Heir To The Sea Page 3

  She did not like how he claimed her father’s ship Penelope as his own. She did not like his impatience, his high-handedness, his abrupt dismissal of her belongings, and the fact that he had no regard for the necessities and comforts of her gender. Was this how men from Massachusetts behaved? Did they not breed gentlemen up there in the cold, northern climes?

  No, she did not like him, even if his amber eyes were rather attractive, or would be, she added to herself, if he weren’t the brooding sort. She yanked herself free of him and stalked beside him, taking his measure from the corner of her eye. Thick, glossy hair with a bit of curl in it, hopelessly tousled. High cheekbones, slightly wide-set eyes beneath dark, arching brows, a bold nose, a firm and unsmiling mouth. A clean white shirt beneath a tailored waistcoat of blue linen and broad shoulders that filled their span most handsomely. Unlike many tall people, he walked with confidence, his shoulders back, something innate and natural about his command of both himself and his surroundings. She wished she could stop looking at him. Wished he wasn’t…affecting her so. She jerked her gaze away but despite herself, couldn’t help her eyes from sliding back to him. Long legs, a classic form, clean hands with strong, elegant fingers such as might belong to an artist or a musician or a dance instructor, and a pleasingly deep voice, even if he did have a funny accent.

  No, she did not like him.

  Not one bit.

  “I don’t know what your hurry is,” she muttered as he directed her to the hatch and bade her to climb the short ladder. “And why I cannot be allowed to bring my trunks.”

  “One of my men will bring your trunks. But those not essential to your immediate comfort will be stored in the hold and not in my cabin.”

  “Your cabin?”

  “My cabin. I’d be less than a gentleman if I didn’t give it over to you for the trip back to Baltimore.”

  “You’ve already struck me as less than a gentleman, Captain Merrick.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re a woman and not a man, or I’d have to call you out for such a remark.”

  “Dueling is stupid.”

  “So is traveling anything but light.”

  “Maybe I intended to sell most of these shoes and shawls and necklaces to the women of Baltimore.”

  “Maybe I wish you already had so I wouldn’t have to contend with the transfer and storage of them.”

  “Hard to sell them, isn’t it, when one hasn’t arrived there yet?”

  “Indeed.” He gestured toward the hatch ladder. “And how did you come by such an arsenal of shoes, shawls and necklaces, Miss McCormack?”

  “I’ve started a small business employing indentured servants and freed black women in the Caribbean to make them. It gives them an income as well as the ability to take pride in paid work. You scorn these necklaces as frippery, but they have become quite the thing in Baltimore. Why, even Dolley Madison has one and if you knew anything about fashion, Captain Merrick, you wouldn’t dismiss them quite as quickly as you have, nor their importance to me and the women of Balt—”

  “The hatch, Miss McCormack.”

  “Must you be so rude?”

  “The hatch.”

  “I stand by my earlier remark that you are no gentleman, Captain Karen.”

  “Kieran.”

  “No gentleman at all.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “You are insufferable. You have taken my ship from me.”

  “I have rescued your ship from the enemy. I’m going out of my way to bring you home. I won’t get what I deserve off this vessel because, as you so frequently have reminded me, it is not mine. In fact, your lack of gratitude inclines me to leave you here to the British crew and let them take you where they may.”

  “And what’s stopping you from doing just that?”

  He paused and looked at her. She saw the irritation in his eyes and beneath it, a deep and abiding pain that seemed to cling to his very soul. “Maybe because I actually am a gentleman.”

  Something in those eyes bothered her. Found a place in her own heart and stilled her tongue from making another brusque and taunting remark just to needle him for his high-handedness. That pain she saw there…it was more than just a headache.

  Much more.

  She bit back any further retort and ascended the ladder.

  A moment later they emerged onto the bright, sun-flooded deck. There, Rosalie got her first look at Captain Merrick’s privateering vessel and her eyes widened.

  She was a beautiful ship. A sloop, her one mast raked aft in a most sublime and sinful way and a long jib-boom that angled up and out over the seas breaking against her bows. Her hull was black and gleaming, a white stripe down its side showing a row of open gunports. With her low freeboard and that long, long nose, she looked like a dart. She looked like she could fly a cloud of sail, she looked formidable, and she looked very, very fast.

  “Cute little boat,” she said, with an intentional sniff.

  He only slanted her a look of exasperation. “She’s your ride home.”

  “Looks like our Baltimore clippers, right down to the raked mast. Did the person who built her copy our own unique designs?”

  Something in his face hardened. “Perhaps your Baltimore builders copied ours.”

  “Hmmph. Well, they say that imitation is a form of flattery, is it not?”

  His lips were two hard lines stretched over a suddenly angry mouth. “I can assure you that the person who designed this ship was a man ahead of his time, and did not, ever, resort to copying anyone’s designs.”

  There was an edge now in his voice, a warning that she was pushing him dangerously close to the precipice of his temper, and Rosalie decided to let it go. And really, she didn’t know why she was being so intentionally prickly. Why she was goading him so. Certainly not because her family’s ship had been captured not once, but three times in the course of the last twelve hours. Certainly not because her brother and crew had been taken off by ruthless pirates and she was worried sick about them. Certainly not because this taciturn New Englander was resentful that he wouldn’t get the full proceeds from a ship he deemed his own simply because he’d been lucky enough to recapture it, and certainly, most certainly, not because she was now in a most vulnerable position, alone with a crew of men commanded by a person who made no bones about the fact that he disliked her.

  And disliked her intensely.

  Alone, in a group of unknown men. Her only defense against violation or insult were her wits, her pistol, and a small knife she’d tucked into her half-boot. None of them, however, would save her from additional scandal when this rogue deposited her back in Baltimore. She blew out her breath in irritation. Maybe it was best to keep her mouth shut—as hard as she normally found such an endeavor to be—and do nothing more to anger Captain Merrick.

  They had reached the ship’s side.

  “If you’ll but wait, I’ll get a bosun’s chair rigged for you, madam.”

  “I have no need of one.”

  He looked at her and raised one dark brow.

  “I told you that this was—is—my father’s ship,” she snapped. “I am perfectly capable of exiting it in the same manner as you intend to.”

  His gaze flickered away.

  “Besides, you never did ask what I was doing on it.”

  His handsome face tightened once more in irritation. He obviously didn’t care what she was doing on it and for some reason, that rankled. “Bringing fripperies back from some Caribbean island to sell to wealthy Baltimore women, as I understand it.”

  He turned, already dismissing her, impatient to get on with the business of his ship, relegating her to a place where she didn’t intend to be and where she certainly had no intention of remaining. A place of no importance. A place where supposedly-brainless women toting trunks of pretty shoes across the Caribbean were supposed to sit, smile, and fit the model of sweet civility.

  “I am on it because my brother was the captain,” she continued.

/>   He shot her a glance from over his tall shoulder, obviously unimpressed—

  “And I—” She raised her voice, determined that he should hear her, unable to keep the note of triumph from her tone just so that he really didn’t think she was the brainless ninny he was treating her as, “—am the first mate. And as capable of commanding her as he was.”

  “So?”

  She blinked, expecting surprise or disbelief, not such an easy dismissal.

  She glared at him in challenge. “So that makes me captain in his absence.”

  “No, madam.” He turned away and headed aft. “It makes me captain. As I already told you, she’s now mine.”

  Chapter 3

  Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 17 May, 1814

  Irksome female full of surprises. Tells me she was first mate—or is that first mistress?—on aforementioned Penelope. No ordinary female, this one, but maddeningly irritating all the same. Too many clothes. Too many shoes. Too many words. Bossy and domineering and argumentative. I can’t wait to be rid of her.

  “God almighty, Kieran, what’s this?”

  Liam Doherty reached a big bear’s paw of a hand down to help his captain over the rail, watching as the woman who had come across in the boat with him confidently grabbed the rope that Kieran tossed down to her and began to climb.

  “A woman, Liam.”

  “I can see that, laddie, but where the devil are yer manners? Ye should be helping her, not expecting her to come up the side like some common tar.”

  “I am helping her.”

  “By hauling her aboard with a rope as if she were a piece of cargo? No way to treat a lady, Kieran. Your da raised ye better than that, he did.”

  The dull throb of Kieran’s headache worsened, as though someone were taking a mallet to the back of his eyeballs. “Stow it, Liam.”

  “Here, now. That’s no way to speak to the man who helped raise ye, who’s your uncle in everythin’ but blood, who’s—”

  “—Your captain.”

  “Aye, my captain, but I’m yer elder, you impertinent rascal, and don’t ye be forgetting it.”

  “Are you quite through, Liam?”

  Liam’s merry blue eyes gleamed. “I could be.”

  “You could be. And you are.”

  Kieran leaned down to help the young woman. She, almost over the side, reached up and confidently put her ungloved hand in his, her fingers strong, her grip certain. A jolt went through him at her touch. An awareness. An awakening that reverberated throughout his body and then came to rest squarely in that organ that lay between his legs. It was the second time his body had reacted to her and again, it took him by surprise.

  What the…?

  He buried the question, concentrating instead on her wiry strength that was at direct odds with her softness as he pulled her aboard. Ignore that sudden jolt. He set his mouth, putting from his mind that vibrant, disarming shock of her hand touching his. Ignore it. He passed the rope to Liam, leaned over the rail and, impatient with her fussing with her skirts in order to get aboard, seized Miss Rosalie McCormack beneath the arms and hoisted her up and onto the deck in one quick, decisive motion.

  And knew too late that it was a mistake.

  As he swung her over the rail and planted her firmly on the deck, he felt the softness of her flesh and the span of her ribs beneath his hands, caught her scent, and the same jolt that had slammed through him when he’d taken her hand a moment before struck him squarely in the loins—again.

  There was no denying what it was. Desire.

  Ridiculous.

  This overly-talkative, prickly, annoying, clothes-collecting, shoe-selling and totally irritating female was not the type to catch his eye or stir his lust. He’d been at sea too long. Or maybe grief was just doing his head in.

  “Welcome to the American privateering sloop Sandpiper,” Liam was saying, bowing over the young woman’s hand. His bright blue eyes crinkled in a smile. “Not like our Captain Kieran here to leave a lady to find her own way aboard, so ye’ll have to excuse his lack of manners. A good lad, our Kieran, good lad like his da, but he’s got a lot on his mind lately and—”

  “Liam.” Kieran said impatiently.

  “—And so I’ll do my best to make up for his lack of manners, I will.”

  Damn if Miss Rosalie McCormack wasn’t smirking, her eyes both sparkling and amused as she looked from the smitten Liam to Kieran. “Well, Mr….”

  “Doherty. Lieutenant Doherty. But ye can call me Liam.”

  “Well then Mr. Doherty, I’m Rosalie McCormack of Baltimore, and I will accept your apologies on your captain’s behalf.”

  “I haven’t apologized,” muttered Kieran.

  “Yes ye have,” Liam returned without missing a beat. “I just saved ye the trouble of putting it into words.”

  “I really would like to hear the apology from Captain Karen himself,” the girl said, her eyes taunting.

  “Apology for what?” Kieran asked, frowning.

  “For your high-handedness. For taking my ship. And most of all, for refusing to let me bring all my belongings aboard. You have no idea what it’s like to be a lady, do you?”

  “No,” he snapped, “I have no idea at all what it’s like to be a lady.”

  “Which is surprising, given your name.”

  “What?”

  “Karen.”

  “It’s Kieran.”

  “I know a woman from Denmark, her name is Karen, and that’s a common name there from what she tells me. I don’t know why anyone would give a boy-child such a feminine name, it really makes no sense to me at all—”

  “It’s Kieran, like the blasted saint, and since your surname is Irish you ought to know that.”

  “We’re Scottish.”

  “You still ought to know it.”

  “What, that you’re named for a saint and not a girl?”

  “God help me, you are the most maddening, infuriating—”

  “How much dunnage do ye have, lass?” Liam interrupted, lips twitching. “I’ll row back over myself and bring it back for ye, if ye like.”

  “She has four trunks,” Kieran grumbled.

  “I do not, I have five,” the girl countered prettily. “You are obviously not a very observant captain, sir, if you only counted four, and I’m not sure I wish to sail under the protection of a captain who is not observant.”

  Kieran’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Am I losing my damned mind?”

  “Your manners, more like,” said Liam.

  “That’s it. This conversation is growing more ridiculous by the moment. Liam, since you get on with Miss McCormack better than I do you can have charge of settling her in my cabin, and if you want to go ahead and bring all four trunks across—”

  “Five,” the girl said, looking with haughty triumph at him.

  “Five,” Kieran snapped back, “then be my guest.”

  He turned then and leaving the two of them, stormed away.

  * * *

  Liam watched his captain stalk off across the deck looking angrier than he had ever seen him, and rubbed at the helpless grin tugging at his mouth. Kieran was irritated. Not just irritated but downright furious, and Liam almost wanted to stand up and cheer the young lady for breaking through his increasing despondency and rousing his all-but-dead spirit.

  Liam had known Kieran Merrick all his life.

  The youngest of three children, normally even-tempered, thoughtful, quietly observant and wise beyond his years, Kieran had been the only one of Brendan and Mira’s brood to give his parents no trouble. Ever. While oldest sibling Maeve had been running away from home and sending her heartbroken father on a wild goose-chase trying to find her, and middle-child Connor had been getting in fights at school, showing an inability to learn his letters and numbers and causing his parents untold grief, young Kieran had been the perfect child—never fussy as a baby, watchful rather than reactive, polite, a bit shy, artistic, uncomplicated, and good-natured just like his fathe
r.

  No trouble at all.

  No challenge to parent, no bringer of grief and worry, no claimer of attention, a child who, by his very nature, was easy to ignore because he had never brought a speck of trouble to his parents’ lives, an iota of doubt about their own parenting abilities, an ounce of worry about what his future might hold.

  An easy child.

  An affable child.

  A perfect child.

  Not a hot-head like the other two and their mother Mira had been, God rest her sweet soul.

  But now, Liam watched Kieran’s set shoulders, the quick, angry motions of his hands as he issued orders to Joel, and his smile grew.

  I’ll be damned….

  The little firecracker, with her gingery hair and pretty, sparkling eyes, had said or done something to get under Kieran’s skin, to turn him from Mr. Perfect to Mr. Unmannerly, to rattle him beyond the confines of everything he was and had ever been, and Liam was itching to find out just what it was….

  And to make sure it continued.

  He waited until Kieran was well out of earshot before turning his attention to the young woman.

  “Ye’ll have to forgive the captain,” he said kindly. “He’s not normally so rude.”

  She smiled a bit ruefully. “And neither am I.” She blushed beneath her freckles, and her eyes, a vivid color that wasn’t quite blue nor purple but something mid-way between both, sparkled with sudden humor. “I honestly don’t know what came over me. He rubs me the wrong way, your captain.”

  “Ah, well, the day is hot and tempers run short and the captain, he’s got a lot on his mind. So, what are ye doing out here all alone on the sea, Miss McCormack?”

  “At the moment, lamenting it.”

  Liam smiled. “Here, now. We’ll get ye home safe and sound. No need for laments.”

  “Well then, since you asked,” she said, “it’s rather a long story….”

  “I’ve got all day.”

  “Apparently, so do I.” She sighed and Liam saw her eyes slide helplessly to Kieran, who’d taken off his hat and was rubbing the back of his wrist across his forehead as he conversed with Joel at the helm some distance away. “Long story short, Mr. Doherty, I’m the oldest of three. My mother wasn’t expected to have any more children after me, so my father trained me up in the family business, which was—and is—shipping. Taught me navigation, ship handling, seamanship and commerce, as he figured he was never going to have a male heir. Of course, the doctors were wrong, and Mother went on to have two more children, including a boy.”