Lord Of The Sea (2 page)

Someone was tugging at Rhiannon’s elbow. Tearing her gaze from the captain, she saw a young lad standing there beside her. He had a face full of freckles, salt-smeared spectacles, and a shock of curling red hair blowing wildly from out beneath his round hat.

“Captain says you need to follow me,” he yelled above the wind, now beginning to whistle and scream through lines and shrouds. “It’s safer below.”

Alannah found her voice. “It won’t be if we capsize!”

“We won’t capsize. My uncle Brendan designed this grand old lady, my grandpa built her, and the most competent and capable master in the world commands her. But the seas are already washing through the scuppers, ma’m, and none of us’ll be able to save you if ye get swept overboard.”

“Toby, damn you, make haste!” roared Captain Merrick.

“Aye, Captain!” The boy offered one elbow to Rhiannon, the other to an increasingly green-looking Alannah and, bracing himself against the schooner’s roll as she began to heel over hard in the wind, hurried them toward the nearest hatch, Rhiannon limping and holding on to the young man for dear life.

They managed to get below, and Toby guided them aft. An unlit tin lantern swung wildly from a hook bolted to the deck beams above, and the only illumination in the small, darkening cabin came from an overhead skylight and the stern windows, which the lad ran to double latch against the mountainous waves that reared and broke like things possessed just beyond.

“This is Con’s cabin,” the lad said. “You’ll be safe enough here, but we’ll be closing the hatches as soon as I’m back topside to prevent flooding below. Hang on tight, and I’ll be back as soon as we’re through the worst of it.”

He touched his hat to them and was gone.

And as the eerie, black-green squall began to fill the view of the windows behind them, Rhiannon, clinging once again to Alannah, had never felt more frightened in her life.

*     *     *

“I’m sorry, Rhiannon. Spared from slaughter, only to die in a storm at sea . . . I should never have invited you along with me to spend the winter in Barbados with my brother and his family, it was selfish of me, madness—”

“Oh, stop, Alannah, it’ll be an adventure.”

“How can you be so calm? We’re going to die. . . .”

“Captain Merrick is
not
going to let us die.”

“Captain Merrick might look and act like a Greek god, but he has no more power to command the wind and waves than you or I.”

“No, but he
does
command this ship, and I’m quite certain he knows what he’s doing up there.”

The other woman had made her unsteady way to the neatly-made-up bunk and there, sank to her knees on the deck flooring, her arms on the coverlet, her head buried in them as though in prayer. The schooner heeled over even further, shuddering as the full force of the wind slammed into her, and Rhiannon fought down an involuntary sense of panic as she heard shouted commands from the deck above. On the table nearby a pewter tankard began to slide, and she grabbed it before it could tumble off and hit the deck flooring.

“Besides, Alannah, if we were all going to die, I daresay Captain Merrick would look a lot more worried than he did when we last saw him. Did he look scared? Worried, alarmed, or upset? No, he looked like he was actually enjoying this, that it was a challenge to him.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him . . . we were both at that wedding between our siblings all those years ago . . . . Ohhhhh, I feel so
sick
. . . .”

Alannah was getting greener by the moment.

“Lie down, Alannah. Get in the bunk and close your eyes. Hold my hand. Think of someplace else . . . such as . . . such as how excited you’ll be when we reach Barbados and you get to see your little nephew and nieces!”

“We’ll never reach Barbados. . . .”

“Yes we will, just . . . faster than we expected.”

Alannah, pale and sweating, only moaned, and with Rhiannon’s help managed to get into the bunk. Quickly, Rhiannon cast her gaze around the storm-darkened cabin, looking for a bucket, a pail, anything, before her friend succumbed to the
mal de mer
brought on by the motion of the ship. She managed to grab a bowl and stagger back to Alannah just as the other woman sat up and began retching. Rhiannon sat beside her, rubbing her back, trying her best to soothe her in her misery.

“Fine admiral’s sister I make,” Alannah said weakly, lying back in the bunk.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Even Lord Nelson got seasick.”

“And how is it that you’re not, Rhiannon?”

“I don’t know. I guess some people are more vulnerable to it than others.” She took her friend’s cold, clammy hand. “I know you don’t think highly of him for capturing our ship, Alannah, but he
did
just save our lives.”

“Not yet he hasn’t. Besides, I don’t like the way he was looking at you.”

“Was he? Looking at me?”

Alannah made a noise of despair and put the back of her forearm over her eyes. “Lord Morninghall trusted me to watch over you until we can get to Barbados, where my brother can assume your guardianship . . . he’s not for you, Rhiannon. Forget what I just said.”

“But was he? Really looking at me?”

“Of course he was. But pay him no heed. Men like Captain Merrick are in the business of breaking hearts. He’ll take yours and snap it over his knee like there was no tomorrow.”

“You know nothing about him, Alannah!”

“I know what I see, and what I see is a charming rogue who knows very well how women react to him. He’ll ruin you, if you let him. And now, I don’t want to talk anymore . . . not about Captain Merrick, not about anything . . . dear God, Rhiannon, I think I’m going to be sick again.”

Rhiannon grabbed the bowl once more. Outside, the storm intensified, the noise of the wind now so loud that both women felt like they were in the very maelstrom of hell. The schooner rose on each towering crest, quivered beneath them as it bravely fought through wind and rain and furious seas, then smashed down into the troughs with an action that had Alannah soon huddled in a sweating, moaning, sobbing ball of misery on the bunk. Outside, rain slashed against the stern windows, and daring to look out, Rhiannon saw angry green seas beyond the glass in one instant, then black horizon in the next before it was obscured, once more, by the heaving swells.

The storm seemed to last for hours, though Rhiannon knew it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes before they were through the worst of it. Eventually, the cabin seemed to lighten, and beyond the stern windows the sky began to show wedges of blue as the squall moved off. The heavy, laboring motion of the schooner began to ease, and Rhiannon realized that the unholy screaming of the wind through the rigging had lessened in pitch and now had subsided to a few strong, brief gusts.

She stroked her friend’s arm and let out a long, relieved breath. “I think it’s over.”

There was a discreet cough just outside the door before it was pushed hesitantly open. Young Toby stood there dripping rain or seawater or both, and blushing a bit as his gaze found Rhiannon. He bowed, trying hard to be gallant and gentlemanly despite his tender age.

“Captain’s respects, ladies, and he inquires about your welfare. The squall has passed.”

“We’re fine . . . a little shaken up, but fine.”

“He also says there’s something topside that he thought ye might enjoy seeing. If you’d both come with me?”

“You go,” Alannah said weakly. “I’m not quite recovered enough to go up on deck.”

The youngster looked at her appraisingly. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’m, but you might feel better with some fresh air and the sight of the horizon.”

“I’ll be up in a little while . . . for now, take Rhiannon.”

Rhiannon hesitantly tried her ankle, and though it still hurt, it was able to bear weight. Together, she and Toby ascended the hatch and emerged on a wet, still heeling deck under a sky that was blinding white with sunlight. After the darkness below, she stood blinking as rain dripped down from the rigging and sails above. Far off to leeward now, the squall was moving away; the horizon in all other directions was hard and bright and clear, the sea a deep cerulean blue.

“Miss Evans.” The captain came forward, looking wet and disheveled and virile, as though he had enjoyed the life-or-death experience they’d just been through. “You survived.”

“Were we ever in any danger?”

“The business of any ship is to stay on that small bit of space between the sky and the bottom of the sea, otherwise known as the surface. The fact that we remain in that small bit of space is always cause for a prayer or two of thanksgiving.”

“So we were in danger.”

Grinning, he unbuttoned his pea coat. “If we were, we aren’t now.”

His warm gaze remained on her as he peeled the wet jacket from his body and tossed it over a nearby cannon—
no, not cannon,
Rhiannon thought;
a cannon is called a gun when it’s aboard a ship
—and Rhiannon, blushing, wondered if that same look was what Alannah had so objected to. Thank goodness her friend was below. It put a little quiver in her belly to have a man like Connor Merrick looking at her like that, and she felt a sudden, swift tingle in her breasts.

I could get used to having him look at me like that.

And then:

I wonder what it would be like to have him . . . kiss me.

She glanced down, afraid that he could read her thoughts, and found herself staring at his wet canvas trousers and bare feet. Bare feet! Had she ever seen a man’s bare feet before? Muscled thighs, strong ankles, and a sparse covering of hair from his knees on down drew her eye; her blood suddenly seemed too warm, and she realized that she was staring. She looked up and boldly met his smiling gaze. “You have something to show me, Captain?”

Besides your bare feet?

The corner of his mouth was twitching; he was obviously well aware that his bare legs had unsettled her. He offered his arm. “Aye. Come forward with me.”

As they moved past the schooner’s two sharply raked-back masts and up into the plunging bow of this sleek and beautiful craft, Rhiannon looked up and saw it—a rainbow, arcing clear across the zenith and filling the sky with dazzling bands of color. She clapped her hands in delight.

“Oh, Captain Merrick, look!”

His grin came easily. But it was not just the rainbow that he had brought her forward to see. Firmly holding her elbow and steadying her against the sharply angled deck, he inclined his head, and it was then that Rhiannon suddenly heard a strange buzzing sound, saw a silvery flash, and jumped back as, a second later, something landed, flopping, at her feet.

“A flying fish!”

Another buzz, another fish, and then something furry streaked past her ankle, pounced on the fish and, clenching it in its jaws, darted quickly aft.

“Was that a cat?”

“Yes, Billy, I think. Or maybe it was Tuck. We have two on the ship, and I can’t tell them apart.” He smiled. “Well, at least I won’t have to feed them, tonight!”

Rhiannon watched in delight as more of the strange fish leaped through the air, buzzing and flashing silver. The beautiful arc of the rainbow was spread out and up before them. In that moment she had never felt more alive and, raising her face to the wind, she looked out over the schooner’s long, plunging bowsprit as it smashed down on each swell that paraded toward them, foam hissing out around it. The wind was brisk, blowing the tops off the incoming waves and flinging spray and foam against her face and clothes. On an impulse, she reached up, untied the strings of her bonnet and yanked it off, letting the wind rip the pins from her hair and rejoicing in the girlish exhilaration of feeling it streaming out around her.

Laughing for the sheer joy of the moment, she looked over at Captain Merrick—and the sound caught in her throat.
That look again.
Only this time, he was staring down at her with an almost predatory intensity and though he was still smiling, his eyes had darkened in some small but not insignificant way that she couldn’t identify.

“I beg your pardon, Captain,” she said, smiling. “You must think my shameless display of free spirit dreadfully uncouth.”

“On the contrary, ma’am.” His eyes seemed suddenly greener. “I find it quite charming.”

“Oh!” Flustered, she looked out once more over the plunging bowsprit and long, long jib-boom, all too aware now of the captain’s gaze still upon her. She suddenly felt too hot beneath her clothes, and hastily tried to stuff her hair back into her bonnet.

“Don’t,” he said, catching her hand. “Your hair is too pretty to hide beneath a hat. And I enjoy watching you delight in the feel of the wind.”

He stepped a bit closer, a little
too
close, and her heart suddenly began to pound.
Oh, dear, what do I say to
that
?
Rhiannon thought, all too aware of his height, his nearness, his very
presence
. She pulled her hand from his, took a safe step back, and crumpled the bonnet in her palm, trying to think of something, anything, to say. . . .

“Will we make Barbados soon?”

His gaze remained on her. “With this wind, we’ll raise Bridgetown by tomorrow.”

“Your ship seems very . . . uh, very fast.”

Oh, he was standing close.
She was having trouble breathing, let alone thinking.

“She is, indeed. She can outrun anything the British send after her.”

Rhiannon, unsettled by that keen, direct gaze, turned away to look out over the water. “Why is she so fast?”

“My father designed her back during the last war. She was a legend then, and I intend to make her a legend now.”

“That doesn’t explain her speed.”

“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. My
Dadaí
often tried to teach me about ship design, but I have no head for it. When he’d explain to me why a raked mast added speed, or how a certain amount of steeve in the hull allows a ship to slip that much quicker through the water, my mind would wander onto other things. So while I know this ship is fast, Miss Evans, I’m the last person who could ever tell you why.”

“And yet you have no fear, taking her into a British port?”