Sparhawk's Angel
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Miranda Jarrett
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HarlequinPrologue
Off the coast of South CarolinaJuly 1779
For the first time the odds didnât favor him, not on this pitch-dark morning in the last hour before dawn.
Furiously Nick swiped the sweat and blood from his forehead with his sleeve as he struggled to make out more of the English ship than the ten gunports bringing fire and death. Pale clouds from the flames in his Libertyâs hold billowed up through the hatch and mixed with the acrid powder smoke from the guns and the screams of dying men. Splinters of oak and bits of tarred cord and canvas rained down onto the deck with every uneasy sway of the sloop in the sea. Already he could feel how the Liberty was settling lower into the waves as the sea rushed in through the jagged holes left by the English broadsides. Another five minutes, ten at the most, and then the ocean would claim them.
If five minutes were all he had, then so be it, but he wouldnât go down without a fight, and he sure as hell wasnât going to surrender. With grim satisfaction he glanced up at the two tattered flags overheadâthe red, white and blue stripes of the American cause and below it the scarlet pennant of Sparhawk and Sons. Heâd sooner cut his own throat than strike either one of them to the British.
Though maybe that was what they expected. Maybe that was why the English captain, the devil take him, hadnât fired at all on the Liberty this past quarter hour, believing instead that the Americans were too battered by now to do anything but surrender. Softhearted coward, thought Nick scornfully. If heâd been the one blessed with twice the men and guns, he wouldnât have been so overnice.
Nor would he be now. With a roar of pure fury Nick hurled himself down to the lower deck to one of the last functioning cannons.
Intent on firing at least one more time at the enemy, the five men in the gun crew only barely acknowledged their captain as he helped them muscle the heavy cannon into position. Heâd done it before; it was one of the reasons theyâd follow him anywhere. With his long black hair held back by the makeshift bandage around his forehead, his coat gone and his ruffled shirt torn and filthy, the captain was no different from the rest of them, all joined together in their hatred for the English.
Shielding the faint spark of the linstockâs slow match in his cupped fingers, Nick concentrated on his target, the English ship that was only a faint outline in the early dawn.
âSteady, lads, steady!â he shouted hoarsely, holding the match over the little ring of gunpowder on the back of the gun. âWeâve got her now, donât we? Nowânowâfire!â
The cannon roared to life, spitting fire and smoke as it jerked back with the force of firing. But in the same instant came another explosion, bright white and blinding and louder than thunder. Nick felt himself being thrown into the air, high into the sky and then higher still, far above the top of the Libertyâs mainmast until the sloop and the English brig looked like carved toys on the water so far beneath him, and yet still he rose, all six feet and more of him floating weightless as a feather, with the pale light of dawn turning the clouds around him pink and orange, and suddenly he knew, he knew, that he wasnât going to fall back to the Libertyâs deck or the waves around her or to earth at all.
So this, then, was how his luck would end. His luck and his life and his run as the most fortunate American captain in a notoriously unfortunate war, every last bit of it done and over in one bright blast of gunpowder. Already he could predict the notice in the Charles Town papers: âCaptain Nickerson James Sparhawk, master of the twelve-gun privateering sloop Liberty, lost at sea with all hands after a most gallant engagement with the enemy.â
Lost, hell. Heâd never lost a blessed thing since the day heâd been born, and he didnât want to begin now. He wasnât ready to die. He was only thirty-two, in his prime. Damnation, he would not die!
âOh, bother and hush, youâre not going to!â declared a womanâs voice. âDo you truly believe I would have squandered so much time and effort on your wellbeing heretofore only to watch you tumble off now?â
Nick twisted about, searching for the source of the voice. He found her perched on the edge of one of the clouds as if it were as solid as stone, her legs crossed gracefully at the knee, and without a doubt she was one of the prettiest young women heâd ever seen.
One of the most elegant, too. Heâd never had much of an eye for female frippery, but he did have three younger sisters, and thanks to them he knew that this ladyâs gownâwhite silk taffeta over a painted China silk petticoat, edged with silver embroideryâwas very fashionable, and doubtless very dear. Around her pale throat lay a double strand of pearls hung with a Roman cameo, and more pearls swung from her ears. A pink sateen ribbon threaded through her extravagantly curled hair, golden auburn, he guessed, beneath the ladylike dusting of powder. Her eyes were large and blue beneath arching, elfin brows, and her rosy lips were winsomely curved for the kind of tempting little smile she was giving him now, her head tipped just so and one brow cocked as she twitched her wingsâ
Her wings? The devil take him, here he was ogling her like any other chit when the creature had wings like a swanâs sprouting from her shoulder blades, right beneath the crossing of her sheer white-work fichu. Wings. He shook his head and swore.
âLa, what a pretty greeting for a lady!â she scoffed. From beneath the curve of one wing she drew a fan of ivory brisĂ© and spread it with a practiced flick of her wrist. âIâd thought better of you, sir.â
But Nick was in no mood for bantering. âJust whoâor whatâin blazes are you?â
She laughed merrily over the fan. âIâve blessed little to do with âblazes,â Captain, for which you should be quite thankful.â
âYouâre a bloody angel, arenât you?â he demanded hoarsely. âYouâre rigged out like some sort of Vauxhall doxy, but stillââ
âBut still youâre quite right, my darling captain.â Her eyes were as blue as the Caribbean, dancing deliciously with the pleasure of teasing him. âIâm entirely what you wish me to be. Though that Vauxhall remark rather stings. Iâd hoped for an effect more passing genteel than that.â
âBlast your effect!â Desperately Nick looked down to where his ship had been, but the Liberty and her enemy and the sea, too, had vanished entirely, swallowed up by the same ethereal wisps of clouds that somehow were supporting him. âIâm dead, and all you can damned well think about is the cut of your petticoats!â
âI know it will be difficult for you, Captain Sparhawk, but you really must learn to heed what I tell you.â She sighed, the tops of her breasts quivering above her stays. âIf youâd only listen, youâd discover how you have it in yourself to be the happiest man alive.â
âI was plenty happy before this,â he growled, shoving his hand back through his hair. His fingers brushed the blood-stiffened bandage tied around his head, and the wound beneath it throbbed so that he winced. But that was good, wasnât it? If he were dead, heâd he beyond pain, wouldnât he?
Wouldnât he?
âI told you before that youâre not dead,â she said placidly, answering his doubts as if heâd spoken, âand youâre not.â
âIâm sure as hell not alive!â Furiously Nick grabbed for her, and as he did she seemed to fade into the intangible distance, melting away like mist in the morning. âCome back here, madam, and show yourself!â
âYou must learn to heed what I say,â she said again, softly, her voice but a whisper in his ear. âFor your own good, you truly must.â
He was slipping away himself, not falling exactly but drifting into something close to sleep. This was all her fault, he thought as he struggled to keep his wits, all the fault of some fancy jade trumped up with angelâs wings. Why the devil should he heed her about anything? And as for happinessâwar and happiness werenât made for each other, but he was still the most contented man he knew.
But the clouds were turning darker now, the sun behind them fading, and with a final, mumbled oath of frustration, he let the darkness claim him.
