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."