“The ropes?” Drew said impatiently. Now that the tables had been turned, so to speak, he didn’t want to waste another minute getting to Gabrielle.
James took a dagger from one of the pirates and came over to slice through his ropes. And in a moment of compassion that he rarely revealed to anyone other than his wife, he said, “She’s going to be all right, Drew.”
“I know. She has to be. But I’d rather see that for myself sooner than later.” He didn’t add “before he hurts her,” but it was there in his mind and added extra speed to his race to the fortress.
Chapter 50
“I F HE TOUCHES YOU, I’m going to have to kill you.”
It wasn’t just the words that told Gabrielle she had company other than Pierre. So did the blade pressing against her throat. Yet again? Did all of Pierre’s friends have a fixation with throat cutting?
Gabrielle had been lying on the bed where Pierre had told her to wait, but she’d been unable to bring herself to remove her clothes. She opened her eyes to see the woman with one knee on the bed, leaning toward her. The bright red hair was a dead giveaway.
She’d never met or seen Red before, and was surprised to find that she was a handsome woman, too pretty for someone like Pierre. She did have a few scars on her left cheek, but they weren’t very wide and were faded, barely noticeable. Somewhere in her middle thirties in age, she was wearing men’s clothes that fit her snugly. Too many of the buttons on her shirt were left open, showing off a pair of hefty breasts that were barely covered. A small black scarf was tied around her head to keep her wildly disarrayed hair out of her face, and so the linked gold loops on both ears dangled freely.
Her remark struck Gabrielle as bizarre. The woman must know that was Pierre’s plan.
“Why don’t you kill him instead?” Gabrielle asked curiously.
“Kill him? I love him, that bastard.”
“Then help us to escape.”
Gabrielle’s hopes shot up when Red actually appeared to give it some thought, but then she shook her head. “That isn’t one of my options, which are simple. I either kill you, or make you less appealing. You want the choice?”
It sounded like angry bravado, so she ignored the threat and asked, “How did you get in here without him seeing you?”
“He wasn’t watching my door. I just waited until he went outside to relieve himself.”
“If you’re not going to help me, then you might as well kill me. The man I love is, God, I don’t even know if he’s still alive!” Gabrielle cried.
Red stood up straight with a snort. “How melodramatic, like I’d fall for that. But you needn’t worry about your father. I like that old buzzard. I’ll make sure he’s released.”
A little compassion in the midst of murder? She had a feeling Red might not be as bloodthirsty as she was making herself out to be, and that gave her more hope than she’d had all night.
“Thank you,” Gabrielle said. “But I wasn’t talking about him.”
“Then who…?”
They both heard the footsteps approaching the door. Red panicked and leapt over the bed to crouch on the other side of it. What Gabrielle felt was worse than panic. She was out of time, her brief reprieve gone.
The door opened. Pierre swayed there for a moment before he regained his balance. His eyes were glassy. He was drunk.
But he didn’t sound it when he said, “You don’t follow orders well, chérie, but you will learn. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but I could not resist savoring this triumph for a little while. Too long, I have wanted you. And for too long I thought you were out of my reach. But not anymore, eh?”
She’d heard the gasp when he said he wanted her. It wasn’t hers. She could imagine what Red felt hearing that—if she really did love him. But what had the woman expected to happen? Had she really just closed a blind eye to the outcome of his scheme, hoping it wouldn’t come to pass? Or was she as helpless to do anything about it as Gabrielle was?
Gabrielle said nothing, couldn’t get any words out past her fear and revulsion as he approached the bed. The sound of a pistol shot outside in the courtyard made Pierre pause.
“What are those fools doing?” he growled. He added a few French expletives as he left to find out.
Gabrielle realized the distraction might be her only chance to escape. She bolted off the bed and was halfway to the door before she remembered Red might try to stop her. She glanced back. Red was standing on the other side of the bed. She looked furious, but it wasn’t because Gabrielle was attempting to flee.
“Go on, go!” Red spat out. “Get out of here while you have the chance!”
Gabrielle hesitated. “What will you tell him?”
“Tell him? After what I heard him say to you, he’ll be lucky if I don’t kill him. I’m done with him!”
Gabrielle didn’t waste another moment. The hall below was empty. Whatever was happening in the courtyard had drawn all of the pirates outside. More shots were being fired before she reached the outer door, and what she witnessed in the courtyard was pure mayhem.
The men from the ships! They were everywhere, fighting with whatever weapons they’d found, and some of them just with their fists. She saw Ohr, oh, thank God, he was alive! She realized he must have released the men from the ships. But she looked frantically for just one man in the crowd. The tallest man there—she would have spotted him immediately if it were daylight, but in the moonlight it took a few moments for her eyes to lock on him, and her knees went weak when she did, so much relief filled her. Drew, pounding his fist into some pirate he was holding by the shirt-front. He was all right!
She almost ran to him, had to fight back the urge to do so. He looked so magnificent, swinging his fists, leaping from one pirate to the next. She knew it wasn’t a good time to interrupt him, but it was the perfect time to find her father, while the yard was in such chaos that no one would notice her.
She made her way carefully around the edges of the fighting, had to pause only once when two men fell nearly at her feet, grappling on the ground. The first door she found that looked like it might be the entrance to the dungeon just led to a cold cellar. The second door was the right one. The narrow stairs were lit by a torch hanging there at the top. There wasn’t much left of it, but there were a half dozen fresh ones in a basket on the floor just inside the door. She lit a new one. The brighter light illuminated the large ring with a single key on it, hanging from a hook on the wall. She grabbed it and descended.
That there was only one key worried her, but she understood when she got to the bottom of the stairs. There were only two doors off the long corridor down there, one on each side of it. Military cells designed to hold many prisoners together. One was open to a big empty cell not in use. The other was locked. She could hear voices on the other side of it, discussing the commotion up in the courtyard.
“Papa?”
“Gabby?” she heard from deep in the cell, then closer as he moved to the door. “My God, what are you doing here?”
She dropped the torch to fight with the lock, her hands suddenly trembling. “I—I figured it was my turn to rescue you.”
She was starting to cry, but she couldn’t help it. She’d been so worried about him all these weeks, her worst fear being that Pierre, as evil as he was, wouldn’t keep Nathan and his crew alive.
“Tell me you’re all right?”
“We’re fine. The food has been plentiful, exercise once a week, though we could have done with a change in odors.”
She got the door open, was able to see for herself. Her father stood there grinning at her with his long hair and beard. She started to laugh as she hugged him. “Look at you, you’re shaggy.”
“I swear I asked for a barber, but they thought I was joking,” he teased. “But how did you get here, and what’s happening up top?”
“I brought a lot of help. James Malory and his American brother-in-law, and both their crews.”
“Pierre?”
?
??I don’t know,” she had to admit. “They’re still all fighting.”
He took her hand. “Let’s get out of here. Damn, I hope Pierre is still alive. I want a piece of him myself.”
Chapter 51
D REW HAD NEVER BEEN THIS FRANTIC BEFORE. He’d fought his way to the main building, but after he got inside and searched the few rooms upstairs where he’d been sure he’d find Gabrielle, all he found was a red-haired woman angrily packing her belongings.
“Where did Lacross take the woman?” Drew demanded of her.
She only gave him a brief glance before she said, “I let her go when the shooting started. If she’s smart, she’s hiding.”
He ran back downstairs and outside. He saw immediately that more men had shown up and were helping to fight the last few pirates still standing. From the look of them, he guessed they were the prisoners, released from the dungeon, and he didn’t have to guess who’d let them out. He saw her, standing back out of the way, and started running to her.
Gabrielle saw him racing across the courtyard to her. She helped him close the distance and threw her arms around his neck when he reached her. Her feet left the ground, he hugged her so tightly, and then he was kissing her, and kissing her, and he wouldn’t stop kissing her.
“My God, when I thought he’d gotten his hands on you—” he began.
She said at the same time, “I was so frightened when I thought you’d been captured!”
“We were, but James got loose and turned the tables—”
“Oh God, Drew, a few minutes longer…”
“He didn’t touch you?”
“No, the pistol shots drew him away. And with no one left in the hall to stop me, I found the dungeon and released my father.”
Having said it all, she began trembling in reaction. Drew felt it and tried to soothe her. His own panic had receded now that she was safe and in his arms. He gathered her closer, kissed her gently, ran a hand through her hair.
“You can thank Ohr for the timing,” he said in a soothing voice. “Bixley showed James and me a secret entrance, but with only the three of us, we would have had to be more cautious—actually, James had to hold me back. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight by then, I was so worried about you. But then Ohr arrived at the front gates with the men from the ships, and we were able to get the gates opened for them before the main force of pirates began pouring out into the courtyard. Where’s your father? He’s all right?”
She looked out into the courtyard and spotted her father breaking some board he’d found over the back of—was that Pierre? It was, and it looked like Nathan had the situation well in hand. Most of his crew were around him. Some were already tying up those pirates they’d already subdued. Some of them were also beating on Pierre. Lacross was being passed among them. She even noticed Avery had been captured and added to the growing number of pirates already trussed up.
She glanced back at Drew with a smile. “Yes, they were treated rather well, though that wouldn’t have been Pierre’s doing. They used to all be friends, the two crews, well, not quite friends, but more than passing acquaintances when they shared the same base.”
Hesitantly now, he told her, “I was going to ask your father’s permission to marry you.”
She went very still and leaned back to glance up at him. There was something in her eyes. Amusement? Tenderness? Blast it, he couldn’t tell, and he was suddenly feeling quite out of his depth. He’d never in his life lacked confidence with a woman before. But then he’d never felt this way about a woman before, either.
“Drew, do you love me?”
“My God, Gabby, do you really need to ask?”
“But your sister was so certain you would never want to get married.”
“My sister doesn’t know about the hell you’ve put me through while I was figuring it out.”
“Hell?!” she gasped, and tried to push out of his arms indignantly.
He stopped her from leaving his arms completely and cupped her cheek tenderly. “I know that it’s the most important thing in my life right now to not lose you. I know that you’re in my thoughts, day and night. I know that I went a little insane at the thought of Pierre hurting you. I know that you drive me crazy with wanting you. I know that I want to protect you, to cherish you…I know very well what all that means, Gabby. I love you so much it hurts.”
Her grin came slowly, but grew quite dazzling. “Let’s go find my father so you can tell him all the reasons why you want to marry me.”
“Er, I’ll give him just the one reason, if you don’t mind. Fathers tend to take exception when lust gets mentioned in reference to their daughters.”
“You can leave that part out.”
“Come to think of it, fathers have the power to say no, too. You’re really going to make me do this?”
“Me? You were the one who said you were going to ask his permission,” she reminded him.
“It was just a thought. I don’t think I was serious. I was just letting you know what was on my mind. Your acceptance was all I needed.”
“Stop worrying. He won’t be too angry when he hears about that scandal in London.”
Drew groaned. But then he noticed her grin just before she put her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. “You deserved that bit of teasing for making me wait so long to hear that confession,” she said against his lips.
“Then you’ll marry me?”
“I was ready to marry you in London!”
In that moment when he kissed her, they were oblivious to everything around them, including the cheer that went up from their friends who were watching them. Near the barracks, James found Nathan, who was wrapping a rope around Pierre. The pirate was barely conscious from the beating he’d weathered. He’d just finished being passed around among Nathan’s crew. Each one of them had laid a fist or foot to Pierre in repayment for his hospitality.
“I would have simply broken his neck,” James remarked.
“James Malory!” Nathan exclaimed as he looked up. “Gabby said you were part of this rescue. If I’d known you were going to get involved, I wouldn’t have spent all these weeks worrying!”
“I hope that rope means you’re going to string Lacross up?”
Nathan glanced back at Pierre and shook his head. “No, he deserves a worse fate than that. I’m going to turn him over to the English authorities in Anguilla, where he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“In that case, if you don’t mind?” James said, then bent down to lift Pierre’s head off the ground long enough to crack his cheek open with his fist. Now he was unconscious.
Nathan chuckled. “Still the same old Malory, eh? Damn, it’s good to see you again! You not only saved my life and the lives of my men, but most important, you saved Gabby.”
“I believe I did that!” Drew said as he and Gabrielle joined them.
James raised a tawny brow, but then he said magnanimously, “I’ll allow that my brother-in-law did do his share of head bashing today. Nathan, this is one of my wife’s younger brothers, Drew Anderson.”
“It’s a pleasure, sir,” Drew said, warmly shaking Nathan’s hand.
“No, the pleasure is definitely mine,” Nathan replied. “But you, James! You’ve more than repaid your debt to me. I merely asked you to help Gabby find—”
James interrupted with a gesture toward Drew, who was fervently kissing Gabrielle again. “I think we can safely surmise that I have fulfilled all requests.”
Chapter 52
G ABRIELLE MARRIED DREW ANDERSON in a small chapel near her home in St. Kitts the very next day. She would have been willing to wait if he had wanted to track down his brothers, so they could be present for the happy occasion, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The moment he had received her father’s permission, which had been a painfully awkward experience for him, he’d asked where he could find the nearest priest. And besides, his sister and brother-in-law were there to represent his family.
She?
??d been so amused by how difficult it turned out to be, for him to speak with her father. He’d been in a tearing hurry to do so: then, when faced with asking the question, he’d stumbled over every word. And she knew exactly why. It was that word “marriage.” He really had thought he would go through life merrily avoiding such a binding tie. It was a bit of a shock for him to accept the fact that he wanted to get married. But she didn’t doubt he did. He just preferred to view the event as a way of keeping her forever, rather than of joining the matrimonial ranks.
She’d been able to wear her mother’s wedding gown for the ceremony. A full layer of pale pink lace over powder-blue satin, the combination gave the lovely gown a lavender hue, and to complete that illusion, the sheer veil that trailed behind her was lavender, which nicely complemented her midnight-black hair. The gown was one of the few things that had belonged to Carla that she’d brought with her on her first trip to the Caribbean. She hadn’t taken it back with her to England when she’d gone there to hunt for a husband, simply because deep down, she’d hoped she wouldn’t find one. How quickly love had turned that notion around.
Her father recognized the gown. She hadn’t thought he would. When he’d come to collect her to escort her down the aisle, he’d told her, “Your mother was a beautiful bride in that gown, but you, my dear, are a vision. Are you sure about this man? He’s barely left you alone long enough for me to ask how you feel about it.”
She’d chuckled at him. “Yes, very sure. I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy, Papa. And I’m the one who wouldn’t let him out of my sight. Men tend to get cold feet for the silliest reasons when it comes to matrimony.”
He grinned. “So do women, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. It’s obvious in the way he looks at you that he loves you very much. Now let’s get you married. Let me straighten your veil. And what’s that around your neck that you’re hiding?”