Read Online Captain of My Heart by Danelle Harmon - Free Book Online

to
consider it further, a fact of which he was painfully reminded as
he took a seat and looked down at a table that smelled of fresh
beeswax and tossed his bare-chested reflection back at him like a
mirror.
    Stuffing his watch back in his pocket and
still hollering for Abigail, Ephraim stormed out of the room. Good God, Brendan thought, his ears ringing. He’d never felt
so embarrassed in his life. And now something cold and wet was
touching his bare ankle, and he knew, without looking, that it was
the nose of the dog.
    And then he forgot his state of undress, his
humiliation, and even the dog as a plate was shoved beneath his
nose and a fork thrust between his fingers. There was his
longed-for leg of mutton, stuffed with oysters and accompanied by
thick wedges of cheese, sauce, and pickles.
    And beside it, dwarfing it with enormity and
ugliness, was a shapeless, lumpy mass of quivering yellow slime
that looked like the remains of a dead jellyfish.
    He dropped his fork.
    “I hope you like Indian pudding!” Gulping,
Brendan looked up. A plump, apple-cheeked little woman bustled
about, clucking like a mother hen and briskly arranging salt and
pepper and a pitcher of cold milk. She smelled like flour and had
bright, birdlike eyes that didn’t miss a trick. “Our dear little
Mira made it herself. She’s quite a cook, isn’t she? Here, help
yourself,” she said, plunking a silver bowl down before him.
“There’s plenty more where that came from!”
    That didn’t surprise him. Slowly Brendan
picked up his fork, stared down at his plate—and choked back a tide
of nausea. The woman—Abigail?—was smiling at him, hands steepled
beneath her chin, eyes glowing with pride.
    Waiting.
    “Go on!” she urged.
    There was no way out. Steeling himself,
Brendan cut a piece of the meat and slowly placed it in his mouth.
It was cold, but it was good—and recognizable.
    Mutton, all right.
    “Isn’t that good? Here, you eat up. You’re
awfully lean. We can’t have our guests leaving the table with no
meat on their bones, now, can we?”
    She hovered about, humming and clucking and tsk-tsk- ing some more. Brendan took another bite of the
mutton—a very small bite—chewing it as slowly as possible,
prolonging the inevitable, and willing to make it last until
Christmas if he had to despite the ravenous hunger it awakened in
him. If only the woman would leave. He wished it with all his
heart. He prayed . Anything, dear Lord, so that he wouldn’t
have to eat that . . . that pudding.
    He was down to one last, pitiful bite of the
meat when his prayers were answered from a most unlikely
source—Ephraim. As the old man began bellowing from a thankfully
distant corner of the house, Abigail, mobcap askew and petticoats
flying, bustled out of the room with an “Oh dear,” and a “Here we
go again,” and he was left— thank God — to himself.
    He didn’t waste a single precious minute.
    Quickly scraping the slimy mass that didn’t
look like any pudding he’d ever seen into a quivering ball, Brendan
shot a quick glance at the door, grabbed his plate, and slid it
beneath the table where the dog waited so expectantly.
    Frenzied sniffing. A clang of the plate
against the floor as the dog began to bolt the food. Then,
silence.
    The animal backed out from beneath the table
and, throwing Brendan a look of betrayal and disgust, slunk from
the room.
    Brendan, frowning, lifted the tablecloth and
peered under the table.
    The pudding was uneaten.
     

Chapter
4
     
    William Davenport had been a Newburyport man
who’d seen General Wolfe die on the Plains of Abraham, and it was
something he never forgot. On his return to Newburyport, he’d
converted his home into a tavern, hung a sign out front on which
was faithfully carved and painted a bust of the famous general, and
swung open his door for business.
    In the years since, Wolfe Tavern, at the
corner of State Street and Threadneedle Alley, had become the most
popular spot in town. The long,