No, their Brendan had always been carefree and gallant, with a face to turn a lady’s head and the charm to win her heart. Elegance lay in the span of his shoulders, the shape of his hands; mirth danced in his eyes, and laughter in the swiftness of his grin. But beneath his jocular manner, he was strong and capable and a clever tactician, and no one in the King’s Navy knew ships as well as he. No one before or since had been able to make the frigate Halcyon dance through sea and spray as he had done; no one had had the deck a-hopping to Irish jigs as they’d gone into battle; and certainly, no one had stood on the quarterdeck sketching the enemy’s ships while iron flew overhead and the deck thundered beneath the might of Halcyon’s thirty-two guns.
Someday he’d be an admiral as his English father had been before him. No wonder his dash and derring-do had caught the attention of his superiors back in London. No wonder Sir Geoffrey Lloyd had promoted him to flag captain. No wonder the seamen were all ready to mutiny under Richard Crichton’s iron rule, whereas they looked upon their “Captain from Connaught” as a god.
No wonder they looked upon him now as their savior.
As Crichton came forward to greet him, the marines stepped back and Captain Merrick got a clear, unhampered view of Dalby O’Hara at the gratings, his head hanging between his frail shoulders, the rope that bound him leaving bracelets of angry red flesh at his swollen wrists.
Instantly the mirth faded from his eyes.
“Captain Merrick, how nice it is to have you grace my humble command,” Crichton said tightly, with a quick salute that was more mocking than respectful. Sarcasm stained his words, and any sincerity he thought to convey was belied by hard, naturally red-rimmed eyes whose irises were the color of milk allowed to go bad. Obviously Crichton was still furious that Sir Geoffrey had put the young half-Irishman in command of his flagship and not him, a fact he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide beneath the veil of hospitality. “Perhaps you’d care for some tea in my cabin? ’Tis dreadfully hot out here on deck.”
Brendan, staring at Dalby, didn’t give a damn about Crichton’s sarcasm, his hatred, or, for that matter, his tea. It was hot, all right; brutally so. The sun beat down upon Dalby’s sunburnt back and pulled blisters from the angry flesh. It baked the planking beneath his shoes, melted the tar between the deck seams, and made the sweat run down Crichton’s pale face.
And Crichton was offering him tea?
Furious, he tore his gaze from Dalby and swung around, his jaw clenched, his fingernails biting into his palms. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the flagship, anchored in shimmering haze a half mile distant, where Sir Geoffrey’s flag floated on the wind and tickled the pale clouds above. He would not let his admiral down. He would not let that flag down.
He would not let his men down!
“Captain Crichton—”
“If not tea, sir, then how about some coffee?” Crichton sputtered, sensing his superior’s rage and nervously fingering the hilt of his dress sword. “I’m sure Miss Eveleen has it all poured for you. She really is a most unusual young woman, and thoughtful, too! Doesn’t matter how hot it is, every morning she hauls her paints and canvas topside and sits out on deck painting the men’s portraits; why, she even gives them away afterward! Must run in your family, this talent for the fine arts. I needn’t tell you how popular she is with Halcyon’s people—” Sweat ran from Crichton’s temple as Brendan’s gaze went once more to Dalby. “—and how we all consider it a blessing that she’s chosen to accompany you here to Boston. And while I’m not accustomed to having a woman traveling aboard my ship, I daresay her presence has been a most enjoyable one—”
“Captain Crichton, I did not come here to discuss my sister.”
“But of course not, sir, though she did see your barge coming across and is probably expecting you—”
“I came here to address complaints made to me and our admiral regarding your unnecessary brutality!”
A hush fell over the ship, the slap of waves against the hull breaking the sudden, strained silence. Somewhere overhead, a gull cried.
“My—my brutality?” Dark, angry color suffused Crichton’s face. “Why, that’s preposterous! Who would dare lodge such a ridiculous complaint?”
“Your crew. And I, after observing your actions over the past several moments.”
Crichton followed the young flag officer’s gaze and waved his hand in a dismissive motion. “What, are you talking about Dalby O’Hara? Why, he deserves everything that’s coming to him. Lieutenant Myles caught him stealing bread just this morning from the purser’s stores. Surely you don’t think I’m going to let such atrocities go unpunished—”
“Captain Crichton, the only atrocities I see here are those committed by you. Do you think a man can exist on moldy bread and watered-down rations and not be hungry? Cut him down now and send him to sick bay until he is well enough to return to his duties. And after you’ve done so, I would like a word with you.”
“A word, sir?”
Brendan drew his admiral’s orders from his pocket and said tightly, “I am taking over command of Halcyon until Sir Geoffrey’s faith in your competence as a captain can be reestablished.”
Crichton stood as if stunned. His upper lip quivered, his nostrils flared, and the trickle of sweat that ran from his temple seemed to freeze in place.
“I said, cut him down,” Brendan snapped.
“But that man is guilty of numerous crimes, and by thunder, he’ll get the punishment he deserves!”
“That man will be cut down now or so help me God, ’twill be a court of inquiry you find yourself facing, not just Sir Geoffrey’s wrath! Now, do it!”
The seamen, the officers, and even the marines gaped, for never had they seen their former captain show anything but blithe good spirits. Even the wind, humming through tarred shrouds and furled, salt-streaked canvas, held its breath. Crichton remained unmoving, blatantly defying the order; a moment passed. Two. Then Brendan shoved the dispatches back into his pocket and strode toward Dalby himself, his shoulders rigid with fury, his stride purposeful, his mouth tight and hard.
Crichton, they all knew, had just sealed his fate.
Hearing his approach, Dalby dragged his head up. “Oh, sir, I knew you’d come! You’d never have let anyone treat us like this! Crichton’s a demon, sir, a demon! ’Twas just some biscuit I took, I didn’t do anything bad, sir, honest, I didn’t—”
“I know, Dalby. Rest easy.”
“He barely feeds us enough for a rat to live on and then expects us to work like dogs! Just yesterday little Billy fell from the rigging and drowned because he was so weak from lack of food! Oh, there’s good grog and plenty of fresh meat, but it all goes to Crichton and his officers. And all I took was a piece of moldy biscuit, sir, just one little piece....”
“I know, Dalby. And we can’t have you eating biscuit when everyone knows the salt beef’s far better, now, can we?” he joked, for it was a well-known fact that the beef was far worse than the biscuit could ever be. “Faith, at least there are no worms in it!”
But Dalby didn’t notice that Brendan’s words came through tightened lips, nor that his grin didn’t quite light his eyes. All he knew was that his captain had come to save him. All he heard was the musical lilt of his voice, its Connemaran cadences still wonderfully vibrant despite an English father and fifteen years in the Royal Navy. Dalby sobbed in relief, unwittingly setting the spark that inflamed the crew to mutiny.
“No worms, but he doesn’t feed us enough to live on!” someone shouted.
“And half the time the meat’s rotten!”
“Cut him down, Captain!”
“Aye, cut him down! Cut him down!” It became a chant, gathering force and momentum and thunder, rolling through the ranks like a comber in stormy seas. “Cut him down!”
“Sir, I will not tolerate this!” Crichton roared, above the din. “Do you hear me? I will not tolerate this!”
Brendan began cutting.
Crichton step
ped forward, and all hell broke loose.
A seaman broke from the crowd with an unholy yell, his eyes maniacal, his knife raised as he charged toward Crichton. Someone screamed. Someone else cheered.
The reports would say that it had been an accident, and that the shot had been fired in self-defense, for with officers and marines trying frantically to regain control over the mutinous crew, no one knew exactly what happened. But Dalby, turning his head, saw it all: a lieutenant knocking the knife-wielding seaman aside; men storming the quarterdeck; and in the confusion Crichton, calmly drawing his pistol and taking careful aim—not at the seaman, not into empty space, but at Brendan, the man who’d come to save him, to save all of them—
Dalby screamed.
The explosion rent the air and stunned the decks into silence. And when the echoes died and Dalby opened his eyes, he saw that the flag captain was down, lying on his back and blinking up at the furled white sails and hazy sky, his mouth tight with pain, his rich chestnut curls bared to the sun. His tricorne lay upside down beside his shoulder. A dark rose bloomed on his chest, spreading over his fine new coat. He coughed once, twice, and then his eyes began to close....
“Brendan!” A woman charged through the stunned crowd, her paint-smeared skirts and petticoats flying, her golden hair streaming behind her. “Brendan! Oh God, Brendan, noooooo!”
The young flag captain opened his eyes. Weakly, he turned his head, trying to muster a grin. And then Dalby saw those pain-glazed eyes widen in alarm, for Crichton had reloaded, was bringing the pistol up once again, and Eveleen was running directly into its path.
Brendan staggered to his feet. “Eveleen!”
The pistol barked; the girl cried out, clutching her hand as she fell. And there was Crichton, smiling now, as he narrowed those pale, red-rimmed eyes and raised a second pistol to finish a task left undone.
The ball hit the flag captain, spinning him around and flinging him backward. Through the blur of tears, Dalby saw him flounder, saw the brief flash of sunlight against his epaulets and gold buttons. Then the back of his legs hit the rail and staggering, he tumbled over it, falling down, down into the sea below.
Silence.
The wind sighed through the shrouds above. A mast creaked. On deck, the crew stood frozen in shock, horror, and fear.
And Crichton, in command once more and hopeful candidate for the now vacant position of flag captain, smiled, tucked his pistol in his belt, and met the gazes of his faithful lieutenants. Their expressions were carefully veiled, their drawn pistols holding the stunned and horrified crew at bay once more. His officers would not disappoint him. They’d allow no more reports to get to Sir Geoffrey, and they would support his official statement that Captain Merrick had incited a mutiny.
What they’d seen today would go no further than the wardroom.
He’d make sure of it.
The girl lay in a crumpled heap, her shattered hand clutched to her breast, her frilly white petticoats sopping up the young flag captain’s blood. Ignoring her sobs, Crichton picked up the whip and handed it to the boatswain’s mate. Dalby was still lashed to the gratings, his face paler than death. Smiling, Crichton nodded to his officer.
“You may proceed,” he said coldly.
The mate smiled back and the whip slashed down, again and again and again.
And this time, there was no one to come to Dalby’s aid.
No one at all.
Chapter 1
Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1778
Three years had elapsed since Captain Brendan Jay Merrick had fallen from the frigate Halcyon and, subsequently, out of the Royal Navy. The American colonies had made good use of those years; they’d declared their independence from Britain, they’d won many fine fighting men and sea officers to the American cause, and they’d been busy infecting themselves with healthy patriotic fever.
The town of Newburyport had no trouble taking up the fight for liberty, for its people had been independent even in the days before the struggle for independence. Situated at the mouth of the mighty Merrimack River some forty miles north of Boston, the town depended only on the sea for its survival. Salmon, herring, striped bass, and bluefish migrated up the river. The ocean provided cod, mackerel, and other fish, as well as oysters, lobsters, and scallops. Clams grew fat in the tidal flats of nearby Plum Island; ducks were plentiful. A few wooden fish flakes dotted the riverbanks to dry the great catches of cod, but Newburyport, unlike Gloucester and Marblehead to the south, had never relied on the fishing industry to support itself to the extent that they had. Commerce was its lifeblood.
Not so many years ago, it had been common to see great oceangoing ships tied up at the wharves unloading cargoes from distant lands. Farmers had come from the inland towns of Haverhill, Amesbury, and Bradford to trade vegetables, corn, barreled pork, beef, and flour for staples—rum, coffee, sugar, and molasses—as well as extravagances: silk from the Orient, and grapes and oranges from Spain. The docks had bustled with activity, and the shops in Market Square had boasted linen, wool, and porcelain from England, wine from Madeira, broadcloth and satins, iron, paper and glass, nails and gloves, and just about anything anyone could want that Newburyport didn’t make or supply itself.
The farmers still came. The docks still bustled with activity. But the ships that were now tied up at those wharves were of a very different breed from the ponderous, wallowing vessels that had come before. This new breed was leaner. Battle-scarred. Sharp-toothed, toughened, and hungry—and as independent as the town that spawned them.
These vessels were the privateers.
And Newburyport couldn’t turn them out fast enough to meet the demand.
For if commerce was the town’s lifeblood, then shipbuilding was its livelihood.
Along the Merrimack’s banks, new shipyards sprang up seemingly overnight, and existing ones grew in size. Each was as self-sufficient as Newburyport herself. Each had its own smithy, sawpit, mast pond, and mast houses. Each had its own sail loft, where bolts of heavy linen were destined to hold the wind as foresails, mainsails, topsails, and jibs. And each had access to the town’s rope walk, where hemp fibers were combed out, spun into yarn, and formed into rope that would see service as rigging in those predatory vessels that called Newburyport their home.
Prosperous merchants and shipowners who’d gained their fortunes through commerce, rum manufacturing, and the blatant ignorance of England’s Navigation Acts now invested in the privateering boom. On High Street, handsome three-story Georgian houses surrounded by elegant gardens and furnished with fine Chippendale and Hepplewhite furniture reflected the affluence of those who were successful at it. In the spirit of liberty, the men abandoned their silks, velvets, and fancy powdered wigs for clothes of native wool and homespun; the ladies burned their English tea and brewed their own from ribwort and other plants instead.
Newburyport was as independent as ever. And its patriotism was reflected in every citizen, young and old, male and female; in its militia, in its naval men, and in its privateers…
# # #
Enclosed by woods and a haphazard fence, Miss Mira Ashton’s School of Fine Horsemanship was nothing more than a field that smelled of clover and wet grasses and the fresh pungency of newly churned mud. It had rained the night before, and now moisture dripped from the many oaks, maples, and pines, pitter-pattering down through branches and shimmering leaves that quivered beneath the extra weight. Drip, drip, pitter, patter, on and on until all the woods surrounding the field were alive with the soft sounds of falling rain. Yet the sky above the treetops was cloudless and pale, and sunlight stabbed through the branches, glowing pink and gold through the mists and sending vivid rainbow colors twinkling off the bent grasses like stardust on a fairy’s crown.
It promised to be another scorcher of a day.
Sounds broke the tranquility of the new morning: the steady beat of a horse’s trot; the snap of a whip licking the air; the snort of a dappled colt whose chiseled head and short ba
ck spoke of desert blood and whose color was so pure a gray as to appear almost blue; and from the slight figure in the middle of the field, around whom that colt trotted in a doughnut of deepening mud, an exuberant voice belting out the tune of “Yankee Doodle.”
“Fath’r and I went down to camp, along with Captain Good-ing! And there we saw the men and boys, as thick as hasty pud-ding!”
A quarter mile away, Ephraim Ashton, shipbuilder, sat down to breakfast and the Essex Gazette, a pot of strong black coffee at his right elbow, a basket of hot buttered corn muffins at his left, and a jug of New England rum before him, blissfully unaware that his daughter stood ankle-deep in mud with her head thrown back, her chest puffed up, and her voice belting out a song with all the lusty fervor she might’ve lent her favorite fo’c’sle chanty:
“Yankee Doodle keep it up! Yankee Doodle, dan-dy—”
Rigel flicked an ear but knew better than to slow his stride.
“Mind the music and the step, and with the girls be han-dy!”
But then, there were a lot of things Father was unaware of; he didn’t know about Rescue Effort Number Thirty-One, he didn’t know that she was going to ride Rigel for the first time tomorrow, and he didn’t know that she had a bet going with her brother, Matt, that she could sneak aboard Matt’s privateer, Proud Mistress, at least two more times before Father caught her at it and flew off into one of his rages. No, Father would be reaching for one of those muffins just about—Mira squinted up to look at the sun’s angle—now, dipping it in maple syrup, and shoving the whole sticky mess into his mouth as he thumbed to the newspaper’s Marine News section, where he would scrutinize each and every word until he found mention of an Ashton ship. He might get a smudge of syrup on the top right corner of the page—but not on the Marine News section. Heaven forbid. And it would take him exactly one third of the hour he allotted to the paper to study that section, snowy brows curling out over his nose like fishhooks and throwing shadows across the page, and his fist slapping the table with a good hard wallop when he found what he was looking for. And then he would hoot and holler, and heaven help the neighbors if they were still abed, for they’d be asleep no longer.
Never Too Late For Love (Heroes Of The Sea Book 9) Page 9