Lord Of The Sea

LORD OF THE
SEA

By

Danelle Harmon

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Danelle Harmon

LORD OF THE SEA

Copyright © 2013 by Danelle Harmon

ISBN:
978-0-9892330-5-7

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people or uploaded to any websites. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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at Amazon.com!

~~~~

COPYRIGHTS:

_ Book Cover Design by Seductive Designs

_ Stock Image copyrights (man): © Taria Reed/ The Reed Files

_ Stock Image copyrights (hair) © Jenn LeBlanc/Illustrated Romance

_ Stock Image copyrights (barrels) © ksushsh

_ Stock Image copyrights (large ship) © jgroup

_ Stock Image copyrights (sea landscape) © tortoon

_ Stock Image copyrights (ship): © Gerald Todd

Dedication

No book writes itself, and there are many whom I wish to thank when it comes to this one—my beloved family for their uncomplaining patience and understanding while I worked so hard to finish it; my talented editor Christine Zikas, with whom it was wonderful to be working again after all these years; and my sweet and treasured ReaderFriends, all of whom “feed” and inspire me every single day. All of these people deserve my gratitude, but it is to my dear friend Nancy Fields that
Lord Of The Sea
is dedicated. It was Nancy who came up with the idea of putting Connor and Rhiannon together; it was Nancy who encouraged me when I didn’t think I had it in me to write another full length novel after a decade spent away from publishing; and it was Nancy who spent many a late night on Facebook with me, talking about the book and inspiring me in ways she could never imagine. Thank you, Nancy, for all your help, enthusiasm and encouragement—but thank you, most of all, for your friendship.

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

Psalms 107:23-24

... Somewhere in the
Caribbean Sea
, 1813

Chapter 1

     He was intimately familiar with clouds. High, cirrus clouds wisping across the zenith. Thick, billowing cumulus. And deadly black thunderheads, squalls that could knock down a ship in minutes.

     These were black squalls.

     A prudent mariner would have taken one look at that unpredictable monster swarming up on the horizon, brought in the schooner
Kestrel
’s big square topsail and sent down its yard, stood by to reef the mainsail and then turned tail and run. But Captain Connor Merrick was a Yankee privateer, and there, a mile away off the larboard bows, were the fat, bloated sails of a British merchantman, ripe for the picking.

From across the water, rolling like the echoes of distant thunder, came the sound of guns as the big ship was attacked by the pirates who had found her first.

“Your orders, Captain?”

Connor stood at the weather rail, watching the squall approaching off to windward. Already the sea was starting to grow restless, throwing scud up over the bows and great sheets of water sluicing through the scuppers and along the deck as the schooner shouldered each swell that paraded toward them.

His every instinct told him to get the devil out of there.

But there was the matter of that merchantman. . . .

He plucked a telescope from the rack and put it to his eye, steadying the instrument in the crook of his elbow with the ease of long practice. Into the spherical field swam the merchantman, bluff-bowed and tubby, wallowing in the seas, and far off under her lee, a hostile coast swarming with pirates that were loyal to no nation.

“Hmph,” Connor said, half to himself.

His lieutenant, who was also his first cousin, raised a brow. “Hmph?”

“Seems we have a choice to make, Nathan,” he said, glancing yet again at the approaching squall. “Yonder merchantman is flying British colors and trying to defend herself against a horde of pirates in small boats. She cannot, of course. They’ll slaughter everyone aboard, and then take the ship. So, do we do the gallant thing and sweep in to her rescue? Or do the safe thing, and hightail it out of here before the storm puts us on our beam ends?”

“Hmph,” said Nathan, imitating his cousin. “You never do the safe thing.”

Connor grinned. “And taking her as prize after saving her, is certainly not the gallant thing. But it’s what I intend to do. Fetch Toby, would you? I need him on deck.”

Moments later, Nathan’s fourteen-year-old brother, red haired, freckled, and eager to please the cousin and captain he idolized, was on deck. He took one look at the squall looming up on the weather horizon, the foam beginning to blow like chaff from off the waves, and paled.

“Toby, lad. I’ve a mind to outrun a storm as well as take a prize. Douse the galley fire, call the hands to quarters, and load up both broadsides with grape and chain.” Already, the wind was strengthening, beginning to gust ominously. “Send down the kites and let’s ease the main and fore a bit. Time to see what our wild black mare can do with her reins out to the buckle.”

It would be a hair-raising gallop indeed down onto the British merchantman, but Connor had a sharp crew, a fast ship, and the devil’s own luck. “Put the helm up,” he said, and the chase was on.

*     *     *

“Pirates,” said Alannah Falconer Cox as she and the young woman she was chaperoning were both frantically herded belowdeck. Alannah, widowed fifteen months before and only recently out of mourning clothes, was the younger sister of Sir Graham Falconer, the famous British admiral currently stationed in Barbados—the ultimate destination of the merchant ship
Porpoise
.

A destination that looked, at the moment, as though it would never be reached.

Her companion listened to the footsteps pounding on the deck above, the frantic, shouted orders of the captain and his officers, and the sudden report of gunfire from somewhere close.

 “We’re going to die,” said Rhiannon Evans, who really wanted to see more of life than her mere eighteen years had granted her.

“Stop it! Don’t talk like that!”

“Well it’s true! You heard the captain, we were doomed from the moment we lost touch with the rest of the convoy after that storm three days ago. That’s it, I’m going topside. If I’m going to die, it’s not going to be down here.”

“No, Rhiannon, it’s too dangerous up on deck!”

“It’s no less so down here, because we’ll be trapped here when those pirates board!”

“If you go topside, they’ll kill you—or worse!”

“If I stay here, they’ll sink the ship, and us with it!”

“Rhiannon,
no
!”

But the younger woman, grabbing the hem of her gown, was already bounding up the companionway and as she emerged back on deck, unnoticed and ignored in the melee, her dread turned to downright horror.

Three small boats surrounded the ship, and already, a horde of savage, screaming men brandishing pistols, cutlasses and knives were swarming over the rail and onto the deck.

Rhiannon screamed.

Shots rang out, and suddenly one of the brigands turned and saw her.

Rhiannon ran for the hatch—and at that moment, the shattering roar of a cannon from somewhere off to starboard nearly deafened her.

Her head jerked up, and in an instant she saw it—another ship, giant black storm clouds swelling up behind her, sweeping down on them with the spray breaking from her bows and smoke already rolling across the water from the gun she had just fired. The pirates took one look at her, pointed and began yelling, and some began leaping back over the sides and down into their boats. But those that remained weren’t about to go down without a fight, and three of them ran to the merchantman’s small starboard cannon and, shoving aside the cowering crew, began to load it. Another savage boom echoed over the water as the approaching ship bore down on them, firing once more, and as she swept past, all sleek black hull and sharply backswept masts, Rhiannon saw men in her rigging and crosstrees, firing down on the pirates with muskets and long rifles.

“
Rhiannon
!”

Alannah was there, grabbing her arm, crying out as one of the merchantman’s crew suddenly staggered and pitched to the deck, clutching his throat. Rhiannon stood paralyzed, unable to move, and then Alannah was hauling her back toward the hatch, down it, both of them tripping on their hems and tumbling the last few feet to the deck below, Alannah landing on open palms, Rhiannon on one foot that twisted beneath her.

“My ankle!” she cried. “You go, save yourself!”

“I’m not leaving you!”

Above, thunder roared again, and this time the merchantman shuddered as iron found her hull but Rhiannon had no time to scream, for Alannah had all but dragged her aft into the captain’s cabin. She slammed the door shut, threw the latch, and together, sobbing in terror, they hauled the captain’s heavy sea chest up against the door.

“What else can we barricade it with?” Rhiannon cried.

“I don’t know, everything else is bolted to the deck!”

Another deafening crash from above, thuds, bumps, screams and shots, and then the sound of men yelling in a frenzied war cry, more screams, and footsteps pounding on the deck just above their heads.

The two women threw themselves against the door and wrapped their arms around each other, crying in fear.

Suddenly the guns stopped booming, and all went quiet on the deck above.

Rhiannon lifted her head, and heard only the frantic hammering of her own heart. Cold sweat ran down her spine, and hesitantly, she and Alannah drew back.

And then they heard it.

Footsteps, coming toward them.

“Dear God,” Alannah breathed.

Rhiannon rose, her ankle shrieking in agony. There was nothing in the cabin with which to defend themselves, but on the captain’s desk lay a pair of brass nautical dividers, V-shaped and needle-pointed, which the master used to chart a course. She grabbed them and turned to face the door as a fist pounded against it once, twice, three times.

She glanced at Alannah and the other woman ran toward her, trying in vain to find a weapon.

Suddenly, the door crashed open beneath the force of a powerful male shoulder, shoving the heavy sea chest out of the way with it, and both women screamed.

A man stood there. In the gloom, he was lean and lanky and so tall that he filled the doorway. He wore a short blue pea coat with brass buttons, canvas trousers, and a straw hat. In his hand was a pistol, which, upon seeing the two women, he lowered.

“Well, well,” he said, and with an elegant bow removed the hat, revealing carelessly tousled chestnut hair that was thick and curling and fashionably cut. His was a face of hard planes, translucent green eyes, and a recklessly smiling mouth. Entering the cabin, he calmly plucked the dividers from Rhiannon’s nerveless hand. “I am Captain Merrick of the American privateer schooner
Kestrel
, and it would appear that we’ve found a most lucrative prize, indeed.”

Chapter 2

Well, well, indeed,
Connor thought, tossing the dividers to a nearby table.

Rum. Sugar. Molasses. Spices. Exotic fruits. Even, God forbid, slaves. Those were the sort of things one normally found when they took a ship in these latitudes, but this was an altogether different sort of cargo, indeed.

Women. Two of them. One dark-haired with flashing blue eyes and a vaguely familiar look about her. She was fair enough, though he suspected she’d like to retrieve the dividers and stab them straight into his heart. The other one . . . .

Keep to the business at hand.

Oh, the other one. . . .

That
one, Connor thought as her huge, long-lashed green eyes lifted to his, was surely the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his life. She was young and willowy, with fiery red-gold hair set off by clear, flawless skin, mischievous eyes, and lips that made him want to trace their bow, their perfect shape, with his finger. His tongue.

Something stirred in his groin.

This could be a problem.

Ignore her.

He turned away just as the dark-haired one found her voice.

“Privateer? You’re nothing but a pirate! This is an English ship, and I demand that you release us immediately!”

The beauty grabbed the dark-haired one’s elbow. “Alannah, he just saved our lives!”

“Only to rob us! Oh, just wait until my brother hears of this!”

“Better to be robbed than
dead
!”

“He may well kill us yet! Or God forbid, ravish us!”

Connor shot a glance at the sunset-haired beauty.
Don’t give me any ideas
, he wanted to say, because she had spunk as well as loveliness and she was looking at him the way any damsel in distress might just gaze upon her rescuer, looking at him in a way that made him want to pull himself up a little more and puff out his chest and slay a dragon for her. Though, come to think of it, maybe he just had. At any other time, her worshipful gaze and that impish smile would have been all he needed to follow his baser instincts. At any other time, he might take great delight in further pursuing that coy, unspoken invitation—preferably in a place that involved a mattress, sheets, and an hour or two of free time. But he had business to conduct here, there were squalls bearing down on them, and he couldn’t let himself be distracted.

Papers. He had to get the ship’s papers.

The other one was still harping on him. “Furthermore, I’ll have you know right now Captain Merrick, that I object most highly to the way you forced yourself into this cabin like some barbarian! Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Ignoring her, Connor sent a conspiring grin the way of her companion, went to the captain’s desk and yanking open a drawer, began searching for the merchant ship’s papers.

“Did you hear me? What do you think you’re doing?

Ignore her.

Easy enough.

Ignore the other one, too.

Not so easy. . . .

Rhiannon, feeling her heartbeat skipping, somersaulting and tripping over itself as she watched the Yankee privateer rifling through the desk, had caught that covert, amused glance he’d thrown her and couldn’t take her eyes off him. Footsteps echoed outside and now another man entered the cabin, a sword in his hand. Though not as tall or lean as the captain, he too was handsomely made, with thick, tawny hair that was bleached by the sun, steady brown eyes, a quiet demeanor and a look of solidness and strength about him. He glanced at her and Alannah, then turned toward the mahogany-haired god who was cheerfully pulling out a sealed oilskin packet from the desk.

“Captain, there are five from this tub who reckon they want to sign aboard with us; the rest, including the master, have resisted, and we’ve got three remaining pirates a’begging for mercy.”

“Begging for mercy, are they? Hmph. Given that they showed this crew none, I’m not inclined to oblige them.” The privateer slammed the drawer shut. “Secure the prisoners in the fo’c’sle, with the pirates separate from the crew so they don’t add to the slaughter. How’s that squall tracking?”

It was then that she remembered his introduction.

Merrick  . . .
Kestrel
. . .
Merrick
. . . .

“Veering off, sir, heading north by west. I think it’ll miss us.”

 “The devil’s own luck, that,” the American said, slitting open the leather pouch with a small knife and beginning to scan its contents.

“What are you going to do with us?”

The American ignored Alannah.

“I
demand
to know what will become of us!”

“Do be quiet, madam, I’m trying to think,” the captain snapped, handing the papers to the newcomer with a sound of annoyance. “Read this, would you, Nathan? I don’t have time to sit here and make sense of it.”

“Aye.” The one named Nathan said, looking at the papers. “She’s out of Southampton, bound for Barbados, carrying fine English linens, china, beer, various foodstuffs, and muskets.”

“Muskets! How provident.” The captain reclaimed the papers and stuffed them back into the leather pouch. “Muster a prize crew for this tub. We’ll send her into Mobile, as it’s the closest port from which to auction her off. Jenkins can command her. Ladies, collect your belongings.”

He tossed the pouch to a nearby table, and it suddenly hit Rhiannon just who this handsome god was.

“You’re Captain Merrick!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Of the schooner
Kestrel
!”

He just looked at her as though she were daft. “Aye, that’s what I just said.”

“From Portsmouth, England?”

“No, ma’m, from Newburyport, Massachusetts.” He began to stalk toward the door.

“But you were in Portsmouth this past spring! I know you were!”

The American turned, and something glinted in his clear, pale green eyes, something that wasn’t quite amusement, something that belied a memory, perhaps, that he had no wish to recall, before one corner of his mouth—his very firm, very sensual mouth, Rhiannon thought—turned up in the faintest of grins.

“And how might you know that, Miss . . . ?”

“Evans. Rhiannon Evans. You don’t know me, but I’m Gwyneth’s sister!”

He lifted a brow. “Gwyneth’s sister.”

“Yes! We rented a house in Portsmouth together, and it was
you
who was rescuing French and American prisoners from the hulk
Surrey
,
you
who risked your life for them time and time again as the elusive Black Wolf,
you
who saved my brother-in-law, the marquess of Morninghall, from certain death by snatching him right out from under the guns of a firing squad with this very ship! It was you, wasn’t it? Connor Merrick! You’re the Black Wolf!”

Even the other man had paused to stare at Rhiannon. “Well, this certainly complicates matters, Connor,” he said, his brown eyes amused.

“Only if we let it.” And then, frowning: “What the blazes are you doing all the way out here? You’re a long way from England.”

“My friend Alannah here invited me to accompany her to Barbados, and since I wanted an adventure, I came along. Oh, I can’t wait to write to Gwyneth and tell her all about what you just did for us; you saved our lives, Captain Merrick! Thank you!” It was all Rhiannon could do not to fling her arms around his neck in relief and gratitude. “Oh, thank you!”

The American’s green eyes crinkled with humor.

And Alannah, seeing the unspoken connection between Rhiannon and this man who had so audaciously taken their ship, and was now looking just a little too long, and with a little too much interest—the
wrong
kind of interest—at the girl she was charged to protect, wasn’t so forgiving. Especially since there was something disturbingly familiar about him.

“I don’t care who you are, or what you did in Portsmouth, but I will say this,” she spat. “I demand that you return this ship to her rightful captain and allow us to continue on our way to Barbados. Because if you do not, I can guarantee you that this will be the last ship you and that—that piratical-looking vessel of yours out there will ever take as a prize.”

“Oh? And by what authority do you make such a threat, ma’m?”

“By the authority vested in my brother! Vice Admiral Sir Graham Falconer!”

If that proclamation was intended to intimidate, impress or cow the two men, it had a completely opposite effect. The Yankee privateer turned and looked at his companion, and suddenly both of them began laughing.

“Thought she looked familiar,” Captain Merrick said as an aside to his lieutenant, before the two started laughing all over again.

“You think this is funny, do you?!” Alannah cried, stamping one small foot. “When my brother hears of what you’ve done, he’ll string you up to his flagship’s yardarm and hang you by the neck until you’re dead!”

At this, Captain Merrick only laughed all the harder, until finally taking pity on the bristling Alannah.

“Sir Graham will do no such thing,” he said. “Your pretty young companion here recognized me without ever having seen me, but you, madam, met me eight years ago when your brother married my sister Maeve. I’m surprised you don’t remember me. Must be the hat, eh, Nathan?”

“Aye, Con. Must be the hat.”

Alannah’s mouth fell open and she paled in dawning realization and horror.

“Dear God in heaven,” she breathed, staring at him. “I thought your surname sounded familiar.  My brother . . . your sister. . . .”

“Yes, and stringing me up to the yardarm with a noose ‘round my neck would, shall we say, complicate things in their marriage. Nathan? What do you think? Shall we make for Barbados and deliver these two ladies to the admiral in person? Pay Sir Graham and Lady Falconer a little social call?”

Alannah recovered herself. “You can’t just sail into Barbados, this is a Yankee privateer and our countries are at war!”

“So they are,” Captain Merrick said blithely. “And far be it from me to do anything but take full advantage of that fact, because wars like this make people like me, rich. Now, ladies, say goodbye to this leaky old tub. Your passage to Barbados is about to get a whole lot faster.”

Alannah just stood there, gaping and at a loss for words.

But Rhiannon’s eyes were sparkling with anticipation and delight. All her life, she had longed for adventure such as her sisters had had. She had watched as Morganna had found love in the arms of a handsome suitor, and then as Gwyneth got swept away by her dark and dangerous marquess. And now here she was, rescued in the nick of time from bloodthirsty pirates and about to be put aboard a Yankee privateer captained by none other than the most admired, elusive, talked-about, and yes, hunted man in Portsmouth–the audacious, recklessly brave, startlingly handsome Black Wolf. He’d outsmarted the Royal Navy and made the pulse of every woman in that city beat a little faster. And now he was making Rhiannon’s pulse beat a whole
lot
faster.

Nathan left to do his captain’s bidding, Alannah stormed out in a huff, and Rhiannon took a step and sucked in her breath in pain.

Captain Merrick’s easy smile faded, and his sharp green gaze went to her feet.

“What ails you, madam?”

“I fell going down the hatch,” Rhiannon said, her cheeks going hot. “Twisted my ankle.”

“I see.” Then, before she could protest, he stepped forward and swung her easily up into his arms, grinning as Alannah, marching back into the cabin to see what was taking Rhiannon so long, began to sputter.

“Put her down!” she snapped. “That is most ungentlemanly of you, sir!”

“On the contrary, ma’m, only a cad would make a lady walk on a twisted ankle. Now do make haste. We’ve got squalls out yonder, the seas are building beneath our feet and I’d like to get this business underway.” He shifted Rhiannon’s weight in his arms and began to walk with businesslike authority from the cabin, easily negotiating the growing pitch and roll of the ship. She could feel the solid strength of his chest against her arm, caught his scent of bay rum and salt spray, and thought, quite happily, that she had never experienced anything quite so heady and wonderful as the sensation of being carried in a handsome man’s arms as though she weighed no more than chaff on the wind. Oh, sweet Lord, this was going to be one exciting adventure indeed.

*     *     *

“Wind’s picking up, sir. More squalls approaching from the southeast.”

Captain Merrick, pressing her face against the hard wall of his chest so she wouldn’t see the carnage on the deck above, had carried her like some prize of war from the merchantman onto the low, racy deck of his privateer, hove to with sails banging and slatting against the wind, the man at the tiller looking nervously off at the dark clouds that boiled up on the horizon and cast an eerie green glow over the sea. Now, the schooner, its long bowsprit and jib-boom angling far up and out over the swells parading relentlessly toward them, swung into action as orders were hastily given and carried out.

“Reef the main right down, double lash the guns, and get another headsail on her,” Captain Merrick said, with a quick glance up at the pennant snapping like gunshots in the wind so far above. He set Rhiannon down. “We’ll stay on the sta’b’d tack and head northeast straight toward Barbados. I want to be well clear of that lee shore when this thing hits.”

“Aye, sir.”

Rhiannon, standing beside an uncharacteristically quiet Alannah, heard the low murmurs of the seamen around her.

“
Barbados
?”

“That’s a British naval port!”

“He’s crazy,” muttered a nearby sailor, with an admiring grin.

“Isn’t he always?”

“Aye, but ye can’t say it won’t be a fast passage.”

Captain Merrick ignored them all. “Toby, lad! Take these two ladies below and see that they’re comfortable. Mind Miss Evans’s ankle. Handily, now!”

Rhiannon clung to the weather shrouds as the deck began to buck like a horse beneath her. She looked at the merchantman that had brought them from England, already moving away under the command of the prize crew Captain Merrick had put aboard her. Farther off, the small boats carrying the pirates bobbed in the building seas as they sped back toward the safety of their lair, and Captain Merrick, who seemed to orchestrate the nervous chaos around him like some maestro in a Mozart symphony, was precise, calm, self-assured, and anything but worried as he glanced once more at the squall, coming in fast and hard.