His voice trailed off. He simply held her, stroking her hair, while the ship around them took on the normal roll of a vessel through a gentle sea with all its rigging properly set. Jury-rigged, of course. They’d need more extensive repairs in Bermuda, but for now, they were sailing as well as they could. Ross was doing a good job because Kieran Ashford, despite his claims to the contrary, trusted her enough to take her word that the ship needed men with the right kind of experience. He held her because he cared enough to know that she needed comfort she would never ask for because she’d never asked for it, never dared ask for it.
He was kind to her, and she was going to betray him.
Her stomach knotted as she realized that she was caught between loyalty to her crew and a growing respect for her enemy.
Kieran hated leaving Deirdre in her cabin with Troy posted as a guard outside her door. Yet he couldn’t bear the idea of seeing her dropping from the rigging again.
Nor in Ross Trenerry’s company.
After the crew took in sail for the night, Kieran sent Trenerry and Drummond back to the hold without showing the reluctance he felt to do so. On the morrow, he would allow each of the prisoners up top for a while, two at a time would be safe, to enjoy the fresh air and get some exercise. During that time, he would guard Deirdre himself.
Deirdre!
Kieran stood at the weather rail, allowing the spray to cool his face. It helped with the feeling of illness that never completely left him while aboard ship. It helped him forget his reaction to holding Deirdre close, the tenderness toward her, the longing for her to forget who he was—her enemy.
He wanted to be her husband. She attracted him as no woman had since Joanna . . .
But Joanna was a subject closed for discussion with anyone, including himself. He’d erred there, thinking his rank and the things he would inherit would win the most beautiful and intelligent of eligible ladies of the Season. He was expected to marry. Her family expected her to find an advantageous alliance. A match made in—
He clamped down a lid on those memories. But that left thoughts of Deirdre roaming free. Marrying her felt right, too. It was the honorable thing to do. It would salve his conscience and, when they reached England, his pride. He would have close companionship for the rest of the voyage. What happened between them after that depended on time and nature.
But as the Maid of Alexandria plowed through the sea toward Bermuda, doubts assailed him. He doubted Deirdre had intended to agree to marry him perched atop that spar.
Yet she made no complaint about being stranded in her cabin except for the two hours a day Kieran allowed her on deck. When in her cabin, she remained quiet, only asking for books to read and more writing paper. When Kieran invited her to share his meals, she refused.
For his part, the boredom weighed heavily upon him. Other than performing navigational adjustments twice a day, he had nothing to do. On the Phoebe, he had Captain Heron with whom he could pass many pleasant hours playing cards, talking about Garrett Ashford’s years in the navy, life. But the Phoebe never appeared, something that concerned Kieran and the other crewmen. She was a sturdy merchantman that had weathered worse storms. Still, things happened to ships, during war especially. She could have been captured by the French or Americans, capsized in a battle, sunk with all hands lost.
His father would never forgive Kieran if that happened. Kieran would never forgive himself. When they had learned of the war between America and Britain preventing Kieran from going to the plantation in Georgia that his mother had inherited, he should have simply changed course for the West Indies, for Jamaica, instead of becoming a privateer. Fortune under his feet or not, that had not been one of his more intelligent actions.
“You make a muck of your intelligent choices,” his father had accused him after the fiasco with Joanna.
Would he make up for some of his errors by bringing both ships safely into Plymouth Harbor?
First, they had to reach Bermuda safely and pray that the Phoebe joined them there. For the time being on the Maid, the crew had settled into a routine, working out the different maneuvers with the Baltimore-built ship and, if with many a grumble, followed directions from the American prisoners.
Kieran tried to lose his troubled thoughts in literature. He liked to read, and Daniel MacKenzie had carried a sizable library with him on the voyage. But the difficulty of focusing his eyes on a page while the world rolled beneath him increased his mal de mer so badly he dared read nothing more than the ship’s log.
He was trying to find a clue to the whereabouts of MacKenzie’s specie. That he had it aboard Kieran knew. But where baffled him. He’d had the crew’s belongings searched for weapons and come up with a not insignificant amount of money among the men, money he would let them keep to ease their life in prison, but it was not enough to account for notes in the margins of the log that indicated MacKenzie was carrying a small fortune back to America beyond his cargo.
A hidden compartment still seemed like the most logical answer. Where that compartment was, Kieran could not work out. The bulkheads just didn’t sound hollow anywhere. Somehow, he must convince Deirdre to show him for the sake of his honor with the prize courts. She might, if she found marriage pleasing.
Marriage. He had surely lost his reason. He almost hoped they would somehow sail past Bermuda by a miscalculation. But at the end of the third day since the storm, the lookout spotted land. By evening, they were sailing into the harbor at St. George’s, Bermuda, the Union Jack flying from the masthead of an American merchantman. Cheers rose from the decks of English ships anchored in the calm waters of the bay. Kieran felt like cheering, too. For the first time since leaving England, his innards settled down so that food sounded like something he wanted to eat instead of needed to eat.
“I’ll have eggs for you for breakfast, sir,” Riley promised when he brought Kieran’s dinner. “And fresh bread for the crew.”
“For the prisoners, too,” Kieran said. To Troy, who stood in the open doorway, he added, “We’ll draw straws to see who gets to row us ashore tomorrow.”
Shore. Solid land. How he wanted to go now!
“Aye, sir. Who’ll be goin’ ashore with you?”
“Miss MacKenzie and you.”
Troy’s face lit up, making his scarred countenance appear almost pleasant. “That sounds right fine. Fresh food and all.”
A market where Kieran could buy trinkets for his mother and sisters, and ribbons and a dress for Deirdre.
“Troy, you may go have your dinner now,” Kieran said. “I will see to Miss MacKenzie’s dinner.”
Troy nodded and followed Riley up the companionway ladder.
Kieran knocked on Deirdre’s door. To his surprise, she opened it and stepped into the companionway. “I’m done feeling sorry for myself, Mr. Ashford, if I may join you for dinner.”
He gave her a bow. “Please, enter.”
She grinned at him. “You look ridiculous bowing to me.” She stepped over the coaming and into her father’s cabin. “You’re getting a nice breeze through here. My cabin is horribly stuffy now that we’re at anchor.”
She moved to the table and Kieran watched her, admiring the grace of her movements. It was not a grace that would be accepted for a female in a London drawing room. Her stride was too long, too sure in an age when ladies minced about. At the same time, it was too fluid to be masculine. It was unique.
It was Deirdre.
His chest tightened. He ached to reach out to her, smooth wisps of fiery hair away from her brow, and feel the fine texture of her skin, taste her lips . . .
“I really dislike harbors,” she said. “The air is foul. May we stay on land while we wait for the Phoebe? We are waiting for the Phoebe, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are. We will stay here until we have made repairs before sailing on to Plymouth with or without the Phoebe.” A tingling of wariness at the back of his neck made him choose his next words with care. “As for staying ashore . . .” He moved t
o the table and began dishing out the bean soup flavored with salt pork, far from the most appetizing fare he knew and hardly the stuff for an intimate dinner. “I thought you disliked the land.”
“I dislike living on the land.” Deirdre sat and dug into her soup as though she were starving. “Visits to ports around the world are part of the pleasure of being a merchant sailor. The markets and the food—may we buy oranges? I think I’d commit a crime for fresh fruit right now.”
“Of course we can buy oranges.” Kieran sat across from her, but barely touched his food. Settled stomach or not, this was enough to make it bad again. “Would you like me to purchase oranges for your crew, too?”
“Would you?” In the dim light from the harbor and last of the day’s radiance, her eyes shone bright and her smile brighter.
He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “You keep looking at me like that, and I will buy you anything you want.”
She shoved her half-finished bowl aside. “Just fresh fruit and meat will do.” She stood and moved to sit on the seat below the stern windows. “There’s a fine inn ashore here and a church. I’d like to get to the church and pray for my father’s soul, whatever that’s worth.”
Kieran turned in his chair to face her. “We will be going to the church when you marry me.”
“Oh.” She started as though receiving a shock from one of the electricity machines. “I thought you’d change your mind by now.”
“I am more determined than ever.” He moved to sit beside her and take one of her hands in his.
Her fingers were ice cold despite the heat inside the cabin.
“Frightened?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Marriage. To you. To the enemy . . .” She rested her head on the bulkhead beside the windows and closed her eyes. “You’ll want your wife to wear dresses. I can’t marry you if you insist that I wear dresses.”
“What is wrong with a dress?”
He saw the shudder pass through her. “I look absurd in them. I cross my legs and take long strides and can’t breathe or climb, and I have to wear shoes. Kieran, I’ll marry you, but not if it’s in a dress.”
He laughed and kissed her. He couldn’t help himself, though the contact made him want to marry her that night.
“You do not have to wear a dress on the ship,” he assured her, “or any other time except for during the ceremony, whenever I arrange that.”
“And in England?”
“You would have to wear a dress no matter whether or not you married me.”
“I suppose so.” She heaved a sigh. “But while we’re here, I can go to the inn and eat fresh food dressed in my own clothes? And go shopping in the market in them, too?”
“I suppose there is no harm to that.”
“And we’ll stay ashore. I mean, after we’re married, we won’t . . .” Even in the dim light he could see her blush.
He understood what she was having so much trouble saying—the ship, her father’s cabin, was no place for their wedding night.
He touched her cheek. “We will stay ashore until we are able to sail.”
“Thank you.” She turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand.
Now he felt like he had received a jolt from one of those electricity machines. Such a small gesture of affection. Such a great reaction.
He stood. “I think I will take some air on deck before I turn in. Do you wish to join me?”
“No, thank you, I’d rather stay here. That is, if you don’t care if I do.”
At that moment, he doubted that he would care what she did.
“Of course. I will return in a quarter hour or so.”
He left her alone in the cabin. Troy had not returned, but that didn’t matter. Even if she dashed up to the deck, she would have no one to talk to with her crew battened down for the night. Anything that could possibly be construed as a weapon he had locked away. She could get into no mischief alone in the cabin, and he needed what cooling breezes he could find on deck.
He found enough to clear his head from thoughts of the aftermath of marrying her and to realize he had been a fool to leave her alone.
At sea, she could get up to no mischief alone in the great cabin, but in a harbor of calm water with shore only a few hundred yards away, she could slip out of the stern windows and swim to shore.
If she could swim. Not that many people could, but he would not put that skill past her abilities.
He took the companionway ladder in one leap and shoved open the cabin door he had not closed.
As he feared, the cabin was empty.
Chapter 9
Deirdre disliked herself for the games she was playing with Kieran. For a man who had been dishonorable enough to become a privateer—nothing more than legalized piracy, as far as she was concerned—he was proving touchingly honorable with her.
Part of her yearned for that connection, that closeness, that sense of being protected. All her life, except for that one year, she’d had her father’s protection and the guardians of the crew. With her father dead and her crew prisoners, she understood her vulnerability.
She couldn’t afford to feel completely female right now.
For that reason, she needed to win back Kieran’s trust, the trust she’d sacrificed in order to get the key to her father’s cache from the canister of coffee beans, and get another message to Ross. For that reason, she needed to show Kieran that she could have escaped. But he worked that out faster than she anticipated, clever man, and charged past her before she could let him know where she was—on the main deck preparing to join him and enjoy what breeze blew across the harbor.
“Deirdre?” His voice held a note of panic.
She leaped down the companionway ladder and met him face to face in the cubicle between the cabin doors. Dim light filtering from above showed his face taut, concerned, a little wild.
She laid her hand on his arm. “I’m right here.”
He grasped her shoulders. “I thought you’d gone. Where were you?”
“I was coming on deck to join you.” She laid her hands on his shoulders, inhaled his scent. For a moment of weakness, she wanted to lay her head on his shoulder again, not to cry, just to rest there and forget about the thirteen men in the hold. But she had to help them escape at the cost of betraying this kind and honorable man.
She kept her spine straight and looked him in the eye. “Where did you think I’d gone?”
“I thought you had escaped.” He sounded vulnerable, not angry.
She made herself laugh. “On an island? Where would I go?”
“I put nothing past your ability, Deirdre MacKenzie.” He brushed his lips across her forehead. “Where’s Troy? I am afraid . . . I am sorry if it’s uncomfortable, but you will need to stay in your cabin tonight with a guard.”
“You don’t trust me?” She tried for the kind of pout she’d seen young women on shore use on men.
He laughed, and his didn’t sound forced. “I am removing temptation. Island or not, land is too close.”
“Presuming I can swim. Most sailors can’t, you know.”
“And I note that you did not include yourself in that.” He gently nudged her toward the open cabin beside her. “Go.”
She stepped over the coaming and closed the door.
“I know it is hot in here,” he said from the doorway. “But you’ll be in an inn tomorrow night.”
With him, if the escape failed, as his wife.
Knowing that she needed her rest, she tried to sleep, but plans, ideas, dangers swept through her mind in an endless parade. She also felt too conscious of Kieran in the next cabin, quiet, but awake. She heard him moving about, cat-footed, prowling in the darkness.
Her mind turned to wondering what disturbed his mind. What could make him, the conqueror, endure a sleepless night?
She thought she must have slept somewhere near dawn for she woke to the sounds of an anchor being raised on a nearby ship. Reflexively, she rose, ready to go o
n deck and watch. She always loved that sight of sails rising into the morning sky, catching the wind, bellying out as graceful as wings, like a bird flying toward the freedom of open sea.
She remembered before she opened the cabin door that Troy would be in the companionway.
She had never minded the narrow dimensions of her cabin. It was sufficient for someone who spent little time there. But imprisoned, she thought she would suffocate from lack of air. With the door closed, the porthole allowed little of the breeze to enter, though the temperature had lowered to a comfortable level during the night. That her crew was worse off in the hold reminded her of the responsibility she bore that day.
She rose, washed in the little water left in the pitcher on her table, and dressed in her shoregoing clothes of white cambric shirt, black breeches, a black silk vest with silver buttons, and black leather boots. When she brushed her hair, she remembered Kieran brushing it for her, how that made her feel . . . well . . . protected. Cared for. She wondered about brushing his hair. It was soft, thick and heavy, so black that blue lights shone in the sunlight. If he had blue eyes . . .
He had amber eyes, feline and feral.
She shivered, though wearing shoes always made her feel hot regardless of the temperature. Honorable or not, kind or not, Kieran Ashford was determined to get his prize home and reconcile with his family. What she was about to do would ruin that for him.
She must not care. After today, she would never see him again.
The seat of the commonwealth’s government, St. George’s, appeared to offer all the vices and amenities of civilization. Doxies for anyone’s taste ranging from Nordic blondes to Guinea ebony swarmed amid the sailors and stevedores crowding the wharves. Cheap grog shops and boardinghouses gave way to King’s Square, where the town hall and a few houses, respectable inns, and a public garden revealed the inhabitants’ wealth. Golden sunshine illuminated the prosperous scene, and breezes kept the heat from being oppressive.
My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles) Page 10