Chapter 3

G AbrIELLE'S FATHER WAS EXTREMELY EMBARRASSED the day he rescued her. All these years and she and her mother had never known, never suspected, that he'd been living such an adventurous life. Nathan Brooks the pirate. That took quite a bit of getting used to.

He looked so different now. It really had been difficult to recognize him. Whenever he had come to England to visit her, he'd cleaned himself up, shaved his beard, cut the long hair he was sporting now. That was the only man she'd ever known, and she'd thought she'd taken after him, at least in terms of her coloring. His hair was just as black as hers, his eyes the same pale blue. She hadn't inherited his height, though, which was fortunate, because he was a tall man, a bit over six feet, while her size was the same as her mother's at five feet, four inches. But this man looked nothing like the father she knew and loved. He was actually as flamboyant in his dress and looks as all the other pirates she'd met. He even wore a small golden earring in one ear!

He quickly removed the earring. That's how embarrassed he seemed to be that she'd found out about his secret life.

A couple of hours after they sailed out of the harbor, Gabrielle realized her father's ship had slowed down. She went up on deck to see what was happening and walked right into Pierre Lacross! His ship had pulled abreast of her father's ship. Pierre had followed them from the pirate base!

She hadn't yet mentioned him to Nathan. There hadn't been much time for them to talk yet, and besides, she was still trying to deal with her shock over finding out her own father was a member of that pirate confederacy. But she'd at least felt safe after her father had rescued her and had been so certain she'd never see the likes of Pierre again.

But now here he was on the deck of The Crusty Jewel, standing next to Nathan and talking to him as if they were old friends. It dawned on her that they must be old acquaintances at least, since each of them was one of the five captains who shared that base.

Pierre's cold, avid gaze latched onto her immediately, pinning her to the warm deck boards. Her fear rushed back to her. She must have turned pale, because her father moved to her side and put his arm around her protectively.

"You sailed off with her too quickly, mon ami ," Pierre said, making no pretense about his reason for being there. "I was going to buy her for myself."

"She's not for sale," Nathan said.

"Of course she is. You paid for her, I will pay you more. You will make your profit, we will both be happy."

"You misunderstand. She's my daughter," Nathan said coldly.

Pierre looked surprised. There was a very tense, silent moment while he seemed to assess the situation, his eyes shifting back and forth between her and her father. He must have realized he couldn't have her without a fight and decided against it; he laughed and complained about rotten luck in what for him was probably as good-natured a tone as he could muster. Pierre's tone seemed to assure her father that he knew Gabrielle was off-limits to him, but Gabrielle wasn't fooled. She had a feeling that Pierre viewed the conversation with her father as only a temporary delay. He sailed off, but she was very much afraid this wasn't going to be the last time she ever saw him.

Margery wasn't shy about expressing her wholehearted disapproval of her father's occupation. With all the nasty looks she was giving him those first few days, Gabrielle quickly found herself defending him. He was her father, after all. That he was a pirate didn't mean she could stop loving him.

She and her father didn't get a chance to talk until they reached his home port in St. Kitts, an island central to his sailing routes. He kept a small house there on the beach, far enough from town that he could anchor his ship offshore and row in if he had to. But he never had to. St. Kitts was an English port and he was an Englishman who'd never once fired on English ships. The French, the Dutch, the Spanish, those ships were all fair game.

His house was rather unique, like a fine English cottage that had been adapted to the warm climate, with large airy rooms and windows open to catch the breeze no matter which direction it came from. Gleaming hardwood floors, palm trees in large urns, thin, wispy drapery, these things added a touch of local color, but the furnishings were elegant and quite English in design, and everything was kept spotless by his small staff of servants who looked after the house when he wasn't in port. The paintings on the walls were tasteful and so reminiscent of those her mother had collected that she felt right at home.

The bedroom she was given was much larger than the one she'd had in England. The old wardrobe in it was an antique with cherry wood and ivory inlays in its doors; the canopy bed had carved posts and was draped in sheer white mosquito netting. And the view of the ocean and the harbor in the distance that could be seen from her balcony was magnificent.

The dining room also overlooked the ocean, and dinner that night was a tasty local dish of stuffed crab with plantains and spicy tomatoes, served with a fine French wine. A balmy, scented breeze entered from the open windows, as well as the soothing sound of ocean waves. She had a feeling she was going to love living there. But it didn't appear that Margery would. She spent the entire dinner glaring at the servants and insisting she was going to catch the first ship back home.

As soon as Margery took her sour looks to bed, Nathan led Gabrielle out to the beach for a walk so she could ask all the questions that had been running through her mind. He made no excuses for the career he'd taken up, but he did explain how he'd come to choose it.

"I was just a young sailor on a merchantman when we went down in a storm," he told her. "There were only a few of us who survived. We'd been floating for days when the pirates found us."

She thought she understood. "So you felt beholden to them because they rescued you?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it a rescue, Gabby. They were merely short on hands."

"Otherwise they would have sailed on without stopping?" she guessed.

"Exactly. And we were given the standard offer, join or get back in the water. So I joined."

"But you didn't have to stay with them, did you? When you reached a port, you could have gone your own way?"

"We didn't make port, at least not one that didn't belong to the pirates, for a long time. By the time we did, well, truth be told, I was enjoying the life. I found it exciting. So I had few misgivings about staying, and I worked my way up through the ranks until I had a ship of my own."

"Was this before or after you met Mama?"

"Before."

"And she never suspected?"

"Not in the least."

"What were you doing back in England, to have met her?"

He grinned at that point. "Treasure hunting. The captain of that first ship got me addicted to it."

"Treasure hunting in England?" she said in surprise.

"No, it was a missing piece of one of my maps that led me there. It took me years to find out that her family was known to be in possession of that last piece of it. I married her in order to facilitate my search."

"Did you not love her at all?"

He blushed slightly. "She was a fine-looking woman, but no, my only love is the sea, lass. And she was just happy to have a husband. She'd begun to fret about it, having gone through a few seasons without catching one. I wasn't up to her standards, of course, and couldn't claim the same fine bloodlines that she could, but I was rather dashing back then, if I do say so myself. But I think she surprised us both when she accepted my proposal. The bloom wore off rather quickly. She was glad to see me sail off."

That certainly explained a lot. Gabrielle had always wondered what had drawn her parents together, since they'd seemed to be nearly strangers to each other whenever he visited. That hadn't been far from the truth. She had a feeling that while Nathan had used the marriage for his own purposes, so had Carla. She'd wanted a child and she'd needed a husband to get one. Never once, though, through the years, had she doubted her mother's love. Even at the end, when Carla became so bitter because of her lost lover, she never took that bitterness out on her daughter.

"Did you ever find the missing piece of your map?" she asked curiously.

"No," he mumbled. "But I stayed too long searching for it. You were conceived before I left, and you were the only reason I ever returned over the years. I never regretted that, though. You've been a very bright light in my life, Gabby, my one true source of pride. I'm so sorry about your mother, and that you had to go through that alone. And then for you to risk coming here to find me—that was very brave of you."

"I didn't feel I had any other choice."

They'd stopped to stare out over the moonlit ocean, waves lapping near their feet. A warm breeze ruffled the hem of her skirt. His arm slipped about her shoulders, gathering her close.

"I'm sorry, too, that you were captured, but I'm not sorry at all that you're here with me now, daughter. It's where I've always wanted you to be."

Tears formed in her eyes as she put her arms around him to hug him back. She was home, finally, really home.

···

Gabrielle found life on St. Kitts exhilarating. Every morning she woke up to a day full of sunshine and adventure. At her father's insistence she learned how to swim and did so nearly every day in the warm, blue Caribbean. She also rode the horse he bought her along the beach, sometimes not coming home until dusk so she could enjoy the magnificent sunsets.

She loved it there, even though the heat could become oppressive at times. But it was all new to her, and at her young age, she found it all fascinating. The food was different, the climate was certainly different, the locals were colorful and friendly, the entertainments, even dancing in the streets, were nothing she could ever have imagined back home in England.

She even discovered that she liked sailing, and was an old hand at it now, sailing with her father often when he was chasing down clues to one of his many treasure maps. She came to understand why he'd taken up the life he did. He could easily experience more fun and adventure in a single week than some men experienced in a lifetime! She might not approve of his pirating activities, but she began to view them in a different light, especially after she learned that some of the hostages that Nathan handled might never be returned to their families if he didn't intervene, playing the middleman, as it were. And he no longer captured ships himself. He spent most of his time chasing down treasure.

She was even with him when he actually located the landmarks on one of his maps and was finally able to zero in on the bright red mark that indicated where the treasure was hidden. It was incredibly exciting to watch her father and his men dig at that spot on that little island and then find the large chest that was buried there. But it was quite disappointing to see them open it and find it empty.

It was to be expected, though. The maps he had collected over the years had passed through many hands before they came into his possession. Most of Nathan's maps were very hard to decipher because each owner of the treasure who drew the maps used very few landmarks, just enough to lead himself back to his loot, but not enough for anyone else who might get hold of the maps to figure them out. And some of his maps had been torn apart to make them next to impossible to figure out, the pieces hidden in different places, or given to different members of a family, the meanings of them lost over the years, so some people didn't even know what they possessed. Her father had two maps that were missing pieces.

Margery never did catch that ship back to England, as she'd sworn she would do when they'd first arrived in St. Kitts. Although she hadn't taken well to the heat in the islands, she'd stayed because she wouldn't leave Gabrielle alone among "pirates." She got to know some of those pirates quite well herself, though, at least the members of Nathan's crew. They both did. Gabrielle even considered a few of them dear friends. Actually, most of the members of Nathan's crew were surprisingly quite decent and honorable, though perhaps too free-spirited and adventure-loving to fit into proper society.

Nathan did a good job of shielding her from unsavory men, like Pierre Lacross, though she never did lose her fear of that man, not even after she'd heard he'd taken up with the female pirate called Red. And she did see him again once, at sea, when she and her father had been treasure hunting. Pierre had just captured a ship. That was when she found out that if Nathan didn't take Pierre's hostages off his hands, he would have killed them. And before Pierre departed, he managed to get close to her for a moment and whisper, out of her father's hearing, "Do not think I have forgotten you, my pet. Our time will come."

That was probably the only black mark on a spotless tapestry of wonderful experiences she enjoyed while living with her father in the islands. She knew it wouldn't last forever. She'd get married eventually, was even looking forward to it. She dearly wanted what she'd missed as a child—to have a stable, loving family who stuck together. She even had a few flirtations with handsome sailors, but they always sailed away, which was fine with her because during those first couple of years on St. Kitts all she really wanted to do was spend time with her father and make up for all the years they'd been apart.

For nearly three years she'd felt that way, until Charles Millford returned from his schooling abroad. The very handsome son of a fine English family who owned a sugar plantation on the island, Charles had seemed quite interested in her as well—until he found out who her father was and was rude enough to explain why he couldn't further their acquaintance. And it wasn't that Nathan was a pirate! No one on St. Kitts knew that. It was because they considered him a commoner. The Millfords were snobbish enough to presume that she wasn't good enough for their only son because of that.

Gabrielle was crushed when Charles gave her the cold shoulder after that, though she hid it well. She wasn't about to let her father know that the one man who'd made her seriously think about matrimony wouldn't have her because of him.

But it was a small island. Somehow Nathan found out about it. She should have guessed by his suddenly pensive mood, which was so unlike him, but since he said nothing, she was loath to bring it up herself. It was when she mentioned that she'd soon reach her majority and Ohr, one of Nathan's loyal crew members, overheard her and remarked, "And she isn't married yet?" that Nathan actually paled and she was summoned to his study that very night.

After his reaction to Ohr's remark, she guessed he was going to talk about her matrimonial prospects on the island. She never could have guessed the decision he'd already made.

No sooner did she sit down across from him at the other side of his desk than he said, "I'm sending you back to England."

Her reaction was immediate. She didn't even have to think about it. "No."

He smiled at her. It was a sad smile. And he didn't try to argue with her. Since he liked making her happy, she usually won any disagreements they had.

He simply explained, "You know your mother and I were a mismatched pair. She was gentry, while I came from the other side of the coin. I've nothing to be ashamed of, mind you, not where my rearing was concerned. I grew up in Dover. My parents were good, hardworking people. But your mother never saw it that way and made up grand stories for her friends about my background and why I was rarely at home. She didn't even want her friends to know I was in trade, which wasn't the case, but was what she thought."

"I know all that, Papa."

"Yes, I know you do, but you see, you have aristocratic blood due to your mother's lineage. However, no one is going to believe that in this part of the world. And besides, I realized today what I've denied you by keeping you with me, a Season in London, all the grand balls and parties a young girl of the upper crust can expect—everything your mother wanted for you, including a fine gentleman for a husband."

She lowered her head. "You know about Charles Millford, don't you?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "I even toyed with the idea of calling old man Millford out."

Her head shot up. "You didn't!"

He grinned. "Actually I did, but I thought I ought to ask you first if you really loved the boy."

She gave that a moment's consideration, then admitted, "Not really. I'm sure I could have, but to be honest, I think I was just ready to fall in love, and Charles was the first man I've met here that I felt would make a fine husband."

"Whether he would have or not, Gabby, think about what you just said. In all your time here, he's the only one you've even considered for matrimony. That's an appalling number of choices, my dear, when you should have dozens of young men to choose from, and in England you will have. No, you're going back to claim your inheritance and have the Season your mother always planned for you to have, and in the process find a proper husband."

She knew he was right, that she probably had no other options. But an English husband meant living in England again and she hated the thought of giving up her idyllic life here. On the other hand, if she got really lucky, she might find an Englishman adventurous enough to move to the Caribbean for the sake of love. Now that would be perfect and even made her feel excited about the journey.

"You're right," she said. "I would like to meet someone I can fall in love with and marry, but how can I do that in England without an entrée into society?"

"Not to worry, my dear. I may not have the connections that your mother did, but there's a man I know who owes me a favor and he's upper crust with all the right connections. His name is Malory—James Malory."