Lady in the Mist (23 page)

Yet she followed him across the sand, as she feared she would follow him anywhere. When he left, she might have to pursue him.

At the moment, he led her to her own kitchen door and Patience and Japheth snapping the first beans of the season.

“We’ve brought you crabs,” Tabitha announced.

Dominick held up the dripping basket. “Just tell me where to put them.”

Patience jumped up so fast she knocked over her chair. “I’ve a pot keeping hot. Just a bit more wood here, and we’ll have a fire hot enough to boil.” She glanced from Tabitha to Dominick. “You look flushed, child. Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Perhaps the sun.”

Or the proximity of the man beside her, smelling of the sea and the sandalwood that sailors brought from the East or rich men purchased from merchants.

“I seem to have lost my hat,” she added, her hand flying to her bare head.

“I’ll run back and look for it,” Dominick said, and was gone.

“The water’s boiling,” Patience announced.

Tabitha retrieved the basket of crabs, hefted it over the pot, and dumped its contents. Patience followed her with salt and herbs. In moments, the rich aroma of boiling seafood with peppercorn, thyme, and sage filled the kitchen. Steam rose from the pot and swirled through the slanting rays of the sun.

The afternoon had sped by, between the pleasure of crabbing with Dominick and the horror of the snake. In too short a time, Dominick would have to leave, and he still needed to tell her how she could help him gain his freedom.

His freedom to return to his country, his family, the life where he belonged. A life where the sons went to Oxford and an eastern shore midwife didn’t belong.

She would be a fool to help him, even if, as he said, he didn’t intend to run away from her. Of course he would. He had no reason to stay.

But he came back this time. As Tabitha began to pull the first of the crabs from the water, he reappeared in the doorway, her hat in his hand. “It was lying on the jetty.” His gaze traveled to the shellfish. “How do we eat these creatures?”

“I’ll show you.” Tabitha scooped a dozen crabs into a clean pot and handed it to him. “I’ll fetch the basket.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder at Patience. “You and Japheth eat without me. I’ll be back by dusk.”

Walking beside Dominick back to the tide line, she thought she probably would enjoy herself. Regardless of what he told her, she couldn’t think it was anything so terrible she couldn’t enjoy his company for a few more hours.

They settled on the sand with the sun slanting from behind them and the limpid blue of the sea and sky stretching out forever ahead of them. The beach appeared deserted except for the gulls hovering in anticipation of food from the humans, and a blue heron fishing out to sea.

“Dorset is beautiful,” Dominick said. “It’s lush and green, and we have the sea. But this is more peaceful than the channel.”

“You haven’t lived through a hurricane. When I was a child, we lost our roof to one. A tree fell and came right through it. I’ve hated storms ever since.”

“Yet you came out night before last without hesitation.”

“It’s my duty to do so.” She began to crack open a crab with her fingers. “Some people use small hammers, but my fingers are strong enough to not need one. Just squeeze the body.”

“I’m supposed to eat that?”

“No, not that. That’s his innards. Here’s the meat.” She plucked the soft, moist flesh from the shell and held it on her palm. “Go ahead.”

He took it, tasted it, then smiled. “More?”

“Crack your own. I’m hungry.” She proceeded to open a claw and draw out the flesh.

Dominick sighed and picked up his own crab. For several minutes, they cracked and ate in silence. They tossed the discarded guts and shells to the edge of the water, where the gulls swooped in with shrieks of glee and pecked the matter clean.

“I suppose I can’t put off my tale forever,” Dominick said at last.

“No.” Tabitha returned a strawberry to the bowl, no longer hungry. “Now, are you going to tell me that you’re a spy for the British government?”

24

______

Raleigh sat on the jetty, his head in his hands. He felt so dizzy he feared he might tip forward and land face-first in the water. Both his father and his mother had encouraged him to go home and rest, as Tabitha had instructed him to do, but he knew the waves of pain rushing through him bore little relationship to the blows he’d taken on the jaw and head two days earlier.

Tabitha, his Tabbie, had walked down the beach with the lordling servant.

It was all his own fault. He hadn’t trusted in the Lord to bring her back to him and had tried to be rid of the competition for her attentions, her affections. Now he was injured and had angered the man who was perpetrating the disappearances, thus making learning his identity more difficult. And Tabitha now knew that Raleigh’s faith in God was a fraud. No man whose faith was sincere would wish to harm another, whatever the provocation, whatever the odd circumstances surrounding the man.

And this wasn’t the first time he hadn’t trusted in God to get him out of a difficult situation. He’d prayed for release from the Navy, then taken matters into his own hands.

No wonder Tabitha considered him to be untrustworthy. He was.

“God, how can I make things right?” he murmured, watching the waves lapping at the soles of his boots. “How can I get Tabbie to forgive me and trust me again if I behave this way?”

Gulls screamed overhead, seeming to mock him with maniacal laughter.

Below him, the incoming tide carried Tabitha’s basket, a reminder of the danger she’d been in. Either danger to her or to Dominick Cherrett. Everyone knew a snake wasn’t likely to crawl into a covered basket, regardless of the contents, with humans so close by. Yet any person who dared trap one to sneak into the basket showed determination or courage. Too easily the serpent could have turned on its captor before being used as a weapon. If Cherrett hadn’t possessed and been so skilled with his wicked-looking knife, he could have been dead now. But the creature had been in Tabitha’s basket.

“No one would want to harm Tabbie,” Raleigh declared aloud. “No one.”

“What did you say?” Footfalls echoed on the jetty, and a shadow fell across the sunlit water. “Do you think that snake was meant for Tabitha?”

“It was in her basket, but, no, no one could want to hurt her.” Raleigh swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. “No one would risk killing her.”

“Unless her work has given her secrets someone wants to protect.” Father crouched and fished the half-submerged basket from the water. “They took a great risk.”

“Too great a risk to harm someone so . . . necessary to the community.” Raleigh glared at the now empty basket as though it were to blame. “Now, Cherrett, he seems a likely target for that kind of hatred.”

“Because he’s English?”

“Because he’s above himself and an interloper. And what about him having a knife like that. Seems . . .” His eyes crossed with his effort to think of the right words to describe the inappropriateness of a bondsman in possession of a knife not much less than a pirate cutlass.

“You should come in, son.” His father’s voice was gentle. “This much sun can’t be good for you with that injury to your head.”

“I’m all right.”

Another lie. He wasn’t all right. His head ached. His jaw ached. His stomach ached.

“Giving yourself a brain fever isn’t going to bring her back.” His father sat on the edge of the jetty beside Raleigh. “She’s made her choice for now. It’s an unwise choice. He can’t marry her.”

“But it is my fault.” Raleigh straightened and looked his father in the eyes, the same blue eyes that he saw in mirrors. “If I hadn’t accused Cherrett of being the one to hit me, she might not have chosen to feel sorry for him.”

“You know it goes back further than that, Raleigh.” Father’s mouth set in a stern line. “You abandoned her without a word. A woman doesn’t get over that kind of hurt and humiliation easily.”

“No, but I’ve—”

He stopped before he said he’d changed. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to be that man the ship’s chaplain said he could be. But he proved again and again that he was untrustworthy for man—or woman—and, worst of all, not good enough for God to take care of him.

“I think I would have had a chance if not for Dominick Cherrett.” Raleigh pounded his fist on the rough planks of the jetty. “What does she find to attract her in that man?”

Father laughed. “Ask your sisters. I believe he holds a certain manly charm.”

“I didn’t know I was so ill-favored,” Raleigh grumbled.

“I can’t say, since you favor me.”

Raleigh chuckled at that and felt a bit better. Sobering, he asked, “What can I do, sir?”

“You know we have to leave things up to God. When we try to take matters into our own hands, it only causes trouble.”

“Oh, yes, I know that all too well.” Raleigh scrambled to his feet. “So how do I win her back?”

“Start courting someone else.”

Raleigh stared at his father. “Make her jealous? Does that really work?”

“If it doesn’t, then you didn’t have a chance to win her back in the first place.” Father grinned. “And if it does, you’ve shown she’s just trying to make you jealous, or maybe punish you, for leaving her. After all, didn’t she get friendly with this bondsman after you returned?”

“Well, yes.” He and his father headed off the jetty and up the sand toward their house. “But who? Not many females around here would make Tabitha wonder if I’m serious about them instead of her.”

“Mrs. Lee?”

Raleigh snorted. “She’s a rich widow from a fine family. She’d never look at a fisherman.”

“She was certainly looking at a bondsman.”

“He was the hero of the moment.” Raleigh shrugged. “Tabitha was looking at him the same—” He stopped and caught his breath. “Do you think he put that snake in there so he could display his skill?”

“And risk Tabitha’s life? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he didn’t know the snake was poisonous.” Raleigh warmed to his notion that the entire incident was a ploy by Cherrett to win Tabitha’s attention. “They don’t have many poisonous snakes in England.”

“It’s a possibility.” Father looked thoughtful. “But he didn’t seem like he needed that kind of risk to—but never you mind all that. Whatever the reason, it’s behind us. It was likely a terrible coincidence that the snake got into the basket. If it was mere heroics that won Tabitha’s attention today, it won’t last for long. She’s a practical woman, and you’re a man of some property, as my son.”

And he’d have more if his mission succeeded, property he’d intended to use to lure Tabitha back to him when the time was right. He’d thought the time was right when he’d learned some men on the council thought she should lose her license to practice midwifery in the district. She needed a man to support her. Cherrett couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even marry her, and he would leave when his indenture was over.

A pity his indenture wasn’t over now.

Lost in thought about this possibility—how to get Dominick Cherrett out of his indenture—Raleigh increased his stride and reached the house ahead of his father. His head felt better, less achy and muddled. The sky looked a little brighter.

“Lord, have You forgiven me after all? Now I can—”

No, he could do nothing. As much as he wanted to take matters into his own hands, he must leave the future in the hands of the Lord, or he would never be free from his mistakes.

“Lord, please show me You have forgiven me.” He stepped onto the back porch, where Momma sat mending one of his socks.

She smiled up at him. “I’m glad you came back. Tabitha said you needed to rest for several days. Is everything all right?”

“Now it is.” He blinked in the dimness beneath the overhang of the eaves. “I think I’ll rest now. Father will tell you everything that happened since I left.”

“All right then, you go rest. The girls picked some flowers for your room.”

“What sweet sisters I have.” Raleigh started into the house.

“And someone sent you a parcel,” Momma called after him. “I laid it on your bed.”

Raleigh stopped. His heart skipped a beat. “A parcel? Who?”

Momma shrugged. “It has only your name on the wrapping. You’ll have to open it up.”

“I will.” Trying not to look in too much of a hurry, Raleigh mounted the steps to his bedchamber under the roof beams and closed the door behind him.

The parcel lay on the quilt, a brown stain against the muted blues and greens of the squares. Hands trembling, he took out his penknife and slit the binding string. The brown paper fell away to reveal a Bible with a slip of paper poking out of the top margin. The thin paper rattled between his fingers as he turned the pages to the marked passage and read the message—all the more obscene for being created out of Holy Scripture—from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, the twenty-eighth verse. “He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?”

Dominick rested on his elbows and stared at the horizon. A platoon of dark clouds marched between sea and sky, stark against the crystal blue. The sun behind them blazed with heat. Wind blowing off of the sea held an edge of chill.

“Another storm’s coming,” Dominick observed.

“Not until after sundown.” Tabitha touched his shoulder. “That’s not all that far off, so talk, if you still intend to.”

“I still intend to. I just don’t know how to start.” He lay fully on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He glanced at Tabitha a yard away, sitting with her legs curled to one side and modestly covered with her skirt. He smiled. “You look like a mermaid.”

“Stop that mermaid foolishness. Someone tried to kill one of us today. It’s no time for frivolity.”

“Then why are you hiding a box of comfits in that basket of yours?” He reached one arm toward the basket.

She whipped it out of reach. “After you talk to me.”

“You may not want to share after you hear my story.”

“Which is why I’m not wasting them on you now.”

“Oh, Tabitha, I do love you.” The words slipped out as though his tongue belonged to someone else. He didn’t try to snatch them back or pretend he hadn’t once again confessed something so serious aloud. He watched her.

She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Her hat brim shielded her eyes. A slow flush creeping up her throat to her cheeks was the only indication that she might have heard him at all.

“I wouldn’t have kissed you as I did yesterday if my feelings weren’t deep,” he pressed further.

“Like kissing me, Dominick,” she finally said in a low, flat tone, “giving me pretty speeches of devotion won’t change my mind one way or the other if you ask me to do something abhorrent to my nature or my country.”

“All right, so you intend not to make a commitment until you know everything.” Dominick sat up. “And after you know . . .” He sat cross-legged, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He fixed his gaze on the sea, its endless, churning power. “Then let me get the worst of this over straight off. Raleigh Trower is absolutely correct. I am a spy. An English spy.”

She gasped. Other than the sharp inhalation of breath, she neither spoke nor moved. This time not even her face betrayed her.

Dominick opened his mouth to comment on her lack of reaction, then realized she was in what must be her midwife mode—calm and still and ready to hear anything. After Sally Belote’s confession, not much else could shock her. She might have even heard worse in the course of her occupation.

“I’m much worse than that.” He made himself smile. “Well, that depends on one’s perspective. I am not a spy for the crown, as you might think. My king didn’t send me, nor anyone in the government. I have no military rank or anyone at Whitehall who even has a high opinion of me. But I have an uncle who is a rogue vice admiral in the Royal Navy who offered to send me to his plantation on Barbados or come here to spy out a spy.”

At this, she arched her winged eyebrows, and the corners of her mouth twisted up in a mocking smile. “Are you sure this isn’t an adaptation of some lost Shakespeare drama, Dominick? If so, you’d best be advised that I am not impressed with tall tales.”

“You don’t believe me?” Dominick jerked upright. “Tabitha, I’ve stretched the truth a time or two since we’ve met, but this, I promise you, is nothing less than factual. When I found myself in a spot where leaving England for a bit seemed like the better part of valor, my uncle said I could redeem myself this way.”

“Redeem yourself from what?” She leaned toward him. “What could have been so dreadful that a man with an Oxford education would become a servant for four years to accomplish it?”

“I . . . uh . . .” Dominick scooped up a handful of sand and watched it trickle from his fingers. Thus would go any love for him Tabitha might have had. “I wounded a man in a duel.”

She jerked as though he’d struck her with the rapier that had sent his challenger dropping to the grass. Her face paled, and one hand fluttered in the air, as though she wanted to grasp an elusive stronghold.

He caught her hand in his and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t pull away. “It was a fair fight. He challenged me. But dueling is illegal and the authorities got wind of it, so we both had to get away for a while.”