Free Lord Of The Sea by Danelle Harmon

make sail and hightail it out of here before things got too complicated. In short, he would. . . .
    Behave himself.
    His sense of balance restored, Connor’s mood brightened considerably. He had left one of Kestrel ’s two boats pulled up on the beach and now he pushed it out into the surf, climbed in and took up the oars and, tipping his head back to look at the thousands of stars scattered across the inverted black bowl of the night sky, whistled jauntily as he rowed himself back to the schooner.
    Funny, how resolve could restore good spirits.
    “Ahoy, there, Kestrel !”
    A face appeared over the rail, dimly lit by the glow of a lantern hung in the shrouds.  It was Jacques, standing the midnight watch. “Welcome back, Capitaine . I trust your dinner with the admiral and your sister went well?”
    “Well enough, Jacques.”
    Another form melted out of the darkness as Connor hauled himself over the rail.
    “You’re back early.”
    “And you’re up late, Nathan. I hope Toby hasn’t turned in for the night . . . I owe him a chess match.”
    “He’s in your cabin with the board all laid out and ready.” And then, in a quieter voice, “Thanks for not keeping him waiting . . . you know he hangs on your ever word, Con.”
    Connor smiled. He was tired, and he might have sought his own bunk after a day in the hot tropical sun, but he knew his young cousin all but idolized him and he would not disappoint him. The lad was only fourteen, thin and freckled and sensitive in nature, though there were flashes of his father Matthew’s Yankee scrappiness in the youngster’s temperament that pleased Connor to no end. Though Toby served as Kestrel ’s midshipman, Connor had always thought he was better suited to study law or medicine, but he was an Ashton and determined to measure up to his brother and Merrick cousins as best he could.
    Forward, the bell rang out, signaling the end of the watch. Jacques saluted his captain and then Nathan, who had come up to relieve him of the deck, and headed off below.
    “I suppose you charmed the stockings off the poor girl,” Nathan murmured, leaning his elbows on the rail and gazing out into the night where boats, small craft and large vessels, all of them dwarfed by Sir Graham’s big flagship, were beginning to turn in the tide.
    “She’s too young for me. But I confess, she’s caught my eye in a way I wish she hadn’t.”
    “Don’t think she’s the one for you, Con. You ought to find yourself a good Yankee lass, not an Englishwoman whose country we’re at war with.”
    “She’s not English, she’s Welsh.”
    “Doesn’t change the fact we’re still at war with her country.”
    “No, it does not, but you and I both know nothing will come of it, Nathan. I don’t have time for a dalliance. We’ll only stay here long enough to scrape the weed from the old lady’s bottom, get her provisioned for a short cruise, and then we’re off. A man isn’t going to get rich sitting around in the harbor.”
    “Nay, he won’t. But don’t break her heart, Con.”
    “We won’t be here long enough for that to happen. And oh, speaking of getting rich, did you find out anything about that convoy?”
    “Aye. A good two dozen ships are already harboring in St. Vincent and getting ready to make sail back to England. Carrying quite a cargo between them, too. They’ll be well armed, Con.”
    “I’m not worried about it. Don’t tell me that you are, either.”
    “Just saying.”
    “Right. Maybe a short cruise westward is in order within the next day or so. And now, I’m off . . . far be it from me to keep your little brother waiting.”
     
    #     #     #
     
    Unable to sleep, Rhiannon was also still up at that late hour.
    The verandah ran along the entire rear of the second floor of Sir Graham’s beautiful island home, and her bedroom opened out onto this lovely place at which to sit, sip a glass of punch, and gaze up at what had to be a million stars above her head. Down