Mariah's Prize by MIRANDA JARRETT Read Free Book Online Page A

pretty, rosy-cheeked little girls like this one before him.
    “I left word at several taverns that I was looking for men, and these were the best of the lot. Of course the ones that sailed with your father still have a place if they wish it. I’ll be shipping a surgeon, too, Andrew Macauly ofTiverton. Most of them have sailed with me before, but speak up if there’s any you’d like to nay say
    “Oh, no, as long as they suit you.” She glanced around the circle of eager faces. So many men to find in so short a time, and the unimaginable luxury of a surgeon, too! Her father had always been among the luckless captains forced to delay voyages until he could muster a crew, and there’d never been enough money to offer the bounties that some captains did. Though she should be pleased, it stung Mariah for her father’s sake to see how readily Captain Sparhawk’s reputation alone could draw more men in a morning than her father had attracted in his whole career.
    “Have you any word from your warehouse man?” asked Gabriel.
    “It’s halfway to noon, and the fellow’s yet to show his face with your accounts.”
    Mariah cleared her throat.
    “He won’t be coming because he doesn’t exist. My father kept his own accounts. He said clerks were landlocked cheats and scoundrels, and he didn’t trust them.” “They’re also a mighty useful way to keep other, bigger cheats and scoundrels out of your pockets.” His shoulders worked uneasily beneath the sticky linen. No clerk to impress, but he couldn’t very well strip down before the girl, and his irritation grew. He wished he hadn’t had to strike Duffy. The man had only done what he wanted to do himself, and all of his resentment fell on her doorstep. “So is that what you’ve got in that basket? Your father’s ledgers?”
    “Not precisely.” Lord, why had her father made this so hard for her?
    “He didn’t have much use for ledgers, either.”
    Gabriel stared at her for an endless moment, dumbfounded.
    “So your father didn’t believe in clerks or ledgers, and he didn’t keep a crew large enough to keep his sloop afloat. He let his gunnery turn foul from disuse, and he didn’t keep enough dry powder to light his pipe.
    There are no stores on board to speak of, leastways not that I could find. This suit of sails is worn thinner than the linen in your shift.
    And then, of course, there’s the size of the bills his three ladies have managed to accumulate with every sempstress and bonnet maker in town. “
    To Marian the only sound on the deck came from the gulls overhead. She knew to her shame that the entire crew was openly listening. How could she blame them when the flaws of her entire family were being laid out one by one like the dirtiest laundry?
    “Captain Sparhawk,” she said, her temper simmering. She wouldn’t give them all the satisfaction of one more scene to add to their gossip. ‘ “Captain Sparhawk, I believe this conversation is better suited to the privacy of the cabin.”
    She headed for the companionway, her heels clicking briskly on the holy stoned deck. He lunged after her, covering four of her steps with two of his own.
    “Come along. Miss West, let’s see what other secrets your father didn’t take with him to the grave.” Impatiently Gabriel reached out to take the basket from her, but Mariah pulled it away.
    “Nay, I’ll share nothing more with you until you apologize for insulting my father!” Bunching her skirts to one side, she started down the narrow steps with the basket looped over her arm.
    “Your father!” Gabriel thundered after her.
    “Sweet Jesus, woman, I’d warrant that most would say I’m the one who’s been insulted! Not one thing about this whole rotten deal’s been true, and if there was another ship that would suit me, I’d leave now and consider myself a fortunate man!”
    Gabriel grabbed for the basket again, and again Mariah managed to jerk it out of his reach. But as she did she lost her