Captain Of My Heart Read online

  Chapter 9

  “Father won’t allow it,” Matt predicted, shaking his head. He took off his spectacles and swiped at them with a corner of his shirt. “It’s one thing to sneak aboard Proud Mistress, but he’ll not hear of you going aboard Kestrel.”

  Mira leaned against the doorframe and stared in disgust at the mess that was Matt’s bedroom. Clothes were thrown here, books there, and the bed was unmade. “You’re absolutely right, he won’t hear of it—right, Matt?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Of course.” She flashed him her sauciest grin.

  “You won’t get away with it.”

  “Oh? Just you watch. Kestrel makes her maiden voyage tomorrow, and I intend to be on her.”

  Matt crossed his arms and shot her a sly glance. “And just why are you so eager to be aboard that schooner, Mira?”

  She glared at him. “For the hell of it.”

  “Right.” He grinned at her. “I think you’ve got your eye on its captain.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “I pity the poor man.”

  “Yeah? Well, I pity all those women you keep courting and dumping.”

  Matt scowled. Steam appeared in the bottom third of his lenses, and his lips thinned out in a straight line. “Look, Mira, I told you how I really feel about those women—”

  “Well, don’t get mad at me, ’cause you’re the one who keeps putting up with ’em! You’re too nice, you know that? Too bloody gallant! You told me you’re looking for a good girl, but you’re sure as hell looking in the wrong place to find the kind of woman you’re after! Yet you keep on buying ’em things, treating ’em like gold . . . When’re you ever gonna realize they’re all the same—nothing but a pack of hussies who only want your money and the prestige of having been your latest lover? No, I don’t pity them, not one bit. I pity you for suffering such nonsense!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’m lonely, all right?”

  “So you settle for something you don’t want?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Hell, no! I go for exactly what I want, and you know it.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and willed herself to calm down. Matt didn’t need to be reminded of his weakness for love and affection.

  “So what do you want, then?” he asked.

  “Captain Merrick.”

  “Cripes, Mira!”

  “Why not? He’s handsome, he’s dashing, and I can’t stop thinking about him. Maybe I’m in love with him. Hell, maybe I’ll even marry him. You know I’ve always vowed that when—I mean, if—I ever marry, it would be to a sea captain. Well, Captain Merrick may do, but first he has to pass my Test. That’s why I have to go aboard his schooner—to make sure he’s a competent sailor. We know he can design a ship, but he has yet to prove to me that he can sail one, and most importantly, command one, as well.”

  “Jeez, Mira ...”

  But she was already pacing the room, scheming, as usual. “The only way for me to find that out is to go aboard Kestrel and see the captain in action. And as for Father, he’ll never know, ’cause he’ll have his eyes peeled looking for me to go aboard Proud Mistress, just like I’ve always done.”

  “And I suppose you think Captain Merrick’s going to allow it, no questions asked?”

  “Of course not, you pillock. If he did, he’d fail part one of the Test. No captain in his right mind—except you, of course—” She laughed at his infuriated expression. “—is going to allow a woman aboard his ship, especially as a gunner. But getting away with it will be half the fun. In fact, I’ll have just as much fun pulling the wool over Captain Merrick’s eyes as I will over Father’s!”

  Matt grinned, getting caught up in the idea. His eyes began to gleam. “I assume you have a disguise all figured out?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I wish you luck, but you’ll never get away with it. Father’ll catch you at it, guaranteed.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Aye, I’ll bet! What do you want if you win?”

  She looked around the room. “Let’s see ...” Her gaze fell upon the musket on the wall. “How ’bout that Brown Bess?”

  “Cripes, Mira, that’s my favorite gun!”

  “Chicken.”

  Matt’s lips tightened. “All right, fine. If you get away with this and win the bet, you can have the gun. But if Father catches you and I win, then I get—”

  “—a black eye.”

  “What?”

  She smirked at his blank look. “Let’s face it, Matt, the only way he’s gonna find out is if you tell him.”

  “Forget it! I can’t win either way!”

  “Oh? You’ve been bellyaching for ages about me sneaking aboard Proud Mistress and getting in your hair. Well, now that Father’s wise to me, there’s no way that can continue. So you’ve already won . . . You’ll be rid of me, and I’ll be Captain Merrick’s problem instead.”

  “I think you already are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ain’t it obvious? The man’s in love with you.”

  “Well, half of Newburyport’s in love with you,” Mira flung back. “When are you going to bring home this good girl you keep promising to find, huh, Matthew?”

  “Look, just lay off and stay the hell out of my love life, would you?”

  “Then stay the hell out of mine.”

  “You don’t have one.”

  “But I will.”

  They stood glaring at each other, neither willing to give any ground. But then they thought of Mira’s scheme, and the outrageous implications of it. Mira’s lips began to twitch, and Matt threw back his head in laughter. They were all in for some rough sailing ahead.

  Mira. Ephraim. And especially the unsuspecting Captain Merrick.

  ###

  Many hours later, when darkness was old, supper had been eaten, and Mira’s apple pie fed to the dog, Eveleen stood in the room that would be hers during her stay in Newburyport—which, if today was any indication, was going to be a miserable one. The shutters were closed against the night; thick gingham curtains with a stenciled pineapple design were further protection against the cold drafts. Wind rattled the windows in their casements, and she could hear snow whispering against the frosty panes.

  Shivering, she dug her toes into the hooked rug that covered the wide-boarded floor. Her trunk lay half unpacked at the foot of an elegant Hepplewhite four-poster, and a candle, safe within a hurricane globe, cast a soft and flickering glow over the pillows heaped against the carved headboard. A linsey-woolsey counterpane topped the bed, and a thick cotton patchwork quilt was folded neatly at the foot. But despite the bed’s inviting look, Eveleen was not ready to retire for the night.

  She felt bad about being so hateful to Mira Ashton, but she just couldn’t help herself. Now, pale and naked, she stood before a big cheval mirror. The candle’s soft glow was not kind, only emphasizing the weight that she had gained steadily over the past three years. She glared at her reflection, hating it.

  Downstairs, she heard hearty male laughter coming from the study, where Brendan and old Captain Ashton and his handsome son with the wild red hair had gone. If only she had something to laugh about. She couldn’t remember a time she’d been happy since the day Richard Crichton had nearly killed her beloved brother and taken away the one thing she’d ever been good at.

  Good at? She’d been gifted . . . But Eveleen would never paint again. And now she held her right hand behind her back so she wouldn’t have to see it reflected in the mirror, for it was even more difficult to look at than her thick rolls of fat.

  Her heart ached, making her stomach feel hungry and empty. Now she wished she’d grabbed one—or better yet, two—of those chewy molasses cookies left over from supper. They’d certainly make her feel better, as only food could. Not even Brendan, whom she loved more than anyone or anything else in the world, could fill up that emptiness the same way one of those cookies would.

  Poor Brendan. He tried so hard t
o please her—renting that fine house in Portsmouth, buying her all kinds of jewels with his privateering profits that she really didn’t want, and now this silly idea of riding lessons. She curled her lip in despair. What on earth was she supposed to do with a horse? She’d never ridden one in her life, and with only one functional hand, how could she? Obviously Brendan believed this Mira Ashton capable of working miracles.

  But then, that was typical of people in love. They thought that the object of their devotion was infallible, incapable of failure, perfect. And the way her brother had been staring at Mira all during supper, barely commenting on the delicious mushroom pasty with its golden, latticed crust, the spit-roasted partridge, the peaches stuffed with spicy mincemeat, even the hot brick-oven bread with the thick slabs of butter and cheese . . . oh, he was obviously smitten with this girl—a girl who went from young boy to fine lady with the same ease with which she vaulted on and off that gray colt’s back.

  Maybe Mira could work miracles. Maybe she could teach her how to ride . . . but Eveleen doubted it. For one thing, Mira had not demonstrated a great reserve of patience. And more important, Eveleen had absolutely no desire to learn. Besides, she was a cripple. Even if Brendan couldn’t face that fact, she could.

  And there was her body, still reflected in the mirror, reminding her just how big and awkward it really was. Grimacing, Eveleen poked the flesh circling her waist; or rather, what used to be her waist. Like soft bread dough, it sprang slowly back when she removed her finger. Fat. It hung from her upper arms, rippled like ocean swells beneath fishy white skin, stole the space that used to be between her thighs. It stuck out in front of her, catching all the breadcrumbs and sauce and pieces of pie and cookies that weren’t lucky enough to make it into her mouth.

  Once, she’d been acclaimed a great beauty. Now, men never looked at her, except with pity. Now they simply acknowledged her presence with a polite nod, a tolerant greeting, and that was it. It was as though she were invisible, now. As though she didn’t count as a woman. As though she didn’t count as anything.

  If only she could still draw and paint. . . .

  They sure looked at Mira Ashton, though. Every single one of them back on that wharf had been utterly taken with her, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been wearing a dirty sack and a bag over her head, they still would’ve looked at her because Mira Ashton was bold, she was beautiful—and she was thin.

  Eveleen poked at a wrist that had once been graceful and elegant. Now she couldn’t even see the bones that defined it, although she could feel them if she pressed her fingers into the flesh hard enough. This she did with cruel hatred, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Her wrist and hand weren’t at all like Mira Ashton’s, which seemed equally suited to pummel a boy’s face or bake what had turned out to be a positively dreadful pie. And speaking of food, Mira Ashton hadn’t made a glutton of herself. Mira hadn’t had three helpings of pasty and roasted partridge, two-thirds of the stuffed peaches, four pieces of bread, and enough milk to feed a hungry calf. She hadn’t drowned herself in a quart of syllabub buried under a froth of whipped egg white and sweet, thick cream. And she hadn’t hidden in her napkin the little pastries the housekeeper had brought out following the failure of the pie, stuffed them in her pocket, and sneaked them upstairs in case she got hungry between suppertime and breakfast.

  No, Mira had picked at this, picked at that, and spent most of the evening staring at Brendan when he wasn’t staring at her. Oh, if she could only be like her. Hot-tempered without being vindictive. Soft and impish and slender. As at home in the blue woolen gown and demure mobcap she’d worn to supper as she was astride a galloping horse in a man’s breeches.

  Oh, Mira Ashton could have any man she wanted. She didn’t even have to try.

  Eveleen’s days of having men hovering about her, her dreams of marriage to a fine and handsome prince, were long gone. Now there were only two males in this entire world who cared that she existed: her beloved brother and that gray dockyard cat, whose gender she’d discovered after finding it curled up on her clean white coverlet.

  The cat. There had been quite a violent scene when Mr. Ashton discovered it during supper. Or rather, it had discovered him. The cat had shown the bad sense to come into the dining room while they were eating, of all things, rubbing itself against the old sea captain’s bowed legs and setting off a yelling match between him and his equally vocal daughter that had made the blood drain from Eveleen’s face in terror for her life. From the nature of the argument—and that was a mild word for the shouting that had nearly left her deaf—the gray cat wasn’t the first stray that Mira had brought home. Eveleen felt a twinge of shame for secretly gloating when Ephraim had exploded with wrath against his daughter. That gloating, however, had turned quickly to grudging admiration when Mira had leaped to her feet and hollered back at her father at the top of her lungs until her handsome brother, Matthew, who had let the yelling go on for several minutes, finally chilled the hot tempers by his tactful and timely mention of a rigging detail of Brendan’s dumb schooner.

  And Brendan? He’d taken it all in with that patient, quirky grin of his, obviously accustomed to this family’s strange ways and unwilling to let them spoil his own appetite—an appetite that had been quite hearty until he’d come to Mira’s apple pie. . . .

  Despite herself, Eveleen grinned, then just as quickly frowned. Mira Ashton could do anything; she was perfect. She could probably bake a good pie, too, if it suited her to do so. But tonight? Obviously she’d left out the sugar and replaced it with salt in a deliberate attempt to be nasty to her, Eveleen, because she was fat. Yes, that was it. But why, then, had Brendan scrunched up his face and grabbed for his napkin? And why had Ephraim and Matthew passed over the pie, as though they’d known better than to try it, and gone for the cookies instead? Had they known that Mira had deliberately sabotaged it? Ephraim, maybe, but she couldn’t believe that Matthew would be a party to such.

  Matthew. Eveleen’s eyes went dreamy.

  Oh, he didn’t look like a sea captain at all, with that flaming red hair and boyish freckles, those spectacles that kept sliding down his nose and giving him more of a scholarly appearance than a military one. But appearances were deceiving. She had no trouble visualizing him commanding the deck of his ship, no trouble envisioning him plucking her poor, half-dead brother from the ocean and restoring him to life. Matthew was gentle and attentive and kind—to the Ashtons’ staff, to Miss Mira, even to her, Eveleen, as though he really cared about making her stay at his home comfortable. And he had a charming Yankee twang to his speech, a penchant for setting his easily ignited sister off, and wonderful brown eyes that were made all the more wonderful and brown behind the magnification of his spectacles.

  Eveleen caught sight of herself in the mirror once more . . . and her dreams of handsome princes fizzled out. She turned away from the mirror, biting the inside of her lip to keep from crying. The candle had burned low and was beginning to flicker. Cold drafts chilled her ankles. Eveleen eyed the bed, its fluted and carved posts supporting a lacy canopy, and its thick patchwork quilt just waiting for her to snuggle under it.

  If she retired now, breakfast would come that much sooner.

  Shivering, she crossed the cold room to the fireplace, filled the bed warmer with hot coals, and passed it quickly between the crisp sheets to warm them. Unthinkingly, she reached for the coverlet with her right hand—and saw that horrible thing that was attached to her wrist, that ugly, crippled, scarred, and useless thing she kept hidden from the rest of the world.

  Half of her thumb was gone . . . and where her fore and middle fingers had been, there were only stumps.

  Tears streaming quietly down her broad cheeks, heavy breasts trembling with the effort it took to contain the pent-up sobs so no one else would hear them, Eveleen dug her nightgown out of her chest and yanked it over her head. Already it was too tight beneath her arms, and the material cut into the soft flesh. Angrily she started to slam the
lid of the chest down, but as she did, her gaze fell upon a gift that Brendan had given her for her eighteenth birthday.

  It was a box of pencils and some paper, now yellow with age, peeking out from under the folded clothing.

  She stared for a long time. The sobs caught in her throat, and tremulously, she reached out and touched the paper with the stub of her forefinger. How hopeful Brendan had been when he’d given her that gift, how encouraging he’d been when he’d urged her to try to draw, even if it meant using her left hand, instead.

  But she’d never had the courage.

  Unbidden, Eveleen thought of Mira Ashton, who could do anything. Mira had the full use of both hands . . . but if she were a cripple, would she allow it to ruin her life?

  No. Mira Ashton would’ve made herself draw.

  It was no wonder that Brendan was attracted to her. Mira was strong, resourceful, brave. Perhaps she, Eveleen could be brave, too. Maybe if she tried to help herself, the handsome Captain Ashton might pay her a bit of attention. If Brendan admired the trait in Mira, wouldn’t Matthew admire it in her? And if she could turn out a drawing as fine as the ones she’d been capable of before she lost the use of her hand, surely Matthew would notice . . . and perhaps even admire her for it.

  She may have lost her figure, but inside, she was still a gifted artist . . . if only she had the means of tapping that gift.

  For the first time since Crichton’s shot had taken off her fingers, Eveleen wanted to try.

  The paper lay there, seeming to stare up at her. Eveleen stared back. She started to withdraw her hand and then, biting her lip, reached out a final time and awkwardly grasped the paper. It had been years since she’d tried to sketch anything, and just having the paper in her hand bolstered her courage.

  Shaking now, she placed it on the nearby desk and reached out to pick up a pencil.

  And dropped it.

  A tear rolled from her eye, and angrily Eveleen brushed it away. She would not give up. She wouldn’t!