Prize of My Heart (22 page)

Huntley nodded, his expression grave. “I ministered to my brother on his deathbed and entreated him to ask forgiveness for his sins. It was then Stephen made another shocking confession to me. He had wanted to end their relationship, but your wife would not hear of it. She flew into a rage, threatening to go to his family. Stephen abandoned the notion of discontinuing their affair until one wintry evening . . . their last together, he knocked over a candlestick, quite by accident, while she lay sleeping. He told me he watched it burn up the carpet, an idea forming. The flames crept to the draperies, and before he knew it, the room was ablaze. He had barely enough time to steal off in his nightshirt. He slipped away quietly on his horse, leaving the poor woman to die. He kept to alleys and back roads, riding through the snowfall, then walked across his own fields to wait in his stable for one of his servants to retrieve dry clothing from the house. He got away with murder, and all the while his wife, Ellen, thought he was at his club. The irony was, in making his escape, Stephen caught pneumonia and set in motion his own demise.”

It was a wicked tale, and Brogan could not bear another moment of it. He made for the door and flung it wide, his emotions ready to explode from the grief and anger swelling inside him.

Upon his exit he nearly collided with Lorena, who was standing just outside. She stared up at him, uncertain, her small face lost in a thick cloud of spicy-brown ringlets, her soft brown eyes larger than ever. She must think him the biggest fool. She’d known the truth and yet had allowed him to believe they could be a family.

Brogan stormed past her, down the hallway, and out the front door. Outside, the smell of salt and sea mulled about in the humidity. Clouds had begun to move in again. He heard Lorena calling for him as he ran toward the beach.

He pushed the jolly boat into the surf, then climbed in and grabbed the oars.

And started rowing.

L
orena chased Brogan out onto the front stoop. She called to him as he sprinted down the brick walkway, past the flower beds and box elder toward Squire Huntley Road. He was headed for the shore, and as she lifted her hemline to follow, her father halted her.

“Let him go. He’s suffered a great shock and needs time alone. You must give him that time, Lorena, for if you intrude upon his grief before he’s had a chance to face it on his own, he may say hurtful things you’ll both regret later. Only the captain knows the extent of his pain, but once he’s accepted facts, he will return to you.”

A sob arose from deep within her throat.

She had yet to accept Brogan’s offer of marriage. She yearned to tell him she loved him. He needed to know the indispensable place he held in both her and Drew’s lives. Brogan wasn’t alone in his pain. She felt it, too.

She’d never forget the haunted, stricken look in his eyes as he opened the door to her father’s study. Lorena lifted her face toward the wharf and, through a blur of tears, watched Brogan shove the jolly boat into the bay.

“What did you say to him, Papa? Did you give him your blessing?” Lorena asked of the man she’d always turned to in times of trouble. This time her papa could not make it all better. “Tell me everything you said to him.”

Her father wrapped her in his arms. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, Lorena, but understand this. Nothing any of us could have done would have made the news any easier for the captain to bear. What happens next is entirely up to him. We can offer our comfort, but in the end he has to make his own choices.”

“I can’t not reach out to him, Papa. I need to do something.”

“The captain’s desire was to give a father’s love, and now he feels that dream is lost. He believes he is alone in his grief. You and I know that’s not true, Lorena. We know God loves him, but before Captain Talvis will hear our words of encouragement, he needs to experience a father’s love for himself. The love of his heavenly Father.”

“How, Papa? How can I convince Brogan of a heavenly Father who loves him at a time like this? How can I help him if I cannot speak to him?”

“Pray, Lorena. Pray the Lord makes His will known to all of us who care for the captain.”

A tear streaked down her cheek as her father pressed a kiss to her temple. Lorena wished she could remain strong, but at Papa’s tenderness she sobbed. Her hopes drained. It tore at her, not being able to help someone she loved.

From within the house came the patter of feet, quickly headed their way. Drew called out as he bounded over the threshold, and Lorena pulled from her father’s embrace to dab at her eyes.

The boy halted at the sight of her swollen eyes, confused. He followed her gaze toward the bay. Together they watched Brogan’s boat grow smaller and smaller with each pull of the oars that rowed him farther away.

“Papa?” he moaned in a weak, small voice.

He glanced up, alarmed. “Where is he going, Lorena?”

“The captain needs to return to his crew,” her father explained. “Come, Drew. Join me for a taste of that fine meal Mrs. Culliford has prepared.” He reached for the child’s hand, but Drew had already sensed something to be terribly wrong and leapt out of reach.

He took off in the direction of the fitting wharf, shouting for his papa.

A light rain fell that afternoon. Daylight waned, until twilight lingered over the Huntley estate in that intermediate moment between sunset and the encompassing fall of darkness.

Lorena waited at the windows, yet Brogan did not return to the house for supper. A much bewildered Mr. Smith did call, however, concerned as to what ailed his captain. Brogan had returned to the
Yankee Heart
, wearing the ghastly look of one whose spirit had been crushed.

She was a barren merchantman that now sat in the Cowyard waters of Duxboro Bay, Mr. Smith explained. Nothing but the creaking of the yards echoing across a vast, lonely deck. No cargo filled her hold, no seamen kept her watch, for Brogan had ordered all to partake of her father’s generous offer. The crew was currently making merry in one of his boardinghouses, feasting on one of the grandest meals they’d ever been treated to in their seafaring careers. Comfortable beds awaited them at the end of the evening.

The
Yankee Heart
had turned into a mournful, empty shell of a ship, with her captain locked away in her bowels, refusing to speak to anyone, not even Mr. Smith.

Brogan had never been one to sulk, the mate confessed. This silent despair made little sense after the welcoming and grateful reception they’d all received earlier. Were harsh words exchanged between Brogan and Mr. Huntley? He decided to row over and find out for himself.

But Mr. Smith was encouraged to stay and dine with the family, which he did.

There seemed little point in keeping the truth from Brogan’s closest and dearest friend. The mate bore the news gravely and agreed with her father that she should not accompany him back to the
Yankee Heart
to try to speak with Brogan.

Lorena reminded herself to take heart, but found she could not sleep for worrying. Her bedroom lay at the rear of the house and the call of crickets waxed strong, yet she could clearly distinguish the gentle roll of the surf as she sat on the sill of her opened window.

She searched the murky, blackened sky for stars, remembering the night Brogan had taught her the trick of manning the ship’s wheel.
“Be my small helm,”
he’d said.
“It’s possible for the mightiest to be moved by even the most humble.”

Lorena never suspected the day was soon approaching she would need to be exactly that for Brogan. His small helm. Could she move him to faith in his dark hour? For even if he did come to her and was willing to hear her out, what words could adequately convince him of the good that had come from this terrible deceit?

Did he lie awake at this very moment, blinded by grief and lost in hopeless thoughts?

She might not be able to see Brogan for herself or speak to him personally, but she could look upon his ship. She could steal another glimpse of the
Yankee Heart
and assure herself he was aboard. She could send her prayers out to him over the waves.

Before venturing anywhere, Lorena checked in on Drew and found him whining in his sleep.

“Papa . . . papa . . . papa . . . nooo!”

“Wake up, Drew.”

Lorena pulled him into her arms. “Shush,” she told him. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’m here.” She stroked the curls off his forehead and rocked him in her arms as he slowly began to wake.

He sat up suddenly. “Papa?”

“The captain is on his ship, in bed, like you . . . sleeping, as you should be.” She wiped his face and produced his doll from behind her back. “Look, I’ve brought you Captain Briggs.”

He scowled and wrenched the doll from her hands, tossing it to the floor. Lorena understood. He didn’t want a doll made to look like his papa. He wanted the man he truly believed to be his father.

“Why did Mr. Smith come to say good night and not Papa?” he asked. For the first time since Drew had sailed on the
Yankee Heart
, Brogan had not tucked him into bed or wished him pleasant dreams. Lorena ached for the child in his confusion.

She retrieved the doll off the floor, then removed her sandals and slipped her feet under the coverlet to join him in bed.

She patted the pillow and he laid his head down beside her.

“The captain needs time alone with God,” she said. “Like David did, when David ran into the wilderness to hide from Saul. Right now, the captain feels he is in the wilderness. A bit like the way I felt when I was aboard the
Lady Julia
, being carried farther and farther away from those I loved.”

She could see that the soft tone of her voice soothed him. Drew’s eyelids grew heavy.

“Why?” he whispered.

Lorena gave his nose a tweak. “Why does the captain feel God has deserted him? Because, Drew, he does not know the truth. All the while David was lamenting in his psalms, God had a plan that he be ordained king. Just as, all the while I despaired, there was a plan in motion to rescue me. And God has a plan for the captain, too. Only he doesn’t know it . . .
yet
.”

Something occurred to her with those words, and as Drew drifted off to sleep, Lorena lay in the darkness, thinking up a plan of her own.

Eventide had fallen like a dark curtain over the long day, and nothing, save a faint sliver of moonlight, dispelled the blackness of the great cabin.

Brogan welcomed the loneliness of the night, the darkness that engulfed him, as he listened to the rhythmic lapping of the sea against the
Yankee Heart
’s hull.

Grief had drained him. His tears were spent. Like so much dead weight, Brogan sat hunched in a wing chair, his ship’s Bible clutched in his hands. He’d taken neither food nor drink the entire day, and now the emptiness inside him extended to even the pit of his stomach.

Perhaps he never saw through Abigail’s trickery because he had not wanted to see. He’d wanted marriage and a family. Benjamin’s birth meant that at last he was related to someone by blood, and he’d been prepared to do everything in his power to love and protect his own.

All he had left was anger—a frustrated rage that consumed him the tighter he clutched the Bible, until Brogan felt the blood vessels in his hands might burst.

It was told the Bible’s message was one of love for God’s children. But what of children born outside the church? As early as memory served he had been taught that God would not listen to the prayers of a bad orphan like himself.

Jabez proclaimed different. The blessed Savior loved all sinners. And when Lorena Huntley entered his life, Brogan very nearly believed it was true. Her gentle spirit and kindness had seeped into his soul and opened his heart. All he’d ever wanted was to be part of a family. Lorena represented the steadfast core of her family. She was all goodness. The woman they looked to for direction and reassurance, Brogan included. He had believed that if she could love him, then he must be worthy. She’d made him feel so.

He mourned his love for her, for the life together he had hoped they’d share. No more, though. Everything had changed. All of it gone. Oh, how he wished he could open this Good Book and find comfort, but its words, its promises, had not been written for the likes of him.

Why had this happened to him? What had the lonely orphan boy ever done that the Almighty should punish him? What except long for family life with an ache that tore at his soul. As a man, had he been too confident in his abilities, too arrogant in his actions, that he had invited the wrath of a God who would put an end to everything precious in his life?

He was done . . . exhausted . . . finished.

Rising, Brogan flung the Bible across the room. It hit the doorframe, missing Jabez’s head by inches as the mate opened the door.

Jabez froze, his beefy torso illuminated behind the golden glow of a lantern. As he raised it higher, an eerie pattern of flickering light spilled across the Brussels carpet and furnishings to reveal the discarded Bible, lying facedown and opened.

Brogan squinted into the brightness and turned away. He didn’t want anyone looking upon his pain or seeing the humiliation on his face.

He felt as vulnerable now as he had as a runaway orphan. A boy of six years, hungry and filthy, huddled in a Boston dockside alley, alone and at the end of his wits.

“I told you I wanted to be left alone,” he barked.

Jabez stepped deeper inside the cabin. “Ye look like ye could use a friend.”

Some twenty years ago, the mate had uttered those very same words to him. The unexpected compassion had torn down Brogan’s defenses then and produced nearly the same effect now. “I need a moment to myself is all.”

“Yer moment has extended over an entire day.”

“Aye . . . well . . . so it has.”

Lantern light bounced off the cabin’s rich mahogany paneling, reaching for the darkened corners as Jabez filled the room with his bulk. “I’ve been to see Nathaniel Huntley. I am sorry, truly, but ye must not allow yerself to grieve for long. It will accomplish no good purpose, and besides yer enemies are long dead.”