* * *
They took the merchantman without a single shot being fired.
One moment the huge vessel, three-masted and thrice the tonnage of the swift raptor who slid silently up beside her in the darkness, was sailing along without a care in the world, her master safe in the knowledge that the two Royal Navy warships sent to protect them were on guard and keeping all threats at bay. In the next the crew, sitting around on deck smoking, drinking, chewing tobacco and swapping stories, found themselves surprised by grappling irons that came flying over the side; before they could even leap to their feet, their ship was secured to the black ghost-vessel that had appeared from out of nowhere and a barrage of men wielding pistols, cutlasses, knives, blunderbusses, and boarding pikes came pouring onto her decks.
The crew was terrified.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“Give me what I want, and there’ll be no bloodshed,” said the tall, imposing one with the pistol aimed at Captain Roth’s heart.
What he wanted, it seemed, was his ship.
“Round up the crew, Bobbs, and fetch me this tub’s papers. And be quick about it.” The man, garbed in a double-breasted pea coat and shorn canvas trousers, bare-footed and looking as if he would not hesitate to put a ball through Roth’s heart, turned to the quaking master, bowed, and came up with a roguish grin. “I do apologize for the inconvenience. I’m Captain Connor Merrick of the armed American privateer Kestrel, and your ship is now my prize. The sooner we get this business over with, the better off we’ll all be.”
“Merrick? Kestrel?” Roth was staring at the privateer captain through the gloom. “Wasn’t there some famous ship by that name captained by a Merrick during the last war?”
“My father,” the American said, with no small degree of pride. “Just continuing on the family tradition.”
Bobbs reappeared with the ship’s papers. He handed them to his captain along with a lantern so that he could read them, and suddenly Connor wasn’t laughing anymore, because Bobbs didn’t know that he couldn’t read them, at least, not with any haste and certainly not without a significant degree of difficulty, and for a brief, frightening moment, Connor felt his mouth go dry and wished, desperately, that he had brought Nathan along. Nathan knew his secret. Nathan would read the papers.
Dismissively, he handed them back to Bobbs. “I don’t have time to go through something the size of a damned book,” he snapped. “You read them while I go have a look around this tub and see just what it is we’re dealing with.”
There. He’d gotten out of that bind easily enough, and when he returned to Bobbs ten minutes later, he was told that the merchantman was loaded with rum, sugar, molasses, and indigo. The cargo, let alone the ship itself, would fetch a fine amount at auction at the nearest American port.
“Shall we send her into New Orleans, sir?” Bobbs asked.
“No, those greedy bastards’ll take ten percent right off the top,” Connor said. “We’ll fetch more for her in Mobile.”
“Too bad our own coast is blockaded. Sure would be nice to send her back to New England,” said Amos Lunt, sharing a plug of tobacco with one of the English sailors.
“There’s a big enough chance she’ll be recaptured by a British cruiser as it is,” Connor said tersely. “I’m not going to risk sending her all the way home. No, she’s best sent to Mobile, and you, Bobbs, will command her. Take Lunt and your pick of the men here; that should be enough to see you safely into port as long as you show a clean pair of heels to any Britons who see fit to give you chase.”
“Aye, sir.”
Shortly thereafter, the merchantman’s crew were locked below to be released in Mobile, the prize crew under Bobbs was silently setting a course toward the Gulf of Mexico, and Connor was on his way back to Kestrel.
He returned to rousing cheers and lots of happy back-slapping from his men, and the rum flowed like water that night.
At dawn, when the sharp-eyed officers aboard HMS Diana scanned the horizon and set about rounding up the stragglers who had fallen astern during the night, they found the merchantman Peggy Lee missing. Assuming she’d wandered off course in the darkness, Diana went off in search of her, leaving Whippet to guard, as best she could, the rest of the merchant fleet as it continued to sail north toward England—including the sleek black American privateer snugged safely in their midst.
A wolf amongst sheep.
And not a one of them suspected.
Chapter 23
Connor waited until the sun was up and Kestrel was once again laboring along under the pretense of unskilled seamanship. Then, satisfied that their deception held, he relinquished the deck to Nathan and finally went below.
He found Rhiannon in his cabin, sitting in bed with her hair loose around her shoulders and a book in her hand.
He was tired. Spent. But not so tired that the sight of his beautiful wife didn’t immediately cause him to harden with desire as he shut the door behind him.
Rhiannon looked up at him. “Good morning, husband.”
“Good morning, wife.”
“You’re tired.”
“Aye.”
She could see him eyeing the rise of her breasts above the light blanket that covered her.
“Come to bed, Connor.” She put the book down and moved over, making room for him. Her eyes were full of promise. “I was just going to get up, but now that you’re here. . . .”
“I don’t want you to get up.”
He pulled his shirt off from over his head, unbuttoned his cut-off trousers, and stepping out of them, tossed them over the back of his chair. His wife’s eyes darkened as he stood there naked before her and suddenly Connor wasn’t tired at all, despite the fact he’d been up all night.
He slid in beside her and they lay together, skin to skin beneath the blanket. Beyond the open stern windows he could see the unsuspecting ships of the convoy, and wondered which one he might pluck for tonight’s prize.
And then his wife’s hand was touching, stroking, fondling his growing arousal, and Connor, happily distracted, stopped thinking about ships.
* * *
For the next five nights, it was a repeat of what had happened aboard Peggy Lee, one prize after another boarded under cover of darkness right under the Lion’s nose, Kestrel sailing innocently along in convoy during the day while her crew slept belowdecks, and another prize boarded and taken the following night, until nine merchantmen in all had inexplicably disappeared from the convoy.
“Think it’s time to call it a day?” Nathan asked as he and Connor watched the brigantine Betsy, her lights doused and only her sails against the starlight marking her progress, sail off toward Mobile under the command of the small prize crew that Connor had just put aboard her. “We’ll be pushing our luck if we keep at it much longer.”
“It’s not the luck I’m worried about pushing, it’s the fact we’re down to a skeleton crew. We’ve only enough men to sail back to Barbados, and no more to man out yet another prize. Aye, Cousin. Time to end what’s been a very lucrative venture.”
Dawn was breaking, and they were some three hundred miles south of Florida with a good stiff wind coming hard over Kestrel’s starboard quarter. Had they a full crew and no ruse of incompetence to pull off, Connor might have ordered the studding sails set on either side of the fore topsail. It was the perfect wind in which to fly them, but as he leaned idly against the rail watching Diana hauling her wind and heading their way, his gut instincts told him that it was, indeed, high time to make a move.
Fast.
“Think they’ve figured us out?” Nathan asked, following his cousin’s gaze.
“I’m not about to stick around to find out. Call up what remains of the crew and tell them to stand by to make sail.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Rhiannon came up on deck then and saw her husband at the tiller, arms crossed over his chest, his handsome, angular jaw covered with morning bristle that he hadn’t yet bothered to shave. She
had been anticipating his arrival in bed, as she had done every one of these past several mornings, and had been looking forward to an hour of lovemaking before finally letting him grab a few hours of sleep. But not this morning. This morning, her husband was gazing intently past Kestrel’s masts and long, upthrust jib-boom, watching the British frigate far ahead of them coming back down along the line of ships that made up what remained of the convoy.
“Good morning, dear,” he said, smiling.
“Good morning, Connor.”
He leaned close, kissed her in full view of anyone who might be watching and murmured, “I think this morning’s bed play is going to have to wait a bit. You’ll forgive me, I hope?”
“Tired of me already, Captain?”
He laughed. “No, but I think that frigate yonder is tired of us. We’re done here.”
She noted the direction of his gaze and how fast that British frigate was coming on.
“It’s best if you go below, Rhiannon. I think we’ll see some action today.”
“Action?”
“Aye. Our British friends have, I think, finally grown suspicious as to why—and how—ships are disappearing from the convoy every night. The game is up.”
“You don’t mean to actually fight them, now, do you?”
“I will if I have to, though I’d rather not.”
“Your mother told me that Kestrel is aged. That she won’t withstand heavy punishment from a Royal Navy warship.”
“My mother was right.”
He turned and caught Toby’s arm as the lad hurried past. “Toby, get the guns loaded. Double-shotted, please.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“And get ready to hoist our proper flag.”
The frigate was coming closer. Her gun ports were opening and she meant business.
“Time to show them our heels, lads,” Connor said, straightening up. “Ready about.”
“Ready about!”
Kestrel’s great main and foresail were sheeted in and Connor, taking the helm himself, pushed the tiller hard over. The schooner responded instantly, swinging her long, lofty nose around toward the wind, closer and closer, until her great mainsail boom had swung over their heads and she was stern-on to the oncoming frigate which, seeing her make a decisive turn, was now coughing a plume of smoke from the chaser guns mounted in her bow; a split second later, the echoing boom came thundering over the water as her captain demanded that they heave to.
“Run up the flag,” Connor said, grinning.
Moments later, the great red, white and blue flag with its fifteen stars and stripes unfurled itself to the wind, an audacious taunt to the frigate behind them.
Diana fired again and a half-mile astern, a plume of water shot skyward as the cannonball plunged into the sea.
“Are they going to catch us?” Rhiannon asked worriedly.
“Not headed to windward as we are. On this tack we’re the superior with our fore-and-aft rig, and we’ll leave them chewing their bow wake. ‘Twould be another story, though, with the wind dead astern.”
“Aye, that frigate would be deadly,” Nathan added, looking up from where he was casting off the lashing on a nearby gun.
Rhiannon instinctively moved closer to her husband. He had made his work look so easy these past five nights, and observing his behavior, it had been easy to think it had all been child’s play. Now she realized the danger he was in, the danger he’d been in all along, and her blood went cold at the idea of what might happen to him if Kestrel could not outsail that mighty warship back there. She doubted very much that Sir Graham would lift a finger to save him.
In the end though, her worries were for naught. The distance between Kestrel’s rudder and the sea boiling at Diana’s bows grew steadily throughout the afternoon, and though the frigate fired a few more shots in hopeless rage, she never came close to the Yankee privateer.
By the time night fell, the convoy—or rather, what remained of it— was hull down on the horizon, its lights winking like tiny stars in the darkness and Kestrel, her bow smashing up and down in timeless rhythm against the swells that paraded toward them from out of the night, was all alone on the vast Atlantic.
* * *
It took them two days to reach Carlisle Bay, and as they dropped anchor, a tight-mouthed Captain Delmore Lord was rowed out to meet them himself.
“How was your honeymoon cruise?”
“Fruitful,” Connor replied innocently and without batting an eyelash.
Misunderstanding the deliberate double entendre, the Englishman cleared his throat and looked away. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad you’re back. Sir Graham is beside himself, and even your parents can’t get him to relax. Lady Falconer is in labor.”
Connor, privately thinking he was the last person on earth who might get Sir Graham to relax, especially if the admiral had gotten wind of his recent exploits, smiled happily. “Oh, good, I get to be an uncle again.”
From out of the corner of his mouth Nathan, passing nearby, muttered, “Obviously, he doesn’t know what you’ve been up to.”
Guess not. Connor grinned. “Is my sister all right?”
“I don’t know. She started having pains early this morning. Your mother and Mrs. Cox are with her now.”
“No imminent danger, then?”
“How the hell would I know? I know nothing about childbirth!”
“Aye, well, neither do I. But what I do know is that I stink, and this harbor looks pretty damned inviting. It’s tarnal hot here, don’t know how you can stand it, Delmore, all rigged out in uniform like that. The admiral’s not here. Why don’t you join me and the lads for a swim?”
Captain Lord’s aristocratic nostrils flared. “I could never—”
“Yes you could, and I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Impossible,” Captain Lord said, with an abrupt and dismissive shake of his head. He drew himself up in lofty splendor. “I am a captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, I can’t go jumping off ships half-naked!”
“You do know how to swim, don’t you?”
“Well of course I do, that’s not the point—”
“Well then, never mind, Del. Far be it from me to force you to do something you don’t want to do. Me?” Connor was already stripping off his shirt. “I’m not going to show up stinking like a pig after several days at sea, so I’m having a swim first. I’ll join you up at the house, shortly.”
And with that, he stepped up onto Kestrel’s varnished rail, tossed a wicked grin from over his shoulder at the tight-mouthed Captain Lord, and threw himself into the sparkling blue waters of Carlisle Bay without a care in the world.
* * *
Rhiannon came up on deck just as Captain Lord, the morning sun glinting off the gold lace of his blue and white uniform, was rowed away in his boat. She stood at the rail watching her husband move through the clear blue water as though he’d been born to it.
Water streamed over his back, the well-defined muscles in his shoulders and upper arms, and he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Dear God, he was beautiful. And hers. All hers. She couldn’t help but admire him. How could he be so blithe and cheerful in the face of danger, and so reckless that he’d sailed straight into Carlisle Bay with not a worry in the world about Sir Graham’s possible reaction?
Surely, the admiral would guess what Connor had been up to, especially if news about ships missing from a certain convoy had made its way back to Bridgetown.
A little flutter gripped her stomach.
“Guess what, Rhiannon!” He swam near until his face, tanned and handsome and dominated by that wicked, perfect smile, was only several feet below her. “I’m going to be an uncle again. Maeve’s having her baby.”
“And you’re taking a swim?”
“Need one,” he said simply, and his green eyes crinkled at the corners. “Want to join me?”
“No, I’m not going to join you. I can’t believe you’re down there frolicking in the water while your sister n
eeds you!”
“Needs me? Staying away from her while she’s in the whelping box is my way of self-preservation.”
“Connor! What an outrageous thing to say!”
He laughed, and their gazes met. Something warm and wanting fluttered deep in the pit of Rhiannon’s belly and she realized that the more she had of this man, the more she wanted.
“Sir Graham’s going to be very angry with you, you know.”
“I can handle Sir Graham. Why don’t you throw me that line there, dearest? I fancy I’m clean enough.”
“The one wrapped around this cannon?”
“Aye, that very one.”
Rhiannon knelt, picked up the end of the rope, and flung it down to him. Moments later her husband, dripping wet and looking delectable, was hauling himself up over the side, droplets of salt water clinging to his shoulders, his cheeks, and running from his tousled curls.
“You’re shameless,” she said with a helpless little smile.
“I know. I try to be.” He stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. “Kiss me, Rhiannon.”
“You’re soaking wet! You’ll ruin my gown!”
“The hell with your gown,” he said, and a moment later she was wrapped fiercely in his strong, hard arms, his mouth crushing hers and the heat in the pit of her belly spreading to parts of her that knew only one way to relief.
Nathan, coiling a line some thirty feet away, just shook his head and turned away.
* * *
The baby was coming.
Connor and his father had taken poor Sir Graham to the library after the admiral had tried to enter his wife’s bedroom during the hardest part of her labor, only to be rewarded with shouted epithets and hot accusations that he’d been the one to put the babe in her belly and damn him, this was the last, the very last one they were ever going to have. Of course, Connor and Brendan had no way of knowing that Maeve had screamed the very same words at her hapless husband during the birth of each of their previous three children, but Sir Graham had gone white with horror and fear at sight of his wife’s distress and was all but inconsolable. Now, as the admiral paced the floor of the library, Connor and Brendan were both trying their best to calm him down.
Lord Of The Sea Page 23
