Lord Of The Sea

by Danelle Harmon

  “What was that?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder as she continued to walk forward with him.

  “Nothing, Mother. Nothing a’ t’all.”

  “I know I ain’t much of a cook, but you’re my darling son and the idea of you goin’ off to fight the Brits without something good and solid in your stomach just fills my heart with dread.”

  “You are very kind, Mother. Perhaps you’d like to join us? I aim to go after that convoy, and Sir Graham can be damned.”

  “You know I can’t, Connor.”

  “You’re the best gunner Kestrel ever had.”

  “Your father wouldn’t like it.”

  “Da is going soft.”

  “No he’s not, he just wants to keep the peace.” They had walked as far forward as they could get and there, Mira leaned out over the bow to peer down at the little hawk that was Kestrel’s figurehead. “Oh, good. I wanted to make sure it was just as I remembered it,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Oh, you know. Time takes its toll on things. . . .”

  Mother was behaving oddly, Connor thought. Very oddly. He turned and looked aft but there was nothing amiss, and the last of the sailors who had come with her was already climbing aboard.

  “Well here you go, darling,” Mira said, straightening up and handing him the basket. “You behave yourself and try not to make your brother-in-law too mad. And mind that you’re not gone too long. I don’t think Maeve’s time is far off and you really oughtta be there for the baby’s birth.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Not to mention workin’ on giving me another grandchild.”

  He actually blushed. “Yes, Mother.”

  She grinned, the endearing little wrinkles fanning out from either side of her tilted-up nose, and stretching on tiptoe, kissed him on the cheek.

  Moments later she was gone, rowing the boat back to shore all by herself, the afternoon sunlight sparkling like amber diamonds in the craft’s wake.

  Chapter 20

  “Follow me and be quick about it,” Toby whispered, seizing Rhiannon’s wrist and hustling her toward the hatch while his Aunt Mira kept Connor busy up in Kestrel’s bow. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Take her to your cabin,” One-Eye said quickly, moving to stand in front of Rhiannon in case his captain happened to turn around. “He won’t think to look there.”

  “No, take her to Nathan’s, it’s got a better bunk,” Jacques said.

  “Christ,” Nathan swore, and headed aft.

  Well, so much for loyalty to their fearless leader, Rhiannon thought as Toby, Jacques and One-Eye, followed by several others, one of whom had her trunk, all of whom had breath that stank of rum, hustled her quickly down the hatch and forward. Above, she heard footsteps as Connor and his devious little mother, God bless her scheming heart, walked aft and Mira prepared to leave. “Stay outta sight until you’re well out to sea,” Mira had advised. “Once you’ve got Barbados well behind you, there’s no more need to hide yourself. And don’t. I want more grandchildren, and I ain’t gonna get ‘em if you’re hidin’ somewhere my son won’t find you.”

  It was a good thing Rhiannon hadn’t been eating something at that remark because surely she would have choked.

  Now, led through the gloom by Toby and surrounded by grinning, laughing tars who seemed to think it quite funny to put something over on their captain, she was hustled into Nathan’s cabin, offered a mug of rum, and then left to her own devices.

  It was a tiny cabin with little place to stand, and only a bunk built into the curve of the hull. Sighing, Rhiannon sat down on it, put her feet on her trunk, and contemplated what she was going to say to Connor when she revealed herself.

  Oh, he was going to be angry.

  Too angry, probably, to continue work on making this grandchild that his mother so desperately wanted.

  Beneath her the schooner rocked gently, and the small tin lantern that swung from the overhead beam cast a dim light over Nathan’s cabin.

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  Wait for the hours to pass and the wind to change.

  Wait for the sounds of the ship getting underway.

  Wait for Toby to come and collect her.

  Yawning, Rhiannon swung her feet up onto the bunk, put her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes. Moments later, she was fast asleep.

  * * *

  “Anchor’s hove short, sir.”

  A crew stood at Kestrel’s windlass, bare-backed and sweating even though the sun was well on its way down.

  “Get the jib and mainsail up,” Connor said. “I want to be out of here before any of our Royal Navy friends know what we’re about.”

  “Expecting trouble?” Nathan asked, heading toward the helm.

  “I don’t know what to expect, which is why I’d like to be ready for anything.”

  Moments later came the thunder of canvas as the trade winds caught the rising jib and Kestrel began to strain eagerly at her anchor.

  “What’s that convoy carrying?” Boggs asked. “Better be worth leaving that wench I found in Bridgetown.”

  “Damned if I know, but the pickings ought to be good,” Connor said, watching as the great mainsail began to rise, the mast hoops crawling skyward up the mast with it. He was the picture of relaxed command, but inside his heart was churning as he remembered Rhiannon’s face back there in Sir Graham’s hall, her look of betrayal and abandonment.

  Something twisted in his gut.

  You should go back and get her, his conscience said. Only married one day and you’re already deserting her.

  “Oh, stow it,” he snapped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Bobbs, just talking to myself. Where’s that chart of the harbor?”

  “Here, sir.” It was One-Eye, handing him the map of Carlisle Bay and the surrounding coast.

  Connor glanced at it, made sense of about half of it, and having gone through the motions, returned it to One-Eye. “Give it to Nathan, he’s got the helm,” he said, and went to supervise the anchor’s retrieval.

  Some captain you make, his conscience continued. But you have them all fooled, don’t you? They all think you can walk on water, just because you’re lucky. How confident do you think they’d be in you if they knew you can’t even read that damned chart?

  “Haul! Haul! Haul!” came the cry, and the mainsail finally reached its full height and was sheeted home.

  “Get the hook in,” Connor ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The men at the windlass put their backs into it and moments later, the anchor came surging up from the bottom, swinging from the cathead and dripping a torrent of water back into the sea. The schooner began to drift, and her motion changed subtly beneath Connor’s feet. The harbor was a deep mauve and purple shot through with orange from the sunset, and already, the riding lights of Sir Graham’s flagship and several warships in the harbor were starting to glitter across the water.

  Near the tiller Nathan had the chart open and was already plotting a course.

  “Wind’s backed to the northwest, Con,” he said. “We ought to have a straight shot out of the bay and down around the southern coast of the island, and then it’ll be clear sailing all the way into the shipping lanes.”

  “Happy hunting,” Connor said, grinning.

  “Happy hunting, indeed,” Nathan agreed, and as the sun finally settled beneath the haze far off to the west, and the last of the color leached from the sky and the surface of the sea, the Yankee privateer showed her heels to Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown, and Barbados itself.

  * * *

  “Rhiannon! Open up. It’s me, Toby.”

  It was some time before Rhiannon, curled up on Nathan’s bunk and deeply asleep, realized that the knocking sound wasn’t part of a dream, but reality.

  She opened her eyes and saw the lantern swinging in the gloom.

  “Rhiannon!” The knocking on the cabin door grew more persistent. “A
re you all right in there?”

  She got up, knuckled her eyes, and opened the door.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy said, blushing so hard that his freckles disappeared into the sudden profusion of color in his cheeks. “I didn’t know you were sleeping.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Near dawn. Barbados is twenty miles astern of us. Too late to turn back.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you ready to face the music?”

  Rhiannon eyed the cabin. She wished there was a chamber pot, but that was something she’d probably have to find elsewhere. Heaven knew she couldn’t do what the men did when it came to relieving herself.

  Toby saw her predicament and his blush became downright crimson. “Do you, um . . . need an, um . . . “

  “That would be nice,” she said, blushing herself, and moments later he reappeared with what she needed. She disappeared back in the tiny cabin and wondered how on earth Mira Merrick had managed on a ship full of men, and determined to ask her when she next saw her.

  She finished her ablutions, picked up the round hat that Mira had found for her and, cinching the rope belt around her waist a little tighter in order to hold up Toby’s trousers, followed the youth topside.

  Far beyond the long, plunging jib-boom, dawn was breaking and glowing gold against thin bands of cloud that sat poised on the horizon. Above, Kestrel’s pennants snapped crisply in the wind, and her great foresail and mainsail glowed with the colors of dawn. The sea hissed along her side as she met each long ocean swell with her starboard shoulder and Rhiannon, standing barefoot on a deck that felt damp and sticky with salt, inhaled deeply of the fresh sea air as the water around her turned a deep, vibrant azure.

  From somewhere forward, the smells of cooking were already coming from the galley.

  “Is he up yet?” she whispered, looking aft toward the tiller.

  “Not yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s sleeping. If Connor gets four hours of rest a night, it’s a rarity.”

  Rhiannon’s eyes sparkled with sudden mischief. “He’s going to be furious to find me aboard.”

  “Probably.”

  “Good morning, ma’m,” said Nathan, with a short bow. “You’ll have the devil to pay for this stunt.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Here, have some breakfast,” One-Eye said, thrusting a bowl of gray oatmeal into her hands.

  Rhiannon looked up. The sunrise was strengthening against the pennant that flew from Kestrel’s foremast and was now glowing against the topgallant yard . . . that lofty sail, itself.

  “What a beautiful sight,” she said, spooning the gluey mixture into her mouth.

  “The sunrise is even prettier up there,” Nathan said, tipping back his tawny head to gaze aloft. “I’ll take you up if you want to watch it.”

  Rhiannon felt the bottom drop out of her stomach and her palms were suddenly cold and sweaty. Her appetite gone, she handed the bowl back to One-Eye. “Thank you, Nathan, but I’m terrified of heights.”

  “Captain’s coming,” Bobbs announced, looking aft.

  Rhiannon drew herself up and swallowed hard. Sure enough, her husband was coming up from below, the early sunlight glinting against his mahogany curls. He cut a dashing figure. He had foregone the straw hat and was dressed in the double-breasted blue pea coat that Rhiannon had first seen him in, a black kerchief knotted carelessly around his neck and his trousers, cut from a rough fabric that looked like sailcloth, hacked off just below the knee. As usual, he was barefoot.

  “Top of the morning to you, lads,” he said, glancing at the compass and then aloft.

  “Same to you, Captain.”

  “Anything show up yet on the horizon?”

  “Just a few clouds, sir.”

  Kestrel’s captain took a spyglass from the rack, lifted it to his eye, and trained it on the eastern horizon. He was unaware that his wife stood a few feet away, admiring how handsome his shoulders were in the snug-fitting coat and wondering how long it would take for him to notice her. Around her, the men were snickering, elbowing each other, and whispering loudly.

  “What is so funny?” Connor asked, without turning around.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Aye, nothing a’ t’all!”

  Connor snapped the glass shut, replaced it in the rack, and swung to face them all. His sharp green gaze moved from Nathan standing stoically at the tiller, to One-Eye, to Bobbs, to Jacques, to Toby . . .

  And to Rhiannon.

  “What the hell?”

  “Hello, Connor,” she said, in a voice that was meant to be cheerful and confident but came out sounding like a squeak from a choking mouse.

  “Rhiannon?!”

  “Yes?”

  Frowning, he came up to her, yanked off her round hat, and stood staring as her bright red-gold hair spilled down around her shoulders and tumbled down her back.

  “How the devil did you get aboard?!”

  “The same way as everyone else, I imagine. I took a boat, then came up the side.”

  “You know very well what I mean! Who is responsible for this?”

  “I am.”

  “Who brought you aboard?!”

  Rhiannon stood her ground. Beside her, Toby’s brown eyes had widened behind his spectacles and he was starting to look nervous. At the tiller, Nathan peered up at the great mainsail and whistling, made a small adjustment to the schooner’s course, and the crew began to look worried.

  “A woman’s place is with her husband,” Rhiannon said, refusing to back down to Connor’s glowering stare.

  “Your place is safe in Bridgetown with my sister and my family!”

  “No, it is with you.”

  Jacques raised his hand to the side of his mouth and as an aside to Bobbs, said, “Madame has spirit.”

  “Stow it!” Connor roared.

  “Connor, I—”

  “You didn’t just row a boat out to Kestrel and come aboard all by yourself, Rhiannon. Who sneaked you aboard?”

  She just smiled.

  “Who?!”

  “Your mother.”

  “My moth—” He paused in mid-sentence, unsurprised by this revelation but rendered temporarily speechless all the same.

  “I know women,” Jacques said importantly. “Once they get to plotting, we men just don’t have a chance.”

  “I said stow it!”

  “Aye, Captain. But if you ask me, the best way to a woman’s heart is—”

  Connor rounded on the Frenchman and at that moment, a cry drifted down from above.

  “Sail ho, fine off the larboard bow!”

  Connor threw one last, frustrated look at Rhiannon that promised full retribution later, stalked to the rack and grabbing a glass, went to the rail.

  And just like that, Rhiannon found herself forgotten as the lookout shouted, “On deck! Another sail, far to the north’ard . . . and another!”

  Rhiannon was forgotten, all right.

  They had found the convoy.

  Chapter 21

  “Your orders, sir?”

  Connor studied the sails of the distant convoy, so far off that he could barely pick out their royals and t’gallants from the haze and wispy clouds that lay heavily on the horizon.

  His mind awhirl, he steadied himself against the rail and willed himself to take one thing at a time in order to try and reduce the confusion of thinking of too many things at once. Rhiannon. His mother’s mischief. The convoy. Damn. He was keenly aware of Rhiannon standing somewhere nearby, and he still didn’t know whether to be enraged or excited about her presence on the ship. She was one matter that must be dealt with. Then there was the convoy, beating to the north and presenting an opportunity that no self-respecting Yankee privateer could pass up—even if they were in Sir Graham’s waters. Another matter that must be dealt with.

  He took a deep breath. First things first.

  “Run up British colors,” he said. “They don’t have to know who we are. Yet.”

 
; Moments later the Union Jack streamed from Kestrel’s gaff, and Connor hoped the ruse would fool not only the convoy so that he could get in close, but the Royal Navy warships that would surely be guarding the long line of ships itself. A thrum of excitement began to course through his blood and he felt suddenly unfettered, excited, and alive.

  All but rubbing his hands together in anticipation, he strode confidently to the helm. There, Nathan had the tiller.

  “If we keep on this course we’ll close with them by nightfall,” he said, shading his eyes against the late afternoon sun. “Easy pickings, after that.”

  Rhiannon was standing there too. “What are you planning on doing?”

  Second things second. Time to deal with his errant wife.

  “Rhiannon, go below and wait for me in my cabin.”

  “Why?”

  “This is a warship. I don’t want you on deck.”

  “You just said yourself that we won’t close with that convoy until nightfall. So what is the hurry?”

  Nathan cleared his throat and pretended to be engrossed in studying the binnacle.

  The merriment faded from Connor’s eyes. “Don’t question me, Rhiannon. I told you to go below.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Because I can’t concentrate on two things at once and you’re a distraction, a huge distraction, that’s why.

  Nathan didn’t look up. “Best not to question the captain’s orders,” he said matter-of-factly. “Always leads to trouble.”

  “He’s not my captain, he’s my husband.”

  “Then you have twice as much reason to obey me,” Connor said impatiently, taking her hand and steering her toward the hatch. There, out of earshot of his men, she stopped and planted her feet.

  “Obey you?”

  “How quickly you forget your marriage vows, my dear.”

  “Marriage vows that were penned, no doubt, by a man. I’m staying here.”

  “You can’t. I need to think, and I can’t think if you’re here distracting me.”

  “Distracting you from what? Recklessly attacking an entire convoy? You’re insane!”

  “And about to become very rich.”

  “I’m worried about you! This is madness!”