“The truth is, I view your scheme as ingratitude to my father and traitorous to your country. Yet as strongly as I disapprove, I shall not break my promise to remain silent in the matter. The confession is yours to make. There is nothing to gain by hurting Papa and upsetting his shipwrights, but in your greed for money, you can be certain you have sacrificed my affection forever.”
Lorena thought that if not for the throng of people gathered to witness his most highly praised achievement to date, George might have exploded back at her.
“Pray, how is it you scorn me yet smile favor on some fellow you don’t even know?” His dark eyes flashed angrily in anticipation of an answer.
Lorena drew back, disturbed. “On whom do you presume I smile favor?”
George closed the distance between them. “You know full well I speak of Captain Talvis. First dinner in your home, then yesterday he joined you in the family pew. Privateering may be declared legal, but robbery on the high seas is piracy no matter what the title given to it. God only knows the crimes that fellow has committed, for who can be certain what atrocities take place on a forsaken sea? I am asking for the opportunity to bestow you love—everything in my power to give—but be warned, Lorena. Brogan Talvis is naught but a glorified pirate who won’t hesitate to help himself to whatsoever he desires.”
The fierceness of George’s conviction gave Lorena pause, reminding her of that startling assertion the captain had made to Drew not two nights past.
“Taking back what rightfully belongs to you is not stealing.”
The captain’s eyes blazed angrily at her for challenging him, and now Lorena wondered whether he’d been referring to something closer to the heart than privateering. What then? What did he so passionately believe he was entitled to?
She was struck with the thought—not a what but a who.
Who, indeed?
Suddenly she found herself actually considering George’s warning.
From a distance, Temperance could be heard calling their names.
“Keep a goodly distance from Captain Talvis,” George insisted, “and allow him not the least familiarity.” His face puffed with anger, he departed without a farewell.
Lorena recoiled. Despite her hopes for a better outcome, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief he’d soon be gone.
Temperance arrived with her good friend Mercy Larkin just as the Reverend Potter prepared to convey a blessing over the Yankee Heart.
“Bow your heads, ladies,” Lorena advised, grateful for a chance to hide the disquiet that followed every encounter with George. She felt shaken. Disappointment burned inside her to have missed Captain Talvis’s speech, but with Temperance watching, she forced her attention on the reverend’s booming voice.
“. . . and so we commend the Yankee Heart unto the hand of God. May He always send her a prosperous voyage and a safe return.”
“Amen,” the three women chorused aloud.
Lorena raised her head while across the assembly Captain Talvis smiled, then waved, beckoning her to join him. And there stood Drew at her father’s side. His face beamed with excitement.
“Look there,” Temperance bid, pointing. “Why, I believe it is you the captain calls for, Lorena. He wants you.”
The Yankee Heart towered over the surrounding buildings and sheds of the shipyard. A launching cradle held her upright, its slipway greased with tallow and soft soap to ease her descent into the water. Beneath the shadow of her hull, the spectators grew restless. Excitement filled the air.
With a steadying breath, Lorena took her first step down the grassy slope, hurrying to the front of the crowd to join the captain.
Brogan was now master of 880 register tons of the finest merchantman ever crafted. Decks outfitted with yellow pine, imported off the coast of Georgia. Frames of live oak, copper fastened throughout. Gun ports painted on her sides to deceive potential attackers. Even her stern was sheathed in specially imported red copper from the Boston-based Paul Revere silver and copper works.
Full of wonder, he asked himself what prize befitted such a fine lady merchantman. Did a cargo exist rich enough to fill her hold? Would she transport fine silks and brocades from the Orient? Gold dust and ivory from the West African coast? Bales of cotton and hogsheads of tobacco from the port of New Orleans?
Nay, he mused wistfully, nothing so elaborate as those. Nothing but a spirited towheaded lad, a treasure more precious than all the tea in China.
The Yankee Heart had yet to be fitted with her three masts or rigged with square sail. Still, she was magnificent in every respect, a wooden manifestation of his hopes and dreams, but no more so a vision than the one strolling toward him now.