My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles) Read online

  PRAISE FOR LAURIE ALICE EAKES

  REGARDING A LADY’S HONOR

  “Beautiful nineteenth-century Cornwall offers a contemplative setting for this dramatic romance that involves murder, suspense, and a surprise villain.”

  —Romantic Times, *****

  “Eakes delivers beautifully written romantic suspense set in Cornwall during the Regency era.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  REGARDING A NECESSARY DECEPTION

  “Laurie Alice Eakes is one of the best storytellers the world has today.”

  —Delle Jacobs, award-winning author of His Majesty, the Prince of Toads

  “Eakes weaves the fine silk threads of historical richness, dangerous intrigue, and forbidden romance into a flawless literary tapestry . . . that will leave readers breathless.”

  —Louise M. Gouge, award-winning author of Then Came Faith

  “A page-turning story with an in-depth knowledge of the period, an eye for detail, and an escalating mystery that will keep readers guessing till the end.”

  —Ruth Axtell Morren, author of Wild Rose and The Rogue’s Redemption

  REGARDING LADY IN THE MIST

  “Readers will not be able to put this gem of a novel down.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Secrets, suspense, and a sweetly told love story make this a highly rewarding read.”

  —Cheryl Bolen, Holt Medallion–winning author of One Golden Ring

  ALSO BY LAURIE ALICE EAKES

  When the Snow Flies

  The Carpenter’s Inheritance

  The Glassblower

  The Heiress

  The Newcomer

  Better than Gold

  Collision of the Heart

  The Honorable Heir

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Laurie Alice Eakes

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503937635

  ISBN-10: 1503937631

  Cover design by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative

  To my agent, Natasha Kern, for believing in my ability to write, my career, and, above all, me

  CONTENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Preview: True as Fate

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The War of 1812 may be the most fascinating war America has ever gotten herself into. The majority of our citizens opposed it, though Great Britain was behaving badly, bullying our merchantmen, stealing our sailors, and telling us where we could and could not trade as though we were still their colonies. Yet we had no business taking on the most powerful nation in the world—again. We pitted our 18 naval vessels against their 506, our ragtag army against their well-oiled war machine. We lost nearly every land battle we fought. And yet we excelled in the water, conquering the British through their merchant fleet, and gained every concession in the Treaty of Ghent we demanded.

  As with every war, however, the price was lives lost or broken, fortunes lost and won, and families torn apart. This story is about how a handful of people try to rise above enmity of nations and find common ground, loyalty, and love.

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Caribbean Sea

  September 1812

  Nothing to worry about.” Her observation of the ship on the horizon complete, Deirdre MacKenzie shoved the spyglass into her waistband, swung into the rigging, and slid down a backstay to land on the deck with a barefooted thud. “It’s only a British merchantman, Captain, sir.”

  Daniel MacKenzie gave her a faint smile, amused to have her call him Captain instead of Father, as she had done since she could talk. Despite the smile, his face remained pale, grayish due to the ill health that had plagued him since their rough passage around Cape Horn. “If it’s only a merchantman, we’re safe running up the Stars and Stripes.”

  “Are you certain about that, sir?” the first mate, Ross Trenerry, asked from where he stood manning the Baltimore clipper’s wheel. “We haven’t been what one would call friends with the British lately.”

  “Only their navy, Ross.” Father pressed one hand to his chest, and his breath rasped loudly enough to be heard above the whistle of wind in the rigging.

  Deirdre bit her lip. She wanted to wrap her arm around her father’s too-thin frame and lead him below, suggest he lie on his bunk and let Ross or her make contact with the other merchant ship if the British came their way. He wouldn’t welcome the solicitude, though. She knew that all too well.

  “British merchantmen aren’t impressing men from American merchants.” Deirdre spoke more to reassure herself than convince Ross or her father.

  Ross shook shaggy, dark hair out of his face and snorted. “The British think they can do whatever they want. I think we’re better off hightailing it out of here.”

  “You may be right.” Father sounded as though he’d been running a footrace. “I’d like a bit more wind . . . for that. Deirdre, nip up top again and get their heading. We’ll evade . . . them . . .”

  “Sir—” She wanted to stay near him when he looked so poorly. But he was her father and her captain, and one condition of being allowed to stay aboard these past ten years, working as a crewman on voyages such as this recent one from Alexandria, Virginia, to Canton, China, and back was that she obey him without question. “Yes, sir.”

  She exchanged a glance with Ross. His eyes held the same concern she felt. He swung his glance toward her father, then jabbed a thumb toward his chest. The message was clear—he would take care of their ailing leader.

  Still reluctant, Deirdre swung into the rigging and climbed to the crosstrees with practiced ease. The slanting rigging of the Baltimore clipper was harder to negotiate than a ship-rigged vessel with straight masts, but the speed with which they could sail made every other hazard worth the risk. With wind, they could outrun everything, especially a British merchantman.

  One arm hooked around a line to hold her in place sixty feet above the deck, she held the telescope to her eye. A moment or two passed while she adjusted balance and vision to the increased sway at the top of the mainmast. Then the glorious view of the world came into focus through the magnifying lens—blue sky, bluer water, white lines of gently rising wave crests. Hot sun blazed down on the water, shimmering and sparkling like half-submerged gold and gleaming off the pale sails of the distant ship. Merchantman for certain, and the Bri
tish Union Jack prominently displayed and unmistakable at her masthead even at that distance.

  “They’re on a due easterly heading,” Deirdre shouted to the nearest man in the rigging, a half Seneca man called Blaze for the white streak through his black hair.

  He passed the word to the deck. The other thirteen crewmen, whether on duty or not, stood to attention, sail mending or personal laundry forgotten when any moment they might need to spring into the rigging and change tack.

  No order to do so came from her father. The men began to drift back to their tasks, and no one raised the Stars and Stripes. Apparently, her father had decided that the British ship would miss them altogether if they continued their own north-by-northwest course. He’d chosen that direction as the safest action. Yet he didn’t order up more sail. In a moment, Deirdre realized why.

  The wind was dying. What had been a brisk blow at sunrise had steadily dropped throughout the morning. Now, at early afternoon, with the sun at its zenith, its heat seemed to beat everything into somnolence—including the precious wind. Once-billowing sails began to slacken and drooped from their yards. Crewmen wiped sweat from their brows and glanced toward the west.

  Dry-mouthed, Deirdre used the telescope to look to the west. The British merchantman should be becalmed, too.

  She wasn’t. Like a graceful sea creature, she glided across the water. Her heading changed. Instead of a tack that would take her well past their stern, she now headed straight for the Maid of Alexandria.

  “Sweeps!” Deirdre dropped the spyglass in her scramble to reach the deck. “They’ve got sweeps.” She sucked in a mouthful of briny air. “And big guns.”

  In the Caribbean especially, oars long enough they required at least three men to operate them, along with cannon ranged along the gunwales, meant only one thing: the Union Jack was a trick, a ruse to engender a sense of safety.

  Ross swore and gripped the near-useless wheel with such force his knuckles showed white through his tanned skin. Behind Deirdre, old Wat Drummond muttered “pirates” as though it were the worst of disasters.

  To a frail schooner like the Maid of Alexandria, it was a disaster. The Baltimore-clipper-style schooners were equipped to run, not fight. Without wind, they couldn’t run. Their ordnance consisted of four one-pounders, a cutlass apiece for the fifteen crewmen, and a sword for her father.

  Deirdre read the hopelessness of this disadvantage in her father’s face, now blue-lipped and beaded with perspiration. He met her gaze with eyes the same pale green as her own. “Deirdre, get below.”

  She dropped her hand to the dirk sheathed at her belt. “No, sir.”

  “That’s . . . an order.”

  “I’m disobeying you, sir. I’m useless below.”

  “You’re safer below.”

  She crossed her arms over breasts bound to maintain the illusion that she was a tall, gangly youth of fifteen, not a woman of twenty-three. “No, sir. I am as much a part of this crew as any of the men. If they fight, I fight.”

  For several moments, only the flap of limp canvas and creak of timbers broke the silence that fell across the deck. Deirdre held her father’s gaze in a wordless battle of wills they’d fought since she could talk. The crew looked away, staring toward the approaching enemy, faces taut, waiting for the family battle to end and their captain to give orders to collect arms, run out the guns, or raise a white flag.

  Deirdre took a step away from her father and toward the nearest gun.

  “You know this means . . . you will . . . never sail with me . . . again.” Her father’s call was labored.

  Deirdre’s heart staggered in aching response. She should be reaching toward him, not backing away from him. But this was not the time to argue. She could not skulk in her cabin or the hold while her fellow crewmen and, most of all, her father suffered at the hands of pirates.

  “So be it, sir.” Deirdre’s voice sounded thick in her ears. “But right now, the men need orders to take up arms and fight.” She turned her back on her father.

  In that instant, gunfire split the stillness.

  Deirdre raced for the nearest cannon. It looked like a child’s toy compared to the gun that blasted the stillness. But she was a good shot. If she laid even a one-pounder in the right place like along a line of sweeps, or into the crowd of men on the fo’c’sle . . .

  She made calculations of barrel angle as she kicked open the gunport. Yanking off the tackle rope holding the weapon secure, she ran through the steps of ramming, priming, firing.

  Firing. She needed fire to light the fuse.

  She spun toward the galley.

  Ross and Blaze tackled her halfway down the main deck. The three of them tumbled to the planking, winded, struggling to disentangle arms and legs.

  Above them, another blast from the English vessel ripped the day in two. A cannonball sailed through the bowsprit, shattering it to kindling.

  “Let me go.” Deirdre punched Ross in the belly with one fist and Blaze in the jaw with another. “If you’re all cowards—”

  “MacKenzie’s dying.”

  Deirdre caught her breath at Ross’s stark announcement. “No!”

  But a glance toward the quarterdeck told her that her father no longer stood there. He lay on the deck, Old Wat and Zeb, a former slave, bent over him.

  “No.” Though she repeated the denial, the fight drained out of her. She stumbled to her feet on the canting deck and headed aft.

  Ross and Blaze turned toward the schooner’s pitiful excuse for ordnance. She pushed Zeb and Wat aside so she could kneel at MacKenzie’s head. “What is it, Father?”

  His breath rasped and rattled. He didn’t speak.

  “What is it?” Deirdre laid her hand on his brow. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Apoplexy,” Wat said.

  “What should we do?” Deirdre didn’t know to whom she posed the question.

  Her father answered. “Get . . . below.” He gave the order around a wheeze. “Surrender.”

  “Not after this. We—” She stopped. A rattling breath and glazed eyes told her that her father, her captain, had heard her argue with him for the last time.

  Her chest tightened. Her throat closed. Springing to her feet, she whipped the dirk from her belt. “Why are you all just standing here? Run out all the guns. Break out the swords. We can’t run, but we can fight them off.”

  No one moved.

  Toward the bow, the enemy ship drew near enough for her to see details without a spyglass. Long guns bristled from the bow and along the beam. Men swarmed across the deck and maneuvered the sweeps, at least three times the number of men than on the Maid.

  “We can’t fight them.” Wat gave her a pitying look. “Not unless we’re all ready to die trying.”

  “Your captain died.” Deirdre swallowed against the hitching lump in her throat. “Are you going to let them get away with driving my father to his death?”

  In response, Blaze stepped forward and began to run a white flag up the masthead.

  “Stop!” Deirdre flung herself at him.

  Ross caught her by the upper arms and swung her around to face him. “You stop.” His words came out harder-voiced than she thought possible spoken in a South Carolina drawl, and he gave her a none-too-gentle shake. “We don’t have the men or arms to fight. We’ll be prisoners, but we’ll have a chance at living and even escaping. If we fight, we’ll die for sure.”

  “Suit yourself.” Deirdre tried to pull away. “I’m going to fight them.”

  “No, you’re not.” Ross spoke with utter assurance.

  As though he had given a command, every one of the Maid’s crew closed ranks around her, hemming her in like prison walls.

  “You’re going to stand here and keep your mouth shut so they don’t notice you’re a girl, just like we do every time we meet another vessel. We don’t want them to work out that you’re the captain’s daughter when we won’t be able to protect you.”

  Deirdre gritted her teeth. She hate
d to admit that Ross was right. As the captain’s daughter, she would be held for a higher ransom at best. At the worst, as a female . . .

  A thud jarred the clipper from stem to stern. Without looking, Deirdre knew the enemy had grappled their ship to the Maid. In moments, pirates in the guise of British merchantmen would swarm aboard and take over her father’s beloved vessel and the precious cargo of tea and silk. They would imprison the crew, including her, if they thought she was a boy.

  Her stomach rolled with the pitch of the schooner as the first boarders landed on the foredeck. She must pretend she didn’t care any more about her father’s death than anyone would care about the loss of a stern but fair captain. Regardless of what they might do to his body, she must not show that he was her beloved father, who had spoiled her too much to leave her on shore.

  She ceased pulling against Ross’s hold, swallowed the lump clogging her throat, and turned with everyone else to watch their captors board.

  They didn’t look like she imagined pirates would. Their white canvas breeches and striped cotton shirts were clean, their hair short, their faces smooth-shaven. With cutlasses in hand and a few pistols in belts, most of them resembled boys playing at pirate, taking orders from an older, harder-faced man.

  “Secure the prisoners,” commanded the older man in a clipped English accent.

  Five men swarmed toward the Maid’s crew. Three men with pistols drawn, two with muskets. Others dropped down the ladders to the lower deck and the hold.

  Deirdre rested her hand on her dirk, tempted to draw, to avenge her father’s death with one blow.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Ross curled his fingers around her wrist.

  “Drop your weapons and kick them here,” one musket-bearer commanded.

  Ross tightened his hold on Deirdre’s wrist. “Drop it.”

  She dropped the dirk and kicked it between the legs of Zeb and Blaze, who stood in front of her like human shields. But that wasn’t the only weapon on her person. At her father’s insistence since she grew into womanhood, she had worn a stiletto braided into the thick plait of hair he would not allow her to cut. The British would never know.