Free By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs by Antoinette Stockenberg

old, "Do you beat your wife
every day?" question. There was no safe answer.
    "What are you getting at?" Seton asked
bluntly, as a dark, angry look settled on his brow.
    "Well, just this: Where there's smoke
there's usually fire. Virtually every sport—the venerable Olympics
included—has been tainted by otherwise proud athletes stooping to
drugs to win the game."
    Iggy had the floor. No one had ever asked
about drugs at an America's Cup press conference before, but he
didn't know that, and so probably he was chalking up the stunned
silence to his bold eloquence. "My question, Captain, is: can you
guarantee that your crew—who, after all, lived under the same roof
as your wife in the usual communal arrangement—can you guarantee
that your crew does not use drugs of any kind?" His voice was
filled with sudden, righteous indignation.
    Alan Seton stared at Iggy for a long, long
moment. People exchanged glances. Iggy looked defiant but
increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, in a low voice Seton said, "I
want to be scrupulously correct in answering your question. One of
my crew, the bow man, gouged his shin jibing the spinnaker last
week. A row of stitches was necessary, and he was prescribed a mild
painkiller. We've had our share of injuries in the last year; we've
had our share of prescriptions. As for your implication—"
    Seton's tanned, handsome face flushed an
even darker shade and he made a move to stand up, but his navigator
Mat Belisma gave a little lurch of his own, obviously preparing to
restrain Seton if necessary.
    "Right," Seton muttered, and aloud he said,
"As for your implication, I think it stinks, mister. You'd like to
know where those kids get their energy and stamina? On Shadow the sandwiches are an inch thick with meat and the
coolers are loaded with apples, Milky Ways, and cookies. Our diet
is absolutely American, a combination of protein and junk food. The
only difference is, since the crewmen are built like brick
shi—built so solidly," he corrected himself, "they eat three times
as much as the average American. They work three times as hard as
most, including me, and they're three times more disciplined than
most. Including me. Why do they do it? Ask them. Just don't insult
them asking how they do it. They're motivated in ways you
could never understand."
    Applause. The room rippled, then swelled
with it. It wasn't for the put-down of Iggy, although there was
some of that; and it wasn't for the all-American crew, although
there was some of that too. It was for Alan Seton, who symbolized
to many in the room the finest kind of America's Cup skipper: a man
of integrity who cared intensely about his crew and—it was corny to
say so out loud, and that was why they were applauding—cared about
the tradition of the America's Cup itself. There was absolutely
nothing to be gained financially from his quest. He was not a sail
maker or a yacht designer who could look forward to a flood of new
business if he succeeded. Nor was he even an exceedingly wealthy
and thrill-seeking elitist. He had added to the very respectable
but not blinding fortune he'd inherited by speculating in
California real estate, and he'd been spending it hand over fist in
an effort to defend the America's Cup for the United States. Lots
of people in the audience thought that he was crazy, but the
dreamers, the eternally questing, they understood. And
applauded.
    Grudgingly, Mavis was applauding too,
because his effort really had been heroic. Her personal feeling
about Alan Seton was that he had a mountainous ego and the
inevitable fatal flaw: he lacked the necessary cynicism to rise
above the pressures of the media, the hangers-on, the social scene.
Out on the water he was a marvel. He had the sure, quick instincts
and inspired brilliance necessary to fight and win what is
essentially a punishing duel between two yachts. But ashore ... a
fish out of water.
    The next question was the obvious one. "What
will you do now?"
    Seton, a little shaken