Captain of My Heart (16 page)

And an emaciated gray wharf cat that prowled
around him, rubbing against his bent legs and begging for a
handout.

All this Mira took in at a full gallop,
through the lash of Rigel’s mane and the haze of her own mounting
excitement. And it was the boy’s misfortune that he chose that
exact moment to tire of the cat’s pestering and, rising, kicked
viciously at the hapless creature and sent it sprawling across the
wharf.

Poor sixteen-year-old Billy Jacobs never knew
what hit him. One moment he was cleaning fish and thinking about
one of the wenches who worked at Wolfe Tavern; the next he was
flung onto the back and set upon by a fury straight from hell.

Brawling had never been Mira’s forte, but she
could certainly hold her own when she had to. In her wrath Mira was
heedless of the fact that Billy outweighed her by a good fifty
pounds. What mattered was that he outweighed the cat by a hundred
forty!

“Kick a defenseless animal, will you? Abuse
something smaller than you?” Screaming at the top of her lungs, she
pummeled his nose, his lips, his cheek, with merciless fists. “How
dare you, you worthless pile of puke! Slinking skin of a maggot!
I’ll teach you never to do it again!” She smashed him a good one to
the side of his eye, landed another to the bottom of his chin. “You
think you’re the only critter God put on this earth?” His nose
crumpled under her fist and sprayed blood. “I ever see you hurting
an innocent animal again, so help me God I’ll kill you, you heaping
pile of moose manure!”

So caught up was she in giving Billy his just
desserts that she never saw the gang of shipyard and dock workers,
seamen, fishermen—and passengers from the stage—who all dropped
what they were doing and came racing headlong down the wharf to see
the fight. But she heard them cheering her on, those from the
Ashton yards yelling at the tops of their lungs and jumping up and
down in wild excitement. “Go, Mira! Go, Mira! Whip ’im good! Bloody
his nose s’more! C’mon, Mira! Kill ’im!”

Billy, howling in pain, was now giving as
good as he got, slamming his fist into the side of her chin so hard
that he nearly dislocated her head from her neck. She swung
viciously back and blackened his eye. Again, and she cut her frozen
knuckles on his tooth. They were blind punches, for she saw nothing
through her tangled hair, heard nothing but the roar of the crowd
cheering her on, felt nothing but a haze of red anger and his
cowardly tears diluting the blood that ran from her knuckles. And
she was barely aware of her own voice, though she was yelling at a
volume that would’ve rivaled anything Ephraim could have produced.
“And furthermore, if I ever again hear that you’ve been mistreating
your horse—”

“Stop,” he sobbed, “oh please, for the love
of God, stop—”

“—I’ll make you wish you were never
born!”

“
Stop!”
He was screaming now,
terrified. “Mercy! Mercy!”

“Cowardly scum!” she raged, slamming him
hard. “Do you think that cat could ask for mercy? Or your horse?
Damn you for the sniveling rat you are! Only cowards mistreat
helpless animals!”

And as she drew back for another blow, her
wrist was seized in a hard and unyielding grip.

Blinded by fury, she sprang to her feet,
already swinging at the idiot who’d dared pull her off a fight
she’d clearly been winning. She saw a blur of cloth and lace as his
arm flashed up, catching her fist against his open hand before it
could connect with his face. She opened her mouth to fire a stream
of choice curses at him—

—and in horror, realized who it was.

Brendan.

He stood holding her by both wrists, looking
shocked but not surprised. Behind him the crowd sent up a clamor of
protest, some muttering, some yelling, but all quite vocal about
their dismay that he’d put an end to their entertainment. He
ignored them, looking polished and handsome in an elegant green
frock coat trimmed in gold brocade—too polished and handsome to be
troubling himself with a one-sided dockyard fight. But his
expression was an interesting mix of amusement and admiration as he
stared down at her. She drew herself up, shoved her hair out of her
face—and not knowing what else to do, grinned sheepishly.

“Hello, Brendan.”

“What was that you were saying,” he said with
a meaningful glance at the sobbing Billy, “about picking on poor
defenseless creatures, Miss
Moyrrra?
”

Oh, wounds, she thought, beginning to feel
quite awkward. She’d done it again, hadn’t she? The awkwardness
progressed into downright embarrassment at being caught in such an
unladylike pursuit as fighting.

But damn it all, Billy had deserved it! So
what if Brendan disapproved? What did his opinion matter,
anyhow?

It mattered quite a bit, otherwise she
wouldn’t feel so awkward and uncomfortable, nor would his mere
touch make her remember the kisses that had burned themselves into
her memory. She cursed, inwardly. No doubt he thought of her as
some little street urchin, with her hair a wall of darkness she
couldn’t even see through, and her clothes—her brother’s
clothes—ripe with horse-scent. Nearby, Billy, his face in his
hands, was sobbing, and she could hear the loud grumbles and
complaints of the crowd.

She tossed her head, and her hair flung
itself out of her eyes and over one shoulder and she could see
again. A hundred people were staring at her, those who knew her
laughing and jostling one another in the ribs, those who didn’t
staring in shocked horror when it became apparent that the scrappy
little lad who’d been beating up another twice his size was no
scrappy little lad at all. There were a few women, who didn’t look
quite so amused or admiring as the men. Especially the chubby one
in the pink silk gown and thick cape who stood gaping at her just
behind Brendan.

Mira’s wrists were still held in his viselike
grip, and she tried to jerk free so that she might reclaim her
dignity. “Defenseless?” She attempted a smile and wished she could
melt into the cracks between the wharf planking. “Billy is not
defenseless. He carries a knife in his belt, and if he’d tried to
use it on me, it wouldn’t have been the first time. And would you
please—” She renewed her struggles to free herself. “— let go of my
wrists? Really, Brendan, I don’t consider
you
defenseless. I
won’t hit you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

He laughed and released her, his expression
instantly sobering when Billy, with a strangled sob, lunged to his
feet and hurled himself at Mira. Brendan grabbed him before any
more damage could be done. “Here now,” he said disapprovingly.
“We’ll have none of that. She won the fight fair and square, lad.
Go on home now before you two end up bloody well killing each
other.”

“I’ll not be bested by a mere woman!”

Mira whirled, her thick hair flashing about
her face. “You were bested, Billy, and if you lay one finger on me,
so help me God I’ll send you spinning on your arse so hard, you
won’t be able to get up in the morning!” She hunched her shoulders
and tapped her chin, her angry breaths coming out in frosty puffs.
“Come on, try it! Hit
me,
not a poor little cat! C’mon, I
dare you, you frigging pile of cow sh—”

“I said,
enough!”
Brendan yanked the
two apart, his voice sterner than she’d ever heard it. “And that
goes for both of you. Young man, take your fish bucket and go. Miss
Mira, please tend to your horse. He seems to be eating the
adornments on that woman’s hat, and I daresay she’s likely to
swoon—”

The crowd exploded in laughter, and when Mira
saw whose hat Rigel was chomping on, she did, too. “Rigel!” She
placed two frozen fingers into her mouth and whistled, and the colt
lifted his head from Miss Lucy Preble’s perfectly outlandish hair
arrangement, a few silk daisies caught helplessly in his mouth.
Chewing loudly, he stepped away from his victim—who chose that
moment to swoon, exactly as Brendan had predicted—and started
toward Mira, his shod hooves booming hollowly upon the wharf as he
broke into a trot.

The crowd roared, and even Brendan’s russet
brows lifted in high amusement. But the sulky girl in pink who
stood behind him did not smile. In fact, she didn’t look amused at
all.

“Really, Brendan. Can we please go now?” she
sniffed.

Mira, catching Rigel’s bridle, felt the grin
freeze upon her mouth. The girl had a possessive hand on Brendan’s
sleeve now, and she was looking at both Mira and Rigel with a
mixture of dislike, disdain, and unfriendliness she made no attempt
to hide. She had pale golden hair that was powdered into even more
paleness, too much jewelry hanging around what little neck she had,
and a very full, pouting mouth that was firmly anchored on both
beams. And that wasn’t all she had. A double chin. Short little
legs and inflated wrists, also draped with jewelry. Doughy white
skin and pudgy hands, one peeping beneath yards of lace, the other
tucked into the pocket of her voluminous skirts, as though she was
trying to hide it.

There were enough similarities between the
two—the same caramel-colored eyes, the same nose, cripes, even the
same way one brow was set slightly higher than the other—that there
was no doubt in Mira’s mind just who this girl was.

Drawing Rigel close, Mira looked from one to
the other and said baldly, “Oh, don’t mind Miss Preble. She’s just
mad ’cause my brother dumped her last month. But she really
shouldn’t be, ’cause he’s since dumped the girl he dumped her for,
and I have a running bet with Father that he’ll dump the present
one before the month is out. Besides, anyone could see by the way
she was looking at Brendan that the swoon was a calculated attempt
to get his attention. There’s nothing wrong with her, believe
me.”

Brendan made a strangled sound.

“’Bout time Matt put a new coat of paint on
Mistress’s
figurehead, seeing’s how he’s made it a tradition
to paint it like his lover every time he decides to find himself a
new one.” She jerked her head in the direction of the brig standing
anchored in the harbor. “Right now, that figurehead has so many
layers of paint on it, I figure it’d take ten workers wielding a
hundred chisels a year to dig it all off.”

Her attempts at humor, though truthful,
brought a sparkle to Brendan’s eye, but only further contempt to
his companion’s.

“Brendan,”the girl whined, and tugged at his
sleeve.

“
Fan go fóill,
Eveleen. Just a
moment.”

“But Brendan, I’m hungry.”

The crowd, losing interest, began to
disperse. “I said, just a moment, Eveleen. I think introductions
are in order.”

“Introductions? You mean you’re acquainted
with this . . . this creature?”

Mira’s hands tightened on Rigel’s reins, and
she drew herself up to her full height. “Are you calling my horse a
creature?”

The girl gave her a long, haughty look, the
sort a queen might have given a fishwife. There was no warmth in
her eyes, just plain, open hostility. “No, I am not. I was
referring to you.”

“Oh, dear.” Brendan caught Mira as she lunged
forward. “Please, ladies, we’ll have none of this.”

Mira struggled in his grip. “She just
insulted me!”

“Brendan, can we please get going? You
promised to take me to this Wolfe Tavern for a piece of apple
pie.”

“Eveleen, just a moment, please! Eveleen,
this is Miss Mi—”

“Brendan, you always think of yourself and
not me. How would you like to be starving and hungry? But no,
you’re so eager to go see this stupid ship of yours that you’re
ignorant of my needs. Can we please go? That animal smells most
horribly, my feet are numb with cold, and as I’ve told you two
times already, I’m
hungry.”

“Smells?” Mira raged. “He does not
smell!”

“I think she was referring to you again,”
Billy got in.

“You shut your damned mouth, Billy, or I’ll
shut it for you!”

“You just try it!”

“Oh, I plan to, so help me God!”

“Brendan, I told you, I’m
hungry
.”

“Eveleen,
wait.
Young man, I said go
home! Mira, settle down, would you? Faith and troth, this is
ridiculous!” He grabbed Mira’s scrawny arm and yanked her away from
Billy, hauling Eveleen forward by the elbow at the same time. Mira
was a spitting cat, Eveleen an unruffled queen. “Let’s start over.
Mira, this is my sister, Eveleen. Eveleen, this young lass is Miss
Mira Ashton. She’s the one whose family you’ll be staying
with.”

Eveleen’s pale eyebrow, so like her brother’s
in shape and set, lifted at Brendan’s reference to Mira’s gender.
Her haughty gaze took in the boyish garb, the unbound hair, the
clenched and bloody fists. Airily she said, “Let’s just hope, then,
that the rest of her family conduct themselves in a more . . .
genteel way. And also that they’ve invited us for supper. I would
really love some apple pie . . . Brendan, do you think her servants
may have made some for dessert tonight?”

“
I
made dessert for tonight!” Mira
bellowed.

Brendan paled and turned his attention toward
the vessels in the river instead, seeking
her
out.

“Did you? Well, I daresay I hope you washed
yourself beforehand. I happen to be very particular about my
food.”

“I would never have guessed!”

“And what do you mean by that, Miss
Ashton?”

“Get a mirror and maybe you’ll see!”

“Brendan? Oh, Brendan? Stop looking at those
dumb ships, would you? This . . . this person has just insulted me,
and I don’t appreciate it at all. Brendan?”

“Lovely,” he said absently.

“She is
not
lovely,” Eveleen sniffed.
“She is unkempt and unclean and she’s wearing masculine clothes.
Foul-smelling masculine clothes, I might add. I can’t believe you’d
suffer her to teach me how to ride.”