Master of My Dreams (34 page)

Only Delight seemed to feel no trepidation
over the impending exchange. “Roddy knows what he’s doing,
Deirdre,” she’d said when she’d come to apologize for not revealing
the Foleys’ rebel tendencies. “This is just one more mission. The
Lord and Master knows nothing of it, just as he knows nothing of
our involvement with the patriot cause. You just watch. Roddy will
get the guns, Adams and Revere and Hancock will meet him on shore,
and the cargo will be safely transported to Concord. There is no
need to be so scared.”

“I love my brother,” Deirdre had murmured,
twisting the ring that weighed so heavily upon her finger. “But I
love me future husband, too. And here I am, unable to protect
either one of ’em, and stuck in the middle of hostilities between
two lands that aren’t my own. Dear God, what a mess.”

“You’re not angry, then, that I never told
you we’re rebels?”

“No. But please, don’t try to draw me into
yer quibbles with England. I can sympathize with yer plight here in
the colonies, for Britain treats yer people no better than she does
mine—but the truth of the matter is that I love an Englishman, will
marry an Englishman, and to help ye in any way would be to betray
the man I love.”

“You’ll have to choose a side,” Delight had
replied quietly. “Your betrothed may be a king’s officer, but your
brother is a rebel, Deirdre.”

“Aye, and that creates a bit of a problem.”
Deirdre had raised her head, and her eyes had shone with pride as
she met the gaze of her friend. “But I am
Irish
. And as
such, I’ll stay true to my own heart.”

Her heart—which lay ten miles away, in the
cabin of a mighty frigate, in the care of the most wonderful man in
the world.

Drawing the quilt around her, she laid her
forearms over the damp windowsill, rested her cheek against her
wrists, and closed her eyes. Moments later, she was asleep, her
little bag of dwindling Irish mementos at her side, Christian’s
shirt against her skin, and her face turned toward Boston.

Chapter 28

Late the following afternoon, the dreary
weather continued, and it did nothing to dispel the worries of
those who stood in the Foley yard, bidding good-bye to the Irish
Pirate.

Rain had darkened his tricorne to a shade
very near the inky blackness of his curls, caught in a thong of
leather and hanging over his turned-up collar. Water dripped from
the brim, trickling down his back and soaking his wool coat. His
mare’s hide was wet and steaming, and as Roddy swung up into the
saddle, he gave her neck a fond slap and gazed down at the two
girls who had braved the raw weather to see him off.

“Godspeed, my handsome smuggler,” Dolores Ann
murmured. She tilted her face up to his, her tongue suggestively
touching the corners of her lips, then tracing their perimeter in a
way that caused his eyes to darken and his blood to burn through
his veins. A delight, was the widow Dolores, Roddy thought,
remembering their “walk” of this morning. That walk had given them
both plenty of exercise—but not in the manner in which the elder
Foleys might have been led to believe . . .

He saw his sister, her eyes dark with worry,
standing just behind Dolores. She was still the same gentle, sweet
sibling he’d known and loved in Connemara when he was a mere lad
and she barely out of swaddling clothes. And she still wore that
ancient cross, the first thing she touched when fear overcame
her.

She was touching it now. Not just touching
it, but gripping it with such ferocity it was a wonder the metal
didn’t bend.

Reining his horse around, Roddy went to her,
leaned down in the saddle, and embraced her. “Please understand,
Deirdre. I know ye don’t hold with the rebel cause, but ’tis
important t’ me. Yer foolish English captain doesn’t even know I’m
sailin’. So wipe that frown off yer face and send me off with a
smile, eh?”

“That
'foolish English captain’
is to
be my husband, Roddy,” she reminded him, the rain wet upon her
cheeks. Her mouth was tight. “Please don’t talk of him like
that.”

Roddy’s jaw hardened. He had no love for
Captain Lord, and the rocks would be gone from the fields of
Connemara before he’d allow the Briton who had pressed him into the
English Navy to wed his little sister. He’d see the bastard dead,
first! But for now, he would keep his silence, trusting that
separation from the Englishman, as well as the Foley’s gentle
influence, would bring Deirdre around to the rebel sympathies.

“’Tis sorry I be, Deirdre,” he said, touching
his thumb to his sister’s cheek and wiping away a trickle of
rainwater. Beneath him, the mare fidgeted, eager to be off. “But
ye’ll forgive me if yer Englishman is not on me list o’ favorite
people. Perhaps someday I can forgive him, as you have—but not
now.”

Straightening up, he gallantly tipped his hat
to the two girls, blew Delight a kiss, and galloped off, his cloak
billowing behind him.

###

HMS
Bold Marauder,
cruising slowly
through the dark, wind-ruffled seas a league off Cape Ann, had just
completed another long tack when the lookout’s voice came down
through the mists that smothered the tops and yards so high
above.

“On deck! Lights blinkin’ two points off the
starboard bow!”

On the quarterdeck, Christian turned to stare
off into the night. It was the signal he’d been waiting for.

“Beat to quarters,” he said quietly, “but no
drums and no bosun’s whistles. I want everything done in complete
silence.”

His voice was barely above conversational
tones, but so quiet was the ship, so eager and tense was every man
in the crew, that everyone heard his command—and indeed, had been
expecting it.

Anxiety instantly gave way to action. With
hushed urgency and brisk efficiency, men darted through the
darkness to their stations, some running to the huge guns that had
already been loaded and run out. Others gathered near the pinrails,
ready to grab sheets and braces in preparation to change tack,
while others scrambled aloft with the nimble ease of monkeys. They
needed no urging from their superiors to keep silent, no direction
as to what to do, for the Lord and Master had had them rehearsing
this moment from the time the frigate, unseen under the cover of
night and fog, had slipped quietly out of Boston Harbor several
hours before.

He was a clever one, their commanding
officer. He had ordered all lanterns doused before they had even
left their anchorage, and ensured that every man knew his task. Now
they worked in darkness that was blacker than Hades, but they knew
their ship so well that they needed no light to traverse decks that
were now treacherously slick with rain and mist and spray.

“We’ll get that smuggler, you just watch,”
Skunk said to Hibbert, who had just come up from below. “Cap’n’s
had us rehearsin’ this moment all bleedin’ day.”

“Aye,” Teach murmured from somewhere in the
darkness. “He’s out for blood. Pity the poor rogue who dares tangle
with
our
Lord and Master!”

Christian, standing beside the wheel on the
pitch-black quarterdeck, heard their comments as he stared off into
the darkness, and those who saw his smile thought it as cold as the
wind that made the folds of his heavy boat cloak billow around him.
The mists made it nearly impossible to see anything off the
starboard beam, but high above the deck in the maintop he knew it
was clear, and the lookout had no such encumbrances to hinder
him.

Forward, he saw a ship’s boy dart out of the
shelter of the bulwarks, but the lad was stopped by Skunk’s meaty
paw before he could ring the ship’s bell to signal that another
half hour had passed. No noises must penetrate the eerie silence to
give them away. One wrong move and the Irish Pirate would escape
them.

“Eight bells, sir,” whispered Ian, coming up
beside him.

Christian nodded. Midnight. He sensed the
anxiety in Ian’s voice, and saw it mirrored in the barely visible
faces of those who surrounded them. “Very well, Ian.” Rain dripped
down from an overhead yard, and his shoulder throbbed with pain.
Ignoring both, Christian walked to the quarterdeck rail and peered
down into the gloomy darkness of the ship’s waist, where a hundred
faces were all turned toward him, eagerly awaiting his command.
Twin rows of dark, hulking shapes made up the batteries of the
frigate’s big guns. He heard the hiss of spray at the bows, the
soft drum of rain on the decks, and the hum of the westerly wind
high up in the tops. Water creamed softly along the sides, and aft,
their wake was lost in fog.
Bold Marauder
was ready. The
guns were ready. His men were ready, and he had the element of
surprise.

Tonight, he vowed, the Irish Pirate would pay
the price of treason against the Crown.

Suddenly Ian gripped his arm and pointed out
into the darkness. “Lights out to larboard now, sir! Looks like an
answering signal from another ship.”

The Irish Pirate.

The fog had begun to thin, and now Christian
could see out over the black seas and into the night, where the
wink of a distant lantern pierced the darkness. Then the mists
closed in again. He glanced at the compass, estimated the vessel’s
position, and looked at his officers, all awaiting his command.
They were a formidable lot, and he harbored as much trust in this
formerly motley crew as he had in any other he’d had the pleasure
to command; Ian, his beard wet with rain, his eyes fierce and
determined; Rhodes, quiet and competent and sinister; Wenham,
chewing on the stem of a pipe he dared not light; and Hibbert,
dressed in a uniform that was desperately in need of a wash.

“Mr. Hibbert!” he snapped, and the midshipman
made his way to his captain’s side.

“Aye, sir?”

Christian’s eyes raked the middie’s unkempt
clothes with mock severity. Then he grinned, for his attempts to
make the youth look the part of an officer had become a ship-wide
joke. “For God’s sake, go change into a clean uniform! This is a
king’s ship
!”

Hibbert smirked, and scampered below. His
captain shook his head, and opened his spyglass. Some things would
never change. But this crew was a far cry from the one he’d left
Portsmouth with. They had quit England in disgrace; soon, now, they
would make both their Navy and their country proud.

He gave the order to change tack and take in
the big courses. Moments later, B
old Marauder
was heeling
over in the wind, slipping like a great, predatory hawk through the
black mists of the night.

###

“Easy with those crates there, lads,” the
Irish Pirate said, anxiously watching as the men, toiling in the
rain, struggled to load the heavy crates aboard the sloop as
quickly as possible. The transfer was happening swiftly, silently,
competently, as it had been done countless times before, as it
would be done countless times again. Boats, struggling in the
swells, moved back and forth between the hove-to merchantman and
the little sloop, their crews cursing and damning the wind and the
rain. Above, the flapping topsail sent down a continued shower, and
rigging banged noisily in impatience. A single lantern, set in the
shrouds a foot above Roddy’s head, provided the only light, and now
it shone harshly upon the dark, bearded faces of men grown hard by
living just beyond the reach of the law.

“One more trip and that’ll do it, Cap’n,”
said a seaman, grinning up through the darkness as his boat nudged
against the rocking hull. He reached up and caught the wet line one
of his mates tossed down, then hauled himself nimbly up the
side.

“Good,” Roddy said, glancing nervously out
into the night. A feeling of doom weighed heavily in his bones, and
he would be happy when the exchange was done and he was safely back
in Menotomy. “Just hurry the bleedin’ hell up, would ye? ’Twill be
dawn by the time ye laggards’ve finished.”

His good humor spurred them into even more
haste, and a half hour later, the boats were back aboard, the
merchantman was slipping away into the mists, and the crates of
guns were being transferred to the hold.

Roddy wiped the rain from his face with the
back of his hand, envisioned Delight’s silky thighs spread beneath
him, and, accepting a hot mug of buttered rum, went aft to join his
first mate by the tiller. Already his spirits were on the rise, and
he breathed a sigh of relief as the staysail was backed, the sloop
turned, and wind began to swell the big mainsail. The mists were
clearing, filing away out to sea as though being towed by an
invisible force, and he could see stars beginning to shine dimly
through the lingering vapors and sliding in and out of the fuzzy
haze.

“’Twill be a fine mornin’, eh, Stubs?” he
said to the one-eyed, scar-faced thief who’d escaped debtors’
prison only to find his fortune at sea.

“Aye, Cap’n. Stars are comin’ out.”

“In more ways than one, me lad, in more ways
than one!” Roddy said, thinking of the woman he had once known as
Dolores Ann and now knew as Delight. He grinned, his teeth flashing
white in the gloom.

“Should I douse the lantern, Cap’n?” asked a
seaman just coming up from below.

“Nay,” Roddy said with an impatient wave of
his hand. He gazed out into the darkness. More stars were
crystallizing through the fading mists now, growing sharper and
brighter as the night cleared. ‘There’s no one out here but
us.”

“Adams is going to be singing our praises for
sure,” Stubs said, accepting a mug from a passing seaman. “Christ,
this is getting easier and easier. The Royal Navy just ain’t what
it used to be!”

“Well, with such incompetent dolts as Captain
Lord to head it, what d’ye expect? He’s probably out combin’ the
seas off Cape Cod, the fool!”