Lord Of The Sea (13 page)

Chapter 11

As he made his way back to
Kestrel
, that same noble, daring, heroic man who had rescued so many hapless souls was feeling anything but noble, daring, or heroic, and he realized, quite desperately, that the one who needed rescuing this time was none other than himself.

Marriage.
Marriage
. To a girl who wasn’t even past the age of guardianship, a girl he barely knew, a girl who was already half in love with him—a girl who would turn away in pity if she were ever to discern the truth about him.

Nobody has ever accused me of being smart, Miss Evans.

His earlier comment to her had not been in jest.

Oh, God help me.

He wiped a shaky hand over his face and felt his heartbeat kicking up in his chest. Fear prickled his spine and he stepped up his pace, determined to escape the land and reach the solace of his ship.

Three weeks for the banns to be read, and he would be a married man.

Three weeks for him to figure out what in tarnation he was going to do.

The boat was waiting on the beach where he’d left it, and he pushed it out into the surf, wading in until the little hull was floating free before stepping inside. He picked up the oars and began to row, the boat knifing across the still, night-blackened harbor.

He would marry her, of course. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, and it was the least he owed her. But he would keep her at arm’s length, refuse to let her get too close to him, ensure that their marriage was distant, perhaps even platonic if it would keep her from falling in love with him, even if he had to keep himself off to sea and away from her as much as possible; if he didn’t let her into his heart, her girlish infatuation would never become love, and she, at least, would never discover the secret that only he, Nathan, and the closest members of his family shared.

For Connor knew he was defective. The wonderful, loving relationship that his father and mother had enjoyed for so many years was not something he was destined to have for himself.

And no woman would have him, if only she knew.

Nobody has ever accused me of being smart, Miss Evans.

Through the darkness ahead he could just see the white stripe that marked
Kestrel
’s wale, and never had his little ship felt so welcoming.

The schooner stood quietly above her anchor, a lantern hung in the larboard shrouds of her foremast casting a rippling finger of light over the water toward him. Her figurehead was the small, predatory hawk for which she’d been named, and it stood out clearly against the starlit horizon as Connor rowed toward her. In the darkness, he could just see Jacques standing the watch, his pipe glowing. Connor hailed him and hooked onto the schooner’s main chains. Moments later, he was up the side and standing on the deck.

“
Bonsoir
,
Capitaine
,” said the Frenchman, taking off his hat in salute.

Connor merely nodded and headed forward.

“Have you lost your shirt, sir?”

“No, I know precisely where it is.”

Jacques trailed him, grinning as though he knew some big secret to which the rest of the world was not privy.

“Did you get to see
mademoiselle
?”

“None of your blasted business. Go to bed. You’re relieved.”

“She’s a pretty little
fille
, that one. You know,
Capitaine
, I have a suggestion for you. I know women, I do. And the best way to a woman’s heart is through extravagant complements,  flowers, beautiful—”

“I said go to bed, Jacques. That is an order.”

 “Trust me,
Capitaine
, you listen to me and you’ll have
mademoiselle
eating out of your hand.”

Connor turned and stared hard at the Frenchman who, surely, couldn’t know the first thing about how to go about winning a woman’s attention.

“Jacques, if you do not go below this instant and leave me to my thoughts, I swear I’m going to throw you over the side.”

“As you wish,
Capitaine
. Just trying to help.” Again, he raised his hat, replaced it, and with a grinning leer that made the knife-scar that split his bottom lip all the more ghastly, finally went below.

Connor paid him no further heed. He had a hard enough time keeping his thoughts aligned and on course without additional distraction, and right now he needed to think, needed to be alone, and needed to cool down. Sir Graham’s words had stung and he was still angry, not only with the admiral but with himself. There was only one place in the world where he would find the solitude and clarity of mind that he sought.

One place in the world that was open, free, and, at the moment, entirely his.

He went to the rail, began to climb, and a few minutes later was safely perched in the crosstrees, the gently swaying foremast stretching down to the deck far below, the topmast, with its crossed yards and a black hemisphere twinkling with a thousand stars, above him.

There he remained, high above the quiet waters of Carlisle Bay, looking out at the riding lights of the ships around him, feeling the warm trades caressing his cheek and playing with his hair and making the pennant tickle the sky above his head.

He did not have the intimate relationship with ships in general, and this one in particular, that his father enjoyed, though on nights like this Connor fancied he could feel the schooner’s very soul around him. She had been part of his earliest memories, when his father had taken him, Maeve and young Kieran, often joined by their cousins Nathan and Toby, out sailing in her. Da had taught them all how to set the sails to get the best trim, how to reef and steer and tie a knot, how to go aloft without fear, how to read the compass and take a noon sighting and interpret the signs in the clouds and in the wind and in the seas themselves warning of impending weather. Occasionally, Da would let them fire off one of
Kestrel
’s guns, though it was their mother who taught them how to aim it with deadly precision.

Eventually, Connor knew, he would have to return
Kestrel
to his father. It was to his
Dadaí
that the schooner rightfully belonged, and perhaps he’d get in one more privateering cruise before collecting his young bride and setting a course for New England, two thousand miles away.

And perhaps, since the ship was fully provisioned, he’d begin that cruise tomorrow.

I would like that
,
Kestrel
seemed to say around him, and Connor smiled at last.

Maybe he shared more of his Da’s intimate relationship with the schooner than he’d thought.

*     *     *

Alone out on the veranda of Sir Graham’s beautiful island home, Rhiannon was also sitting beneath the stars, her thoughts her own.

She was miserable.

Oh, how had this evening ended up so badly? How had it gone so terribly wrong?

The admiral was furious with Captain Merrick, and he didn’t seem much happier with her either, having slammed into his study the moment they’d all returned to the house with orders that he was not to be disturbed. Maeve, however, had been far more understanding.

“You must forgive Sir Graham,” she said, coming out onto the veranda and pressing a glass of lemonade into Rhiannon’s hand. “He may be angry with my brother, but I can assure you he’s far angrier with himself. He feels as though he failed you, as well as Lord Morninghall’s trust in him.”

“It all seemed so innocent,” Rhiannon had said quietly, and put her head into her hands, trying not to cry.

“These sort of things usually do—at first.” Maeve pulled out the chair beside Rhiannon, her hand on the small of her back before easing herself down. The swelling of her belly was readily apparent beneath her simple gown of sprigged cotton. “Sir Graham behaved no better than my brother did in the days leading up to our marriage, and perhaps even worse, so don’t let him fool you into thinking he’s some paragon of virtue. He was an incurable rogue. And he’d be the first to say that it takes one to know one.”

Rhiannon had taken a deep, steadying breath. “Everyone always blames the man. I was as responsible for this as Captain Merrick. And yet he’s the one to have a pistol aimed at his heart and forced to do something he may not have been willing to do if his own sense of honor had not demanded it.”

Maeve had let out an unladylike hoot of laughter. “My dear, don’t disillusion yourself. My brother cannot be forced to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He offered for you tonight because he
wanted
to.”

“I suspect he’s the most unhappy man in the world right now,” Rhiannon said sadly. “And I blame myself for that.”

“Unhappy? Connor?” Maeve guffawed. “I guess you didn’t notice the way he was watching you all through dinner these last two nights. No, Rhiannon, I suspect that once he gets over the initial shock of it all, he’ll find himself happier than he could ever imagine.”

“But I let a lot of people down tonight. . . .”

“Nonsense. Connor needs someone like you to anchor him. To steady him. He’s a ship in a full-force gale, restless, unable to sit still, constantly in motion and headed for certain trouble unless someone can find a way to rein him in. He’s gotten cocky and overconfident in his desperation to prove himself, and that’ll be his undoing. I worry about him.” She reached out and touched Rhiannon’s hand. “You’ll be good for each other.”

“I wish I could be so sure.”

Maeve smiled. “I have the Irish gift of the Sight,” she said. “And I have the feeling that you will be the saving of my wild and reckless brother, in more ways than one.”

*     *     *

Without a word to anyone except his betrothed, to whom he sent a brief note saying he’d be back in a fortnight, Connor had taken the schooner
Kestrel
out of Bridgetown that very night and in the two weeks that followed, made himself such a complete nuisance to shipping between Africa and the West Indies that a desperate appeal was finally made to Vice Admiral Sir Graham Falconer in Barbados asking the Royal Navy to do more to protect British ships from “a mysterious American privateer that swoops down out of the clouds, takes our merchantmen, and is off before our own guard ships can do anything to protect us.”

His natural recklessness, stoked to a derring-do that had even Nathan and those who knew him well, worried, stood him in good stead: in those two weeks that Connor allowed his frustrations free rein,
Kestrel
cut five fat merchant ships out of a Jamaican-bound convoy and sent them back to Mobile for auction: destroyed three coastal sloops that were supplying the British with goods that Connor decided his enemy didn’t need: eluded a Royal Navy frigate that gave chase one long afternoon before finally being shaken off under cover of darkness: and finally slipped back into Carlisle Bay and innocently dropped anchor in the wee hours of the morning several days before the scheduled wedding. He woke an hour later and lay tossing and turning in bed, staring up in the darkness, his stomach in knots and cold dread washing through him. For a few moments, he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to make love to his young bride. She was surely a virgin, and the idea of being someone’s first—and only—was wildly exciting. And then he remembered the upcoming wedding and his certain pre-destined failure as a husband, and his excitement faded and became a deep and abiding depression.

Dawn was just breathing light into the eastern horizon when he was awakened by a hand on his shoulder.

He opened bleary eyes and saw Nathan’s face in the early-morning gloom above him.

“Come topside, Con,” his cousin said, and there was something in his face that spoke of barely restrained excitement. “There’s something you need to see.”

“What?”

Nathan just gave him a rare grin, turned, and left him to his confusion.

Connor swung out of the bunk, pushed a hand through his hair, and knuckling the sleep from his eyes, trudged up through the hatch and onto
Kestrel
’s deck, now glowing a pale pink as the sky to the east began to catch fire with the approach of the coming sun.

There his cousins, their backs to him, stood at the rail, young Toby pointing excitedly toward a ship that had also slipped into the harbor sometime overnight and lay quietly at anchor nearby.

She was a sloop, lithe, predatory and like
Kestrel
, sporting a gleaming, low-slung black hull that seemed to be born of the water itself. She had one single, sharply raked mast and a bowsprit and jib-boom that went on forever, designed to carry a magnificent press of sail and now pointed toward the rising sun whose light was already starting to gleam upon the upper reaches of her topmast and pennants. She was beautifully designed, beautifully made, and beautiful to see, for the name on her counter read
Sandpiper
. . . and beneath that, was a single word.

Newburyport.

Connor stood staring, his melancholy forgotten, for there was a lone figure standing at the rail, a figure who was tall and lanky like himself, a figure who, with the rising sun behind him, was still in silhouette.

Perhaps it was a shift in the tide that caused
Kestrel
to subtly swing her bowsprit toward the newly arrived ship, but Connor knew it wasn’t the ship itself that his own vessel was straining so eagerly toward.

It was the man standing at her rail.

The man who had created and loved her.

The man who now grinned and touched two fingers to his hat in an amused salute.

And as the sun’s blood-orange disc finally pushed itself up over the horizon, lighting up the harbor and the man himself, Connor could restrain himself no longer.

“
Dadaí
!” he cried in pure joy, and without a second thought threw himself over the side, arcing in a perfect dive into the newly-awakened waters of Carlisle Bay.

Chapter 12

“Faith, laddie, I would have sent a boat across,” said Captain Brendan Jay Merrick, laughing as he reached down to help his son aboard. “No need to get wet!”

“Da!” Connor shook his father’s hand, and then allowed him to yank him forward and enfold him in his embrace for a long moment. His head was reeling, his father’s familiar Irish brogue the most welcome, blessed sound in a world that had gone totally mad. “What are you doing here in Barbados? How did you get past the blockades the British have of the eastern seaboard? How did you get past Sir Graham’s ships? And where is Mother?”

“She’s around,” Brendan said cheerfully. “We arrived late last night, and really, lad, you should know better than to wonder about how easy it is for your dear old Da to get past a simple blockade.” He spread his arm to indicate the sloop on whose decks they stood. “Especially in something like this.” He grinned, his eyes crinkling with a teasing good humor. “Is she not the prettiest little lassie you’ve ever seen? Fast as a thoroughbred filly, but not the racehorse that one there is,” he added, nodding toward
Kestrel
. “How is the wild black mare?”

“She’s made me rich,” Connor returned. “Took twelve prizes in the last month alone. The pickings in the Indies, Da, are plentiful. We can work together, now that you’re here.”

His father laughed. “No, laddie, my privateering days are behind me. I’m too old for that sort of thing, and Madison’s War is one I never supported to begin with. You know how it is in New England, with the Federalists at the helm and too many people out of work, starving and in desperate straits. This is not a popular conflict back home.”

“I can’t believe I’m speaking to the man who was the most audacious privateer of the last war; listen to yourself!”

“That was a different war, and I was a younger man. Besides, my son-in-law is a British admiral and my little grandchildren are being raised English. No, Connor, this war is not one for me to fight.”

“You’re getting old, Da.”

“Aye, Con. That I am.” He reached out and clapped Connor’s shoulder. “But don’t think for one moment that I couldn’t give the Lion’s tail a good tweaking if I’d a mind to, laddie. Would you care for some coffee?”

“I would love a cup.”

“Good, because Liam is brewing some.” And then, a bit sheepishly and in a lowered voice, “I thought it better that
he
make it, rather than your mother.”

They laughed, for everyone knew that cooking was a skill that Mira Merrick had never mastered, and even a pot of coffee was surely asking for trouble.

“So Liam is here, too,” Connor said, his spirits rising even more as he anticipated seeing his father’s oldest and best friend, who was like an uncle to him and his siblings. “Maeve will be thrilled. By God, I still can’t believe you’re here!”

“Your mother talked me into it,” his father admitted, with a wry grin. “Neither one of us felt like riding out another Massachusetts winter when we could be down here in the tropics spoiling our grandchildren.”

“Yes, and Maeve wrote to tell us she’s expectin’ again,” said a woman’s voice, and looking up, Connor saw his mother sitting astride the main boom, her eyes sparkling. “I wouldn’t want to miss the birth of my next grandchild!”

“Mother!”

“Hello, Connor. I was wonderin’ how long it was gonna take you to realize I was sitting here. Cripes, your manners are worse than my own.”

Connor strode over to the boom, which lay atop the stern rail and then out over the water, and deftly plucked his petite mother from her perch and set her down on the deck. His powerful arms went around her, and then he picked her up and swung her around until both were laughing and her cheeks were flushed like a schoolgirl’s.

“My manners are indeed atrocious, Mother, and I’m afraid they’ve gotten me into an awful lot of trouble,” he said, sobering.

Both his parents and now broad, beamy Liam, coming up from below with a tray on which stood a coffee pot and several pewter mugs, looked at him in expectation.

Connor took a deep breath. “I have news for you,” he said. “I’m getting married.”

*     *     *

“
Married?!
”

“Yes, Mother,” Connor said a bit sheepishly, and proceeded to tell his parents, Liam, and now his youngest sibling Kieran, who had come up on deck looking sleepy and rumpled, about the events that had transpired over the last few weeks.

“Faith, laddie,” said his father, sitting on the sloop’s rail and shaking his head, but he was grinning from ear to ear, making no effort to conceal his delight and even less to judge the circumstances that had landed his eldest son in such a mess. “So it appears we’re to get not only a new grandchild, but a new daughter as well! And what do you think of that,
Moyrrra
?”

Connor grinned. His father’s Irish brogue was as pronounced as ever and even now, after some three and a half decades of marriage, he still spoke his mother’s name with a certain awe. “What do I think? That I can’t wait to meet her!”

“God almighty, I never thought I’d see the day,” said Liam, shaking his head as he set the tray on the deckhouse a few feet away. “’Tis about time ye found someone to settle ye down, young man.”

Nobody can settle me down
, Connor thought, and again felt that prickle of despair and foreboding. Instead, he murmured, “I doubt Sir Graham will even let me near her until the knot is tied. In fact, I should probably make good use of my last few days as a free man, because there’s no money to be made for a privateer who’s sitting in port, and a British one at that.”

“Cool your heels, laddie,” said his father. “We haven’t seen you in many a month, it would be nice to visit for a while.” He got to his feet and poured a mug of coffee, carefully testing it with his hands to make sure the pewter vessel wasn’t too hot before handing it to his wife. “Coffee, Liam? Connor?”

“Aye.”

“Well, with three children and another on the way, the poor man probably has his hands full without having the guardianship of a young woman thrust on him,” Mira said. “How
is
your sister, Connor?”

“Pregnant, emotional, unstable and unpredictable.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I was too, when I was carrying each of ye. Brendan, dearest, are you almost done with that coffee? I’m itchin’ to see Annie, Mary, and little Ned.”

“Ned isn’t so little anymore, Mother,” Connor said.

Brendan drained his coffee and gazed across the water at
Kestrel
, and as he did so a fond smile came over his face—one that was almost, but not quite, as gentle and reverent as the one he saved for Connor’s mother.

Along with his wife and children, the schooner was the other great love of his father’s life.

“How’s her planking holding up, Con?” he asked conversationally, but Connor had noted the slight frown on his father’s face, the fleeting something that told him his Da knew and saw more than he was letting on.

“Serviceable, but she’ll need dockyard attention before much longer.”

Brendan was still looking thoughtfully at the schooner, saying less than he was thinking. “Seems to me, laddie, that a privateer needs to be constantly maintained in order to remain on her toes.”

Connor tensed. “I know, Father.”

“She may be the swiftest thing afloat, but if she can’t outrun a British frigate she’s no good to you.”

“It’s not as though Sir Graham is going to let me careen her here and tend to what needs tending.”

“No, I can’t imagine that he would, given that he knows you’ll turn right around and use her against the shipping he’s obliged to protect. Your mother and I plan to stay here until the birth of Maeve’s child, but after that I think it would be wise to let us sail her home to Newburyport. Get her up in dry dock, give her old frames and planking the attention they deserve.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s not easy getting old, you know. We ancients need a little more care and coddling than you youngsters.” He stood up then, noting his wife’s restlessness, and with the sun now a hot white ball rising ever higher from the eastern horizon and making the sea sparkle like diamonds, it was time to pay a call on the Falconers.

But as they all got down into
Sandpiper
’s boat and Kieran rowed them steadily toward shore, Connor couldn’t help but notice that his father’s gaze moved quietly to the grand old schooner and remained on her for a long time.

*     *     *

He had made good on his word, then.

He had not sailed away like the scoundrel Sir Graham had implied him to be.

Rhiannon, who had spotted
Kestrel
’s distinctive raked masts when she’d looked out over Carlisle Bay that morning, was just sitting down to breakfast with the Falconers and hoping that Captain Merrick would forego his pride and pay a call on the admiral’s household, when a servant came quietly out onto the veranda and leaned down to speak in Sir Graham’s ear.

Smiling broadly, the admiral pushed his chair back and, with toddler twins Mary on one arm, Anne on the other, got to his feet just as another servant led a small group of people into the room.

“Merrick, by God! What an unexpected surprise and a damned pleasant one at that! Come in, come in!”

Everything erupted into chaos as Maeve, with a squeal of joy, lunged out of her chair and threw herself into the arms of the tall, lanky man who dominated the doorway. Ned let out a scream of delight and was swept up by the petite woman who had appeared next to him. Introductions were made, more hugs were exchanged, and one of the twins spit up porridge all down the front of the admiral’s clean white shirt.

Standing a bit uncertainly behind this group was Connor Merrick. His smiling gaze took in this happy reunion for a moment then fell upon Rhiannon and stilled.

The humor in his clear, sea-green eyes faded, and something hungry, intense and wanting took its place.

Rhiannon’s world stopped. She remembered his hot kisses under the moonlit sky that fateful night, the wicked sensation of his wet, hard-muscled thigh against her womanly parts there in the warm waters of the bay, and wild excitement swept through her blood. And then he allowed a smile once more and, stepping forward, raised her from her chair with a gallant bow and a kiss on the back of her hand, and turned her to face the newcomers, pride evident in his voice.

“Miss Evans, you have made me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to become my wife. Please, allow me to introduce you to my family: my father, Brendan . . . my mother, Mira . . . my brother, Kieran . . . and the man who is my uncle in all but blood, Liam Doherty.”

Any hesitation and uncertainty left over from the events of that awkward night two weeks past were instantly banished as Connor’s mother—petite and slim, with the same sea-green eyes her son possessed, an impudent nose, and little wrinkles that fanned out around it like a cat when she smiled, embraced the taller Rhiannon in arms that were surprisingly hard and strong.

“Connor may speak of his joy, but it ain’t nothing compared to mine at the idea of gettin’ another daughter!” she said happily. “And more grandchildren to spoil! You
will
go straight to work and give me grandchildren, won’t ye? Oh, Brendan, I can’t wait!”

Rhiannon, expecting New England puritanism or at least some semblance of gentility, nearly choked at the older woman’s baldly-spoken words. Before she had a chance to mouth a response, Connor’s father, who had been shaking Sir Graham’s hand and blithely shrugging off the admiral’s surprise about how he’d managed to creep into the well-guarded harbor right under the noses of the British fleet, came forward, smiling in a way that made any lingering awkwardness about the reasons for the upcoming wedding to instantly evaporate.

“Ah, so my son spoke the truth about your beauty,” he said, his warm amber eyes reflecting a cheerful, irrepressible spirit that was impossible not to immediately like. “I couldn’t be happier to welcome you to our family, crazy and unconventional as we are. Pay no mind to formalities, lass, because we certainly don’t!”

“You’re Irish!” Rhiannon said impulsively, then clapped a hand to her mouth in embarrassment at her lack of manners. But oh, his voice was pure music, lilting and almost poetic to listen to, and everything about the man made her feel welcomed and happy inside.

“Half Irish, half English, and all American, lass.”

“I have heard much about you,” she said somewhat shyly. “All of it good. Your son told me that you were a hero during the last war between our two countries—”

The older man waved the words away. “Eh, that Connor, ‘tis full o’ nonsense he is, pay him no mind a’tall. ”

Nearby, Sir Graham, distinguished and handsome, was trying in vain to wipe spit-up off his shirt.

“Tisn’t nonsense at all,” said the big, blue-eyed man who had come in with the group and had been hugging Maeve and her children as greetings had been exchanged. He too was Irish, with a broad, barrel-like chest and merry blue eyes.  “And I should know because I was there.” He put out his hand. “I’m Liam Doherty, longtime friend o’ the family and adopted uncle. I’d bow to ye, lass, but I’m a bit stiff this mornin’, and if I go down I doubt I’ll be able t’ make it back up.”

Rhiannon smiled. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Doherty.”

“Liam,” he corrected. “Just Liam’ll do.”

“Liam.” She turned back to the man who would soon be her father-in law. “And what shall I call you, Captain Merrick?”

“She could call you ‘Da’ after they’re married,” put in Connor’s mother.

“She can call me ‘Da’ now, if she likes.”

“But she may already have a father,” said the young man who had arrived with them. His hair, carelessly tousled like Connor’s, was the same dark brown shade as his mother’s but he had his father’s smile and the same warm, laughing eyes. Like the rest of his family he was strikingly good-looking, and knew how to execute a bow as gallant as any Rhiannon had ever seen. “I’m Kieran,” he said. “The baby of the family. I’m sorry if we’re a bit . . . overwhelming. We take some getting used to, I’m afraid.”

And so followed a morning of laughter and chaos, of shared memories and giggling children and talk of ships and wars and the sad state of affairs between Britain and the fledgling United States. At one point Rhiannon happened to look over at Captain Merrick and saw that he was no longer engaged in the conversation, that he was growing fidgety and restless, and constantly getting up and looking out over the sparkling harbor, sitting back down, and getting back up again to go to the railing once more.