Heart's Safe Passage

© 2012 by Laurie Alice Eakes

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3602-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Published in association with Tamela Hancock Murray of the Hartline Literary Agency, LLC.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

“In her delightful and descriptive style, author Laurie Alice Eakes has once again crafted a story that will capture readers’ hearts from the first page. Her tales are both exciting and tender, and her characters speak to us right where they are, despite the different cultural and time settings.
Heart’s Safe Passage
may well be her greatest offering to date.”

—
Kathi Macias
, author of
Deliver Me from Evil
and
A Christmas Journey Home

“I’m still thinking about the characters in
Heart’s Safe Passage
, the new novel from Laurie Alice Eakes. Her turn of phrase and twist of a plot had me smiling long after the last page was turned. Eakes has crafted a don’t-miss story. Well done!”

—
Kathleen Y’Barbo
, author of
The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck

“In
Heart’s Safe Passage
, Laurie Alice Eakes takes her readers on a heartrending high-seas adventure back to the 1800s, where they’ll smile and cry, cheer for the good guys, and boo the bad guys. Make room for this one on your ‘keepers’ shelf!”

—
Loree Lough
, author of
From Ashes to Honor

“
Heart’s Safe Passage
is the finest kind of fiction. Not only does it take the reader on a high-seas adventure, it also explores the bounty and suffering of the human heart. I loved it!”

—
Victoria Bylin
, 2010 ACFW Carol Award finalist; author of
The Outlaw’s Return
and
Marrying the Major

“A book that will move you deeply, a love story that rises and falls with the turbulent seas, and two people wounded by life who need God’s healing before they can embrace the love melding their hearts together. Adventurous, moving, and passionate, Laurie’s books never disappoint!”

—
MaryLu Tyndall
, Christy Award nominee and author of the Surrender to Destiny series

To Carrie, Debbie Lynne, and Gina
for all the marathon phone calls that kept me grounded
to the real world. Your friendship is a treasure.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Endorsements

Dedication

Epigraph

1
    
2
    
3
    
4
    
5

6
    
7
    
8
    
9
    
10

11
    
12
    
13
    
14
    
15

16
    
17
    
18
    
19
    
20

21
    
22
    
23
    
24
    
25

26

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Laurie Alice Eakes

Back Ads

Back Cover

And I will give them one heart,
and I will put a new spirit within you; and I
will take the stony heart out of their flesh,
and will give them an heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 11:19

As concerning their persons, they [midwives] must be neither too young nor too old,
but of an indifferent age, between both;
well composed, not being subject to diseases, nor deformed in any part of their body; comely and neat in their apparell; their hands small and fingers long, not thick, but clean, their nails pared very close; they ought to be very chearfull, pleasant, and of a good discourse; strong,
not idle, but accustomed to exercise, that they may be the more able if need require.

Touching their deportment,
they must be mild, gentle, courteous, sober, chaste, and patient; not quarrelsome nor chollerick; neither must they be covetous,
nor report anything whatsoever they hear
or see in secret, in the person or
house of whom they deliver. . . .

As concerning their minds, they must be wise and discreet; able to flatter and speak many fair words, to no other end but only to deceive the apprehensive women, which is a commendable deceipte, and allowed, when it is done,
for the good of the person in distress.

William Sermon,

seventeenth-century physician
and clergyman

1

Williamsburg, Virginia
October 4, 1813

“You want me to go to sea with you?” Phoebe Lee stared at her sister-in-law as though she’d sprouted whiskers and pointed ears between supper and this midnight invasion of Phoebe’s bedchamber. “In the event you’ve forgotten, we’re at war.”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten.” Pain distorted Belinda Chapman’s features, and she twisted her fingers through the fringe of her silk shawl. “If we weren’t at war, my husband wouldn’t be a prisoner in a barbaric English hulk. And I can’t free him if I can’t get to England.”

“Go to England? Free him?” Phoebe stared at her deceased husband’s sister with eyes wide and jaw sagging. “You must be—” She stopped speaking and made a circuit of the pink-flowered carpet of Belinda’s guest bedchamber, her slippers silent in the lush pile, her blood roaring. She must not tell Belinda that she had certainly become a raving mooncalf to consider traveling on water as far as Norfolk, let alone across the Atlantic.

Silence filled the bedchamber. Belinda watched Phoebe, saying nothing. Outside, a carriage rumbled up the roughly paved street, and laughter soared into a crescendo.

Inside, Phoebe inhaled the too-sweet air of Belinda’s townhouse and tried to remember what her teacher, Tabitha Eckles Cherrett, would do under similar circumstances—remain even-tempered. Speak in a slow, calm voice.

“Bel, my dear, you can’t simply step onto a packet and sail across the ocean, land in an enemy country, and demand they free your husband. That is—” She dropped to her knees before Belinda’s chair and drew the younger woman’s hands away from the tangled knots they’d made of her shawl fringe, sending more reek of lavender oil into the air. “I’m devastated with the news of George’s capture.” The news had sent Phoebe racing from Leesburg to Williamsburg in a heartbeat. “And I can’t imagine how awful it must be for you. But this is outright war, and we’re losing on land.”

“But not at sea.” Belinda’s round chin jutted out at a pugnacious angle. “In the last year, George has taken six prizes just with his little sloop. His investors were ecstatic.”

And now he was the prize. Something too obvious for Phoebe to point out.

“We’re all very proud of him.” The twisting of the truth tasted a little sour on Phoebe’s tongue. “And you for bearing up so bravely while he’s gone. But, my dear girl, we can only pray and trust God to take care of George. We can’t take matters into our own hands.”

“Of course we can.” Belinda’s lips curved. She suddenly resembled Phoebe’s cat after a nice bowl of cream. “I’ve already made the arrangements. That’s why I asked you to come here.”

Phoebe’s stomach knotted like Belinda’s fringe. “What . . . sort of arrangements could you have possibly made to get to England in the middle of the war?”

“Privateers are crossing the Atlantic all the time,” Belinda said. “I’ve simply taken berths for us on one of them.”

Phoebe shook her head. “You are not thinking clearly, Bel. No American privateer captain would allow two women aboard for that kind of journey. No scrupulous captain, that is.”

“Who said anything about an American?” Belinda tossed her head of ebony curls. “An American ship couldn’t get close enough to land us in England.”

“Then how—?” Phoebe couldn’t finish the question. She feared the answer.

Belinda inclined her head as though Phoebe had spoken the right conclusion aloud. “We’re sailing on an English privateer.”

“Impossible.” Phoebe rose and stalked to the window, beyond which the night glittered with lights from plantations and boats on the James River, flickering sparks like fallen stars, like earthbound dreams. “It’s too dangerous. I won’t go with you. It’s—well, it’s treachery to consort with the enemy.”

Belinda’s flawless white forehead puckered. “Not if we’re freeing an American, surely.”

“Yes, surely. And I won’t let you commit treason.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Belinda spoke the raw truth. Short of reporting her to the authorities and having her arrested, Phoebe couldn’t stop Belinda. She was three and twenty, three years younger than Phoebe, and her husband had left her in charge of their considerable fortune in his absence.

“I’ll take the risk of being considered a traitor whether you accompany me or not. But—but—” Belinda faltered for the first time since making her announcement. “Phoebe, I need you to come with me.”

“You need someone to go with you, yes, but not me.” Phoebe turned back to face her sister-in-law. “You need a guard, a protector, half a dozen strong, well-armed men. I can write to Tabitha and Dominick. Dominick has powerful connections with the British still.”

“That will take too much time, and I don’t need his help.”

“You don’t need the help of someone my size either.”

“You’re a midwife,” Belinda broke in. “That’s why I need you.”

“Belinda, you’re not—”

But she was. Even as Phoebe protested, Belinda shoved her shawl off her shoulders. What the silk wrap and flickering candlelight had concealed since Phoebe’s arrival just before supper, the fine muslin of her nightgown revealed.

Belinda Lee Chapman was expecting a baby.

“When?” As her heart joined her stomach somewhere around her knees, Phoebe’s mind raced to the date of George’s last visit home. She didn’t know for certain. He slipped in and out of the Chapmans’ home in Williamsburg, and months had passed since Phoebe had seen Belinda, let alone her privateer husband.

“At least five months, as best I can estimate.”

“Are you certain?” Phoebe reached out her hands. “Let me examine you. You look further along than that.”

“I know when my husband was home.” Belinda’s voice held an edge.

Phoebe scrutinized Belinda’s middle with narrowed eyes. “Do you?”

“Of course.” Belinda wrapped her shawl around herself again. “I had a midwife confirm my condition when I began to suspect.”