Heart's Safe Passage (12 page)

“Aye, I can arrange that. Jasmine or lily or lilac. Anything will be better than lavender.”

“Odd you would dislike it so. That is, you can’t smell it often aboard your ship.”

“Brig. Nay, but it has an unpleasant memory to it.”

She remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

“’Twas the soap my mither used to wash unclean words from my tongue.”

“She didn’t.” Phoebe pressed her hand to her lips to stifle her amusement.

“Aye, laugh, but it worked for many years. And even now I remember her admonition every time I smell the stuff.”

So lavender reminded him of a mother who wanted her son to grow up respectful and polite. How she would grieve over him now.

Heaviness settled around her heart. “Captain Docherty, even if getting rid of the lavender helps me not be ill below, I need to go home.”

Even the home of her in-laws, where everyone thought she should live instead of in her own house in town, looked like warm shelter in her mind right then. She’d rather be back with Tabitha and Dominick in their cottage by the sea, full of laughter and joy and love—love for one another and their children, love for the Lord and all He’d done to heal their lives.

And reminders of how she’d nearly ruined everything for them?

Emptiness yawned inside Phoebe like an abyss. Though he was the enemy by political boundaries and by what he had done to her and Belinda, she ached to turn her hand over and curl her fingers around Rafe Docherty’s, rest her head against his arm, feel, if only for a few moments, like she belonged somewhere again.

She pressed a hand to her chest as though she could reach inside and close the gaping wound. “Please let us stay on Bermuda. Surely we can get home from there somehow.”

She would have a good excuse to return to Tabitha and Dominick.

“Aye, the British Navy could return you under a flag of truce, but—” He paused. His hand tightened around hers.

And he maintained silence. On the far side of the quarterdeck, Jordy shifted at the helm, the scrape of his boot a crashing cymbal in the fog. He coughed and fell silent. Along the main deck, someone sneezed, a forward lookout perhaps. The moisture dripped from shrouds and limp sails like raindrops from trees. Drip, drip, drip. Annoying. Mesmerizing.

And Docherty remained silent.

So did Phoebe. She leaned on the rail with the sea no more than a quiet, hissing flow below her and waited for his verdict like a condemned man in the dock. Hanging? Transportation? A pardon?

“Have you ever wanted something so badly you can think of naught else?”

Phoebe jumped at the low rumble of his voice and stammered out a truthful, “Y-yes.”

A husband who loved her, children, the ability to practice her midwifery.

“Yes,” she repeated more strongly.

“Then you’ll be understanding when I say that I have had such a yearning for nigh on nine years.” He half turned to face her. “I have mortgaged my life for this one purpose and sworn naught will stop me from getting it. That includes finding two ladies aboard instead of the one I need. Mrs. Chapman needs you. I need Mrs. Chapman, and that means you stay. Do you ken what I’m saying?”

“Maybe if you told me why—”

“Nay, lass, I will not. You already think badly enough of me. And to increase the loathing will make the voyage very uncomfortable, no?” He raised his hand and curved it around her cheek, turning her face toward him.

For a heartbeat, a heartbeat that remained captured in her chest, she thought he intended to kiss her. She could loathe him then, slap his face and be done with the scoundrel.

But words formed on her lips, more truth spilling out. “I don’t loathe you, Captain Docherty.”

“Nay, I think you do not. I wonder why.” He removed his hand from her face and tilted his head back. “And here’s a breeze. Jordy is right as usual. The fog will be gone within the hour, and we must pile on more sail to make up for lost time. Good night, Mrs. Lee.”

As she watched him stride away, a tall, broad silhouette against the binnacle light, she added one more reason why she must escape the
Davina
as soon as possible. She did indeed not dislike Captain Rafe Docherty.

She liked him far too much.

7

Rafe leaned on the taffrail and observed the cutter skimming over the water, which lay as smooth as a looking glass, reflecting the masts and spars of St. George’s Harbour. A small merchant convoy, a frigate, and two sloops of war escorted them. Three other privateers rode at anchor, as well as an American vessel sailing under a flag of truce, likely on its way to Europe on a diplomatic mission.

Depending on the news Jordy brought back, Rafe must work out a way to get the ladies ashore for a respite while protecting himself. Whatever else he allowed them to do on Bermuda, he must keep Mrs. Lee out of the way of any British naval officers or whoever trailed them in the American vessel. He toyed with leaving her and Mrs. Chapman onboard the
Davina
. It would be the wisest course, and also the cruelest, to have them so close to dry land and kept confined to their little cabin.

They were certainly prepared to go ashore. Mrs. Lee stood at the rail amidships and gazed toward the land with the hunger of a starving man eyeing a banquet. Mrs. Chapman stood beside her, chattering and gesturing. And Mel stood between them, alternately looking thoughtful and shaking her head.

“But you looked so pretty in a dress, even though it was too big for you.” Mrs. Chapman’s voice drifted on the light breeze.

Mel must indeed have been pretty in muslin and ribbons. She complained to him about how the ladies had treated her like a fashion doll, but her eyes had glowed with remembered pleasure at the female attention. Even Fiona still strutted around the deck with a blue bow tied around her neck.

Mel was indeed already pretty. Even with her ragged hair, she showed signs of becoming a stunner in a few more years. She was pretty now in her boys’ clothes. Boys’ clothes that failed to disguise the fact that she was fast growing into a young woman.

He was losing his daughter. Since the ladies came aboard and he gave her permission to be near them, Mel spent most of her free time in their company. She’d hated the schools where she’d have been safe, schools full of females, but these two women, the enemy because of their country of origin—they stole Mel’s company from him with Mrs. Chapman’s inane chatter about hats and gowns and baby things, and Mrs. Lee’s more serious discussion of novels and poetry and history.

“You’ll be wanting a school after they’re gone,” he murmured to his daughter a dozen yards away.

He sensed rather than heard Jordy slip up behind him, caught a whiff of the man’s tobacco, never smoked, never chewed, never snuffed, just carried with him like a pet. “She’ll lose interest once they’re gone, lad.”

“Or be hankering after a mither.” Rafe sighed. “I should see if I have any female connections who’ll consider taking her under their wings.”

Jordy joined Rafe at the quarter rail but leaned his hips against it so he faced the younger man. “Or find yourself a wife once you end this nonsense of yours and settle.”

“I had a wife.” Rafe didn’t look at the master sailor half again his age—his mentor, his friend. “I won’t put myself through that pain again.”

“’Tis only the losing them that’s the painful part. But you love again and forget—”

Rafe flung up a hand in a staying gesture. “Not this again. I know you’ve found another wife, one you seem happy enough to leave to seek your fortune, but losing Davina the way I did . . .” He gave his head an emphatic shake. “No more wives for me.”

“I’m not seeking my fortune.” Jordy removed his tobacco pouch from his pocket and began to toss it from hand to hand. “Aye, I’ve won one, or near as like, but you ken I am here to protect you.”

“I do not need your protection.”

The argument was old, nearly rehearsed.

“Someone has to watch your back,” Jordy pointed out.

“I have Watt and Derrick.”

Jordy snorted. “I’d watch my back around Watt if I were you, and Derrick is more likely to pray for your soul than lift a sword to protect you.” Jordy inhaled the aroma of the tobacco. “Not that praying for your soul is not good.”

“A waste of time.”

“Prayer is never a waste of time, lad.”

“I no longer have a soul.”

“You have life. You have a soul, and God still wants it.”

Jordy was too good a friend, too loyal a companion for Rafe to lash out at him over the sermon. He simply said nothing.

Jordy’s craggy face stretched into somber lines. “You need to give this up, Rafe.” His tone matched his countenance. “You’ve gone too far bringing the ladies aboard. Mel was bad enough—”

“Stubble it, Jordy,” Rafe lashed out. “We have gone through this, and you went to get Mrs. Chapman too.”

“Aye, so Watt wouldn’t go alone.”

“Because Watt is so untrustworthy?” Rafe snorted.

Jordy sighed. “Aye, lad, he’s untrustworthy. You would think you kent that from long ago.”

“My mither trusted him, and I can’t shun everyone.”

Unbidden, Rafe’s gaze strayed to Phoebe Lee. A few golden hairs fluttered from beneath her hat, along with a spill of blue ribbons. Her muslin gown drifted around her, giving her a grace of movement though she stood still. That she was beautiful even a blind man could see. That she attracted him even he admitted to himself. She tempted him, urging him to touch her smooth hand, her soft cheek, her lips. Especially her lips. He’d come seconds from kissing her the night before last.

It wouldn’t do, allowing himself to care enough to make such a personal contact. Too often he’d observed how women interfered with a man’s judgment. And he needed all his faculties intact now, not focused on a lady who liked him a wee bit when she should have despised him, would despise him if she knew what he planned.

He spoke his thoughts aloud. “I can’t afford to care.”

“I presume we are not discussing Watt McKay now?”

Rafe started. “Nay, I will not discuss Watt. What happened in the past is gone. I have forgiven him that.”

“But not James Brock? If you’d forgive—”

“I won’t discuss my retaliation against James Brock in the same breath as my set-to with Watt thirteen years ago. They are not the same.”

“Forgiveness is forgiveness—nay, lad, do not push me off the rail. I ken you are not interested, but God has done such a work in my heart, I want to share.”

“Derrick’s doing.” Rafe gritted his teeth. “I should have left him in Edinburgh.”

“He wouldn’t have stayed any more than Mel did.” Jordy glanced behind him to the three females, four counting Fiona cavorting at their feet, her bow bouncing between her ears. “Ah, the lovely widow has your attention. I thought as much the other night. Not a female to trifle with.” He rubbed his belly.

“I have no intention of trifling with her. What kind of a roué do you think I am? But—” Rafe clamped his teeth on the next words.

Too often through his thirty-two years of life, all of which he’d known Jordy McPherson, he had said too much to the older man. Jordy knew most of Rafe’s secrets, alas. Yet if anyone could be trusted, it was the family retainer. And Rafe did need to trust someone. Being completely alone had never suited him. So he tolerated the lectures, the admonitions, the sermonizing, for in the end Jordy would do what Rafe wanted because he had served the Dochertys of Edinburgh, as his ancestors had for generations.

“Mrs. Lee is the sort of woman a man marries,” Rafe said aloud, more to convince himself than Jordy. “Even if her past isn’t pure.”

“No one’s is.” Jordy grinned, showing a gap between his front teeth. “But you could still do worse for a bride.”

“No more brides.” He repeated it like an automaton making the same motion due to a broken spring. “Never.”

“Do you fear ’twill turn you from your course?”

“Nothing will turn me from my course.”

“Aye, I thought as much.” Jordy gazed past Rafe’s shoulder.

Rafe turned his head to see what held his supercargo’s attention. Past two fat merchantmen, the American schooner gleamed with the grace of a racehorse.

“They do build beautiful vessels,” Rafe said.

“Aye, and fast.” Jordy squinted toward the schooner. “That one left the Chesapeake half a day after us and arrived half a day before us.”

“What are you saying?” Rafe turned to Jordy. “Do they have aught to do with us?”

“They might.” Jordy sighed. “I may as well tell you, Rafe. James Brock is aboard that schooner.”

“Impossible.” Rafe gripped the rail until his knuckles gleamed in the sunshine. “I’ve tried to run him to earth for nine years.”

And to think those years could end in victory here, without the voyage to free George Chapman, without keeping Phoebe Lee against her will, without risking his daughter’s life further. His heart began to pound a marching beat in his chest. His lungs tightened. Before his eyes, he saw another kind of vessel—a small, quiet boat, a narrow deck, men with savage blades and cruel spirits.

“Nay, ’tis no coincidence, I’m thinking.” Jordy drew his graying brows together over a beaky nose. “I’m thinking George Chapman betrayed you from his prison hulk.”

“And instead of running from me, Brock has decided to run after me while pretending to be a diplomat.” Rafe spoke through gritted teeth, sending pain shooting through his skull. “Still a lying, cheating—”

He broke off. He and Jordy had drawn the ladies’ attention. They turned toward the quarterdeck, faces tilted upward so that the sunlight spilled beneath their hat brims and glowed on their faces, so lovely, so sweet, so alive.

Mel ran aft and charged up the ladder. “What’s wrong, Captain Rafe?”

“Nothing to concern you, little one.” He brushed his hand across her mop of hair, glowing like a ruby in the brilliant light.

But it did concern her. Brock could use Mel as Rafe intended to use Brock’s best henchman and his wife.

“I’m just thinking perhaps you ought to stay aboard until tomorrow.”

“Oh no.” Mel’s lower lip protruded and her eyes glistened. “I want to go ashore and get my hair cut nice and help Mrs. Chapman buy some ribbons and Mrs. Lee buy some fabric, and we need stores and—”