Captain Of My Heart Page 16

  The boatswain swung himself forward, his gruff voice cracking the brittle air. “Let’s get this lady under way, you worthless pack of saw-toothed old bangabouts! Lively now, so we can show them folks back yonder how it’s done!”

  The mainsail boom lay alongside the tiller and rested atop the stern rail, its triced sail as white as the snow falling atop it. A tingle raced up Brendan’s spine. Soon Kestrel would thrill to the power of that great sail; soon the wind would shove against its hardened belly, and spray would slash his cheeks as the schooner drove through the stormy gray Atlantic. He shook with excitement, finally thrusting his hands behind his back and gripping them hard to still their mad trembling. That excitement rose as he watched the crew hoist the boat in, the water streaming from its little hull. At the windlass, Liam’s fiddle jumped to the tune of an Irish jig. Lines were hauled, and forward, the jib shook itself free and impatiently waved the snow aside.

  Kestrel began to drift downriver.

  “Anchor’s hove short, sir!”

  With a final heave on the windlass, the anchor came swinging up from the river’s black depths in a cloud of silt and mud.

  “Anchor’s aweigh!”

  Her jib-boom leading the way, Kestrel swung around with the current until she faced the wide-open mouth of the Merrimack.

  Beyond, the sea waited.

  And behind and alongside, the crowds lined the shore, waiting to see if she would overset herself.

  Kestrel was moving now, gathering speed, a study in soundless grace. Wharves and frozen marshlands fell behind them. Water slid along her sides. Just ahead, the pilot vessel that would guide her through the treacherous channels and out to sea fell into place. As they passed the battery at Plum Island, the big field pieces roared out a mighty thirteen-gun salute to Newburyport’s newest, and finest, warrior. Brendan gave a barely perceptible nod and Kestrel’s guns spoke for the first time, returning the salute and the faith of the town that built her.

  “A beauty, sir, a real beauty!” At the helm John Keefe beamed with excitement, his eyes sweeping the panorama of shrouds and masts and rising canvas with awed reverence. “She’ll do ye proud, sir! She’ll do her country proud! And judging by the merry look in yer eye, I can tell ye’re in love with her already. Ha ha, Cap’n, we’ll show them Brits the stuff we’re made of! We’ll give ’em what-for! We’ll show ’em we mean business!”

  Brendan grinned and pointed through the shrouds. “See that little boat full of spectators off the starboard bow? Hit it, Mr. Keefe, and you won’t think I’m quite so merry!”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

  The wind began to pick up as they moved steadily toward the river’s mouth. They’d left the wharves and crowds and marshlands behind, and now sand dunes, patchy with snow and tufts of dead beach grass, slipped past on either beam. It was so quiet that even the hiss of snow falling on deck and whispering through the rigging sounded loud. A gust of wind caught the jib, cracking it like thunder in the stillness. Keefe eased the tiller bar and the schooner answered, swinging slightly to larboard in her escort’s wake.

  Brendan gripped his hands behind his back. Soon now, they’d be in open ocean and he could put her though her paces.

  And as they passed the northern tip of Plum Island, the wind drove hard against them, Kestrel rose up on her heel in eagerness, and every man aboard caught his breath. There it was, the gray and stormy Atlantic, spread out before them in all its winter splendor.

  The pilot boat fell back, her guns rumbling in salute.

  “Hands to the sheets and trim for beam reach on the larboard tack! Hoist foresail and main! Smartly, Mr. Wilbur!”

  They were a bit slow, but they’d get the feel of her soon enough. They all would. Brendan went to the after rail and gripped the cold, snowy wood, watching necklaces of foam writhing in their wake, the pewter seas rolling past. In his fingertips he felt the vibrations of wind strumming through shrouds, of mast hoops crawling skyward as the mainsail rose with its boom, higher and higher until snow blurred its outline and the proud pennants that snapped so far above it. “Sheet home!” he called, and Kestrel leaned hard into the sea and driving spray, showing her heels to the land she would soon leave far behind.

  And she did not overset herself.

  The crew gave a mighty cheer, the huzzahs ringing up to the very clouds themselves. The rum would flow like water tonight. They had the finest ship ever to hail from Newburyport, the luckiest captain this side of Ireland, and an ocean full of British shipping just waiting for them. One by one and in pairs, in groups, they went below to warm up, to sing, and to drink toasts to their future success.

  All of them except a skeleton crew and one gunner from Newburyport, a tiny mite in an oversized hat, a tarpaulin coat, and a seaman’s braid that hung like a rope halfway to his trouser-clad rump. Standing beside the cannon he’d dubbed Freedom and already claimed as his own, the little gunner watched his captain reclaim the helm, seeing the squared shoulders, the queued and snow-encrusted chestnut hair, the smart tricorne, dark coattails, and crimson waistcoat through a wall of driving snowflakes.

  Already the footprints of his crewmates were filling with snow, but there would be time to join them later. Time to swap stories with friends from Newburyport, to make new ones among the Irishmen who had yet to find out he wasn’t quite the lad he appeared. But for the moment, Mira, in her disguise, was content to watch that lone figure at the helm as Salisbury, Plum Island, and the land itself fell behind them and Kestrel drove toward a horizon buried in spray, snow, and, it was hoped, glory.

  Brendan . . . a captain alone with his ship for the first time. It was a private moment, and she had no right to intrude.

  Shivering, she moved across the snowy, plunging deck and made her way toward Kestrel’s unconventional aft-facing hatch. But just before she dropped below the coaming, she turned for a final look at him.

  He was still standing there.

  And though the distance that separated them was blurred by falling snow, she could see that he was grinning.

  ###

  After spending the night arguing with Kestrel’s officers—Lieutenant Liam Doherty, in particular—before finally convincing them that her gender had nothing to do with her abilities as a gunner, it was no wonder that Mira slept right through breakfast, which was really just as well; she’d never been overly fond of cold oatmeal anyhow.

  They’d finally agreed to let her stay, if only for their own amusement at having a “wee mite” aboard whose identity would remain a delightful secret from their captain. Of course, the emphatic testimony of her abilities from the Newburyporters aboard the schooner who’d sailed with her on her brother’s privateer helped sway things in her favor; after all, the legendary success of Proud Mistress was not only due to the command of Captain Matthew Ashton, but also to the skills of his little sister at her favorite gun.

  Brendan was not the only one who was unaware that Miss Mira Ashton was aboard a ship; Ephraim, thumbing to the Marine News section of the Essex Gazette at exactly eight o’clock that morning, was also unaware of it—although when he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his daughter by ten o’clock, he had no delusions as to her whereabouts, and neither did his neighbors, who heard his roaring all the way down to the Beacon Oak and beyond.

  Ephraim may have thought she’d sailed with Matt, who’d put to sea an hour after Brendan had, but at ten o’clock aboard Kestrel—or rather, four bells of the forenoon watch, in ship’s time—Mira was sound asleep in a hammock against the curve of the inner hull. Suddenly cries came drifting down from above.

  “On deck!”

  She opened an eye and groggily pulled her wool blanket up to her chin. It took her a moment to remember where she was; then, upon realizing she was on his ship and he was somewhere nearby, a slow, happy warmth spread through her and she felt as content as a kitten with a full belly. Topside, she could hear wind moaning around the masts, footsteps pounding above her head. She placed a hand against the hull. It wa
s cold to the touch but dry, and on the other side she could feel the sea surging past. The hammock swung with the motion of the ship, and in the gloom around her she saw one or two others, still abed, raise their heads.

  Brendan’s musical voice, faint through wind and distance, drifted down. “Report, Mr. Reilly!”

  Mira propped herself on an elbow, balancing herself with natural ease against the hammock’s unsteadiness.

  “Sail fine off the sta’b’d bows, Cap’n!” A gust of wind hit the schooner, and the rest of the lookout’s words were lost.

  Mira bounced out of the hammock, buttoned her long coat up to her chin, stuffed her braid down beneath her collar, and, hastily grabbing her hat and yanking on her boots, went on deck. The wind hit her like an arctic blast, driving snow and salt spray into her eyes. Kestrel’s bow rose and fell, rose and fell, smashing down on long gray swells and sending great sheets of foam hissing past. It was still snowing, but wind had swept the rails and hatches clean. Mira blinked and peered aloft. A man clung to the shrouds, a glass to his eye and his blue coattails flapping in the wind. She looked again.

  It was Brendan.

  “Looks like the luck of that fool Irishman’s with us,” said Abadiah Bobbs, a stout, thick-jowled Newburyporter with a mole the size of a musket ball just below the left corner of his mouth. He shook his head and gave her a wry grin. “Out of port not half a day and he’s already found us a prize.” Bracing his feet against the roll of the deck, he squinted and pointed off through the snowy mist. “See there? Fine-lookin’ brig, eh? Surprised her, we did. She’ll not get out of her hidey-hole now.”

  Tucking her chin into her coat, Mira peered off to starboard. The world was white, and she couldn’t see a thing.

  “There, Mira.” Abadiah pointed again, and this time she saw the fuzzy outline of a ship, barely visible through the swirling snow. Her sails were down, her head was to the wind, and she wallowed heavily in the gray, foamy seas.

  Abadiah rubbed his mole and jerked his head toward the ice-encrusted four-pounder, lashed tightly several feet away. “Better station yourself by Freedom, missy. These bloody Irishmen’ll have their eyes on ye, to be sure.”

  Not only the Irishmen, she thought wryly, but the half-Irishman, too. The Captain from Connaught, his men called him. Now he was climbing down the stiff shrouds, his boots steady on the icy ropes, his sword belted to his waist. He’d still been topside when she’d sought her hammock last night, yet he didn’t look—or act—tired at all. His eyes were full of mirth, snow frosted his long lashes, and his cheeks were healthy with cold. Mira thought he had never looked more handsome. Landing lightly on the deck, he straightened his coat, thumped his tricorne against his knees to knock the snow off, and made his way toward them.

  She quickly yanked her hat down and looked down at her toes.

  “You’re right about that brig, Mr. Bobbs,” Brendan said, rubbing his hands together and stamping his feet to get his blood moving. “I believe her to be the Caper. Fourteen guns, and launched three years ago in Gloucester.” He shot a curious glance at the small, bundled-up figure standing beside the Newburyporter. It was the same wee lad whose lusty voice had led the singing yesterday, though now he seemed shy and quiet. Brendan frowned. There was something terribly familiar about him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on just what it was. “Pardon me,” he said, bending and peering closer. As though terrified of him—and at that age, most of them were of their commanding officer—the lad drew his face in between hat, lapels, and scarf, reminding him of a turtle going into its shell. “I don’t remember signing you up, Mr. . . .”

  “Uh, Starr.”

  Liam, casting the lashing from a nearby gun, saw Mira’s predicament immediately. Grabbing the steaming mug of black coffee that Dalby was just bringing to his captain, he all but shoved it into Brendan’s hands. “A shy one, he is! Ye don’t remember him ’cause I signed him up meself, right, bucko?”

  Mira nodded, still staring at her toes.

  “Well, take off your hat so I can have a look at you,” Brendan said, grinning.

  “Can’t,” Mira mumbled.

  “Scared o’ ye, he is!” Liam explained, placing a massive hand between her shoulders and shoving her toward the hatch. “Ye know how the wee mites are with their commandin’ officers, Brendan!”

  Brendan was persistent. “There’s no need to be afraid of me, Mr. Starr. I ask only your trust, not your life.”

  “Can’t take off m’ hat, sir.”

  “Faith, why not?”

  She thought quickly, wildly. “Because . . . because my skin can’t take the sun, sir. Can’t take the . . . light. I’ll break out in little bumps all over if I take it off.”

  “But it’s snowing out, Mr. Starr!” Brendan wrapped his hands around the hot mug and stared at her curiously.

  “Don’t matter.” She pointed skyward. “Sun’s still up there.”

  Liam made a big show of clearing his throat. “Uh, Brendan,” he said, curving his big, brawny arm around his captain’s shoulders and trying to draw him away, “Mr. Starr’s one o’ those albino people, he is. He can’t take any light.”

  Brendan stared at her for a moment longer. But the answer must’ve suited him, for he nodded, shot a final glance at her, and then seemed to dismiss her with no further thought. Over his massive shoulder Liam winked, and Mira caught the conspiring grins of her crewmates. She clapped a hand over her mouth to still her laughter.

  Beside her, Bobbs tugged at his mole to hide his own smile and eyed his new captain speculatively. “You sure about that brig, sir? Caper’s American.”

  “So she is. And that brig yonder flies the Union Jack above her true colors, Mr. Bobbs. Here, have another look.” Brendan handed the seaman his glass and sipped his coffee, totally unconcerned. “She’s Caper, all right—and now, an Englishman’s prize.”

  Abadiah took the glass, wiped the snow from the lens with his elbow, and raised it to his eye. “What d’ye intend to do with her?”

  Brendan downed the rest of his coffee. “Why, make her our prize and send her back into port under her true colors, of course.”

  Lowering the glass, Bobbs stared as though his ears had failed him. “Sir?”

  Brendan shrugged and gave an innocent grin, his cider-colored eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well, America has few enough ships without Britain helping herself to them. Greed, Mr. Bobbs! ’Twill never do anyone any good, remember that.”

  “But, sir, Caper mounts fourteen guns—which means that whoever captured her must mount a hell of a lot more. They ain’t gonna be too agreeable about letting a fancy schooner with a mere ten guns and a handful of swivels take her back.”

  But Brendan was already striding aft, humming something Irish-sounding and looking about as worried as a fox checking out a henhouse. “Mr. Wilbur!” he called, over his shoulder. “We’ll ease the fore and main and prepare to tack!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Seconds later, the commands came from aft, were repeated forward, and carried out with brisk efficiency. “Ease the foresail!”

  “Let fly!”

  Mira stared, her jaw hanging open in amazement. Then she turned to Liam. Her voice was a fierce whisper. “Is he always like that?”

  “Like what, lassie?”

  “So . . . cool! So blithe, so totally unconcerned!”

  For answer, Liam merely gave a broad grin. Miss Mira Ashton would find out about her captain’s other idiosyncrasies soon enough. Chuckling to himself, he took station near the smart row of starboard four-pounders and waited.

  “Stand by on the forward guns!”

  Mira grabbed a priming iron and ran forward. Her breath came hard and fast, and the cold air dragged tears from her eyes. Swiping them away, she drew herself up and waited impatiently as Abadiah and several other Newburyporters cast off Freedom’s lashings. She was uncomfortably aware of Brendan’s curious stare upon her. “Hurry up!” she urged. Grunting and cursing, the men hauled the gun inboard f
or loading. Powder monkeys scurried up from below decks, carrying powder and shot.

  They were getting closer. And closer.

  Without taking his eyes off their quarry, Brendan yelled, “Mr. Doherty! Choose your best gun captain and have him demonstrate to us how fine his eyesight is! If he can take out that brig’s mizzen, I’ll give him my share of the prize money!”

  Someone nudged her shoulder, and Mira looked up into Liam’s twinkling blue eyes. He held a linstock, a forked rod used for holding the match to the cannon’s touchhole; now he shoved it into her hand and jerked his head toward the big gun beside her. “Here’s yer chance, lassie! Don’t waste it!”

  She nodded eagerly and laid her hand upon Freedom’s ice-cold breech, brushing the snow away from the Scripture words so faithfully—and appropriately—inscribed there: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

  That was for damned sure!

  Abadiah sponged out the gun, rammed a cartridge down its bore, and followed it with bar shot and wadding.

  “Lively, now!” Brendan yelled, obviously testing her.

  Mira shoved a priming rod down Freedom’s touchhole to pierce the flannel powder cartridge. Her hands were shaking in nervous excitement, and she was sweating beneath Matt’s heavy coat.

  “Easy,” Abadiah said, touching her shoulder. “Ye can do it.”

  She nodded and passed a wrist over her brow. Forward, Brendan strode to the shrouds and raised his speaking trumpet, his feet braced against the roll of the ship, his chestnut hair caught in a piece of ribbon and hanging between his handsome shoulders. “Ahoy! What ship are you and what are your true colors?”

  Tension mounted. The crew exchanged glances. Beside her, Abadiah tugged nervously on his mole. Mira pictured what Kestrel must look like to the brig’s crew, sweeping out of the gray mists like a ghost.

  The answer floated eerily back through the snow. “Caper’s the ship, and her colors are the king’s own!”

  “Well, haul them down, my friend, or I shall do so for you!”