Snowfire

by French, Colleen

  "Well? Are you going to do it? Because if not, I have a steamer to catch, you know." Gabrielle could hardly believe the words that were slipping from her mouth. She was braver than she had thought.

  Taylor pulled back the hammer with a resounding click. At that instant a voice came from down the street.

  "Gabrielle," the voice called. "Gabrielle, are you there?"

  Gabrielle could hear Alex's footsteps as he ran toward them. "Here," she called out daringly. "I'm here, Alex."

  Alex came around the building with the satchel in his hand and stopped dead not more than twenty feet from Taylor and Gabrielle. "No!" he shouted.

  Taylor raised his cane in salute. "So we meet again, Mr. Alexander. She is your wife isn't she?"

  "What do you want?" Alex demanded, staring at the pistol Taylor held poised on Gabrielle.

  "You know what I want. I want her dead."

  "She never did anything against you. A helpless woman? You're going to kill a woman?"

  Taylor laughed. "Helpless? Her? Not hardly."

  Alex looked down at the satchel he held in his hand. "Our money, her money. Here, take it." He offered the bag. "It's all we have left of the gold."

  "How much?"

  Gabrielle crossed her arms over her chest, her skirts rustling. "Plenty. You want it? It's yours."

  "Yea, I want it. Throw it over here." He waved the gun. "But don't do anything stupid, Mr. Alexander, because I'll shoot her."

  "You intend to shoot her anyway," Alex treaded carefully.

  "That's right, I do. But if you try to come after me, I won't kill her on the first shot, maybe not the second."

  Gabrielle's hands trembled. "Give him the money, Alex. Then go. No need for both of us to die."

  Alex's stormy blue-grey eyes met hers. "Don't say that," he told her softly.

  "Throw the bag!" Taylor ordered.

  Alex did as he was told, and Taylor scooped it off the ground, opening it to glance inside. "Nice, very nice. And now, Mr. Alexander, you are excused."

  "I'm not leaving without my wife." He stood stock-still, his fists knotted at his sides.

  "Please," Gabrielle begged. She tossed her rag doll through the air, and Alex caught it. "It's for Alexis," she murmured. Against her will, tears began to slip down her cheeks. "Now go on, do as he says."

  Gabrielle heard a sound behind Taylor and looked up. There, standing in the middle of the road was Alice dressed in a sapphire-blue lady's overcoat and a veiled hat. In her hand she held a shiny new pistol, aimed at Taylor. "You lied to me, Malcolm," she accused bitterly.

  Taylor stiffened, his eyes widening with surprise. "What are you doing here?" he shouted.

  "You lied," she repeated. "You lied to me about everything, didn't you? What Gabrielle said was true, wasn't it?"

  "Put down the gun, Alice, and go. This is none of your concern.''

  "The hell it isn't; she's my daughter."

  Taylor laughed, still holding the gun on Gabrielle. "Some mother you are." His voice rose to echo between the warehouses.

  "It doesn't matter. Good or bad, I'm still her mother. I won't stand here and watch you murder her."

  "And what are you going to do about it, Alice? You couldn't hit the side of the warehouse with that gun."

  "Mother," Gabrielle called. "I—"

  "Just hush, Gabrielle. You and I both know what I am, what I'll always be, but that doesn't mean I haven't got principles."

  "Alice," Taylor threatened, glancing sideways at her. "If you don't put that gun down and go, you're out of my house."

  "Out of your house? It's mine, too, wouldn't you say! You married me, you stupid bastard, remember? You married me to get my daughter's inheritance when you killed her. Only, I guess she really is married." Alice looked at Alex. "So, you wouldn't have gotten a cent anyway."

  "Alice! I'm warning you one last time. If you want to live, you'll go home now!"

  "Threatening me? Is that it, Malcolm, or is it Lucas now?" Alice took a step closer, pulling back the hammer of the pistol.

  Gabrielle screamed as Taylor whirled around to face Alice, pulling the trigger on the gun. At the same instant, Alice fired, and Gabrielle felt herself shoved to the ground by Alex's strong hands.

  The sound of the shots echoed in the empty street, and the smell of powder filled Gabrielle's nostrils as she struggled to get up out of the snow. Lifting her head, she spotted her mother standing in the street, the pistol still frozen in her hands.

  Alex rolled off Gabrielle and helped her up. Lying only a few feet away was Taylor's motionless body. Gabrielle looked from Taylor to her mother and then back at Taylor again. "You killed him," she breathed.

  Alice nodded her head, coming slowly toward her daughter. The huge sapphires that hung in her ears glittered in the sunlight. "I did, didn't I?" She pushed at the dead man's hand with the toe of her high-buttoned shoe. His hand flopped back in the snow, lifeless.

  Gabrielle held Alex's hand tight in hers for a moment and then ran to fling herself into her mother's arms. Alice dropped the pistol into the snow, accepting her daughter's embrace awkwardly. "You'll go to jail," Gabrielle cried. "They'll hang you."

  "No." Alice shook her head, stepping back. "It was self-defense. I have a feeling the town was ready to be rid of this man. They won't press charges. Everyone hated him anyway."

  "I don't know what to say, Mother." Gabrielle studied Alice's face.

  Alex squeezed Gabrielle's arm lightly. "You'd better say good-bye," he said quietly. "Alexis is on the steamer, we can't miss it." He stepped back to let mother and daughter say their final farewells in private.

  Gabrielle looked up at her mother. "You certain you don't want me to stay? Just until things are cleared up?"

  Alice shook her head. "No . You've got a life with that man so go on and have that life." She smiled genuinely. "He loves you very much."

  "I love him, too," Gabrielle whispered. It seemed so strange to be speaking to her mother like this. Had they ever talked without hostility in their voices? "Why don't you come with us?"

  Alice laughed, clasping her gloved hands. "No . I made that mistake once, but never again. Besides, you and I would be at each other's throats before we hit St. Michaels." She reached out to touch a lock of her daughter's thick hair. "My life is here, and I am what I am." She smiled sadly.

  Gabrielle spotted her cloth satchel in the snow and leaned to pick it up. "At least take some of the money." She offered the bag.

  Alice laughed. "Keep your money, build your trading post and raise your filthy dogs," she said without malice. "Malcolm has left me a good deal of money and a nice home. Maybe I'll build myself a first-class bordello and gambling house."

  "Alice, you're incorrigible."

  Her mother shrugged delicately. "Being a lady was too damned boring anyway."

  "Gabrielle," Alex called. "We've got to hurry."

  Alice gave her daughter a nudge with her gloved hand. "Go on. And good luck to you." She glanced at Taylor's motionless body in the snow. "He'll not trouble you again."

  For a moment Gabrielle's dark eyes met Alice's, and then she smiled. "Good-bye and good luck to you, too . . . Mother." With one final look at Alice's youthful face, Gabrielle took the arm Alex offered her.

  "Come on," he told her as the steamship on the dock gave a loud moan signaling its departure, "we'll have to run for it!"

  Gabrielle laughed, hitching up her brocade skirts to her knees. "Race you!" she dared, already bolting ahead of him.

  As the steamship puffed its way through Puget Sound, Gabrielle leaned over the rail, her arm linked through Alex's. Seated only a few feet away on a wooden crate was Alexis, grinning broadly, her puppy held tightly in her hands.

  Taking a deep breath, Gabrielle exhaled slowly. Snow was just beginning to fall from the sky to blanket the ship's deck. "Doesn't it smell good?" she murmured, shaking her head to let the wind ripple through her long, chestnut hair.

  Alex chuckled as he swept off his bowler hat
to keep it from blowing away. "Doesn't what smell good?"

  "The snow, the ocean . . . the freedom. Oh, Alex, we're going home."

  His blue-grey eyes met hers, and he leaned to press a kiss to her rosy lips. "Home," he echoed. "To a place we never should have left."

  "Don't say that," Gabrielle murmured, glancing back at Alexis. "If we hadn't gone back to the states, we wouldn't have her with us. But will she like it, do you think? What if she's lonely without other children to play with—without roads and schools and towns?"

  "Then we'll build them, darling," Alex promised, pulling her tightly against him, "together."

  "We could—couldn't we?" Gabrielle answered softly. "Because we've got a whole lifetime ahead of us."

  The End

  Want more historical romance?

  Here's an excerpt from Judith E. French's

  FORTUNE'S MISTRESS

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  Autumn 1672

  Lacy Bennett stepped from the dank shadows of Newgate Prison into the bright September morning. She blinked, then drew in a deep breath of fresh air and smiled saucily at the sullen warder. "I never thought t' see the day London sewers smelled like rosewater," she quipped.

  "Right leg!" The sour-faced prison official pointed to a bloodstained block of oak beside the waiting ox cart.

  Lacy placed her dirty, bare foot on the wood. Instantly, a trustee clamped a rusty leg iron and chain around her ankle. Pain shot up her leg as the heavy shackle bit deep into her flesh, but she forced her smile even wider. "Thank ye for the bauble," she said. "I was hoping ye'd have one just my size."

  "I've somethin' more I'd like t' give 'ee," the leering trustee replied as he ran a groping hand up her leg.

  "No talking to the prisoners," the warder barked. "Into the cart with 'ee, witch. And thank whatever fiend ye pray to that it's Tyburn gallows and not the stake ye're bound fer." He ran a hairy finger down the list of names. "Next! James Black, pirate. Bring out the pirate.''

  Lacy dodged the trustee's sweaty grasp as she scrambled up into the back of the cart. Two prisoners had come before her from Waterman's Hall, the women felons' section: Alice Abbott, coin clipper, and Annie the Acorn, poisoner. They clung to the sides of the cart sobbing and crying for mercy.

  "Hold there." The warder cleared his throat loudly and glared at the trustee. "According to these records, the pirate James Black has made two escape attempts this month. Get the witch back here." He indicated Lacy with a thrust of his unshaven chin. "Collar and chain them together."

  Lacy's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Oh, shit! she thought, trying to keep the distress from showing on her face. I'd not planned on being yoked like an ox to some scruffy-arsed buccaneer. Ben and Alfred will be pissed.

  The warder hawked up a gob of green mucus and spat on the block. "To Tyburn gallows Black is sentenced and to Tyburn he'll go. I'll lose no condemned felons on my watch."

  Lacy twisted around to stare as three burly guards wrestled a swearing prisoner through the gate. Despite the heavy manacles, the big pirate was trading blow for blow with his captors. A wild black beard nearly covered the captive's face, but for an instant Lacy caught sight of fierce dark eyes beneath the matted hair.

  Heart's wounds! She gasped. Waterman's Hall, where she had been held, had been bad enough, but she could smell the stench of Condemned Hold that emanated from his filthy body. Mother save ye, ye poor wretch, she thought with genuine compassion. 'Tis a better place ye go to than where ye've been, and that's God's truth. She shuddered as she remembered the rumors that circulated through Newgate about the conditions in the Hold. Black as hell, they said the pit was, with foul air and water a pig wouldn't drink.

  "Out wi' ye!" The trustee yanked Lacy's leg iron. "Ye heard the warder, slut. Out of the cart."

  She gritted her teeth and forced a grin as she started to climb back down to the ground. "I'll remember ye in paradise, deary," she murmured. He gave another sharp tug and she lost her balance.

  She would have fallen facedown off the back of the cart if the pirate hadn't suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her. In the split second before the guards clubbed him back and dragged her out of his muscular arms, her gaze met his, and a spark of kindred lightning leaped between them.

  Lacy caught her breath and smiled up at him in astonishment. An unfamiliar tingling raced down her spine and raised the hair on the back of her neck. Her stomach turned over and she felt the same dizziness that often came just before one of her spells. Her body seemed numb, so much so that she hardly felt the trustee's fist as he back-handed her. She went down in a tangle of iron chain and men's legs, but her gaze stayed on the pirate as the guards beat him near to unconsciousness.

  "God rot your bleedin' bowels," she swore as the warder drove his wooden staff into the small of the prisoner's back. "I'll save you a warm spot in hell."

  The warder grimaced with fear and threw up three fingers to fend off the evil eye. "Collar them," he ordered, backing away from her. "And get them into the cart." His rusty voice turned shrill. "We ain't got all day." Almost as an afterthought, he rapped the oak baton hard enough against Lacy's head that she saw stars.

  Dazed, she made no resistance when rough hands dragged her to her knees and snapped an iron collar around her throat. Four feet of thick chain linked her to a similar collar being fastened around the pirate's neck. She staggered as the trustee shoved her into the cart, and her forehead scraped against the inner wall.

  Pain shot down her face and set her eye to throbbing. She caught hold of the rail and pulled herself up on her knees, unwilling to let the jailers see how much they'd hurt her. Damn them to a moldy grave! Damn them all! If she were the witch they'd named her, she'd curse every mother's son of them with running pox.

  A trickle of warm liquid ran down her cheek; sweat or blood, she couldn't tell. She glanced at her partner and remembered his unexpected act of kindness. "Straighten your spine," she whispered. "We'll have a crowd lining the streets, and if ye look whipped, they'll be on us like gulls on new-hatched turtles." He groaned and she took his arm. "On your feet, freebooter! Have ye sand or milk in your craw?"

  He coughed and spat blood.

  "Damn ye for a yellow-backed clapperdudgeon! On your feet, I say!" She tucked her shoulder under his and shoved. He swore through cracked lips and forced himself up. He swayed but spread his legs and remained upright.

  "Aye," she whispered loudly. "There's a stout mate. You'll do, pirate, you'll do."

  "Silence!" The warder slammed his staff on the side of the cart. "No touching!"

  Two more prisoners climbed into the cart, both men. The deputy-keeper of Newgate stalked through the archway, hat askew, mounted his gray horse with some difficulty, and took his position ahead of the oxen. One of the women prisoners standing in front of Lacy began to keen softly, and the cart creaked as the oxen threw their weight against the yoke. The driver cracked a long whip over the horns of the massive beasts and guided them up Old Bailey and west onto Holborn Street. Two more carts full of condemned prisoners followed close behind.

  Lacy glanced sideways at the corsair. His dark brown eyes were wide open and focused on the back of the deputy-keeper's velvet cloak. Since he wasn't looking at her, Lacy felt free to satisfy her curiosity.

  It had been her experience that most seamen ran to runts, but this buccaneer was far from stunted. He topped her by a head, and she was tall for a woman. His broad shoulders strained the material of what had once been an expensive coat, and his muscular arms looked powerful enough to lift this cart. They'd not felt bad either—in the brief moment she'd had to gauge his strength.

  The beating he'd taken would have been enough to kill a lesser man. She'd known he was hurt bad, but what she'd said to him was bare truth. Please the mob, and ride to gallows hill in glory. Earn their contempt, and rocks would be the least they could expect. At least one man had been ripped from the Tyburn cart and torn apart by the good citizens of London t
his year.

  Given the choice, she'd rather have the onlookers offer her a mug of ale than throw hot oil in her face—that was certain. She gripped the rough lip of the cart side and breathed deep. This old section of London smelled of charred wood and too many unwashed humans packed inside narrow streets, but the scents were perfume compared to the bowels of Newgate Prison.

  Three apprentices ran beside the cart and she grinned at them and waved. "Come take a ride," she called. "Ye can have my place. The view's great from here, I promise."

  "Tyburn fodder!" a pock-faced youth shouted.

  "Gallows bait," his companion cried.

  The third boy ran forward and swung on the top rail of the cart. "Give us a kiss," he dared. "Them lips is too sweet t' be wasted in a grave."

  "Set me free and I'll give ye somethin' sweeter than a kiss," Lacy flung back.

  He leaned forward to kiss her, and a mounted guard rode close enough to give the apprentice a swift kick in the backside. The boy let out a yelp, to his friends' delight, and jumped off barely avoiding being run down by the horse.

  The pirate swore under his breath, and Lacy glanced back at him again.

  "Damned if I thought to make a mummery for every jack to gape at," he murmured.

  His scarred hands knotted into tight fists and she noticed that for all the dirt, his fingernails were close cut. His hair was as dark as ebony and braided into an untidy queue that hung down his back. Despite the pirate's size, his features were finely drawn, not coarse, his teeth even and white. "A gentleman," she said out loud, then started as those hot black eyes bored into hers.

  "What did you say?" he demanded.

  His speech was as precise as any lord's. She'd have noticed from the first, if her mind hadn't been otherwise occupied by the fix she was in. She offered him a faint smile. "A gent," she repeated. "Hanging here with common folk when most noble bloods have their heads sliced off all tidy like."