“But what if they’re alive? What if—”
“Sit down, Kieran.” Liam pushed him toward the low deckhouse. “Sit down and think, would ye? Ye’re good at thinking. Better than anyone I know. Right now ye’re letting false hopes and emotion blind ye to reason. I was there. I’m tellin’ ye, these pirates are just makin’ up stories in order to get ye to do their bidding.”
“But it is the same gang of brigands.”
“I’m not disputing that. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t go rescue Miss Rosalie’s brother and crew, because it’s the right thing to do even if I do think we ought to head back to Barbados and enlist Sir Graham’s help, let him send a frigate to do the job instead. It’s not our job to tackle pirate infestations. It’s Sir Graham’s.”
“But they’re my parents to avenge.”
“Indeed, but ye haven’t seen that brigantine. I have, and she’s formidable.”
Kieran lost his temper. “Yes, and that’s precisely the reason that Connor, damn him, should’ve left her alone! If it weren’t for him and his damned recklessness, his stupidity, his insatiable need to prove himself—” he broke off, as though horrified at the disloyal words he’d just uttered against his brother, and turned away. “Oh, never mind that, I’ve a headache and I don’t know what I’m saying.” He moved to the rail, ignoring the way Liam was now eyeing him with speculation. “Let’s rid ourselves of that merchantman, keep Diego Escobar alone as our guide back to this island, and get on with things. There’s a truth to discover and I want to be about it.”
“That truth isn’t going to include finding yer parents, lad. Avenge them if ye must, find the girl’s brother if he’s still alive, then let it all go.”
Around them, the Caribbean sparkled blue-green in the sunlight and heat radiated from the sun above. Kieran took off his hat and pressed a hand to his throbbing forehead. His brain felt as if it were baking inside his skull and nausea flirted with his gut. He wished he hadn’t said what he had about Connor. Wished he’d kept that all inside, where it belonged.
Liam joined him at the rail. Kieran could feel the weight of his sympathetic blue gaze.
He glanced askance at his lieutenant. “Stop looking at me.”
“I’m worried about ye, Kieran. Ye’re holding in a world of hurt about yer brother, aren’t ye? I should’ve known—”
“I don’t want to talk about Connor, I don’t want to talk about what I just said, I want to talk about those pirates. That scoundrel inferred that something, someone, survived Kestrel’s sinking. What if he’s telling the truth?”
“He’s not.”
“He might be!”
“Kieran.” Liam straightened up, caught the younger man as he turned away in agitation and looked him straight in the eye. The merriment was gone from his leathery old face and only pain resided there now, aging him beyond his years. “I was there. They’re gone. Ye’ve got to accept it.”
“Did you actually see Kestrel go down?”
“There was no way she could have been saved. She was foundering, laddie. In the morning, there was nothing left.”
“But did you see her go?”
Liam just shook his head in weary defeat. “No, I did not.”
“Maybe there was nothing left because the pirates went back after it was dark. Maybe they found Mother and Da still alive—”
“Kieran, your mother was desperately sick. She was dying, lad. ’Tis the reason your da didn’t leave the ship with the rest of us—”
“I know that, but you of all people know how the luck of the Irish was always with Dadai, you know how clever he was. Please, Liam. Don’t take this sudden hope from me, it’s all I have.”
The older man’s eyes filled with grief. “Kieran,” he said quietly. “Yer father and I grew up together in Connemara. He was my very best and dearest friend in the whole wide world, and had been for over fifty years. Nobody, save for yer mother, knew him as well as I did or loved him as much. If he’d survived, I’d know it.”
“You don’t have the gift of the Sight, as Maeve does. As her son, little Ned, does.”
“No, I don’t. And both of them knew right away that there’s no hope.” His voice gentled. “They’re dead, lad. Let them rest in peace, as they deserve.”
Kieran raked trembling hands over his face, and in that moment saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head, and there was Miss Rosalie McCormack.
She was the last person he wanted to see right now. The last person he had the energy, patience or mental discipline to contend with. She had changed into a pale green gown with white ribbons at the capped sleeves and a bonnet covering her absurdly thick orange hair, and she was looking at him, frowning. And no wonder, if his outward appearance mirrored the state of his inward one.
“What?” he demanded harshly.
Liam touched his arm. “Kieran, your manners.”
She came forward, her chin high. “It is quite all right, Mr. Doherty, as we’ve already established that your captain’s manners leave much to be desired.” She faced the two of them squarely. “I came to ask if you’ve learned anything about my brother and his crew.”
The summery, pale green gown in its intended state might have kept him from noticing her ample curves, the flare of her hips and the fullness of her breasts, but the gentle breeze pressed the gauzy fabric to every inch of her outline, molding it to her body with unseen hands and leaving little to the imagination when it came to her shapeliness.
Again, that unexpected jolt.
The stab of desire, hardening him, angering him.
He didn’t know which was worse—that stab of desire or the course his thoughts had been on a moment before she’d appeared and interrupted them. Perhaps, for that, he should be grateful. She’d at least caused his mind to change tack, got it thinking about something else.
Her.
Her curves.
The fact that she made him so…so—his mind searched for the right word—frustrated.
And aroused.
Kieran turned away, wishing he could control his reactions to her, wishing she’d not seen him in such an agitated state, wishing he didn’t care one way or another what she thought about him.
“My brother and crew?” she prodded.
“There’s a chance they’re on some godforsaken island,” he snapped. “The pirates locked in the hold by the English crew have proposed a trade. We bring them to this island and give them their freedom, they’ll give us your brother and crew.”
“Then let’s go.”
“What?”
“Why are we sitting here when we can be rescuing them?”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“Madam, this is not your ship, not your command, and not your business to say where it goes or how it gets there.”
Her pretty pink mouth thinned to a tight line. “So you’re not going to investigate this claim?”
“He will,” Liam said with resigned assurance.
“I haven’t made any decisions yet,” Kieran retorted.
“Aye, ye have. ’Tis what we were arguing about as ye came upon us, lass.”
“I don’t understand why there should be an argument. We ought to be piling on sail and heading to this island right now.”
Kieran pushed two fingers against his forehead and shut his eyes. I don’t drink, he told himself. I. Don’t. Drink. But maybe it was time to start even if it would likely kill him. This woman was going to drive him to it, or worse.
“Why are you hesitating?” she demanded.
“Unless you’ve failed to notice, ’Piper is not exactly a frigate. She’s small and she’s quick, but when it comes to firepower we carry a mere ten guns.”
“It’s only a nest of pirates, not the Royal Navy.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“What, are you afraid?”
“Afraid?”
“Well, yes. Afraid. Because you’re certainly giving me the impression that you are.”
“Fine, then. You stay here and decide whether you’re going to be fearful or prudent. I’m going back to my own ship, taking command, and sailing her to this island.”
“You can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because she’s not your ship, she’s my ship until she gets sorted out back at some friendly port that’ll ensure I get a portion of what she’s worth for the trouble of rescuing you, a move I’m deeply regretting.”
“You are quite the rudest man I have ever met!”
Liam, watching this exchange with folded arms, finally piped up. “Captain Kieran, now, he’s really not rude, and he doesn’t regret rescuing ye, lass.”
“Actually, yes, I do. I’m regretting taking your ship—”
“You just said it was your ship—”
“I’m regretting your transfer onto this one, and I’m regretting even getting out of bed this morning!”
Liam reached out to touch Miss McCormack’s hand. “He’s not serious, lassie, pay him no mind.”
Kieran merely shot him an angry glare and yanking his hat down against the blazing sun, headed aft. It was all he could do to keep his temper in check. Temper? He hadn’t even known he had one until he’d met this woman. Oh, he was learning all sorts of unpleasant things about himself since Miss McCormack’s arrival, wasn’t he? His insides were churning. His head ached. His body was responding in ways that were beyond his control, let alone his imagining.
And all because of her.
Diego Escobar’s feral, cunning eyes invaded his thoughts and with gratitude, he allowed the memory into his brain. Welcomed it, and the cold anger it brought with it.
Better to think about revenge than what his body wanted to do when it came to Rosalie McCormack.
Chapter 5
Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 17 May 1814
The thing about grief is how it moves at its own pace. Comes when it will, stays longer than a houseguest whose departure is long overdue. When I learned the news of their deaths, I was numb. Those closest to me thought I was handling it well and with my normal pragmatic acceptance, but the reality was, I hadn’t accepted it because it hadn’t sunk in. It wasn’t even denial, simply a strange euphoria that they were fine, that they were with God, that I would see them again some day. I did not shed tears. Not then. But now, several months out, the reality that they are not coming back stands like a giant on my shoulders and I struggle beneath the weight. I miss you, Dadai. I miss you, Mother. And every day that goes by that you’re not here, that adds more distance between the time I last saw you and now, only makes the ache deeper and my heart more lonely. I’m angry that you were taken so soon. I’m angry that you never got to see me settle down, take a wife and give you grandchildren to love, as both Maeve and Connor got to do. I’m angry at Connor for his bad judgment that led to your deaths. But right now, I’m mostly angry at this woman I was compelled to bring aboard ’Piper. I would like nothing more than to be alone in my cabin with my thoughts and no need to see or entertain others. To be left alone. But this woman, this Rosalie, she is there, and she makes me feel anger when all I wish is to return to that state of blessed, ever-elusive numbness.
Rosalie stood a few feet away, watching the small crew that Captain Merrick had put aboard her father’s ship let the big merchantman fall off the wind. Moments later, her sails were filling and she was gathering way, a small ruffle of a wake trailing from her rudder as she headed off to larboard.
Godspeed, she thought.
And now I’m on my own. I’ll find you, Stephen. I swear it.
She knew her presence up here on deck was not wanted by the cranky captain of this swift little sloop, but she’d be damned if she spent one more moment locked away in a cabin, any cabin, passively waiting for her fortunes to change when it was dreadfully obvious that any change in those fortunes would come about because of her own abilities—not the hand of fate.
She turned away from the sight of her father’s ship growing smaller by the moment and tightened the strings of her bonnet. Her fair skin was freckled enough; she didn’t need any more sun to brown and burn it.
Around her, the sloop was coming alive. The pirate Diego stood near the helm, his hands shackled and his eyes black with malice in his scarred and swarthy face. His younger brother had been sent off on Penelope with the other pirates, and it was obvious that Diego was furious at being parted from them. Now, he watched Captain Merrick getting the ship underway. Watched Lieutenant Doherty conveying his captain’s orders.
Watched her.
“Let her fall off to larboard, then steer northwest. Trim for a broad reach.”
“Aye, Cap’n!”
“And get the stuns’ls on her. With this wind, we’d be fools not to fly them.”
“Topmen aloft!”
Moments later, Rosalie felt the sea moving beneath them, heard the quiet and rising roar of water sliding off and away from Sandpiper’s sharp bows, felt the deck angling beneath her short boots as the sloop heeled to leeward, the mainsail was let out and the ship began to cut through the swells with the joy of a racehorse being sent off the starting line—and the speed, too. Something in her relaxed. Felt relieved.
At last, action.
I’m coming, Stephen. Hold tight, wherever you are.
Men were swarming up the shrouds to carry out their captain’s order to set the studding sails. Sandpiper fell further off the wind and was now taking it over her starboard quarter, beginning to keep pace with the long Atlantic swells, racing them with gleeful abandon. She was a fine little vessel, Rosalie had to admit. Captain Merrick had every reason to take pride in her.
Captain Merrick. Her glance moved surreptitiously to her right. He had left the helm to Liam Doherty, glanced aloft to gauge his crew’s progress in setting the studding sails and, apparently satisfied, had gone to lean against the rail, his face tight as he gazed off over the rolling blue sea. Rosalie was keenly aware of him. Indeed, it was impossible to not be aware of him, and she wondered why the best-looking men were either the most unsuitable, the worst in character, or the biggest breakers-of-hearts. Captain Merrick though, with his distant eyes and preoccupied manner, his handsome mouth and unruly dark hair, did not seem like a breaker of hearts.
He seemed like a man who had, instead, had his heart broken.
She studied him now as he wordlessly watched his men bring two barrels of Penelope’s cargo of rum on deck. They were laughing and making ribald jokes, but Kieran Merrick looked as stony as the face of a rock cliff. What would it take to make him smile? What would those amber eyes, so full of pain and suffering, look like crinkled in humor?
What, exactly, was the source of such pain?
As though feeling her gaze upon him, he turned and looked at her. Rosalie’s glance skittered away. Heat coursed through her and she felt her face flame at being discovered watching him.
Oh, this was awkward. If they were going to work together to find her brother, she might as well try and make peace with him. And now he had turned his back on her and was standing stiffly at the rail looking out over the sea, his gaze distant.
Might as well start now.
She walked up to him. “So I take it you’ve made your decision, Captain Merrick?”
“What decision?”
“To go to this island to find my brother and crew?”
“Against my better instinct and the advice of my first lieutenant, yes.”
“Good. I hope you have a sword I can carry. I’ll need—”
He looked down and over at her then, and something in his eyes swung into focus. Sharp focus. He was suddenly not distant at all, but very much present. “You’re not going.”
“I am too going. This is my brother we’re talking about.”
“You are a woman, and you will stay here.”
“I may be a woman, but I can wield a sword, shoot a pistol, and—as
I’ve already told you—command a ship.”
“Well, whatever you think you can do, you’re not commanding my ship, and you’re not setting foot on that island. You will stay here aboard ’Piper for your own safety and my peace of mind.”
“I’m sure I can see to my own safety.”
“And I’m sure you’re toxic to my peace of mind.”
“You’re the one choosing to make a fight over this, not me.”
“I’m the one in the unenviable position of protecting and returning you to Baltimore once we get some answers out of that scoundrel, Escobar.”
“I didn’t ask for you to take my ship.”
“I didn’t ask for you to be aboard it.”
“Are you always so argumentative and bad tempered, Captain Merrick?”
“No, Miss McCormack, I am not.” He looked her straight in the eye, and in the rich russet color of his irises, she saw tiny flecks of gold. “But you tend to bring out the worst in me.” He straightened up. “I have duties to attend to. Good day.”
* * *
Leaving Miss McCormack at the rail, Kieran went below, seeking solitude in his cabin. He wrote in his journal. He shed his waistcoat and shoes and climbed into his bunk, hoping to get some sleep before giving the space over to…to that female for the remainder of the evening.
But sleep evaded him. His mind was wide awake, even as his body pleaded for him to rest in the soothing darkness of this little space, to stop thinking, to stop feeling, to stop remembering.
But he could not.
What a day. What a mess. He wished he could close his eyes, turn back time, and forget that any of this day had even happened.
But he’d set events in motion. He’d put a small number of his own men aboard Penelope and sent her north along with her British prisoners and with the exception of Diego Escobar, all of the pirates still locked in her hold. One of those he’d sent off was a boy who looked enough like Diego that Kieran believed his claim that he was the third brother in the Escobar clan. Hopefully, the ship would make it past the British blockade and into a friendly American port where her disposition—and the prisoners—could be sorted out. He was deeply regretting not sending Miss McCormack along with her, but in good conscience—because no matter her accusations, Kieran Merrick was, indeed, a gentleman—he was not inclined to put a young woman, all but alone, back on a ship that had already been taken three times even if it did belong to her. No, better to keep her here where he could protect her, and then drop her off in Baltimore on their way back to Newburyport.
Heir To The Sea Page 5