Chapter Four
“Take care. You drop one of those crates, or even shake it too hard, and it’ll go off like a bomb. And we’ll be going with
it.” Maguire’s stark warning about the cargo’s volatility, barked at his crew as the operation began, had Rynn holding her
breath as she climbed the ladder to the Reaper’s deck.
Despite her fears, the guns were hauled aboard without mishap. Concealed in long wooden crates stamped Handle with Care: Fireworks in an attempt to disguise the contents, they were hiked up the side by ropes and quickly carried below by Maguire’s men. That
left the currach—and Paddy.
Clad in dry men’s clothes—a collarless shirt and ancient breeches that she had to belt with a rope and a thick white fisherman’s
sweater, all far too big but that she was thankful for nonetheless—that had been provided along with a private place to wash
and change, Rynn watched the tail end of the transfer from the Reaper’s rail. She expected to see Paddy, clearly of less importance than the guns to Maquire and his men, brought up next, perhaps
slung over the shoulder of a stout sailor, perhaps hoisted up by ropes like the guns.
The Merrow, which was at that moment being cast free from its present position, would then be tied up behind the Reaper for towing until they reached their destination, which so far none of them had thought to question. Away was all they knew.
Instead, she found herself watching in shock as the last remaining crewman on the Merrow picked up Seamus’s rifle, which had been discovered beneath the oilcloth and set aside, and fired it multiple times in quick
succession into the currach’s hull. Muffled by the rush of the wind and waves, the repeated blasts were still sufficiently
loud to make Rynn wince for fear that the gunboat Maguire had warned of might be near enough to be drawn to them by the sound.
Then the shooter threw the rifle’s strap over his shoulder, turned and leaped onto the ladder after his mates, leaving Paddy behind.
“Stop! Go back!” She waved at him frantically. The wind blew her voice away. Given the vagaries of the moonlight, the pitching
of the ship and the speed at which the seaman was ascending the ladder, it was clear that he’d neither seen nor heard.
“What the devil . . . ?” Standing beside her, Donal stared down at the abandoned boat in disbelief. The Merrow was now adrift and taking on water fast through the new holes in her side.
“He scuttled my boat!” On Donal’s other side, Seamus sounded stunned.
“Paddy! Oh, Jesus, Paddy!” Fergus gripped the rail with both hands. “They’ve left Paddy! Go back!”
But the crewmen were all aboard now, the ladder was being drawn up, and the four of them could only watch in horror as a wave
caught the Merrow and swept her away. In the background, a metallic rattling that Rynn belatedly recognized as the Reaper weighing anchor made her catch her breath. Even as she identified it, the trawler, freed, surged forward.
“Maguire!” Seamus spun around, looking for the Reaper’s captain.
Rynn turned, too. Bathed in moonlight, the deck bustled with activity, making it difficult to identify any one man. The main
sail snapped and billowed as it filled with wind. Picking up speed, the trawler plunged through the waves, heading out to
sea.
“Over there, by the mizzen!” Donal pointed toward where the triangular sail was going up.
“Maguire!” Seamus strode away.
Fergus, hanging over the rail and focused on what was happening with the currach, looked after them, crying, “Tell them to
lower a boat! We have to get him back! I’ve got to take him home to his family! Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus! Paddy!”
Donal was already only a step behind Seamus, two determined men on their way to right a wrong. Rynn turned her attention to
Fergus, who openly wept now, and threw a steadying arm around him. His grief punctured the shock that had protected her. Her
chest ached and her eyes stung with tears for Paddy’s loss.
“Shh, now, we’ll be getting him back and having the biggest wake and he’ll be smiling down on it and on us.” She fumbled to
find words of comfort that she knew were useless even as she said them. “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”
But it required only a glance at the small boat that was now at the mercy of the sea to know that it wasn’t going to be all right, that the currach was lost. Listing badly from the weight of the water pouring into it, at the mercy
of endless waves that were no longer blocked by the trawler’s bulk, the Merrow capsized and was swallowed up even as they watched.
Paddy went down with it. Like the boat, between one minute and the next he was gone.
United in horror, she and Fergus simply stared at the moonlight sparkling on an empty, endless expanse of rolling black water.
Not a trace of Paddy or the Merrow was to be seen.
A discarded shirt floated up from the depths like a pale ghost to undulate just below the surface before vanishing again.
With that, Fergus let out a howl of grief and rage that was like nothing Rynn had ever heard from him before.
Whirling, he shook her off when she would have held him and bolted toward the mizzen where Donal and Seamus, forcefully gesticulating, faced off with a seemingly impassive Maguire.
Taking only an instant to recover, Rynn ran after Fergus, her feet in their borrowed stockings slip-sliding on the worn-smooth planks.
“What did you do?” Fergus’s shout was aimed at Maguire. “You had no right! He’s gone, without a priest, without a prayer!
We have to get him back! I have to take him home!”
To Rynn’s horror, Fergus punctuated his outburst by pulling the pistol she had suspected was there from his pocket and brandishing
it wildly.
“Fergus! No! Stop! Donal! Seamus!” Heart in throat as the three men he was bearing down on turned as one, afraid that at any
moment he would pull the trigger and shoot someone or someone would shoot him, she grabbed Fergus’s arm. He looked around
at her in surprise—and the Reaper’s crew leaped on him from seemingly all sides, disarming him and taking him to the deck amid a flurry of shouts and blows.
Moments later, Fergus had been dragged away below while she, Donal and Seamus, the latter two having been searched and disarmed,
were escorted to the wheelhouse under guard to await the coming of the Maguire. When he arrived, along with a burst of wind
that ruffled the charts on the table around which they’d been ordered to sit and set the flames in the lanterns affixed to
the walls to flickering, he dismissed the crewmen who’d been standing watch over them with a jerk of his head. Only the gangly,
red-haired helmsman, who didn’t look to be a day over seventeen, remained behind. After flicking a quick look at Maguire as
the door shut behind the others, the helmsman hunched his shoulders as though to block out whatever might be going to happen
next and continued to steer the ship through the night beyond the windows without a word.
“Ungrateful lot, aren’t you?” Yanking off his cap, Maguire stalked toward them.
The U-shaped room was small, and he seemed to take up most of the available space.
His hair, cut short, was a coarse-looking dark brown.
His beard was the same dark shade. As Rynn got her first good look at him in the light, her initial impression was that he was a man short on patience and long on temper.
He was tight-lipped, with thick brows that nearly met in a frown above his nose.
His features were rough-hewn in a face that was squarish, with broad cheekbones and a solid jaw now set hard with displeasure.
His skin was baked bronze by wind and sun.
The lamplight painted his eyes some indeterminate pale color that she still couldn’t quite make out.
“You sank my boat.” Seamus sounded aggrieved rather than angry. Rynn guessed he found the situation they were in, coupled
with Maguire’s size and reputation, intimidating enough to dampen his usual tendency toward belligerence. Despite bearing
a strong resemblance to Donal, Seamus lacked his cousin’s lean, sculpted good looks. His black hair was curly as a sheep’s,
his cheeks were round and his brown eyes, red rimmed now with grief, were more mud colored than anything else. Rawboned and
loose-limbed, he made up for any shortcomings in the way of looks by—usually—being charming, loud and brash.
“You’re damned lucky I did.” Maguire threw his cap down on the table, braced large hands on either side of it and leaned toward
them. Rynn had a vague notion that he was no more than twenty-eight or -nine, but his sheer physical presence made him seem
older. “Does it not occur to you geniuses that by now, your friend Haney having been taken and all, the Brits know what boat
it is that was bringing in the load of illegal guns, and who was in on it?”
As the grim truth of that broke over the three of them, Rynn’s stomach turned inside out.
“They’ll be coming after us,” she said, appalled.
“They will,” Maguire agreed, as at the same time Donal shot her a quick look and said under his breath, “Not you. You had no part in this. You only came out to warn us. And how would they even know you were with us? It’s dark as Hades tonight.
They will never have seen you. Not well enough to identify you, at any rate. ”
“Miss Carmichael, is it?” Maguire slashed a look at her. His eyes, she was finally able to determine as she gazed directly
into them, were the clear pale blue of shallow seawater. How he knew her identity she was at a loss to say. To her knowledge,
she’d never set eyes on him before.
“And how would you know that?” Suspicion colored her voice.
A sardonic curl of his lip was his only answer. Seamus said with a snort, “And you the most beautiful girl in five counties?
Come on, Rynn, there’s not a man around doesn’t know your name. No mystery there.”
Donal’s expression signified agreement. Rynn’s lips tightened as she immediately felt self-conscious.