thought neither one of you cared a whit, yet here you’re both practically tripping over each other’s feet trying to save the other from Captain Deveaux. “

Mariah groaned, feeling trapped.

“I told you before I don’t at present wish to discuss Gabriel with you.”

“Oh, la, then I’ll tell you what I think. I think that you’re scarce eating more than a bird, and then being sick to your stomach yesterday, and now fainting when you’ve never fainted before in your life—I think all that reminds me of my friend Abbie Connor’s sister Patience the month after she wed James Cartwright.” “Abbie and Patience and James have nothing to do with anything!”

Mariah hated it when her sister tried to lecture her like this.

“Jenny, in the last three days I’ve been drugged and kidnapped by a mad French pirate who wants to kill me, and if my constitution has been unsettled” — “And / think you did lie with Captain Sparhawk, the way you told Captain Deveaux,” interrupted Jenny, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“I’m not a fool, ” Riah. You can’t even say the man’s name without your face going all soft and dreamy. You never were that way with Daniel. And I think that, just like Patience, you’re with child.

Ex e cepting that Patience Cartwright is married, and you’re not. “

“Jenny!”

“Mama sent you after me and Elisha to save my reputation, didn’t she?

Only she didn’t know that I wouldn’t get the chance to be Elisha’s wife or even his widow, and that you, my perfect, trustworthy, spinster sister Mariah, you would be the one who was ruined instead! “

Jenny broke off with a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, an anguished sound that wrenched at Mariah’s heart.

“Jenny, love, please, you don’t have to” — “No, this once hear me out!” She leaned close to Mariah, her blue eyes luminous with unshed tears as she touched the little garnet ring that Elisha had given her the night they’d sailed from Newport.

“You love your old Captain Sparhawk, and clear as day he must love you. So marry him, ” Riah, you marry him, for his sake and yours and your baby’s, and for me and Elisha that didn’t have your chance. You marry Gabriel Sparhawk, and when we get back home to Newport, for the first time one of us will make Mama the happiest woman in the entire colony.

“

And for once there was nothing Mariah could say in return.

Years had passed since Gabriel had last climbed up this damp, overgrown Martinique hillside and felt the oleander leaves slash at his face and his boots sink into the black, moist soil. Seven years, but still he knew the way to Deveaux’s house. Strange to think of how much in his life had changed since then, and yet at the same time how little, that he’d be here again, in a dark linen shirt with a sword in his hand.

Damnation, the moon would have to be full and bright as day! He gazed across the lawns to the grand house before him, the royal palms around it swaying gently in the evening air. When he’d been here before, the limestone walls had barely been in place, swathed by scaffolding, while Deveaux still lived on his ship. It couldn’t compare to Crescent Hill, of course, but Gabriel would grudgingly grant the place was handsome enough for any gentleman. It was a pity he meant to bum it to the ground this night.

He frowned, searching for the guards that Deveaux would never be without. The house seemed too quiet, all the windows dark. He’d seen the Chasseur in the cove himself, so he knew the Frenchman was home, but Gabriel refused to believe that Deveaux would be peaceably in his bed with the candles snuffed. Like the devil, the man he remembered had never seemed to sleep.

“There be th’ door to th’ prison place, Cap’n,” whispered Rawlin, one of the five men from the Revenge Gabriel had brought with him. All volunteers, all had fought Deveaux and his men before, except for Elisha Watson. Inexperienced though Elisha was, Gabriel hadn’t the heart to leave him behind, not when he was as-desperate to save Jenny as Gabriel was for Mariah. “Th’ bloke in SteLuce was real particular about how it looks like a cellar door, nothin’ special. There be one guard, th’ turnkey his self an’ that be it. Don’t need more. Ye know how Deveaux be, Cap’n, never takin’ prisoners less’n he can help it.

“Ceptin’ with th’ women” — “Thank you, Rawlin,” said Gabriel curtly. He didn’t need to be reminded of what Deveaux did to the women unfortunate enough to be on the ships he captured. Catherine’s fate was reminder enough. Even in a society of ruthless men, Deveaux’s

penchant for cruelty was legendary, and despite his wealth he was no longer welcome at gentlemen’s brothels from Kingston to Tortuga. From the beginning, Gabriel had prayed that Deveaux would judge Ma e riah and Jenny too valuable to harm, but with the Frenchman there was no way of being certain. Mariah would have fought like a wild animal, just as she’d fought Gabriel, but with Deveaux—God in heaven, Gabriel didn’t want to imagine how the Frenchman might have made her suffer.

His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword. He’d waited long enough. Swiftly he eased out from under the oleander trees, and with three of his men ran for the door. Two with pistols were left behind in the trees to cover them.

Every nerve on edge, Gabriel waited while Rawlin picked the lock on the door rather than risk the noise of forcing it. Slowly he shoved the door open, hanging back in the shadows with his sword ready until the turnkey appeared. But again there was nothing, no sounds, no people, nothing but the flame in the hanging lantern dancing uneyenly in the draft. If anything felt like a trap, this was it. All his experience and every instinct told him that the two women were gone, if they’d ever been here in the first place. He should turn on his heel and leave now while he had the chance.

But still Mariah could be waiting for him at the end of this hall. “I’ll go the rest of the way myself,” he said softly to the others.

“You wait here, or better yet, outside. I’ll be as fast as I can. If I don’t return in a quarter hour, come after me and the women.” ,. “

“But Cap’n Sparhawk, sir, I have to come!” whispered Elisha urgently.

“Beggin’ pardon, sir, but you can’t go alone! If Jenny’s in there” “You’ll follow orders, Watson,” said Gabriel curtly, “and you’ll stay with the others.”

Elisha shook his head dejectedly as Rawlin pulled him back.

“Come along, lad, ye don’t want t’go crossin’ th’ cap’n. We’ll wait here like he says. They’ll be plenty o’ chance for glory.”

Glory. The word rang emptily in Gabriel’s ears as he cautiously began inching along the half-lit hallway. He’d never done any of this for glory. For money, he’d admit if he were cynical, for revenge, for a way to fill the emptiness that had yawned too widely in his soul, if he were feeling more honest. But no longer. Now every step he took was for love, and for Mariah.

He crept around a corner. Little of the lantern’s light filtered through the darkness here, and he paused as his eyes adjusted. The long hallway was empty, with only three barred doors along the wall.

High in each door was a grated window, faintly lit by moonlight from the facing window. Three doors, three windows, three chances to find his Mariah.

The first door guarded no more than a storeroom, filled with the ghostly shapes of barrels and chests. The second had clearly held prisoners, and Gabriel’s fury and fear grew when he saw the empty leg irons and manacles attached to the two mean bedsteads. Could Deveaux really have put Mariah in irons, heavy rings around her little ankles and wrists that would chain her spread-eagle across the dirty mattress?

Grimly he pushed on to the last window in the last door. This room was dark, the facing window in the wall blocked. Expecting no answer, he still said her name softly into the blackness. With a sigh, he turned to rejoin the others, then heard a rustling from within the room. Rats or lizards, he told himself, but still he said her name again, more loudly. More rustling, a faint sound that could have been a moan, and Gabriel was yanking the heavy bar from the door, not stopping to consider that the padlock that should have held the bar was gone, that the heavy oak bar itself lifted too easily from the catches.

“Mariah, poppet, it’s Gabriel,” he called as he swung open the door.

“Mariah, love, where are you?”

“I was rather hoping you’d be able to answer that question for me yourself,” said Deveaux dryly from where he sat on the bed. He nipped open the shutter on the lantern at his feet, and the light gleamed off the pistol he held aimed at Gabriel’s heart.

“Now drop that, mon ami, if you please. And don’t give a thought to your friends behind. By now my men have dealt with them. This time, I believe, love has made you careless.”

Heavy footsteps in the hall behind him told Gabriel that Deveaux spoke the truth. He didn’t bother to turn and count their number. Only briefly did he consider his chances of disarming Deveaux before the pistol could fire, then tossed his sword at the other man’s feet.