Master of Paradise (40 page)

In one swift motion, he was on his feet.

“That was a mistake,” Hastings gloated.
“You’ll wish I’d killed you quickly and mercifully, before we’re
finished.”

“When were you ever merciful?” Rodrigo
countered.

“When I neglected to murder you in your bed
as a boy.”

They began to fight in earnest, their swords
striking with fierce clashes, the sun glinting off the steel. As
Gabrielle watched, the two combatants parried and thrust their way
onto the bridge, the foot traffic scrambling out of their path as
they slashed their way across. She followed them, wishing she had
another sword and could help. But despite his wounds, Rodrigo was
holding his own. Both men were streaming with sweat. Both had
clothing torn where the blades had slit flesh. Both were now
bleeding on their chests, their arms. This was no polite fencing
match. It was a battle to the death.

Hastings pinned Rodrigo back against the
stone rail of the bridge. As he was lowering his sword, Rodrigo
gave a mighty kick and sent him spinning backward. With lightning
speed, Rodrigo dove over the rail and landed below on the river
walk, forcing Hastings to spring down in pursuit.

They were both beginning to tire. Even as he
fought, Hastings kept up a litany of abuse. “Oh, good parry,
Roderick
,” he taunted.

Rodrigo didn’t answer. His gunshot wound was
obviously troubling him, and he looked dizzy from the loss of
blood. They headed for the stairs that led up from the river.
There, they lunged and parried back and forth, climbing a few
steps, then backing down again. Their blades moved so swiftly, they
were difficult to see. It was a graceful, brutal dance by two
masters of the game. A crowd gathered, gasping as Hastings slit
Rodrigo’s upper abdomen and drew more blood.

Seeing her lover’s distress, Gabrielle
snatched the sword of one of the spectators and rejoined the
contestants as they fought their way to the palace stairs. “It’s my
turn now, Rodrigo.”

“No!” he denied over his shoulder. “This is a
fight long overdue. I won’t be denied because of a little
blood.”

“Oh, good show,
Roderick!
” Hastings
cried. “How terribly British of you!”

The insult seemed to give Rodrigo a burst of
energy. He withstood Hastings’s attack, thrust for thrust, and as
Hastings tired from what he hoped would be the final onslaught,
Rodrigo seized the offensive.

Hastings’s confident air turned to a worried
look as Rodrigo’s energy surged into a bold series of maneuvers
that Hastings weakly managed to repulse. As he retreated into the
crowd, he stumbled, falling to the ground, and Rodrigo had his
opportunity at last. Pouncing, he kicked Hastings’s sword out of
his hand, sending it clanging down the cobblestones. With a
victorious smile, Rodrigo placed the blade of his sword at
Hastings’s defenseless chest.

“What have you to offer for your life now?”
Rodrigo growled.

Gabrielle saw the stark terror in Hastings’s
eyes as he tried to think.

Suddenly, a roar was heard from the crowd
assembled at the front entrance on Parliament Street. The vote was
concluded. Then they heard the faint voices of the mob calling out,
“The bill is passed. The bill is passed! No more slavery for
Britain.”

Rodrigo looked down at his victim, sprawled
beneath him. Their eyes met. In their shared gaze was a realization
that Rodrigo had won at last. After all the bitter struggles
through the years, it was over. “I don’t suppose it would do me any
good to ask for mercy at this point,” Hastings said.

“Mercy?” Rodrigo asked, as he pulled back the
sword. “Why not?” Then he made a powerful lunge through his enemy’s
heart.

The pirate kicked in the door and stalked
across the lady’s cabin. He surveyed the scene of huddled,
frightened women, and jerking his head to the ladies-in-waiting,
barked out his command. “Out!”

From the front row of the raised theater box,
a large figure fidgeted uneasily as the servants on the stage below
scrambled out the door, leaving their frightened mistress alone
with the infamous brigand—Rodrigo Soro, the scourge of the Indian
Ocean.

As the stage pirate ripped the woman’s dress,
and a gasp of voices was heard all around, the observer sank deep
in his seat and shook his head.

Moments later, he leaned forward again as the
pirate below struck a melodramatic pose and said, with his hand on
his chest, “My name is feared all across the Indian Ocean, from the
Horn of Africa to the Celebes Sea. I’ve looted ships and collected
bounty worth a king’s ransom. But without the woman I love, I’m
only half a man!”

“Enough!” Rising to his feet, the disgruntled
spectator put his boot on the rail. “I’ve never heard such rubbish
in all my life!”

Gabrielle tried to ignore the outburst and
continued to play the scene. But she became aware of further
commotion in the seats. There was a gasp and voices rose all
around. Her concentration broken, she turned and looked above the
glare of the lights to the royal box. And there, about to leap, was
the real Rodrigo Soro.

With a single bound, he landed onstage. “What
are you doing?” she cried, as the audience murmured its alarm.

“I’ve had enough of this libel.”

He tossed her hat aside and yanked off the
wig and netting, letting her chocolate hair fall free. Then, with a
theatrical flourish of his own, he swept her up in his arms and
gave her a fiercely passionate kiss. Another gasp swept the aisles,
but Gabrielle was drowning in his kiss. Her arms went up to caress
his neck as he carried her, like a pirate’s captive, off the
stage.

After a moment of stunned silence, the
audience burst into a thunderous applause.

“Have you gone mad?” a voice cried as they
came backstage. Humphrey Hollingstead followed them as Rodrigo
swept her in his arms through the wings. “You could at least have
waited till the end of the act!” He motioned to the understudy, a
slim man standing in the wings, costumed just like Gabrielle. “Take
the stage, dear.”

Gabrielle had consented to appear in a
one-week revival of her infamous play, to benefit Sir Thomas Fowell
Buxton’s Fund for Freed Slaves. This matinee performance was to be
the last, and she’d warned Hollingstead that she’d have to leave at
the end of the second act for an important event. But her lover,
who hadn’t managed to see any of the earlier performances, could
bear the ordeal of watching his own portrayal no longer.

“I always said you were too impulsive to be a
really great actress!” Hollingstead accused.

She lifted her head and listened to the
continuing applause. She’d never had such an ovation. It had proved
to be irresistibly romantic, the spectacle of the real pirate
sweeping her offstage.

As they moved swiftly for the door, she
suddenly hesitated. “They’re still applauding,” she said, the
actress instincts dying hard. “I’d better go make a curtain
call.”

But Rodrigo shook his head. “If you want them
to really remember you, leave them wanting more.”

In the alley outside the stage door, a hansom
cab was waiting to whisk them away. When they stepped inside,
Gabrielle was surprised to find another passenger waiting for them.
It was her father, Douglas Cross.

The driver cracked his whip and the cab
pulled out onto the Strand. Gabrielle called up, “Make haste, if
you would. We have no time to spare.”

She sat down and faced her father.

“I’ve joined you to say my good-byes now,” he
told her.

“You’re not coming to the pier tomorrow?”

“I thought it best not to.”

“Does Cullen know this?”

“Yes. I’ve already spoken to him.”

Feeling uneasy, Gabrielle glanced out at the
passing scenery as they traversed Charing Cross.

“Daughter,” he began, with a tremble in his
voice. She looked at him and saw the tears in his eyes. “I want to
tell you how very sorry I am.”

“You don’t have to—”

“But I do. I’ve wronged you terribly. You and
Cullen. I wish I could make it up to you.”

Awash with pity mixed with affection, she
said, “Maybe it’s not too late. Perhaps we can still be a family.
Why don’t you come with us?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I must face some
very serious charges here in England regarding my late position
with John Company. For the first time in my life, I’m not going to
shirk my responsibilities. If I ever get clear, perhaps I shall
take you up on that most generous offer.”

The cab clattered through an iron gate and a
succession of guards to a large structure, walled off from the
street. As they reined to a halt, the driver called down, “We’re at
St. James’s, Your Grace.”

Impulsively, Gabrielle reached over and took
her father’s hand. “Why don’t you come in with us?”

But he declined with a sorrowful shake of his
head. “I don’t deserve to be a part of this.”

She would have argued, but the bond was still
too tentative. “Very well. If that’s your wish.”

Before he stepped out, Douglas hesitated
awkwardly then said, “I honestly don’t know if you’re my daughter
or not. But I’d be proud to consider you such from now on.”

Gabrielle was so choked up, she couldn’t
voice any words.

Moments later, she and Rodrigo entered St.
James’s Palace and followed the appointed delegation down the wide
hallway to the chamber where the ceremony would take place. Pausing
at the entrance, Gabrielle took his hand and whispered, “Are you
certain you want to go through with this?”

The former scourge of the Indian Ocean
swallowed nervously and said, “If you can live with me, I can live
with England.”

They entered the august chamber and a sea of
faces turned their way. At the end of a red carpet, King William IV
awaited them. Beside him was his young niece, Princess Victoria,
who’d seen the play three times this past week. In front of them
both was a velvet pillow. In a moment, Rodrigo would kneel on that
pillow and accept England as his master.

When he rose again, he would be Sir Rodrigo
Soro.

Seychelles

FOUR MONTHS LATER

The small skiff was lowered from the stern of
El Paraiso Segundo
with Rodrigo and Gabrielle aboard. As
they hit the water, Rodrigo took up the oars and left the mother
ship. Watching him row them toward the surf, Gabrielle was reminded
of those times when they’d met on the banks of the Ouse River in
Bedfordshire and he’d rowed her to their isle of love.

But that was a decade and a world away. In
Mahé, Rodrigo had assumed the office of governor of Seychelles, and
the same day, in a starlit ceremony, had taken Gabrielle as his
bride. The wedding celebration served as an exuberant reunion with
all their old friends. Wallace, whom Rodrigo had appointed
lieutenant governor, was there, proudly wearing the uniform of his
old Scots Guard regiment. Higgins was there with the Kikuyu allies
he would soon ferry back to their African homeland. And Jonah Fitch
was there, as overcome with emotion as any father of the bride.
“It’s sure good to have you back, ma’am,” he said when she hugged
him. “Things have been powerful dull around here without you.”

After the festivities, the new governor and
Lady Soro spent just enough time on the main island to let the
French plantation aristocracy know that the antislavery laws would
be enforced with vigor. Rodrigo had held an assembly in front of
State House in which all of the Seychellois planters—the evil trio
of Delon, Montand, and DeVille among them—were ordered to bring
their slaves and publicly set them free. The abomination of
slavery, he told them in no uncertain terms, was a thing of the
past in Seychelles and everywhere else in the world where the Union
Jack flew.

And now, Gabrielle looked back at the ship
that had carried them to Fregate. At the stern, Cullen leaned over
the rail and waved with a happy smile. On the voyage, they’d had
many long talks about their journey to this point—a new
relationship. It had not been a matter of finding fault, these many
shipboard conversations, but of celebrating the possibilities of
the human spirit, and recognizing the destructive folly of anyone
trying to imprison it with the preconceived expectations of class,
nationality, or heredity.

He’d insisted on accompanying them this far,
but he was anxious to return to Mahé, where he had a new
responsibility awaiting him. They’d decided on the long voyage over
that Cullen and Gabrielle would form a partnership and set about
restoring Beau Vallon—growing copra instead of cotton, and
employing many of their old pirate crew as workers.

Rodrigo enthusiastically supported the idea.
“Just because you’re my wife doesn’t mean you must relinquish your
dreams,” he’d told her. When she reminded him of what he’d said
about the emptiness of those dreams, he said, “But those were based
on evil. If you can employ men who are now out of employment
because our cause has been attained, it benefits us all. You can
divide your time between Mahé and Fregate, just as I will.”

As he rowed now, he looked at her and smiled.
“Are you ready for a honeymoon?”

She noted the seductive gleam in his eyes and
said, “I’m ready for anything my governor may desire.”

Honeymoon! The entire voyage here had been
like one long honeymoon. And yet the prospect of this afternoon’s
homecoming in paradise seemed so special and so thrilling that it
did, indeed, seem like a whole new beginning.

They were surrounded by the
orange-and-lavender glow of the sunset. Looking over his shoulder,
she saw the brilliant green of their island, Fregate, glistening in
the glorious twilight.

As he rowed harder, positioning the boat to
catch a good wave, she was once again uncannily reminded of their
secret moonlit rendezvous so many years ago in England.