Heir To The Sea

by Danelle Harmon

  Already, he’d dismissed her.

  She could see him in the gloom, trying to gather his wits and stitch them together into coherent thought.

  “Where are we?” he asked, sitting up and swaying dangerously as he looked around in bleary confusion. “Liam? Will you please….” he pressed his fingers to his forehead and pushed the hair that flopped there, back and over the top of his head. It tumbled right back down again in a poetic tangle of thick dark curls. “…will you please tell me what we’re doing here…where everyone is… God, my head hurts.”

  “Crew all dead save for the four of us.”

  Captain Merrick said nothing and just sat there, head in his hand, trying to regain his senses.

  “’Piper was taken by the pirates,” Liam continued. “Joel’s injured, no telling how bad until we can find a surgeon to look at him. Shoulder’s dislocated at the very least. We’re locked in a cave on the island.”

  The captain looked up, dragging a hand over his face. “But alive.”

  “Aye, alive. They’re coming back at some point, which is why Miss McCormack here took drastic measures to rouse ye. We need to get out of here.”

  Captain Merrick blinked, rubbed hard at the inside corner of his eye, shook his head to clear it. “Any guards outside the door?”

  “None that I’ve been able to see or hear.”

  “Any word on Miss McCormack’s brother and crew?”

  “Haven’t asked them.”

  “Anything said about my father and mother? Where they might be holding them?”

  Liam’s face went bleak. “Kieran, lad. Ye’ve got to forget that idea, and instead concentrate on getting us all out of here.”

  But Captain Merrick got to his feet, staggered, regained his balance and began to pace like a drunken man, one hand held to the small of his back. In the gathering gloom, his face was white with pain. “I won’t leave them if they’re alive and on this island, Liam.”

  “They are not alive, Kieran. Ye’ve got to accept it.”

  “I can’t accept it!”

  “If ye would accept it we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

  “You saw the campfire, Liam. You saw the planking. It was black, just like Kestrel was, just like—”

  “—half the ships plying the Caribbean are black, Kieran! Ye’re chasin’ ghosts, laddie. Don’t ye think if your da were still alive he’d’ve found a way to tell ye? Don’t ye think if he were still alive he would’nt’ve come to little Ned in a dream, to Maeve in a vision telling him where we were after Kestrel went down so we could be rescued? Think, laddie!” Liam thumped his own temple with two fingers. “God knows you’re a smart and sensible fellow, a wise man who examines things from every angle, but you’re not usin’ yer head, Kieran!”

  Captain Merrick just stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned, moved a little distance away and stood gazing down into the water, dark now in the absence of light. In the gloom Rosalie saw him began to sway, and despite her own hurt at his earlier reaction, went to stand protectively next to him. “Leave him be, Mr. Doherty,” she said gently. “You two can argue this out at another time. For now, we need to make plans to escape before it’s too late.”

  The man beside her didn’t move, and Rosalie suddenly understood the source of his great and unrelenting pain, the grief that manifested in such easy irritation, the magnitude and weight of what he was actually suffering.

  “Come, sit down, Captain Merrick,” she said quietly. “There is bread and rum. We saved you some.”

  He directed a hard, accusing look at Liam, then allowed her to take his hand and lead him through the darkness back to the corner of the cave. She sat, and he sat too, the fight gone out of him and his demeanor one of silent defeat. She reached for the bottle and offered it to him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t drink.”

  “Not even a little? You’ll need sustenance.”

  “Aye, but I don’t need to be puking my guts out, which is how it’ll affect me.”

  Liam had retreated to the pool, now just a black oval in the last of the light. He knelt and cupped the water in his hands. Lifted it to his lips.

  “Brackish?” asked Joel.

  “Clean, and cold. Probably from a spring.”

  “Get your captain some,” Rosalie said, watching Captain Merrick’s face closely as she found the mug and held it out toward Liam. She pushed to the back of her mind how unfairly handsome he was. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things, was it?

  It’s not the time to be thinking about what his lips felt like under your own, either, but you are. It’s not the time to be contemplating his high cheekbones and the cut of his nose, the clean lines of his jaw and the suffering in his kind, quiet eyes. He looks more like a beautiful dark angel than a sea captain. An artist. A musician. A poet. A writer.

  She began to wonder what his depths were. How solid his resolve was. If he would fold when the pirates came back, or if there was more strength to him than met the eye.

  “No need, I can get to it myself,” he said.

  Again, a quiet look of shared hurt between him and his lieutenant. He got to his feet, as though determined to regain both his balance and his strength. Her skin tingled with sudden awareness. How tall he was. How broad the span of his shoulders, how long his legs and well made, his calves. Good muscle on his arms. Strength in the wrist she’d chafed so relentlessly. Yes, the body was there, but that quiet sensitivity….

  He dropped a hand to her shoulder, steadying himself as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do and Rosalie closed her eyes, feeling everything beneath his hand warming in a sudden reaction of pure longing. She stiffened, confused. He looked at her in equal confusion, withdrew his hand, and moved toward Liam.

  Shame coursed through her.

  Was her body so easily aroused? What kind of woman was she? And yet…where his fingers had pressed, she felt lingering warmth and a bright sensation of awakening.

  You’re being silly. There was nothing to it, he meant nothing by it. He just used you as a crutch, nothing more.

  “Liam.”

  The old Irishman stood unmoving. From where she stood, Rosalie heard him draw a deep, steadying breath as Captain Merrick went up beside him and touched his shoulder.

  “Please forgive me, Liam. You are my friend.”

  It was a moment before Liam found his voice. “I just don’t want ye to have false hope, laddie. I was there. I saw what happened, cried my tears and cried some more and cried bucketfuls of ’em since. We were there at first light, near where she went down. There was nothing left but flotsam and it was already being scattered by the wind and current.”

  The captain nodded, his tragic gaze fixed to a point on the other side of the cave that only he could see. He said nothing.

  “I don’t mean to be cruel, lad. I just want ye to stop torturing yerself.”

  Captain Merrick finally spoke, his voice raw with pain. “But it was nice to have hope again, even for a short time.” Rosalie heard him take a deep and steady breath in the gloom, and let it out in a controlled measure of resignation. “But you are right, my old friend, as much as I don’t want you to be. As much as it grieves me.”

  “Hope is all well and good, but what good’ll it do ye when there’s no cause for it?”

  “What good does hope do any of us? Here we are, the four of us, locked in a cave and vastly outnumbered. Joel’s hurt. I’m hurt. You’re hurt, though I know you well enough to know you’d never show it.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Rosalie volunteered.

  “You’re a female.”

  Liam made a noise of half-laughter, half-derision. “And so was your mother, Kieran. But there was nobody I’d rather’ve had beside me than her, whether it be on deck, in the rigging, or at my side in a fight. Don’t count the lassie out. She’s made of stronger stuff than ye think.”

  Rosalie couldn’t resist. “Indeed I am, Keer-in.”

  “Stop with that damned n
ame,” he muttered, water trickling from his cupped hands as he knelt to drink. “You’re making me wish I’d never woken up. At least in oblivion there was peace from your insistent chatter, needling, and jabs.”

  “’Twas my insistent chatter, needling and jabs that brought you back to us.”

  “No,” Liam said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it was the fact that ye kissed him.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Captain Merrick muttered, taking a tentative drink and refusing to look at either of them.

  “Worked, didn’t it?”

  “Stow it, Liam.”

  “Not every day a young man gets woken up by a kiss from a pretty lass. Ye could at least be grateful to her, ye know. She probably hated it as much as ye’re pretending to, but ye don’t see her acting all put out like you are.”

  “I said, stow it!” Captain Merrick snapped, more harshly this time.

  A few feet away, Liam was rubbing hard at his mouth. He shot Rosalie a look of high amusement. Maybe he found this all quite funny, but Captain Merrick obviously did not and neither did Rosalie. His appalled response to her kiss was not amusing at all. In fact, it was downright hurtful.

  The pain in her heart worsened. She couldn’t wait to get out of this situation. To be back in Baltimore, safe in her bed, safe from the way Kieran Merrick was stripping what confidence she had in herself as a beautiful woman—and God knew, that was in short supply—and leaving her feeling exposed and vulnerable. Undesirable. She opened her mouth to put him in his place—and then realized that in so doing, she was greatly jeopardizing her chances of getting out of here alive, let alone seeing her family and sleeping in that bed back home in Baltimore, ever again.

  So she said nothing.

  And Rosalie was not good at saying nothing.

  It was then that she realized that Captain Merrick, still cupping water from the pool and now washing his face with it, was speaking.

  “…hope,” he said with quiet resolve, “is what is going to get us out of here. Not resignation to our fate, nor defeat. Hope.” He turned then, and looked hard at each of them in the gloom. “And faith. I don’t need to remind any of us about our odds of succeeding. But I also don’t need to remind any of us what those men will do when they come back here and that thought alone should be enough to give us all the determination we need to escape this place, regain Sandpiper, and sail out of here. Do you all understand?”

  His voice was deep, firm and reassuring. The kind of voice that inspired confidence without resorting to bluster or volume or threats or swagger. Just a confident, unwavering, this is how it is and this is how it will be.

  Rosalie caught her lip between her teeth, the pain of his rejection momentarily forgotten. There was more than one way to lead. And she was beginning to suspect that there was, indeed, more to this quiet, undemonstrative man than she’d thought.

  “Aye, Captain,” Liam said. “We understand.”

  Chapter 12

  Darkness fell.

  They shared what was left of the bread and rum, though Captain Merrick refused the spirits, instead satisfying his thirst from the pool. Nobody spoke what was uppermost on their minds.

  That the pirates would likely come back at any time.

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  Rosalie shivered with cold and pushed herself up against the back wall of the cave. She could feel its dampness through the thin muslin of her gown and wished she had a wrapper or pelisse. In the pitch blackness, her breathing sounded close and intimate and she feared the others could hear her shivering. She didn’t want to be the weak link, “the girl” who would hold them all back. Still, did those in the darkness around her share her thoughts? Were they dreading the return of Escobar and his gang, who would surely kill Liam and Joel, torture Captain Merrick into telling them where he’d sent Penelope and the youngest of the Escobar brothers, and then have their way with her?

  Nausea swam in her gut and she drew her legs up closer to herself, trying to keep warm. Trying to keep steady and composed. Trying not to fall apart in the face of what awaited them.

  There was movement in the darkness, and the big Jamaican’s soft groan of pain.

  “You all right over there, Joel?” Captain Merrick said from somewhere nearby.

  “Shoulder could be better, sir.”

  “Can you move it?”

  “Not for want of trying.” The big man caught his breath as he tried once more to move his arm. “Hurts like hell, it does.”

  In the darkness, Rosalie heard Captain Merrick shuffle through the sand and make his way to his bosun. “I’m not a doctor, Joel, but I fancy I can reset your shoulder if you’re willing to let me have a go at it.”

  “You know how?”

  “Lots of things I know, Joel,” the captain said quietly. “Liam? Will you help?”

  “Aye, Kieran.” Rosalie heard Liam’s grunt of pain as he got to his feet and made his way to his friend and captain.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “You can hold his hand,” Liam said. “This won’t take but a moment.”

  “Don’t need my hand held, Doherty,” grunted Joel. “I’m not a baby.”

  Liam was persistent. “Bet ye’d like it all the same, though. Pretty girl holding yer hand’ll take yer mind off things, eh?”

  Rosalie sat unmoving, wondering whether Liam Doherty needed strangling or not. She wasn’t pretty. Of course Joel didn’t want to hold her hand. Went right along with Captain Merrick’s revulsion about her kissing him awake.

  There were sounds in the darkness. Captain Merrick murmured something, and she heard the increased and anxious rasp of the Jamaican’s heavy breathing.

  “Relax there, Joel. Yes, that’s it. Breathe.”

  Moments passed. Joel’s respiration came faster. There was a sharp grunt, a popping noise, and then Captain Merrick calmly announcing that it was done.

  “Jesus, that hurt,” Joel said.

  “’Twill hurt a lot less now,” Liam muttered. And then, directing his voice toward Rosalie, “Captain’s a man of many talents, isn’t he, lass?”

  “Indeed.”

  “It doesn’t take talent to set a dislocated shoulder, just a knowledge of what to do,” Captain Merrick said dismissively. “Now, Joel, you’ll need to—”

  “Does too take talent,” Liam persisted.

  “Liam, enough.” Captain Merrick was quick to silence any further praise on his behalf. And then, more kindly, “You’ll need to keep this immobile, Joel. I think we should fashion you a sling.”

  “Now there’s something I can help with,” Rosalie said, finally feeling useful. “I’ll slice another strip off the hem of my gown. It should do nicely.”

  “Much obliged, Miss McCormack,” said the captain and while the others waited, she dug her knife out of her half-boot and went to work. Gripping the long strip of fabric, she moved toward where the others sat in the darkness and reached blindly out. Her fingers touched damp cloth. Hard muscle beneath. Captain Merrick’s waistcoat.

  Their hands fumbled to find each other in the darkness, his fingers brushing her own as he took the strip of cloth. “Thank you, Miss McCormack.”

  She snatched her hand back and cradled it to her heart. The skin felt charged and tingly where they had made contact.

  What was the matter with her?

  “Lean forward a bit there, Joel.” She heard the sound of Captain Merrick tying the cloth around the bosun’s shoulder. “There. That ought to do it.”

  “There’s my left arm out of business,” Joel muttered.

  “Still got yer right one,” Liam reminded him.

  “We’re all going to die.”

  “No we’re not,” Liam said. “The lad here’s awake. He’ll get us out of this.”

  “I am not so sure, Liam, that I deserve your faith in me. I am not my father.”

  “Ye’re more like him than the other two combined. And I ought to know, eh?”

  If Captain Merrick had
a response to that, he kept it to himself. Joel grunted as he shifted his weight on the sand, and his captain’s calming voice cut through the gloom. “You should all get some sleep,” he said. “No telling when those rogues will be back. I’ll stay awake and keep watch.” He paused. “To the extent that I can see, that is.”

  Joel’s voice was regaining its strength now that his initial agony had been relieved. “Think they’ll come back soon, Captain?”

  “Of course they will. I have something they want. But they have something I want, too, so the sooner they return the better.”

  Rosalie couldn’t resist. “What do they have that you want?”

  “Sandpiper. She’s mine, and I aim to get her back.”

  Joel made a sound of disbelief. “With just the four of us?”

  “My heavens, but you are a pessimist,” Captain Merrick muttered. “Get some sleep, would you?”

  Rosalie moved back to her spot against the wet stone wall and once more drew her legs up to herself, trying to keep warm. She heard the scrape of sand as the others, several feet away, tried to get comfortable. She hugged her legs and laid her cheek against her knees and tried to control her shivering. Joel’s labored breathing grew heavier. Liam began to snore. Rosalie thrust her cold fingers under her armpits, willing her mind to think of hot sunlight, heavy woolen cloaks, piping hot broth just out of the pot. Anything to stay warm. Perhaps if she unpinned her hair, its heaviness against the back of her neck would keep her warmer. Perhaps if she rubbed her hands over her arms she could tame the gooseflesh. Perhaps—

  Someone moved up close beside her. So close that she could feel the heat of his body radiating through the inch or two that separated them. She tensed, even as everything inside of her was suddenly grateful for his presence.

  His voice was little more than a murmur. “Doing all right there, Miss McCormack?”

  “As well as can be expected, Captain,” she said shortly, still stung by his earlier words and actions.

  “I could hear you shivering.”

  “I’m sorry. I was hoping no one would notice. But if I’m cold, you must be even colder. You’re the one in soaking-wet clothes, not me.”