“He’s nothin’ but a buffoon, Foley! Christ Almighty, ye think I’m afraid o’ some vain, out-for-glory, trophy-huntin’ Englishman? Bah! Yer own wife just said he’s more interested in this Irish guest o’ yers than he is in the business of his bloody king!” A tankard banged boastfully down upon a table. “And don’t ye be forgettin’, I’ve already tangled with him once and showed him me heels. Our naval captain may have ’imself a swift and powerful frigate, but that bumblin’ crew o’ his can barely figure out a shroud from a sheet, let alone how t’ use her guns!”
Deirdre, her heart beginning to pound with the feeling that she was about to stumble upon something that was going to change her life, crept across the room and, reaching for her robe, wrapped it around her. Slowly, she opened her door and slipped quietly down the stairs, hearing the voices getting louder and louder.
“Your swagger will be the death of you, man,” she heard Mr. Foley say sharply. “Captain Lord is no buffoon, but an officer of unqualified skill and tenacity, highly respected by his admiral and his king. No doubt he has drilled that bumbling crew into one as smart as any in the king’s Navy—”
“You mean there are some in the king’s Navy that are smart?” another, mocking voice joked.
“Very funny, Hancock,” Foley snapped. “And you, my fine Irish friend—you’d do well to cover your tracks and have a care about becoming too cocky.”
Deirdre, just outside the parlor in which the men were speaking, flattened herself against the wall, her fists clenched in anger. How dare they talk about Christian like that! And who was this Irishman who boasted so recklessly, whose voice was so familiar, but whose face she could not place?
“Really, Papa,” came a woman’s voice, “you are as skittish as Mama. Our Irish Pirate will run circles around Captain Lord. Why, there is no comparison between their skills, their intelligence, the quality of their crews. Besides, as I told you, the good captain is, shall I say, otherwise occupied of late—too much, in fact, to be placing much attention on his task of apprehending the Irish Pirate . . .”
Deirdre’s eyes widened with shock. Delight! And if her friend had just called the speaker “our” Irish Pirate, then was the infamous smuggler, whose rich, melodic voice evoked vivid images of home, right there in the very next room?
She stood frozen, hardly daring to breathe. No wonder Delight’s restlessness during supper . . . the pains she’d taken over her appearance earlier . . . the renewed interest in her manuals and her continued glances at the small shelf clock on the mantel. Lord above, if Delight was in love with a rebel, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that she was a rebel, too?
Along with her whole family?
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Deirdre whispered, suddenly terrified. It was all she could do not to flee the house and run all the way back to Boston, to the protective safety of Christian’s arms.
“I met Captain Lord some time ago,” came another, steady voice, “and he did not strike me as a buffoon, but a capable, clever, and unbending disciplinarian, entirely devoted to his king, his duty, and his command. I would not pass him off so lightly, my friend. Your English nemesis is not a man to be trifled with.”
“Pshaw,” the Irishman said with reckless laughter, “if ye’d only seen that frigate o’ his takin’ a beatin’ beneath the guns of a little French corvette, ye’d feel as I do! ‘Twas pitiful, I tell ye, to see a fine ship like that so poorly fought and sailed! So quit yer worryin’, eh? The lovely Dolores Ann here crossed the Atlantic aboard her. She knows her captain better than any of ye! Tell ‘em, love! Would ye say the man is single-minded and determined? Obsessed with bringin’ me down?”
“He is clever and tactical, but any single-minded determination he possesses is not directed toward capturing you, but winning the love of our guest. As long as he is so . . . occupied, I do not think him to be a particular threat.”
“Regardless,” Foley said harshly, “the man is well decorated, highly respected, and dangerous.”
Another voice, thoughtful and educated, came through the ajar door. “You seem to have an active dislike of Captain Lord, my friend. Mind that such personal animosity does not dull your own keen edge and land you within range of his guns.”
“Aye, you do seem to harbor a ripe hatred of the fellow!” came the jovial voice of the man called Hancock. “Why is that?”
“As Dr. Warren just said, my reasons are personal, and none o’ yer concern.” Oh, where had she heard that voice? Deirdre shut her eyes, trying to place it, and wishing she dared to pry open the door and have a peek at her countryman’s face. “But I tell you this. I’ll not enjoy a better revenge than makin’ the king’s captain look like the fool he is. He’ll not catch me, by Christ’s blood!”
“Enough, then.” came another voice, hard with authority. “Let us get down to business. Our minutemen companies have been drilling tirelessly, preparing for the worst. Captain Locke here has done an exceptionally fine job with his Menotomy lads, but all the training in the world is useless without more guns.” A chair creaked, and there was the splash of liquid into a glass. “My merchant friend in Philadelphia is sending us two hundred French muskets, which we can expect by week’s end. Since it’s too risky to try and bring the shipment into any of our nearby harbors, my plan is to have our Irish Pirate here meet the vessel off Marblehead under cover of darkness. The transfer must be done quickly and efficiently. Not only is Captain Bishop’s Lively patrolling these waters, but now, so is the frigate Halcyon.”
This was getting worse by the minute, Deirdre thought. And then she felt a high, itchy sensation in the back of her nose. Dear God, don’t let me sneeze now! Panicking, she pinched her nostrils shut.
“Child’s play,” the Irish Pirate boasted.
Adams continued. “Waste no time in pleasantries. Land the guns in Salem, where they will be met by the Sons of Liberty. Our men will transfer them to wagons, cover them with hay and vegetables, and send them directly to Concord.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Delight said. “The British have stepped up their patrols.”
“I don’t like it, either,” said Jared Foley. “You get caught in that sloop under the guns of one of those frigates and it will be all over for you.”
The Irish Pirate’s laughter rang out. “Bah, I’ll not get caught. There are scores of small fishing and trading vessels all up and down the coast. Mine is not so different as to arouse any suspicion.”
“And we could use those muskets,” Hancock proclaimed. “I say let’s do it.”
“Are you up to it, my fine Irish friend?”
“For the love o’ God, o’ course I am!”
“Very well, then. The Philadelphia ship is due to arrive on Saturday night. She will flash two lanterns at her bow, three times in succession. Your signal of acknowledgment is to be the same.”
“Should he learn of it, Gage will move to stop us,” came the steady voice of the one who’d been addressed as Dr. Warren. “You may be sure of it.”
Deirdre’s nose was burning, and she felt the sneeze building. She stepped backward, wondering if she’d have time to make it back upstairs before it hit. Involuntarily, she sucked in her breath—
“And when he does, we will be ready for him, you may be sure!” A fist pounded against the table. “The time has come to make a stand against tyranny, oppression, and the cruelties imposed upon us by a dispassionate monarch grown fat on—”
At that moment, Deirdre sneezed.
It was not a small, feminine burst of sound. It was a full-blown, silence-shattering roar that seemed to shake the walls, the ceiling, the door that suddenly shot open to reveal a room of shocked and staring faces.
In the space of a heartbeat she saw them. Delight, sitting beside her parents and staring at Deirdre in horror; several men, dressed in the decent clothes of merchants and the well-to-do, some with powdered wigs, others with their hair worn natural and clubbed at the nape; and, dominating the center of the room, a tall, forbidding man with
a wildly curling mane of black hair that lay loosely about his broad and muscled shoulders. He had a rogue’s smile, purple eyes like her own, and a face of hard planes and sharp angles.
A face whose memory thirteen years could not dim.
The blood drained from Deirdre’s face. She swayed and clutched at the door for support. The occupants of the room suddenly reacted, some cursing, some blanching with fear, some looking to the one who was obviously their leader—this Sam Adams—who stood, at a loss for words, beside the black-haired Irishman.
“Oh, dear,” Delight murmured, finding her voice.
And then Deirdre, frightened and shivering in her nightshirt and robe, was dragged forcefully into the room.
She stood staring into the eyes of the legendary sea smuggler. Her hands came up, purposely drawing out from beneath the closure of her robe, the gleaming cross that had belonged to another Irish pirate. She let it rest blatantly, proudly, at her bosom, seeing the rebel smuggler’s eyes widen in horrified shock as recognition swept the color from his ruddy cheeks.
There were no secrets left.
Christian, unwittingly, had fulfilled his vow to her after all.
“Roddy?” she whispered, the faces of everyone else in the room dropping away into nothingness, until there were only those darkly fringed violet eyes looking down at her. “Is it really you?”
He stared at the cross, then up at her.
“Aye . . . ’tis me,” he murmured, still in shock.
Foley leapt to his feet, white with fear. “Tarnal hell, she knows your identity, man!”
But the Irish Pirate turned and laid a hand on Foley’s arm. “Fear not that she’ll betray me to her fair-haired Briton,” he said. He gazed down into Deirdre’s face, and reached out to touch one long black curl.
“What do you mean, ‘fear not’? You’re as good as dead!”
“Nay,” Roddy said quietly. “The lass is me sister.”
###
Sitting cross-legged before the window, Christian’s legs and feet had long since fallen asleep, but his mind was alert, wide awake and sharp. He had not moved from his position since sitting down, and the spyglass, trained with a marksman’s aim at that single glowing square of light that was the Foleys’ parlor, had not wavered so much as an inch over the past hour.
He had seen it all. The first horse, its rider in a dark jacket, materializing out of the night and turning into the Foleys’ yard; another, and still another, until it was clear that Gage’s suspicions about the whereabouts of the rebel meeting were correct.
That these men were, indeed, the rebel leaders, Christian had no doubt. He had viewed descriptions and drawings provided by Sir Geoffrey and General Gage, and one or two of them he had even seen on the streets of Boston—the outspoken Sam Adams, and the tall, handsome Dr. Joseph Warren.
Adams’s face, at the moment, was dead-center in the circular field of his spyglass.
Other faces came into view as the rebels moved across the room. John Hancock, pompously dressed, wealthy, much given to laughter. The silversmith Paul Revere, middle-aged and a bit overweight. Jared Foley, with his ink-stained hands, and his daughter, Delight. Her eyes had been following the black-haired rogue whose face Christian did not need to scrutinize with his glass to recognize.
The Irish Pirate.
His hand tightened around the spyglass. How he wished he could go over there and arrest the bloody lot of them. But no. With the exception of the Irish Pirate, the rebel leaders were in Gage’s hands. His task was to apprehend the seafaring smuggler—something he could not do until he caught the blackhearted rascal at his game.
As for Jared Foley being a rebel, Christian had all the proof he needed.
He lowered the glass, rubbed at his aching eyes, and raised it once more. Suddenly, the breath caught in his throat. A woman had come into the room. A slim, fair-skinned woman with a spiral-curling mane of raven curls, a woman who, as he watched, flung herself into the arms of the man he had been ordered to apprehend.
It was Deirdre.
The spyglass fell from his hand. Shock tore through him and he could only stare, blinking, at that square of golden light, seeing the small figures within through the daze of disbelief and denial.
No.
She was embracing him. Standing within his arms and laughing up at him.
Kissing his cheek.
Christian stumbled to his feet, reeled against the wall, and nearly went down. His hand flashed out and grabbed the bedpost, gripping it so hard his knuckles went white. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. He put the back of his hand to his brow and found it cold and clammy.
But the effort of standing was too much. He felt suddenly sick, and sat down heavily, numb with shock and beginning to tremble.
No . . .
But the awful truth was right there across the street. Unmistakable. Undeniable. He bent his head to his hands, his shock giving way to logic, logic giving way to grief, grief giving way to anger, anger giving way to blazing, white-hot fury.
She had betrayed him. She—his little Irish girl—had betrayed him.
I love ye, Christian. His chest convulsed in grief, and he took a deep, shaky breath as he tried to get himself under control. God help me, I love ye.”
“I trusted you,” he bit out, his fist slamming into the wall. Blood sprayed from his knuckles, but he never felt the pain, for it was insignificant in the face of the crushing blow he’d just been dealt. “Damn you, I trusted you, believed in you, loved you . . .” He stumbled back to the window, seeing the Foleys’ door open and spill a rectangle of pale yellow light upon the barren lawn. “How could you? Oh, Deirdre, how could you?”
People were moving out onto the lawn as the meeting broke up. Riders were mounting their horses, and disappearing into the night, until there were only two people still out there in the darkened street.
Deirdre.
And the Irish Pirate.
Her lovely, traitorous face was pale in the gloom as she turned it up toward that of her lover. He wanted to shut his eyes but he couldn’t. He wanted to turn away but, sickened, found he could do nothing except stare as Deirdre pulled something out of a bag he recognized as the one containing her Irish mementoes, and pressed something into the smuggler’s hands. Then, her arms came up to wrap themselves around the man’s neck.
Betrayed.
He heard snippets of her laughter. Heard the smuggler’s deep voice, and again, Deirdre’s happy giggle. The sounds drove another nail into the coffin that contained his dying heart, then another, until everything inside of him went dead.
For him, there was nothing left. No feeling, no pain, nothing. Just—emptiness.
He stood there watching them, until at last the smuggler mounted his horse and with a flourish rode away. Deirdre remained, all alone in the road, the wind blowing her dark tresses around her shoulders, her face turned toward the east.
Toward where her lover had gone.
Christian put his head in his hands. Now he knew the real reason Deirdre O’Devir had been aboard his ship, and it wasn’t to find her long-lost brother. Pain filled him as he realized how foolish he had been. She had only wanted free passage to America so she could reunite with her Irish lover—and, no doubt, learn every secret of the Royal Navy, and of Christian’s own mission, that she could pass on to him.
Mouth tight, he stood staring down at the lone figure out in the road outside. ‘Two can play at your game, dear girl,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “So help me God, you will rue this day, and so will your bloody lover.”
Chapter 27
The decks of HMS Bold Marauder were lonely and dark, with only a few lanterns hung in the shrouds to make a stand against the fog that lay heavily over the harbor. A few idle seamen swilled their grog and bemoaned the absence of Delight Foley. A marine stood leaning against his musket, his eyes scanning the mists, his thoughts far away. Ian MacDuff was the officer of the watch and, to relieve the boredom, had brought out hi
s bagpipes, much to the dismay of those who happened to be on deck with him. For a short time the pipes had honked and croaked and moaned, until the accompanying curses and protests from his shipmates had sent Ian storming off in high Scottish rage.
Now, he stood sulkily beside Skunk on the empty quarterdeck, seeking shelter beneath the dripping tarp that had been rigged against the earlier, drenching rain. Lantern light caught the glimmer of moisture as it trickled down masts and tarred lines, pooled upon booms and yards, and made the decks slippery and treacherous. Skunk pulled his cap down over his grimy forehead and wiped away the moisture with the back of his hand. “Quiet night out there,” he muttered. “Hibbert says the Lord and Master’s still up.”
Ian, shivering in the cold, damp rain that began to leak from the black sky above, cast a quick glance aft. Sure enough, a glow from the skylight confirmed Hibbert’s observation. “Aye, I’d say he is.”
“Somethin’s up, Ian. He’s been silent and keepin’ to himself since he got back from visitin’ the Irish lass. Ye don’t think somethin’ happened between ’em, do ye?”
“I doona ken, Skunk. But ’tis right you are about something being in the air. The Old Fart came aboard this afternoon and he and the captain met in his cabin for over an hour. Evans was eavesdroppin’ outside the door, and said that tomorrow night we’ll see action.”
“Action?”
“Well, I know I shouldnae be tellin’ ye this, it probably being highly confidential and all, but we are shipmates . . .”
Skunk swung around, his eyes eager. “Aw, Ian, just tell me!”
The big Scotsman shrugged. “Well, Gage has his own system of spies, sprinkled throughout Boston and the surrounding countryside. Ye ken, in taverns, inns, pretending tae be friends of the rebels . . .”
“Go on,” Skunk urged, glancing over his shoulder even as Hibbert, his uniform dull and drooping in the mist, and Teach, joined them.
“Aye, tell us, Ian!”
Master Of My Dreams (Heroes Of The Sea Series) Page 30