Master of My Dreams (35 page)

Several nearby seamen hooted with laughter.
Stubs slapped his thigh, and Roddy raised his mug in a mocking
toast.

“To the Royal Navy and its ships o’
fools!”

“Aye! A pox on the whole bloody lot of
’em!”

Harsh guffaws rolled out over the decks.
Pipes were passed. More rum was poured; some was spilled.

And aft, the stars began to go out as a tall,
dark shape rose menacingly out of the darkness behind them.

But no one saw the giant squares of canvas
blotting out the heavens.

No one heard the increasing roar of water as
the bows of a mighty frigate swallowed the little sloop’s wake.

And no one happened to look around to
notice.

“I’ll drink to that!” Roddy cried, his eyes
dancing. “A pox on the England, a pox on its ships, and a pox on
Captain Christian Bloody Lord, whose inability to capture the
dreaded Irish Pirate will land him straight in the annals of
history as the biggest fool the Royal Navy ever bred!”

At that very moment, the night blew apart in
a deafening roar of thunder and flame as the Royal Navy’s
finest—which had been silently trailing its quarry for the last
quarter hour—opened fire. In one deadly salvo from her bow chasers,
the mighty
Bold Marauder
smashed the mast from the little
sloop and left her staggering helplessly in the water.

In disbelief, Captain Roddy O’Devir picked
himself up from the deck where he’d been thrown, and watched as the
powerful frigate slid out of the darkness, her guns glinting in the
starlight. He saw men behind their big muzzles, waiting for their
captain’s signal to fire. He saw marines gathered along the rail,
their muskets trained down upon his shattered decks. And he heard
the clipped voice of the English commander and knew that he had
just made the most grievous error of misjudgment in his career as a
mariner—an error that would probably cost him his life.

“This is His Majesty’s frigate
Bold
Marauder
! In the name of the king, heave to and prepare to
receive boarders! You are all under arrest!”

A grievous error indeed.

The voice belonged to that same
fool
whom Roddy had just scorned, a man who, he realized with a sinking
heart, had turned out to be no fool at all.

Captain Lord.

Chapter 29

“
Deirdre!
” Delight’s voice, shrill
with panic, cleaved the darkness. “Deirdre, wake up! Oh, God, the
Lord and Master caught Roddy!
He caught Roddy!”

Instantly awake, Deirdre sat up just as
Delight, crying bitterly, threw herself into her arms. Outside,
dawn glowed upon the horizon, and gray light filled the room. “Paul
Revere just brought the news, Deirdre! Your Englishman caught him
after he made the trade, and saw the whole thing. Roddy’ll hang for
this, Deirdre! He’ll
hang
!”

Deirdre began to swing herself out of bed,
but Delight was hysterical. “Oh, Deirdre, you have to do something,
anything,
everything
in your power to get the Lord and
Master to release Roddy! There’s no one but you he’ll listen to, no
one but you who can persuade him to let Roddy go!” Her fingers bit
into Deirdre’s shoulders. “The man loves you, Deirdre! He’ll do
anything you ask!”

Deirdre embraced the other girl, trying to
calm her. “Aye, Delight, he will. Now stop yer cryin’. Christian
made me a promise that he’d find my brother and return him to me to
make up for press-gangin’ him all those years ago.” She smiled,
serene in the face of her friend’s panic. “So see? ’Twill be no
problem a’tall. I’ll just go to Boston, tell Christian who Roddy
is, and he’ll let him go.”

Deirdre crawled out from beneath the covers
and padded across the room to stand at the window. The floor was
cold beneath her bare feet, the dawn strikingly vibrant upon the
eastern horizon.
Ah, Christian,
she thought, hugging her
arms to herself. There was no reason to be upset, no reason to fear
that he wouldn’t honor his word to return Roddy to her. Thank God,
actually, that it had been him and not some other Royal Navy
captain who had apprehended Roddy!

“Oh, Deirdre, how can ye be so sure?
”
Delight wailed. “Captain Lord is a king’s officer! He values
nothing as much as duty, loyalty, and service. What if he won’t
listen to you?” She burst into wild sobs. “Oh, God, what if he
won’t
listen
?”

Deirdre’s head came up, and she touched the
ring. “He is to marry me, Delight. He will listen.” She turned
confident eyes upon her friend. “I promise.”

###

The puppies whimpered in their box, tiny
white blobs of fur that crawled over each other and pushed against
their mother’s belly as they suckled greedily at her milk-swollen
teats.

Christian sat backward in a chair watching
them, his chin resting upon his wrists, his wrists resting on the
top rung. His coat was slung carelessly over a neighboring chair,
and his fancy, gold-laced hat was hooked atop one of its posts.
Stripped down to waistcoat, shirt, and breeches, he gazed
sightlessly at the puppies, trying to glean some small sliver of
joy from their antics.

To no avail.

He had been working on a report to Sir
Geoffrey all morning, and sheer exhaustion had forced him to take a
break. He had not slept in two days, and his body was crying for
rest. But he was afraid to close his eyes and give in to the sleep
his body craved, for in his heart he knew that the nightmares would
return.

Somewhere beneath him and deep within the
frigate’s hold was the man who was his Irish girl’s lover. That he
had succeeded in outsmarting and apprehending the rascal brought
Christian no sense of triumph. Revenge had been empty, hollow,
meaningless. There hadn’t even been any action, for the Irish
Pirate’s sloop had mounted only a few swivel guns that would have
been ridiculously ineffective against the strapping might of a
king’s frigate. The tall, defiant-eyed sea rogue had surrendered
without a fight, knowing that any attempt to defend his ship
against
Bold Marauder
would only result in needless
bloodshed.

Now the rebel crew was in a Boston gaol, the
Pirate himself locked in what had once been the playground of
Delight Foley. Christian was taking no chances. He dared not send
the notorious smuggler ashore for fear that the angry mobs would
storm the gaol and free their hero. But those same people who might
storm a gaol would think twice about approaching a thirty-eight-gun
frigate.

His chin on his wrists, he stared dully down
at the puppies, not seeing them, but Deirdre. He thought of how she
had tenderly dug the musket ball from his shoulder, how she had
loved him with her body, how her eyes had shone so brightly when
he’d given her his ring.

To think that her actions had been
superficial and false; to think that it wasn’t him she loved, but
another.

The pain that ravaged his heart was a hundred
times worse than anything he’d endured at the hands of Elwin Boyd’s
surgery. It hurt such that he could not sit here and think about
it. He rose from the chair, picked up a puppy, and returned to his
desk. There, he sat, carefully positioning the baby in his lap so
it would not fall, and retrieved his pen. Exhaustion made his
movements forced and mechanical. He dipped the quill in the inkwell
and willing the weariness from his brain, tried to continue with
his report. In his lap, the puppy fell asleep, contented and warm.
Christian’s head drooped, the fair hair falling over his brow. His
eyes flickered shut, opened again, and jerking his head up, he
dipped the quill in the inkwell once more. He was just starting the
next page when he heard the stamp of a musket against the deck
outside his door. A moment later it opened, and Ian MacDuff, with
Evans standing grim-faced behind him, stepped inside.

“Prisoner’s asking tae see ye, sir.”

The lieutenant held his hat respectfully in
his hands, and the scent of his damp clothes permeated the confines
of the cabin. Christian looked up and blinked, his eyes heavy and
aching with exhaustion. In his dazed, numbed state, it took a
moment for him to realize that someone had spoken to him.

Cradling the sleeping puppy, he got to his
feet and moved across the cabin to place the baby with its mother.
Ian took a step forward, thinking to assist his captain, for the
Lord and Master looked to be in a sorry state indeed.

“Are ye all right, sir?”

“Aye, Ian. Never felt better.”

“If there be anything ye want tae talk about,
doona hesitate tae ask . . .”

Christian paused. He stared dumbly at the
bulkhead, his throat working. Then he raked a hand through his hair
and looked at the lieutenant. “Thank you, Ian. I shall remember
your kindness, but I fear that talk will not aid me in the
slightest.”

“The Irish lassie, sir?”

Christian said nothing.

“I know ye be missing her, sir, but ye’ll be
back together soon, now that ye’ve accomplished yer mission—”

“
You do not understand!”
Christian’s
eyes were suddenly blazing. Then his voice softened, became dead
and lifeless once more. “Forgive me, Ian. I have no right to be
sharp with you, none at all.” He put his hands on the back of a
chair and looked down, his eyes bleak. “After I went to Menotomy to
call upon her—and ask for her hand in marriage—I—I saw her in the
arms of another man.”

Ian’s mouth fell open and his hat dropped
from his hands. “Another man, sir?” His face went slack with shock.
“Why, she loves you. She wouldnae do such a thing—”

“It was the Irish Pirate, Ian. And the memory
of her standing in his arms shall go with me into my grave.”

He looked at Ian, his eyes raw with anguish.
But the big Scot had no words of comfort, nothing from his own vast
experience with the bonnie sex to relieve the pain of his
commanding officer. “’Tis sorry I be, sir . . . I had no idea.”

Christian turned away. “Thank you, Ian. Your
concern will not be forgotten.”

“I’ll let ye be, then, sir,” Ian said,
quietly, sensing his captain’s need to be alone. “But please do
think about getting some sleep before ye have tae face the Old
Fart. And I’m sorry for disturbing ye . . . I just thought ye’d
want t’ know the prisoner’s demanding tae see you.”

“Damn the prisoner. He can bloody well rot
for all I care.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll tell ’im that.”

“Please do, Ian.” Christian was aching with
fatigue, his heart a raw wound whose pain was rivaled only by the
incessant throb of his shoulder. Dimly, he was aware of Ian moving
away and down the passageway, roaring for Skunk and Teach as he
went.

Soon the news would be known throughout the
ship. Soon every man aboard would know that he’d been neatly
deceived by a lovely Irish girl with innocent purple eyes. But he
found he was too tired to care. Too tired to fight the anguish, the
pain, the pity that would surely come his way.

And the nightmares.

Too damned tired . . .

He stumbled to his bed and swayed on his feet
with exhaustion.

Sleep.

He sat down and slowly bent to take off his
shoes.

Sleep.

He was out before his head hit the pillow,
and sure enough, the nightmares found him.

Only this time, the treacherous dream-woman
who betrayed him was not the woman he had once wed, but the one
that he had hoped to.

Deirdre.

###

The summons to repair aboard the flagship
Dauntless
came shortly before noon, and Christian was gently
shaken awake by a hand on his shoulder. He clawed his way out of
the fog of oblivion, opened his eyes, and saw Rhodes standing
there, the silver wings of his black hair shining in the sunlight
coming in through the stern gallery.

“Sorry to wake you, sir. Sir Geoffrey just
sent his flag lieutenant across with orders to come aboard
Dauntless.
He wishes to speak to you about the Irish Pirate
before dinner.”

“Dinner?” Christian said, sitting up and
rubbing his eyes.

“Aye. He’s throwing a big celebration aboard
the flagship in your honor. Gage will be there, and so will a host
of other dignitaries.”

Christian swung out of bed, alarmed to find
himself in clothes that were now on a level of unkemptness with
Hibbert’s worst.

Rhodes added, “Gage wanted to give the party
at his residence in Boston, but Sir Geoffrey thought it unwise,
given the, er, present state of the townspeople.”

“State?”

“Aye. The people are in an uproar, sir. You
caught their hero. Adams and Hancock are stirring up the rabble
with rousing speeches. Warren is demanding the prisoner’s release.
A fight broke out between one of our majors and a crowd of rebels,
and there was a near riot in the streets. Our troops are doing all
they can to contain the situation, but the people are screaming for
your head on a platter, and that’s putting it mildly.”

Christian sighed. “Very well, then. I shall
be up shortly.”

Rhodes’s eyes grew uncharacteristically
sympathetic. “I’m sorry to hear about the girl, sir.”

“Thank you, Russell. You’ll understand if I
do not wish to discuss her.”

“Of course, sir.”

His face solemn, Rhodes went out. An hour
later, Christian had bathed and dressed. He left his cabin and went
on deck, clad in his finest dress uniform and carrying his
gold-tasseled presentation sword.

The sight that greeted him nearly did him
in.

Seamen clung to the rigging, holding their
hats to display their respect for him. Officers lined the rail,
standing stiffly at attention. Even Hibbert had taken pains over
his appearance. Whistles shrilled, drums rolled, and
Bold
Marauder's
people saw their captain over the side with a smart
and moving salute that swelled his troubled heart. He blinked to
cover his emotion, for he knew that they were trying their best to
cheer him in the only way they could.