Sparhawk's Angel (12 page)

T
he more Rose struggled to keep pace with Nick, the more convinced she became that she loathed him, despised him, hated him, for doing this to her. It didn't matter that he believed she was merely another of the ship's boys. He'd no right to treat any human being under his command the way he was treating her now.

Given the differences in their height, she would have had trouble matching her shorter legs to his long stride under the best of circumstances. But after months at sea, her legs felt wobbly and weak beneath her, and the land seemed to pitch and heave beneath her feet the same way as the deck had before she'd adjusted to it. She could feel blisters growing with every step in her heavy borrowed shoes, her heels slipping and rubbing in the coarse stockings. On the wharf she'd planned to run away from him as soon as she could, but if he'd hobbled her with leg irons she couldn't have been more bound to follow him.

Even the climate conspired against her. Away from the breezes off the water, the night air in the city streets was thick and muggy, and her wool jacket, made by Johnny's mother in far-off and much cooler Rhode Island and weighed down still further by the coins Rose herself had sewn inside, prickled against her neck and back.

And oblivious to it all, Nick walked onward, a slight smile on his lips as he led them heaven only knew where. The only mark of the heat that showed on him was a faint gleam of perspiration on his well-shaven upper lip and a few damp, wayward curls that escaped from the black silk bow at the back of his neck. His soft linen shirt remained immaculate, his light superfine coat unwrinkled, and Rose didn't need to see the admiring looks of every woman they passed to remind her that he was the most handsome man she'd ever known.

The most handsome, and the most loathsome.

"You'll be my excuse for the evening, Henry," he said cheerfully. "I've been invited by the governor to one of his wife's collections, and they're always tedious as hell. But since you're not included in the invitation, we'll have to find some other entertainment, eh, Henry?"

Glumly Rose nodded, not sure she could disguise her voice enough to answer. It seemed odd to her, this companionable side of him. On board the
Angel Lily
, he was always curt and captainish with the crew. But maybe on land he wasn't as concerned with discipline.

"Now don't fall behind, Henry," he warned. "I wouldn't want to lose you here in the dark."

Mutinous as Rose was, she had to agree, and she struggled as best she could to keep close to him. They had left the waterfront with its crowded, noisy taverns and were now in what she guessed must be a business district by day. The street was narrower here, scarcely better than a lane, and flanked on either side by brick warehouses shuttered for the night. The only light came from the moon overhead, slanting between the buildings, and the sound of their footsteps on the paving stones was a lonely echo.

It was the footsteps she heard first, the ones that didn't belong to her or Nick, footsteps running behind them. Startled, she turned, and saw the three men coming toward them, two with pistols in their hands and one with a knife. With a gasp of panic she looked for Nick. He stood beside her with his legs spread and slightly bent and his back turned to a wall, every muscle tensed and ready to fight, the moonlight glinting off the blade of the knife that had somehow instantly appeared in his own hand.

Her fingers flew to touch her mother's necklaces beneath her shirt. There were three men and only one of Nick; as brave as he was, how could he win against odds like that?

"Get behind me," he ordered curtly. "Damn it,
now
!"

But instead, Rose turned and fled. Her legs were so weak and her coat and shoes so heavy that she felt as if she were running in molasses, yet still she forced herself to plunge on as fast and as hard as she could. There was a rush of wind that she realized was her own breath, and over the racing thump of her heart she could hear the sounds of a fight, scuffling feet and grunts and the sickening dull thuds of blows.

Oh, dear God, not Nick, oh, please, please, as arrogant as he is, please, not Nick!

Yet still she ran, driven now by terror. She was almost to the corner, even with a pile of bricks and sand left by workmen, and she knew if she could reach the other street she could hide and be safe and they wouldn't find her and—

"Got you, you little weasel!"

And with a sharp cry Rose pitched forward, the man's weight heavy on the backs of her legs as she fell into the pile of sand.

"Lord, but you be a cunning little beggar!" The man breathed hard from running after her, and his hands tightened around her knees as she struggled to break free. "But not bloody fast enough, eh?"

If his hands moved any higher, he'd discover she was a woman, not a boy, and he would take her mother's jewelry and her father's gold and dear heaven deliver her, what he could do, what he would do to her as a female!

With a broken sob of fear, she lunged forward and seized one of the bricks with both hands just as the man flipped her onto her back. She had a fleeting image of his face over hers—stubbled whiskers, a bent, scarred nose, the stale stench of rum—as she raised the brick into the air to strike him.

And then he was gone, torn away from her as suddenly as he'd come. Her heart racing still, she scrambled to her feet, swaying unsteadily with the brick clutched tight in her hands. The man was facedown now the way she had been, and Nick was standing over him, his hand curled in a fist and his hair torn free from its neat black bow.

"Thank God," she said shakily. "I thought they'd killed you."

Nick glanced up, and the rush of excitement he'd felt from the fight melted away in an instant. He'd known cutting through this street was dangerous; he'd done it willfully to provoke Lily, and it had. But because he wasn't accustomed to thinking of anyone other than himself, he'd overlooked what a common little street brawl such as this would do to Rose. With her eyes enormous with fear and her face smudged with dirt beneath that ridiculous cap, she looked small and painfully vulnerable, and he hated himself for putting her at risk. Three to one were odds he liked, but she didn't know that. Instead she'd worried that he'd been killed, and he began to hold his arms out to her, intending to reassure her.

But something in her face that he couldn't describe stopped him, and in the last instant he let his arms slip empty to his sides. He risked his life without a thought, but to risk her rejection a second time took courage he didn't have. Of course she didn't want comfort from him. If she had, she wouldn't be here now at all.

"You're not hurt?" he demanded. "Not harmed?"

"No." She was holding the brick to her chest, cradling it like an infant, with the shapeless knitted cap still pulled tight over her brow. "But you—"

"They can't hurt me," he said flatly. His fingers tensed and relaxed restlessly at his sides, nearly overwhelmed by the desire to hold her. "Not even if I wanted them to."

Lily
. Rose swallowed hard. Lord, why hadn't she thought of her sister before this? He'd told her before that Lily was bound to keep him safe, and here was the proof. He'd fought three men here in this street, and the worst he had to show for it was a tear in the sleeve of his coat and his queue undone. All she'd been able to do was run like a frightened, ineffectual rabbit, but Lily—Lily could keep him safe. But why, she wondered forlornly, couldn't Lily spare a little of that same care for her?

"Aye, aye, Captain," she said at last, her voice steadying through sheer will. "Whatever you say."

Nick looked at her hard. So she still wished to play at being a ship's boy. In spite of himself she rose another notch in his estimation. Most women, especially ones as gently bred as she'd been, would be wailing and swooning after what she'd just been through.

He bent to retrieve his hat from the pavement where it had fallen and poked his shoe at the unconscious man lying beside her. "Best to be on our way, Henry, before the watch comes to ask questions I've no mind to answer."

She shuddered and looked down the street for the two other men, now little more than crumpled black shadows on the street. "Are they—are they quite dead?"

"I doubt they're dead at all." He shrugged carelessly. Thanks to Lily's assistance, scolding away as she'd lifted the pistols right out of their hands, it hadn't been much of a fight. "Bastards like that don't kill easily."

She nodded and touched the front of her shirt, feeling for something beneath the rough cloth, and he noticed how her hand was bare. It didn't take much for Nick to guess it was the betrothal ring she was searching for, slung in secret around her neck, and a fresh wave of loneliness swept over him. Despite the bleakness of her betrothal to a man she didn't know, that same man was the one she turned to for comfort, to the reassurance offered by his ring because he was the one destined to be her husband.

Not that it mattered to him, he told himself fiercely. After tonight, the British captain could have her. Why should he care what some lord's little daughter thought?

Because the woman was Rose, and he couldn't help caring.

Blast Lily for having done this to him!

"No more dallying, Henry," he said with more sharpness than he realized as he turned away. "Come along."

She dropped the brick and blinked back the tears that suddenly stung her eyes. Somehow Nick still believed her to be a boy; that was why he'd been so brusque. A boy on a privateer's crew would have seen far worse than this. She should consider herself fortunate that he hadn't railed at her as a coward for running instead of staying to fight beside him.

But for a moment, just a moment, she'd thought otherwise. She'd thought he'd begun to raise his hands to her, that she'd seen the warmth of compassion and more flare in his eyes. But the next instant those eyes were cool and emotionless, and she realized to her sorrow that she'd only imagined them otherwise. Even if he'd seen through her disguise, how could she expect comfort from him now after she'd scorned him this past week? She had made her decision, and now she must stick by it.

And, oh, Lily, if you have a moment to spare from him for me, please help me now to do what is truly right!

She stuffed her trembling hands into her pockets, trying to remember how she could have thought escaping—escaping
him—
could be so easy. With her head bent and her heart heavy, she hurried her steps after Nick.

They walked in silence another three blocks, the neighborhood changing again to town houses with white-painted porches and walled gardens. Finally Nick stopped at the last house on the corner, the grandest and most elegant on the street, set back behind a tall stone wall with a wrought-iron gate. With classical piazzas on both floors, the house was unlike any Rose had seen in England, and the sounds of uninhibited revelry and laughter that drifted through the tall, open windows didn't remind her of Portsmouth society, either.

"The house of an old friend," Nick explained offhandedly as he lifted the brass knocker cast in the shape of a woman's face. "She's sure to welcome you, too, Henry, because you're with me."

The door opened as soon as the knocker struck, and an enormous African in pale blue livery and a white peruke bowed them into the hall. Rose looked curiously around her. The wallpaper painted with antique scenes must have come clear from Italy or France, and the gilt-framed looking glasses were costly imports as well. Candles blazed from a dozen bracketed sconces as well as the chandelier overhead, and except for the laughter and music in the parlors on either side of the hall, muffled by closed doors, she could have imagined herself in any of the better homes in Portsmouth after all. Whatever Nick's friends did to earn their living, there was no doubt they'd been successful.

"Good evening, Pompey," said Nick as he handed the African his hat. " 'Tis good to seeing you look so well. I trust your mistress—ah, Cassie, sweetheart, here you are yourself!"

"Nickerson Sparhawk, by all that's holy!" cried the woman as she swept down the stairs, her ruffled skirts drifting around her. She was tall and handsome, her hair fashionably powdered and her gown an extravagant fantasy of yellow silk overlaid with black lace that barely covered her lush breasts. On the bottom step she waited, her arms raised in welcome, until Nick caught her around the waist and spun her in a swirl of black silk petticoats and emerald-colored stockings while she laughed with delight. She kissed him with a bawdy smack as he set her down at last, her laugh fading to a throaty chuckle.

Oh, yes, thought Rose wretchedly, this friend of Nick's was most successful at her business, and from the way she was treating him he was one of her best customers.

"You've kept away too long, Captain," she said as she ran her hand along his arm with an easy familiarity that made Rose wince. "This wicked war, you know, it makes us all so sad when you gentlemen don't come to cheer us. And such tales I've heard of you, Nick! They say you've taken to kidnapping English ladies along with their ships!"

So her plight was common enough knowledge, thought Rose as her dismay grew by the moment. If even this—this
woman
knew she'd been taken along with the
Commerce
, then by now every other person in town must have heard it, too. Being worth a sizable ransom was the same as having a price on her head, and even if she could escape from Nick's company there'd be no way she could quietly slip away from Charles Town to the Caribbean the way she'd hoped.

Nick grinned. "You should know better than to believe every story you hear, Cassie," he teased, curving his hand around the back of her waist—the same way, thought Rose unhappily, as he'd held her. "You only wish some handsome privateer would kidnap you."

"Don't make me beg, you black-hearted rogue." Cassie thumped his chest and laughed again, her gaze at last landing on Rose. "And who is this little fellow, Nick? Stars, he's scarce more than a babe!"

"Henry's one of my lads, and I won't hear you say ill of him." Fondly Nick chucked Cassie beneath her chin as Rose wished she could disappear into the wallpaper. "I told him you welcomed strangers."