Prize of My Heart (4 page)

Then, as though seeking further reassurance, Temperance narrowed her hazel-green eyes in a keen, assessing stare. “George hasn’t done something to upset you, has he, Lorena? You wouldn’t keep secrets from me?”

Lorena dismissed the notion with a giggle. “Temperance, I do not have a secret,” she assured and did not lie, because thanks to this morning’s misadventure, she had two.

Temperance grinned, content to let the matter drop. “In that case, Lorena, I beg you to make your chocolate custards. Shall I tell Mother you’ll join her in the summer kitchen?”

Lorena summoned what little patience she had in reserve. “Very well. Chocolate custards. Though not for the sake of Captain Talvis. I am doing this for my father.”

Temperance gave no reply, save for a smile and the prim satisfaction on her face. She’d gotten exactly what she’d come for and excused herself with a nod.

As Temperance bounded down the staircase, Lorena admonished herself for being so easily persuaded and continued on to Drew’s room. As quickly as she stepped inside, however, the boy was upon her.

He threw his arms about her legs and mumbled incoherently into her skirts.

“I cannot understand you, Drew.”

The child lifted his face. “The giant is come. Come to get us.”

Lorena refused to get unnecessarily alarmed. She took Drew’s chubby hands and held them tightly in her own as she leaned forward to search his face. “You’re telling me you’ve seen the man from the shipyard again?”

He nodded.

“Where, Drew?”

The boy stomped his foot angrily on the carpet. “He is here.”

“Here. Here in our house? You’ve seen that man in our house?”

Drew nodded, vigorously this time, as shock washed over her. Lorena could barely think straight. First in the shipyard, now in her home. Who was this giant? she wondered, knowing full well he was no giant, but a man.

The same striking figure of a man who had impressed Temperance, with eyes she could not describe, and as Lorena feared, her papa’s client—Captain Talvis.

“He is a dangerous giant,” Drew warned. “I can tell by the looks of him.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“He smiled like it was Christmas and he had found a present under the tree. He tried to get me, but I ran away.”

Get him? Lorena hardly thought so—not in their home, surely. Doing her best to hide her confusion, she squatted level with the boy. She braved him a smile and ran her fingers through his soft white-gold curls. “No one is going to get you, I promise. We needn’t fear the giant. He is our papa’s client, Captain Talvis. Remember your papa Huntley telling us about him? He’s master and owner of the largest ship built in our yards.”

Drew considered her words carefully. “Captain Talvis?”

“Yes. I imagine the captain was anxious for a look at his finished ship. That would explain his presence in the shipyard this morning.”

Where I had the misfortune of meeting up with him
, Lorena thought wryly.

She gave the child her most serious face. “Drew, if anyone were to find out about what happened in the shipyard this morning, the captain would be embarrassed. I think it best if we do not mention the giant to anyone.”

Pressing a finger to her lips, she made a soft shushing sound. “We must refer to him only by name. Captain Talvis. And not as the giant. Do you understand?”

He stared back with that precious, innocent face she loved so well. He did not fully comprehend, Lorena could tell, but he would do as she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“At a convenient time, I will apologize to him in private. Meanwhile, you are not to hurt the captain again. No sling, no stones, not even a cross word. Promise me.”

He avoided her gaze, stubbornly refusing to answer.

“Drew . . .”

“I promise.”

“There’s my good boy.” Lorena kissed his soft cheek with a loud smack.

“He called me Ben,” Drew blurted.

Lorena pulled away, startled and speechless. Benjamin had been Drew’s name before he came to them. Why would Captain Talvis call Drew by his former name? How would he even know of it?

A chill of foreboding stole up her spine, rattling her composure until her hands shook. She clasped them behind her back, before Drew noticed how shaken she was. This innocent child had no idea of the dark secret that surrounded him.

But Lorena knew the secret. It smoldered bitterly in her heart.

Except for Papa and herself, no one knew about
Ben
.

No one who was still alive.

H
er father asked that she wait in the east parlor, but Lorena brought Drew across the hall to the more feminine west parlor, where she would be better situated to hear her dinner guests arrive.

Butterflies flittered nervously in her stomach, making her wonder whether it wasn’t the anticipation of receiving her papa’s client that had her pacing the floor or the inevitability of another face-to-face encounter with Captain Talvis.

He’d never seen his attacker in the shipyard, and since Drew had reclaimed his stone, Lorena doubted the captain even realized what had hit him.

She feared his reaction. Would her identity shock him? And once revealed, would that identity as the lady of the house, rather than a servant, diffuse any anger he might be inclined to vent for the way she’d left him lying in the marsh?

The blame was not all hers to bear. By all accounts, the captain should have made a proper introduction. It would have explained his presence in the shipyard. Lorena could have welcomed him to Duxboro and might now be looking forward to his stay in town with pleasure instead of dread.

More than the sort of nervousness a woman in her situation might be expected to feel, she felt disquiet.

Benjamin was Drew’s middle name. Andrew Benjamin Huntley, named for her paternal grandfather, Squire Andrew Josiah Huntley, whose portrait hung over the mantel in her father’s study and who had founded the shipbuilding empire he later passed on to his eldest son. Had Captain Talvis mistakenly transposed Drew’s first and middle names? Was it that simple? Had she overreacted, or was there good reason to remain leery of the man?

In any case, this was her home, and she would not allow him to take her at a disadvantage again. No, not as he had this morning, approaching her unawares, bullying her with muscle and arrogance, with haughty smiles and deep, arresting stares.

She peered out one of the front windows, but the dark, moonless night saturated the glass so thoroughly, Lorena saw only her reflection and the parlor’s interior.

Hand-blocked French wallpaper depicted a mural of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen at a lakeside picnic. The tall case clock ticked five past the hour. Chinese porcelain vases sat atop the fireplace mantel adjacent to a yellow and ivory silk damask sofa, where her gaze came to rest.

She whirled about. “Don’t slouch, Drew, or your clothes will get rumpled.”

The child half sat, half reclined on the sofa, head propped against the back with his chin pressed to his chest in a way that concealed his pout in the lacy ruffles of a cravat. He wore a pistachio waistcoat that did marvelous things for bringing out the peacock blue of his eyes.

Yet perhaps it wasn’t the waistcoat at all but the angry defiance blazing through those eyes that intensified their color.

Lorena marched over for a seat beside him, leaning closer when he made no visible acknowledgment of her. “Listen to me, sweetheart. Papa Huntley is entertaining a very important client this evening. Think how rude it would be for Captain Briggs to sit on the table while you carried on a conversation with him none of us could share in. You’ll be together with Captain Briggs soon enough. In the meantime, give me a smile and be a good boy for your papa Huntley. Think of all the nice things he does for you. Why, just the other day he took you for a ride in the chaise to Timmy Baker’s farm and let you chase the baby pigs through the mud. And didn’t he say you could have one of Taffy’s puppies once they’ve been weaned?”

Drew turned his head and mumbled something about a stupid giant, his body slumped in a manner that reminded Lorena of the cloth doll he pined for. Captain Briggs wore a tiny sea captain’s uniform in honor of the father he believed had perished at sea. Drew and Captain Briggs had joined the household as a pair. Young and disoriented in his new home, the frequency with which Drew had awakened during the night came as no surprise, but Captain Briggs, tucked under the quilt beside him, never failed to ease the child back to sleep.

It brought to mind a certain Boston townhouse during the war. Heavy fringed draperies hung at the windows, blocking the sunlight but not the sound of soldiers drilling or the constant beat of their drum. Vessels sat anchored up and down the coast with British men-of-war standing guard over them in the harbor.

The voluptuous blond woman showed no emotion as she delivered the baby called Benjamin into Papa’s arms. Papa bounced the pudgy towhead on his hip, but Ben squirmed against a stranger’s embrace. He searched pitifully about the foyer, and when he didn’t find whom he was looking for, he screwed up his little face and cried out, “Papa?”

Lorena thought it terribly tragic he didn’t call for his mama, but the closest the woman came to compassion was to shove a tiny sea captain’s doll she referred to as Captain Briggs into Lorena’s hands. She addressed her only child for the last time, saying, “That silly doll is the last you’ll ever see of that papa of yours.” The murderous look in her eyes sent a chill up Lorena’s spine.

She shook off the unpleasant memory and grew stern. “Drew, this morning I promised I’d read aloud to you from David’s psalms. Remember I said you needed to learn David’s wisdom? Well, young man, this sulking is very unwise. Tonight of all nights. And if it does not stop, I shall be forced to put you to bed with no stories of David for a week—”

“No!” he barked, blue eyes blazing and in a voice far too demanding. One look at Lorena’s sharp, disapproving glare, however, and he quieted. The color rose high on his cherub cheeks, his golden lashes lowering ashamedly as he murmured, “I . . . I’ll be good.”

With a little assistance he wriggled to an upright position and not a moment too soon. Footsteps thudded down the hall. Lorena straightened his cravat and wiped the drool from his chin. Outside in the foyer the footsteps halted, then thumped back across the corridor toward the west parlor.

“I don’t understand where they’ve gotten off to.” It was her father’s voice. “I thought they’d be waiting. . . .” Papa appeared in the doorway. His eyes twinkled at her while he addressed the gentlemen behind him. “Ah, here they are,” he said, chuckling. And to his daughter, “For a moment I thought I’d misplaced you.”

“Sorry, Papa.” Lorena rose to greet her guests. Her white lace shawl slipped off one shoulder to ruffle in the crook of her arm. Its silky fringe dangled from her elbow as she anxiously watched her father enter. He was followed by a rusty-haired fellow, heavily freckled, with long side whiskers as coarse and wild as a boar’s-hair brush, and a chest so thick it seemed to overpower the lower half of his body.

Then suddenly he was before her. The guest of honor strode through the door like the giant he was, looking all the more so standing inside Lorena’s dainty parlor.

With the exception of his unkempt, shaggy hairstyle, he made quite the fashionable figure in a single-breasted jacket of midnight blue, cut straight at the waist with knee-deep tails. His waistcoat was yellow silk brocade, his trousers dove gray and tucked neatly into the same black knee boots of this morning. The points of both his starched white shirt and jacket collars were turned up to flank his lean cheeks and parallel the edges of his long side whiskers. Beneath the determined set of his jaw lay a white neckerchief tied in a meticulous bow.

Lorena could not tear her gaze from the imposing sight of him. There was something about his confidence . . . something in the firm set of his jaw and the steadiness of his expression . . . something in his look of fierce determination that made her wonder whether he’d come with a purpose more substantial than supping with her family.

She regretted her presumptuousness in thinking she could remain in complete control, fearful at any moment he might unleash his anger, blanching against the riot of butterflies in her stomach, only to watch his gaze pass idly by, as though she had blended into the wallpaper.

He looked instead at Drew.

“Gentlemen, may I introduce my daughter, Lorena, and my young son, Drew. Children, meet our guests. Captain Brogan Talvis and his chief mate, Mr. Jabez Smith.”

At Nathaniel Huntley’s introduction, Brogan held back and left Jabez to exchange pleasantries while he indulged in the sight of his son, dressed in the attire of a little man.

My, how the lad had grown these three years of their separation. His heart swelled with pride, so much so that he remained barely aware of Huntley’s daughter, until the boy scooted off the sofa to stand beside her and take her hand.

Watching, a pain stabbed Brogan’s heart. He felt excluded. His gaze rose from the girl’s white satin slippers to their ribbon laces wound around her trim ankles and peeking out from beneath a shortened hemline that displayed the lace edge of a petticoat. The gown was of Empire fashion, in a shade somewhere between that of spring lilacs and a ripe plum. Its satiny fabric shimmered in the glow of the oil lamps the way a pool of water captured the reflection of a rainbow.

When at last Brogan looked into that delicate face framed by ginger ringlets, he found her regarding him with chocolaty brown eyes he recognized at once.

His breath caught.

That morning he had mistaken her for a servant, but she hardly fit the part now, did she, dressed in finery with her hair bound at her crown and silver earrings dangling from her ears?

In kerchief and soiled work clothes, she had been fetching. This evening, however, with her beauty displayed to full advantage, she stole all logical reason from his mind. He’d been certain nothing could distract him from his course of action, but suddenly all his long-awaited plans were swept away in a wave of attraction, and he was conscious of nothing save the blood pumping beneath his skin.

Brogan deepened his shallow breathing until his heart slowed to normal, and when at last he could breathe freely again, his anger had increased tenfold.

So the skinny scullery maid was not a maid at all. Nay, she was a rich shipbuilder’s daughter, but did that give her license to bash a man over the head and then leave him rotting in the wet marsh, while nasty midge flies flew up his nose and gnawed on his flesh? His jaw clenched, tightening the surrounding muscle and straining the cords of his neck, until Brogan felt his head might explode. Were it not for the others present, he would demand she explain what trickery she’d used to knock him out cold.

But he refused to say a word. Aye, she owed him an explanation, but to mention the incident now would only heap embarrassment upon himself.

And she did have pretty ankles. Thinking of them made it possible to smile in the face of his displeasure. Brogan bridged the distance between them with a few strides and bowed.

As he reached out, she placed slender fingers in his broad, callused palm and greeted, “Welcome to our home, Captain. I hope this evening finds you faring in the best of health.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Huntley, and good evening. I am well, aye. However, I did have the earlier misfortune of having been struck with a headache. It came upon me suddenly and with great force.”

It was an odd greeting for the lady of the house, to which she paled, her smile waning into an expression of remorse. She reclaimed the hand, but not before Brogan felt her tremble, and moved in a manner to block Drew from his view with the shimmery folds of her gown, much in the manner of a mother hen hiding her chick beneath a wing.

“I am very sorry to hear it, sir,” she said.

Brogan dismissed the apology with a silent
harrumph
and leaned toward his son. “How fare you, Drew? We would have met earlier, but I think perhaps I may have frightened you on the stairs this morning.”

The little fellow stepped out from hiding, but instead of accepting the hand Brogan offered, he pointed a finger at his father and shouted, “I do not fear giants. George says you’re a pirate. Are you a pirate?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, running his gaze over Brogan’s person. “Where is your sword?”

The only sound in the room was that of Jabez’s deep, husky chuckle.

Huntley’s daughter colored with embarrassment. “Perhaps you misunderstood George,” she told the boy. “We shall ask him later, but regardless, that is not a polite question for our guest.”

“It is a fair question,” Brogan countered. “I wish to answer the boy.”

Brogan saw the surprise on her face, but Miss Huntley merely conceded with a graceful nod. “As you wish, Captain.”

Turning from her, he braced a hand on each thigh as he bent to address the child. “Drew, I was granted a letter of marque signed by the president to serve as a privateer during the war. I am not a pirate. There is a difference.”

“George says there is no difference.”

Brogan straightened. He did not know this George, though the name did ring familiar. As for Drew, his son had pluck for such a wee one. It filled him with pride, and in response, his smile was one of love and patience. “Oh, does he now? Well, you can assure George there is a considerable difference. Would you like to know what that difference is?”

The lad stuck a finger in his mouth and mumbled something that, as far as Brogan could decipher, sounded like, “Uh-huh.”