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

’ave s’more
ale, ’twill make it feel better.” Liam dumped a flood of it into
Dalby’s half-empty mug. “What’s this? Not drinkin’, either? God
Almighty, what’s the bloody matter with ye, laddie-o?”
    Anyone in his right mind would know better
than to ask Dalby what the matter was; it was something they’d all
learned not to do. But Liam, in his cups, had grown
careless.
    “I told you, I have a stomachache. Probably
from the beef. It’s gone bad, I just know it has. And that ale
tastes suspicious, too. How do I know where it’s been? How do I
know it wasn’t in someone else’s mug before mine? How do I know
that person didn’t have the smallpox, or a fever—”
    “What’s that, Dalb?” Reilly yelled. “Don’t
want your supper?”
    “Heck, if you don’t want it, slide it over
here and I’ll take it!” Keefe cried.
    Reilly leaped up, knocked Keefe’s hand away
as he reached for Dalby’s plate, and grabbed it for himself. Keefe
responded with a hard punch to Reilly’s jaw. Reilly howled and drew
his own arm back to return it, and Liam casually yanked the plate
away before the dispute could get any worse. “Look at ye, fightin’
like a pack o’ curs over a bone.” He curled his brawny arm around
the plate to guard it and plunged his fork into a greasy slab of
beef. Popping it into his mouth, he chewed loudly, washed it down
with rum, and stabbed another chunk. “And over a hunk o’ meat that
Dalby says ’as gone bad. Fer shame, lads! Fer shame!”
    “Dalby’d say it’s gone bad if they carved it
off the pig right here in front of him.”
    “Pig? You pillock, beef comes off a cow. The
kind with udders.”
    “Ye mean like the ones that serving wench
has?”
    “You keep your eyes off her, Reilly, you hear
me? I saw her first!”
    “The hell with ye, Keefe! I spoke for
her first!”
    Dalby lunged to his feet, so angry the cords
in his neck began to vibrate. “How dare you all sit here and talk
about food and drink and women when our poor captain is dead and
drowned? How dare you!”
    They all stared at him.
    “Now, Dalby.” Liam plucked his napkin from
the table, swiped at his jaw, then tossed the cloth back to his
plate. “The cap’n’s goin’ to be just fine. Ye don’t see me
worryin’, now, do ye?”
    “Just fine?” Dalby wailed, and made a sudden
grab for his chest. He mustn’t holler like that. It wasn’t good for
the heart. Taking several deep breaths to calm himself, he faced
Liam angrily. “That’s easy for you to say now, but you sure weren’t
so confident about things yesterday, if I remember right! The
captain’s not just fine, and you know it! We all saw him get
swept out to sea by the current!”
    “Cap’n can swim,” Saunders grunted, reaching
for his mug.
    “But it was cold last night!”
    “It ain’t cold, it’s summertime.”
    “Aye, the seas are still warm.”
    “This is not the Indies!” Dalby wailed. “And
what if a shark got him?”
    “Ain’t enough fat on the cap’n’s bones.
Shark’ll spit him out.”
    “Not enough fat? Hah, not enough meat,
either,” Liam said, stabbing another chunk of beef. “Always told
him to eat more. Too damned thin fer his own good. Course, if he
had some stoutness to him, he wouldn’t’ve tumbled off o’ the ship
in the first place. And if he had some fat under his hide, he
wouldn’t have t’ worry about stayin’ afloat—”
    “—or keeping warm, either,” Keefe added,
importantly.
    Dalby sat down hard. Oh, how could they sit
here and joke about the captain like that? And Liam—Liam was the
captain’s best friend, and had been ever since Brendan’s father,
the distinguished old Admiral Merrick, had died and his widow had
moved herself and her two children back to her beloved home in
Connemara.
    “Ah, ye worry too much fer yer own good,
Dalby.” Liam leaned back and crossed his massive arms behind his
head, making his chair protest beneath his great, muscled bulk.
“See what it’s