Mariah's Prize (30 page)

“I may be naked, but at least it’s a gentleman’s nakedness.” He hooked his finger into the front of her calico bodice and tugged it lower.

“What’s this foolishness you’re wearing? I’ve never seen any Newport lady fitted out like this!”

Still laughing, she rapped his hand with feigned primness.

“It’s all I have, Gabriel. I wanted to look common.”

“You succeeded famously.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“It’s well enough for some Thames Street tavern wench, but I, won’t have my wife gotten up in calico and hounscot^ She pulled her hand away from him, her laughter gone and her face pinched.

“I’m not your wife.” “Nay, not yet, but I hope you will be, as soon as we can get back to Barbados. I love you too much for it to be otherwise.” Gently he took her hand back.

“I’m asking you properly this time, Mariah. My father’s not standing with a pistol to my back, and my mother’s not preaching to you about your mending your lost virtue. It’s just between us now, the way it should have been from the first. Mariah West, will you do me the inestimable honor of marrying me?”

Mariah held her breath, afraid the moment might vanish. She’d fallen asleep still worrying over the fever that wouldn’t leave him, and now this morning his skin was cool and his green eyes were as clear as the sea in the cove, and he was laughing and teasing and touching her in the way that always made her heart beat faster. And he wanted to marry her.

His dark brows drew together as he searched her face for her answer, his face severe with the black beard. “What is it, poppet? Did I confess to too many sins while I was ill?” He tried to keep his tone light, teasing, but too much depended on her answer.

“Or perhaps you’ve a mind to take a younger man as your husband, one who won’t need as much coddling and cosseting as this ancient rogue?”

“Oh, hush, Gabriel, I won’t hear you fault yourself.” She tried to smile and couldn’t.

“And yes. Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you!”

He closed the distance between them in an instant.

“You’re a trial and a torment to me, Mariah,” he said as he gently pushed her down on the pillow.

“I don’t know why a man with anything more than straw for wits would let himself fall so completely in love with you.”

“Maybe because I feel the same about you.” She linked her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. The bruises on his handsome face were nearly gone now, faded to faint yellow patches, but she’d never forget how he’d looked the night she’d found him in the cell, how close he’d come to death these last awful days.

“I missed you so much, Gabriel, and when I thought I’d lose you forever”

“Nay, no more of that, poppet,” he whispered.

“I’m here, and I mean to stay close for the rest of my days.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, tracing the bow of her lips with his tongue, teasing and testing the plump cushion of her lower lip before her lips parted willingly with an eager sigh for him. He tasted her deeply then, relishing the sweetness that was hers alone, already feeling the fire that only she brought to his blood. He had thought of this moment so many times when he’d felt the worst of Deveaux’s cudgel and lash, used the dream of Mariah’s love to stave off the pain, that now, when at last her kiss was reality, he meant to savor it, to make it last.

Yet as Mariah gave herself to him, responding to him with all the warmth and passion of her nature, there was still a poignancy to their loving that frightened her. She ran her fingers across his arms and chest with a feather-light touch, haunted by the sight of the fading welts and bruises layered over the lattice of older scars. She thought of how many men she’d seen die—from her father to George Clarke in the Revenge’s surgery to Figaroa and Gigot—and how they’d all been privateers like Gabriel. He might promise her a life together, but she could not forget how fragile that life could be. All she could know for sure was that he was the only man she’d ever truly love, and that he was hers now, for this moment.

Gabriel slid his hand around her waist, lifting her into his kiss. He wanted the rough calico of her bodice gone. He wanted nothing between him and her soft, warm skin. Impatiently he slid his hands beneath the cloth, tugging the bodice and shift from her body.

“Careful,” she murmured as she helped him, her fingers as clumsy with urgency as his.

“Mind, this is all I have.”

“And you are all I want, Mariah.” He tossed the last of her clothes onto the floor, settling down beside her with a contented groan.

“I need to touch you.”

She gasped with pleasure as his hand covered her breast, her sensations intensified by the new life within her. She arched into his caress, the soft peak hardening beneath his fingers, and she felt the pull of desire low in her body. Restlessly she moved beneath him, luxuriating in the feel of his long, hard body beside hers. Her eyes closed, and she shivered as his lips burned a path along her neck, nipping at the pulsing, sensitive hollow at the base of her throat.

When his mouth moved lower to suckle the hard crest his fingers had teased, her breathing grew ragged and she moaned his name, the only word she could form as she tangled her fingers into his dark hair. The combination of his tongue, warm and insistent as it swept across her swollen breasts, and the rough bristle of his beard was almost more than she could bear. Her whole body was aching with need, throbbing with the pulse of her desire for him. Only he could fill the emptiness that lay waiting deep. within her, only he could bring release from the tension that coiled every muscle taut and left her gasping for breath. She clung to him desperately, her fingers digging deep into his shoulders.

How Gabriel loved her like this, her skin sheened with her passion in the slanting sunlight, her throat and breasts flushed with anticipation! He stroked the length of her small, rounded body, delighting in how she rose to meet his touch, fitting herself against his hand. He swept away the damp cloud of her hair from her face and kissed her again, hungrily demanding more of her sweetness as his fingers sought and found the velvety secret place between her thighs.

She tore her mouth away from his, and he answered her broken, animal cries with dark, whispered promises of what he’d do with her, how he’d love her, the erotic images only more under to the flame they shared. The honeyed fragrance of her filled the air, and recklessly her hands explored his body, pulling his hips closer.

Wantonly she rubbed the hardened tips of her breasts against the coarse hair of his chest. His breath caught when she touched the hot flesh of his arousal, and he shuddered as his careful control began to fragment. Sweet Jesus, but he’d been too long without her!

“Please love me, Gabriel,” she whispered fiercely, easing her legs around him in welcome. She could feel him tremble with the force of his need above her, his face strained and harsh.

“Make me yours again, love. Oh, please, Gabriel, now!”

She cried his name when at last he entered her, the sweet ripples of pleasure drawing him deeper into her. She could never forget how well they fit together, how easily she matched the rhythm he set. Her whole body was tightening around him, for him, and she drew her legs high over his back to hold him closer. With each stroke, each caress, he took her higher and higher, to a peak that was almost unbearable, until at last with a cry torn from deep within her soul she found her release in an ecstasy so brilliant her eyes were wet with tears of joy and love.

Afterward he held her, just held her, sharing together the peace that came from haying her in his arms. She’d saved him once by coming to Deveaux’s prison for him, but even that paled beside the salvation she’d given him with her love.

He drew back to look at her, tracing his fingers along the curves of her body so lightly that she shivered.

“This has all been too hard on you, hasn’t it, sweetheart?”

“Loving you is never hard, Gabriel.” The concern in his voice made her feel cherished and protected, and she liked it. She smiled at him, stretching languidly beneath his hand.

“That’s not what I mean, love. You’ve grown thinner since the days on the Revenge. Too thin. And yet still….”

He frowned, puzzled, as he cradled the warm fullness of one of her breasts, then slid his hand lower, his fingers spread to span her pelvis.

“I’ll wager I’m gaining more than a wife with this marriage,” he said slowly.

“So which will you give me first, Mariah, a son or a daughter?”

Mariah flushed, startled that he’d guessed the truth.

He saw the question in her face.

“My sister Sarah and her husband have six children, and Sarah’s not the kind of woman to keep the details of their birthing to herself.”

She swallowed hard, her confession tumbling out.

“I wanted so much to tell you that night at West gate, but I didn’t want you to think I’d forced you to marry me.”

“You should have trusted me, love.” It saddened him to think of her so fearing his displeasure that she’d prefer to weather something like this alone.

“By now you must know that no woman’s ever been able to force me to do anything against my will.”

“So you’re not angry?” she asked uncertainly.

“You’ll welcome a child?” “How can I be angry when the babe is mine? Ah, Mariah, I love you so much.” He kissed her fondly, his lips lingering on hers.

“I’ve always been so certain I’d never marry that I’ve never given much thought to children, that’s all. But a little girl like you, plump and merry, that I could spoil to my heart’s content—I’d like that just fine.

Nearly as much as I’ll like spoiling her mother. “

“And if it’s a boy?” “Then I’ll take the lad to sea with me, same as my father did with my brothers and me.” He smiled crookedly.

“You realize we’ll have my mother on our doorstep begging for a place in the nursery. There’s nothing she likes more than grand-babies, and I’m sure by now she thought she’d seen the last of hers. She’ll be a trial to your own mother.”

Briefly Mariah’s joy faltered. Her mother had wanted her daughters married, but to have them out from her household into more fashionable ones of their own, not for grandchildren. If she’d thought herself too young for widowhood, she’d never relish being a grandmother, and Mariah couldn’t imagine her mother offering any help at all when her child was born.

“I’ll welcome your mother, Gabriel,” she said softly.

“You tell her that.”

“We’ll tell her together,” he declared proudly. The longer he considered the idea of a family, the more precious it seemed. All he’d done, all he’d accomplished, even Crescent Hill itself—now he’d have someone to share it with. Someone to laugh with and work beside and cherish, someone he loved more than life itself. Before Mariah, he’d never realized how much that could mean.

“We’ll tell them all.”

She had a sudden image in her mind of Gabriel standing on the highest crosstree of the Revenge’s mainmast, shouting his news to every ship in the Bridgetown harbor. The image was so at odds with her first world-weary impression of him that she couldn’t help giggling, slipping lower on the pillow against his arm.

“Laugh all you please, sweetheart, I’ll never tire of the sound.” He laughed, too, her gleeful ness contagious, and bent to kiss her again, tenderly. She seemed so young to him, scarcely more than a child herself, that he could hardly believe she carried his baby. Yet all her passion and devotion, all she’d done for him, came from a woman’s heart, and again he marveled that such a woman was his. “I mean to make you so happy you’ll forget everything that’s happened on this godforsaken island.”

“It’s nothing compared to what you suffered, Gabriel.” As quickly as she could, she told him how she and Figaroa had rescued him. By the time she was done, his laughter had long since vanished, and with it, too, she realized unhappily, had gone the magic they’d created between them this morning.

“My father should never have let you go back,” he said sharply. For a few precious hours he’d been able to forget Deveaux. But now all he could think of was how near he’d come to losing both Mariah and their child because of his father’s carelessness, and what he’d have to do now to insure their safety.

“To put you at that risk, after you’d escaped once, is unforgivable.”

“He let me go because he believed I could help you,” she answered with equal sharpness. To be cherished was one thing, to have her actions dismissed as the mere inattention of his father was quite another.

“He loves you, Gabriel, if you’d ever let yourself see it. He’ would have tried anything to bring you back.”

“It doesn’t sound that way, not if he let you go traipsing off on your own!”

“I wasn’t alone, Gabriel. Mr. Figaroa was with me, and he gave his life to keep me safe!”

“A sacrifice he needn’t have made if my father had used better judgment.” He ran. his fingers through his hair, trying to decide his next move. “A good sailor, Figaroa. I chased him once, and he’s one of the few—the very few—who can boast he outran me. I cannot thank him now, but I’ll see to my end of the bargain. I owe it to him, and I owe it to you, for what you and your sister endured for my sake.

Before I’m done, Deveaux will be dead. “

Mariah stared at him, appalled by all his vow suggested.

“But surely after the fire, he can’t still live!”

Gabriel shrugged his shoulders with a carelessness that didn’t fool her for an instant.

“If he was within the house, no. But I’ve no guarantee he was, and if he wasn’t—I’m sure he and I shall find each other.”

“So you can risk your life all over again?” demanded Mariah bitterly.

“That’s what all this has been about, hasn’t it? All the way back to the beginning, when you decided to sail my father’s ship when the war began. You only agreed so you could come after Deveaux, didn’t you?

Maybe you even knew he was the one who owed my father five thousand guineas. I’m certain you sent Jenny and Elisha on the Felicity, and because of you Deveaux murdered every other person on board. If my sister had died in the middle of your selfish feud, Gabriel, I never would have forgiven you. Do you understand that? Never! “