“What?”
The girl was rising, her long golden hair fanning out over her shoulders. “Jealousy,” she said quietly. “It has brought down many a man. My father included—and my brother, if he’d have allowed it.”
She turned on her heel and shuffled out of the dining room, leaving Ephraim and Abigail to stare after her in disbelief.
Their gazes met. The johnnycakes, the ham, the cheese—and yes, even the muffin—were untouched.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ephraim said.
###
Things were quiet indeed up in the east room, for Brendan wasn’t in it.
He’d allowed Ephraim to all but drag him in there last night, but he hadn’t stayed long. Instead, he’d paced the floor and finished up one of his sketches while he waited for the old sea captain to retire, an event that had occurred at precisely a quarter to one and not a second later, judging by the loud snoring coming from that area of the house. Before the nineteen clocks (it was up to that now) could finish tolling out the hour, Brendan had pried open the frozen sill of his window, hung out of it by his fingers, and dropped two stories into several feet of snow.
It had taken only thirty minutes to make his way back to Kestrel.
He felt guilty about deceiving the old man, but Mira had been in the next room, and he no longer trusted himself around her. He’d seen the hungry looks she’d given him over supper, felt her dainty foot rubbing up and down his leg beneath the table, burning it even through his wool stockings. Thank God for the tablecloth that had hidden the evidence of his desire for her. If he’d stayed at the Ashton house last night, they would have ended up in Mira’s bed or his. He had too much respect for the old man to make love to his daughter right under his own roof . . . even if they’d already announced their betrothal.
He awoke aboard the gently rocking schooner, long after the sun had heaved itself above the tip of Plum Island and shone lemon and gold upon the harbor. The cabin still smelled faintly of gun smoke; he could almost imagine the glorious thunder of the guns above, pounding away in fury, hear the shouts of battle-crazed men, feel Kestrel moving silently under his feet and gliding through the sea. . . .
He folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the deckhead, his lips curved in a faint grin. Footsteps sounded above him; Liam must already be escorting the first reverent visitors aboard. Abruptly his grin faded. They’d made him a celebrity, just as they had poor Matt.
Poor Matt? Ashton, at least, loved every minute of it.
The footsteps were moving toward the hatch now, too light to be Liam’s, too solitary to be the throng he expected—and dreaded.
Dalby.
He shut his eyes. No. Not Dalby. Please God, not this morning . . . .
The door creaked open and he let his jaw relax, pretending sleep.
Silence. Then footsteps coming slowly across the cabin, a hand touching his shoulder.
“Captain?”
His eyes shot open. It was Mira.
“I’m sorry to wake you.” Her eyes were bright, and there was a healthy glow to her cheeks from being out in the cold. “I didn’t think you’d be sleeping.”
“Er, actually, I wasn’t.”
She smiled saucily and folded her arms. “Sure looked it to me.”
“I’ve grown very good at pretending. You see, I thought you were Dalby. . . .”
“Ah yes, that little man with the constant stomachache?”
“The very one.”
She sat beside him, her eyes softening with humor, then love. Contrary to his words, he looked like a man who’d just awakened; his rich chestnut hair was pleasantly rumpled, his face relaxed, his eyelids heavy. He smelled sweetly of the warm scents of sleep, and his nightshirt, looking as if it had seen better days, gaped open at his throat, revealing a wedge of golden skin and a light mat of auburn hair. A delicious warmth spread through her belly and radiated into her thighs. He was handsome and desirable, and that delicious warmth soon became a delicious ache. Unconsciously, Mira licked her lips and reached out to touch his unshaven jaw.
His own eyes darkened. “You look as good as breakfast after a three-day fast, lass.”
“Do I?” Her fingers traced the shape of his mouth. “Why don’t you kiss me and see if I taste as good, too?”
He laughed and hooked an arm around her neck, pulling her down and kissing her long and hard. Then he released her, sank back against his pillow, and gazed lazily up at her in a way that quickened her heartbeat and sent tremors pounding through her blood. She took his hand and reverently kissed each finger, each knuckle, even the calluses that hardened his palm, before curling his fingers into a fist, placing it against her face, and rubbing it up and down her cheek. Presently that hand unfolded itself and pushed beneath the thick warmth of her unbound hair and pulled her close. Mira sighed and closed her eyes.
“I missed you, Moyrrra. “
Brief pictures flickered through her mind. Of Brendan, hanging out of the shrouds and sketching madly as the cannonballs and musket shot shrieked around him. Brendan, cleverly tricking the big frigate into believing they’d gone aground when they’d been in water over a thousand feet deep. Brendan, fidgeting madly as he’d brought Kestrel into port, dreading the fuss that Newburyport would—and did—make over him. She had seen his haunted eyes, conspicuously absent of mirth, and known it was all he could do not to flee when the townspeople had set upon him in a frenzy of joy and admiration. And the look of misery on his face as they’d hoisted him up on their shoulders and paraded him through Market Square with all the fanfare due their most gallant hero. . . .
Ah, Brendan. Her poor, humble captain!
She glanced outside, hiding a private smile. Sunlight gilded the cold river that flowed just beyond Kestrel’s stern windows, and she could see the hulls of the new prizes reflecting black and brown and white against the water. Once again she remembered the sea fight, the English captain’s indignation, and the cheers of Newburyport as Kestrel and Proud Mistress herded those prizes through the river’s mouth and into the harbor. . . .
“And I missed you, too, Brendan. That was quite a haul you and Matt made. I hear you were very clever and brave.”
He made a dismissive sound. “And from whom did you hear that?”
“Mr. Starr told me,” she said, with an impish glint in her eye.
“Oh? Are you two friends?”
“We . . . know each other.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You with your cats and Mr. Starr with his chickens.”
“Chickens?” She cocked one dainty brow.
“Aye, chickens. Can you believe it? I caught him talking to one of the roosters we’d taken aboard as fare for the soup pot. Had the thing perched on his shoulder like a pirate with a parrot. A chicken!”
“Well, we animal lovers have to stick together,” she chirped, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
He smiled and closed his eyes. “Ah, you’re good to come home to.”
“Let me sail with you and we’ll never be apart.”
“Good God, Moyrra, that is out of the question!”
“Why?”
“You could get hurt! You’d be a distraction! It would be unseemly!”
“So is sneaking off in the middle of the night, Brendan. Do you think I didn’t see the marks in the snow where you landed after jumping out the window? Or the tracks leading off across the lawn? ’Tis a wonder you didn’t break your fool neck! And here Father thinks you’re still abed.”
“I am.” He was grinning. “Join me.”
“Gladly.”
She crawled in beside him, trembling with delight as his arms went around her. They lay there for a moment, listening to the water against the rudder just below.
“I love you, Mira.”
“As much as you love Kestrel?”
He pulled back. “What?”
“Be truthful now, Brendan. Tell me that you love me as much as you do her.”
He missed the flippant,
teasing note in her voice. Truthfully he said, “In a different way.”
“How different?”
“Faith, lassie, you can’t compare a woman to a ship! They’re two different things.”
“Are they?”
She stared at him, her eyes challenging, her chin high. He couldn’t fool her. She was a shipbuilder’s daughter—faith, what did he expect?
Quietly she repeated, “Are they?”
“Moyrra, mo bhourneen . . . my love . . . A ship is made of wood and wind and canvas, a woman of flesh and blood. But both have a heart, both have a soul. Both sing when they are pleased, cry when they are not. Both call to a man’s heart, draw him into their spell, bewitch him. Both are lassies, sultry and sweet and—”
“Brendan.”
“—gentle, lovely and—”
“Brendan.”
He paused, wondering why he felt suddenly panicky.
“You don’t have to explain. I know how it is with seamen.”
“Do you?”
“Brendan, what is the matter? You seem most agitated.”
He reached up and drew her down atop him, wanting to prove that she occupied as big a place in his heart as Kestrel did—it was just a different one. But would she be content with that part of his heart? Or, like Julia, would she want all of it?
Julia.
Fear drove through him, cold, raw terror that froze his throat and made him want to jump up and flee. But Mira’s hands were gentle and soft as she stroked his hair, his roughly stubbled chin, and kissing her fingers, touched them to his lips. Finally he relaxed, reminding himself that Mira was not Julia, that Mira would never be Julia, and that he had nothing to fear.
And then her hand found his arousal beneath the blanket, and he stopped thinking of Julia, the past, even of Kestrel herself.
Chapter 21
Ephraim caught her just as she was slipping out the door a fortnight later, garbed in her brother’s clothes, carrying a trunk with a few belongings, and heading for Kestrel.
Obviously it hadn’t taken him long to put two and two together, and all her screaming, yelling, and carrying on hadn’t done a bit of good. Ephraim was adamant about keeping her off the sea, especially now that Captain Merrick had offered for her. Furious and outmaneuvered, Mira found herself land-bound at last—and a spectator to Kestrel’s glorious departure instead of a participant.
Sitting astride Rigel, she watched angrily from Plum Island’s northernmost shore as the surf curled around his hooves and the wind, heavy and wet with the tang of the sea, blew her hair into her eyes, across her mouth, and around her shoulders.
In the distance, Kestrel was approaching, making her way downriver toward the open sea.
It was impossible to maintain her anger in the face of such beauty. Reaching up, Mira cleared the hair out of her suddenly misty eyes and beheld the majestic sight. The schooner was parading toward her, her sails blossoming like a rose seeking spring. Water sparkled at her bows, and Mira caught bits and pieces of sound that only made her heart ache more as she came close, passed, and moved through the channel and toward open sea: Zachary Wilbur calling for more sail, orders being passed, Liam’s fiddle—and Brendan’s laughter. Where was he? And then she saw him, one hand on the tiller, the other waving to her before blowing her a kiss. Sadness swept over her, then admiration. Sadness because Brendan was there and she was here; admiration because there wasn’t anything else a person could feel at sight of Kestrel.
The schooner rode high in her own bow wake, dancing upon a sheet of white froth. She was a sight to steal one’s breath away as she swung her nose toward the wind and showed her heels to the land. She was beautiful. Glorious. And for this cruise, she would have her captain all to herself.
Mira shoved her hair out of her face and tried not to think about it.
They’d be back soon. Brendan had promised.
Proud Mistress, sporting a freshly painted figurehead, was passing through the channel now, gliding in the schooner’s wake like an attendant on a queen. Mira fished in her pocket, found her spyglass, and raised it. The brig’s decks teemed with high-spirited Newburyporters, all waving wildly to her. So many years she’d sailed with these men. So many times Matt had led them into battle and glory, and still their excitement for a cruise made oldsters into boys, boys into hellions, men into heroes. And there was Matt, standing on the quarterdeck, coattails flapping in the wind, red hair whipping, scanning the shoreline and obviously looking for her. And then their eyes met, brother and sister, and she saw his teasing grin as he raised his hand in farewell.
Then the brig’s courses filled with healthy wind and she leaned her shoulder into the waves, carrying Matt away from her. Far ahead and well into open ocean now, Kestrel spread her topsails and topgallant, and Mira watched her until even the spyglass couldn’t pick out the details on her deck any longer. Then Kestrel fell below the horizon. Sunlight glinted on those lofty sails, once, twice; then she was gone.
Around her, the cold wind sounded like a dirge, and Mira trembled without knowing why.
And as she turned Rigel into the wind and headed back toward town, she realized she was more her father’s daughter than even she’d thought.
In her hand was a watch, and she was studying it.
Counting the hours until Kestrel would bring the man they both loved back to her.
###
“That’s it, Eveleen. Keep her going now, nice and steady. A little faster and we’ll quit for the day.”
Eveleen, clad in a plum-colored riding habit and wearing a hat with a feather sticking out of it, gave her instructor a sour look. But a combination of exercising her horse, shoveling the stall, and, at Abigail’s gentle suggestion, limiting her desserts to only the treats that Mira had made, was beginning to have an effect on her figure. Eveleen no longer got winded when she walked Shaula around the field, the pink dresses were getting baggy on her, and the times when Mira would have to yell and scream and threaten just to get her to do something were growing few and far between. With every bit of ground she gained, Eveleen’s confidence grew, and these days, there was something in her eyes that couldn’t quite be hidden—the triumph of accomplishment. Today, however, was one of her biggest achievements to date: Shaula was actually trotting around the field. Trotting!
“But it hurts, and my stomach’s starting to growl—”
Ignoring her halfhearted whining, Mira threw back her head in laughter. “Eveleen, if you can keep that mare at a trot for three more times around the field, I’ll personally take you down to Wolfe Tavern and buy you a piece of pie big enough to feed Washington’s army.”
The girl was jolted up and down in the saddle with every step the white mare took. But even Eveleen Merrick couldn’t maintain an air of glumness when she’d just accomplished so much, and through knocking teeth, she managed a smile. In it, Mira saw something of Brendan, and her heart gave a little lurch, for he and Matt had been gone for nearly two months now and she missed him, terribly. “You’re doing well,” she coaxed. “We’re almost done.”
“But by then my stomach’s going to be so jarred and jostled, I won’t want pie.”
“Then post. Up and down, up and down. Let the mare’s rhythm guide you. Watch her outside leg, and when it reaches out, rise in your stirrups.” Caught up in the excitement of the moment, Mira sent Rigel ahead to demonstrate, thrilling, as she always did, to the raw, unleashed power of the colt beneath her. “Like this.” Up and down, up and down. “Just a little, enough to take the jostle out of it.”
“Like this?” Eveleen rose out of the saddle so much that Mira could have flown a kite between her rump and the cantle.
“Not so much. You’re working too hard. Let the horse do it for you.”
They trotted side by side, instructor and student, so involved in their mutual triumph that neither heard the bang of guns down in the harbor as a ship was welcomed into the river.
Not two ships, but one.
A privateer had returned
.
Alone.
###
Mira heard the uproar all the way from Miss Mira Ashton’s School of Fine Horsemanship and knew that Matt must be back, for the late spring winds carried Ephraim’s angry bellowing all the way across the paddocks, through the woods, and into the field where she and Eveleen quietly walked their horses.
Eveleen, her face going white, pulled her mount up short. Obviously she’d never witnessed the stormy reunion between father and son when Matt returned from a cruise. But Mira knew what all that hollering was about! With a shout of glee, she gathered her reins and drove her heels into Rigel’s flanks. “Eveleen, c’mon! Matt’s home! Brendan’s home!”
She sent Rigel tearing toward the house, Shaula—with Eveleen clinging to her mane, the reins, and her courage—right behind. And as the two tore out of the woods, raced past the paddocks, and charged into the front yard, Mira’s joy faded and apprehension swept in to take its place.
For there, filling the lawn, pouring up the driveway, and racing in from the street, was an immense throng of people. They were shouting. They were yelling. And where the women were concerned, they were openly sobbing.
And on the doorstep stood Ephraim, his face as white as his hair, his features so twisted with agony that Mira felt the icy fingers of dread crawling up her spine before she’d even thrown herself from Rigel’s back and raced toward him. Tears streamed down his craggy cheeks, and behind him, Abigail slumped against the doorframe, sobbing into her hands.
“Damn ye for a yellow-livered coward! How the bloody hell could you let it happen? Traitor! Goddamned British bastard!” Father’s anguished roar carried over the din of the crowd. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on ye! I rue the day I met ye and curse the day ye sailed into this town, ye miserable, rotten coward!”
Mira came up short. Her chest tightened and her heart stopped cold. She followed Father’s gaze, and the blood drained from her face.
Captain Of My Heart Page 26
