by Mia Marlowe
“Seems Cecil Oddbody swings a bigger stick than I imagined,” he said. “I don’t think your mother has enough money to tempt Pinckney to change his orders.”
“You underestimate Isabella Wren’s powers of persuasion,” she said, forcing a tremulous smile.
“It doesn’t matter. Tell your mother to save her coin.” He shook his head. “Whether I sleep on fine linens for the next fortnight or on cold stone, in the end, I’ll hang just the same.”
“No, I refuse to believe it,” she said. “There must be something we can do. Mother can convince one of her well-placed friends to appeal to the king.”
“My pardon was specific on that point. If I should be taken in London ‘said pardon shall be void and the standing sentence shall be administered forthwith without trial and without further clemency on the part of His Royal Highness,’” he quoted. “The service I did His Majesty only extends my credit so far, you see.”
“You knew what would happen and yet you came,” she said. “In God’s name, why?”
“My heart was here,” he said with a slow smile, turning her words back on her. “Where else would I be? I had to see you, Lyn. You left before I could tell you how much I love you.”
She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the sob. Then she lowered it. Her lips moved, forming the words, ‘I love you, too,’ but she couldn’t force enough air out to make a sound.
“I just couldn’t go forward with the farce of marrying someone else,” he said. “And before you get angry with me—”
“Gabriel, I’ll never be angry with you again,” she said, finding her voice.
“Wish I was going to live long enough to hold you to that.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Then this would be almost worth it. But I wanted to tell you not to worry about Dragon Caern. I haven’t neglected my duty. I told Meri about the treasure before I left. If I don’t return—when I don’t return—”
“Don’t even say it.”
“Listen to me. Meri is supposed to use the gold to provide for you and the girls all in style for the rest of your lives. Then he will divvy out the remaining treasure among my tenants and crofters. There’s enough to make them all comfortable and then some. They can do what they please with it, but I told him to make sure they cleared out before the Crown names a protector or they might be forced to surrender it. If they scatter to the winds, the treasure will never be found.”
“The pirate gives away his treasure,” she said softly. “You are a lord, after all. Your father would be proud of you, Gabriel.”
He shrugged and then winced at the pain the gesture caused him. “I was hoping to make you proud.”
“I always am. Never think otherwise,” she said fiercely. “Gabriel, there’s something I need to tell you as well—”
“Drake!” Pinckney’s foghorn of a voice interrupted. He and Isabella reappeared, flanked by three burly guards. The warden tossed a long key at Gabriel. “Unshackle yourself and make your way to the door. This lady has paid for an easement of your burden.”
Isabella hurried to Jacquelyn’s side and flashed Gabriel a toothsome smile. “I stand by my initial assessment of you, Lord Drake. A nice hot bath, a gifted tailor and you’ll cut a fine figure.”
“Pity the next lady on his dance card is Madame Gallows,” Pinckney said, laughing obscenely at his own wit. “But provided you have the coin, madam, we can clean him up well enough to suit that Gray Lady.”
Pinckney ordered the three guards to mind Gabriel as he was transferred to one of the solitary cells. If Gabriel were in fighting trim, he’d have easily been a match for these three. But now he moved with such stiffness and obvious pain, Jacquelyn ached for him. He’d been badly beaten before being dumped in Newgate.
The solitary cells were reserved for those who could afford to escape the squalor of Central Holding. Gabriel’s new home was the size of a glorified butler’s pantry, but it did boast a narrow string bed and a barred window the size of Gabriel’s hand.
He sank onto the creaking bed. Jacquelyn suspected he couldn’t lie down with the wounds on his back, but he seemed more comfortable seated. Compared to Central Holding, this cell was a guest suite at Windsor Castle.
“We shall require a hipbath, filled with water—hot water, mind you,” Isabella told Pinckney. “Some good quality soap and medicinal salve. Something from a reputable herbalist, now. I’ll stand for none of your bear grease and soot.”
Her mother had noticed the blood stains on Gabriel’s jacket as well. As Isabella emptied more of her purse into Pinckney’s grasping hand, Jacquelyn reflected that God had been especially kind to her in her choice of mothers, after all.
“Now, then,” Isabella said as soon as the bath was ready and the jailers left them with several rude, ribald comments. “Off with those rags, Lord Drake.”
“I’m accustomed to bathing in private,” he said testily.
“And are you accustomed to washing and doctoring your own back?” Jacquelyn said. When she and her mother stood united, no man could gainsay them.
“Come now,” Isabella said, easing his jacket off with surprising gentleness. “I doubt there’s anything here Jacquelyn hasn’t already seen and if I see something that surprises me, you’ll be the first to know.”
“All right, ladies,” he said, rising from the bed. “I hope it comforts you to know that you are the first to force me to hoist the white flag.”
Jacquelyn and her mother helped him undress and to her sorrow, there was something Jacquelyn hadn’t seen before. She was prepared for angry welts on Gabe’s back, maybe a few lashes that had drawn blood. She didn’t anticipate the crisscross pattern of shredded flesh. Jacquelyn felt the blood drain from her face and her vision tunneled for a moment.
“Well,” Isabella said, looking him up and down as he lowered himself into the hipbath. “I can certainly see why you like him, daughter.”
“Mother!” Indignation forced her to breathe deeply.
“Just using the eyes God gave me,” Isabella said, then she leaned over and whispered into Jacquelyn’s ear. “Smile, dearest. He needs it.”
Gabriel sat stone-still as Jacquelyn sponged his wounds, but occasionally the muscles beneath his lacerated skin twitched like horseflesh quivering to rid itself of a fly. She bathed him in silence, letting her fingertips remember every bit of him. To Isabella’s credit, she busied herself with tearing muslin into strips, her eyes averted to give them the illusion of privacy.
“Isn’t it enough that they arrested you?” Jacquelyn said. “Why did they do this to you?”
“Seems Oddbody knows about the existence of the treasure.” Gabriel stood, the soapy water sluicing over his form. “He wanted to know more.”
Jacquelyn blotted his back dry, trying not to injure him further. She applied the salve and wound the clean muslin around his ribs. “You should have told him.”
“I was tempted,” Gabriel admitted as he slipped an arm into the fresh shirt Isabella had brought.
“Found it in my boudoir. Can’t remember whose it is,” her mother said with a wicked grin. “Occupational hazard.”
Jacquelyn helped him with the other sleeve.
“But I figured out about half way into the beating that if I told him where the treasure was, I wouldn’t even make it as far as Newgate,” Gabriel said as he stepped into some buff colored breeches that were a snug fit.
“Hmm. Misjudged that a bit,” Isabella said as she eyed his lower half. “We’ll bring you another pair tomorrow. Now, see if you can do something with his hair, lovie. The man looks like a wild savage.”
By the time, Pinckney returned with his lackeys to retrieve the hipbath, Gabriel was as well-turned out as they could make him with borrowed clothing and not a razor in sight. He still looked every inch the gentleman he was.
“Mr. Pinckney,” he said. “I wonder I could trouble you to send the priest straight away.”
“Ah, yes. A certain date with death turns a man’s thoughts to God, don’
t it?” the warden said. “You’ll wish to be shriven, of course.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I’m due to hang at month’s end. There isn’t time enough to confess my sins.” He reached for Jacquelyn’s hand. “No, I need to make this lady my wife. I was hoping the priest would consent to marry us. That is,” he turned to look askance at her, “if the lady consents first.”
“Yes, Gabriel, with my whole heart, yes.” She could deny him nothing. If he’d asked her to fly, she’d have taken a leap from any battlement he chose.
The brief ceremony had the fuzzy-edged feel of a dream. Jacquelyn repeated her vows but the words were unnecessary. Her heart was so bound together with this man’s, they shared the same rhythm. This crude rite could only acknowledge the sacred joining that had already occurred. The kiss at the end was the only part of the proceedings that seemed real.
And its bittersweet tang made her weep.
Chapter 34
The days fled past like dry leaves scuttling over the cobbles. Jacquelyn visited Gabriel on each of them, bringing food and wine and fresh linen, determined to keep his spirits up as she prayed for a miracle. The wounds on his back were healing without infection thanks to her attentions. She saw to it that he had books to read and worked tirelessly to keep the general misery that was Newgate from leeching into his cell. When she discovered the straw tick he slept on was crawling with lice, she had it burned and replaced.
That was the day he put his foot down.
“That’s it. Go away!” he commanded. “No matter how much you try to fix this place, you put yourself at risk every time you come. Do you not realize I can’t bear to see you here?”
“And where else are you likely to see me?” she countered with sauciness that would have done her mother credit. She tried so hard to put up a brave front, she couldn’t allow herself to feel the hurt of his rejection. She took refuge in anger. “Do you think you’re the only one suffering here?”
“No, but I’m the only one who’ll hang,” he said, giving voice to the stuff of her nightmares.
When tears threatened to spill over her lids, he sighed deeply and took both her hands in his. Her left forefinger was heavy with his father’s signet ring. He’d given it to her because he had no other with which to seal their vows.
“Lyn, listen to me. I have but two days left. As you love me, here’s what I want you to do. Take a coach back to Dragon Caern. Leave today. Live.”
“But I—”
“I know you intend to stand by me to the end, and I love you for your courage,” he said in a gentler tone. “But it will give me no comfort to see you at Execution Dock.”
Mention of the public gallows made her knees weak. Though the populace greeted hanging days as if they were a festival, hanging was a grim business for those who provided the entertainment. At Tyburn, the usual place of execution for felons, the condemned might be lucky enough to have his neck snap in the drop, though the body inevitably twitched and voided itself in a macabre dance. But at Execution Dock, the gallows reserved especially for pirates, the ropes used were far too short to offer the slim chance of instant oblivion. Gabriel could look forward to fifteen or twenty minutes of strangulation while the crowd made cat calls and laid odds on how long he’d last. His body would be left to be covered by three tides, then tarred and hung on display in a gibbet as a warning to other seafaring men who might be tempted to piracy.
“Hanging is no sight for a woman who’s bearing.” He slid his hand warmly over her abdomen and splayed his fingers protectively over the tiny life that grew there. “Think of the child.”
“I’d rather think of his father.”
“Then think of me as I was. Think of me at Dragon Caern,” he urged. “I can bear dying knowing that you carry part of me with you. I can even bear hanging. But I can’t bear for you to see it.”
Gabriel had his way in the end. She agreed not to come again. She promised not to see him hanged. He seemed satisfied, his spirit more settled, as they parted for the last time. Gabriel even promised her in return that he would let the priest hear his confession.
“As much as we’ve time for at any rate,” he said with the wicked grin she’d come to love.
She found herself outside the prison gates without knowing how she got there, but she supposed she must have put one foot before the other in a stunned trance. The world had a thin veil draped over it, all the sharp edges blurred and indistinct. As Jacquelyn bounced along in her mother’s barouche, she wondered if the numbness would ever go away.
Somehow, she doubted it.
* * *
“Well, there she is, children.” Meriwether’s croaking voice greeted Jacquelyn when she pushed open her mother’s front door without knocking. In a flurry of arms and legs and excited greetings, the girls surrounded her, hugging and kissing and nearly knocking her off her feet. Father Eustace was right behind them, offering a consoling hand.
“Come, now, that’ll quite do, ye wee heathens,” Mrs. Beadle said, borrowing Meri’s pet name for the girls. “Let Mistress Jacquelyn catch her breath.”
“In fact, dears,” Isabella said, “I wish you’d all come with me into the garden for a bit. Nanette has prepared a delightful tea, just for us. It will give Jacquelyn a chance to visit with the boring adults while we youngsters have some fun. You can see her later.” She added a wink to the invitation and the children trooped happily in her wake.
Once again, Jacquelyn thanked God for her mother. She couldn’t bear to cry in front of the girls. Fortunately, Mrs. B., Meri, and Father Eustace were willing to let her weep as long as she needed without interruption.
When her tears subsided into moist hiccups, they began gently quizzing her about the situation.
Yes, her mother had written for help from her highly placed friends, but no, they’d received no word and Isabella couldn’t be sure the party in question was even in the country at present.
“Why did you come to London?” she asked. “I sent no word.”
“Blame me big toe. It hasn’t failed me yet.” Meri went on to explain the prescient nature of that digit. “I figured Cap’n was in trouble and so I brung two of them chests filled with gold. Do ye not think we could bribe the jailers into letting him wander off?”
“Gold isn’t worth much if you’re too dead to spend it,” Father Eustace said. “The warden would no doubt be taking Gabriel’s place at the gallows if he allowed such an escape.”
“Besides, if it were a question of money, my mother would already have paid a ransom. How did you manage to bring so much?” Jacquelyn asked.
“Well, we started overland,” Mrs. Beadle said. “Then Joseph here remembered that the Revenge was tied up at Plymouth. We turned around and made for there since the girls weren’t such good travelers on the road, but they were charmed by the idea of sailing on their uncle’s old pirate ship. Joseph’s shipmates were disposed to take on passengers and more than happy to help Lord Drake.”
Jacquelyn first digested the astonishing fact that Mrs. B. was calling Meri by his Christian name and then something else clicked in her brain.
“Is the Revenge still in port?”
“Aye,” Meri said. “I convinced ‘em we’d be needing a way to return to Cornwall, so Cap’n Helmsby is givin’ his crew a bit o’ shore leave, so to speak. Since the pardon, they’ve been hauling cargo for one shipline or other. They’re mortal tired of honest work and need a bit of diversion.”
“Do you think your old crew would still be loyal to Gabriel?” Jacquelyn asked.
“Only every man-jack of them,” Meri affirmed.
“And do you think they could be enticed into a little ‘dishonest’ work with the proper inducement?” A plan began to form in Jacquelyn’s mind. It was dicey and by no means fool-proof, but she had to try.
“What bee have ye buzzing in yer brain, missy?” Meriwether slanted an assessing look at her.
“I promised Gabriel I wouldn’t see him hang,” she said, hope sputtering to life fo
r the first time since he’d been taken. “Before God, I mean to keep my word.”
Chapter 35
Her skin was satin and fire at once, smooth to his touch and flame to his senses. He took her rosy nipple in his mouth and tasted a bit of heaven. Oh, that little sound she made as he pleasured her. He’d give anything to hear it again.
A bell tolled in the distance.
She arched into him and he gathered her close. She spread herself to receive him, making those helpless little noises of urgency that threatened to shred his control.
Someone was still ringing that damn bell.
He dove into her, home at last. He—
Opened his eyes. The bell was real. Slow and measured, it tongued a relentless message.
“They always ring the bell on hanging days. Gives folks cause to reflect and repent if they’ve considered taking up evil ways,” Pinckney had told him. “And time enough to nip down to Execution Dock. The good spots go fast.”
Gabriel sighed and rose from his bed. He’d slept remarkably well for someone who knew it was his last night on earth. And his dreams, well, Lyn had been with him all night, alternately passionate and tender. His cock still throbbed. It was a pity he hadn’t been able to finish the last dream.
He scraped the dark stubble from his chin and dressed carefully in the new suit of clothing Isabella Wren had thoughtfully ordered for him. A condemned man was expected to appear in his finery and thanks to Jacquelyn’s mother, Gabriel would be turned out well enough to appear before King George himself. He ignored the full-bottomed wig she’d sent over, clubbing his own hair back into a neat queue. He never liked wearing a wig in life. He doubted death would improve the experience.
Gabriel waved off Pinckney’s offer of breakfast. Not only was the gruel unpalatable, Gabriel didn’t want to burden his belly with something it would only purge later. To this end, he’d shunned food since Lyn left him for the last time. If he was bound to die, he’d make it a good death. The thought of his own shite streaming down his kicking legs was almost worse than hanging itself.