She shut her eyes and bit down on her lower lip.
. . . Of his hands, fanning down the curves of her waist, the tautness of her belly, the supple flesh of her inner thighs, the dark junction of moist curls between them—
She pressed her hands against her eyes, trying to block the images. Had the Lord and Master taken advantage of her while she’d slept?
Prickles of horror swept through her.
Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .
She flung herself onto her side and saw Tildy’s head and shoulders buried in the canvas bag that contained all she had left of her beloved Ireland.
The bread.
“Tildy!” she screeched, jumping out of bed and lunging for the furry white rump.
With a startled yelp, the spaniel shot out of the bag and beneath the desk, the bread still in her mouth. The bag lay on its side, a sad fan of crumbs on the floor around it.
“Give it back!” Deirdre howled, reaching blindly under the desk. “’Tis mine, d’ye hear me, mine!” Kneeling, Deirdre got down on her elbows and crawled under the desk. “You come out of there right now, ye miserable, mangy, cur!”
Suddenly the cabin door banged open, a hand grasped her by the arm, and she was hauled forcibly out from beneath the desk.
It was the Lord and Master, his face dark with fury. “What the devil is all that shouting about? You’ve got the whole ship in an uproar!”
“Yer bleedin’ dog ate my bread!”
“What?”
“I said, yer dog ate my bread!”
“The bread? Dear God, what was wrong with it?”
She only yanked herself free of his grip, snatched up the canvas bag, and stormed toward the door.
Terrified for his dog, he made a grab for her, his fingers biting into her shoulders. “What was wrong with it?”
Deirdre spun around. “It was from Ireland!”
He stared at her, gaping—and then understanding swept in.
Ireland.
“Bloody deuced hell,” he swore, turning away in disgust. “All that carrying-on over a piece of stale bread just because it came from Ireland? By God, if it makes you feel better, you can have a whole confounded bag of ship’s biscuit, and with my blessing!” His voice softened as he saw the sudden hurt in her eyes, and damning himself for his insensitivity, he reached out to take her hands. “Hang it, girl, you really know how to frighten someone, you know that? Here I thought something dreadful had happened to you—”
She tore free of him, her eyes blazing. “Somethin’ did!” she cried, diving into the opening he’d so unwittingly provided. “And maybe you can tell me just what it was!”
“What?”
“Ye heard me, ye stiff-lipped paragon of honor an’ conceit! Last night! Don’t be actin’ like ye don’t know what I’m talkin’ about! Ye did somethin’ to me, somethin’ vile, unspeakable, sinful, and I want to know just what it was!”
He stared at her in confusion.
“How dare ye stand there and pretend ye don’t know what I’m talkin’ about, when all I can remember is—is—”
Her face went crimson at the thought of putting those vivid images into words.
“Is what?” he demanded.
“Shameful things . . . Such as yer hands touch—” She flushed and choked out, “Touchin’ me when I was sleepin’!”
“Touching you?” Sudden understanding darkened his features and he made a noise of frustration. “Perhaps you’d like to know where your hand was, dear girl, when I opened my eyes this morning. To say nothing of your body itself, which I distinctly remember having assigned to the adjacent cabin.”
Humiliation burned her cheeks. “Only the worst sort of person would take advantage of a lass in her sleep!”
“And only the worst sort of person would consider taking a man’s life in his, Miss O’Devir.”
“What are ye talkin’ about?”
He inclined his head toward the floor, where the brass navigational dividers gleamed in the sunlight. “I suppose they just crawled off my desk and ended up there under their own power? Or let me guess. The dog did it.”
“So maybe I did think of killin’ ye. Or maybe I didn’t! I don’t have to be remindin’ ye that yer list of enemies on this boat is rather long!”
“So, you admit it.”
“I admit nothin’, except the fact that I could’ve ended yer miserable life and didn’t, a fact I now regret with all my heart after the vile things ye did to me last night—”
“I did nothing to you,” he snapped, furious that she could stand there and accuse him of something he knew he hadn’t done, something he knew he couldn’t do.
“Ye touched me!”
“You flatter yourself to think I even dreamed of it.”
“Oh? And what did ye dream about that had ye so torn with grief, eh? Who is it that lays the Lord an’ Master so low every night, huh?” She glared up into his harsh face, now turning white with anger. “Emily?”
The gray eyes went cold.
“Did ye envision yer precious wife beneath ye when ye touched me, kissed me—”
He grabbed her wrists and yanked her up against him, his mouth a slash of pain. “I did not touch you,” he ground out, his voice tight with rage, “and I will make something very clear to you, once and for all. I have no intention of touching you, not now, not ever.” He drew her so close that her frightened eyes were a mere inch from his nose. “And as for your precious virtue, you needn’t worry about me compromising it, Miss O’ Devir. I have been unable to feel anything for any woman since my wife died, and you, I can assure you, haven’t a prayer of stirring lusts I no longer have.”
He pushed her away and turned to go, his shoulders stiff with fury.
“Unable to feel anythin’? Lusts ye no longer have? What’s the matter, doesn’t yer wedding tackle work?”
He froze, turned, and Deirdre, stung to the quick by his words of rejection, knew that her reciprocal barb had hit home.
“So that’s it, isn’t it?” she spat, her eyes glinting with triumph, her heart sinking even as she railed against the truth revealed so blatantly in his stricken face. “The haughty Lord and Master—decorated hero of Quiberon, pride o’ Britain’s Navy, and master of its swiftest warship—is useless as a man!”
“Silence,” he said, his face paling as he stumbled backward, away from her.
“Useless!” she repeated, swiping viciously at a tear that had leaked from one eye, then another. “He cannot function! He’s less than a man! He doesn’t work!”
She threw back her head and laughed, overcome with hysteria and a strange, inexplicable grief that blinded her to the unforgivable and awful thing she had just done— stripped him of every shred of his masculine pride.
He turned on his heel and all but fled the cabin, her wild laughter following him, mocking him, and chasing him into the depths of hell itself.
Chapter 15
“I tell ye, this is turnin’ out to be the voyage from hell,” Skunk spat, kicking viciously at a neatly coiled line and sending it snaking across the deck. “First he has us cleanin’ the decks, then he has us practicing sail drills, then he takes our Delight from us—Christ, I’d as soon stayed in bloody England!”
It had been more than three long, miserable weeks since HMS Bold Marauder had shown her heels to Spithead—and things weren’t getting any better. Although the marine who guarded the cabin where the two girls now stayed was easily coerced—by a very manipulative Delight—into admitting “visitors” while Deirdre was absent, the rebellious spirit with which the ship had left England was sadly lacking. Sail drills had everyone’s backs and arms aching. Gun practice had them all exhausted and half deaf. Strict observation of quarterdeck rules and Navy protocol had everyone wishing he’d taken duty on another ship. Only Delight maintained her bright and bubbly spirit, and she alone kept the men smiling when they found nothing to smile about.
The Irish girl, however, was another matter. She spent her time standin
g at the stern rail with her canvas bag clenched in one hand, her sad face turned toward an Ireland that was now nearly three thousand miles away.
And the aloof and unapproachable Lord and Master spent his time watching her.
Neither spoke to the other, both went out of their way to avoid each other, and the tension between them escaped nobody’s notice.
Now the men, just finishing their morning task of scrubbing the decks, watched their captain with mutinous eyes. As usual, they were full of complaints—but that was the extent of it, for none dared to cross him. His unorthodox punishments, beginning that awful day he had forced Teach to clean all the objects in the weapons chest, were doled out swiftly and mercilessly. Hibbert, having been caught once too often in his filthy uniform, had been forced to soap and scrub the uniform of every officer on the frigate. Skunk, caught swearing in front of the ladies, had been made to stand before his shipmates for an entire hour and read from the Lord and Master’s big leather Bible. Worse, all punishments were carried out to the slow beat of the marine drummer’s drum, with the entire crew and officers assembled to watch. Such humiliation was enough to make even the most recalcitrant of Bold Marauder's men think twice about raising the Lord and Master’s ire.
But it did nothing to make them like him.
“Aye, Skunk, it just ain’t fair,” Teach grumbled, scratching at the chin he kept clean and well shaven—not to please his commanding officer but Delight, who happened to prefer smooth faces. He turned toward his shipmates, his huge, burly arms outstretched in a silent plea. “Why the hell did we have to end up with the stuffy prig, anyhow? Ain’t he a ship-o’-the-line captain? What’s he doing on a mere frigate?”
“Dunno, Teach, but I don’t believe all that rot about him being a decorated hero for one bloody minute,” Wenham muttered, staring up at the set of the topsails and sullenly tugging at his ear with the stubs of his missing fingers. He risked a glance at the bosun, for Rico Hendricks was usually within earshot. “Probably made one too many embarrassing mistakes somewhere and the Admiralty thought they could squirrel him away on Bold Marauder—at our expense!”
“Decorated hero, my arse! Besides, whoever heard of a naval captain who wears a wig aboard ship!”
“Maybe he’s got a big bald spot he’s tryin’ to cover up!”
“Maybe ’e’s afraid wot little brains ’e has’ll leak out if ’e don’t keep a top on ’em!”
“Maybe he thinks he looks right handsome in it and is trying to impress the girl!”
“Ha, he’s doin’ a fine job of that, ain’t ’e!”
They howled with glee, remembering the now-faded bruise that the wig couldn’t quite conceal. Every man on the ship had heard about the latest falling-out between the Irish girl and the Lord and Master, but only Delight knew what it was about, and she, as Deirdre’s cabin-mate and friend, wasn’t telling.
“Hero or not. I’ll bet my last shilling he ain’t never seen action in his life! Prob’ly bought all those fancy medals!”
“Here, now, Skunk, ye be mindin’ your tongue,” Ian chided, frowning. “Ye canna put doon the mon when ye’ve never seen battle yerself!”
“None of us have, Ian, but we ain’t the ones wearin’ the rank of a post captain or carryin’ a fancy dress sword, an’ we ain’t the ones with medals of valor affixed to our best coat! I still bet he bought ’em off someone, or stole ’em off some corpse. Why, I’ll bet when this here ship gets into a battle—not that I think she ever will—our fearless leader’ll go running below with his tail between his legs!”
“Aye, and leave us to do the fighting!” Rhodes spat, detaching himself from his place by the pinrail. “Why, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find his Lordship hiding down in his cabin, fussing with his wig and taking tea!”
Hibbert, who’d been watching with a gleam in his eye, swaggered out from Wenham’s shadow, his lips curved with mischief. “Aye, taking tea,” he sniffed, striking an exaggeratedly dandified pose, flaring his nostrils, and making a big show over smoothing his rumpled uniform.
The crew roared with laughter.
“Aah, ye show ’em, laddie!”
To windward, far off over the leaping wave crests that rolled endlessly toward the frigate’s bows, tiny splotches of white hung suspended from the clouds that lay piled on the horizon.
But no one saw them, nor heard the distant echo of gunfire—not even the lookout, who, at the moment, was lying flat on his back on the maintop, with a boyishly disguised Delight straddling his belly and putting his mind on other things.
“Keep it up, Hibbert!” Skunk roared, slapping his thigh. “’Sdeath, we could do with some amusement to brighten these decks!”
Laughing, Hibbert primped his ill-kempt queue and pranced across the deck in a exaggerated caricature of his commanding officer. Pinching his nostrils shut to affect an exaggerated nasal drawl that sounded nothing like the clipped, educated tone of their captain, he sniffed, “Mr. MacDuff, I daresay we’re in for a devilish blow . . . would you please put a reef in the forecourse?”
A burst of raucous laughter went up from his mates, and several threw wary glances forward, where Ian had gone off to use the head. Their first lieutenant was no fun anymore, refusing to join his shipmates in making jokes about the Lord and Master.
Grinning, Hibbert pushed his hat back, primped and preened some more, and then, clasping his hands behind his back, strode slowly across the deck. He sank his chin into his neckcloth and drew his brows close in a threatening scowl. “Oh, and, Mr. Skunk, please see to it that the deck is scrubbed and clean before I come topside!”
Skunk threw back his grimy head, roaring with laughter. “Ye’ve got it, boy! Ye look just like the blasted blue blood!”
“Aye, just like ’im!”
“More, Hibbert, more!”
On the horizon, the triangles of white began to take on distinct shapes as they detached themselves from the cloud mass.
The midshipman grabbed a boarding pike from the rack at the mainmast, and leaned his weight on it in imitation of the captain with his sword. His eyes half lidded, Hibbert stiffened his back and drawled, “Oh, and, Mr. Teach, please remove that growth from your face. This is a fighting ship, not a barbershop!”
“Not fighting ship,” Skunk cried, “A king’s ship! If yer gonna do it, do it right!”
Hibbert struck a pose. “This is a king’s ship!”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
Someone coughed.
But Hibbert, lost in the game, never saw the object of his ridicule standing behind him, silently watching him and cradling three tiny puppies in the broad shelter of his arm. Primping his hair, the youth swaggered to the wheel and stared haughtily down at the compass. “I daresay, Mr. Wenham, the forecourse is not in proper trim for this wind. Pray, do see to the matter!”
“Er, Hibbert—”
“Mr. Rhodes, please do not interrupt your commanding officer,” Hibbert said, with an imperious wave of his hand. He turned to face the second lieutenant. “You know how it grieves—”
He broke off abruptly and dropped the pike on his toe. The Lord and Master was standing a mere ten feet away, coldly watching him.
“Are you quite finished, Mr. Hibbert?” The frosty gray eyes, hard with anger, raked the boy’s face. “Pray, remind me to purchase tickets next time you decide to stage such an amusing performance.”
Hibbert paled, gulped, and stared down at his shoes. “Aye.”
“Aye, sir. And get your damned hide below and change out of that miserable excuse for a uniform and into something presentable!”
Hibbert fled, nearly colliding with the returning Ian MacDuff in his haste to escape.
“Hey, watch it, ye imperious wee upstart!” Ian roared, raising his fist. But the midshipman was gone.
Christian strode to the rail that separated the quarterdeck from the waist of the ship. His cold gaze swept the sea of smirking faces beneath him, noting the exchanged glances, the quickly muffled guffaws, the twitching
lips. He let the silence build, knowing that their attention was on him and him alone. Then he cleared his throat and, cradling the three puppies to his chest, stared down at them.
“It is a pity,” he said, his tone emotionless and cold, “that here we are, only a few days out from Boston, and you, as a company, are no closer to doing your Navy proud than you were when we left England. I had truly hoped to make a favorable impression upon the admiral there, but I’m afraid that I shall be ashamed, not proud, to bring this vessel into that harbor and present her to my superior.”
Skunk and Rhodes exchanged smirks.
“You think that having me as your commanding officer is the worst thing you could have imagined, don’t you?”
Skunk opened his mouth to reply in the positive, but a quick jab in the ribs from Rhodes silenced him.
The action was not wasted on the captain. “Why must you comply to discipline and tradition? you ask. What reason is there for saluting the quarterdeck, for touching your hat to your commanding or superior officers, for manning the side when your captain leaves the ship?” Christian’s hand tightened around the rail. “Do you think me so pompous that I ask your compliance for my sake? Do you think me so arrogant and conceited that I demand it for myself?”
They stared at him, uncomprehending. No one spoke. Above, wind sighed softly in the shrouds and made the great sails taut and hard against the blue, blue sky.
“Death at sea can come swiftly, in any form, at any time. A sudden squall. A battle. A mistake in interpreting a chart, a position, an enemy’s strength. At such times, when chaos may reign, there is one thing, and one thing alone, that will keep a ship together, and that is called discipline.”
He stared hard at them, letting them absorb his words. “Our Navy is the most powerful sea power in the world, with possibly only the French to challenge it. That strength does not arise out of the independence of each vessel, but out of unity amongst them all, and the men who serve them. That strength is rooted in discipline and strict allegiance to tradition—they are the cement that holds our Navy together, not something to be sneered at, scoffed at, ridiculed. Now, if everyone decided not to respect their seniors, and they, in turn, did not respect the flag that flies above their heads, where, then, would this Navy be? Indeed, where would England be?”
Master Of My Dreams (Heroes Of The Sea Series) Page 16
