Pirate Hunter's Mistress (The Virginia Brides) (24 page)

Hope blossomed within Marlee’s heart. Perhaps this was her way out. Clutching Carlotta’s hand, she asked, “What is outside the window?”

“A balcony which overlooks a deserted alleyway, but please don’t try to escape,
Señora
Arden, please—”

“Do Silva’s men patrol this alley?”

“Not often, I think, but don’t attempt such foolishness,” Doña Carlotta warned and made the sign of the cross. “If that devil of a pirate should discover you’d tried to escape—” Her words were broken off by Silva bellowing from the hallway for Marlee.

A frown marred Marlee’s brow at the sound of his voice, calling to her like she was a recalcitrant pet who must obey. She wanted to go to Silva’s room and see the balcony that hung across the alley—which very well might be her way to freedom. However, she didn’t have time because his footsteps grew closer until he threw open the door to her room and glared at her. “My guests wish to meet you. You’ve delayed long enough, Lady Arden. Come now.”

Gritting her teeth, she took his arm and walked down the hallway with him to the dining room. The only comfort she took was the way he’d formally addressed her by her title, as if he were outdone with her. Perhaps his ardor for her was diminishing, perhaps he realized that he couldn’t keep her there and had made a dreadful mistake in judgment. She must keep her distance and act coolly polite for then he wouldn’t try to molest her. Her virtue was intact so long as Manuel Silva was displeased with her. He hadn’t touched her yet, but for how long would he stay away from her? How long could she keep him at arm’s length?

Her only hope was to escape.

A lavish supper was laid out upon the long, mahogany dining table. Upon her entrance into the room, two men who Marlee instantly ascertained must be pirates, stood to kiss her hand. One of the men had long, stringy hair. His suit of clothes which would have fit better on a less corpulent man caused him to appear ill at ease, as if he could barely move for fear of ripping the satin jacket. The other man had curly dark hair and was a bit younger and much thinner. When he smiled, Marlee noticed that his bottom gum was absent two teeth and the top gum had lost three. She wondered how the man could eat at all, but eat he did, and the other man, too. No sooner had she sat at the table than they tore into the pheasant like starving crows.

Silva, however, sipped his wine and took his time with his food. He was totally unlike his friends but as much of a vulture, or more like an eagle-eyed hawk, for he seldom took his gaze from her. His watching her made her horribly uncomfortable but it seemed he took perverse delight in her discomfort. “Domingo,” he said to the overweight man, “how do you like my latest possession? Very beautiful, is she not?”

“Huh?” Domingo lifted his head from his plate and caught the tail end of Silva’s comment. He grinned broadly and nudged Silva with an elbow. “Ah,
sí
, Manuel, she is much pretty.”

“Don’t you agree, Renaldo?” he queried the other man who heartily quaffed his third cup of wine.

“Very pretty, Manuel,” was the quick reply.

“More than pretty,
amigos
. Lady Arden is beautiful, much more beautiful than Bettina, I think.”

“
Sí
,
sí
” both men agreed in unison but were more interested in the bountiful fare before them than Marlee.

Marlee felt her insides begin to shake and toyed with the food on her plate to keep from bolting to her feet. She didn’t like the way he looked at her, didn’t care for the desire which now heated his face and made his eyes glaze with lust. His intentions were obvious, and she feared she’d not last another night in Silva’s household unmolested. Escape was her only answer.

“Such a shy thing you are. You blush so becomingly.” He spoke to her now, seeming to have forgotten his friends who were quite interested in the food on their plates to pay attention to Manuel. Pouring another cup of wine, he grinned and the wicked earring in his ear caught the torchlight and winked at her. “I think you’re uneasy with my friends—and me. I wasn’t always a pirate, you know.”

“Really?” she said, feeling he wanted an excuse to talk. She cared less about what he had to say, but she’d rather suffer his chatter than his touch.

“Believe it or not, I was the son of a wealthy merchant in Cadiz. My parents gave me everything, a fine education, nice clothes. So, you see, I was meant for grander things than sea-robbing. I was meant to marry a fine lady one day and live an easy life. But my parents died of fever when I was twelve and I learned of all the debts they owed. So, my uncle took me to live with him and when I was sixteen, he told me that I was to be sent to a monastery to train as a priest. A priest of all things!” Silva laughed but it was a hollow sound, even gaining the attention of his two guests—but only momentarily.

“My uncle was crazy. Can you imagine me as a pious and chaste priest, a person who’d had his first woman at—well, I won’t tell you how young I was for it would shock you. But can you imagine me as a priest?”

“Definitely not,” was her response. She must keep Silva talking all night, if need be. “When did you become a—a—”

“Pirate, you can say it. I take no offense from the term, nor do I prettify what I do by pretending to be a privateer. I know what I am.” He ran his finger around the rim of the gold cup. “I ran away before I could be sent to the holy fathers and found a sea captain in Cadiz who’d take me on. What else was there for a young boy with no family, no money, but the sea? I learned a great deal from the captain about navigating, but there was little to be earned in the way of monetary rewards. When the ship was captured by a pirate’s crew some months later, I saw exactly what treasures could be mine for the taking.”

“And now you take whatever you want, without regard for anyone else?”

“Please don’t put it so indelicately, but in a word,
sí
. Yes, I take what I want.”

Silva was staring at her in that familiar and frightening way again. Marlee could barely swallow. She must keep him talking. “Tell me more about your—adventures at sea.”

“Oh, some other time. I grow weary of my own musings.” He shot her a lecherous smile, almost as if he knew what she were up to. “Go ready yourself for bed while I get rid of our guests. We have a long night ahead of us, and I assure you that we won’t do much talking.”

Disobedience was out of the question. She couldn’t make a scene at the table by protesting. Neither of these men would help her. Escaping Silva was up to her, and if she could manage to find his room and get out of the house while he was still occupied…

“Good night, gentlemen,” she said with a smile that would have melted even the hardest of hearts. “I enjoyed meeting you very much.”

The men barely glanced at her but nodded and kept eating. Marlee hoped they’d never get enough to eat. Perhaps Silva wouldn’t be rid of them too soon. Gliding out of the room, she walked down the hallway as if to go to her own room, but instead she sneaked to the back of the house and made her way up the stairs to find Silva’s room. The choice wasn’t hard since there were only two rooms on the second floor and one of them was a small library without windows.

Silva’s room was much tidier than Marlee would have expected, due in part to Doña Carlotta’s immaculate housekeeping. Tiptoeing through the room, she couldn’t help noticing the large canopied bed with the blankets turned down or the lacy nightrail that rested on the rose-scented sheets. Either Silva wore unusual attire to bed or … the gown was meant for her to wear.

Her heart thumped out the words, I’ve got to get out of here. I must escape.

Escape beckoned to her in the form of a large floor-to-ceiling window. The velvet darkness beyond didn’t frighten her as much as the bed beside her. Drawing back the window’s thin curtains, Marlee stepped onto the balcony and looked down. She couldn’t see very much of the shadowy alley below her because there was very little light reflecting from the full moon directly above her. In the murky blackness she could make out the shape of a number of elephant-ear plants against the stone wall but realized that the rustling of their leaves in the nighttime breeze sounded very far away. The drop to the ground was much farther than she’d anticipated.

But she had to try, she had to escape. But how?

Treading soundlessly on the balcony, she moved her hand on the railing and suddenly her fingers came into contact with a trellis on the side of the house. She glanced at it and then looked down to see that it ran all the way to the ground. She’d found escape at last!

Climbing onto the balcony’s railing, she grabbed a handful of skirt in her hand and hoisted herself onto the shaky trellis just as she heard Silva bellowing her name from somewhere in the house.

It was now or never.

Balancing herself on the trellis with one hand, Marlee lifted her skirts with the other and started her descent. Her heart beat wildly in her ears, its steady thumping mingling with Silva’s voice from inside the house. She couldn’t stop and think about what would happen if he discovered her hanging outside his bedroom window. All she knew was that she must continue—now that she’d reach the middle portion of the trellis, she felt freedom was within her grasp. Just a few more feet and she’d be on the ground, free to run for help—

“Marlee!”

Silva’s shout instantly halted her. A cold, clammy fear rushed over her body when she looked up and saw him on the balcony, reaching out to her as if to rescue her. She refused his hand; he wanted to imprison her and she’d rather die. “Grab onto me,” he cajoled in a honey-sweet voice. “You can’t escape or run away. All you’ll do is fall and harm yourself. I don’t want you hurt.” He sounded so sincere in his concern for her that she almost believed him. But she didn’t believe him, didn’t trust him.

“If you cared anything for me, you’d send me back to New Providence,” she carelessly flung at him, not worried about offending him. Freedom was a matter of a few feet now, and she’d be damned if she’d pretend something she didn’t feel.

“Come, Marlee,” he crooned. “Please take my hand. I fear the trellis will break.”

Resolutely, Marlee ignored him and started back down again. She was going to make it to the ground or die in the trying. Even now, she could hear the sound of running feet as Silva’s men came in her direction, could see the flicker of their torches as they rounded the corner and headed into the alley. She swallowed her bitter disappointment that they were going to thwart her escape attempt, but first she was going to prove to Manuel Silva that he didn’t own her, that she didn’t have to listen to him. “Marlee, stop!” he pleaded with her. “The trellis is not going to hold you! Stop!”

But she wouldn’t listen to him, didn’t believe him. Even as she stepped on the next latticed rung of the trellis, she felt it pull away from the house before she heard the wood cracking right above her ear.

The trellis broke free of the stone to which it was attached and Marlee could feel herself falling but had convinced herself that she’d somehow land on her feet. Instead, she landed on her backside into a large pot that contained a huge elephant-ear plant. In a daze she looked up from her less than ladylike position to see three of Silva’s men above her, their faces sheathed in surprise and grudging admiration.

“Are you all right?” one of the men asked and began to help her to her feet.

Standing up, Marlee slumped and grimaced in pain. Her right ankle hurt unbearably when she put pressure on it, and her backside was so sore she didn’t know if she’d be able to sit ever again. “I —I can’t walk,” she stammered and would have cried, so upset was she over still being in Silva’s clutches. And now that her ankle was swollen twice its size, she realized there wouldn’t be any escape attempts in the foreseeable future. For the time being she was at Silva’s mercy and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

The man was just about to lift her in his arms when Silva suddenly appeared and brushed the man aside. “I’ll take care of Lady Arden,” was his brusque comment. Before Marlee could do or say anything, he’d picked her up and carried her inside the house to her bedroom. Doña Carlotta bustled about the room, her face was pale and wan.

“I told you not to try anything so foolish,” she whispered to Marlee and fluffed the pillow behind her.

“I had to try,” was Marlee’s less than enthusiastic response.

Her ankle burned with pain when Silva carefully slipped off her shoe. He made a sound of dismay at her swollen ankle that was fast turning black and blue. “Such a headstrong woman you are. You’re much less malleable than Bettina.”

“I’m not Bettina!” Marlee shot back. “I’ll never be like her, nor do I wish to be. I don’t want to be here. I hate it here, I hate you! And when I get the chance again, I’m going to escape. Do you hear me? I’m going to run away.”

He didn’t reply directly to her heated retort. Instead he ordered Doña Carlotta to apply cold compresses to her foot until the swelling went down, to make her as comfortable as possible and see that she received a good night’s sleep. Before he left the room, he bent down and whispered so only Marlee could hear. “I’ll leave you alone until you’ve recovered. Believe me, I’m not that much of an animal to force myself upon an injured woman, but”—and here his eyes glowed like two agates and his face darkened—”when you’re well, you shall want me. I’ll make certain you want me. You’re a challenge to me and I never turn my back on a challenge. So rest well, Marlee. You shall need it.” Kissing her on the forehead, he smiled and then left her to Doña Carlotta’s ministrations.