Captain of My Heart (45 page)

Matthew had not found it hideous. Matthew did
not find
her
hideous.

And Matthew, despite the brave front he
presented to his family, his friends, and the town itself, needed
her as much as she needed him.

Oh, if only she were as bold and brassy as
Mira; she’d go into his room and tell him that she loved him, had
always loved him. But no. Although she had Matt’s friendship, she
dared not ruin even that precious bit of him that she could claim.
What if he, like every man since that awful day upon
Halcyon
’s decks, rejected her? Matthew Ashton, Newburyport’s
favorite son, had been the hotheaded rake who could have had—and
probably
had
had—any woman he chose. Friends were one thing;
lovers, another. Why would he want her, fat old Eveleen Merrick who
only had one good hand and a closet full of pink dresses? What
would he see in her?

She walked past that hated cheval mirror and
stuck out her tongue.

And then she stopped short, stared, and took
a hesitant step closer.

“
What?”
she said aloud.

The image reflected there seemed to belong to
someone else. Swallowing hard, Eveleen stepped closer to it. There
were bone-points in her elbows and knees, cheekbones had surfaced
from out of the roundness of her face, and the figure beneath the
now-sagging pink dress had begun to gain a few inward curves
instead of outward ones. Her breasts had shrunk, no longer able to
hold up the pearl-encrusted bodice of her pink gown, and one of her
chins had melted away to nothing.

Transfixed, she stared at the mirror, seeing
the changes in her body for the very first time. Slowly, as though
the image might fade, she ran her hands down over her belly, her
waist, her hips, where she could just feel bones coming up through
the flesh.

She swallowed the thick lump of emotion in
her throat. What had happened to her? How had she lost weight? Had
it been her involvement with the horses while Mira had been away on
Kestrel
? Mucking stalls and grooming their hides until they
shone?

No. The horses had started the process—but
they weren’t the real reason she was thinner.

Suddenly she knew what was.

She’d been so intent upon helping Matt that
she’d barely thought about the food growing cold on her own plate.
Indeed, she’d been so concerned about someone else’s welfare
instead of her own that she’d not even thought about filling her
own stomach and satisfying the emptiness in her heart, for with
Matt around, there
was
no emptiness in her heart. There was
no reason to eat until she was stuffed, and then go back for more
and more. . . .

There was no emptiness.

The woman who looked out of that mirror was
really she, Eveleen Merrick. Not a stranger, not a fairy image that
was going to vanish in the blink of an eye. It was the girl she’d
been before Crichton’s shot, and the woman that girl had become. It
was a woman who had learned how to stop feeling sorry for herself,
thanks to a hoyden who talked like a sailor and dressed in
breeches. It was a woman who, in caring for someone else, had
thrown off the protective cloak of obesity to become someone
capable of giving, and receiving, love. A woman who was capable—and
deserving—of the very best.

Matthew Ashton.

Slowly Eveleen ran her fingers through her
hair, shaking her head until it spilled down her back in a glorious
display that shone with the beauty of the morning sun. She stared
at that cloud of gold floating around her shoulders and framing her
shrinking waist, until it was all she could do not to run to the
window and shout out her joy for all the world to hear.

“I’m here!” she wanted to sing. “I’m here,
I’m here, I’m
here!”

Hugging her arms to her breasts, she glanced
at the mirror once more. Oh, she still had a ways to go, but the
woman who looked back at her was no longer fat.

She was no longer bitter.

And she was no longer angry.

That summer morning was the last time Eveleen
Merrick ever wore a pink gown. She pulled every one from her closet
and packed them all away. Then she slipped into the simple homespun
dress that Mira had made for her last winter, a dress that was too
big for her now but was far more flattering than pink silk would
ever be. She tore off her jewelry and tossed it to the bed, shook
out her curls a final time. There were no pockets to tuck her hand
in, but suddenly she didn’t care if anyone saw it or not. There was
nothing left to hide.

Grinning triumphantly at the mirror as she
passed it, Eveleen swept from her room.

The reflection in the mirror grinned
back.

And so did the red-haired man across the hall
when his door opened and she slipped inside.

###

Brendan groaned and threw his arm over his
forehead.

Traffic moved smartly on the street below:
handsome coaches belonging to wealthy merchants, farm carts pulled
by plodding horses, an older couple out taking the air. It was that
time of day when the shadows were long, the sunlight rusty and
orange, the heat, left over from the hot summer day,
oppressive.

That heat seemed to have concentrated on the
second floor of the Ashton house, although every window was open in
an attempt to relieve it. Brendan lay propped up in a stack of
fluffy pillows, the sheets no longer crisp but now wilted against
his damp skin. A glass of water freshened with a slice of lemon
stood in a circle of condensation on the table beside the bed; a
supper tray was balanced across his legs. He had no appetite,
though the fare itself was not to blame: lobster chowder,
accompanied by chunks of crusty bread still piping hot from the
bake oven, a dish of peas and carrots, and a golden square of
gingerbread smothered in fresh cream. For lunch, Abigail—whom he
suspected was trying to make amends for the way she’d behaved
toward him that awful day he’d brought news of
Proud
Mistress
’s demise back to Newburyport—had sent up codfish
cakes, clam fritters, and sour milk biscuits generously spread with
wild strawberry jam. He hadn’t touched that, either.

He’d been awake—if one could call his state
of dizzy weakness that—for a week now. His memory of the time was
hazy at best; he had dim recollections of Mira spooning clear broth
into his mouth those first few days after he’d woken from the coma,
her arm beneath his back and head to support him. By the third day
he’d been eating oatmeal, and more broth, thickened with finely
chopped meat and vegetables. He’d struggled to sit up in bed and
had fallen back in a faint; but that hadn’t stopped him from trying
again, and again.

Now he could sit up in bed, swing his legs
out, and, if he took several deep breaths and clutched the bedpost,
he could actually stand for a few short moments without feeling as
if he might pass out.

That accomplishment, however, did little to
lift his spirits.

He stared dejectedly out the window, his
heart heavy and his soul sad. No, he didn’t remember much of this
past week, and even less of those few moments just before he’d
fallen from
Kestrel
’s rigging, though Dr. Plummer assured
him that his short-term memory would be a while in returning. Now,
however, he was beginning to wish he’d never woken up, if only to
have spared Mira this latest distress.

Last night he’d made the decision to take
Kestrel
to Maine to join the Penobscot Expedition.

“
Penobscot?!”
She’d nearly deafened
him with her reaction. “What the hell is
wrong
with you?!
You’ve just come out of a bleedin’ coma; you can’t go traipsing up
to Maine—”

“
Moyrrra
—”

“I won’t have it, Brendan, you hear me? I
just won’t have it!” she’d cried, bursting into uncharacteristic
tears. “I’ve come so close to losing you, and now you want to go
and endanger your life all over again! Damn Father for putting this
idea into your head!”

“Lassie, you have to understand—”

“You can’t go; you’re not well enough!”

He’d pulled her down on the bed, hugging her
and stroking her hair while she’d soaked his nightshirt with her
tears. “Massachusetts needs every privateer it can get,
stóirín,”
he’d explained as gently as he could. “I built
Kestrel
for a reason. It would be shameful to have her laid
up in harbor when she could be of use to America in the most
ambitious naval effort we’ve ever undertaken.”

Mira had cried even harder, the sobs wracking
her little body until he’d thought his own heart would break.

“
Moyrrra,
lassie, I didn’t build her
just to look good.”

She’d raised her head, flung the hair out of
her eyes, and yelled, “You and your bleedin’ honor! Sometimes
you’re so damned
noble,
I want to choke you! I don’t care
about
Kestrel,
I care about you! If you go up to Penobscot
in your condition, you’re going to end up getting yourself
killed!”

She’d fled the room then, and all day he’d
waited for her to return so that they could talk the matter
over—but she was obviously too upset to want to see or speak to
him, and he was too weak to get up and seek her out.

His spirits had been on a downward slide ever
since. He shut his eyes. Maybe she’d been right—perhaps he
was
too honorable for his own good. But how could he live
with himself if he just lay here in bed, when his new country
needed both him and
Kestrel
?

He broke off a piece of the bread and tried
to eat it. It had gone cold and tasteless, but he forced himself to
swallow that one token bite for the sake of sparing Abigail’s
feelings, before putting it back on the tray.

Mira . . . please come back, lassie . . . I
never wanted to hurt you.

Shifting position in the bed, he winced as
the pain stretching across his back reminded him of the awful night
of interrogation at Crichton’s hands after he’d traded himself for
Matt. Frustrated by his blithe responses, Crichton had become a bit
. . . overzealous in his attempts to force information from him
about everything from the Americans’ movements to the particulars
of
Kestrel
’s design. The whipping at the grating had been
just the start of what Crichton had planned for him. Again, the
sight of the noose swinging from the foreyard rose up in his mind,
and the sweat that sheened his body turned cold.

Thank God
Kestrel
had come when she
had. He would never forget the sight of his valiant little ship,
sweeping down on
Viper
under a cloud of sail, every flag
streaming, every gun run out, and the sea bursting over her bows.
She’d been magnificent. She’d been glorious. And, he thought with a
sudden frown, she’d come about a hairsbreadth from oversetting
herself in her determination to reach him.

He would have to speak to Liam about that.
Such recklessness at the helm would not be tolerated.

But even thoughts of
Kestrel,
waiting
for him down in the harbor, could not ease the pain of hurting his
beloved Mira. There’d been a time when
Kestrel
was all that
he’d needed; or all he’d thought he’d needed. What a fool he’d
been. He needed
Mira.
Not only her love, but her acceptance
of all that made him the man that he was.

He had to go to Penobscot—not just because
Massachusetts had asked him to go, not just because of his desire
to see
Kestrel
in the glorious role for which he’d designed
her, but because he was determined to restore Newburyport’s faith
in him . . . and in his schooner.

The shadow of
Proud Mistress
still
hung over his head.

He owed it to this town to go.

He owed it to himself.

He stared dejectedly at
Kestrel
’s
shot-torn, magnificent red-and-white-striped flag, dominating the
entire wall beyond the footboard. He knew it had been hung there to
make him feel like a hero. But he was no hero. He’d failed to save
Mistress,
her crew, and her captain from Crichton’s
cruelties.

He placed the tray on the bedside table,
peeled the sheets from his damp skin, and taking a deep breath,
rose from the bed. His limbs felt as though the bones had been
removed and water poured in their place, and the room spun around
him with such force that he had to grab the bedpost just to keep
his balance. He was in no condition for heroics, no condition to
command a warship.

Not yet, anyhow.

But he would be. Soon.

He stood there for a moment on shaky,
unsteady legs, praying that no one would come in and see how weak
he really was. Leaning his head into the curve of his elbow, he
shut his eyes against a wave of dizziness that came and went.
Tunnel vision closed in and his body trembled violently. Determined
not to pass out, he took several deep breaths, his fingers
tightening around the bedpost. Finally the room stopped swimming
and he could stand upright once again. And as he did so, he heard
Mira’s soft weeping coming from outside, from the direction of the
stables.

“Ah,
mo stóirín,”
he whispered, his
heart going out to her. He staggered to the window, but he could
only see the darkened barn and the shadowy outline of the fenced
paddock. He tipped his head back and stared miserably up at the
plastered ceiling, listening to the distant weeping until he could
take it no longer. And then, his legs buckling, he let his back
slide down the wall until he sat on the floor, his head bent, his
hands over his ears, and his eyes shut against the visions that sad
weeping evoked.

Go to her.

He couldn’t.

Faith, laddie, go down there and take her in
your arms. She needs you.

Needed him, yes . . . but couldn’t accept his
need to do what he had to do in order to live with himself.