Master Of My Dreams by Danelle Harmon

Author:Danelle Harmon [Harmon, Danelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: historical romance, Romance, sexy romance, swashbuckling, swashbuckler, danelle harmon, georgian england, steamy romance, colonial boston, sea adventures
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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.

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