Heart's Safe Passage (18 page)

He didn’t respond. He continued to the front door and across the empty market square to the wharf.

A hundred feet behind him, struggling to catch up, Phoebe finally saw what must have caught his attention—Derrick and Jordy charging toward them. The three men met on the landward edge of the dock.

“Belinda.” Phoebe broke into a run, her skirts gathered in her hands.

Something surely had happened to Belinda. For the second time in the past twelve hours, Phoebe had neglected a patient because of a man.

She stumbled to a halt beside Rafe, grasped his arm for support. “What’s wrong?”

Derrick and Jordy glanced at her, then Rafe. Neither spoke.

“Belinda?” Phoebe demanded. “Mel?”

“They’re quite a’right.” A muscle bunched in Rafe’s jaw, and the arm beneath Phoebe’s hand felt as solid as a spar with tension.

“It’s . . . not Belinda?” Her voice sounded small, squeaky.

“Nay.” Rafe drew away from her. “Derrick, no, Jordy, take Mrs. Lee back to the inn. Get—”

“You shouldn’t go out there,” Jordy interrupted. “He’s got the men aggravated.”

“He who?” Phoebe demanded.

“’Tis my brig,” Rafe said. “I am going to talk sense into the sensible ones and subdue those who cannot think for themselves and will follow—” He looked down at Phoebe. “Jordy, get her a room. I expect she’d like a rest and bath and so forth. Ensure the inn gives her whatever she needs. I’ll send Mrs. Chapman and Mel ashore immediately.” Without another word, he sprinted down the wharf to one of the bobbing boats secured to the pilings.

“Go to the inn.” Jordy flung the words over his shoulder as he too raced for the boats.

“Wait.” Phoebe followed. “I need to be with Belinda.”

She spoke her sister-in-law’s name. She knew that was right—her responsibility, whether or not she was willing to be at sea—but she fixed her gaze on Rafe, and her heart said,
I need to be with him if there’s danger.

“I said take her to the inn, Jordy McPherson,” Rafe shouted. “’Tis an order.”

“Aye, Captain, and your orders mean naught if they kill you.” Jordy grabbed the painter to keep the boat from shoving off. “I am going with you.”

“They are not going to kill me,” Rafe said.

His face was set so hard that Phoebe believed him. No one would dare kill a man that cold. They’d be afraid to.

An ache started in Phoebe’s middle, a longing to forever break up the coldness to find the man who loved so deeply he devoted his life to seeing his wife’s death avenged, the man who adored his daughter, the man who calmed her when the deck canopy collapsed and sent her into a panic.

“I want to go too,” Phoebe declared.

Rafe drew a knife from his boot and sliced through the painter. “Neither of you is coming with us. Derrick?”

Derrick hoisted the cutter’s single sail.

Phoebe’s heart sank into her stomach. “He can’t go out there and leave us here.”

“’Tis his brig.” Jordy gazed after Rafe and the cutter. “’Tis the only home he has left himself.”

“But—” She’d longed for this freedom from Rafe Docherty for days, but now that the prospect stared her in the face, she felt like weeping. She glanced at Jordy. “What has gone wrong?”

“Once Captain Rafe went ashore, some of the men began to talk.” Jordy tucked his hand beneath her elbow and gently turned her toward the inn. “One mon in particular. He thinks himself in a position to say Rafe is no longer fit to lead the men. They say he has gone soft since letting his daughter come aboard and has no stomach for the fighting. So they need to take control of the voyage.”

“But that’s—”

“Aye, mutiny.” Jordy’s thin lips nearly disappeared, he compressed them so tightly.

“Who is it?” Phoebe demanded.

“’Tis none of your concern, Mrs. Lee. Captain will take care of it or—”

“Die trying?” Phoebe set her fists on her hips. “Jordy McPherson, I have a right to know what’s afoot when my patient is aboard. And Melvina and her ridiculous excuse for a dog need protecting too.”

“Captain Rafe will see to their safety, even if it means sacrificing his own. Now, if you please, Mrs. Lee, ’tis not good to stand about here in the middle of the night.”

“Nor should Rafe—Captain Docherty be going out to meet a crew of mutineers. I mean, what if they kill him?”

And he held such anger in his soul rather than praying for redemption.

“His soul—” She couldn’t speak for the pain in her chest.

“Aye, I ken what you are saying. He holds his sins to his heart like they’re prizes to put in a vault.” Jordy’s face seemed to elongate with sadness. “Derrick and I have tried.” He tried again to urge Phoebe forward, continuing to talk. “We thought perhaps having a Christian lady like yourself aboard might help, so we went along with the plans to not return you to shore.”

Phoebe wrapped an arm around a stanchion and glared at Jordy. “If you’re a man of God, how can you be aboard a privateer like you are and help Captain Docherty in his quest?”

“You cannot save the unbeliever by avoiding him.” Jordy released her arm and scrubbed his hands over his face, his whiskers rasping beneath his calloused palms. “And I have kent him since he was a bairn. I’d been working in their household as a scullion since I was a lad of ten but I’d improved myself and gained the family’s trust by the time Captain Rafe was born.”

“So young?” Phoebe forgot her protest in her fascination and intrigue.

So Rafe came from a family well-off enough to have that many servants—a separate person to wash up the dishes and pots and pans.

“’Twas better than the workhouse.” Jordy half smiled. “Aye, but they were good to me, the Dochertys. And he was a fine lad. I ne’er thought he would—” He sighed and shook his head. “So I went to sea with him to try to be a friend, even if I disapprove of what he is doing. If God wills, I am a light in the darkness Rafe sets around him.”

Thoughts whirling in her head, Phoebe allowed Jordy to walk her toward the inn. Darkness huddled around them, but a starlit night, not the emptiness of a lost soul. Laughter and conversation drifted on the breeze, and somewhere a barbecue fire wafted fragrant smoke toward them. No shots rang out from the harbor. Few sounds at all floated to shore. Most vessels lay in slumber, but a glance backward displayed a line of torches along the deck of the
Davina
.

“Why?” Phoebe burst out. “Why did they do it to him now? Surely they understand he can’t fight battles with his daughter aboard.”

“Most of them do not care.” Jordy opened the inn door. A bell rang above it. From a far corner of the dimly lit entry hall, someone yawned and shuffled forward, and Jordy stepped up to meet the shadowy male figure. “The lady needs a room.”

“Humph.” The man glanced from Jordy to Phoebe. “She was with t’other one earlier.”

“Aye, and what account is that?”

The innkeeper leered, and Phoebe’s face grew warm. She’d been called some unpleasant names in the past four years. Patients in pain, her mother-in-law, a magistrate all found unpleasant sobriquets to pile on her head. Yet none had gone in the direction the landlord implied.

She took a step backward. “I’d rather return to the ship.”

“Nay, the captain wants you here.” Jordy loomed over the diminutive landlord. “Mrs. Lee would like a room to herself. In the morning, provide her with a bath and anything else she needs. Do you understand, mon?”

“I understand I need money for all that.” The man jutted out a nonexistent chin.

Jordy drew a purse from his breeches pocket. It was woven leather and made a chinking sound. The landlord’s eyes gleamed in the single candle’s glow.

“Do not get greedy.” Jordy drew out a handful of coins.

Phoebe didn’t know British coinage but guessed the silver meant shillings. The landlord laughed and demanded gold. The men haggled and ended up with Jordy giving him silver.

“Aye, then, show the lady—” Jordy began.

The innkeeper shook his head of sparse gray locks. “The room’s not ready. A lady deserves clean sheets.” He scurried off.

“I must have paid him too much if he is willing to give you clean sheets,” Jordy muttered.

Phoebe came close to smiling, but a pop like gunfire from the direction of the harbor sent her spinning on her heel and racing for the door. “Rafe—I mean, Belinda. Mel.”

Jordy grasped her hand and held her back. “You cannot help.”

“I must. I’m a woman. Maybe I can talk them out of violence.”

“You, Mrs. Lee?” Jordy touched his belly, where she’d kicked him.

“That was different.”

“Watt will not understand—” Jordy grimaced.

Phoebe stared at him. “Watt is leading the mutineers? I thought he was the captain’s friend.”

“Nay, they have ne’er been friends. More like armed companions for the past thirteen years.”

“What?” Phoebe tried to tug her hand free. The harbor lay quiet and sparsely lit again, but she wanted—needed—to go out to the
Davina
. And she wanted—needed—to remain and listen to Jordy, get more information from him. “How can they be when Captain Docherty has been at sea for only nine years?”

“’Tis his tale to tell, not mine. Now stay inside here where ’tis safe. I will go as soon as you are settled.”

“And what can you do?”

“Pray all is well.” Jordy offered her an encouraging smile, but the lines around his eyes appeared deeper and tighter than earlier.

“We can’t stay here in comfort while anything could be happening out there.” Phoebe strained toward the door.

Jordy held her back. “You cannot help out there. Once you are settled, I will be going out there, perhaps with a few men from that English frigate. The Navy does not take kindly to mutinies, not even aboard a privateer, you ken.”

“I didn’t know, but it makes sense.” Phoebe’s gaze strayed to the towering masts of the British warship. It belonged to her country’s enemy, and yet it could be a symbol of help, an answer to prayer.

To more than one prayer.

“I believe the landlord is returning,” she said.

Two sets of footfalls rang on the wooden floorboards. From the dim recesses of the hall, the innkeeper returned, accompanied by the maid who had served the coffee. “Bets will show the lady up,” the man said.

Jordy emitted a long breath like steam escaping from a bellows and released Phoebe’s hand. “Grand. See that she is comfortable and remains here.” He flipped a coin to the landlord.

This time, gold glinted in the candlelight before the man caught it, bit it, and tucked it into his pocket. “Aye, she’ll go nowhere.”

“You,” Phoebe ground between her teeth.

Jordy nodded and strode away, closing the inn door behind him with barely a click.

“Would you like a bath now, madam?” the maid asked.

Phoebe’s skin crawled and itched with days of saltwater cleansings, and temptation lured her forward, up a flight of narrow steps, and onto a gallery. A half dozen rooms opened off the gallery, which overlooked a yard full of black shadows and scrabbling sounds like small paws. Rats? Cats? Phoebe appreciated being above the worst of the stench of rotting fruit and animal droppings. She wasn’t glad about how difficult getting away would be. But then, perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Jordy’s instructions had been to give her whatever she wanted . . .

Phoebe reined in her impatience and accepted the offer of an immediate bath. “But I have nothing clean to wear afterward.”

“I can find you sommit, madam.” Bets opened the door to a small room and used a strike-a-light to ignite a branch of candles inside the door. “Guests leave things behind. Nothing’ll be all that fine, but it’ll be clean enough. I’ll wash your dress for you.”

“When will you sleep?”

The girl shrugged too-thin shoulders. “I sleep when I can snatch an hour or two.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s better than walking the streets, if a fine lady like you understands me.”

“I understand you.” Phoebe shuddered. “I’m a midwife.”

“Ah.” The girl nodded. “Here’s the bed. Have a rest while I prepare the bath. The water’s nearly hot all the time, so it won’t be long.”

It was long enough for Phoebe to drift off to sleep half lying on the straw-filled mattress, but she roused when the innkeeper and maid arrived with a tin bath and then steaming water.

Left alone, Phoebe sank into the water with jasmine-scented steam billowing around her and focused on plans to escape. Getting Belinda away would prove difficult. Surely the frigate captain would help once she mentioned a connection to Admiral Landry, Dominick’s uncle. Rafe and his mutinous crew could go on their way to pillaging for a fortune.

And Rafe might get his revenge. He might even survive in body. Yet he might lose his soul in the process.

If God wills, I am a light in the darkness Rafe sets around him.
Jordy’s words rang in Phoebe’s ears, in her conscience, interrupting her plans for escape back to Virginia.

She wanted to return. She yearned to sail west so badly her muscles ached with the effort not to run shrieking for help back to America, with promises to give her fortune to whomever helped her. But if Rafe did regain control of his vessel, he needed all the lights in the darkness willing to do God’s work.

She yanked her mind away from the notion of leaving and set about washing her hair and scrubbing away an accumulation of saltwater residue from her skin. Refreshed, fragrant, and clean, she went to bed and fell asleep praying.

In the morning, with no word from the brig and sunlight streaming through her window, she asked the inn maid for a few items to make her morning comfort complete. The girl looked dubious, but she returned in a quarter hour with hot chocolate, bread, jam, and ink, pen, and paper.

Hot chocolate and food at her elbow, Phoebe dipped the pen in the ink and began to write:

Dear Tabitha and Dominick . . .