Beyond paradise by Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC, Elizabeth Doyle Page B

last long.
    Jacques smiled weakly at her. "Sylvie, I, uh ... I'm afraid you're coming with us."
    She lost all color. "What?" She smiled as though it were a joke.
    "I'm sorry," he shrugged, "I tried to talk them out of it. but. . "
    "No!" she cried and she began to run at Monique.

    Elizabeth Doyle
    Jacques sighed regretfully, watching her go for only a moment. Then he spoke in Spanish. "I'm afraid I was wrong. You'll have to bring her by force." And so they caught up with her and one threw her over his shoulder. Sylvie had never screamed before in her life, so far as she could remember. As a result, her scream was rather quiet and broken. She was self-conscious and embarrassed about it even as the sound was released. But once she was on the little lifeboat, with a man's arm clenching her like a chain, and she was too far from shore to swim, she stopped her senseless shouting and went about the more practical business of saying prayers.
    The golden ship was alight—not with one ray of gold, but with a hundred glimmers of yellow springing from a hundred lanterns. It was growing larger and nearer, and so were the sounds: ominous sounds of men's voices as though in a deep hum. And then came the smell. A filthy, sour smell leaked from the ship, across the ocean, to Sylvie's nose. As the curtain-like sails drew so near that she could hear the wind slapping and filling them, and the golden light grew so bright that she could not bear to look, her heart took on a terrified, frantic rhythm. Never before had she feared for her life.
    "What can you tell me about the ship we're chasing?" asked Jervais's first mate.
    Jervais was poring over a map spread over his desk in the lantern light. "If it's the same ship, it will be a barque, but pirates change ships often. It will have a black flag with only a few red stars, and its captain is Roberto Dominguez. The particular pirate who stole her is named Jacques Dupree. I caught him myself when he tried to trade pirate loot on the island of Cuba. Why Blanchet wanted a pirate sailor and not
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    the captain is beyond me, but he's the one I was commissioned to find. I brought him here to hang, and he was just about to do that when our lovely but not very bright Mademoiselle Davant enabled him to rejoin his ship"
    "Poor thing," said Pierre. "I hate to think what's happening to her now."
    Jervais was sharp with him. "Nothing!" he cried emphatically. "Nothing is happening to her now. Do you understand me? We will find her, and we will rescue her, and we will do so before she is dishonored."
    "But Captain," said Pierre, shaking his head, "they will have done it in the very first moment."
    "Not necessarily!" cried Jervais. He ground his teeth, then bent back over his map.
    Pierre looked confused. "Is it really so important, Captain? Just so long as we find she's alive? Won't that be good enough for Monsieur Etienne Peridot?"
    "Perhaps," warned Jervais, "but then again, maybe we are not doing this for him."
    With a look of absolute astonishment, Pierre took his captain's meaning. "My God, you aren't thinking of. . . well, of.. . keeping her?" he asked, unable to think of a better way to phrase it.
    "None of your concern," he grumbled. "Your only concern is helping me find her."
    "Captain," said Pierre very bravely, "I'm not going to let you lie to yourself or to me."
    Jervais looked up.
    "She's not going to be a maiden when we find her, sir. Not if she's been in the clutches of pirates all this time."
    Jervais lowered his eyelids.
    "Sir? Are you listening?"
    "Yes," he growled. He was listening, but he was really

    Elizabeth Doyle
    struggling. He just didn't know whether he could live with it... having Sylvie, but not being the first. He dropped his forehead, causing his first mate to frown. "Sir, I never knew you to be so fickle."

    Ten
    Sylvie was led below deck through what felt like a mob, leering and parting to form her path. She kept her jaw clenched and her eyes unfocused. The