The Irish Bride by Alexis Harrington Page A

wide. “There you are, then. You can take me to the very place
I need to go, and then go on to New York and bring your wife the
gift she craves with the bonus I’ll pay you. Shall we say half
again as much as you would earn this voyage?”
    The master appeared to think it over,
then shook his head. “No sir, I can’t be doing it. His lordship
wouldn’t like it at all.”
    Noel clenched his jaw. He might seem
incorruptible, but if Noel’s experience at the gaming tables had
taught him anything, it was that every man had a price. Or point of
desperation.
    On the poop deck outside, brisk
footfalls sounded, then faded beyond the closed door.
    “ You might consider this
option, then,” Noel went on in quiet, matter-of-fact tone. “I can
put you off this ship right now and you will find yourself in want
of a position. It would be a grave error on your part to
underestimate my influence, or to assume that you know what my
father wants. And if I put out a few words to the right ears, the
only work you’ll find will be on a leaky whaler bound for
Greenland. It’s dirty work, I hear. Dangerous as well.” The Exeter , a sleek,
well-tended, well-trimmed ship, drifted gently against her
moorings, as if in protest.
    Oliver Royce’s dark brows met briefly.
“I don’t take kindly to threats, Mr. Cardwell.”
    “ I don’t take kindly to being refused. Nor does my father.” Noel
leaned a hip against the table. “If you no longer wish to captain
this ship, I’ll have another master aboard and piloting me to New
Orleans within twenty-four hours. Now what’s it to be, Royce? Will
your wife get a nice gift from this voyage, or merely learn that
her husband is out of work?”
    A tense, nearly palpable pause hung
between them.
    “ We’ll sail tomorrow night
on the evening tide.” The man’s teeth clamped so tightly to his
pipe, Noel heard his jaw pop. “For New Orleans.”
    Noel nodded. “Excellent. Now if you
would be so good as to have someone show me to my quarters, I’ll
settle in.”
    * * *
    On deck, Farrell’s eyes snapped open
at the sound of gurgling screams, distant and yet so filled with
terror, she was positive she had dreamed them. Yet she felt warm
and comfortable for the first time since leaving home. So surely,
she must have been dreaming.
    But she hadn’t been.
    “ Man overboard! A man
overboard!
    She realized that she was warm because
she lay nestled against Aidan’s side with her head pillowed on his
chest and his arm looped around her waist, a fact that made itself
plain when he came awake with a start as well. Hastily, she moved
away and sat up. Her skirt had wound itself around her legs and she
freed them, then pulled her shawl closer to her
shoulders.
    “ What’re they saying, then?”
Aidan asked, instantly alert. He was only a dark silhouette in the
feeble light of the ship’s few lamps.
    She tried to see beyond his shape
where crewmen scurried. “God above, I think someone has fallen into
the sea.”
    “ Jesus.” Instinctively, he
crossed himself, then pushed his dark hair off his brow and stood.
He held out his hand to help Farrell to her feet, and they went to
the railing. But there was only a scrap of moon, and the stars were
overlaid by a gauzy film of clouds. They didn’t provide enough
light to see much. Another gurgling cry sounded, faint and
indistinct.
    “ Can ye see anything?” she
asked, her fist at her chest. “Can you see the poor soul?” How much
more fragile life seemed when cast into an immense expanse of black
water.
    Closer to the bow, life buoys and a
crate splashed into the water. Aidan still held her hand in his, a
strong, warm hand that gave her odd comfort, and instinctively she
squeezed it, her fear momentarily overriding her desire to keep her
distance from him. Around them, the other passengers asleep on deck
woke up, confused, asking questions, speculating.
    “ Lord save us, someone’s
gone into the ocean.”
    “ A passenger?”
    “ I don’t know.