Heir To The Sea Read online

  “I dreamed of my father a few minutes ago,” he murmured at length. “It was so real, as though he were standing right there above me. He smiled at you, at us, and I felt his approval. That’s the thing about dreams, isn’t it? One never knows if they’re real, or just how we wish something could actually be. He would have liked you, you know.”

  “I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.”

  “I wish you had, too.”

  They sat together in companionable silence. The moon rose higher, brightening Dadai’s spot at the rail.

  “On the trip south to Barbados, he would stand right over there, just beneath where the moon is rising. We’d talk late into the night about life, about ships, about faith in the things we cannot understand, about God. And now he’s gone. I look up into the heavens, at that immense night sky with its thousands of stars above, and the questions come. Oh, how infinite the heavens are, their mysteries known only to God. What is out there? Where does the soul go after it leaves this earth?”

  “I’m sure your father and mother are not out there in the stars, Captain Merrick.”

  “Where are they, then?”

  “With you. And they always will be.”

  “If they were still with me, I’d know. I wouldn’t feel so lonely. My father, he’d find a way to send me a sign. To let me know he’s close. But there’s been nothing.” He found it suddenly hard to speak. “Nothing but emptiness.”

  He was still gazing at the moon. He didn’t look at her for fear she’d see the sudden tears in his eyes.

  Sensing it, her hand tightened on his. “Just because we can’t understand something, doesn’t make it impossible or untrue. Just because we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there. That’s what faith is all about, isn’t it? Trusting that there are truths out there, mysterious, profound truths, and our inability to know or comprehend them doesn’t make them any less real.”

  “I suppose there’s a certain arrogance in the expectation that all things should be revealed to us, mere humans that we are.”

  “In time, perhaps all things will be.”

  They sat together, neither speaking for a long moment. Kieran’s gaze remained on Dadai’s empty place in the moonlight. He blinked back the tears. It was the first time he’d opened up about his grief to anyone besides Liam, and even though he’d only known this woman beside him for a short time, he felt safe with her. Comfortable. And for some reason he couldn’t fathom, no longer so…alone.

  He took a deep breath and continued on.

  “I can still hear his voice in my head,” he said quietly. “Still see his face, which isn’t yet lost to me. His eyes were always smiling, his spirit always carefree, happy, forgiving. I’d give anything to have just five more minutes with him and my mother. Five more minutes, just to say goodbye.” His voice grew rough and he tilted his head back against the truck of the big gun, looking past the pennant at the distant masthead to the stars beyond. “But Connor took that from me, just as he took life from them. I can’t forgive him, Miss McCormack. And it eats at me.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, following his gaze. “I’m sorry that you didn’t find the answers you sought on that island.”

  “I’m sorry, too. But we found your brother and your crew, and perhaps in some ways, we found something else.”

  “Yes, we did. A friendship.”

  Another long silence.

  “Miss McCormack, we’ve gone through much together. May I be frank?”

  “I would hope you would be, Captain.”

  “A moment ago we spoke of faith, and how it grows from knowing certain truths that have no underpinnings in what we can see and know, no groundings in anything but our hearts. And my heart, Miss McCormack…it is warming to you, and I find myself confused and desperate for understanding. Desperate for proof of some sort, just as I’m desperate for proof from my parents that somehow, some way, they aren’t really gone.”

  “I think your confusion is infectious, Captain. What are you saying?”

  “That kiss, back on the island.”

  “Oh. Right. The kiss….”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it. Pity, that it was largely wasted on me. I sit here with you, and my mind tries to fill in the details that were denied me. I sit here and I wonder, did your hair brush my cheek as you lowered your head to mine? Did your eyes gaze down at me with tenderness and concern? Had a little pulse point been beating in your temple, were you trembling with hope and trepidation, did your gaze soften at the first touch of your lips against mine? I’d give anything to have been able to experience all of it, every last warm, beautiful bit of it, so that after we part I can take the memory out and treasure it always. So that I will have something to remember you by.”

  It was a moment before she spoke, and he worried that he’d said too much. Embarrassed her. Made her uncomfortable. Perhaps pushed her away.

  “I think, Captain Merrick,” she said slowly, “that you have the soul of a poet.”

  “I have the soul of regret, because waking up, I didn’t even kiss you back.”

  She leaned in closer to him and whispered in his ear, “Well, you could remedy that by kissing me now, you know.”

  He couldn’t help his slow smile. “Is that an invitation?”

  “Would you consider me bold and forward if I told you it was?”

  And with that, he pulled his other hand out from beneath the blanket, turned toward her, and slid his fingers up along the side of her neck and into her hair, anchoring her head, pulling it toward him.

  Their lips met and then her mouth was against his, sweet and soft and pliant. She melted against him, her fingers moving up the back of his neck and into his hair, holding him to her. Their hands, still clasped, were pressed between their torsos, and he heard the little sigh deep in her throat, felt it in the whisper of breath against his cheek. No matter what lay before them, they were forever bound by what they had shared, what they had survived together. He angled his mouth against hers, his tongue slipping out to trace the perimeter of her lips and too late, heard Liam Doherty’s sudden loud throat clearing a few feet away.

  “I knew it! Knew it! How dare you, sir!”

  Kieran slowly pulled his mouth from Rosalie’s and looked up at the indignant figure standing above them. “Captain McCormack.”

  “You were kissing my sister!”

  “Yes, I was indeed.”

  “What are your intentions, sir?!”

  Kieran got up, but Rosalie was already on her feet beside him. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Stephen. The man just saved my life, saved your life, saved all of our lives, and you’re worried about a damned kiss?”

  “He took a liberty with you!”

  “I invited him to!”

  “Captain McCormack,” said Kieran insinuating himself between brother and sister, “I think we need to talk.”

  Hearing the commotion aft, the other Baltimoreans had gathered around and were now looking uncertainly amongst themselves, wondering whether to side with their indignant young captain or his sister. Even Joel, looking worried, was coming aft from out of the darkness.

  “I’ll do more than talk, you scoundrel!” Stephen said hotly.

  “All of ye, get back t’ whatever it was ye were doing,” Liam said good-naturedly from the helm. “I’m sure I can chaperone here.”

  “Fine job you’re doing of it! He was kissing her!”

  “Aye, he was, and about time, too.”

  “Liam—” Kieran began.

  “Pistols or swords, Merrick?” Stephen clenched his hands. “Or do you want to just have it out right now with our fists? Because I’m telling you I won’t stand for this, I just won’t!”

  “Not a good idea to get in a fight with the captain,” Liam warned. “He’s—”

  “Liam, please,” Kieran said again.

  Rosalie thrust herself between them. “Stephen, you are overreacting,” she said firmly. “This isn’t a society ballroom. It’s not
a fancy dinner party or an elegant tea. Captain Merrick and I nearly died together and at the moment, I don’t give a damn about what is proper and what is not. You can’t go through what we did and not come out of it the same way you went in. Now please, go back to whatever you were doing and try to cool down. I can assure you that nothing wrong is occurring here.”

  “He was kissing you!”

  “And I was kissing him back. Now go. This is getting ridiculous.”

  Kieran gripped the younger man’s arm. “I’ll go with you, Stephen,” he said calmly. “Let’s talk, shall we?”

  Stephen shot him a look of indignation, but his bluster suddenly appeared misguided, disproportionate, and extreme in the face of the Kieran’s calm manner. He glanced at his sister, back again at Kieran, and tightened his lips. “Very well then,” he muttered and still bristling, yielded to Kieran’s quiet gesture to accompany him forward.

  The two men moved off, one stiff and angry, the other relaxed. The Baltimoreans dispersed. Joel exchanged an amused glance with Liam, and melted back off into the darkness.

  And Rosalie was left standing alone.

  She watched them go. The memory of that interrupted kiss was still warm on her lips, her mind still pondering what Captain Merrick had said and treasuring those moments of deep intimacy even as she chastised herself for inviting him to take that kiss, for giving him hope for a future between them that should not be encouraged in light of what she’d so recently left behind. Nearby, Liam Doherty was still at the tiller, and blowing out her breath in frustration, she went to join him. The Irishman’s eyes were merry.

  “The captain was right, ye know,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About the fact his da would’ve liked ye.”

  Rosalie sighed, watching the two figures conversing far forward. “Is there anything you don’t overhear, Liam Doherty?”

  His grin spread. Not much.”

  “Well then, I’ll say this. If his son is anything like his father, that feeling would have been mutual.”

  Chapter 17

  Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 21 May, 1814

  Winds stiff out of the east, Inagua Island falling astern off the larboard quarter, making ten knots on a starboard tack. Weather clear and fine. Came to an agreement of sorts with Capt. Stephen McCormack, whose anger over the warm friendship forged by his sister and I was appeased, somewhat, by assurances on my part that my intentions are most honorable.

  Dawn glowed pink in the eastern clouds, and as the sea took on the first light of the new day, all aboard Sandpiper breathed a sigh of relief.

  The horizon remained empty in every direction.

  No Escobar. No pursuit.

  Nothing out here but themselves.

  Kieran had spent the night at the tiller after his talk with Stephen. He had watched the stars wheel slowly over his head, the sea stretching out into all sides of nowhere, thought about his life and his future and the conversation he’d had with Miss McCormack, and he’d thought about the kiss. Both kisses, actually, and what they’d meant—were they the signs of a growing attraction between himself and Miss McCormack, or were they nothing but a shared relief in the wake of nearly dying together?—until the sun had finally come up and he couldn’t think any longer about anything. Then and only then had he gone below, reaching the open door of his cabin before he remembered, in his exhausted stupor, that he’d given it to Miss McCormack.

  Open door?

  He looked inside. The small space was empty save for the lady’s trunks, one of which was open. The bunk was made, and he realized that wherever she’d spent the remainder of the night after he’d relieved Liam at the helm and set her hot-headed brother to holystoning every last trace of the pirates from ’Piper’s decks in an effort to direct his energies elsewhere, it hadn’t been here.

  He moved to the bunk and collapsed, still in his damp clothes. Morning sunlight angled in through the small stern windows, flooding the cabin, finding the open trunk. It touched upon its contents and Kieran blinked, his exhausted gaze idly resting on a curious item perched atop the folded gowns within. An old black tricorn hat, stained with salt. He looked at it, frowning. Something dug at a memory, a memory he pursued but couldn’t quite catch, before his brain succumbed to fatigue and his eyelids, with it. This time his sleep was deep and dreamless, and he woke to the sound of the bell on the foredeck some time later, feeling somewhat rested but irritable and sore.

  He sat up, knuckled the sleep from his eyes, and went to the washstand and the tiny mirror that hung above it. The face that looked back at him was a sight, and he badly needed a shave. He poured water into the bowl and dipped a cloth into it, gingerly cleaning his skin. There was a bruise on his cheekbone beneath the scabbed-over cut. Lines of exhaustion under his eyes. Maybe he hadn’t slept as well as he’d thought.

  “Kieran?”

  Liam’s broad, beamy face poked around the door.

  “I brought ye some breakfast,” the big Irishman said. “Figured ye could use some sustenance.”

  “Thank you, Liam.”

  His old friend set a tray down on the table. On it was a cup of steaming black coffee, a bowl of oatmeal and a banana. Kieran folded the washcloth and placed it on the stand. His head still hurt, perhaps even more now than it had yesterday, and he didn’t have much of an appetite. Even so, he picked up the coffee, pretending more interest in the meal than he actually felt.

  Liam made no move to leave. Instead, he pulled out the chair and sat down.

  Kieran sipped the hot beverage, his eyes distant.

  “Penny for yer thoughts, lad?”

  “My thoughts are so numerous, conflicted and confusing, that I fear they’re not even worth the penny, Liam.”

  “Aye, I figured they might be.”

  Kieran said nothing. He took another sip of his coffee and reached for the bowl of oatmeal.

  Liam leaned back in the chair, making himself comfortable.

  “How are our guests faring?” Kieran asked, stirring the porridge with his spoon as he leaned against his bunk.

  “Young Stephen has the helm. I gave it to him, thinking it’d keep his mind off other things. Remarked on how innovative and responsive our lady ’Piper here is. We had a good chin-wag, the two of us. Told him about yer da and how he could design ships that could sail to the moon and back, had he a mind to.”

  “And Miss McCormack?” Kieran pretended a keen interest in a non-existent bit of debris in his oatmeal.

  “Eager to get home to Baltimore.”

  The bit of debris became suddenly more fascinating as his heart sank. “I see.”

  “Yer mother and da…they’d have loved her.”

  “I see you were eavesdropping last night.”

  “Couldn’t help it. Ye both were only a few feet away. Sorry.”

  Kieran snorted. “No you’re not.”

  “She could make ye happy, that lassie.”

  “I am happy. God has blessed me richly, so no reason not to be. He’s given me a good life, good fortune and good friends.” He slanted a pointed look at Liam. “Even if they delight in needling me.”

  “Aye, well, what kind of surrogate uncle and friend would I be if I didn’t?”

  “Not one I’d recognize, that’s for sure.”

  “So.”

  “So. Just come out and say it then, Liam. You know you want to, and both of us know what it is.”

  “Ye fancy the lass. So get busy and start wooing her.”

  “And how is that fair to her, when I’m still mired in grief?”

  “Ye brighten up when she’s around. She’s good for ye.”

  Kieran very deliberately put the spoon down, sighed, and raised his gaze. “This is moving too quickly. We barely know each other.”

  “That’s an excuse and ye know it, lad.”

  Kieran pushed two fingers against his forehead. “Liam, you are making my headache decidedly worse.”

  “Better your head aches than yer h
eart, which’ll be the next thing plaguing ye if ye let that girl get away.”

  “And since when have you become such an authority on the subject of women, courtship, and what they do or don’t like? I mean no disrespect, Liam, but it’s not like you ever married, yourself.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  Kieran saw the sudden pain in his old friend’s face and instantly regretted his words. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  Liam shrugged. “Been a long time now, since she died. Should have tied the knot, the two of us, back when we had the chance. Always meant to, ye know.”

  Kieran leveled solemn eyes on the older man. “I know.”

  “She’d have turned sixty next week. And not a day goes by that I don’t miss her, think about how she made me laugh, think about how she made me angry, and regret not asking for her hand. Doctor tried all he could to save her. Guess when the good Lord calls ye home, ye’ve got to go.”

  Kieran pushed the tray away. “I’m sorry, Liam. Truly, I am.”

  “Aye, well. Life has a way of finding ways to flush the tears out of a man, eh?” He sighed and got up. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did, Kieran. I didn’t ask for Jane’s hand because I was away at sea so much, figured I had nothing to offer her. And then it was too late. If ye have a soft spot for that lass, don’t let yer worry that ye’re not ready keep ye from trying for her. Ye’ll regret it for the rest of yer days if ye do.”

  “What, really, can I offer her? I don’t have Connor’s dash and swagger. I don’t have Da’s easy charm, or even your ability to tell a good story. And it takes a special kind of woman to love a mariner. We’re away more often than we’re home, and the sea is a demanding mistress.”