Heir To The Sea Read online

  What would you do, Da? Take her as a prize, or make haste for home and get down to the business that I’m dreading?

  “Ye should take her,” Liam murmured, as though reading Kieran’s thoughts. “No less than he would’ve done.”

  Yes, take her, the sloop seemed to echo. He built me for you. Put me to use and let me help your heart to sing again.

  “It will delay us getting home.”

  “Aye. It would.”

  The rest of that sentiment was unspoken. Liam was in no hurry to get back, either.

  Sandpiper, with one raked-back mast, a sleek, sharp hull that split the water like a knife, and breathtakingly beautiful lines seemingly at odds with her deadly arsenal of guns, made quick work of coming down on the drifting British merchantman. Kieran eyed her warily. Her decks appeared to be empty as she wallowed in the gentle swells. Again, his mind raced through the possibilities. Abandonment? Disease? A trick?

  He was aware of his crew gathering nearby. With the exception of Liam they were new and untried, and their cohesiveness, ambition, fighting spirit, and seamanship were still to be tested. But a fat British merchantman that wouldn’t put up much of a protest but would yield a shower of prize-money…that would be just the thing to whet the appetite of anyone whose courage might need a little push in the right direction.

  “Fire a shot across her bows,” he said to Liam as they came up to windward of her. “Let’s see if we can wake her up, get her to strike without a scuffle.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Kieran watched Liam head forward. His surrogate uncle and old friend of the family was moving slower these days, plagued as he was by the rheumatism, but there was nobody better at taking new recruits in hand, offering a bit of wisdom to a needy ear, or saying just the right words to a young captain struggling with monumental loss.

  Moments later, a loud report from the starboard bow chaser and a waft of smoke signaled Sandpiper’s impatience. Kieran rubbed at his lower lip, watching the big merchantman. There was movement on her deck, and a few moments later the British colors began to drop with the sluggishness of a feather on the wind.

  No resistance, then.

  Nothing to delay even further the unenviable tasks that awaited him back home.

  “Prepare to heave to,” he said with resignation. So be it.

  * * *

  Liam’s joints were too old to lead the boarding party onto the merchantman, so Kieran left him in charge on Sandpiper and, accompanied by Joel and a strapping blond youth named Briggs, attended to that task himself.

  Armed with a cutlass, pistols, and his headache, Kieran stepped aboard the big merchantman and immediately found the reason why he’d been able to take her with no resistance. The small English crew was drunk on their cargo—a cargo consisting mostly of fine West Indian rum—and lying in various states of inebriation across the sun-baked decks.

  “Who’s in command here?” he asked impatiently.

  A grizzled seaman reposing in the shade of the gunwale half-raised a hand. “Oi am.”

  “Where are your ship’s papers?” Kieran looked with disgust at the overturned tankard beside the man’s knee and a barrel that had been dragged up on deck and which, by the look of things, had been liberally tapped.

  “Damned if Oi know.”

  Kieran removed his hat, rubbed at his throbbing forehead with two fingers, and replaced it. “Might they be in your cabin?”

  “Don’t know. ’Aven’t been down there yet.”

  “What the devil kind of a captain are you?”

  “Don’t know that either. Took the ship as a prize last night. American, she is, or was, before pirates took her. We took her from the pirates. Planned to sail her back to a British port. Antigua. Aye, Antigua. Guess that’s where we’ll go. Isn’t that where we’re going, Pearson?”

  “No, Barbados.”

  “I thought it was Jamaica,” piped up another sailor, stirring himself from a deckhouse against which he’d been napping.

  The first man, supposedly in charge of this prize, had fallen back asleep in the hot sun.

  Joel exchanged a look of frustration with his captain. “Want me to go check the aft cabin? Papers are probably there, sir.”

  “No, you stay here and get these men sorted out. I’ll tend to it myself.”

  Leaving Joel to round up the small English crew, Kieran went to the hatch and descended. Out of the blazing sun it was cool and dark, and he quickly made his way aft. The door to the captain’s cabin was shut and, one hand on his pistol, he pushed against it.

  Locked.

  Frowning, he set his shoulder to it, shoved it open—

  And ducked as a pistol went off at close range, nearly taking a chunk out of his neck.

  “Good God!”

  He hadn’t expected to find an occupant in the cabin. He hadn’t expected the occupant to be bent on killing him. And he certainly didn’t expect that occupant to be a petite, curvy young woman with thick, red-orange hair, heavily freckled cheeks and huge blue-violet eyes that were narrowing with determination as she hastily reloaded the pistol.

  “Stay back!” she warned, her hand shaking as she held up the weapon.

  “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

  “Come any closer and I swear I’ll put a ball through your heart,” she said, her voice firm with conviction despite her clearly terrified eyes. “And this time, I won’t miss.”

  Kieran stared at her. “And you are?”

  “Miss Rosalie McCormack from Baltimore. This is my father’s ship. One of my father’s ships, as we have many, but we were attacked by pirates last night and my brother, who was her master, locked me down here to keep me safe before they could board. I didn’t need to be kept safe! I can fight as well as any man!” Her voice rose with indignation and frustration. “But no, he had to go and keep Big Sister safe and now he’s missing. Missing! D’you know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened! These pirates put a prize crew aboard and sailed off in their own ship with my brother and our crew and the dirty louts they left aboard had her for no more than an hour before they were driven off by a British privateer which then put its own prize crew aboard and now here I am, worried sick about my brother and his whereabouts, listening to this new crew getting drunk and fearing for my own personal safety once they find me, because Stephen, damn him, left me with only this pistol and a knife and that’s not a whole lot now is it, against either a horde of pirates, Englishmen, or you, the third party to capture our ship in less than twelve hours! And who are you? Oh, don’t answer, you’re another English privateer, aren’t you? I can tell just by the way you speak! Well, I’ll have you know right now, that I may be small and I may be a woman but I really am an excellent shot and if you come one step closer to me, even just one, you’ll find out that I can back up my claim with action!”

  Kieran blinked, trying to digest the torrent of words. “Are you quite finished, madam?”

  “No, I am not,” she snapped, putting the palm of one hand under the opposite elbow to better support her pistol. “And I’ll tell you right now, I’ll not submit without a fight, I won’t.”

  “Submit to what?”

  “Why, to you,” she said, her throat working nervously. “Don’t think for one moment that you can have your way with me.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been locked down here since we were taken and if you think for one moment that you can take advantage of—”

  “Captain, we heard a shot. Are you all right?”

  It was Joel. Kieran, not taking his eyes off this armed-and-dangerous woman, tilted his head and spoke over his shoulder. “I’m fine. Go back to what you were doing, I have things well under control down here.”

  Joel looked at the curvy little spitfire, raised an eyebrow, and retreated.

  The young woman stared at him, her eyes uncertain. Kieran sensed her confusion.

  “May I come in and sit down?” he asked with a heavy sigh. “Without you blowing a
hole in my chest?”

  She took a step back, but kept the pistol on him. “Who are you?”

  “Captain Kieran Merrick of the American privateer sloop Sandpiper.”

  “Karen?” She lowered the pistol, her expression one of both relief and incredulity. “What kind of parent gives their boy-child a girl’s name?”

  “Not Karen, Kieran,” he said impatiently. “It’s Irish.”

  “You just said you’re American.”

  “I am American.” He took a deep and steadying breath. “My father was half-Irish. And I’m very much an American.”

  “Well, you don’t sound American,” she said suspiciously. “You sound English.”

  “I’m from Massachusetts. And for the record, you don’t sound American either.”

  “I’m from Baltimore, which makes me as much if not more of an American than you claim to be, especially as you people from New England were all for seceding from the United States in order to protect your trade with Britain whereas we were patriotic, impassioned, and ready to fight for what we believe in. So that makes me far more American than you’ll ever be.”

  “Right. And now that that is settled you can tell me where the ship’s papers are.”

  “What?”

  “The ship’s papers, Miss McCormack.”

  She stared at him for a moment longer, as if suspicious that he had not taken up the gauntlet. Then she raised her chin and, watching him out of the corner of one big blue-violet eye, went to a lap desk atop a table bolted to the deck. “Of course. The sooner this business is over and done with, the sooner I can go find and rescue my brother. You can have the papers, sir, and then you’ll need to hand this vessel straight back to me.”

  “Hand her back to you?”

  “Well, it is the right thing to do, and since my father is owner and I’m the only one left here, that makes her my ship now that you’ve taken her back from the English.”

  “No, ma’am, it makes her my ship.”

  She turned, bristling, her fox-colored hair so bright it was making his head hurt all the more. “What kind of a cad are you?”

  “She was flying British colors. We demanded she heave to, and she did. Her prizemaster surrendered to us, and that makes her and her contents mine, now. In fact, if you could hasten to produce her papers, it would make this process go considerably faster.”

  “What are you, some sort of a pirate?”

  Kieran’s headache was growing worse. “Her papers, madam. If you please.”

  She raised her chin and glared at him.

  “If you choose not to produce them,” Kieran added, “I’ll be forced to procure them myself. It won’t change the outcome of this situation.”

  “Very well then,” she snapped, and returning her attention to the lap desk, began to search through its contents, finally finding the ship’s manifest and log. “Here.”

  She held out her hand, extending her arm as far as it would go as if she was afraid of getting too close to him. The movement stirred the air and he caught the scent of her. She smelled all musky and warm and female, and it stirred things below his waistband that caught him quite by surprise, given his irritation and impatience with this difficult little creature.

  He scanned the manifest and flipped through the log book. She was telling the truth.

  Damn. That would mean, of course, that he and his crew would only get a percentage of what this ship and her cargo were worth as a salvage fee, and nothing more. He had a mind to send the ship on its way for all the trouble it would likely be worth with this spitting virago aboard who was now, by virtue of the fact that he was a gentleman, his responsibility.

  She began rattling on again. “And now that you have recaptured our ship, I expect you to help me find my brother, because last I’d heard and seen from the stern windows there, the pirates had him and the crew and were taking them off to God only knows where and I’m worried sick about them. They are my responsibility, you know. And if you’re any kind of an honorable man, you’ll help me find them. You will help me find them, won’t you?”

  If Kieran had had a needle, he would have stabbed it into both eyeballs. “What?”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “You are quite presumptuous, Miss McCormack. I have plans, and they do not include a search for your brother.”

  “What, will you just leave me here, then?”

  “I’m tempted to.”

  “If you leave me here, the chances of our being recaptured by the British are very good.”

  “If I leave you here, the chances of my headache going away before sundown are even better.”

  “If you leave me here, the pirates will kill my brother if they haven’t already done so.”

  “If I leave you here, then they won’t kill either of us for being foolish enough to chase after them.”

  “You are very rude, sir!”

  “With all due respect, madam, I’m not the one who shot at someone, here.”

  “With equal due respect, I’m not the one who barged in here uninvited!”

  Kieran pushed a finger against his forehead, hard. Oh, what an unpleasant, difficult, irritating, demanding, and thoroughly obnoxious little female.

  His responsibility, now.

  “Well?” she asked, her bright, rust-colored brows tight with impatience.

  “Gather your dunnage, Miss McCormack. I’ll put a prize crew aboard to sail her to the nearest American port, but you’re coming with me.”

  “I am not leaving my ship.”

  “My ship, now. And yes, you are. It is too dangerous out here for a young woman to be all alone without suitable protection and as you’ve already learned, these waters are crawling with pirates.”

  “And this headache of yours?”

  He looked at her. At her angry bluebell eyes, the freckles so thick across her cheeks that they blended and made tan patches on her creamy skin, at the impossibly bright, carrot-colored hair parted and piled atop her head.

  His responsibility, all right. All the way back to Baltimore, by the looks of things.

  “About to get worse,” he muttered. A lot worse.

  Chapter 2

  Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 17 May, 1814

  Took the ship Penelope out of Baltimore from the prize crew of a British privateer which in turn had captured her from pirates who had taken her from her original owners. Cargo of rum, molasses, sugar, and one most irksome female by the name of Rosalie McCormack who claims to be the owner’s daughter. Have decided to bring her aboard against my better judgment but in line with what anyone in my unenviable position would be expected to do. At least, it will delay the inevitable return to Newburyport.

  Rosalie did not travel light.

  She had a trunk filled with shoes. Floral-patterned slippers. Bright, pastel-pink heels. Brocaded pumps. Walking shoes. Dancing shoes. Ribboned shoes and lacy shoes and leather shoes and sandaled shoes.

  Another two trunks stuffed with gowns.

  Another trunk filled with carefully folded colorful shawls and rather primitive jewelry made from shells.

  And yet another, with personal possessions that ranged from perfumes, drinking chocolate, and her favorite rose-scented soap from France.

  “You’re not bringing all that,” said the cranky New Englander named Karen. Correction: Keer-in.

  She looked up at him, prepared to do battle. “Whyever not?”

  “Because I can’t for the life of me imagine that one female needs that many clothes and accessories. Choose some essentials and make it quick.”

  Rosalie bristled and thinned her lips. He was an overbearing lout, this American captain who sounded like an English one, but maybe that’s how people talked up in Massachusetts which, unlike Baltimore, had been sharply critical of entering into yet another war with Britain only three decades after the last one. Although it hadn’t stopped this fellow from profiting from it, had it? The fact that he was tall, well-made and quite good-looking, with dark
, haphazardly curling hair and faraway eyes the color of caramel left out in the sun, only made her all the more unsettled. He looked to be the brooding sort, she decided. Fashionably bored, or maybe just melancholy. But then, there was no reason for a privateer captain to be fashionably bored out here in the Caribbean, was there?

  Maybe he was just plain bored. Fashionable or not.

  “You are a poor example of a gentleman, Captain Merrick.”

  “You are a poor example of frugality, Miss McCormack.”

  “I can’t believe you’d deny a lady her things.”

  “I can’t believe this ship didn’t sink beneath the weight of them all. Are you quite ready?”

  “No.” She had the lid of one trunk open and was holding up a pale blue gown of soft muslin, cocking her head as she contemplated it. “This is one of my favorites. But I can’t decide. Should I take this one, or the peach-colored one? Oh, never mind, I’ll just take them both.”

  “Take the blue one,” Kieran muttered.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the one in your hand and I’m done wasting time here.”

  “That is a poor reason for such an important choice.”

  “It’s not an important choice.”

  “Maybe to you it’s not, but it most certainly is to me.”

  Again, Kieran pushed a forefinger against his brow and began to rub, trying to push his headache into submission, knowing it was impossible as long as this frivolous red-headed ninnyhammer continued to defy both his patience and the realities of travel aboard a warship.

  And now she was holding up a third gown.

  “And then there’s this one. I rather like the cream—”

  Kieran plucked the gown from her hand, slammed the lid shut with his foot and seizing her wrist, proceeded to all but drag her from the cabin, ignoring her sputtering protests all the way.

  He was right about one thing.

  He was done wasting time here.

  * * *

  She did not like this man, Rosalie decided right then and there.