Captain of My Heart (32 page)

Leaving the reins looped loosely atop Rigel’s
dappled withers, Mira folded her arms. “Now try it again.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it, Eveleen.”

“You’re just making me do it because you know
I’m afraid! Because I’m fa—”

“I’m making you do it because this mare is
going to be yours
,
and you are going to learn how to care
for, handle, and ride her! That means getting your hands dirty,
taking a few falls, and shoveling manure! Now, press your calves to
her sides, damn it, and try it again! She’s not going to respect
you if you don’t make her do it!”

Eveleen’s face was white beneath her hat
brim. Her hand clenched the reins as though they were a lifeline.
They came up a single inch, her body made a slight jerking motion,
and the fabric below her knee rippled slightly. But Shaula,
grinning if horses actually could, simply batted an ear, craned her
elegant neck around to stare at Eveleen’s foot, and lowered her
head to sniff at the snow. Eveleen shrieked and dropped the reins.
Shaula’s head shot up, Eveleen screamed in terror, and vaulted to
the ground with a speed and agility that Brendan wouldn’t have
believed her capable of had he not seen it with his own eyes.

Mira raised her face to the sky as though
seeking help from above. Admittedly, Brendan couldn’t blame
her.

“You hate me!” Eveleen wailed at the top of
her lungs. “You’ve hated me since the moment you first saw me, and
I did nothing at all to deserve it! You hate me because you don’t
want me to ride this horse! You hate me because I have jewels and
you don’t! You hate me because I have my brother’s love and you
don’t! You hate me because I’m
fat
—”

“Get back on the horse. Or I’ll have your
brother pick you up and put you on her, as he’s been standing there
watching you for the past ten minutes!”

Eveleen froze, her mouth a perfect
O
.
Instantly her tears stopped, her face regained its composure, and
she adopted that whining voice that so grated on Brendan’s nerves.
“Brendan! Oh, thank goodness, I just knew you’d come. She’s trying
to make me ride this smelly, horrible creature! She knows it’s
going to buck and rear and end up killing me! Oh, Brendan, do make
her stop! I don’t
want
to ride!”

He bit his lip, glancing from his sister to
Mira’s strained face. She’d stopped slapping her crop against her
thigh, but her body was stiff with tension. She looked angry and
fiery and beautiful, her eyes flashing and a determined set to her
jaw. He thought of her thighs against the saddle, and remembered
them against his own.
Faith,
he thought, and plunged his
hands into his coat pockets, anchoring the coat over his breeches
to keep his arousal well hidden.

Arching his neck, Rigel stamped and snorted,
his nostrils flaring red. Brendan stepped forward and, sliding his
fingers beneath the colt’s heavy mane, gripped Mira’s cold hand,
stroking her fingers for a long moment. She closed her eyes, and
some of the tension left her face. Looking up at his sister, he
said gently, “Now, Eveleen. Miss Mira’s a very accomplished
horsewoman and she’s just trying to help you. In fact, I’ll bet
she’s taught many young ladies how to ride, haven’t you,
Moyrrra?”

“Er . . . yes.”

“Young
thin
ladies,” Eveleen sobbed.
“Not like me.”

Mira ignited. “Well, if you’d stop eating so
damned much, you wouldn’t have that problem!”

“You continue with your apple pies and tarts
and I won’t!”

“And what the hell is wrong with my apple
pies and tarts?”

“Try using sugar instead of vinegar and maybe
there’d be nothing wrong with them!”

“I didn’t use vinegar, I used lemon juice!
Now, get back on that horse, dammit, before I lose my bleeding
temper! You can fight me till kingdom come, but I’ll see you take
that mare around the field once by your own power if it damn well
kills me!”

“Good, I hope it does!”

Deciding it was a timely moment to intervene,
Brendan took the white mare’s sagging reins, looped them around his
elbow, and bending down, cupped his hands for his sister to step
into. “Here, Eveleen. I’ll help you up, all right? I’ll be right
here if anything should happen.”

“And what good are you? You can’t ride
either!”

“Come on, let’s go,” he said patiently,
keenly aware that one of Mira’s dark brows had shot up in sudden
interest.

Eveleen glared at him as though he were a
traitor, gave Mira a look of pure venom, and favoring her crippled
hand, grasped the pommel and allowed Brendan to boost her up into
the saddle. There she sat, mutinous and angry. “And furthermore,”
she sniffed, “this is not a proper sidesaddle, it’s a man’s saddle.
She’s insulting me by making me use it, and she knows it. She wants
to ridicule me because I’m fat—”

“By the bleeding Christ!” In one quick, fluid
motion Mira was off Rigel and stamping through the snow. “I gave
you that saddle because I thought you’d find it easier to use!
Another blasted word out of your trap about being
fat
and
I’ll yank the damned thing off and make you ride her bareback! But
ride her you will, dammit, and I don’t care if you sit out here and
freeze your butt off before you do! Now, close your legs against
her sides and make her
move!”

“I won’t!”

“You will!”

“No! No, no,
no—”

Cursing, Mira slapped her crop hard against
the mare’s white rump.

Eveleen screeched, and Shaula’s head jerked
up in surprise.

“If you don’t make her move, Eveleen, I’m
going to go get El Nath and put you on him instead! And while I’m
at it, I’ll go get Matt so
he
can see how well you’re
doing!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I damn well would!”

Brendan crossed his arms and nodded. “She
would.”

“Just shut up, Brendan! Whose side are you
on, anyhow?” Eveleen howled.

Her brother’s brows shot right up to his
tricorne in surprise, and even Eveleen gasped at what she’d just
said. Were some of Mira’s ways rubbing off on her? And Mira . . .
She knew her hot-tempered instructor well enough by now to know
that bluster and intimidation were her favorite weapons in her
arsenal of persuasion. Still, Eveleen wouldn’t put it past her to
drag Matt out here to witness her complete and total humiliation.
“You really would, wouldn’t you, Mira?”

Mira gave one of her cat grins. “You can bet
on it.” She got back on Rigel and gestured with her crop. “Now,
make her move.”

“Do I have to?”

“Let it go, Mira,” Brendan suggested.

Mira whirled on him. No wonder Eveleen was
such a spoiled brat, with her own brother letting her get away with
murder! “Look, one more word out of you, and
you’re
going to
be next; is that clear?”

His eyes widened and he backed up. “Oh, dear
heavens—”

Eveleen seized upon the opportunity. “Make
him do it, Mira; he can’t ride, either.”

“Eveleen!” Brendan warned, growing
nervous.

“Make him do it! Make him!” Eveleen cried,
pitching forward over the mare’s neck in laughter at Brendan’s
horror. “Make him—”

“Careful, Eveleen!” Mira yelled.

But it was too late. Mira cringed as the girl
lost her balance and, making a wild grab for the mare’s mane,
landed on her rump in the snow.

Mira leaped off Rigel’s back and ran to her,
fully expecting to find the tears rolling down Eveleen’s cheeks.
She wasn’t disappointed. Raising her head, Mira yelled, “Dammit,
Brendan, do you know how much work you’ve just shot to hell? It’s
taken me a long time to get to this point—”

But Eveleen’s hand was on her arm, and as
Mira looked down, she saw that the girl’s tears were not from hurt
and humiliation—but laughter.

“Mira?” she asked, getting to her feet and
brushing the snow from her skirts. “We really
did
make
progress today. I fell off for the first time, and it wasn’t
anything to be afraid of, after all.” Still laughing, she looked at
her astonished brother. “Now I think it’s time for Brendan to have
his
turn . . . don’t you?”

Two pairs of conniving female eyes fastened
on him, and Brendan felt the blood rushing from his face. “Now,
wait just a moment—”

Mira caught him before he’d gained ten steps.
He protested. He fought. But in the end, both she and Eveleen
succeeded in dragging him to the white mare, and Miss Mira Ashton’s
School of Fine Horsemanship saw its second, unwilling student.

Chapter 19

“All right, ye can go.”

Ephraim Ashton stood planted on the wharf,
swinging his watch and scrutinizing each and every lad who passed
beneath his nose. The present one gulped and bolted, flying down
the wharf toward the boat that would take him out to Matthew’s
Proud Mistress.

“Next,” Ephraim grunted. Scowling, he ripped
the cap off the next boy, scowled some more when he saw it wasn’t
his daughter, and gruffly waved the boy through.

“Next ....”

With each hapless soul who wasn’t Mira,
Ephraim’s impatience and annoyance grew. If she’d found a way to
sneak aboard Matt’s ship again, he was gonna strangle her.

He never thought to look behind him at the
line of men filing past him and into
Kestrel
’s boats.

If he had, he would have found the lad he
sought, smirking and jostling with her crewmates, thumbing her nose
at him—and cradling the Brown Bess musket that had once been her
brother’s.

###

That had been two days ago; now
Kestrel
had got her wish and was at sea again, this time
prowling the waters off Sandy Hook in company with
Proud
Mistress.

Her captain stood at the helm, casually
balancing a sketchpad against his forearm and working on a drawing
of Matt’s ship, which ghosted along a cable’s length to windward.
The tiller bar lay alongside his leg, seemingly forgotten; every so
often he nudged it with his thigh, and the schooner would turn her
nose a half point into the wind, floating gently on a beam reach on
the starboard tack.

The wind was little more than a breeze. Gulls
drifted quietly on the gray sea, and
Kestrel
’s wake was a
lazy, meandering ruffle that trailed far behind her. Nevertheless,
there was a lookout aloft, another sitting out on the bowsprit, and
both were scanning the horizon for a prize. So far, they’d turned
up nothing but a few skittish fishing boats that had fled inshore
at sight of the tall, majestic schooner and the battle-scarred brig
that accompanied her.

Brendan wasn’t worried, though. Rumor had it
that a storm had blown the New York–bound convoy off course, and he
was more than certain that royals and topsails would show above the
horizon before too long. And when they did? He grinned to himself
as he sketched in the intricate network of shrouds that supported
Proud Mistress
’s masts. He had an experienced crew, an eager
ship, and Mr. Starr on his favorite gun, a trusty old four-pounder
inscribed with a biblical verse and affectionately dubbed
Freedom.
Except now Mr. Starr happened to be some forty or
fifty feet above the deck, clinging like a squirrel to the weather
shrouds, a telescope to his eye, and his clothing—loose linen
trousers, baggy shirt, and a tarpaulin coat that all but swallowed
up his small body—fluttering in the breeze like a poorly set
jib.

“Deck there!”

Brendan lowered his drawing and stared up
into the misty pyramid of shrouds that pinnacled high, high above
his head. How the lad could see anything through the fog was beyond
him. “Report, Mr. Starr!”

“Make three sail off the larboard quarter,
sir! Hull up and bearing away to the north’ard!”

“Flying any colors, Mr. Starr?”

At the rail the crew gathered, excitedly
passing telescopes and straining to see off into the choking mists.
In these waters, the ships were probably Tories, or better yet,
British—either fat merchantmen or strays from the overdue London
convoy. A prize either way, and ones that would bring a hefty sum
once auctioned off back in Newburyport.

“Can’t tell yet, sir!”

Grinning, Brendan looked back down at his
drawing, already envisioning his fiancee’s reaction when he and
Matt brought three fat prizes back to Newburyport. She’d come
galloping down to the waterfront on that wee gray colt, fight her
way through the crowds, and fling herself into his arms. She’d be
all soft and warm, her kisses sweet and eager, her hair silky
against his hands. . . .

His pencil moved over the paper, but he
wasn’t really thinking about the drawing, not really thinking about
Kestrel
even, which he guided by simple, unconscious
movements of his leg against the tiller. Liam, however, noted how
he played the schooner on the faint breeze as he might his own
fiddle, making her sing, making her dance . . . except that Brendan
sailed his ship without even looking up from his sketch. Liam
folded his huge arms across his chest and watched his captain with
fond admiration in his twinkling blue eyes. He’d known Brendan for
some twenty-five-odd years—yet still his friend never failed to
amaze him.

Despite appearances to the contrary, however,
Brendan was keenly aware of Liam’s presence. He tossed his
sketchbook onto the deckhouse and grinned. “Faith, Liam, what’re
you just standing there for? Signal Captain Ashton before he tries
to claim the honor of seeing those ships first!
D’ar m’anam,
I have a bet riding on this, you know.”

They laughed like a couple of conspirators,
and seconds later, balled flags rose to
Kestrel
’s sharply
raked mast and broke to the whispering wind.

Mr. Starr’s voice caught his attention again,
fainter now with height and distance. Brendan clapped a hand over
his tricorne, tilted his head back, and looked up. High above,
where the gaff and its tackle angled out from the mast, the lad had
climbed, balancing fearlessly with one foot on the big spar, the
other on a block, his arm laced around a line. It was a precarious
position; had there been a strong wind, Brendan would have
forbidden it.