Chapter Twenty-Nine

Roarke would not abandon her.

He would come for her.

She knew he would.

She prepared herself as if, at any moment, he would burst through the cell door. To keep up her strength, she ate every rancid spoonful of watery soup and plucked the weevils out of the stale bread so she could eat it. She kept aside some water to wash her face. She ran her fingers through her hair until she’d combed it free of knots, and then wove it in a tight plait to keep it out of her eyes. She walked in circles in the cell to keep her legs strong. Whether he broke into the prison, or seized her on the way to trial, she needed to be ready to run.

Meanwhile, a little voice whispered in her heart.

Two weeks he’s been gone.

A day went by, and then another. Leighton did not visit, and the guard never spoke. She hovered beneath the window, straining her ears to catch the conversation of the folks who passed beneath, but she heard nothing but whispers. Once, when she sensed a larger group approaching, she dug her fingers into the mortar between the stones and climbed the wall until she could seize the iron bars. Hanging there with her cheek pressed against the damp wall, she held her breath to better hear their conversation, but they marched by as silent as ghosts.

Two weeks and two days he’s been gone.

Her thoughts ran wild. She should have asked Leighton more questions. How had Roarke escaped with the house surrounded by soldiers? Had he bribed those men with the fear of Leighton in their eyes? If he had stumbled out the back door covered in sores the men would have shot him dead, and with reason. Was it smallpox that had laid him so low, or was it only the ague or swamp fever? Did he escape only to collapse somewhere? Was he still there now, far from help, ailing amid the reeds, alone? Even now he could be—

No.

Roarke was not dead. Her heart still beat, and so his heart must still be beating. Their one night together had bound them as surely as if they were bound by rope. It was a binding as strong as promises or public vows. His presence was like a warm ghost in the room. His voice whispering her name was a lullaby she heard before sleep every night. She still felt his touch like a tingling pressure upon her skin. He was coming for her. She felt his urgency as if she inhabited his thoughts.

She remembered that he had friends in the backcountry, in places too dangerous for Leighton’s soldiers to search. Roarke would have gone straight to those pirates for help. He would recover among them, learn of Leighton’s intent, and then muster what aide he could to come to her rescue.

That was the reason for this silence, this delay, this torture. Roarke was recovering and making a plan.

Meanwhile, the little voice still whispered in her heart.

Three weeks, and still he’s gone.

***

On the twenty-seventh day of her imprisonment, Adriana woke coughing.

Her throat stung. She struggled out of the haze of sleep. She reached blindly for the water jug she kept by the pallet. She tilted it upside down, but not a drop slipped out to wet her lips. She clattered it to the flagstones, still coughing. She became aware of a haze in the room, a strange taste in her mouth, and as she blinked her eyes open she realized that the room billowed with smoke.

Fire!

She stumbled to her feet. Flickering orange light sifted through the window, casting ominous shadows through the room. She banged on the door and called out for the jail keeper. She peered through the slit but saw nothing but darkness broken by a fire-lit haze. She pushed against the planks but the door was as tightly bolted as it had always been. She pushed harder, praying that the bolt would give. Then she balled her hands into fists and pummeled the surface, ignoring the slivers of wood that pierced her hands.

A coughing fit seized her. She held her hand over her mouth until it passed. She looked at her palm and saw speckles of soot.

She sank low against the door. The room was hot as midday, thought she could tell it was still night. She noticed that the smoke was seeping through the cracks in the city-side wall of the bastion more thickly than anywhere else. She could hear raised voices outside, panicked voices. People were alert. They were trying to put out the fire.

She glimpsed her dirty dinner bowl by the floor. Her jail keeper hadn’t come to fetch it yet. He knew that was his duty. He would come. He would release her, maybe with guards, because he knew she was his charge.

He would not leave her here.

Leighton’s angry face rose in her mind, but she rejected the idea that Leighton would abandon her to her fate. He was spiteful—he needed her alive as bait to catch Roarke. Leighton craved a public spectacle. He wouldn’t let her suffocate or burn…unless during these last weeks he faced resistance from what friends she had in Charles Town, the very same resistance she’d warned him about.

She shook herself. Speculation was useless. She had to make a plan. She lifted the hem of her chemise and pressed the linen against her face to work as a filter, then scrambled to the outer wall opposite the one belching smoke. The haze was growing denser. The temperature in the room was rising.

Think. Think.

Then she heard an eerie whistling and felt a pull of air. By instinct she curled herself into a ball just before the explosion.

The walls of the bastion shuddered. The vibrations rocked her bones. She braced herself for flying shrapnel and piercing slivers of wood but the walls held firm. She buried her face in her hem as one blast followed another. Shock passed through her mind when she realized that—like any military fort—this bastion held barrels full of cannon powder.

She covered her ears and told herself that at least death would come quick. It would be like the crash of the fire ship against the ramparts of Saint-Malo, she told herself, as another explosion made the flagstones rattle out of their mortar. She remembered the brilliance of the inferno as the exploding ship spewed fire into the heavens.

She’d first met Roarke that night, on those cold, windy ramparts. He’d shielded her from the falling debris with his own body. He hadn’t even known her then. She was nothing more than a dirty street urchin giving him trouble for his English accent. She was hardly worth his attention, never mind the risk to his own life he took when he chose to protect hers.

He had always been protecting her.

Mortar shuddered and shot up from the floor, but her ears rang so loudly that she hardly heard the explosions anymore. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the memory of Roarke kissing her. She remembered the gentleness of his touch as he ran his fingers over her body. She sank into the lullaby of his voice murmuring her name.

He loved her.

He’d told her as much.

Dust filled the air after another explosion, closer than the rest. Debris rained down upon her and suddenly the room filled with light. When the ash and the glowing hail stopped, she raised her face to see a figure framed in a fiery glow.