Master of My Dreams (21 page)

“You can do it, foundling,” he murmured. Then
he dragged his eyes open to gaze up at her face. “That is . . . if
you want to.”

The others looked at her, holding their
breath.

You can do it.

She stared down at the raw, ominous hole just
beneath the ridge of the captain’s collarbone, and swallowed
hard.

They were waiting. All of them.

She glanced about, but there was no help to
be found. The small space was suddenly too hot, the air too thick
to breathe, her heart pounding too loudly in her ears. “I—I don’t
know what to do . . .”

“Just dig the thing out,” Skunk said. “Here,
we’ll all hold him down. Get over here, lads—”

“No,” the captain said quietly, his voice now
so faint, that Deirdre had to bend down to catch his words. “There
. . . there is no need. Just get on with it, girl.” He gave a
strained smile. “I have a ship to run, you know.”

Aware of every eye in the room, she nodded
and, taking a deep, shaky breath, bent over the wound.

Christian closed his eyes as he felt the
heavy cross brushing, then resting upon, his bloody chest. Her
fingers touched his shoulder. They were gentle, warm, perhaps, if
he allowed his mind to drift, even loving. Slowly, he let out his
breath on a long sigh, the tension leaving his body as she held his
shoulder with one hand and gently slipped her fingers into the
ragged hole of the wound.

Her fingers.

It came to him that she would not use the
steel probe, the knife, or any of the other wicked instruments of
torture in the surgeon’s collection.

She would use her fingers.

He studied her face as she worked, watching
her lovely features tighten with concentration. Once, she glanced
up at Hendricks as though for reassurance; he nodded, and Christian
felt her fingers in his flesh once more. Pain began to throb up
into his neck, down his back. He shut his eyes and bit down on the
leather, the inside of his cheek, until he tasted blood.

“Easy, Christian,” she whispered, her face so
close to his shoulder he could feel the warmth of her breath
against his skin, the torn flesh itself. Her fingers pushed in
deeper, and he bit back a flood of nausea as she touched the raw
edge of his collarbone.

Deirdre, however, was nearing despair. She
looked up and caught the anxious gazes of the crew. “I can’t find
it.”

“Go deeper,” Skunk commanded harshly,
pressing closer and blocking the lantern light.

Taking a deep breath, Deirdre pushed her
forefinger back into the hole, feeling the warm embrace of muscle,
sinew, and tissue.

The captain moved beneath her, the sweat
beginning to roll down his temples. “Keep going,” he rasped.
“Deeper . . .”

Hot blood pulsed over her fingers. She felt
bone, muscle . . . and then something round and hard—

“I found it—I think I have it!”

But the ball was slippery, and eluded
her.

“Oh, dear God, sweet Mary—”

She glanced down at the captain. Mercifully,
he had fainted.

“Quick, girl, get it now, while he can’t feel
it!” Hendricks urged, shoving forward with the crowd.

“And mind ye doona miss any pieces of his
clothing that might be in there, too!”

Her lips tight with concentration, Deirdre
pushed her finger back into the hole. Fresh blood welled up and
flooded over her knuckles. Holding her breath, she explored
deeper—and found the musket ball.

She gripped it between thumb and forefinger
and pulled.

“I lost it!”

Teach was there, his hands against the
captain’s powerful chest to hold him down. “Quick, Deirdre, he’s
coming to—”

Desperately, she gripped the slick ball once
more and, with a cry of triumph, pulled it free.

The room erupted in wild, deafening cheers as
Teach grabbed the bloodied bullet and held it up for all to see.
“She did it! The lass did it, by God!”

“Three cheers for our Deirdre!”

“Hip, hip, huzzah!”

“Hip, hip, huzzah!”

“Hip, hip, huzzah!”

The pent up sobs came at last. She bent her
head to the captain’s chest, uncaring that his blood was warm
against her cheek and mixing with the tears she could no longer
hold back. She felt his wet, wiry chest hair beneath her cheek, his
hand resting weakly upon her head—and heard the beat of his heart
beneath her ear.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He was alive.

And that was all that mattered.

Chapter 18

Through careful questioning of its captain,
Lieutenants MacDuff and Rhodes learned that the French corvette and
its consort, the sloop, had happened upon the lone English cutter
while transferring arms . . . easy prey, they had both thought,
until HMS
Bold Marauder
had come upon the scene. But even
the combined menace of Arthur Teach, Ian MacDuff, Rico Hendricks,
and Skunk could not convince the Frenchman to disclose the name of
the sloop, which had promptly fled as the powerful English frigate
had closed in.

As for the corvette herself, she now lay far
astern, her crew confined in her hold. With survivors from the
cutter now manning her, they would sail her on to Boston, where the
admiral there would decide her fate.

Deirdre, however, was only concerned with her
patient, whose side she had not left since she’d extracted the
musket ball six days before. She had carefully packed and bandaged
his shoulder, walked beside him as Teach and Hendricks had carried
him back to his cabin, and held his hand until he had finally
succumbed to a strong draught of laudanum. In the days since, she
had maintained a faithful vigil beside his bed.

Now, on this night nearly a week after the
battle, she stood on deck, gripping the salt-sticky rail and gazing
up at the panorama of stars twinkling in the vast sky above. The
ocean merged with the night around her. Moonlight frosted the
sails, the guns, the deck planking; a harsh wind gusted off the
North Atlantic and drove through her clothes, chilling her to the
bone.

But she felt alive, exhilarated, and
strangely . . .
free.

Beneath her feet, the frigate rose and
plunged and rose again in a timeless rhythm that brought with it a
sense of eternity. From around her came the sounds of masts
creaking and groaning, the hiss of spray at the bows, waves
breaking against the hull. She drew the sea air deeply into her
lungs. Then she gazed out over the blackened waters, where the
reflection of moon and stars coasted atop the restless wave
crests.

“Christian,” she said softly.

She felt strange and new, as though her heart
had been flushed clean of the bitterness, hatred, and need for
revenge that it had carried for so long. and was now aching to be
filled with something good, something joyous, something
wonderful.

Below, the sea fell away in great sheets of
foam that glinted in the darkness as the frigate smashed down on
each heavy swell. Above, the stars were so close she could reach up
and touch them. “Christian,” she said again, her voice carried away
by the breeze. “It doesn’t matter anymore that ye’re an Englishman,
one of the enemy. I’m tired of fightin’ what I feel for ye in my
heart. I know, now, that what ye did to me brother all those years
ago was somethin’ ye didn’t want to be doin’. Ye was just followin’
orders. That’s what ye do. Ye’re an officer, who knows no other way
of life but discipline and servin’ yer country.”

The wind snapped the pennants high above.

“It was the
Navy’s
fault, Christian.
Not yers. And to think of all these years I hated
you
. .
.”

She didn’t hate him now . . . But just when
had she begun to love him?

Perhaps when he had discovered her aboard the
frigate, intervened on her behalf, and carried her to safety in his
powerful arms. Perhaps with that first, unforgettable meeting,
thirteen long years ago. She did not know. She did not care. But
the seeds had been sown, somewhere, sometime, and that love had
grown with each act of kindness and patience he’d shown her, each
time she’d watched him tending his little canine family, each
instance he would have been justified in punishing his crew with
the harsh and brutal discipline for which the Royal Navy was
famous—but had instead reacted with compassion, inventiveness, and
yes,
humanity.

Love.

The final revelation had come during those
terrible moments in the surgeon’s bay—when Teach had carried him
down and she had thought him dead. When fate in the form of a
Frenchman’s musket ball had placed him in her hands. When he had
gazed up at her, his calm gray eyes reflecting trust and confidence
that she, Deirdre O’Devir, could succeed where the surgeon had
failed.

When he had trusted her with his life.

Love.

Above, the stars grew brilliant, sparkling
like chips of crystal in a vast and inky sky. The ocean took on a
mysterious beauty, and the frigate’s lights spread searching
fingers of gold across the waves, as though the ship was reaching
out across forever toward her own destiny.

But the frigate, all alone on the sea as she
drove steadily on toward Boston, had no one but the lonely helmsman
and the bow watch with whom to share the beauty of the night.

The spot at the rail where Deirdre O’Devir
had stood was empty.

###

He had beautiful hair.

With trembling fingers, she reached out and
touched it.

The Lord and Master was asleep, deeply so,
thanks to a strong draught of laudanum that Hendricks had slipped
into his tea. But it gave Deirdre the opportunity to study this
enigmatic man without those cold gray eyes taking her measure. In
sleep, and softened by the glow of the single lantern, his face
wasn’t quite so austere and forbidding; in sleep, it was handsome
and youthful, the years dropping away, until he was once again the
fair-haired lieutenant who’d bent down to calm and reassure a
frightened little girl.

Somewhere in a darkened corner of the cabin,
she heard the sounds of the puppies in their box, of Tildy quietly
licking their tiny bodies. Beside her, the captain’s steady,
rhythmic breathing was the only other sound. Deirdre sighed, a
warm, loving feeling suffusing her heart, and suddenly she wished
that
she
had a family, too. A man to love her, care for her,
cherish her . . .

Christian.

By the light of the lantern swinging gently
from the beams above, she pulled up a chair and sat beside him.
Carefully, she took his hand, letting her gaze move over his face.
Yes, he had beautiful hair. It was thick and pale and wavy, the
color of sunlight at the hottest part of the day, though in the
soft light of the lantern, it was almost amber. Leaning forward,
she reached out to touch it, and found it soft and springy to the
touch.

She looked at him, seeing him as though for
the first time. At the haughty, well-shaped brows . . . the nose
that was straight and proud; his lashes, thick and pale, bleached
at the tips and lying heavily against high and prominent
cheekbones. She’d never realized that a man could have such long
lashes, that a man could have such beautiful hair; she’d never
realized how handsome and vulnerable a man could look in sleep; and
never, ever, in a thousand years had she thought to apply any of
those words—
handsome, beautiful, vulnerable
—to the cold and
enigmatic captain of His Majesty’s Ship
Bold Marauder.

The cabin seemed suddenly stuffy, the air
cloying and still. Mesmerized, Deirdre let her fingers drift to the
pale locks that swept back from his temple, and then the faded
bruise just beneath. Her touch lingered there, feeling the fragile
pulse that beat beneath her fingertips.

Her eyes filled with gentle wonder.

He was an Englishman.
The enemy. Part
of that hated race that had been tramping on the rights and land of
her people for centuries. But enemies were supposed to be cold and
alien, monstrous and inhuman—weren’t they? Yet this man’s skin was
as warm as her own. His pulse beat just as strongly as hers did,
his chest rose and fell with the same breath, and the blood that
had flowed so freely from his shoulder was just as red as hers.

Her throat tightened as she remembered his
agony during the surgery. As stoic as he had been, he had felt pain
as acutely as any Irishman she’d ever known.

Weren’t enemies supposed to be . . .
different?

But no. He was human, warm and alive and
breathing. He had hopes and fears, dreams and visions, and
somewhere, people who cared about and loved him.
He was no
different than she was
—except he’d been born in a different
place.

Deirdre swallowed against the lump in her
throat.

“I’m sorry, Christian,” she whispered, her
heart aching. “God help me, I’m so sorry . . .”

She lifted his hand and held it to her cheek,
seeing his face, the pulse beating at his throat, the magnificent,
muscled expanse of his chest—and remembering how safe she’d felt
when he’d gathered her against it and let her cry all those weeks
ago when the men had been about to whip her.

She reached out and touched his bandaged
shoulder, then placed her hand directly over his heart, feeling it
beating steadily beneath her palm. Then, unbidden, her gaze moved
downward, to the covers that draped his hips.

Heat flooded her cheeks. She did not have to
lift the blankets to know he was naked beneath.

His tortured confession—that he was unable to
function as a man—suddenly came back to her.
And as for your
precious virtue, you needn’t worry about me compromising it, Miss
O’ Devir. I have been unable to feel anything for any woman since
my wife died, and you, I can assure you, haven’t a prayer of
stirring lusts I no longer have.

What was wrong with him that he lacked this .
. . ability? What possible defect could he have? And who, God help
her, would ever know if she lifted the blanket for a wee second,
just to see for herself what this horrible defect was?

She bit her lip and shot a nervous glance
toward the door. What if Hendricks came? What if Evans looked in on
them? What if—

No. It was late. No one would come. It was
just her, and Captain Lord.

Go ahead. Look. He’ll never know . . .

Swallowing hard, Deirdre reached down and,
gingerly gripping the blanket between her thumb and forefinger,
lifted it.

###

Emily.

He braced himself, even though he knew it was
the nightmare in all its horrifying familiarity; he heard the same
noises downstairs, crept from the empty bed, descended the stairs,
and paused behind the door. He heard her laughter and saw the two
bodies entwined; he heard his own howl of rage and saw the
intruder, terrified and cowardly, fleeing.

This time, Christian vowed, he’d bloody well
kill the bastard.

But this time, the nightmare was
different.

Her voice rang out behind him, pleading and
desperate. “Christian, no! Let it go! You know what will happen if
you don’t! He’ll throw the lantern and there’ll be a fire! I’ll
die,
Christian, and this nightmare will haunt you for the
rest of your days!”

She
knew
about the nightmare?
Confusion drove through him. The hall seemed unreal and fantastic,
and beneath his feet, the cold marble floor surged back and forth,
not unlike the deck of a ship. Yes, it was a dream. But if he kept
going, it would become the nightmare.

“Don’t
do
it, Christian!”

He paused, hearing her lover fleeing the
house; then, with a fierce cry, Christian turned and ran back to
that closed door, knowing this would be the only chance he would
ever have to forgive her, put an end to the nightmare—

He flung open the door and saw her.

“Christian,” she said in a husky
dream-voice.

His mouth fell open and the breath caught in
his throat. He stumbled back against the doorframe, shaking
badly.

She was lying on the sofa. Her legs were
open, her eyes were hungry, and she was naked.

Waiting for him.

###

Deirdre hadn’t meant to do more than just
peek
at him, and briefly at that. She hadn’t meant to do
more than just
look
at his maleness for a moment, to see
what it was about it that made him unable to function.

She had only seen one man naked, and that had
been this one, at the beginning of this eventful voyage, but she
had seen stallions, she had seen dogs, she had seen cattle and
sheep—and yes, she had heard stories.

Unable to function, he’d implied.

And her words:
Useless as a man.

He’d been right.

There was no big secret beneath the covers,
nothing to hold one’s breath over, and with an odd, empty feeling
of sadness, she stared at the limp and flaccid flesh that lay
nestled in the patch of hair between his thighs.

Useless as a man.

She felt pity for Captain Lord, and then
anger that she felt the pity. He had told her the truth. There was
no way that this sad bit of pale flesh could ever do a man’s work,
like the proud stallion with the feisty mare. What lay beneath her
gaze was slack and still.

Her breath came out on a sigh. Slowly, she
peeled the blanket back, farther and farther, finally laying it
across his knees and exposing the whole of his loins to her
blushing gaze. Pity, that such a proud and handsome specimen of a
man—even if he
was
English—was so . . . deformed.

But here was the proof.

She reached down, thinking to pull the covers
back up over his groin, but instead, her fingers strayed to the
limp curve of flesh.

It was warm; quite so, in fact. Holding her
breath, she nervously glanced at its owner’s face. He didn’t move.
Bolder now, she looked back at the thicket of springy hair, slid
her fingers into it and then, carefully, beneath the male flesh.
She stared at it; then she stared up at his still face; then she
stared back at the warm flesh in her hand, and felt it give a
little quiver.

Deirdre’s brows drew close in a frown.
Slowly, she passed her thumb over the warm flesh, and felt it
quiver once more.