Mariah's Prize (3 page)

And who made you so much more virtuous? whispered Mariah’s conscience.

With alarming clarity she recalled how willingly she’d slipped into Captain Sparhawk’s embrace, how the sacrifice she’d planned to make for her family’s welfare had turned instead to a shameful, eager surrender that had been like nothing she’d ever dreamed.

“Out of my path, ye clumsy chit!” The cart full of hogsheads rocked precariously on one wheel, the carter swearing at her as he yanked on the mule’s reins. Mariah gasped and darted out of his path and nearer to the houses. “Pull yer head out o’ the clouds, hussy, or ye shall end up under my wheels!”

The man was right, decided Mariah miserably as she pressed her palms to her cheeks. She’d lost her wits and nearly her life on account of a man who didn’t care a farthing for her. His casual rejection had stung her pride more than she wanted to admit, but at least no one else would ever know. Probably Captain Sparhawk himself had already forgotten she’d even been in his house.

And now she’d lost Jenny, too. With Elisha as her guide, her sister could be anywhere in Newport, and Mariah’s despondency grew. She would have to clean the house and cook supper herself and pray that no more angry tradesmen appeared while her hands were covered with flour.

She’d have to try to make her mother drink enough tea before supper so she wouldn’t weep or fall asleep at the table, and coax her into changing her gown and repinning her hair. The minister’s wife had a sharp eye for households that had gone awry and a sharper tongue in the retelling, and Mariah meant to spare her mother as much as she could. Later tonight, after the dishes had been washed and the linens put to soak, she’d go back to sorting through the sea chest filled with twenty years of her father’s haphazard records and accounts.

Mariah sighed wearily. Lord only knew it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been left to do everything herself. She tried so hard to do what was right, but everyone around her seemed determined to do exactly the opposite. She thought again of Captain Sparhawk and his orderly, handsome house, everything new and shining and, she thought wistfully, paid for.

She squinted at the clock in the tower of Trinity Church. If she hurried, she could still walk by the dock where the Revenge was tied.

Perhaps Tom Fan, the sloop’s mate, had thought of another shipmaster for her to approach. With the new war, some of the other captains might have changed their minds.

It was market day, and the streets around the market house were crowded with empty wagons from the farms clattering across the paving stones, housewives and serving girls with bulging oak-splint baskets on their arms, apprentices on errands and sailors on leave, barking dogs and wailing children, and screeching hens destined for the evening’s stew. The acrid smoke from last night’s bonfires still hung heavy in the summer air, mingling with the over sweet smell of fermenting molasses from the rum distilleries to the east.

Her steps slower, Mariah turned toward the waterfront. Ahead she could pick out the Revenge’s tall, raking mainmast, towering above her moorings, and Mariah’s spirits inched higher. Like her father, she had come to love the elegant sloop passionately. With her ocher decks and bright blue sides, the carved nourishes on her bow picked out in gold leaf, the Revenge was the handsomest vessel in the harbor, and with the right captain, she’d be the fastest, as well.

Capturing the sloop had been the single piece of luck her father had found in his entire life. Fever had so reduced the Revenge’s Spanish crew that Captain West had had to do no more than stop the sloop from drifting aimlessly to claim her as his prize. But the same luck that had given him the Revenge had then turned against him, and by the time Edward West had sailed into Narragansett Bay, he was already a dying man. The sloop was his sole legacy, and nothing would ever induce Mariah to part with it.

“You’d never make a gamester, Miss West,” said the resonant voice beside her that she’d never expected to hear again.

“You underplayed your hand so sadly last night I almost walked away before we’d fair begun.”

Gabriel had meant the sloop, but as soon as Mariah turned her small, startled face toward him, he realized the girl herself was the real prize. So it hadn’t been the brandy, and she really was as lovely as he remembered. Few women he knew could stand close scrutiny in the midday sun, but this one, now, he could gaze at her until the moon came out and still be charmed.

“Captain Sparhawk.” Mariah drew back sharply. He held his laced that in one hand with a courtier’s grace, his long black hair untied and tossing in the breeze off the water. In the bright sun his eyes seemed very green, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that the laughter in them was at her expense.

“Though I’ve no notion of what you’re saying, I can assure you I don’t believe in card play.”

He settled his that on his head and leaned over her the way one would with a child. His height made her feel small, insignificant, and she didn’t like it, nor, right now, did she like him.

“La, la. Miss West, such pretty, prissy lady talk!” Gabriel reasoned he could tease her—there’d be no harm in that. He liked the way her eyes widened indignantly, her brows like inky brush strokes arching higher.

“You don’t like card play, then, but you do believe in gambling. If I recall, last night you were quite willing to sweeten the pot with your” — “Good day, Captain Sparhawk!” All too well she knew how wantonly she’d behaved. She certainly didn’t need him to remind her. With her head down she tried to dodge around him, but deftly he blocked her path.

“Nay, not so fast, poppet.” He slipped his hand around her upper arm to lead her along. No one else along Thames Street could know that his fingers held her arm like a trap, that she had no choice but to match his footsteps or be dragged across the paving stones. “Our negotiations have only begun.”

“Negotiations!” Indignantly Mariah scowled at him. “You refused my offer last night. Captain, and I accepted that as your final word. I won’t beg and I won’t grovel, no matter how much you wish to humiliate me. Besides, I’ve already spoken to another shipmaster this very morning, a gentleman who is more than willing to agree to my terms.”

“Liar.” He smiled cheerfully.

“Tom Fair told me I was your last chance. Powerfully flattering, that. Most ladies would rather place me at the head of their list.”

“You’ve no right talking to my first mate!” she sputtered indignantly.

“Tom Fan-works for me!”

“I’ve every right m the world to speak with the man, Miss West.

Captains generally do talk to their mates. “

Mariah glared at him, forced to take two steps to match his every one.

She didn’t believe for an instant that he was going to sail for her, and his grip on her arm made her uneasy. Like every girl in a seafaring town, she’d always been warned from the waterfront with tales of careless young Englishwomen snatched from the street and sold into Tortuga brothels to serve the lust of pirates. Although Ma-riah didn’t really believe that Captain Sparhawk would do that to her—after all, his mother’s family had come down with Roger Williams—she still didn’t trust him. Considering the foolhardy way she’d behaved with him last night, how could she?

“Aye, and since I’m to be your master,” he was saying, “I’ve every right to expect a bit of obedience from you, too.”

Gabriel saw the panic flicker across her face. He’d only meant to tease, not frighten her, and he relaxed his hold on her arm. With a little yelp of triumph, Marian broke free and darted across the street and up the Revenge’s gangway in a swirl of muslin petticoats.

Gabriel grinned. Beneath her somber dark skirts, her shoes had red lacquer heels and polished buckles, and her neat little ankles wore bright yellow stockings. Too bad she refused to gamble, or else he’d wager she tied those yellow stockings with fancy ribbon garters, and above the knee, too.

Safe on her own sloop, Mariah could hear Captain Sparhawk’s heavy footsteps behind her on the planking, taking his time with infuriating confidence. Well, let him follow her, she thought crossly. She’d have the Revenge’s crew put him off soon enough.

“Ah, Cap’n Sparhawk, sir, I see ye’ve found Miss West, after all,” called Farr. He tugged at the front of his knitted cap and bobbed his head to Gabriel as if Mariah didn’t exist.

“Like I told ye, she comes here regular ev’ry morning.”

Mariah wheeled around to face the mate.

“Tom Farr, you sailed for my father since before you could shave! How could you discuss my habits with this man?”

Beneath his weathered tan, Farr’s face flushed.

“I saw no harm to it, miss, not with ye being th’ sloop’s owner, an’ him being th’ new master.”

Lightly Gabriel touched Mariah’s sleeve.

“Come below to the cabin, lass, and we’ll sort this out proper.”

Ignoring him, Mariah looked from Farr to the other sailors and workmen gathered on the deck, most of them Newport men she’d known all her life. What had Captain Sparhawk told them already? By the time they repeated it to their wives and sweethearts over supper there wouldn’t be a soul left in town who wouldn’t know she’d kissed him. Dear Lord, and after all the times she’d lectured Jenny on the importance of keeping a good name!

With as much dignity as she could marshal, she turned and fled down the companionway to her father’s old cabin. She didn’t pause to look at Gabriel when he followed her down the narrow steps, and she stood by the stem windows with her back to him as he closed the cabin door.

But when at last she spun around to face him, her skirts swinging and her blue eyes bright with angry fire, Gabriel realized he’d seldom seen a woman so angry.

“You’re not their captain,” she declared, “and you’re not my master, and you’ve no right to presume to” “—How many of the other captains did you kiss?” interrupted Gabriel calmly.

She froze, the fire quenched in an instant, and she swallowed visibly before she answered.

“None.”

Gabriel’s brows rose skeptically.

“None, I swear it!”

Gabriel sighed dramatically.

“Well, then, perhaps you should have tried it earlier, since it certainly seems to have worked with me.”

She stared at him, speechless. Even with his broad shoulders bent

beneath the beams overhead, he somehow’re e mained unbowed, his smile far too wicked and knowing for the cramped quarters of the little cabin.

“I didn’t whisper a word of it to anyone, Miss Mariah, so you needn’t look so fearful,” he continued as he hooked his that on one of the bulkhead pegs.

“I’m not some wild African lion, and I’ve absolutely no intention of devouring you.”

But as soon as he’d said it, he found himself imagining how he would devour her, in one long, delicious, impossibly sweet meal that would last from day into night. He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t touch her again, but he hadn’t counted on her being such a mortal temptation.

“I’m not afraid of you. Captain Sparhawk.” She narrowed her eyes at him, her chin low and stubborn like a small bull ready to charge.

“You’re a wicked man to taunt me like this.”

“Nay, poppet, you’re the wicked lass to tease me with one kiss. Was that all the favor you meant to grant? I’d wager it was, just as I’d wager you haven’t a real notion of what comes next between women and men. A dangerous game, that, for pretty little girls.”

He was serious now, his smile gone. Angry or not, she had the same open innocence in her face that he remembered from Catherine’s, the kind of innocence he’d avoided ever since.

“Even if I were only half the rake you’ve judged me to be, I never would have let you go until I’d claimed the whole of what you offered. Learn a bit more of the world, and you’ll damned well be afraid of men three times your size.”

Mariah felt herself blushing again. How empty-headed did he think she was? “You can preach to me all you want, Captain Sparhawk, but I’m still not afraid of you.”

“Please yourself. Miss Worldly West.” He sighed,

shook his head and folded his arms over his chest.

“It’s this sloop I want, anyway, not you.”

“This sloop?” she repeated stupidly.

“This sloop, none other, nothing more.” Now look who was lying, he thought wryly.

“I’ve been landlocked too long.”

Lightly he traced his fingers across the fluted paneling of the bulkhead, a decorative flourish that no frugal Yankee shipbuilder would ever consider. He liked the idea that he’d take a French-built sloop against Deveaux, especially a vessel so aptly, if a bit broadly, named the Revenge.

“Having the French in this war changes everything.

The richest prizes will be snatched up by the Englishmen with the fastest ships, and in this sloop, I mean to be the first from this colony with a letter of marque in the Caribbean. “

As she listened, Mariah absently twisted a loose curl at her nape that had slipped from beneath her cap. He’d expected her to look pleased, even relieved, but instead her expression was curiously guarded.

“So you really do mean to sail for me?” she asked doubtfully.

“Aye, I do. I don’t have time to build a ship for myself, and yours is the only vessel in Newport worth bothering with. Since you won’t sell her outright, you don’t leave me much choice.”

“You’ll agree to my terms for the division of shares? They’re more than fair.”

“Fair enough for you, poppet,” said Gabriel dryly.

“You didn’t mention that half the shopkeepers in Newport think they’re entitled to a part of this voyage. Your old papa owed more than most men earn in a lifetime.”

Consciously she willed her hands to cease their fidgeting. He was right, she would make a wretched cardplayer.

“Meaning that you’ve changed your mind again?”

“Nay, lass, meaning I’ll clear your father’s debts before we sail so there’s no claims on the voyage.” The offer wasn’t as altruistic as it appeared. Privateering was little more than legal piracy, with all the dangers of any warfare. ” If he was killed—a possibility that hadn’t seemed to have occurred to her—Gabriel didn’t want his affairs tangled in ;

the courts with hers.