Beloved Captive (30 page)

“I know,” he said, “though I am surprised to find you’ve heard of it.”

Her dark brows rose. “Do I look like some sort of cretin, sir?”

“Cretin?” Caleb shook his head, his expression carefully neutral. “Hardly.”
 

Other words came unbidden, but he kept silent. Here in this place with a slanderous and threatening letter in his pocket and a vision in yellow to blame, she was merely another likely suspect.

Even if she was the prettiest suspect he’d ever questioned. And question her he would, as soon as he could gather his wits and remember what to ask.

* * *

Emilie sat at the table Micah had built for her and cradled her head in her hands while the new judge paced. It was all too much, this day. Tears threatened, but Emilie refused to allow them to be shed. Not in front of Caleb Spencer or the Benning.

Or whoever he was.

Emilie lifted her head and squared her shoulders. The light seemed to go out of the room in degrees as the sunshine outside faded. The gathering gloom matched her mood.

“You have my attention,” she said, “though how long you can maintain it remains to be seen.”

He moved a few steps toward her, and then, seemingly distracted by the view, gravitated toward the window. In silhouette, the judge’s features sharpened, only serving to highlight his high cheekbones and firm jaw. As if he’d forgotten she was watching, he absentmindedly rubbed a spot on his left shoulder just above his heart, then flexed his shoulder.

He turned to face her. “I would have a handwriting sample from you. Lest you wonder, this is an official request.”

She reached for the pen and ink. “What would you have me write?”

His dark brows rose. “So you’re willing then?”

What an odd question. But then he was an odd man. “Why would I refuse?”

Judge Spencer seemed a bit confused by the question. “Please write what I tell you.” He paused to allow her to prepare. “At the proper time, I will offer a proposition.”

“What a strange sentence. Why would you have me write this?”

“You seem genuinely unaware of the words’ meaning.” He leaned against the window frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “If you are truly innocent, then you will do as I ask and have no concern for the reason.”

Emilie rolled her eyes. “I’ll need the words again, please.”

“At the proper time,” he said slowly, “I will offer a proposition.”

“At the proper time,” she said as she wrote, the lengthening shadows making the writing difficult, “I will propose an offer.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I will offer a proposition.”

She gave him a look meant to let him know exactly how she felt about the prospect of repeating the writing exercise. “This will have to suffice,” she said as she pressed the page toward him across the desk. “Now, if that’s all, perhaps I can leave.”

“Not yet.” He walked over to retrieve the paper, then strode to the back of the room to take a seat at William’s desk, where the light from the windows still offered enough illumination to read. “Stay where you are,” he said, “while I take a look at this.”

“Would you like me to light a lamp?”
 

“The light is sufficient for my purposes,” he said as he seemed to set about ignoring her completely.

Emilie toyed with the edge of her desk, then strained to see the source of the gathering gloom. Judging from the slice of gray she could see from where she sat, one of those Florida late summer storms was imminent. Reverend Carter called them gully washers. Emilie termed them a major inconvenience.

In either case, the storm could be as little as a dusting of raindrops that lowered the heat and chased the mosquitoes away for a few precious hours. It could also send torrents of water over everything and everyone, turning dirt streets into muddy rivers and sending everything in its path downstream to the harbor.

All the more reason to leave this exposed summit before the rains, whether light or strong, blocked her exit. “If you’ve no further need of me,” she said as she rose, leaning against the desk when her knees nearly failed, “I’ll be going. I wouldn’t advise your lingering, as it appears we’re in for bad weather.”

The judge stunned her with the intensity of his stare. “Sit.”

Sit? Was she now relegated to the status of a house pet?
 

Emilie made to complain, then thought better of it. When Papa got this way, she’d usually managed to soothe him and get her way not by protest but by placating.

Papa. She stifled a sigh.

“Of course,” Emilie said sweetly, though the taste of the words bit at her tongue. “Perhaps this would be the time for me to discuss something with you.”
 

Emilie waited for his response. When there was none, she rested her palms on the desk and said a quick prayer for guidance on what she knew might be a difficult issue to resolve.
 

That she was in no mood to be pleasant added to the urgent need for prayer.

She decided to begin carefully and with a general statement. “Perhaps Judge Campbell mentioned the issue we’ve had with schooling our children here on the island.”
 

The judge set her page on the table and pulled something from his jacket pocket. In the process, she watched him wince and rub his left shoulder just above his heart. “Yes, he mentioned it,” he said. “I was warned there might be an issue.”
 

His dark head bobbed as he seemed to shift his attention from the page upon which she’d written to whatever he’d pulled from his pocket. Her silence seemed to have gone unnoticed.

Caleb Spencer lifted his gaze to meet her pointed stare. A lock of hair fell across his forehead, and he made no move to sweep it back. “So,” he said. “Is that all?”

Outside the wind kicked up and peppered fine, sugary sand through gaps in the boards. It settled between them like the unanswered questions of the day. “I know there are funds for this sort of thing. Wrecking is a profitable industry.”

There, let him deny these facts.

Judge Spencer’s expression remained unreadable, though a flash of light from outside briefly illuminated the room. “Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Emilie tamped down her rising temper. “Mr. Tate needs his home, and we need a school. There is money for a school.” Her fingers curled into fists that she quickly hid in her lap. “Further, it is within your purview to grant this,” she said a bit more sweetly.

“I suppose it is.” He rose and pushed the bench back under the table. “But I fail to understand why the wrecker cannot just take up lodging at the boardinghouse. If it’s suitable for my purposes, I warrant he will find it acceptable for his.”

She paused. Caleb Spencer made a valid argument. Yet it just did not seem right that a man who owned a home would be forced to pay to live elsewhere.

A low rumble interrupted her thoughts. “Was that thunder?”

Judge Spencer walked to the window and peered out, and Emilie took a moment to study him. Indeed there was no mistaking the man who had saved her from Thomas Hawkins. His width of shoulder and brevity of speech and the way he seemed to favor his left side marked him as the Benning.

The Benning who’d been shot but lived.

A sigh escaped before Emilie could prevent it. Emilie felt the room sway, likely due to her combined lack of sleep over the past couple of days and difficulty in believing the recent course of events. Only with concentration did she remain upright in the chair. Once the moment passed, she determined to leave this room lest she make a fool of herself by swooning like some insipid schoolgirl.

Perhaps after a good night’s rest, she would not see the Benning in this man at all. Indeed, the idea appealed.

Blinking hard, she forced the room to right itself, then waited while the woozy feeling passed. She must find the path to her door before she humiliated herself. She needed the privacy of her cottage and the comforting embrace of the Lord to sort through all He’d allowed since her discovery of the Benning.

Two things stood in the way: her inability to rise, and the man who stood between her and the door.

As if hearing her thoughts, the judge turned to stare. “Give me one reason I should consider your request,” he said, “and please do not attempt to sway me with anything less than logic.”

“Meaning?”

He shifted positions, bringing his features into view. “Meaning sentiment will not sway my superiors when I divulge the purpose for what I assume will be quite a large expense.”

“I see.”

“So, please, the facts, Miss Gayarre.” He shook his head. “Tell me one good reason I should even entertain this idea when it is abundantly clear the previous judge did not.”

Emilie opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand. “I would have you put that reason in writing and submit it formally.”

Chapter 31

The handwriting sample she had given proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Emilie Gayarre had not written the threatening letter. But if she hadn’t, who had?

If she gave a response, he did not hear or see it, for the heady scent of damp earth drew him back to his days in Santa Lucida where the rain often came without warning only to leave the island freshly scrubbed and glistening. For the first time since he boarded the
Cormorant
for his trip to Washington by way of Havana, Caleb felt the tug of his grandfather’s ways drawing him back, when in reality, his career aspirations could only draw him forward.

It was a conundrum. The only sure thing in all of his confusion was the fact that he did not belong in Fairweather Key.
 

There were two ways out; this he knew. He could leave the naval department and go home to Santa Lucida, likely to take over his grandfather’s duties, or he could persevere, working to earn his way out of this swamp and back into the drawing rooms of Washington’s elite.
 

A discreet letter to President Jackson might do the trick, although the president was not held in the favor he once had been. An alliance with him now might bring on a worse assignment than Caleb now held.

“Then I shall,” he heard the schoolteacher say, though he had to think hard on the words to remember what she referred to.

“I shall await your formal letter.”

Caleb glanced out the window as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. Only stubborn stupidity had kept him in the schoolhouse well past the point when he knew he should have made his departure. Now there were two choices: stay here with the Gayarre woman or make his escape and get a good soaking in the process.

While he was not averse to a rainstorm, the lightning did give him pause, especially situated as they were at the highest point on all of Fairweather Key. Caleb glanced through the gloom at Miss Gayarre, who looked even less pleased to be in his company than he was to be in hers.
 

At least she had not endured a bullet at his hand.
 

Caleb rolled his shoulders to alleviate the stiffness that accompanied both the fresh onset of rain and the memory of that voyage. Perhaps by staring out at the torrential downpour, he could focus his prayers on changing the weather rather than on the temptation to change his thoughts about what should happen to the woman who shot him.

He knew God’s opinion on the subject, but the fact that he’d suffered, that he’d lost the prime posting he’d desired, only to be exiled to this island, was more than ample reason to see that she, too, had suffered consequences.

What sort of consequences, he’d never exactly clarified in his mind. And now, as he thought on it, the whole concept did seem a bit foolish. Instead, he explored the idea of forgetting, just for a time, the crimes against him committed by the schoolteacher with whom he was now well and truly stuck. For from the looks of the weather, things would get much worse before they got better. Another glance at the schoolteacher told him the same just might be true for her.

Caleb decided to lighten the mood. It was better, he decided, than lighting the lamps. At least in the semi-darkness, he did not have to look upon the beauty that brought such confusion to what had once been a well-ordered life.

Yet look he did.

She sat very still at the makeshift desk, her head cradled in her hands. One dark curl had loosened itself from the confines of the ridiculous bonnet and now snaked about her wrist. Caleb wondered for a moment if the blue-black strands would feel as soft as they looked.

Dangerous thoughts, fool. Watch yourself lest she talk you out of more than just a schoolhouse.

Her shoulders begin to sag. He thought, but could not be sure, he saw a tear glistening and suspended for a second between the fingers of her right hand and the desktop.

When it splashed on the polished wood, Caleb knew for sure. Emilie Gayarre was crying.

He suppressed a groan. Even when faced with the loaded cannons of the larger vessel
Hawk’s Remedy
, Caleb had not felt this ill-equipped to handle the situation.

Then, in a moment of clarity, he saw the weeping for what it was: a ploy. Just as Thomas Hawkins had wanted him to believe the pirate vessel was the superior ship, so Emilie Gayarre surely wanted him to believe hers was the superior plan for the education of Fairweather Key schoolchildren. And when he did not immediately fall for her ruse, she set about using her feminine wiles to catch him in her net.

Well, it absolutely would not work. No more than the criminal Hawkins found his ploy successful.

Caleb studied the toes of his boots until he could be sure his temper was securely under control. To think he’d almost fallen into the spider’s web with thoughts of glossy curls and wide brown eyes.

When he looked up, she’d begun to sniffle and dab at those eyes with some sort of lacy handkerchief so covered with embroidered flowers that even from here, he wondered whether one would rub off and land on her cheek.
 

She met his gaze and, rather than hide her affliction, boldly blew her nose.

“Stop that,” he snapped.

“Stop lying to me.” The schoolteacher looked as stunned to have said the words as he felt to hear them.