Captain Of My Heart Page 10

  “Have you ever been kissed before, Miss Moyrrra?”

  “By a man?”

  “No, silly, by a tortoise. Of course, a man. What do you think?”

  He paused before her, and slowly, gently, reached out to cup the side of her face with one of those hands that she’d been admiring just moments before. She shivered as he briefly caressed her cheekbone with his thumb, then slid his hand along her jaw and pushed his fingers into the unbound mass of her hair, forcing her to look up at him. For a moment, he just stood there, gazing into her eyes, and something inside her began to melt.

  He bent his head so that his forehead rested against hers. “Put your arms around my neck,” he murmured, so close she could see the laughter in his eyes.

  She reached up and did as he asked, and she felt his other hand go around her waist, the fingers splaying against her lower back and pulling her, unresistingly, closer to him. His breath feathered against her brow, her lashes, warm and smelling of sugared coffee.

  “Are you ready to be kissed, Miss Moyrrra?”

  “I’m ready. . . .”

  “Then close your eyes.”

  She closed them. Felt his lips touch her brow . . . her nose . . . the corner of her mouth as he lifted her face with gentle pressure beneath her jaw. Her heart began to pound, and a thick, languorous sensation flooded her limbs. She pressed closer to him, feeling the heat radiating from him like a furnace. His thumb rubbed lightly over her cheek, pushing her hair aside; and then—contact.

  The kiss was all that she’d known it would be, and more than she’d dreamed it could be.

  Mira wilted against him, shamelessly pressing herself against his body, pulling his head down to hers. She forgot to breathe. Her senses swam. His mouth ground against hers, the pressure forcing her lips apart, and she felt a strange, hot dampness at the junction of her thighs as his tongue slipped out and wickedly touched hers, warm and wet against her own. Colors burst behind her eyes and time and place slipped away. Her head was reeling. Spinning. Of their own accord, her hips pressed closer to him, and she felt the firm, unyielding pressure of his arousal against her belly.

  He groaned, reached up to unhook her hands from behind his neck and pulled back, breaking the kiss.

  “Is that all?” Mira asked, confused. The kiss had left her with a strange, unsatisfied longing for something she didn’t understand. Her lips were on fire. Her breasts were tingling, her lungs aching for want of air, and why did she feel so hot and aching and strange down there in her womanly parts?

  “Let’s do that again,” she said, unable to keep her gaze from dropping toward the hard bulge beneath his breeches.

  He was no longer laughing. In fact, he was breathing hard, the sound echoing in the stillness of the cabin, and the look in his eyes was one of confusion and something like panic. He swung away, as though in pain. “I think you should go,” he said, his voice oddly strained.

  “Why?”

  “It is late, Miss Ashton.”

  She could see him fighting to gain control of himself. He was gripping the back of a chair, refusing to look at her, and she saw that his knuckles were white. “But what about finishing our kiss?” she asked, confused.

  “Faith, lassie, you’re young enough that you’ve no idea just what it is you’re offering—” He opened his eyes and stared desperately at the deck planking above. “—and I’m old enough to know better than to take it. Now, go, before I change my mind and do something we’ll both regret.”

  Mira stared at him, wondering if he found her wanting. “I can’t see how we’d regret it.”

  “I said go, Miss Moyrrra!”

  “I mean, you might regret it, but I won’t,” she said, still reeling from the heady, wild sensations that tingled through every nerve in her body. She moved closer to him, pulled him away from the chair, and tried to wind her arms around his neck once more.

  Her hands never got past his shoulders. He grabbed her wrists, thrust her away, and stood staring at her, holding her at arm’s length. “For the love of God, Moyrrra, go! Faith, just go! I’ve already decided who shall build my schooner, and nothing you can say or do will change that.”

  If he’d slapped her across the face, he couldn’t have hurt her more.

  Mira’s volatile temper flared to life. “What about our bargain? I gave you your kiss and it’s still not good enough, huh? What kind of a bleedin’ bargain do you drive, anyhow, Brit? I held up my end of it!” Embarrassed and humiliated, she picked up her skirts, holding them above the glass-strewn floor as she stormed toward the door. “If that’s how you want it, then fine. Take yer drafts to Tracy or Hackett or Greenleaf and let them build the damned thing! See if I bloody well care!”

  She grabbed for the latch.

  “Miss Ashton?”

  She whirled, her petticoats twining around her legs, her hair flying over her shoulder.

  “I really don’t think they could kiss as well as you.”

  “Wha—”

  The total ridiculousness of his statement—and the way the corners of his mouth were turning up once more—melted her anger. For a moment she glared at him, trying to maintain it, but she couldn’t. A sparkle had come into his eyes, and it was impossible to be mad at him when he was looking at her like that.

  Especially when he was looking at her like that.

  “I told you I had already made my decision,” he said. “And there is no changing my mind. I will call on your father tomorrow to give him the drafts and sign any papers that need signing.” His grin spread. “There was no need for you to worry so, Miss Mira. There was never any question about who would build my schooner.”

  Chapter 7

  Work began on the schooner without delay.

  Her lines were lofted to Brendan’s drafts in an empty room above Ephraim’s office, her keel scarfed and laid on blocks a stone’s throw from the Merrimack, not far from where Annabel, stripped of her guns, fittings, and furnishings, lay moldering in muck and marsh grass. Shipwrights, carpenters, planking gangs, and caulkers; sailors, strong-armed men, young boys, and old salts alike—they worked like hell to build her, fitting stem and stern posts, hewing sleek ribs from massive white oak, and finishing them with broad ax and adz.

  By first frost, the cry of “Frame up!” was a daily one, and beneath the shrewd and wintry eye of Ephraim Ashton, all would drop what they were doing to heave and haul and hoist each horseshoe-shaped rib up, up, up, until a lean and lovely skeleton shaped itself beneath the matchless blue skies, and the tales of its unique beauty drew crowds from as far away as Boston to see it.

  Dubbers’ adzes rang out in the crisp mornings before the birds were even up; planking gangs swarmed over her, managing to lay two, sometimes three, streaks of plank over her ribs per day, and it wasn’t long before mallets were ringing against hawsing irons and driving oakum and cotton beneath her skin to make her watertight. Ports were cut along her sides in readiness for the sharp four- and six-pounders she would carry; bulwarks were strengthened, rails fashioned, woodwork sanded and varnished. Day by day she grew, proud and lovely and strong, until at last she was sealed with tar and kissed by the carpenter’s planes in readiness for the paint that would protect her from the bite of salt water.

  Her builder dressed her in black, painted a jaunty white stripe between her wales, and paid her bottom with a formidable mixture of tallow, brimstone, and resin. Her deck was varnished, her sleek and spartan stern counter left uncluttered by excessive scrollwork; that which was there was picked out in gold.

  She was sleek, she was sultry—and she was the pride of Newburyport.

  Her launching day dawned as a frosty, crisp-cold morning that promised frostier, crisper ones to come. It would be many weeks before her masts were in place, her rigging fitted, and she was ready for sea, but that special moment of launching—when the new hull touched water for the very first time—was always cause for a celebration. Giant crowds came from far and wide, gathering along the riverbanks as the sun rose u
p from the sea and through creamy pink skies filled with cottony puffballs of clouds. The sweet fragrance of autumn leaves perfumed the air, and grass made a last stand of color before winter’s brute desolation would wipe the slate of the earth clean. But everyone came, leaving pumpkins and squash dragging down the vines, apples to be harvested, pies cooling on windowsills, tasks left undone or put aside. Privateers returned early from the sea, their crews toasting the new ship with grog and sweet cherry rum. Children were lifted atop shoulders, adults craned their necks. Dockworkers and deckhands, laborers, merchants, lawyers, and physicians—all crowded into the Ashton Shipyards, pushing and shoving against one another just for a glimpse of the ship that stood atop her ways looking down at them like a queen at her coronation. People took boats out into the harbor for a spot to see; others hung out of second-story windows in a rapidly filling Market Square. Horses and carriages clogged the streets, ships of every size and style filled the harbor, apple cider ran like water, and hot chocolate steamed the air.

  And atop her blocks the schooner waited, her rails draped with the flags of her new country, her slick black hull glowing pink, then gold, in the strengthening sunlight. She heard the people’s praise, felt their awe. She endured their reverent hands upon her flanks. She was confident, smug, self-assured, and utterly feminine.

  And those who figured they knew better predicted she’d sink before she even settled her sleek shoulders into the water.

  The sun rose higher, turning the morning skies to fire. Standing atop an elevated platform, Reverend Edward Bass, pastor of St. Paul’s Church, spoke solemn words of blessing and prayer over her. Beside him Ephraim Ashton, whose business had quadrupled over the past two months, stood gloating and swinging his watch, every so often elbowing his son in the ribs. The crowds milled and surged and grew impatient. They hadn’t come here to see their pastor, nor their suddenly renowned shipbuilder, nor his hotheaded son; they’d come to watch a launching—and see for themselves the real mastermind behind that magnificent schooner: the blithe, handsome young Irishman (Englishman! some insisted) who would command her.

  But Captain Brendan Jay Merrick, who for reasons known only to himself had spent the past two months up in Portsmouth, kept to the back of the platform, allowing the reverend to say his blessings, Ephraim to do his bragging, and the schooner to speak for herself.

  Finally the pastor shut his Bible and stepped back.

  Ephraim cleared his throat, consulted his watch, cleared his throat once again. A final toast was made, a bottle of champagne cracked across the svelte black bow. The tension rose. A thousand spectators held their breaths, milling, murmuring, and waiting.

  She’s too sharp through the hull, some whispered.

  Too singular in design.

  They pressed closer.

  She’ll go right to the bottom, just you watch.

  And closer.

  A cannon boomed out. And then her handsome young captain, impeccably dressed in a blue coat with red facings and gold buttons streaming down his chest, stepped forward to send her on her first journey to the sea. He looked at her long and hard—some would later swear there was mist in his eyes—and then he waved his hand, stood back, and watched as the hammers rose and fell, rose and fell, smashing apart the blocks that bridled her and severing the harnesses that kept her from the sea.

  The schooner stirred to life.

  The crowd gasped. They held their breaths; and then they shoved forward with a roar. “There she goes!”

  She trembled, lurched, began to move. Then she gathered speed, whispering to herself as she slid down the ways, faster and faster and faster, slipping into the river with hardly a splash.

  She dipped.

  She righted herself.

  She moved away, trembling a bit as she got the feel of the water.

  But she did not sink.

  She did not sink!

  The crowd roared and went wild. The air rang with deafening cheers and music and the glorious thunder of exultant cannon. And at that very moment something small and hawklike darted out of the dawn with a keening cry, swooping on the predatory wings of a raptor, touching briefly upon the schooner’s rail before wheeling, swooping, and skimming back out over the waters of the river.

  A kestrel.

  And so she’d been named.

  ###

  Mira, patriotically garbed in a red and white striped gown that matched the flags along the schooner’s rails, watched the launching from Rigel’s back, where she had a perfect vantage point above the great throngs who had come to witness the event.

  She was filled with delight as she saw, for the first time, the name carved across the schooner’s counter, and flushed with pleasure as she remembered the snippet of conversation that night, that very late night, in Captain Merrick’s cabin that surely must have inspired it.

  “She’s a fine ship, swift and sturdy, but beside her, your schooner would look like—like a kestrel beside a turkey vulture.”

  “Kestrel,” he had said softly, his eyes thoughtful.

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, nothing. Do go on.”

  She swallowed, hard. He had not forgotten, then—and had named his ship, his beautiful, beloved, and precious ship, at her unwitting suggestion.

  Kestrel. He had named her Kestrel.

  As though her poor heart wasn’t already buffeted by myriad feelings. Pride as she watched the schooner slide down the ways and heard the crowd’s roaring appreciation. Excitement at the idea of seeing Captain Merrick again. And nervousness.

  Would he remember their kiss? Would he want to repeat it?

  But he did not seek Mira out. Indeed, as the minutes stretched into an hour, and she watched him talk with her father, then allow himself to be drawn away by a group of other sea captains and privateers without so much as looking for her, only to disappear into the crowd, she felt stung.

  Her temper rising, she tried to back Rigel up, only to hear a howl of pain and a curse from behind her.

  “Have a care where you’re riding, wench!” a man shouted.

  “Why don’t you have a care where you’re standing?” she shot back.

  The stranger grabbed Rigel’s bridle, cruelly pulling his head by the bit. “Don’t you take that tone with me, missy,” he snarled. “That damned animal just stepped on my toe.”

  “Let go of that bridle or it’ll be more than your bleedin’ toe that’s hurting!”

  The man gave the bit a vicious yank; Rigel reared, a woman screamed, and Mira, furious, slashed the man across the face with the crop. “I said, let go of my horse!”

  He made a lunge for her, and at that moment, Matt and Ephraim were suddenly there.

  “What the tarnal hell’s going on here?” Ephraim bellowed, taking in Mira’s angry face and the bright red welt across the man’s cheek. “Can’t I leave ye alone for one moment without you startin’ something? You and these damned hosses! Here it is, the crowning moment of my shipbuildin’ career and you have to go an’ spoil it with yer shenanigans! Cripes and guts, Mira, what the bleedin’ hell is the matter with ye?”

  “He was abusing Rigel!”

  “She backed that damned beast right over my foot!”

  Ephraim was relentless. “And what d’ye think Merrick’s gonna think of ye if he sees you acting like a damned hoyden? Damn it, Mira, don’t you have any self-respect? Any pride in yerself? Why can’t ye act like a lady?”

  Matt’s eyes began to flash behind his spectacles. “Father—”

  “You stay out of it!”

  Ephraim turned and stormed back through the throng, the stranger gave her a mocking sneer, and unable to take any more, Mira wheeled Rigel and sent him through Market Square and down the length of High Street at a speed that tore the ribbons from her hair. By the time she thundered up the drive and into the stable, she was nearly in tears.

  Was she that much of an embarrassment? And was Father right? Had she left such a bad impression on Captain Merrick that he wouldn’t even c
ome over to say hello to her?

  She tore off the saddle, removed the bridle, and snatching up a brush, began grooming the colt. It had only been a kiss. One little kiss, nothing more. She was a fool for thinking he had actually cared about her. She was a fool for spending all this time anticipating his return to Newburyport, thinking that he’d want to court her, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d want to kiss her again. To her dismay, she felt tears starting to fall. She swore, and sniffed them back. But they persisted, burning her nose and glistening on her cheeks, running under her jaw, down her neck, and beneath her bodice. With the back of her hand she angrily swiped them away, but they kept coming, faster and faster, again and again, no matter how many times she swiped—

  “Hello?”

  Her hand froze atop Rigel’s withers, the brush with it.

  “Hello? Anyone in there?”

  The captain. The last thing she needed was for him to see her crying. Swatting at the tears, she shouted, “Go away!”

  “That you, Miss Moyrrra?”

  “I said go away, you slimy bucket of bilge water!”

  That felt better. Immensely better. But it didn’t stop the tears, flowing even harder now as she attacked Rigel’s coat with an ardor that he, leaning into the brush, clearly enjoyed.

  And it didn’t stop the captain from entering the barn. The patch of sunlight that streamed through the open doorway was suddenly blotted out. Straw rustled behind her. Rigel craned his neck around, pricking his ears forward. Hating herself for the tears she was powerless to stop, Mira clenched her jaw, her hand moving faster and faster as she hauled the curry brush across Rigel’s flank. She could sense the captain’s nearness, could feel him looming over her. Her blood began to tingle in response, in memory, and she hated herself for it.

  Without looking up, she hollered, “Did ye hear me, you stinking pile of gull’s dung? I said go away!”

  And then his hand closed over hers, warm and strong and gentle, sending shock waves up her arm and stilling the frantic movements of the brush.