How To Please a Pirate (21 page)

“Aye, though Rupert usually managed to squeak
through our adventures without taint, while I got caught.”

“You sound like Daisy,” she said with a grin.
“That child’s main complaint is that she gets blamed for everything
she does.”

Gabriel chuckled. “No wonder she’s my
favorite.”

He stopped and put a shoulder to a spot in
the wall where a faint indentation made a hidden opening likely. He
shoved with a grunt. The secret door grated against the stone floor
and stopped after only giving a quarter inch.

“There are some doors we couldn’t open at
all, even when I was a boy,” he said. “You’re not the first to
shove a heavy piece of furniture across the threshold, you know.
But some of it is that the castle is so deucedly old and determined
to keep its secrets. The Caern has settled and the doorways don’t
line up plumb any longer.”

The air grew colder as they continued to
descend. Moisture condensed on the walls.

“How far down do you think we are?” Jacquelyn
asked. Even though she spoke softly, her voice seemed to echo from
the dark ahead of them.

“Don’t know. Rupert got cold feet some turns
back and wouldn’t ever come this far down with me. None of this
looks familiar.”

“That’s small comfort.”

“Come now, where’s your sense of adventure?”
He spied a pitch-daubed torch wedged into the wall and held his
candle to it. The flame sputtered then flared, lighting much
further down the passageway. A whole string of torches lined the
corridor, waiting to be lit. Gabriel strode to the next one and
fired it. The reek of burning tar tainted the damp, musty air. It
may have been in the distant past, but this corridor had once seen
heavy use. The rock face around the torch was grimy with soot.

“I think we should turn back,” Jacquelyn
said.

“Don’t tell me the intrepid Mistress Wren is
afraid. If I can pilot a ship to the Caribbean and back, I think I
ought to be able to find your chamber again.” Then he turned back
to face her and waggled his brows. “Unless you have something in
mind that would lure me to return to your bed sooner?”

A warm bed sounded like heaven, but she
wasn’t up to facing one with him in it. Not without losing her
resolve. A cold tramp through a dark tunnel would be better for
controlling the flutter in her loins.

“Lead on, my lord,” she said as she blew out
her candle and shoved her hands into her sleeves to warm them.

“Gabriel,” he corrected. “We can’t have an
explore together if you insist on calling me by title. Here, let me
warm your hands. They’re cold as ice.”

He gathered them between his and lowered his
lips to blow his warm breath on them. Her fingertips tingled and a
shiver that had nothing to do with being cold raced up her arm.

“Better?”

“Yes, much.” She tugged her hands away, not
trusting herself to let him touch her so.

“Your lips are blue,” he said with a frown.
He shrugged out of his shirt and draped it over her shoulders.
“Here, put this on.”

“But then you’ll be cold.”

“I’ll make do,” he assured her.

“But this is most unseemly.”

“Gallivanting about the castle at midnight is
unseemly enough. My being shirtless won’t make matters worse. I
only want to warm you. It’s not often I play the gentleman in
earnest, Lyn,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better let me.”

With her teeth threatening to chatter, she
couldn’t bring herself to protest too much. The unbleached lawn
fabric still retained his body heat.

And his undeniably male scent.

And now she was treated to the sight of his
muscular chest and bare arms. His brown nipples puckered, but his
skin remained unmarred by gooseflesh.

“Here let me help you,” he offered. He
reached over and fastened the buttons that ran down her chest. He
fingered the one that nestled in the hollow between her breasts.
“This may be the only time I offer to help dress you when
undressing is my clear preference.”

Her nipples tingled at the nearness of his
fingers, but he kept his promise to behave as a gentleman ought.
Once the last button was done up, he caught up her hand and held it
tightly.

“Don’t want to get separated down here,” he
explained as he led her on. “Suppose the torches went out.”

“Do you think it likely?”

“No, but it’s the best excuse I can think of
to keep holding your hand.”

His warm hand was a comfort and his boyish
admission struck her as innocent enough. She nodded and his eyes
lit with triumph.

“Onward then, me hearty,” he said in a rough
imitation of Mr. Meriwether. “There be treasure waiting for them
what is not afeard to chance the journey.”

When he screwed his face into an
approximation of Meri’s evil-eyed squint, she laughed. “Treasure,
my lord? Then by all means, let’s push on.”

They crept down the curving passageway,
fingers entwined. Jacquelyn was mindful of her footing when the
floor became uneven. Gabriel stopped long enough to light each
torch. Finally they came to a set of winding steps that led
downward into the dark. Gabriel pulled the last torch from its
sconce and swiped it through the air. A pit yawned before them with
no discernable bottom and only a curving flight of narrow stairs
with no railings edging the open space.

“Do you smell that?” Gabriel asked.

The torch’s flame wavered for an instant and
the air freshened with a sharp salt tang.

“The sea?” Jacquelyn asked. The castle
perched on a rocky point, but the surf was a dizzying fall below
it. Had they really traveled so far beneath the weathered stone of
the Caern?

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” he ordered.
“Keep to the right.”

She pressed a palm to his shoulder blade,
marveling at the warmth of his smooth, bare skin. With Gabriel’s
torch leading the way, they descended carefully. Moisture pooled in
the slight indentations on the stone steps, mute testimony to
thousands of pairs of feet wearing against the rock in the dim
past. A low rumble, like an advancing thunderstorm, rose at regular
intervals.

“What’s that?” Jacquelyn asked.

“Sounds like the tide coming in,” he said as
they neared the bottom step. The pathway narrowed, forcing them to
go single file. It led sharply to the right. Gabriel ducked to
enter the new corridor.

The smell of the sea was stronger now. When
Jacquelyn’s fingertips brushed the walls, she found them cold and
slick.

Gabriel straightened to his full height ahead
of her and light from his torch shot skyward into a large vault.
Jacquelyn peered around him.

At one side of the stone chamber, the sea
boiled in through low opening, eddying in a heaving pool. But on
the landward side, every place she looked was piled high with
crates and chests. One of them had been turned on its side and its
contents dumped like refuse. A sparkle of gold caught the light of
Gabriel’s torch. A dragon’s hoard of coins spilled onto the wet
stone, glistening like fallen stars.

“When you said treasure awaits you weren’t
joking,” Jacquelyn whispered in awe. “You knew this was here?”

“I had no idea.”

“What is this place?” Her voice returned to
her several times in receding sibilance.

“A smuggler’s hole.” Gabriel lit another
torch wedged into the rock face and the room brightened. “When the
tide is out, a crew brings its cargo in through the sea cave. When
the tide surges back, the door is closed.”

“Did you know there was sea cave near Dragon
Caern?”

“No, and I’ve sailed past the castle dozens
of times,” he said. “The entrance must be curved behind the rocks
in such a way as to make it invisible unless you know where it
is.”

“Do you suppose someone is still using this
as his storehouse?”

Gabriel knelt and swiped a hand across the
top of one of the chests. He held up his finger to show her the
thick layer of grime. “No one has been here in ages.”

When he pried the chest open, more gold
greeted Jacquelyn’s dazzled eyes. Gabriel held a coin aloft,
inspecting the inscription.

“Spanish,” he said. “And old beyond
reckoning. I’ve never seen this mintage before, and I’ve seen my
share of doubloons. Lord knows there are still plenty of them
swirling around the Caribbean.”

Gabriel opened another chest and found gold
ingots wrapped in decaying velvet. Jacquelyn picked up a long
crowbar and jimmied open another crate. There was no treasure in
this one, but she found a cache of ancient weapons, a rusted
arquebus
and a pouch of rounds, several cross-bows and a
melon shaped helmet. She lifted the helmet, the bronze green with
age.

“That belonged to a conquistador,” Gabriel
said.

“But what’s it doing here?”

“Waiting to be found,” he said softly. “You
know what this means, don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“It means I’m not the first pirate in the
Drake family tree.” One corner of his mouth jinked up and his dark
eyes glittered with pleasure. “Uncle Eustace used to tell us boys
that our great-great—oh, I don’t know how many times—great
grandfather was a privateer for Queen Elizabeth.”

“Do you mean Sir Francis Drake?”

“No, though I think he was some sort of
distant relation several times removed. This is Phineas Drake I’m
speaking of, the lone black sheep amongst the spotless Drake herd.
Or perhaps lone wolf is more apt, but my father always denied the
tales. If there was treasure in Dragon Caern, he never saw it.”

“How could something like this be
forgotten?”

“You’d be surprised how much treasure is
hidden in the world and none living knows of its existence.” He
flipped a coin up to watch it sparkle in the torchlight. “A pirate
crew will bury a cache of goods and next thing you know a squall
comes up and the ship goes down with all hands, taking the secret
of the treasure with them.”

“But this treasure was right under our feet,”
she said, remembering the times she pinched and scraped to make
sure the estate would have enough to make it through a thin season
when the wealth of Midas rested here unspent. “How could it be
lost?”

“Dragon Caern keeps its own secrets. Take the
passageways, for example. As far as I know, no one was aware of the
passageways till Rupert and I rediscovered them.” He pocketed one
of the shining coins. “All it takes is for one father to fail to
pass the information to his son and the treasure passes from living
memory.”

“You mean there’s no written record of all
this?”

“None that I’m aware of. Just rumor and
conjecture. That’s why the tale appealed so strongly to Eustace and
why Father didn’t want it spoken of. Piracy and ill-gotten gains
were entirely too disreputable for the likes of Rhys Drake.” His
smile faded. “A treasure like this is dangerous for all who know of
it. No one would commit such a thing to parchment when he could
just bring his son down those steps at the opportune time.”

“Still it seems too important to leave to
chance.” Jacquelyn tugged his shirt tighter around her. The warmth
from his body was gone, but his scent still clung to the fabric in
a way that set her senses tingling.

“We all think we’re going to live forever,”
Gabriel said. “But one of my ancestors didn’t live long enough to
pass on the treasure’s whereabouts and it sank into the realm of
myth.”

“Well, we know about it now,” Jacquelyn said
with a shiver.

“And so must someone else,” Gabriel said.
“Someone with the King’s ear must suspect its existence. I’ve been
puzzling over why you were sent the message that I needed to be
waylaid before I could make it home. I think we may have discovered
the reason someone wants to make sure there are no more
Drakes.”

“So it’s not about tenants and land. This is
why the Crown is in such a hurry to see the Drake barony extinct,”
she finished his thought for him. Her shoulders slumped. “And why
it is so imperative that you marry. Soon.”

He raked a hand through his hair, his mouth
set in a determined grimace. She knew her duty, and by heaven,
she’d see him wed as soon as possible. But the way his bare skin
glowed in the torchlight, all Jacquelyn could think was how
glorious it would be to have this man in her bed.

And if she could only have him for a little
while, did it make sense to waste one moment of it?

“You look chilled. We’d best find your bed.”
His eyes gleamed as he looked at her.

Did everything she thought show so plainly on
her face? If so, the sooner she was out of his sight altogether the
better for both of them. She might want to bed him, but all the
reasons not to have him still held good.

“Aye, a warm bed sounds lovely right now.”
Jacquelyn rubbed her arms against the chill, purposely trying to
misunderstand him. Better to let him think she pined for her
coverlet than for his hot body between her bed linens. Besides, she
was certain her nose must be blue and she hadn’t been able to feel
her feet since they started down the curving steps.

“Still cold?”

She nodded. He closed the distance between
them as if she’d issued an invitation.

“I can help with that,” he said folding her
into his arms, pressing her cheek to his chest.

His bare skin was warm, almost feverish. She
pushed her palms against him both to draw out his heat and to
separate from him by a finger-width. She didn’t think she could
bear the hard length of his body against hers for long.

He shivered involuntarily. “Your fingers are
like icicles.”

“I’m sorry.” She tried to draw back further,
but he held her firm.

“No need. You’ll warm up soon enough.” He
cupped her hands in his again and brought them to his lips to send
his warm breath over them.

A tingle of desire washed over her.