Captain Of My Heart Read online

  CAPTAIN OF MY HEART

  By

  Danelle Harmon

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Danelle Harmon

  Smashwords Edition

  Captain Of My Heart

  Copyright © 2012 by Danelle Harmon

  (original paperback version published in 1992)

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Discover other titles by Danelle Harmon at smashwords.com

  ~~~~

  Table Of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  This version of CAPTAIN OF MY HEART is dedicated to the memory of the original Pride Of Baltimore, a ship I was fortunate enough to visit when she came to Newburyport, Massachusetts, many years ago. She and she alone was the inspiration for the schooner, Kestrel.

  May this proud beauty and those who were lost with her, forever rest in peace.

  ###

  CAPTAIN OF MY HEART

  By Danelle Harmon

  ~~~~

  That seat of Science, Athens, and Earth’s proud mistress Rome;

  Where now are all their glories? We scarce can find a tomb!

  Then guard your rights, Americans, nor stoop to lawless sway;

  Oppose, oppose, oppose, oppose, for North America.

  We led fair Freedom hither, and lo, the desert smiled!

  A paradise of pleasure was opened in the wild!

  Your harvest, bold Americans, no power shall snatch away!

  Preserve, preserve, preserve your rights, and free America!

  Torn from a world of tyrants, beneath this western sky,

  We formed a new dominion, a land of liberty:

  The world shall own we’re free men here and such we’ll ever be;

  Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, for Love and Liberty!

  Lift up your hands ye heroes, and swear with proud disdain.

  The wretch who would enslave you shall spread his snares in vain.

  Should Europe empty all her force, we’ll meet them in array,

  And shout huzzah, huzzah, huzzah, for brave America!

  “Free America”

  — Dr. Joseph Warren, 1774

  an early map of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the mouth of the Merrimack River

  Prologue

  July 1775

  Unwilling spectators to yet another whipping, a trio of pigtailed seamen in blue jackets and striped ticken trousers stood by the rail of His Majesty’s Ship Halcyon. Their attention was not on poor Dalby, strung up to the gratings with his stooped back already blistering in the merciless sun. It was not on Captain Richard Crichton, tapping his foot in impatience as he waited for the boatswain’s mate to begin the punishment.

  It was on the barge that had set out from the big seventy-four-gun flagship Dauntless.

  “He’s coming,” said one, in a low, reverent whisper. “I knew he would.”

  “We all knew. Our Brendan would never let us down.”

  “Aye, just because he’s been promoted to flag captain doesn’t mean he’s forgotten us.”

  They stared at the barge, watching as it cut its way through gentle swells that danced and glittered in the summer sunlight. Then Crichton turned, saw it, and paled. Swearing, he barked out a string of commands. Marines were hastily mustered. Officers in blue and white coats scrambled to receive the esteemed visitor. Uniforms were straightened, pipes shrilled. And then the barge was alongside, bumping against the frigate’s hull as its crew tossed their oars.

  As usual, the flag captain had arrived unexpectedly—and with his usual disregard for the fanfare the Royal Navy insisted upon giving him.

  Crichton was furious.

  “Boat ahoy!”

  “Halcyon!” roared the flag captain’s coxswain, Liam Doherty, a strapping, blue-eyed Irishman with a beam-to-beam grin and a shock of spice-colored curls. “Stand by t’ receive Cap’n Merrick!”

  Orders were passed. The bosuns’ pipes pierced the air.

  “Imagine,” whispered one of the seamen, “troublin’ himself with the likes of us. Ye don’t really think that’s why he’s here, do ye, John? ’Cause of us?”

  “Oh, aye. No doubt about that,” the first seaman said. He gazed at the purple hills that rimmed Boston Harbor. “We all signed that appeal to Sir Geoffrey to do something about Crichton, didn’t we? The vice-admiral’s got a good heart, and a wise head on his shoulders, picking our own Brendan Merrick to be the new flag captain. Just think of how easy things were when Captain Merrick commanded this ship—he never once had a man punished, not once, mind ye! And he’s not going to like how bad things’ve gotten here.”

  “Bad? By the saints, poor ol’ Dalby’s the second man Crichton’s strung up to the gratin’s for punishment this mornin’ alone, and that ain’t countin’ the three from yesterday!”

  “There were four from yesterday, Zach, not three. . .”

  At the rail, smart, red-coated marines snapped to attention. A final drum rolled on the wind. The pipes quieted, the seamen held their breaths, the tension built. They heard him coming up the ladder. They saw his gold-laced hat appear in the entry port. And then he was there, resplendent and handsome, the sunlight glinting with blinding intensity off his epaulets and picking out every gold button on a coat as blue as the sea that rolled behind him. Doffing his hat to the quarterdeck with a solemnity befitting the gesture, he turned, met their gazes—and grinned, for he had last walked among them as their captain, and he knew every one of the 150-man crew by name.

  “Mr. Burke! Ce’n chaoi bhfuil tú? You’re looking a wee bit on the sorry side this morn! Been in your cups again, laddie?” They all had the same thought. Promotion to flag rank hadn’t changed him a bit; he was still their same old captain, not above using the old Gaeilge when addressing an Irishman, not above caring about the welfare of everyone on the ship. “And Mr. Howes! You keeping your hands off my little sister? Where is the lassie, anyhow? Faith! A half mile through spray and wave in that damnable barge and the least that Eveleen could do is come topside to greet me, eh?”

  Still grinning, he winked at one of the drummers, a pale, scrawny little tyke who blushed and bobbed and dropped his drumstick under the attention. Captain Brendan Jay Merrick merely laughed, picked it up, and handed it back to him, oblivious to the way the boy clutched it to his chest as though it had been blessed. He was nothing like Crichton, the men
thought with a mixture of pride and bittersweet relief, nor those who’d held the coveted post of flag captain before him—dour-faced, cautious men who’d reeked of protocol and the stuffiness so inherent in those of their station.

  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 rank. 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 subsist 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 luffing, 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 storm
y 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 stepped 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 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 a bubble of blood broke from his mouth and ran down his jaw. 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. . . .