Her eyes lit up like a little girl’s. “You mean the commodore liked my pie? He actually liked it?”
“Oh, he was just, er, raving about it!”
She was out of bed in a flash. He caught her up in his arms and managed to swing her around without collapsing, his heart lurching painfully in his chest. Her feet hit the table and spilled a bottle of ink all over the drafts he’d been working on of Matt’s new ship. Her hair swirled around her shoulders and scented the air with the sweetness of roses. But by midmorning, she was safely off the ship and accompanied by two well-armed backwoodsmen who served as Kestrel’s marines, and her ever-protective friend, Abadiah Bobbs.
With a heavy heart, Brendan watched her go.
And then he joined Liam on deck and waited.
###
It was afternoon when the first warning shots thundered up the bay.
Liam, munching a handful of wild strawberries, wiped the back of his juice-stained hand across his mouth and stared to the south. “What the bloody divil was that?”
Brendan, squinting in the bright sunlight, had been making notes in the log. Now he calmly put his pencil in his pocket, shut the book, and handed it to Zachary Wilbur. He allowed none of the trepidation he felt to show in his eyes as he clasped his hands behind his back and gazed nonchalantly past their prize schooner, anchored nearby, out across miles of shimmering water, to southward.
“God Almighty, Brendan, that sounded like—”
“Shh!”
He cocked his head, listening. A strange silence had settled over the bay, and he pictured the other captains grabbing their spyglasses, training them in the direction of the distant gunfire, fighting back these same butterflies of sudden dread.
There, it came again. A far-off noise like thunder.
Except he knew in his heart that it wasn’t.
“Gunfire, Liam,” he finished. He forced a grin, hoping to bolster the men’s confidence. They’d need every bit of it, and then some. “I believe the enemy has finally arrived.”
Liam passed a huge, shaky hand through his spice-colored curls, leaving them stained with strawberry juice. And then he glanced at the commodore’s flagship. Moments ago, signals had risen to her mast, telling them that Lovell was in place at the rear of the British fort and the attack could begin; now flags streamed aloft once more.
“Message from Warren, sir,” said John Keefe quietly. “He has Diligent in sight. She reports eight strange sail coming up the bay.”
“Go hálainn,” Brendan said, already reaching for his sketchpad. “Lovely.”
“Think it’s really the British relief forces?” Liam asked.
“Oh, no doubt about that. Certainly not American relief forces, my friend.”
Liam looked at his captain, and the two gazed at each other in silent communication, one thick and brawny and solid, the other tall and elegant and left leaner than he’d ever been by all that he’d recently been through. They had shared many trials together. They had come through many a storm. And they both knew that this would be the worst one yet.
The gunfire came again, closer this time.
“Are ye up to it, Cap’n?” Liam eyed his friend’s pale, drawn features, the arms that had yet to regain all of their sinewy strength.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, Liam.”
“Is she up to it, d’ye think?”
“Kestrel?”
“No, the wee lassie. Miss Mira.”
Brendan took off his tricorne and stared down at its gold braid. “I don’t know, Liam. Nor shall I find out.”
“What?”
“I sent her ashore—to pick blueberries.”
“Blue—” Liam’s mouth dropped open. And suddenly he understood. They didn’t need blueberries. They didn’t need another pie that no one dared to touch. Brendan had sent the lassie ashore for her own protection, knowing intuitively that today something huge and significant would happen. Liam shook his head. “Ye’re a clever one, y’know. Always said it and always will.”
“Not so clever, Liam. Would that I could protect all of you like I can my Mira.” He eyed the forlorn and empty Freedom. “I may well regret my decision to send away my best gunner.”
“And ye may well regret yer refusal to tell ol’ Sir Geoffrey the real reason ye switched loyalties. About what Crichton did to ye so long ago—”
“Enough of that, Liam. Let bygones be bygones. And let Sir Geoffrey enjoy his retirement in Kent without the blemishes of the past to haunt him. He’s earned it. Besides, there are other matters that demand my attention right now.”
Liam knew he was still worrying about Mira—and what her absence might cost them. “At least ye have yer other fine lassie,” he said, stroking Kestrel’s sleek rail.
“Aye. Would that I could protect her, too.”
The distant ship’s guns thundered again, followed by others that weren’t her own.
“Well, Liam, shall we ready our lassie for whatever fate holds in store for us?”
“Aye, Brendan. I’ll take care of it. You go down and have yerself a bit o’ refreshment.” He eyed his captain’s pale features, worrying about the glazed look in his eyes that seemed to come and go like a foggy mist. Their leader was not well, and every man on the ship knew it. “And put on that fine coat of yers, too. If she’s a-watchin’ from shore, she’ll think ye look right dashin’ in it.”
Brendan nodded. Oh, he’d put on the coat, all right. If not for Mira’s benefit, then for his crew’s. They’d need a strong, inspiring leader to follow today. They’d need a capable commander at the helm.
Dizziness washed over him, and he pinched his arm, hard, to quell it. But was he strong? Was he capable?
Liam was staring at him, his eyes dark with worry. Fergus and Rama were hauling out those foolish crystals and chanting about past lives. Dalby, holding his gut, was frowning. And some of the men were eyeing him uncertainly.
He couldn’t have that.
“Good heavens, laddies, what are you all staring at, eh? Faith, I’ve never seen such a hesitant bunch of do-nothings! You’d think we were waiting for a funeral. Now look lively, lads, we’ve got company coming for dinner!”
He grinned, playfully punched Liam’s shoulder, and without a further look southward where the formidable British squadron, as yet unseen, was advancing, went below. No one noticed that he’d stuffed his hands beneath his coattails to hide their weakness. No one noticed how he leaned heavily against the bulkhead at the bottom of the hatch until his vision righted itself. No one saw him wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of an unsteady wrist.
But everyone saw him glance a final time toward the deep, choking woods where somewhere, a pretty little lassie was out picking blueberries for a pie that would never be made.
###
He donned a clean new shirt, a red waistcoat, and his tailored blue coat with its red facings. His knees were weak and he was sweating heavily, a cold, ugly sweat that had nothing to do with his apprehension about the growing battle and everything to do with his body’s infirmity. Coming up through the hatch, he straightened his stock and pulled out the ruffled lace at his wrists.
Liam met him as he came up through the coaming, his face grave.
“Today’s the day, Liam,” Brendan said, with more cheerfulness than he felt.
“Aye, Brendan.” He handed Brendan his sword and pistol. “Don’t push yerself too hard, eh?”
“No harder than ever, Liam. But as hard as I must to see us out of this.”
“Well, just don’t ye be thinkin’ about that lassie. She’ll be just fine, right where ye put her.”
He nodded, and mustered a grin. “Yes . . . Why, she’ll have the best seat in the house, won’t she?”
As he emerged on deck, over fifty worried faces turned toward him, and some of the men began to cheer. More and more joined in, inspired by the sight of their dauntless young captain, until the whole ship rang with the wild thunder of their voices.
“Huzzah! Huzzah!”
&
nbsp; “Three cheers for the Captain from Connaught!”
“And for Kestrel, too!”
But he merely nodded, grinned, and drawing his spyglass, went to the rail. The prize schooner they’d taken earlier rolled in the swells nearby, and Brendan regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment. Then, bracing himself against the shrouds, he trained the instrument off the starboard beam toward the choking wilderness and held it there for a long time. Finally the glass began to shake in his hands. Somewhere out there was a little green-eyed lass with hair that wouldn’t stay out of her eyes, and a skill with a cannon that he’d never need more. But she would be safe.
And then he swung the glass forward.
There was Diligent, storming up the bay with signal flags streaming from her mast. On the horizon he could just make out tiny puffs of clouds, like a squall coming in from the sea.
Except they weren’t clouds at all.
Dalby pressed close to his elbow, and in a voice filled with doom, relayed the awful message. “The enemy’s in sight, sir.”
Brendan lowered the glass. Unbidden, his gaze went to Freedom, standing alone in her red-painted carriage. High above, the raking masts rose into the sky, swaying and creaking as Kestrel rolled uneasily at her mooring. Aft, the proud American flag billowed in the wind.
He laid a comforting hand atop the schooner’s gunwale. Kestrel was nervous. The men were nervous. He was nervous.
Again he eyed that empty gun, suddenly wishing he’d have Mr. Starr by his side for their most desperate fight yet.
Chapter 31
“If ye’d stop eatin’ them berries, Bobbs, the lady’d be able to gather enough to make a pie out of! How the hell’s she supposed to do that if ye keep stuffin’ yer face, huh?”
Abadiah scratched at his mole. The captain had told him to keep Mira out here as long as possible. He’d seen the desperate look in those russet eyes, the tension that tightened that laughing mouth. Oh, he’d keep her out here till hell froze over if he had to. Their captain had never steered them wrong yet. If he anticipated something bad, then Abadiah would trust his judgment. “Why don’t ye just shut up, Stan? You’re eating more than I am.”
“Am not!”
“Are, too!”
“Keep it up and the two of you’ll be out behind the rocks with the shi—”
“Really, Miss Mira, if your father could hear such language!”
“My father’s the one I learned it from,” she announced, grinning saucily. Her hair fell down over one eye, and impatiently she tossed it back over her shoulder. She was hot, sticky, and growing tired. “Let’s go back now, Bobbs. I think we have enough blueberries.”
“Not enough to make a pie with,” he said hastily.
“So? I’ll fill up the space with something else.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Hardtack? Raisins? Some of that fish chowder—”
“Fish chowder?”
“Well, there’s milk in fish chowder, and you’re supposed to drizzle milk over the crust, aren’t you?” she snapped defensively. “If you can put it over the crust, I don’t see any reason why you can’t put it in the pie. And furthermore—”
Bobbs’s grizzled head suddenly jerked up. “Jee-zus, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“That noise! It sounded like thunder!”
“Probably a storm coming in,” growled Stan, leaning on his rifle.
Mira yanked her hair free of a pricker bush and placed berry-stained hands on her hips, listening. And then she heard it, too. Her face blanching, she clawed the hair out of her eyes and stared at Abadiah Bobbs. “That’s not thunder, Abadiah!”
He lowered his pail. “Nay, girl, I don’t think it is.”
The other marine, clad in buckskin and a beaver hat, slapped at a mosquito and popped a blueberry into his mouth. “’Tis, too, thunder. I’ve been out in enough storms to know thunder when I hear it.”
“That ain’t thunder; it’s gunfire, and you know it!” Mira cried. “I’ll bet the British reinforcements have arrived!”
“God help us,” Stan whispered, blanching.
Abadiah grabbed at her sleeve and caught only a branch that slapped him across the face. “Mira, wait!” But she was already tearing through the thick brush, stumbling over roots and stumps, her hair catching in thick branches, her boots sliding on boulders slick with moss. Grabbing his pail, Abadiah tore after her, crashing through the woods with the two marines close behind. “Mira!”
“Brendan!” she cried. “Oh God, we have to reach the ship!”
They tore out of the trees, raced down the beach, and slid to a halt on the slimy, seaweed-covered rocks. Mira’s heart skipped a beat and filled her throat. Dread snaked up her spine. There, coming up the bay, was Diligent, the ship that Saltonstall had posted as a lookout twenty-five miles downriver at the entrance to the bay. Far behind her was the other lookout, Active. And far, far off in the distance, almost indistinguishable in the haze, were the sails of a mighty fleet.
“For God’s sake, hurry up!” Mira screamed, dropping her pail and running for the little boat they’d dragged up on the beach. Already the tide was coming in, lapping at its keel. “Brendan needs us! Kestrel needs us!”
“No, Mira.” Abadiah grabbed her arm. “Look.”
She flung the hair out of her eyes and followed his gaze. The color drained from her face. There was the American fleet, some of them already weighing anchor. There was Warren, signal flags soaring up her masts and calling a halt to the attack.
Attack? What attack?
And there was Kestrel.
Sail was blooming at her nose, climbing her sharply raked masts, and filling with clean, strong wind. Guns poked from hastily opening gunports. She was not dropping anchor like the others, but turning her face south—toward the enemy.
“Brendan!” Mira screamed at the top of her lungs. “Damn you, don’t leave me!”
Water reflected off Kestrel’s glossy black hull, then her tallowed underside, as she heeled gracefully and, with the prize schooner also weighing anchor to follow her, moved quietly downriver in stately, majestic hauteur. Away from the fleet. Away from her.
Watching the two ships, Mira cursed and swore and screamed until her voice went raw in her throat. It took Abadiah and both of the marines to hold her down. And as she watched the little schooner sail bravely away to face the enemy, Mira vowed that if Kestrel survived, it would be the last time Brendan would ever run away from her again.
###
“What the bloody deuce is that damned Irishman up to now?” Crichton thundered, grabbing his glass from a stunned Myles and training it on the oncoming schooner. “Is he insane?”
Myles sniffed and dug at his pockmarked face. “I would give him more cleverness than his peers, sir. At least he’s going to try to make a run for it. They, on the other hand, will be sitting ducks when Sir George’s ships move in.”
“If I know Merrick, he’s not running, he’s up to something! And I don’t give a damn about the rest of the fleet. I want that schooner and I want Merrick! You think I really care about those other cursed rebels? You think I persuaded the new admiral to assign me to this squadron just for the jolly hell of it?” Crichton slammed the glass shut and thrust it into his lieutenant’s hand so hard it nearly broke the man’s finger. “I joined it because I knew Merrick would be a part of it, and I wasn’t mistaken. This time he won’t escape me!”
Myles, who was inclined to let bygones be bygones after their last humiliating brush with the Captain from Connaught, shrugged and picked at the cuff of his sleeve. “Honestly, sir, perhaps we should forget about this one schooner and one privateersman when there’s the whole American fleet just sitting—”
Fuming, Crichton spun around and cracked the back of his hand across Myles’s face. “Dare you question my wishes? That one schooner is my ticket to flag rank! That one privateersman is the reason I never got it in the first place! He owes me, Myles! And this tim
e he’s going to pay up!”
“Yes, sir,” Myles said, sullenly rubbing his cheek.
“Now, get forward and run out the bow chasers. Have the men beat to quarters and load every gun with grape. Should Merrick try to get past me, I’ll blast him and that damned schooner to kingdom come!”
His milky eyes glowing with a fanatical light, Crichton gripped the rail, set his jaw, and waited.
###
“Make five . . . six . . . eight enemy sails, sir, standing up the bay!”
“Thank you, Mr. Reilly.” Looping the lanyard of his speaking trumpet over his wrist, Brendan calmly pulled out his sketchpad. So be it, then. Eight British ships against Saltonstall’s twenty. Ought to be a good fight. Drawing his knife, he sharpened his pencil and made a test mark on the clean white paper. This was definitely one battle he wanted to save for posterity.
Liam was at his elbow, his face going purple. “God Almighty, Brendan, don’t ye think ye ought to be mindin’ the ship just this once, instead of playin’ artist?!”
“Minding the ship? Faith, Liam, that’s your job. Tell Mr. Wilbur to see to that foresail, would you? She’s luffing a bit. I don’t want the vice admiral to think I’ve lost my penchant for perfection. And oh, Liam, while you’re at it, do get your fiddle out and strike up a lively tune, would you?”
Liam stared at him. “Somethin’ Irish?”
“No, something American, I think. Such as . . . oh, I don’t know. ‘Yankee Doodle’? ‘Derry Down’? Actually, I think ‘Free America’ might do quite nicely.”
Fergus McDermott, clutching a crystal in one hand and a Bible in the other, nervously eyed Freedom. “But we don’t have Miss Mira to sing it for us.”
“And we don’t know all the words,” added George Saunders.
“Fine, then make them up as you go.” Brendan grinned and tapped his pencil against the sketchpad. “That’s what she would do!”
Captain Of My Heart Page 38