Lord Of The Sea (8 page)

She smiled a bit impishly. “Don’t your men believe in getting their captain a towel, sir?”

Someone snickered.

“This is a warship, ma’m,” he said, his eyes warming in response. “People get wet on ships.”

“Under normal means, perhaps.”

“
Capitaine
, I’ll get a towel for you,” said a man standing nearby whose split, scarred lip was curved in a leer. “But I won’t dry you off!”

More laughter, free and easy and infectious, and Rhiannon joined in. Behind her Ned had also come up over the side, disdaining both the bosun’s chair that had brought Rhiannon aboard and the help of freckled, red-haired Toby Ashton, who had stepped forward to lend him a hand. The boy hurried to stand beside Rhiannon, grinning in excitement from ear to ear.

“I say, Captain! Can’t have us a Brit aboard, now can we?” said one of the crew, tousling Ned’s dark hair. “This young scallywag here’ll turn us in!”

The boy lifted his chin. “Behave yourself, as my father says, and I shall keep your confidence,” he said importantly.

Laughter erupted from behind him, and even Captain Merrick’s grin flashed white in his handsome, tanned face. “Leave young Mr. Falconer alone, you lot,” he said cheerfully. “He’s as much an American as he is British. Besides, if we have one Briton aboard, then we shall have two,” he added, with a pointed look at Rhiannon. He reached down to pick up one of the two cats sunning itself on the deck. “Would you care for some punch, Miss Evans? Lemonade?”

“I would love a glass of lemonade,” she said, smiling in delight as he placed the cat in her lap. “Hello, Billy! Have you dined on any more flying fish?”

“I do believe this one’s Tuck. Can’t tell ‘em apart. Toby! Fetch Miss Evans some lemonade, would you?”

Rhiannon stroked the cat, which curled itself onto her lap and began to purr. Toby, blushing faintly through his freckles, was quickly back, and she accepted the lemonade that he eagerly pressed into her hand.

“Can I get you anything else, Miss Evans?”

“I’m quite fine, thank you, Toby. This lemonade is wonderful.”

“I put sugar in it. Figured you’d like it that way.”

Rhiannon smiled at him, recognizing a young boy’s infatuation when she saw it, then turned her attention to the sail above.

“So, Captain,” she said, taking a sip of the lemonade, “just what
were
you doing up there? I know your plunge into the sea wasn’t an accidental one.”

One of the crew guffawed, someone else thrust a clandestine elbow into a neighbor’s ribs, and Nathan, carrying a plate of what looked to be eggs, came aft, an old round hat covering his tawny, careless curls. He took a bite out of a piece of toast and gestured with it toward his captain. “Really, Connor, where are your manners?”

 “Gasping, speechless and love-struck at the young lady’s feet,” Captain Merrick returned smoothly, with a sideways wink at the suddenly blushing Rhiannon. “What have I done wrong this time?”

“Failed to offer her and young Ned here some breakfast, for one thing.”

“I’ll get her some! Ned, too!” Toby gushed, and headed below.

“Oh, don’t let us keep you from whatever it is you’re doing.” Rhiannon gave a little wave of her hand. Dear Lord, hadn’t these men ever seen a woman before? The way they were all hanging on her words and falling all over themselves to please her made her feel like a queen in her court. “Whatever it was that you
were
doing, that is. . . .”

“Just having a little contest,” said Captain Merrick. He reached out and neatly snared his cousin’s toast, took a bite, and tossed it back onto the plate before Nathan, turning back to look in puzzlement down at the half-eaten bread, even knew what he was about.

“It looked to me as if you were trying to find creative ways in which to kill yourselves,” Rhiannon said.

“You could say that.” Captain Merrick found an empty wooden cask, hefted it in his strong arms—
show off,
Rhiannon thought again, but with a flush of appreciation and delight—and set it down before her. “Have a seat my dear. We’re about to crown a winner for our little competition here. After we’re done, I’ll take you for a tour of the schooner
Kestrel
.”

“If you survive, you damned fool,” muttered Nathan. “So sorry, ma’m,” he murmured, taking off his hat. “I forget myself.”

“Uncle Connor!” It was the admiral’s young son, ever conscious of his self-prescribed duties as Rhiannon’s chaperone, who had followed them to the shade of the awning. “Are you continuing your game, now? I should like to watch, and have a try myself.”

“You may watch, but your father will geld me, young man, should I let you have a try.”

“No he won’t, but my mother might. Therefore, we simply won’t tell her.”

“And if you end up flat as a Shrove Tuesday pancake upon the surface of the deep blue sea?”

“You don’t give me enough credit, Uncle Connor.”

Toby had returned with two plates of eggs and toast; he presented one to Rhiannon, the other to Ned, and with a glance at Captain Merrick, rescued his commander from the boy’s persistence. “Tell ye what, Ned. Why don’t we let your Uncle Connor finish this contest he has going with Jacques and One-Eye, and then you and I can have our own little competition from off the transom?” He leaned close to the boy and gave Rhiannon a conspiring wink. “Why, the captain says there might be pirate treasure down there. What do you say?”

“I would like that very much,” Ned said, and came to stand importantly beside Rhiannon, his pride and dignity restored.

She watched Captain Merrick as he looked up at the big wooden boom’s fifty-foot length, now swinging in a bit as the breeze backed a point. She could sense the same eager restlessness in him that she had perceived last night at dinner, the itch to be moving, the inability to stand still for long. That he was a man of action, she had no doubt.

“Right, so, I made the last jump,” he said, standing next to Rhiannon and leaning a little too close to her as he looked up into the rigging. “So it is now your turn, Bobbs. Ten shillings says you don’t have the guts to try it at thirty feet.”

“Twelve shillings says I’ll make the dive at thirty-five feet.”

“I’ll raise you to forty.”

“Forty-five.”

Bobbs started to look dubious, and a flicker of worry came into his eyes. “Forty five, then.” He cocked his head and squinted at his grinning captain. “But if I make the jump at forty-five, sir, I expect you to do it at fifty.”

“Very well. One-Eye? You in?”

The other man, who actually possessed two eyes, but of differing colors with one being blue, the other being brown, just smiled and shook his head. “Nay, I’ll fold.”

“Jacques?”

“
Non
, but I’ll throw another two dollars into the pot if you both go forty-five.”

“Very well, then. After you, Bobbs.”

The two men walked purposely over to the larboard shrouds and were soon climbing easily up into the rigging.

Toby, noting the pleat between Rhiannon’s brows as she tipped her head back and tried to discern what this was all about, came to stand beside her. “Bet you’re wondering what they’re doing, ma’m.”

“I am indeed.”

“It’s a contest.  Do you see these two long, long spars, the shorter one on the top, the longer one on the bottom? The ones that lead aft from the mainmast, between which the sail is hung?” He cleared his throat importantly. “The one on the top that angles up and out like this—” he motioned with his hands—“is called a gaff, and it gets hauled aloft, carrying the sail with it. The one on the bottom, running horizontally out over our heads and all the way out over the stern, is called the boom. You’ll see a bunch of men heading over to the sheet—in layman’s terms, ma’m, that rope, there—which is currently cleated to hold the sail in place. In a moment, they’ll uncleat it, start hauling on it, and you’ll see the gaff, with the sail suspended from it, begin to go higher. They’ll raise it to their best estimate of forty-five feet, then cleat it, and the contest will continue.”

Rhiannon had a pretty good idea of what this “contest” entailed, and it seemed like madness. But she was compelled to ask, anyhow.

“And then what?”

“Then, the contestants walk out and up the gaff spar and dive off. Whoever manages to dare the most height, wins all the money in the pot.” He grinned. “We started with ten who were willing to play, and one by one they’ve quit. Only Connor and Aaron Bobbs here are left.”

“Fools,” his older brother Nathan said again, but he had his hands folded across his chest and was leaning back with a little smile, chewing a last bite of egg and watching as a group of grinning seamen did exactly what Toby said they would do. The great mainsail began to climb even higher, its mast hoops spacing out along the mast and the huge boom over their heads swinging out a bit in the faint breeze.

Bobbs moved, monkey-like and barefoot out along the gaff so high above their heads, while Captain Merrick waited in the shrouds.

“Does your captain do this sort of thing often?” Rhiannon asked the older Ashton, not knowing whether to be impressed, shocked, or flattered if Connor Merrick was performing this feat of reckless bravery solely for her sake.

“Let’s just say, ma’m, that he lives for excitement and thrills.”

Toby was trying to get a better view. “And he likes to keep things interesting.”

“I wish I could try that,” piped up young Ned, wistfully.

“Boat approaching off to sta’b’d,” muttered One-Eye. “Uh-oh. The King’s man, himself.”

“Yeah, and if Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall, all the King’s men in the world won’t be able to put him back together again,” muttered Nathan.

“It’s Dull-more.”

Someone snickered; there was a familiar, impeccably dressed naval officer in the boat and the vessel was, indeed, cutting through the gentle swell with smart precision and headed straight for the schooner.

Someone shouted from above and Aaron Bobbs, with a howl of half-terror, half-excitement, came flailing down, tumbling through space and managing, at the last moment, a clumsy dive into the blue water. Everyone rushed to the rail to see if he had survived the impact. Rhiannon held her breath, waiting, and a moment or two later the young man’s head broke the surface.

“Thunderation,” he panted, and swam weakly toward the Jacob’s ladder. “That one hurt.”

The naval boat was getting closer, and a look of annoyance pinned itself firmly on young Ned’s face. “Damn,” he muttered. “I bet Papa sent him for me.”

“We’ll have none of that language in front of a lady, now,” chided Nathan, who went to the rail as the schooner was hailed.

“Permission for Captain Lord to come aboard!” shouted the British coxswain.

“Now what?” said Toby. “He’s not expecting us to pipe him aboard as a captain, is he?”

“Probably, but he’s the damned enemy,” muttered Nathan. He walked a little distance away, peered up through the great network of sails, stays and lines, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Connor! Ye’ve got company!”

Rhiannon looked up and saw that Captain Merrick was standing nonchalantly, confidently, on the gaff some forty or fifty feet above her head. Terror for his safety prickled through her, making even the roots of her hair tingle.

“I’ll be right down,” he yelled back, walked a few more feet up and out on the gaff, and launched himself far out into the air.

Rhiannon saw it all. His form bunched up and falling through so much space . . . his men gasping and running for the rail . . . Ned’s gape-jawed horror, beside her . . . and in the boat, Captain Lord’s stiff, thinly veiled contempt as
Kestrel
’s daring, thrill-seeking captain unrolled himself from the tucked ball he’d assumed, did a half-somersault in the air until he was facing downward, stretched out his body with arms and hands pointed out over his head in a perfect, knifing V, and entered the water with barely a splash.

The men at the rail waited.

And waited.

Rhiannon felt a flare of terror and glanced nervously at Nathan. “Oh, my God,” she breathed.

But the lieutenant just shook his head, rolled his eyes, and went to the side to receive Captain Lord.

No matter. His captain had already surfaced a few feet from the British officer’s boat and, affording him a half-mocking, half-jaunty salute, called up, “Care to join us, Captain Lord?”

Chapter 8

“Not on your damned life,” the Englishman snapped. “Thank God you’re not in our Navy, I’d have you keel-hauled for such a display.”

“I had the chance to join your navy when your colleagues blew
Merrimack
out from under me, declined it, and chose internment on a prison hulk instead. A move I’ve never regretted.”

“I daresay our Navy was well served by your refusal to join it.”

“As was America,” Toby proudly piped up.

Connor Merrick, swimming with long, easy strokes, kept pace with the Royal Navy boat as it drew steadily closer to
Kestrel
. He was not even breathing hard. “Haven’t you ever tried diving from aloft, Delmore? It’s great fun, I can assure you.”

“I have other ways of finding my entertainment.”

“Really? I’d not have known. As for me, I’m bored,” Captain Merrick said, turning over to float on his back, “and since your admiral has forbidden me to go a’privateering in his waters”—the word
his
was delivered with no small degree of mockery—“we must find something to amuse us. You should try it yourself sometime. Learn how to have fun, Del.
Live
a little.”

The other captain allowed the tightest of smiles. “That’s Captain Lord to you, sir.”

“Come aboard, Del,” said Connor, propelling himself smoothly through the water and managing to avoid getting clipped by one of his cousin’s men’s oars. “There are only two of us left willing to make the dive at this height, so the day’s excitement is almost over.”

“Pray God you’re one of them,” Captain Lord said, with faint acidity. “I’d rather see you done in by your own recklessness than to have to blow you out of the water when you defy Sir Graham’s wishes to—what was it he said?—”

“Behave myself.”

“Yes, behave yourself, as I’m sure you have every intention of not doing.”

“Ah, we may not know each other well, Delmore, but you have me pegged,” said Connor, and he swam toward the rope hanging over the side, as at home, Rhiannon thought, as a fish in the blue, blue sea.

And Captain Lord — did he really mean what he said about wanting to sink the American privateer?

Worse, did Connor Merrick mean what
he
said? Was he serious about going privateering, and right under his British brother-in-law’s nose?

Oh, dear.

And she had thought diving into the sea from high aloft was dangerous and foolhardy. . . .

A few moments later, Captain Merrick was back aboard the schooner, shirtless, dripping wet, and standing in a growing puddle as Toby handed him a towel. He vigorously toweled his hair then tossed the towel over a nearby cannon. “Pipe the captain aboard, Nathan,” he said good-naturedly. “Don’t want it said that we Yanks aren’t courteous.”

Rhiannon heard the shrillness of a bosun’s whistle, and the schooner’s rag-tag, casually dressed officers lined up at the rail to receive the impeccably uniformed British captain.

“I don’t know why you delight in baiting him so,” Nathan muttered.

“Aye, not very sporting of me is it?” Captain Merrick said blithely, with a sideways glance at Rhiannon. He watched his English cousin coming up the Jacob’s ladder. “I’ll break that stuffiness of his before I’m done and show him how to live a bit. You just see if I don’t.”

“You should leave well enough alone, Con.”

Captain Merrick just grinned.

The Englishman came aboard. His cool gray eyes held an expression of contempt, impatience, and even a bit of envy.

But for what?

The beauty of his American cousin’s sleek, lithe, command?

Or the freedom that Connor Merrick, unfettered by rules, protocol, and expectations, enjoyed?

Still dripping wet, Captain Merrick came over to stand possessively near Rhiannon, tiny droplets of water running through the sparse hair of his lower legs, down his ankles and to his bare feet. The English captain’s expression went stony.

 “So what brings you aboard, Delmore?” Captain Merrick was saying. “Oh, but wait. Let me guess. Sir G would really like to see me leave so as not to make his situation any more complicated. Is that it, Del?”

“Sir
Graham
would like his son back. He had planned to take him fishing this morning. I’ve come to retrieve him.”

“Why’d he send you? You’re a flag captain for heaven’s sake, not a lowly mid.”

Captain Lord’s eyes flickered momentarily to Rhiannon, and the faintest bit of color lodged itself, briefly, beneath his cheekbones. “I volunteered.”

“Ah.” Connor Merrick had, Rhiannon saw, noted the tell-tale slide of his cousin’s gaze to her, and his eyes began to take on a hard glitter. “So I see.”

Was Captain Merrick actually
jealous
? Good heavens, women must be in short supply here in Barbados if the two of them were competing for
her
attentions. It was a heady feeling to be sure, but oh, dear, what was she to do? Both were undeniably handsome men, yes. One proper, civilized and suitable, the other . . . not so much. One, a rising and respectable officer in the Royal Navy, the other, little more than a legalized pirate.

Ned was protesting.

“Uncle Connor, I cannot go back with Captain Lord; I have a duty to chaperone Miss Evans, and cousin Toby said we could have a diving contest off the transom! Surely Papa can wait!”

“Your father does
not
like to be kept waiting,” Captain Lord snapped.

Ned was undeterred. “Well, I am not leaving until Uncle Connor finishes his contest with Mr. Bobbs.”

“Contest?”

Captain Merrick folded his arms across his chest. “Aye, whoever makes the last, highest jump from aloft, wins. Care to toss a coin or two into the pot, Del?”

The British officer’s nostrils flared. “Not in your life, Merrick. Collect your things, Edward. I will not risk your father’s ire.”

“What, are you not a gambling man?”

“I will not compromise the dignity of my navy by aiding and abetting such nonsense.”

“Well then, why don’t you prove your Navy’s courage by participating in it?”

“
What?!
”

Young Ned saw immediately what his uncle was up to and his face lit up with sudden understanding. “Yes, Uncle Con’s right! Why don’t you get into the contest too, Captain Lord? You can represent the Royal Navy!”

Kestrel
’s crew seized upon the idea.

“Aye, Royal Navy versus an American privateer!”

“Now
there’s
a contest with a predetermined outcome, ha ha ha!”

Laughter and guffaws echoed all around.

Captain Merrick grinned. “What’s the matter, Del, don’t you know how to have fun?”

“This is an outrage!”

“Guess you don’t mind, then, if you leave my men thinking that we Yanks have more courage than a captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. But never mind, Delmore. Another time, eh?”

Around them came the sounds of snickering from
Kestrel
’s crew. The proud Englishman was well and truly trapped. Rhiannon saw him forget himself for the briefest of moments, looking up to regard the gaff swinging so high above his head before he quickly drew himself up and turned to the American privateer to give him a stinging rebuke.

She decided it was time to step in before things got out of hand. “Actually, I think I should have Captain Lord take me back to shore,” she said, taking pity on the man. “I feel a bit of a headache coming on with all this morning sunlight in my eyes, and it would be rude indeed to keep Sir Graham from his own son.”  She gave an apologetic smile to Connor Merrick, who had his arms folded across his bare, dripping, incredibly manly chest and was regarding her with one brow raised; the man might be reckless but he was no fool, and Rhiannon saw immediately that he knew exactly what she was up to and in his own way, respected her for it. “Master Ned? Will you chaperone me?”

The boy looked at her uncertainly for a moment, confused about this veiled exchange between his uncle and his father’s flag captain. But there was nothing, really, for him to do but bow, smile, and agree to accompany her and Captain Lord back to shore.