Chapter 1
Nassau, New Providence, 1696
Ooooh” Gabrielle squealed, then quickly bit her lip and ran her hand over her rounded belly.’Twas the hardest kick yet.There, something brushed across her palm.A foot?A hand?She wanted to smile at the life growing within her.
But all she could do was cry.
“What ye squawkin’ ’bout, wench?”Lazy-eyed Smity leaned his shoulder against the iron bars of the cell across from hers and leered in her direction.“Yer brat givin’ ye a what’s what already?”
“Leave her be, ye bloated crank,” Durwin said from the cell beside Smity’s, eliciting further shouts and curses from other prisoners Gabrielle fortunately couldn’t see and way-too-often wished she couldn’t hear.
The small prison where she had been tossed nigh three months past consisted of a single filth-begrimed walkway, lined on both sides by cells too small for even a dog, let alone a human.
She offered Durwin a smile, and he nodded in return.The crusty old pirate had been kind to her since he arrived last month, though she could not fathom why.Perhaps he’d been taught to be a gentleman when he was younger, to treat a lady with respect.
Not that she was a lady.Not anymore.
Smity huffed and spat on the floor outside Durwin’s cell.“She’s nothin’ but a pirate’s whore, ye salty clod.An’ I’ll speak t’ ’er any ways I want.”
And there it was.A pirate’s whore.Her new title.
From Lady Gabrielle Charlisse Hyde, daughter of Edmund Merrick Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, to naught but a strumpet.She lowered her chin.Hadn’t her father always said her rash emotions would be her ruin?
The babe kicked again, and Gabrielle lowered to sit on the hay-stuffed mattress, ignoring the ache in her back and swelling in her ankles.
Smity snorted.“Ye’d be dead, wench, if it weren’t fer that babe.But soon enough, soon enough.”
His right eye floated off to the right, as it so often did, but his left one speared her with hatred.Why he detested her, she couldn’t say, save perhaps some woman had broken his heart—if he’d ever had one.Or perhaps all pirates were simply evil.
“And you shall hang beside me, you insolent fool,” she retorted.
Smity frowned.
Durwin chuckled.
But what did it matter?Smity was right, of course.She would have already met that unpleasant ending if they’d not discovered she was with child.Quite a surprise to her as well.Hence, she’d earned a four-month reprieve, if one could call her torturous existence in this prison a reprieve.In truth, death sounded a far better fate than another day in this place.
Tears burned behind her eyes.Yet with practiced control, she forced them back.She’d hated the child at first, hated the way his life had started.But over the months, as her belly swelled and she felt him move, she’d grown to love him…or her.But, no, ’twas a boy.Had to be.
She drew in a breath of air and instantly regretted it.She would never grow accustomed to the stench of this place, all putrid mold, decay, and death.A fly buzzed around her head, landed on her arm, but before she could swat it, it sped toward her uneaten dinner.If one could call the foul pile of regurgitated gruel dinner.She’d tried to eat as much as she could…for the babe’s sake, but when her stomach threatened to eject what little she’d consumed, she pushed it away.
The sun withdrew its last golden rays from the slit-like window high above Gabrielle, pulling a cloak of gray over her cell.She rubbed her arms against a chill that had naught to do with the weather.She hated the nights worst of all.’Twas when the shadows emerged from the stone walls like specters from graves, taunting her, reminding her of her foolishness, her naivety, her disobedience to God and her parents.’Twas also at night that the prisoners grew more restless, more vocal in their agonizing screams, their obscene shouts, as if they, too, were haunted by demons from their past.And some, perhaps by demons of their future…a future hemmed in by a strangling noose and the jeers of an unfeeling crowd.
Terror spiraled through her, and she rubbed her neck.She had purposely avoided thinking about the horrors of being hanged.Her thoughts…and her heart…had been on her babe.Tears seared her eyes and, pressing a hand on her back, she struggled to rise and face the back wall, not wanting Smity to use her pain for entertainment.
Hanging her head, she ran both hands over her belly, allowing her tears to slide down her cheeks and spill onto her swollen womb.What would happen to her child?Who would care for him?Or would he be tossed in a run-down orphanage and die from neglect?
Drawing a deep breath, she batted her tears away.No time for weakness.No time for regrets.She would face her end with the dignity of her station—the daughter of an earl.The daughter of the famous Captain Merrick, a man she could never face after what she’d done.The look of shame and disappointment on his expression would be worse than hanging.Which was why she’d kept her identity to herself.
And she had prayed.Oh, how she had prayed.For forgiveness at first, and then for rescue, for help.
But heaven had been silent.The presence of God absent, no doubt pushed away by her rebellion.Her mother and father had always told her God was a God of forgiveness.But during the past four months, Gabrielle had come to believe they’d been wrong.Perhaps there was a point of wickedness past which God could not redeem.
???
Pop pop pop!
Pistol shots peppered the air.A shout.A foul curse.The loud crunch of wood and stone.Gabrielle was having a nightmare, a dream filled with memories of the many battles at sea she’d experienced while on her father’s ship,Redemption.More shots, the eerie clang of swords, a cannon blast!The cot beneath her shook.Something crumbled on her face.Pebbles?Dust?
