Captain of My Heart (35 page)

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.”