Master of Paradise (17 page)

Later, when she was slipping into her men’s
clothes, her pulse was pounding with excitement. With her hair
tucked up under a hat, she met Rodrigo on deck, careful to keep her
footfalls silent. Above them, in a sky of liquid ink, sparkled a
multitude of stars that were rarely, if ever, visible from the
northern confines of England, appearing infinitely larger and more
brilliant.

“On second thought,” he reconsidered, “why
don’t you stay in the cabin?”

“Fifty of your best pirates couldn’t keep me
in that cabin, Rodrigo.”

“Then keep your eye on me and do as I say.
Should anything go amiss, I don’t want you hurt.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she
assured him. But she was touched that he did.

Rodrigo strolled over to where the captain
stood beside the boatswain, who was steering the ship. When the
captain greeted him, he nodded his head once in salutation. Then he
drew his sword so swiftly that Gabrielle barely saw him move. Just
as quickly, Rodrigo had the blade to the captain’s neck.

As quietly as she could, Gabrielle moved
behind the sailor, who stood at the wheel. Just as he noticed his
captain’s distress, he felt the point of her blade in his back and
froze with his hand still on the wheel.

Gabrielle could hear Rodrigo’s voice but not
his words as he spoke quietly to the captain. The night was sultry.
She felt damp beneath her men’s clothes. But her hand was steady as
it held the sword. She had no doubt that she could do what must be
done.

The captain tipped his head back and opened
his mouth to speak, only to gasp as Rodrigo tightened the
connection of blade to throat. She heard his soft warning before
allowing the captain room to speak. “Boatswain,” the captain said
in a strained voice. “Change our course for Ile aux Vaches. At
once.”

It was less than an hour later when they
caught the first flickers of the lanterns signaling
El
Paraiso’s
location. As they drew up to the ship, the pirates
soundlessly boarded the passenger vessel and took over for them,
filing out to muffle any crew members and passengers that might
seek to make trouble. As one, Rodrigo and Gabrielle ran down the
gangway toward their ultimate goal. At the door of the captain’s
cabin, Rodrigo said to the guards, “Your ship has been commandeered
by the forces of Rodrigo Soro, gentlemen. It is my intention to
open the door you guard so jealously. Were I you, I should be
sensible and relinquish my post while I might still be allowed to
leave unharmed.”

Sensible or not, the guards had no intention
of abandoning their post. Gabrielle and Rodrigo were forced into
swordplay. But soon, other pirates joined them and the guards were
quickly subdued. Panting, Gabrielle turned to the locked door.

As the guards refused to divulge the source
of the key, Rodrigo was forced to break the door down. He did so at
last after several tries, severing the wood from its hinges.
Gabrielle followed him inside, anticipating the sight of Hastings
trembling in a corner.

It took a moment for the truth to register.
There was no Hastings. There was nothing at all save an empty
room.

After an exhaustive search of the
Madagascar
turned up no sign of Hastings, the passenger ship
was permitted on her way.
El Paraiso
then rendezvoused with
Rodrigo’s other two ships, and Rodrigo ordered the flotilla to flee
southeast, away from the Amirantes and Seychelles. He seemed
troubled, pacing stridently back and forth, barking orders sharply,
as if the greatest urgency were spurring him on.

When they were well underway, and Rodrigo was
free to leave the deck, Gabrielle followed him to his cabin. He
answered her knock distractedly. When she entered, he was bent
over, poring over charts he’d spread out on his table as if
searching for some hidden clue.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He brushed aside the charts and began to pace
once again. “You distinctly heard him say he’d be on the schooner
for Zanzibar?”

“Yes. Distinctly.”

“Then what happened?”

“I suppose he changed his mind. Maybe he went
with the fleet to the Amirantes.”

He considered this, and nodded. After a
moment, he finally looked at her. What he saw was a pair of
stricken cobalt eyes, staring at him without the slightest reserve
or hesitation. It was the face of a woman in love.

“Gabé...”

“I just realized something.”

“What’s that,
carícia?
”

“That every moment with you is precious. I
can’t control what happens in the future. I can’t even guess what’s
in store for us. I only know that all I have with you is right
here, right now. And I want you to know, I lied to you before.”

“When?” She had his full attention now.

“When you asked me if I ever wanted anything
but Beau Vallon. I did want something else. But I thought I
couldn’t have it. That night you left me...it changed my life
forever. It changed
me.
I didn’t think it was possible to
want it ever again. I didn’t think I dared allow myself. But I do.
I can’t help it, Rodrigo. I want it now more than I’ve ever wanted
anything else.”

He took the steps that closed the distance
between them. “And what is that,
carícia?
”

His breath was warm on her cheek. She could
see his lashes, long and golden, fringing eyes that were suddenly
smoldering with desire and a certain victorious glint. He knew
damned well what she wanted.

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not the
whole truth. To say
I love you
seemed tantamount to flinging
her fate in the faces of the gods. Asking for retribution too
soon...too soon...If this was all she could have, she would find a
way to cherish it now. For once in her tired life, she would let
the future take care of itself.

She swallowed and, actress that she was,
assumed a teasing tone. “I want to make love with you on those
wretched scarlet sheets.”

His eyes flicked to his bunk in surprise. It
was the last thing he’d expected her to say, she could see it in
the raise of his eyebrow as he settled his gaze once again on her
face. “Are you saying you love me for my sheets?”

“Who said I loved you?”

He put his hands on either side of her head
to hold her in place and lowered his mouth to hers. “Ah. It’s just
a tumble in my sheets you desire?”

“In your oh-so-enticing
scarlet
sheets. It isn’t decent to have such sheets.”

His lips still a fraction away from hers, he
murmured, “It wasn’t decency that prompted the choice.”

“What, then?”

“The thought of what you’d look like, spread
across the folds. I always thought you fetching in red.”

“No English gentleman would be caught dead
with such scandalous sheets.”

“You don’t need to flatter me.” He rubbed his
thumbs along the hollows of her cheeks. “I shall make love to you
all night if you wish. For eternity, if you will. You may have all
the scarlet sheets your heart desires.”

“Eternity is too much to ask. Kiss me,
Rodrigo. Kiss me and let us make the most of the moment.”

He kissed her neck instead, sending shivers
to her toes. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never once heard
you talk about the moment. It was always the future that was on
your mind.”

She looked up at him, allowing all the love
she couldn’t express to shine like a beacon in her eyes. “All I
want right now is you. And the moment is all we have. Hurry,
Rodrigo. Before the moment passes. I’m yours for the taking. Take
me like the pillager you are.”

Her velvet voice inflamed him. He pulled her
to him so hard that she collided with his chest. She’d egged him
on, but suddenly she felt dominated by him, by the sheer power he
exuded as he demanded her body to respond to his. His lips were
hard against hers, forceful and demanding, asserting his right to
kiss her with all the authority at his command. Her body ignited
like a blaze as he pressed into her, shoving her back against the
table so she could feel his rampant maleness pressing into her
thigh. It felt so right, so welcome, so familiar—the exhilaration
she knew only he could provide.

“Rodrigo,” she panted, “I’ve missed you so. I
didn’t even know how I’d missed you until this moment.”

As she’d been talking, he’d been kissing her
neck and kneading the soft flesh of her bottom in his hand. There
was nothing hesitant about him. He devoured her with a raw, animal
passion that was as elemental as the scorching equatorial wind. Her
body was alive and throbbing beneath his hand, crying out for him
as the roar of her desire sounded in her ears.

Suddenly he picked her up and swung her in
his arms. Gasping with passion, she felt joyful, loving, free.
Completely open to his roving mouth.

In true piratical fashion, he tossed her back
into the folds of the scarlet sheets, lunging atop her, assaulting
her with his lips, moving down her sailor shirt to press them once
again against the barrier of soft cotton. Impatient with it
suddenly, he began to open her bodice, tearing the buttons in his
haste to taste her on his tongue, only to come across the cloth
that bound her breasts flat. He gave a potent Portuguese curse.

But as he opened his eyes, his gaze softened
on her face, on the look of open invitation ablaze in her eyes. As
suddenly gentle as he had been commandeering, he took her dark hair
in his fingers and brushed it out against the red of the sheets,
like a fan. “I never looked at this bed that I didn’t imagine you
in it. I never went to bed at night that I didn’t long to hold you
in my arms. Are you real? Or am I dreaming once again? I imagined
you here so many times. If I touch you, will you disappear?”

She reached into her shirt and tugged at the
knot of the cloth. Pulling it out in a long strip, she tossed it to
the floor. Her breasts tumbled before him, beckoning his hands.
“Touch me and find out.”

But he paused, looking down at her with the
leisurely perusal of a man with endless time on his hands. “Tell
me,” he coaxed. “Is it just my sheets you desire?”

“Yes.”

A knowing look flicked across his face as the
corner of his mouth curled in a wry smile. He moved back and she
sensed that he felt he’d begged enough, that he was enjoying her
throwing herself at him when she’d resisted with such alacrity in
the past. Two could play that game, she decided, enjoying herself
as much as he. They’d always played together. It came so naturally
that it seemed ordained. As he sat over her, looking down with
amusement fluttering in his eyes, she ran her hands along the silk
sheets at either side of her head, stretching her body up toward
him, her breasts displayed before him like a benefaction, summoning
him to feast on her at will. When he just smiled, content to watch
her, she tossed her diversion to the winds and flung herself at him
with such intensity that she surprised even herself. With her arms
round his neck, she pulled him back to her, demanding the carnal
heat that had left her so bereft when he’d taken it away. Now it
was her lips that devoured his, tasting greedily as she rubbed
herself against the telltale bulge in his breeches.

“Tell me,” he urged softly. “For once, sweet
Gabé, I long to hear you voice the truth.”

His lips were so close, but when she moved to
kiss them, he gripped her tighter, causing her to cry out in pain.
The laughter was gone, the wry amusement of a man toying with the
one he loved. His intensity gripped her as fiercely as his hands on
her arms. He shook her, so her hair flew about them, enfolding them
both. “Tell me, Gabé,” he insisted. “Tell me you love me.
Tell
me!
”

All she wanted was to kiss him again, to run
her hands through his sun-kissed hair, to feel his weathered mouth,
hard and insistent, on her quivering, exposed flesh. “Make me,” she
challenged.

She never found out what he might do. As his
face changed, as she noted his resolution to rise to her
provocation, the roar of a cannon blast split the silent night.
They froze as one in each other’s arms. Then, as swiftly as he’d
gathered her to him, he was racing across the cabin to peer out of
the porthole. With a curse, he grabbed his sword and, calling back
for her to stay put, hastened out the door.

Shaken, hearing the repeating round of cannon
fire blasting outside, Gabrielle ran to the porthole to see what
Rodrigo had spied. There, in the starlight, was an ominous sight.
They were surrounded by a fleet of ships.

Ignoring his orders, she grabbed her sword
and dashed upstairs to find pandemonium. Rodrigo was calling out
orders as his men scampered across the deck to obey. Gabrielle
joined him, distracting him with a hand at his arm. “Hastings?” she
asked.

“Who else?”

“Then it was a trap. This whole charade—him
not being on that ship—”

“A plot to get us out here, where he could
ambush us.”

He called out another series of orders,
readying the cannons for fire. “But how?” Gabrielle insisted.

“He let you follow him, knew you overheard
him. He was counting on you telling me.”

“But—”

For a brief instant, he gazed into her eyes,
his look piercing in the light of the stars and the distant flare
of the fleet’s torches. “We underestimated him, Gabé.”

As he rushed away across the deck, calling
for her to get below, she paused to take her first close look. They
were surrounded on all sides by the vigilante fleet, which had
bottled up the other two pirate ships as well. As she watched,
their cannons spit fire, exploding into the night. The ship took a
direct hit, then another, then another. Each rocking them with a
ferocious blast. Belatedly, she began to think of Cullen. She
finally found him manning a cannon. But as she started toward him,
she saw the rail where he was take a direct hit. A portion of the
ship was blown completely away. Screaming for her brother, she felt
the crash of another explosion, felt the deck shatter beneath her,
a motion of falling, an enveloping wet warmth that welcomed her in
its depths. Then there was nothing but darkness.