Captain of My Heart (38 page)

Hard to believe this was the same man who’d
fought his
Proud Mistress
with such doughty valor.

Crichton kicked him again.

“So, the brave Captain Ashton shows the same
loyalty to his friends as he does his
country,
eh?”
Crichton’s milky eyes hardened, emphasizing their red-tinged lids
and fair lashes, and his mouth tightened in a smile thinner than
prison gruel. His blue uniform was freshly brushed, his shoes
shone, his epaulets gleamed on his blocky shoulders, and the gold
braid on his hat was almost decadent—yet his fine image was wasted
on his blinded captive. But the Yankee’s mind was lucid enough, and
Crichton made full use of that fact.

“What, no answer, Captain Ashton? Do you
think your silence will save you? Do you think it will save Merrick
when I catch up to him?” He gave a short, brittle laugh. “The fox
can only outrun the hounds for so long, you know. Sooner or later
that fox, clever as he may be, will have to come out of his
lair—and when he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”

“You’re . . . wasting your time. You’ll never
catch . . . that schooner. ...”

Crichton’s laughter was evil, awful and
humorless. Chills snaked up Matt’s bruised spine, but he was in too
much pain to bring on more by shuddering. Instead, he simply lay
there in his own private darkness, gritting his teeth to steady
himself as the laughter faded and the silky voice flowed over him
like acid.

“Do you think me foolish enough to waste my
time even trying? That schooner has given me ample demonstration of
her speed. One does not try to outfly a
kestrel,
my good
captain. But a kestrel can be netted—and a fox can be shot.”

“Captain Merrick is no fool.”

“Precisely. He’s a former officer of His
Majesty’s Royal Navy, and our navy does not breed fools, Ashton.
Nor does it allow them to command our ships.” Matt heard liquid
sloshing into a glass, and felt Crichton staring down at him as he
sipped his wine.

“Merrick entered the navy as a midshipman at
age twelve, quickly proving himself and passing his lieutenant’s
exam at age seventeen. By his twentieth year he was commanding his
first ship, by his twenty-third, a forty-four-gun frigate, and by
his twenty-fifth, was put in charge of Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s fleet
as flag captain, a post that he deserted not a month after his
appointment to it. Some time later, he showed up in the service of
the rebels, commanding a privateer named
Annabel.
A ship
familiar to you, eh, Captain Ashton?”

Matt’s lips thinned, and Crichton kicked him
again.

“I asked you a question!”

“The devil take you,” Matt wheezed, clutching
his ribs. Another kick, and the breath roared between his clenched
teeth with a harsh whistle.

Tiring of the game, Crichton went on, his
voice calm and controlled. “In any case, there were those of us who
felt that young Merrick’s appointment to such a high post was
politically based and largely undeserved—a favor on Sir Geoffrey’s
part. The old windbag was close friends with Merrick’s father, you
see. And Sir Trevor Merrick was an admiral himself, an autocratic
old firebreather with a stiff upper lip, but well respected and a
particular favorite of the king. He moved in high places and
intended his mongrel son to do the same. Of course, there are those
who insist it was Brendan’s own abilities that snared him the post
of flag captain, but you know something, Ashton? I don’t think so.
’Twas the influence of his sire and the luck of that damned Irish
hussy he married, luck that Brendan seems to have inherited, God
rot his bloody soul.” A glass slammed down on a hard surface, and
Matt heard the bitterness in Crichton’s voice. “And that’s all it
was, Ashton. Luck.
I
should’ve had that position.
I
should’ve been promoted, not Merrick. Dammit,
I deserved
it!”

Matt looked blindly up toward that
hate-filled voice. “It seems that you are wrong after all,
sir,”
he said, with a trace of his old fire.

“Wrong about what?”

“Wrong about your navy employing fools to
command their ships. You did say you’re a captain, didn’t you?” He
waited for another kick, but his brazen words seemed to have
rendered his tormenter speechless. “And furthermore, any man who
thinks that Captain Merrick obtained recognition simply by being
born the son of a British admiral—and not by his own intelligence,
compassion, courage, and charisma, traits that I’ve yet to see
reflected in
you—
is not only a fool, but a bleeding idiot
besides.”

“You dare insult me so?”

“I’ll dare anything I damn well please, you
treacherous whelp of a she-bitch.” Matt glared sightlessly up
toward that flat, emotionless voice, but inside he winced, waiting
for another kick. It wasn’t the blow itself he feared, nor even the
pain; it was the fact that he couldn’t see it coming.

And couldn’t see his enemy.

And perhaps that was best, for his last
memory of the British captain was very clear indeed: that of
Crichton standing on the decks of this frigate moments before she’d
reduced
Proud Mistress
to a floundering wreck. One of the
balls had hit a gun, cut down its crew, and the exploding fragments
of metal and wood had struck him in the face and left him in a
world darker than the hide of Mira’s black stallion.

Richard Crichton. Arrogant and
stout-shouldered, with a mouth hewn from stone and stamped with
cruelty. Thatch-colored hair and a purposeful jaw. Young Jake had
told him that Crichton had been smiling as that last broadside had
struck
Mistress
’s magazine and done her in, and Matt didn’t
have to look upon that cold and emotionless face to know that he
was smiling now. The thought chilled him, and again he fought a
shudder. Not for himself. Not for whatever remained of his
crew.

But for Brendan.

Crichton chose to ignore his last remark.
“No, Ashton, I’m not a fool, nor am I an idiot. I’ll prove that to
you soon enough, when I shoot myself a fox and bring him home for
my admiral to skin. And as for that schooner, she’s the swiftest
thing afloat for her size. Nothing but teeth and wings and claws. A
most singular vessel, you’ll agree, which is precisely the reason
my admiral, and his peers back in London, want her. To study, to
examine, to use her as a model so that our navy may improve upon
its own designs.” Matt heard the deck creak as Crichton moved
slowly across the cabin, then back again. “And you must agree, ’tis
only right that she ends up in our hands. I told you I’m no fool,
Ashton—I know who designed her. And given that fact, I do believe
that makes her
British
property.”

Pain was shooting through Matt’s ribs, sharp,
lancing pain that made it hard to breathe, let alone talk. He
clamped his jaws shut and ground his back teeth together to keep
from moaning, and said nothing.

“No, the fox must be outsmarted,” Crichton
continued, as matter-of-factly as if he were moving pieces around
on a chess board. “Outwitted. And you, Captain, are going to help
me draw him out.”

Gasping, Matt raised his head and stared
sightlessly into the blackness. “Never, you son of a bitch . . .
Nev—”

This time the kick did come.

Savagely Crichton drove his boot into Matt’s
temple and sent him into senseless oblivion.
Bloody rebel,
he thought, and drew back to kick him again. But at that moment
Myles, his trusty first lieutenant, entered. There was a smile on
his face and his beady eyes glinted.

“I delivered that missive to the Tory you
asked me to find.” Myles stepped over the sprawled body as though
it carried the plague. “He’ll see that it reaches Merrick, one way
or another.”

“Good.” Crichton sipped his wine and stared
disdainfully, then thoughtfully, down at the unconscious Yankee
lying at his feet. Useless, he thought angrily. No help at all.
But he would be.

He smiled thinly and met Myles’s expectant
gaze. “Douse our good captain with water—salt water, please, as it
tends to
sting
more and I don’t want to waste our fresh
water on such vermin—and when he awakens, haul him up on deck.
Blinded he may be, but he’s not deaf. I want him to hear the
screams of his men when I wring out of them what he won’t
reveal.”

“And that is?”

“Every last bloody detail of that schooner.
Ashton’s father built her, and Ashton knows more than he’s telling
me. I want to know precisely what I’m up against, Myles.”

Myles smiled, drawing his lips back from
crooked teeth.

Crichton took another sip of his wine and
prodded the lolling red head with the toe of his boot. “And when
you get him up there, string him up to the grating. Young
Midshipman Rothfield shows promise of making a fine officer
someday. I should like him to witness the proper technique of
stripping the flesh from a man’s back.”

“Yes, sir,” Myles said, eagerly.

“Oh, and Myles?”

The lieutenant turned.

“Mind that you haul an extra bucket of that
seawater up and save it for
after
the lashing. The good
captain’s back will probably need to be . . . washed.” He returned
Myles’s sly grin. “These Yankees are a stubborn lot, you know. I
have a feeling that if the boatswain’s cat doesn’t do this one in,
the saltwater might.”

Myles gave a slow, measured salute, thinking
that if he hauled not one but several buckets up, his captain would
be even more pleased. “As you wish, sir.”

And as his faithful hound went off to do his
bidding, the hunt master, still sipping his wine, looked down at
his captive and smiled.

Tomorrow the scent would be laid.

In due time, the fox would sniff the wind and
come running.

And when he did, that fox would be shot.

###

Eveleen was in the middle of packing her
trunk when Mira came in.

“What are you doing?”

Eveleen put down the skirt she’d been folding
and looked down at her feet. Misery cloaked her features; not only
had she lost her beloved Matthew, but now her adopted family as
well. With Mira and her father so bitter toward Brendan, there was
no way she could expect to stay here in the Ashton house. “I’m
packing,” she whispered, reaching for a plate that stood beside her
bed. On it was a stack of cookies.

“Why?”

Eveleen looked up, her eyes tragic and filled
with tears. Mira, usually so perky and full of spunk, seemed no
better; her features were pale and drawn, and there was a pinched
look about her mouth. The two women looked at each other for a long
moment; then Eveleen put down the cookies, and they flew into each
other’s arms, hugging each other and crying brokenly.

“You can’t leave, Eveleen,” Mira sobbed into
the other girl’s hair. She clutched her desperately, unwilling to
let her go. “You just can’t!”

“But I’m not welcome here any longer.”

“That’s not true; you’ll always be welcome
here! You’re the only real friend I have, and I need you. Oh,
Eveleen, we need each other!”

Eveleen drew back, and looked into Mira’s
tortured features. Her fingers were cold and bloodless, and in her
eyes was something Eveleen had never seen before—terror.

You’re the only real friend I have, and I
need you.

Mira,
need
her? Mira, who had never
been squeamish about her crippled hand, had never made an issue out
of it nor allowed her to use it as an excuse to be miserable and
full of self-pity. Mira, who had taught her that she didn’t need
food to assuage the pain, a lesson that Eveleen, in her misery, was
having a hard time remembering. What sort of friend would she,
Eveleen, be if she walked out on Mira now? Mira needed her as much
as she needed Mira—but nevertheless, she didn’t feel that she
should stay in the Ashton house. “But I have to leave, don’t you
see? You all believe the worst of Brendan and—”

“I don’t know
what
I believe anymore.”
Mira sat on the bed and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.
Then she looked up, the tears spiking her lashes and spilling down
her cheeks. “Please don’t leave me, Eveleen. I’m begging you.
Please.”

Eveleen wiped her eyes with the back of her
hand and stared miserably at her trunk, her lower lip trembling
with the effort it took to contain her own sobs.

“Eveleen, please? Can’t you understand,
I
need you
.”

Eveleen met her gaze. “I need you, too,
Mira,” she whispered. They hugged each other again, their
friendship the only shield they had against the pain.

###

Reverting back to her old ways and burying
the pain of the handsome Captain Ashton’s death beneath apple pies,
Indian pudding, tarts, scones, and any other confection she could
get her hands on, Eveleen found the house strangely silent. Ephraim
spent his days—and nights—locked in his library with his grief, a
bottle, and a painting of his dead wife.

Mira had gone into an unreachable depression.
Eveleen’s riding lessons stopped, and the muddy field that was Miss
Mira Ashton’s School of Fine Horsemanship grew thick and green with
spring grasses that heard only the footfalls of cats traveling on
the silent paws of hunters. Inside the big Georgian the furniture
grew dusty, and the rooms echoed with emptiness. Mira spent her
days locked in the stable, and Ephraim spent his locked in the
library, both emerging only to scream and shout at each other. At
last, dejection overwhelmed them both. The fighting stopped. The
neighbors across the street could sleep again. Abigail, miserable
with grief, stopped cooking, and Mira started. But nobody ate.

And still the clocks remained unwound.

A week after Matt’s funeral, Eveleen, lying
awake in her bed with a piece of molasses cake balanced on her
chest and crumbs sprinkling the sheets, heard Mira’s muffled
weeping coming from the big, empty room that had been her
brother’s. Putting aside the cake—and her own misery—she’d scooped
up the gray cat from her bed and silently deposited it just inside
the door, hoping that the little creature could help ease Mira’s
suffering.