Lord Of The Sea

by Danelle Harmon

  “Oh, Captain Merrick, look!”

  His grin came easily. But it was not just the rainbow that he had brought her forward to see. Firmly holding her elbow and steadying her against the sharply angled deck, he inclined his head, and it was then that Rhiannon suddenly heard a strange buzzing sound, saw a silvery flash, and jumped back as, a second later, something landed, flopping, at her feet.

  “A flying fish!”

  Another buzz, another fish, and then something furry streaked past her ankle, pounced on the fish and, clenching it in its jaws, darted quickly aft.

  “Was that a cat?”

  “Yes, Billy, I think. Or maybe it was Tuck. We have two on the ship, and I can’t tell them apart.” He smiled. “Well, at least I won’t have to feed them, tonight!”

  Rhiannon watched in delight as more of the strange fish leaped through the air, buzzing and flashing silver. The beautiful arc of the rainbow was spread out and up before them. In that moment she had never felt more alive and, raising her face to the wind, she looked out over the schooner’s long, plunging bowsprit as it smashed down on each swell that paraded toward them, foam hissing out around it. The wind was brisk, blowing the tops off the incoming waves and flinging spray and foam against her face and clothes. On an impulse, she reached up, untied the strings of her bonnet and yanked it off, letting the wind rip the pins from her hair and rejoicing in the girlish exhilaration of feeling it streaming out around her.

  Laughing for the sheer joy of the moment, she looked over at Captain Merrick—and the sound caught in her throat. That look again. Only this time, he was staring down at her with an almost predatory intensity and though he was still smiling, his eyes had darkened in some small but not insignificant way that she couldn’t identify.

  “I beg your pardon, Captain,” she said, smiling. “You must think my shameless display of free spirit dreadfully uncouth.”

  “On the contrary, ma’am.” His eyes seemed suddenly greener. “I find it quite charming.”

  “Oh!” Flustered, she looked out once more over the plunging bowsprit and long, long jib-boom, all too aware now of the captain’s gaze still upon her. She suddenly felt too hot beneath her clothes, and hastily tried to stuff her hair back into her bonnet.

  “Don’t,” he said, catching her hand. “Your hair is too pretty to hide beneath a hat. And I enjoy watching you delight in the feel of the wind.”

  He stepped a bit closer, a little too close, and her heart suddenly began to pound. Oh, dear, what do I say to that? Rhiannon thought, all too aware of his height, his nearness, his very presence. She pulled her hand from his, took a safe step back, and crumpled the bonnet in her palm, trying to think of something, anything, to say. . . .

  “Will we make Barbados soon?”

  His gaze remained on her. “With this wind, we’ll raise Bridgetown by tomorrow.”

  “Your ship seems very . . . uh, very fast.”

  Oh, he was standing close. She was having trouble breathing, let alone thinking.

  “She is, indeed. She can outrun anything the British send after her.”

  Rhiannon, unsettled by that keen, direct gaze, turned away to look out over the water. “Why is she so fast?”

  “My father designed her back during the last war. She was a legend then, and I intend to make her a legend now.”

  “That doesn’t explain her speed.”

  “No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. My Dadaí often tried to teach me about ship design, but I have no head for it. When he’d explain to me why a raked mast added speed, or how a certain amount of steeve in the hull allows a ship to slip that much quicker through the water, my mind would wander onto other things. So while I know this ship is fast, Miss Evans, I’m the last person who could ever tell you why.”

  “And yet you have no fear, taking her into a British port?”

  “There are certain advantages to having an English admiral for one’s brother-in-law. But I won’t tarry there. Wouldn’t do to wear out my welcome.”

  “If you won’t stay long . . . where will you go?”

  “’A’ privateering, ma’m.”

  She looked over at him. He was grinning down at her again, and the thought of him dropping her and Alannah in Barbados and then sailing off, probably never to see him again, made her feel sad. In his own way, he was a connection to her sister back in England whom she missed desperately, but it was more than that. He was Connor Merrick, for heaven’s sake—the Black Wolf—and had there ever been such a romantic figure?

  And here she was, standing beside him.

  Talking with him.

  Wondering once again what it would be like if he kissed her. . . .

  She looked out again over the endless waves filing toward them, and Kestrel’s long, long jib-boom pointing the way. She sensed a restlessness in the man beside her, as though he’d indulged her long enough and was eager to send her back below so he could return to the business of his ship, but oh, she didn’t want to be stuffed safely belowdecks; she wanted to be up here with Connor Merrick, enjoying the wind in her hair and the salt spray on her cheeks and the heady breathlessness of being next to him and having him notice her, talk to her, give her his attention.

  This magical moment might not last forever, but she would gratefully take even a few more seconds.

  He was offering his arm. “I should take you below now, ma’m.”

  “Yes . . . you have a ship to run.”

  “Duty before pleasure, I’m afraid.”

  She planted her feet, hoping for just those few more seconds before she was relegated to the safety of his cabin once more. “I wish I weren’t afraid of heights,” she said suddenly.

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. When I was a little girl, I climbed a tree and got stuck up there for hours. I was afraid to come down . . . it’s easy enough to climb up, but once you get up there and then look down, it’s only then that you realize how high up you are and how terrified you are of falling. My sister Gwyneth finally found me, and it was she who came up and rescued me. Funny how something like that stays with a person.”

  “That is a pity. There’s no better view in the world, than from up high.”

  “I see your men climbing up in the rigging with not a care in the world. I could never do that.” Her gaze went once more to the schooner’s long jib-boom, surging up and down as it pointed the way out over the swells. “But to go out there along that long spar—the jib-boom, I believe it’s called?— and feel it plunging and dipping beneath me like a racehorse in full flight?” She sighed wistfully. “Now, that would be fun.”

  “It can be a wild ride,” he allowed, looking at her once again with that same interest he’d shown when she had taken off her bonnet. “Perhaps when the seas quiet down a bit, I’ll take you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I should. I don’t know how to swim.”

  “Well, far be it from me to force a lady to do something she doesn’t want to do. But if you change your mind. . . .”

  “I shall keep that in mind.” She clawed the hair out of her eyes and, knowing it was time to relinquish him to his duties, put out her hand. He took it in his large, callused one, dwarfing her ungloved fingers within her own as their gazes met. “You saved our lives today, Captain. Not just once, but twice.” She smiled up at him. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  His eyes had that wolfish hunger in them again. “All in a day’s work, ma’m,” he said, grinning. “All in a day’s work.”

  Chapter 3

  All in a day’s work indeed, Connor thought, as he gave the delectable Miss Rhiannon Evans into the care of a blushing, tongue-tied Toby to escort below, and went aft to take the tiller from Nathan.

  He couldn’t get the memory of that beautiful hair of hers flying around her face, the delighted sparkle in her eyes, the way the wind had molded her gown up against her slim curves and long legs, out of his mind. But it was more than that. She had pluck, and he liked that. Liked it very much indeed. It was too bad she was so y
oung and innocent. Or maybe it was just as well—she was a good girl, sweet and untouched despite her spirit, and certainly not the sort of woman with whom he’d indulge in a dalliance, despite the cravings she ignited in his blood. Aye, it was a good thing his father had designed Kestrel to be fast, because Rhiannon Evans was a dangerous bit of fluff, and had already claimed more of his attention than he was willing to give. Furthermore, he’d have to be as blind as the bats in the hayloft of his mother’s barn not to notice that she was completely infatuated with him. He couldn’t wait to make Barbados.

  “Shall I shake the reef out of the main?” Nathan asked.

  “Eh?”

  “The mainsail, Con. The squalls have passed. There’s still a reef in it.” His cousin’s mouth curved in a knowing smirk. “In case you haven’t noticed?”

  “Oh, yes of course,” he said, distractedly.

  “She’s a fetching piece.”

  “What?”

  “Miss Evans.”

  “Stow it, Nathan. I don’t have time to be chasing skirts.”

  “Probably just as well. She’d be a distraction.”

  “Aye, that she would.”

  “Still, I think she fancies you.”

  “She’s just a girl. Too young to know what she wants.” Connor took the tiller and tried to ignore his cousin, but as usual he had trouble focusing his thoughts on one thing when there were six and a half dozen other things competing for his attention, and he was unable to parry Nathan’s amused taunts while his mind was still occupied with Rhiannon Evans and the feel of her soft, pretty hand within his own, let alone consider what sails were best set to speed them to Barbados all the faster.

  He dropped his forehead to his hand, kneading his temples, trying to think. “Why don’t we hoist the fore topsail back up,” he said, his mind finally settling, and quite happily at that, on the memory of Miss Evans’s lustrous, red-gold hair flying out around her in the wind. . . .

  “Of course, it’s about time you settled down, Con.”

  . . . And the way her bright, mischievous eyes had sparkled, her tongue coming out to taste the salt on her lips as the wind flung spray against her beautiful face—

  “I think it’s time to tack,” he heard himself say. “Why don’t you go see to it, Nathan. Oh, damnation, here comes Jacques, grinning like a damned fool.”

  The Frenchman, one of several crewmembers that Connor had rescued from the prison hulk Surrey back in Portsmouth in his guise as the Black Wolf, was the most singularly ugly man he’d ever met. But despite his pointed, jutting ears—one larger than the other, and both sunburned to the color of boiled lobster—, a face marked by pox scars, and a lower lip split nearly in two by a long-ago knife wound, Jacques fancied himself to be quite the ladies’ man.

  Unfortunately, he’d caught the tail end of whatever conversation Connor had been trying to keep from having with Nathan.

  “Got your eye on that petite fille, Capitain?” he asked, with a leering grin.

  “She’s got hers on him,” Nathan put in.

  Connor glanced at the compass. “Don’t you two have anything better to do?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Then find something.” He looked up at the pennant above, gauging the wind, then made a slight correction to the schooner’s course. “Such as another fat merchantman or something.”

  Toby was back, looking discomfited.

  “What is it, Toby?” Connor asked, feeling more and more irritated.

  “I was just wondering where the ladies should sleep tonight.”

  The ladies again.

  “They can have my cabin. I’ll sleep on deck.”

  Not that I think I’ll get any sleep, knowing that girl is so close.

  “Mrs. Cox might be a bit of trouble, Con,” said Toby, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Not as much as the other one.”

  “You know, Capitaine,” Jacques put in, still with that leering grin, “I bet you could win her heart like that”—he snapped his fingers—“if only you put your mind to it.”

  “My mind is occupied with enough other things at the moment. There’s no room in it for the pursuit or thoughts of a young and innocent girl, no matter how pretty she is. We need to find a place to get Kestrel careened. And the stores we took out of that merchantman won’t last forever. I’m worried that that prize we just sent off to Mobile will get retaken by either the British or Lafitte’s gang, I’m worried that that mend in the foresail isn’t going to hold under this wind, and I’m worried that I’m going to get stuck in Bridgetown having to endure a long visit with my sister and her family for the sake of being polite when I have a million other things I’ve got to get done, including getting the hull careened.”

  “Why don’t we just careen in Bridgetown?”

  “Oh, and you think Sir Graham is going to allow that? He may be my brother-in-law, but he’s fighting for the other side, and he’ll not lift a finger to aid us in our own endeavors, I can assure you.” Connor glanced up at the pennants, saw that the wind was veering, and now blowing strong from over the starboard quarter. “Ease the main and fore,” he muttered. “And now that we’ve got a stiff breeze abaft, get the t’gallant and studding sails on her. I’ve a mind to get to Bridgetown as soon as possible, and then hightail it the hell out of there.”

  * * *

  Many hours later and some two thousand miles to the north in the bustling seaside town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the two people who were responsible for Connor Merrick’s existence lay together in bed, holding hands and listening to the cold November winds moaning around the eaves of their stately Georgian home.

  Another New England winter, on its way.

  Already, the fire in the hearth was having trouble pushing its heat out into the well-appointed bedroom.

  She was petite and pretty and her hair, a deep chocolate color threaded with gray, was still thick and long, still straight as a board, and tonight, caught in a loose braid. He was an older version of the lean, laughing man who had so set Rhiannon Evans’s heart a’flutter. Some thirty-odd years before, he had designed and drawn up the drafts for the same schooner that his son was currently using to wreak havoc on British shipping. He, Captain Brendan Jay Merrick, had become a legend during the American War of Independence, earning widespread acclaim with which he had never really been comfortable. After the war ended he had partnered with his brother-in-law, Matthew Ashton, and the two of them had taken over old Ephraim Ashton’s shipyards on the mighty Merrimack River. Matthew Ashton and Brendan Merrick had turned out many ships over the years, all of them sound, well-designed, stoutly-built creations that had helped further New England commerce and made the shipyard famous.

  But none of those many ships had ever been the equal of Brendan’s legendary masterpiece, the lean, predatory, widely-acclaimed topsail schooner, Kestrel.

  “Another winter on its way, Moyrrra,” he said, his musical Irish brogue with its Connemaran cadences still thick after nearly forty years spent living in New England. “Listen to that wind out there, tonight.”

  “Everyone’s sayin’ it’s gonna to be a bad one, this year. Lots of snow, bitter-cold temperatures, starting early and goin’ on forever.”

  “They say that every year.”

  “And every year, they’re usually right.”

  She snuggled closer to him beneath the mound of blankets, molding herself against his ribs, resting her hand atop his chest, and laying her head in the beloved and familiar cup of his shoulder. He had never gone to seed, as so many other men seemed to do in their later years, but retained the lean, wiry, strength he’d had when she’d first met him thirty-five years before. She knew, and loved, every part of him . . . from his curling chestnut hair, getting greyer every year but as thick and lustrous now as it was when she’d met him, to his laughing, honey-colored eyes, to the lines carved around his mouth and fanning out from the corners of his eyes when he smiled, which he did often, for he was a man with
a happy, playful heart, and always had been. Her fingers found the little knot of scar tissue where once, a long time ago, the evil Richard Crichton had tried to kill him with a shot from a pistol.

  Crichton was many years gone, but the memory of him was enough to make Mira shudder.

  “Cold, stóirín?”

  “No, just thinking . . . .”

  His hand came up to gently stroke her upper arm through the cotton shift in which she slept, and she knew that in a few minutes, her body would be warm enough that she wouldn’t be needing the blankets, the shift, nor even the fire flickering in its grate.

  But that still left the prospect of heading into yet another interminably long, cold, New England winter, squarely in the offing.

  “Brendan?”

  “Aye, love?”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to get out of Massachusetts for the winter?”

  “It would, indeed.” His fingers strayed toward the edge of her breast, gently rubbing it through the cotton until Mira, growing too warm indeed, kicked off the blankets. “Why, what do you have in mind?”

  “Barbados.”

  “Barbados?”

  “It’s been three years since we last visited Maeve and Sir Graham. We’re not gettin’ any younger, you know, and I’d like to see our grandchildren.”

  “Faith, there’s a war going on, Moyrrra.”

  “And since when has that stopped you in the past?”

  He laughed. “I can’t think of a single time it ever has, actually.”

  “Can we go to Barbados, Brendan? Spend the winter there with our daughter, with our grandchildren, and in warmth? Away from this bleedin’ cold? We can even ask Liam to go with us. It’ll be good for his rheumatism.”

  “What about Matt? The shipyard?”

  “Matt can manage without us for a few months.”

  “I don’t know, stóirín. We’re not getting any younger.”