My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles)

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Deirdre and Troy in tow, Kieran paused in the shade of a building where a beautiful amber-skinned woman presided over a table of embroidered ribbons. Before Kieran opened his mouth, she was already holding up a length of green satin ribbon the color of Deirdre’s eyes and embroidered along the edges with scallops of gold thread.

  “Perfect, yes?” the woman asked in a lilting voice.

  Deirdre looked shocked.

  Kieran smiled. “I’m not the only one who knows a woman despite the clothes.”

  Deirdre looked away.

  Kieran turned back to the proprietress. “It is perfect, thank you. How much?”

  She told him, then began holding up other colors. Beside him, Deirdre stood mute and tight-faced until the merchant held up a ribbon of pale pink.

  “If you buy that color for me, Ashford,” Deirdre said through her teeth, “I’ll strangle you with it.”

  The merchant laughed and tucked the pink ribbon into the growing pile.

  Deirdre snatched it out. “Enough. I’m not wearing ribbons in my hair like a simpering miss.”

  “My sisters do not simper—”

  “I’m not a lady and have no intention of being—”

  “And where may I find a dress?” he asked the ribbon seller over Deirdre’s protests.

  The merchant began to laugh. “You’ll need to have one made for a lady that tall, mon.” She gestured to a point past the inn. “There’s a seamstress down thattaway.”

  Deirdre began sidling in the opposite direction.

  Troy laid one of his ham-sized hands on her shoulder. “Mr. Ashford wants you to stay here.”

  “I will if he stops giving me ribbons.”

  “Just the green and the blue,” Kieran said. “And we’ll see how we can bribe the seamstress.” He paid the ribbon seller and turned in the direction she had indicated for the seamstress’s establishment.

  He allowed Deirdre to follow him with Troy in charge. She simply looked too attractive in her vest, breeches, and boots for him to concentrate, and with her on land, he needed to concentrate. She had not escaped the night before, had merely shown him that she could and had chosen not to. That scarcely set his mind at rest.

  Yet she talked positively about going through with the wedding.

  He concentrated on maneuvering through the increasing crowd in the square, glancing back now and then to make sure that Troy still followed with Deirdre, and seeking the seamstress’s shop. Food vendors distracted him. Fresh fruit glowed on long tables, and meat that had not been pickled in brine for months roasted over braziers.

  He paused for a moment beside a wizened man with baskets of oranges and lemons. “How much for a bushel?”

  “Bushel? No, mon, you pay each.” The man hefted an orange. “See. Big. Juice.” He sliced the fruit in half with a dubiously clean knife. The pungent sweetness of orange dominated the scents in the air, and, indeed, juice did run down his arm.

  Deirdre reached past Kieran and plucked one half of the fruit from the man. “Don’t tell me his knife is dirty.” Peels flew. “I haven’t had an orange in months.”

  “You pay,” the man shouted.

  “Of course we pay . . . for that orange. As for the others . . . Deirdre, is it any good?”

  She shrugged and swallowed. “Good enough for now, but a little sour. That stall over there may have sweeter ones.”

  “No, those are old. Husks only,” the orange seller protested. “I’ll give you a good price.”

  “It’ll have to be very good.” Deirdre dropped a quarter of the orange onto the ground and crushed it with her boot heel. “We can’t feed the crew that kind of swill.”

  Troy snorted.

  Kieran stepped on one of his toes and began to bargain, with Deirdre lending just the right amount of support. When they finished, they had purchased several boxes of oranges and lemons.

  “We can’t carry them around with us,” Deirdre said. “Can Troy take them while we get some dinner? Or, wait, you need your dinner, too.”

  “I’ll just buy a meat pie here,” Troy said. “Fond of meat pies, I am.”

  “But the Royal George has a fine taproom and good food,” Deirdre said. “They’ll have salad and fresh bread.”

  Kieran’s stomach growled at the mention of fresh bread.

  Troy shook his head. “Not much of one for salad or fresh bread.”

  “But I will need you to . . . stay with Deirdre while I obtain a license,” Kieran said. “Perhaps this man will hold our boxes—”

  “Yes,” the old man shouted.

  “No,” Deirdre said at the same time. “He’ll take your money and sell them to someone else.” She took on a pout that would have looked ridiculous on a woman with any other kind of mouth. On her . . .

  Kieran had to look away. “You can hire a boat to send the oranges back. Just have them put in the main cabin.”

  “Yes, the main cabin,” Deirdre agreed. “It’s coolest in there out of the sun, but with a breeze.”

  “Aye, sir.” Troy hefted a stack of crates in his arms and headed for the harbor.

  Kieran grasped Deirdre’s elbow and steered her toward the seamstress shop once again. The closer they grew, the more stiff-legged she walked. Her arm felt rigid beneath his hand. He could not see her face, but did not doubt that it too looked frozen.

  They reached the shop, a narrow establishment so dim that Kieran wondered how anyone could choose a color there or how the workers managed to thread needles. However, it did lend relief from the heat outside.

  A woman whose slender proportions suited the constriction of the shop bustled forth on a rustle of taffeta petticoats and greeted them at the doorway. “Gentlemen—ah, no, madame and monsieur. How do I help?” Her accent sounded genuinely French.

  Deirdre relaxed and began speaking to her in that language. “He thinks I need a dress today, but I hate them. So please tell—”

  “Deirdre,” Kieran interrupted. “I know enough French to understand you.”

  She sighed. “I should have guessed.”

  The petite seamstress had round black eyes that danced and sparkled in the dimness. “I am afraid that madame will have her way, monsieur. I have nothing even half-finished that will do for a female of her tallness. Four days, perhaps three with enough of the advance payment. But sooner . . .” She shook her head.

  “Could you not add a flounce or something to the bottom of a gown?” Kieran asked. “I am not marrying a female in breeches.”

  “A flounce on her?” The seamstress fairly shrieked. “It would be absurd. Inelegant. She is too tall, too much of the slenderness. Bands of ribbon to cover the join of the same fabric?” She tilted her head to one side. “Oui, that would do. But today? No. With the right fee, tomorrow morning.” Her eyes danced again. “You can wait that long for the wedding, monsieur?”

  He didn’t want to. Another day might bring the Phoebe into port, and Heron, not at all in favor of Kieran marrying Deirdre, would put up a fuss Kieran did not wish to contend with. And, of course, other reasons compelled him to want to marry her now. He wanted to spend the night on land and did not dare leave Deirdre on the ship without him. At the same time, he would not stay at an inn with her even in another room. The impropriety did not sit well with him regardless of the conditions they shared on ship being less acceptable. If only he had connections on Bermuda, knew someone with a house where he could impose upon their hospitality, he could set Troy to guard Deirdre . . .

  But he did have connections there. He had not considered that his father and mother knew a family who had settled there after the last war with the American colonies.

  “Tomorrow morning will be soon enough,” he agreed. “Deirdre, go with Madame here and get yourself measured and pick a color. No, not a color. White. It’s becoming the color for wedding dresses in England. It’ll do well for you.”

  The seamstress nodded. “Come with me. I have the private room so you can remove—” She gestured to Deirdre’s bound chest.
“Come.” She turned toward the back of the shop.

  Deirdre did not move. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, and her jaw looked as rigid as a bowsprit.

  Kieran opened his mouth to order her to follow the seamstress, then shut it again as he realized that she was frightened, not defiant.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Marrying me or wearing a dress?”

  She licked her lips. “The dress.” Her movements jerky, she turned her back on him and stomped after the seamstress.

  Waiting in the shop, Kieran listened to the two women chatter in French. More accurately, Madame chattered about the benefits of muslin over silk in warm weather, the elegance of Deirdre’s figure, the glory of her hair. Deirdre responded with grunts and mm-hmms and an occasional protest about a pin sticking her. She sounded unhappy, tense.

  Kieran crouched on a chair meant for a female and one half his size at that, and speared his fingers through his hair. What was he doing to her, forcing her to go through with something she disliked so much? Was this simply for his pride? What mattered about her being his bride in a proper gown? Being his bride was what counted for him. The dress could go, could it not?

  No. His wife would need to wear female clothes once they landed in England. She needed to arrive equipped for a life she did not even know existed.

  He knew he should tell her. He knew if he did, she would refuse to go through with the wedding. That was not a risk he was willing to take. Let her simply be Deirdre Ashford. Plain Kieran Ashford suited him just fine away from home. There, it afforded him privilege and license, yet neither had worked with Joanna . . .

  Joanna was gone.

  Her memory hurt only a little, more because of how his family had reacted to the tales that reached them before he did. The pain lessened when Deirdre emerged from the fitting room. She seemed more relaxed, even gave him a smile that made him think that she might help him forget Joanna even existed.

  “You’ll need to settle with Madame,” she said. “It’ll cost you.”

  “It will be worth every farthing. Madame?”

  The seamstress bustled forward, and more bargaining ensued. When both of them were satisfied with the price, and Deirdre looked about ready to have an apoplexy at the figure, Kieran led her out of the shop and toward the inn. “Will they have a private parlor at the Royal George?”

  “Private parlor?” Deirdre sounded bewildered. “What for?”

  “You to eat in.”

  She laughed. “I have never eaten in a private parlor in my life except for at boarding school.”

  “But you said that the food is good here.” He paused a few feet away from the inn doorway through which gentlemen, sea captains, and tradesmen alike entered and exited in a steady stream. “How do you know if you have not eaten here before?”

  Deirdre stared at him for a few moments, then laughed even harder than before. “Ashford, I eat in the taproom.”

  “But you are a—”

  “Boy, as far as the world is concerned. I’m your cabin boy. A little old, but no one really cares about that.” She pulled free of his grasp. “C’mon. I’m starved.”

  Kieran supposed a female who admitted to being starved could tolerate the roughness of an inn taproom.

  He followed her into the common room, then seated them at one of the long tables and introduced himself as the owner of the Phoebe, expected at any time, and presented Deirdre as MacKenzie.

  Some of the other men merely nodded. The man directly across from them introduced himself as Dennison, the captain of the Marianne. A burly man with a strong Suffolk accent, Dennison gave Deirdre the merest of nods, then turned his attention to Kieran. “Hear you’re to be congratulated, Mr. Ashford. Not too many English ships can catch a Yankee schooner, and what a prize! Heard those Baltimore clippers are the fastest thing on the sea, but you caught her.”

  Deirdre squirmed beside him.

  “Pure luck.” Kieran turned to a hovering waiter to order as English a meal as the inn could provide and Deirdre the size meal a growing lad would enjoy. From the renewed tension of her face and body, he wondered if she would eat despite her claim earlier that she was starved.

  “Mebbe ’twas only luck,” Dennison said. “Still and all, it does an Englishman good to see an American merchantman captured after what they’ve been doing to ours these months past.”

  “What do you mean?” Kieran asked.

  Beside him, Deirdre leaned forward, eyes suddenly bright, lips parted.

  “Devastation,” Dennison announced. “Been sailing rings around our merchant fleet and picking ’em off like weevils from hardtack.”

  One corner of Deirdre’s lips twitched upward.

  Kieran pressed a warning hand against her thigh. “How can they? They have not anything we would even call a navy.”

  “Eighteen ships,” Dennison agreed. “Not even ships. All of ’em. Nothin’ bigger’n a forty-four-gun, if that.”

  The waiter set down bowls of savory onion soup. Once he left, Dennison continued.

  “They don’t need a navy. They’ve got privateers coming out of New England and the Chesapeake like somebody smoked a hornet’s nest. The Decatur took eleven British ships in forty-five days. The Saratoga eight, the Comet twelve. One American took eighteen, another fifteen. The list goes on. It’s almost too fantastic to believe.”

  “I believe it,” Kieran said. “My father fought the Americans in the last war. He took French prizes, but never an American.”

  “Peace by Christmas?” Deirdre murmured. “Ha!”

  “Course we’ll have peace,” Dennison shouted. “We won’t stand for anything else.” He slammed down his tankard.

  Deirdre smiled into her empty bowl.

  The next course arrived. As if she’d never eaten, she tucked into half a roasted chicken with asparagus, potatoes, and tomatoes sprinkled with fresh basil.

  Kieran looked at his own beefsteak with far less appetite than he should have possessed. He knew why. Dennison’s report spoke of threat. The threat Kieran might lose his prize, thus making Captain MacKenzie’s death pointless. Except the man might have died soon anyway.

  But if the Maid were recaptured, Kieran would lose Deirdre. The idea disturbed him more than he would have imagined there on land with the prospect of feminine companionship all night.

  Lifting his own tankard, he asked, “Have they sailed this far east yet?”

  Dennison shrugged. “Only seven hundred miles from their coast. Like as not they’ll be hovering off the Bermudas any day now, if they ain’t a’ready.”

  “Then why do you not sail back to England with us?” Kieran said. “There’s safety in numbers. Protect us from Americans and French.”

  “That’s the rub of it,” Dennison grumbled. “Can’t see how we’ll fight off both the frogs and the Yanks.”

  “Because we have the best navy in the world,” Kieran said.

  “Yeah?” Dennison sneered. “And where is they when we’re needin’ ’em?”

  “Saw a frigate and a sloop weighing anchor as we made landfall.” A rail-thin man farther down the table spoke for the first time.

  Deirdre jumped. Her fork clattered to her plate.

  Kieran touched her hand beneath the table. He had not seen the warships either.

  “Won’t do us no good if they’re leavin’,” Dennison said. Again slamming his tankard onto the table, this time adding a shilling, he lumbered to his feet. “I’ll be ready to leave day after tomorrow.”

  “We will sail when we effect some repairs and the Phoebe arrives,” Kieran told him. “Heron, the captain, made post captain before he left the navy. He knows how to fight.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll see if anyone else would like to join up with a convoy.” Nodding, Dennison departed.

  “Well,” Kieran drawled. “Who would have thought a fledgling nation like America could make such a show of force? It is rather like one of Mama’s Pomeranians biting one of Father’s horses.”

  “
If it strikes the right vein,” Deirdre said, “even a Pomeranian can damage a horse.” The smile she gave him ignited such a hunger he attacked his meal with renewed vigor. He liked seeing her happy, even if her happiness might stem from his and England’s expense.

  “They’ll never win,” another man insisted. “The very idea is preposterous.”

  “So,” Deirdre said, “was the very idea of the United States winning the Revolution.”

  Kieran nudged her—too late. A dozen hostile glares turned on her. She met each with defiance.

  Kieran shook his head. “He has got a Yankee mother.”

  The assembled men made comments about American mothers that made Kieran want to batter heads together, since he had one, too. Instead, he laughed, then ordered port and cheese to finish his meal. Deirdre asked for oranges. When they came, she ate three.

  “You are going to have a stomachache,” Kieran warned her.

  “No, I won’t. I always eat them like this when I don’t know when I’ll get another one.”

  “We just sent dozens back to the brig.”

  “Yes, but—” She stripped some of the white from the inside of the peel and ate it.

  Kieran grimaced. “Please do not do that in front of me when we have a rough sea.”

  “Sorry.” She took the serviette from the fruit basket and wrapped up her peels. “I like them dried. We had some candied ones, but my father ate them before we reached Cape Horn.”

  “Time we were leaving.” Kieran stepped over the bench and all but dragged Deirdre out the door. “Do not talk about being around the Horn. People will ask questions.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think—oh, Kieran, look!” She darted forward to inspect a display of silver jewelry glistening in the sunshine. “Aren’t these bracelets pretty? You should buy some for your sisters.”

  If she had not been dressed like a boy, he would have bought one for her, she so obviously enjoyed the bangles with their feathery etchings and inlays of semiprecious stones. Malachite for her. Amethyst for the girls. Mama would like lapis.

  He caught the salesman’s look of greed and shook his head. “I never purchase the first thing I see. There will be other gifts for the girls at better prices.” He left the man shrieking after them that he would reconsider the prices.