Master of Paradise (6 page)

“Why, then, did we take on a battalion of
soldiers at Madagascar?”

“Company policy. We carry a great deal of
gold aboard. Soro did us one service and taught us to take
precautions. As you can see, we’re prepared for any
contingency.”

It was true. The deck was so full of the
soldiers they’d taken on at Madagascar that it was difficult to
navigate it without running into them. Their red wool coats looked
smothering in the heat, their brass buttons shining as befitted
representatives of the Crown. They hadn’t been on board an hour
yet, and already they were busy checking ammunition, oiling
cannons, and preparing to protect the cargo from a threat they knew
wouldn’t come.

“Merely precautionary, I assure you,” the
captain added as he walked away. “Relax for the rest of the trip.
It will be smooth sailing into Seychelles.”

Turning to watch the soldiers, Gabrielle felt
reassured. The leader was a tall Scotsman, Lieutenant Wallace.
Red-haired and freckled, with an open, friendly face, he’d
impressed the sailors of the
Drake
with his good humor,
enthusiasm, and the dash with which he carried out his orders. He
seemed an exceedingly accomplished man who, if he had any doubts
about his or his men’s ability to repel unexpected pirates, wasn’t
showing it. Within minutes of boarding, he’d made himself
indispensable, and also found time to flirt outrageously with
Gabrielle. The only woman on a ship full of men, she’d become
accustomed to such ogling. But as the crew grew sicker with fever
and malnutrition on the way across the seas, they’d ceased to do
anything but gaze longingly at her from afar. In contrast,
Lieutenant Wallace seemed healthy and virile, toughened by the same
punishing climate that was wilting the English sailors. He gave the
aura of a man who could take care of Rodrigo with his bare hands.
Captain Watkins was right. The Portuguese would be a fool to defy
such a barricade. And Rodrigo was no fool.

“Just think,” Cullen was saying. “All those
years ago, when you used to play pirate with Rodrigo, did you ever
dream he’d actually grow up to become one? I suppose we should have
expected it. Everyone else did. After all, his people have been
pirates for generations. Did you know he comes from the first
Portuguese settlers? They’ve been fighting everybody: the Arabs,
the French, the British. Can you imagine—generations of the same
family battling for all they desire?”

She shuddered a little as a ghost of a memory
drifted through her mind. The masculine smell of Rodrigo’s
sun-browned flesh. The taste of him on her tongue. “Can I imagine?
I’ve had to fight for everything I want, as well.”

“Do you think he’d remember us?”

She felt the old anger returning, so she
clamped her teeth shut and said nothing. She’d never confided in
Cullen about how her childhood friendship had turned into a brief
adult intimacy.

“I was so young when I used to toddle along
behind the two of you,” he continued in a musing tone. “Yet I
remember him vividly, wearing an eye patch and brandishing his
wooden sword. I thought he was some sort of god in those days. Who
would have thought he’d turn out to be a true villain?”

“Yes, a true villain,” she repeated.
More
of a villain than you know.

“I do believe I’d be afraid of him.”

“You have nothing to fear from Rodrigo,” she
said confidently. “But should we see him again, hold on to me for
dear life.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “For my
protection or yours?”

“For Rodrigo’s. If you don’t hold me back, I
shall kill him with my bare hands.”

The edge in her voice prompted him to change
the subject. “I think I shall take your advice and concentrate on
the future. Tell me about what our new life is going to be like.”
Even though she’d told him countless times before, he’d never paid
much attention. He’d never thought this would actually come
about.

At once, Gabrielle brightened. “We’re going
to start over in our true home. We’re going to have the life we
were supposed to have. We’re going to be free.”

“I wonder. Dr. Johnson wrote, ‘He that cannot
live as he desires at home, listens to the tale of fortunate
islands, and happy regions, where every man may have land of his
own, and eat the product of his labor without a superior.’ ”

“These aren’t pipe dreams,” she snapped. “I
wish you could have heard Mother talk about Beau Vallon. She said
it overlooked the most beautiful beach in the world. So beautiful
we can’t even imagine it. They have white sand, Cullen, like we’ve
never seen in England. Like silk to the touch. She said she used to
sit in the sand for hours, just rubbing it in her hands, it was so
smooth. And birds like you’ve seen nowhere else in the world. I
used to dream about it at night, just to keep from going insane.
Seychelles. Remember we couldn’t pronounce
say-shells?
We
always called it
sea shells.
” She put her arm about him and
smiled lovingly. “You’ll be well in the sun. You won’t be ill so
much, as you were in the ruddy English climate. And you’ll be safe.
I’ll see to that. There’ll be no pirates beating down
our
door.”

At that moment, Lieutenant Wallace was
passing by and overheard the comment. “Since you’re so interested
in pirates,” he said, “maybe you’d care to help me with a special
task.”

He moved to the flagpole and leisurely began
to lower the flag. Gabrielle and Cullen seemed the only two who
noticed, as the others were intent on their duties. Puzzled, Cullen
left his sister and went to investigate.

“Hold this, would you?” the lieutenant said,
handing him the Union Jack. Then he reached into his bulging breast
pocket and withdrew a thick triangle of material, obviously another
flag.

Just then the captain observed what was going
on and called out, “You there! Mr. Wallace! What do you think
you’re about?”

The soldiers from Madagascar drifted from
their duties and began to gather round. Heedless of the commotion,
the lieutenant indifferently shook out the rectangle of cloth and
fastened it to the rope.

“Good God,” Cullen wheezed.

For the banner the Scotsman was raising was a
gold embroidered lion on a rectangle of black silk.
Rodrigo’s
pirate flag.

The Madagascar soldiers drew pistols, shoving
the stunned crewmen aside. The first mate lurched toward Wallace,
attempting to wrench the halyard from his hands. Unperturbed, the
Scotsman calmly drew his pistol and shot the mate squarely in the
face. It exploded beneath the roar of the gun, and as the smoke
cleared, he fell face-forward, his blood spilling across the
deck.

Securing the flag, Wallace drew his sword and
turned to a group of sailors rushing to overpower him. Dazed by the
horror of the mate’s death, Gabrielle snatched Cullen’s hand and
backed him away from the fighting. Single shots were fired from
pistols, but as reloading was impossible in the crush, they were
quickly discarded in favor of sabers.

It was clear by now that Rodrigo had
substituted his own men for the soldiers at Madagascar. His pirates
fought brutally, unmindful of the gentlemanly conduct of war.
Gabrielle watched them slash mercilessly at the surprised crewmen
as, in the distance, a frigate bore down on the scene.

Suddenly, the sultry air was split by the
bellow of a cannon, halting the action. The combatants turned to
look as with one blast, the main mast was severed with surgical
precision. Amidst the splintering of wood, it toppled to the deck,
pinning to the ground several crew members who’d stood rooted,
staring as if they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen. As if
time, in that moment, stood still. Captain Watkins peered out to
sea, a look of grudging admiration flicking across his face for the
man who could engineer a shot of such astonishing accuracy.

The frigate continued coursing their way, her
sails swooping toward them like a hawk on the wind. At the side of
the bow were painted in artistically scripted lettering the words
El Paraiso.
“The Paradise.”

The ship was a beauty, heavily embellished in
gold, the figurehead a strikingly painted lion gracing the bow, its
mane blowing back off its face in the wind. But it was the man who
stood above who commanded attention, a godlike conqueror with his
foot on the rail, his elbow leaning on his bent knee as he watched
the massacre with cool concentration.

“
Rodrigo!
” Gabrielle cried, and ran to
the rail. She gripped the brass with white knuckles as his ship
advanced on them like a battering ram.

Nothing on earth could have prepared her for
seeing him again. He’d been beautiful always, but he was older now,
and the maturity of hard-won experience suited him. Any softness,
any vulnerability she’d mistakenly attributed to him was but a
memory. He was harder now, more virile, his body toughened by the
rigors of the ocean, his face hard and sculpted like a crag at sea.
His hair was short as she remembered, caressing his forehead in the
breeze, but it was enriched by the elements so it gleamed like a
doubloon in the glinting sun. Unblinking, his eyes reminded her as
always of a jungle cat stalking its prey. He was dressed in severe
sparsity, in tight buff breeches that hugged muscular swordsman’s
thighs and a billowing white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Around
his trim waist was a brown leather belt the span of an opened hand,
and about his strong wrists were matching leather cuffs that called
attention to the power of his forearms, lightly tinged with golden
hair. Everything about him was harsh, unrelenting, from the bronzed
leather of his skin to the way his hand, dangling over his knee,
was clenched in a fist. Even from this distance, he radiated a
potent masculinity, seemed to dominate the expanse of sun and sea
and air.

Gabrielle stood transfixed, staring at him
with wide, burning eyes. She’d never even imagined—never guessed,
in spite of the stories she’d heard—the magnificence of his
sovereignty, the dynamic, irresistible force he presented.
Barreling down on them as he was, he seemed omnipotent, incapable
of defeat. A man whose very presence could force a strong contender
to surrender without a fight. A man who inspired awe and commanded
respect by the presence of indomitable will.

A man, she understood in that moment, whose
stage was the bow of a ship, and whose audiences were the victims
his theatrics overmatched.

Suddenly she felt Cullen’s grip on her arm,
heard his scream in her ears. Like a sleepwalker, she became aware
that the pirate ship was coming at them at an alarming speed. That
if they didn’t move fast, the bow would split them in two.

She dove with Cullen as the conquering ship
crashed broadside, plowing through the hull of the
Drake
and
hurtling them to the other side of the deck.

Shoving aside the disheveled curtain of her
hair, Gabrielle looked up and saw a terrifying sight. Pirates
swarmed over the rail like locusts, descending on the ill-prepared
crew in a punishing force. The freebooters were composed of a
mixture of races, many of them Africans. She’d been amused when
she’d first heard Rodrigo called Simba, but she could see at once
that, like any good showman, he’d put the pseudonym to use. His men
wore tight pants the color of sand, some topping them with brown
cotton shirts, others bare to the waist, their muscular torsos
shimmering in the sun. The combination of black skin and animal
breeches afforded them a ferocious air. With swords, pistols,
knives, and fists, some subdued the crew as others poured below to
the holds and began to drag up trunks of treasure.

Passengers, forgetful of their assigned
battle stations, ran blindly now, but were grabbed and stripped of
their valuables before being knocked to the deck. The air was thick
with the smoke from gunshots and cannon fire, acrid with the smell
of fear. Trying to rise, Gabrielle slipped in something slick and
realized, to her horror, that it was blood.

Captain Watkins broke free from the fighting
and stumbled to her, helping her to her feet. “Get below,” he
gasped. “If they see you—”

One pirate, passing by with a trunk full of
gold, gave him a caustic bow. “Appreciate the booty, Cap’n.”

Enraged, the captain lunged, grabbed him
about the throat, and rashly tried to snap his neck. Using the
cumbersome trunk for leverage, the pirate shoved the Englishman
back, and let the spoils crash to the ground. Then he drew his
sword, and in a single motion, cut off half the captain’s ear. It
gushed blood and he cupped his hands to it, screaming a curse.

The outlaw sneered at his victim and told him
bluntly, “If you wasn’t the captain, deary, you’d be dead.”

Without thinking, Gabrielle stepped forth to
upbraid the ruffian. “You bloodthirsty cur,” she accused, before
the suffering captain could warn her off. She saw his look of alarm
too late, but it wouldn’t have altered her defiance. She was so
appalled by what was occurring, by how horrifyingly different it
all was from anything she’d imagined or written in her play, that
the spurting of vengeful words brought some relief.

But it didn’t last. The brigand turned on her
with interest in his eyes. If he hadn’t noticed her before, he did
now, as a hard gleam brightened his glare. He gave a slow grin and
stepped toward her.

“My compatriots,” he called to no one in
particular. “We’ve been misinformed. The treasure’s over here.”

Captain Watkins assumed a protective stance
in front of her, only to be tossed aside like a sack of meal and
held back by a burly black man with a gold ring through his nose.
The smoke had shielded her until now, but with the bandit’s
announcement, the marauders contemptuously left the ailing crew and
began to flow in her direction. In a matter of moments, she and
Cullen were surrounded by a dozen or more frightful creatures, each
of whom looked as if he could eat a real lion for a midnight
snack.