The Prize (9 page)

"No, you have
not." She sat up, facing him. "But it's been six years, and oddly, I
have become quite fond of you."

He did not respond.
He did not know what to say, for once in his life at a loss.

"I may be in
love with you, Dev," she said, her gaze riveted to his.

Devlin stared at her
attractive face, a face as enticing as her body. He carefully considered his
words. He felt nothing for her, not even friendship; she was a means to an end.
But he didn't dislike her—it was her husband whom he hated, not Elizabeth
Hughes. He preferred for things to remain exactly as they were—he did not wish
for her to be hurt, and not out of compassion. He was not a compassionate man.
The world was a battlefield, and in battle, compassion was a prelude to death.
He did not want to hurt Elizabeth only because she remained so useful to him;
he wanted her at his disposal, on his terms, not hurt and angry and spiteful.

"That would not
be wise," he finally said.

"Can't you just
pretend?" she asked wistfully. "Lie to me, just once?"

He didn't hesitate.
He rubbed his thumb over her lips, ignoring the tear he had just glimpsed
forming in her eye, and then he rubbed it lower, over her throat, her chest
and, finally, a swelling nipple. His mouth followed in the path of his finger.
Several moments later, they were once again entwined in frenzy, with Devlin
pounding deeply and forcefully inside her.

Several hours later,
Devlin tested the water in his hip bath and found it warm enough. Elizabeth was
dressing; he climbed into the claw-footed tub and sank down into the tepid
water. After months at sea, the temperature was very pleasant. He'd had enough
climaxes so that now, finally, his mind remained a blessed blank and there were
no monsters to defeat.

"Darling?"

Devlin jerked—he had
dozed off hi his bath. Elizabeth smiled at him, elegantly dressed in a
sapphire-blue gown with black velvet trim. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
awoken you!" she exclaimed. "Devlin, you look so enticing in that
bath, I could jump right in with you."

He raised a brow.
"Isn't Eastleigh expecting you?"

She frowned. "We
have supper plans, so yes, he is. I just wanted to tell you that I will be in
town for another two weeks."

He understood. She
wished to see him again before he shipped out, but that was perfectly fine with
him. "I haven't received my official orders yet," he said carefully,
"so I do not know when my next tour begins."

Her eyes brightened.
"Tomorrow? Tomorrow afternoon?"

He smiled a little at
her. "That would be fine, Elizabeth. Will Eastleigh also remain in
town?" he asked. The question would seem innocent enough to her. After
all, any lover would ask such a question.

"Fortunately,
the answer to that is no, so perhaps we could even spend the night
together."

He chose not to
respond to that. He had never allowed any - woman to spend a night in his bed
and he never would.

Her expression
changed; she appeared annoyed. "I have been ordered to remain in London
for a fortnight! It's a miracle that you are here, too, so I should not be so
put out, re-ally."

"Why?" he
asked mildly.

"Eastleigh's
American niece is on her way to London. She is aboard the
Americana
and
we expect her in the next ten days."

He was mildly
surprised. He hadn't even known that there was a niece, much less an American
one. He was very thoughtful. "You have never mentioned a distant relation
before," he said calmly.

Elizabeth shrugged.
"I suppose there was no reason to do so, but now she is an orphan and she
is coming here. Eastleigh intended for her to remain in a ladies' school over
there,
but I imagine she thinks to latch on to our coattails. Oh, this is just
what I do not need! Some uncouth colonial! And what if she is beautiful? She is
eighteen, and Lydia is only sixteen! I have no interest hi having an American
orphan compete with my daughter for a husband, and by all rights, the colonial
is the one who should be married off first!"

Well, now he knew how
old Elizabeth's eldest daughter was. He smiled slightly, wry. "I doubt she
will outshine your daughters, Elizabeth, not if they are as beautiful as
you." His reply was an automatic one, as he was thinking now, hard and
fast.

Eastleigh's niece was
on her way to Britain aboard an American ship. He was about to be given very
specific orders to sail west to interfere with American trade there but not to
harm any American ships. The niece was clearly unwanted and just as clearly
she would soon be in his path.

Could he use this bit
of information? Could he use
her?

"Well, thank you
for that!" Elizabeth said. "I am just annoyed at having to take her
in. You know how pinched we've become these past few years. It has been one
thing after another. We cannot afford to bring her out properly, Dev, and that
is that!"

Devlin nodded. There
was no guilt. He remained very thoughtful and it became obvious what he must
do.

Eastleigh might not
want the girl, but he wanted scandal even less. Oh, how he would enjoy pricking
the fat earl one more time! He would seize the ship and take the girl and force
Eastleigh to pay a ransom he could ill afford for a young woman he did not even
want.

Devlin began to
smile. His heart raced with excitement. This was a stroke of fortune too good
to be true—and too good to be ignored.

Late
May, 1812 The High Seas

They were being attacked!

Virginia knelt upon
her berth, her gaze glued to the cabin's only porthole, gripping a strap for
balance as the ship bucked wildly in response to the boom of more cannons than
she could count. She was in shock.

It had all begun
several hours ago. Virginia had been told that they were but a day away from
the British coastline, and that, at any time, she might soon see a gull
wheeling in the cloudy blue skies overhead. Soon afterward, a ship had appeared
upon the horizon, just a dark, inauspicious speck.

That speck had grown
larger. She was racing the wind— the
Americana
was tacking slowly across
it—and it appeared that the two ships would soon cross paths.

Virginia had been
taking sun on the ship's single deck and had quickly become aware of a new tension
in the American crew. The ship's commander, an older man once a naval captain,
had trained his binoculars upon the approaching vessel.

                               
75

It hadn't taken
Virginia long to realize they were worried about the identity of the
approaching ship.

"Send up the
blue-and-white signal flags," Captain Horatio had said tersely.

"Sir? She's
flying the Stars and Stripes," the young first officer had said.

"Good," the
captain had muttered. "She's one of ours, then."

But she wasn't. The
frigate had sailed within fifty yards of them, maneuvering herself to the
leeward side so she rode below the
Americana,
when the red, white and
blue American flag had disappeared, replaced by nothing at all. Virginia had
been ordered below. The crew had scrambled to the ship's ten guns. But Virginia
hadn't even made it to the ladder when a cannon had boomed once, loudly but
harmlessly, the ball falling off to the side of the stern.

"Americana,"
a voice boomed
over the foghorn. "Close your gun ports and prepare to be boarded. This is
the
Defiance
speaking."

Virginia froze,
clinging to the dark hatch that would take her below, glancing back at the other
ship, a huge, dark, multimasted affair. Her gaze instantly found the
treacherous captain. ;He stood on a higher, smaller deck, holding the horn, his
hair blindingly bright, as gold as the sun, a tall, strong figure clad ; in
white britches, Hessian boots and a loose white shirt. She stared at him,
briefly mesmerized, unable to tear her gaze away, .and for one moment she had a
very peculiar feeling, indeed.

It was indescribable.

As if nothing would
ever be sane or right again.

Time was suspended.
She stared at the captain, a creature of the high seas, and then she blinked
and there was only her wildly racing heart, filled with panic and fear.

"Hold your
fire," Captain Horatio cried. "Do not close the gun ports!"

"Captain!"
the first officer cried with panic. "That's O'Neill, the scourge of the
seas. We can't fight him!"

"I intend to
try," Horatio snapped.

Virginia realized
there would be no surrender.
She needed a gun.

She glanced wildly
around as the captain of the
Defiance
repeated his demands that they
surrender to be boarded. An interminable moment followed as the crew of the
Americana
hastily prepared to fire. And suddenly the sea changed. A huge blast of too
many cannons to count sounded, the
Defiance
firing upon them. The
placid seas swelled violently as the ship bucked and heaved, hit once or many
times—Virginia could not know—and as someone screamed, she heard a terrible
groaning above her.

She turned and
glanced upward and cried out.

Horatio was yelling,
"Fire!" but Virginia watched one of the
Americano's
three
masts and all its rigging toppling slowly over before crashing down on several
gunners. Several cannons now fired again from the
Defiance,
but not in
unison. Virginia didn't hesitate. Lifting her skirts, she raced to the fallen
men. Three were crushed and alive, one was apparently dead. She tried to heave
the mast, but it was useless. She grabbed a pistol from the murdered sailor and
ran back to the hatch that led below.

She could not
breathe. She scrambled down and into the tiny cabin that she shared with the
merchantman's only passengers, a middle-aged couple. In the small, cramped and
dark space below, Mrs. Davis was clutching her Bible, muttering soundlessly,
her face stark with terror. Virginia had glimpsed Mr. Davis on deck, trying to
help the wounded.

Virginia gripped her
arm. "Are you all right?" she demanded.

The woman gazed at
her with wild terror, clearly unable to hear her or respond.

More cannons boomed
and Virginia heard wood being ripped apart as they were clearly hit again.
Virginia leapt onto her narrow berth, grabbing a hanging strap for balance, and
stared at the attacking ship through the porthole. The
Americana
lurched
wildly, and she was almost tossed from the bunk.

How could this be
happening? she wondered wildly, aghast. Who would attack an innocent, barely
armed and neutral ship?

Mrs. Davis began to
sob.
Virginia
listened to familiar prayers and
wished the woman had remained silent.

What would happen
next? What did that terrible captain want? Did he intend to sink the ship? But
that would not make sense!

Her gaze moved
instinctively back to the quarterdeck where he stood so motionlessly that he
could have been a statue. He was staring, she knew, at the
Americana
,
as intent as a hawk. What kind of man could
be so merciless, so ruthless?
Virginia
shivered. Officer Grier had
referred to him as the scourge of the seas.

Then she stiffened
with real fear. The
Defiance
's
decks, a moment ago, had been frenzied with
activity. Now the gunners at the cannons and the men in the masts were still.
The only activity was a number of sailors climbing down into two rowboats that
were tied to the frigate's hull. Her gaze flew back to the captain with real
horror; he was sending a boarding party.

Now the
Americana
had become eerily quiet.
Virginia
already thought that Captain
Horatio would not surrender, and nor would she, if she were in command. She
checked the pistol to find it primed and loaded.

"Dear Father who
art in Heaven," Mrs. Davis suddenly cried. "Have mercy on us
all!"

Virginia
could not stand it. She turned
and seized the other

woman's arm savagely,
shaking her hard. "God isn't here today," she cried. "And he
sure as hell isn't going to help us! We're being boarded. They must be pirates.
We are losing this battle, Mrs. Davis, and we had better hide."

Mrs. Davis clutched
her Bible to her bosom, clearly paralyzed with fear. Her mouth moved wildly
now, forming words, but no sounds came.

"Come,"
Virginia
said more kindly. "We'll
hide down below." She knew there were lower decks and hoped they could
find some small cranny to hide in. She tugged on the other woman. But it was
useless.

Virginia
gave up. Pistol in hand, she
climbed back to the main deck and saw the first of the rowboats approaching.
O'Neill stood in the bow behind his men, his legs widely braced against the
seas.
Virginia
hesitated. Why the hell wasn't
anyone shooting at him?

If she had a
musket, he'd now be dead.

Her fingers itched,
her palms grew clammy. She didn't know what range the pistol she held carried,
but she did know it wasn't much. Still, he was getting closer and closer and
why wasn't Horatio firing upon him?

Virginia
could not stand it. She rushed
to the rail and very carefully, very deliberately, took aim.

With some finely
honed instinct, perhaps, he turned his head and looked right at her.

Good, she thought
savagely, and she fired.

The shot fell short,
plopping into the sea directly before the rowboat's hull. And she realized had
she waited another minute or two for him to travel closer, she would have got
him after all.

He stared at her.

Virginia
turned and ran around the first
hatch to the one that the seamen used. She scrambled down the ladder, realized
she was in the sailors' cramped, malodorous quarters—

she was briefly
appalled at how horrid they were—when she saw another hatch at the far end of
the space. She lifted that and found herself descending even lower below the
sea.

She didn't like being
below the ocean.
Virginia
couldn't breathe and panic
began, but she fought it and she fought for air. Not far from the bottom of
this ladder was an open doorway, through which was utter darkness.
Virginia
wished she'd had the wit to
bring a candle. She went cautiously forward and found herself in a small hold
filled with crates and barrels.
Virginia
crouched down at the far end and realized she still held her pistol, now
useless, because in the midst of battle she hadn't thought to grab any powder
and shot.

She didn't toss it
aside. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she reversed it, holding the barrel
now in her right hand.

Then her knees gave
way.
He had seen her take a shot at him.

She felt certain of it.
She felt certain that the expression on his face had been one of utter
surprise.

Of course, she hadn't
been able to make out his features, so she was guessing as to his reaction to
her sniper attempt, and if she were very lucky, he hadn't seen that miserable
shot.

What would happen
now?

Just as
Virginia
realized that the puddle of
water she had been standing in was slightly higher—and she prayed it was her
imagination—she heard shots begin: musket fire. Swords also clashed and rang.
Her gut churned. The pirates had clearly boarded. Were they now murdering the
crew?