“You stole twenty-five men off one of our frigates?” Alannah asked, amazed.
“Liam’s telling tales, Mrs. Cox. It was all a long time ago. My complements to your chef, Gray. These papaya tarts are delicious—”
“Liam’s right,” Connor said, sitting beside Rhiannon. He had slipped off one sandal and, hidden beneath the tablecloth, was absently rubbing her ankle with his bare toe. “It was twenty-five.”
“Now Connor, lad, you weren’t even there.”
“No, Da, but I’ve heard the story enough times from Mother, and she was there.”
“It was twenty-five,” she said, with an infectious, impish grin. “Under cover of night, your father sailed Kestrel right up to the British frigate that had been chasing us all day, sent a note across via two of his young crewmembers who were pretending to be local fishermen, and coerced twenty-five of His Majesty’s tars to join our crew.”
“You both exaggerate,” Brendan said with a dismissive shake of his head, and looking up, caught Rhiannon’s admiring gaze. He grinned, his honey-colored eyes twinkling. “Don’t believe a word they say,” he told her, and talk moved on to little Grace, ships, appreciation for the meal, and how hot the day had been. Eventually, Maeve excused herself to go feed her baby. Liam nodded off in his chair and began to snore. The plates were cleared, Ned clambered up on his grandfather’s lap and asked him to tell him more stories of the American Revolution, and even Connor, usually unable to sit still, stifled a yawn.
“Let us go take a walk, Rhiannon,” he said, poking around with his bare foot beneath the table until he found his other sandal. “I’ve been sitting too long.”
He got up, tall and handsome, his curls haphazardly tousled and his long, well-muscled calves and bare feet tanned beneath the ragged fringe of his canvas trousers. He helped Rhiannon up from her chair and, making their excuses, they headed downstairs and outside.
It was early evening and the heat of the day was subsiding, the ever-moving trade winds rustling through the coconut palms. The shadows were long as they walked down the path toward what Rhiannon had come to think of as their own little cove.
“Oh, look,” she said. “Someone’s hung a hammock between those two trees.”
Letting go of his hand, she walked over to the net crescent, tried to sit in it, and was promptly dumped into the warm sand as it flipped over. In a tangle of skirts, she came up laughing as immediately her husband was there, reaching down to help her up.
“Silly girl,” he said fondly, “hasn’t anyone ever shown you the right way to get into a hammock?”
“I’m afraid not.” She brushed sand off her arm. “Perhaps you can instruct me!”
With his back to the hammock, he sat down and in one quick movement, brought his legs up. The contraption swung gently as he stretched comfortably out in it. He looked over at her, his mouth curved in that playful grin that she so loved.
“See? It’s not so hard.”
“You’re a show off, Connor Merrick.”
“I’m lonely. Come join me.”
She eyed the swinging hammock dubiously, but he reached a hand up and as she took it, he yanked her down on top of himself; the hammock swung dangerously and Rhiannon let out a little shriek, but he hooked an arm around behind her to steady her and a moment later, she found herself stretched out alongside and partly atop him, her head comfortably pillowed in the cup of his shoulder, his heart beating beneath her ear and the trees, the sky, moving gently back and forth, up and down, as the hammock swung gently with the last of the momentum.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, his arm cradling her close. “This is nice.”
They lay there together, listening to the surf down on the beach moving rhythmically against the shore, the chattering of monkeys in a distant tree, and feeling the trade winds playing with their hair.
Rhiannon’s hand slipped beneath Connor’s shirt.
“I could touch you all day,” she murmured, her fingers circling the small, pebbly nipples before moving out over his chest.
He just smiled, looking at her with a lazy, assessing gaze that reminded her of a predator at rest, watching her and waiting to see what she would do.
“Do you think anyone can see us?”
“I don’t know. Do you care?”
“Well, of course I care.”
“You are my wife now, Rhiannon. Mine. We don’t need to hide our feelings for each other from anyone.”
And with that, he took her hand and guided it down to his pantaloons, where she felt the strength and power of his arousal pushing up, hard, against the fabric.
Rhiannon’s head jerked up, and she looked toward the house. “What if someone comes and finds us?”
“Live a little, my dear.” His grin was wicked.
And with that, he shifted slightly in the hammock and, still holding her hand against himself, hooked his other arm around her neck and pulled her down to kiss her.
Rhiannon melted beneath the delicious onslaught. He tasted of papaya tart and the rum with which he’d washed it down, and his mouth was firm and insistent against her own. Beneath her hand he swelled full and hard, and as her lips parted to receive his tongue, as her senses began to swim with delight and anticipation, she rubbed him through the rough canvas trousers.
“Maybe we’d better . . . go aboard Kestrel,” he managed, between groans.
“Live a little,” she parroted, rubbing him harder.
“Live a little? Hmph! I think I’m dying.”
She laughed, running her fingers up and down his bulging length until he reached down, found the hem of her gown and tossed it over himself, covering their actions from anyone who might come upon them.
“You’re shameless, Rhiannon Evans Merrick.”
“I just have a good teacher.”
Her hand now hidden beneath her own skirts, she traced her fingernail along his arousal, swelling thick and hard beneath the rough canvas of his pantaloons. It was a wicked, sinful feeling with a sense of urgency about it to be doing these things out here in broad, albeit fading, daylight where anyone might come along and see. She heard his breathing change in pitch as she explored him through the fabric, and delighted in watching the effects of her newfound power over him, delighted in the fact that she could make him helpless, because even if she could not make him love her, well, she could make him want her and maybe, for now, that had to be good enough.
For now.
Maybe some day he will come to love me. Some day, when he realizes he doesn’t have to be his father, that he doesn’t have to try so hard, that he has nothing to prove to anyone, when—
He was kissing her again, his breath coming hot against her cheek, one hand lifted to massage her breast through the light muslin of her gown until she, too, was breathing as harshly as he.
She felt the familiar heat building in her blood as his kiss became more urgent, a delicious onslaught against not only her mouth and tongue, but her senses themselves. Growing desperate now herself, Rhiannon unbuttoned him and suddenly his hard, hot length was in her hand. He groaned. The kiss deepened. She stroked him, squeezed him, and then rubbed her thumb once, twice, over the head, delighting in the increased tempo of his breathing, the sound of her own pulse growing quicker in her ears. At last he reached down and caught her hand, his pale, sea-colored gaze locked intently on her dark green one as he broke the kiss.
“You’re a wicked woman, Rhiannon, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“Come inside me, Connor. If you can.”
His eyes smiled, and little crinkle lines fanned out from their corners. “If I can?”
“We’re squashed together on a narrow hammock that is bowed beneath our weight. It’s not like there’s a bed beneath us.”
“My oh my, do you have a lot to learn.”
And with that, he stroked her own inner flesh until she was panting and gasping. Then, shifting position, he hooked a thumb in her drawers, pulled them down as she willingly lifted her hips to accomm
odate him, and maneuvered her atop himself. Beneath them, the hammock moved wildly for a moment and then settled, swinging gently back and forth.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the top?” she asked, puzzled.
He just grinned and, his hands bracketing her hips, lifted her up and off him. “Put me inside of yourself, Rhiannon.”
Squeezed within the tight confines, she found him once more. She adjusted her own position until he was poised at her entrance, now damp and slick with her own readiness for him.
“I want you, Rhiannon,” he murmured, his eyes darkening as she slowly rubbed him back and forth along her cleft, teasing them both. “Our marriage might have been forced, but by God, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
And with that, he lowered her down atop himself and entered her, the huge, hot length of him beginning to fill her, to stretch her, deeper and deeper, inch by delicious inch, until they lay locked together, both of them now trembling with need.
“Take me, Connor,” she breathed as his hands, hard with callous but sensitive enough to know just how to pleasure her, began to lift her up on top of himself and then to lower her back down, building a rhythm that would take them all the way to where they both wanted to go. “Make me yours all over again.”
She tried to reach down to kiss him, but with the bow of the hammock it was impossible and all she could do was lay there, speared on his shaft, lifted up and down by his powerful hands until she felt a searing climax beginning to build within her, until she bent her head and bit her lip and began to whimper deep in her throat, until with a sudden groan, he stiffened and spilled his seed deep within her A moment later her own senses shattered; she cried out and convulsed all around his still-quivering shaft, and then, as she all but collapsed on top of him, his fingers found her hidden, swollen bud and stroked her hard until she came a second time . . . a third.
They lay there together, both damp and panting, the hammock swinging like a cradle beneath them. The shadows lengthened. Eventually they separated, and she settled down to lie beside him, tucked up against him with his arm holding her close, her head pillowed in the cup of his shoulder.
“I wish we could stay here all afternoon,” Rhiannon murmured, idly tracing the groove of his breastbone with her fingers.
He stretched, put a foot out and down, and rested it on the ground below so that he could idly rock them back and forth in a gentle, peaceful motion. “Well, we can stay here until the mosquitoes come out, at least.”
“I can hear your heart beating beneath my ear.”
“Good. Nice to know I’m still alive after that.”
She laughed and inched a little further up so that she could look over at him. A dark shadow cloaked his jawline, and in the late afternoon light his lips looked sculpted, firm, and noble. She reached up and put her forefinger into one of the loose curls that hung down over his forehead, stretching it out and watching it spring back, admiring the thick, glossy waves of his hair and thinking he was quite possibly—no, quite probably—the most handsome man on earth.
A god, she had thought, when she’d first met him.
He glanced over at her, smiling. “Have you given any more thought about where you’d like to make our home once we leave here, dearest?”
“I’d be happy to live in Newburyport with you, Connor. I adore your family . . . your father, your mother, even Liam Doherty. And if Toby and Nathan are also there, well, it makes it all the better.”
“How so?”
“I lost my mother and father when I was young, and had only Gwyneth and Morganna. I didn’t have a big family, and even though I love my sisters, my place is with you. Your family is now mine. If you promise that we can go to England once a year to visit with my sisters, I would love to make my home in Newburyport with you.”
“You’re a treasure, dearest heart. And I would be happy to bring you to England as often as you like.” He grinned, and she saw the tiredness coming into his smile, into his eyes. “Or rather, as often as I can slip past the blockade.”
“I’m sure, Connor, that if your father can do it, then so can you.”
He smiled, his eyes slipping shut. “How nice that you have such faith in me.”
“I’ve seen you in action, remember.”
“Mmm, well, you are about to see me out of action, because I’m getting quite sleepy . . . nap with me, Rhiannon?”
He lay on his back. She, on her side facing him, was already snuggled as close as she could get to him, his powerful arm curving around behind her neck and shoulders, her body lying alongside his, dwarfed by it, warmed by it, sheltered by it.
This is heaven, she thought.
She wondered what life would be like in Newburyport, an American town, foreign and far away and with a climate that was surely colder than Britain’s could ever be. But Connor would be there. His family, tight-knit, quirky, warm, delightful, and already embracing her as one of their own, would be there. She didn’t care where they lived as long as she could be with this man for the rest of her days, and to have her new family there made it all the sweeter. She put her palm over her husband’s heart, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, listening to his breathing slow and grow rhythmic as he relaxed beneath her and the hammock stopped its slow swinging as his foot, eternally restless, finally fell still.
She knew, with the intuition of the intimately connected, the exact moment he fell asleep and left her. She moved her head to look up at him, at his angular jaw, his slightly parted lips, his dark lashes lying fanlike against his cheeks.
“You are beautiful,” she whispered, her heart swelling with emotion as she gazed upon him. “And I love you.”
His other arm lay over his chest, the fingers lax, and as she settled back down against the cup of his shoulder and looked at that hand . . . the small scar between thumb and forefinger, the short, well groomed nails, the length of the fingers, the breadth and strength across the back of the palm, she saw something she had not noticed before.
His little pinkie was crooked and bent, not coming straight off the knuckle like the rest of his fingers, but at a slight angle to it. Idly, she wondered if he’d gotten it caught in rigging, or injured it in some way aboard ship. Heaven knew there were a thousand ways for a mariner to get hurt. She yawned, and blinked, and looked again at that slightly crooked finger, and eventually fell asleep to the sound of his heart beating steadily beneath her ear.
Chapter 27
Several days later Brendan, accompanied by an exuberant Ned, rowed himself out to Kestrel and asked permission to come aboard.
“For heaven’s sake, Da, she’s your ship. You don’t need to ask permission,” Connor said, reaching a hand down to help his father over the rail. “You and your formalities!”
“She may be my ship, but you’re her captain.”
“Yes, but you were her first. And, her best.” He grinned as the elder Merrick respectfully removed his tricorne as his feet touched the deck. “And when are you going to get rid of that dreadful hat?”
His father gave a distracted smile but didn’t rise to the old joke. “Do you have a moment, Con?”
Connor saw the tension in his father’s face and his teasing grin immediately faded. “Of course.” He beckoned to his cousins and One-Eye, lounging near the stern. “Toby! Go find a drop-line and see if you can show Ned here how to catch a fish.”
“Aye, Con. I’d be happy to.”
Brendan mustered a smile as the youth approached. “Faith, Toby, you grow another inch every time I see you. Your parents aren’t going to recognize you when we get you back to Newburyport.”
“I wish I could go to Newburyport!” Ned cried. “Can you take me?”
“Your mother would skin me alive,” Connor said.
“Yes, when are we going back to Newburyport?” asked Nathan, coming up to shake his uncle’s hand. “I’m sick of this heat and we’re about as low on crew as it’s possible to get and still sail the old lady home.”
&n
bsp; “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Brendan waited until Toby had led Ned off to the stern, then went to one of the starboard guns and leaned wearily against its truck. “Your mother isn’t feeling well. She wants to go home.”
“Mother? Not feeling well? What’s the matter?”
“I think the heat is getting to her. She’s a New Englander and not made for this climate. Neither am I, for that matter. But she’s not herself, and that worries me.” Brendan cast a glance toward Ned, who was busily lowering a drop line off the schooner’s stern while Toby looked on. “Kieran wants to stay here and visit with his sister. I was hoping you’d take us home in Kestrel.”
“Sure, Da. We can leave any time you wish.”
“How long will it take you to provision?”
“We could be out of here on tomorrow’s tide.”
“Good. I’ll tell Maeve, then. She’ll be disappointed, but I think it’s best we leave sooner rather than later.” He took off the old black tricorne, ran a hand through hair that was still as thick and tousled as his son’s, and replaced the hat. “Probably just as well, anyhow. The old lady here needs to spend some time in the yard. Her frames beneath the planking are rotting, you know.”
“She’s as seaworthy as the day she was launched.”
“No, she is not. She needs work in places that a body can’t see, Connor. Trust me on that.”
“She’s fine, Father. You worry too much.”
A shadow came over Brendan’s face at his son’s use of the formal word. Father. But he said nothing, and reached out to touch Kestrel’s smooth, varnished rail.
“Besides,” Connor said, noting his father’s uncharacteristic demeanor, “how would you know such a thing?”
“Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. And furthermore, I know something else and so does Sir Graham.” He shot a sideways glance to his son. “Something about a certain convoy being plucked clean by a mysterious, sharp-sailing Yankee topsail schooner?”
Connor grinned and rubbing his jaw, caught Nathan’s eye.
“You’ve worn out your welcome here, lad. All the more reason to go home before you force your brother-in-law to throw you in jail.”
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