Heart's Safe Passage (2 page)

Phoebe ground her teeth together and counted to ten to stop herself from shouting that she was a midwife, a well-trained one, who wanted nothing more than to practice, if only the ladies of Loudoun County would see her as more than a wealthy marriage prospect for their brothers, sons, nephews . . .

“If you don’t want me as a midwife,” Phoebe managed with remarkable calm considering how her insides boiled, “then why do you want me to accompany you on your madcap journey?”

“Well, I want you for my midwife once we’re at sea, but not here. It’s just too embarrassing to have my sister-in-law examine me. I mean, I don’t eat at the same table with my midwife.”

“Then maybe you should take a different midwife with you.”

“I can’t.” Belinda sighed. “She has a family she doesn’t want to leave. And I didn’t think you’d mind leaving Leesburg.”

Phoebe couldn’t disagree with that part. After all, she’d packed up and departed for Williamsburg the day she’d received Belinda’s request.

“But I don’t want to leave on the ship of some enemy and possibly be tainted in this country.”

“He can’t be a real enemy if he wants to help free American prisoners.” Belinda smiled serenely. “We could be there and have George free before my confinement.”

“Or end up in an English or even an American prison ourselves,” Phoebe muttered. Rubbing her suddenly aching temples, she tried another tack. “Bel, this is the worst time for you to travel. All the jostling, the bad food, not to mention the danger of attacks from the French or our own ships . . .” She gave her head an emphatic shake. “You could miscarry or even die.”

“What I can’t do,” Belinda said, “is leave my husband to rot in the hulk and condemn my unborn baby to never knowing his father.”

“Of course you can’t.” Phoebe resumed pacing, concentrating on treading only on the pink flowers in the carpet and avoiding the violet blossoms or green leaves. “I’ve prayed every morning and night for George to be safe and freed, and I know it will happen.”

“Of course he will, because this opportunity presented itself.”

“Presented itself?” Phoebe spun toward Belinda, her right foot squarely in the middle of a violet. “How?”

“I don’t really know.” Belinda closed her eyes. “A man came to see me one night. He said his name is Rafael Docherty—Captain Docherty—and he told me of George’s capture, then he said he could help me get George free if I’d sail to England with him. It was like an answer to prayer. I’d been feeling quite desperate about my dear George being a prisoner of war and how awful things are. His investors . . . well, they may want their money back, especially Mr. Brock. Then this man appeared like a message directly from the Lord.”

Phoebe sighed. “I don’t think the Lord meant childlike faith to be childish faith, Bel. But that’s what you’re demonstrating—downright irresponsible—no, don’t cry. I know you must be upset by George’s imprisonment. It can’t be easy. But no Englishman who would take a female across the Atlantic in the middle of a war is up to any good.”

“I don’t care what his reasons are.” Belinda drew a handkerchief out of her reticule and dabbed at her eyes. “If he helps me get George free, it’s worth every bit of risk.”

“Is it a risk George would want you to take?” Phoebe asked.

“Yes. Well . . .” Belinda dropped her gaze. “Maybe not, but it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late.”

“For what? Bel, before you do anything rash, we should tell your father—” Phoebe stared at her sister-in-law as she rose and trotted to the door of the dressing room.

A heartbeat before Belinda turned the handle, a floorboard creaked in the adjoining chamber. Phoebe caught the sound, then a scent, a tang of damp wool, salt air, tar. She bolted for the hallway door and the sensible servants beyond. Her hand closed over the latch, lifted. The door clicked.

Behind her, the dressing room door clicked. Footfalls trod on the carpet, silent but heavy enough to feel. Phoebe yanked open her portal. Arms closed around her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. She parted her lips to scream. A hand as hard as boot leather clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream but freeing one arm.

Kicking out with one foot, she swung her freed arm up and back. Her fist connected with flesh. A man grunted, grabbed her wrist, growled an oath.

Phoebe had never deliberately harmed anyone in her life. Now she twisted, turned, lashed out with her feet. And only managed to bruise her slippered heels. Prayers for deliverance and vows of revenge raced through her mind. She opened her mouth and bit hard into the calloused palm over her mouth.

Her captor gasped. “Can ye lads no’ help me? She’s a wild woman.”

Belinda let out a whimper. “Don’t hurt her.”

Too late for the minx to think of that.

Phoebe gritted her teeth and tasted blood. The stranger’s blood. Gagging, she spit. His hand jerked away. Before she could scream, another hand closed over her mouth and nose, cutting off her air.

“I need her well.” Belinda’s protest was the last thing Phoebe heard before the world turned black.

Chesapeake Bay, Virginia
October 5, 1813

Legs braced against the pitching roll of the deck, Captain Rafe Docherty held the night glass to his eye and scanned the horizon. Nothing showed save the inverted view of sea bulging in ever-increasing waves against the flat gray expanse of the sky. Not a single British patrol or American privateer ready to waylay him—the former a risk to his crew, the latter a nuisance, both an interruption he couldn’t afford.

On the other hand, the cutter hadn’t returned either.

He shoved the glass into the binnacle rack and turned to the helmsman. “If they’re not back within the quarter hour, we’ll have to be leaving them behind.”

“But, sir,” the man protested, “we’d be down by three of our best men, not to mention the cargo.”

“Better that than losing all of you to a man-of-war or Yankee privateer.”

Except perhaps not. He needed the cargo, the female whose presence would help to lure his quarry out of hiding.

He retrieved the night glass and began to pace the width of the quarterdeck. Five strides to windward. Five strides to leeward. A pause to scan the horizon before he turned on his heel and repeated the circuit. With each view of an empty sea, he felt his gut twist a wee bit tighter. All his planning, all the risk of sailing to the mouth of the harbor at Norfolk, for naught. His first mate, Jordy McPherson, had warned him the flibbertigibbet of a female would ruin Rafe’s scheme.

Five minutes. Ten. Jordy was likely cursing Rafe’s name and saying, “I told him so,” while sighing relief that for once, Rafe Docherty wasn’t going to get his own way.

No, not for once. If he’d gotten his own way nine years earlier, he wouldn’t be riding at anchor much too close to the shore of Virginia on the eve of a full moon, awaiting three of his best men to return with the wife of one of the most important merchants in Virginia.

All of them about to commit treason.

Another lap of the deck. Two. A scan of sea and sky. Rain began to patter onto the planks, cold for October.

Another circuit. Midnight was nearly upon them. His men had been gone for four days, leaving him riding vulnerable at the mouth of the Chesapeake, or hiding out as best he could in inlets during the day.

Rafe paused at the quarter rail and opened his mouth to give the order to up anchor, then heard the creak of rigging, a muffled command, a thud felt more than heard.

The cutter had returned.

Rafe leaped to the main deck and ran to the entry port, one hand on his dirk, the other on his pistol in the event the arrivals weren’t his crew and passenger after all. They hadn’t hailed him.

He gave the challenge. “Who goes there?”

“’Tis I, Captain Rafe.” Though low-pitched, Jordy’s voice rolled up from the boat, unmistakable with its highland burr.

“And well past time you got yourselves here.” Rafe dropped the rope ladder over the side. “We were about to leave you.”

“Aye, weel, you’ll be wanting to leave soon enough, I’m thinking.” Jordy headed up the ladder, his face a pale blur in the phosphorescent glow from the sea, their only light. “We had a time of it with the two of them.”

“Two?” Rafe stepped back as though struck. “What are you saying, mon?”

“More’n you want to hear.” Jordy landed on the deck, then turned back to assist the next man.

Derrick, a full head taller than Rafe and half again as wide, rose through the port with a burden on his back. With a sigh of relief, he set the bundle on the deck and descended the ladder again, muttering, “I’ll fetch t’other one.”

“Other?” Rafe stared at the package at his feet. It looked like a bulging burlap sack, but it moved. It let out a squeal, which, though wordless, conveyed protest, objection, and outrage in a handful of notes.

“What—did—you—do?” Rafe gave each word a distinct enunciation as he dropped into a crouch and reached for the bag. The scent of lavender rose from its folds, and he wrinkled his nose.

“It couldn’t be helped.” Jordy ran his words together in his haste to talk. “Mrs. Chapman said she wouldn’t come without her, but she didn’t want to come with us, so we had to bring her along like this or she’d have raised the alarm.”

“She who?” Rafe slit the sack open with his dirk.

A fair face and gossamer hair emerged. The squeals increased, and she drummed her bound feet on the deck.

“Mrs. Phoebe Lee,” Jordy said. “She’s Mrs. Chapman’s sister-in-law.”

Rafe hadn’t sworn in front of a lady since he was fifteen and said something unacceptable in his mother’s hearing. Though he’d been twice her size already, she grabbed him by his hair queue and dragged him to her boudoir, where she proceeded to wash his mouth out with lavender soap. He had been vilely sick, to this day couldn’t bear the scent of lavender, and watched his tongue around females of all ages and social rank.

Until that moment.

The words slipped out unbidden, not repented. More crowded into his throat. He swallowed them down and clamped his teeth shut to stem a surge of burning in his throat.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Jordy repeated. “You said to ensure Mrs. Chapman didn’t change her mind about joining us, and she said she must have this one with her.”

Another thud hit the deck. Rafe glanced toward the source, brows raised in query.

“Along with her cabin stores,” Jordy added. “Should I be taking this one down to your cabin?”

“Aye.” It was all Rafe dared say.

He rose and turned his back on the boat crew and their cargo. If he counted to one hundred—nay, one thousand—he might not toss his first mate overboard. He might not assign the other four men to the worst duties on the brig—scrubbing decks and cleaning bilges.

No, that would take counting to two thousand.

With a measured gait, he paced to the prow, stood gripping the forestay for balance. At that moment, he could have ripped it away from its belaying pins and yards with one twist of his wrist.

“Phoebe Lee indeed.” He ground the name between his teeth.

Mrs. Phoebe Carter Lee, widow. Wealthy widow with a somewhat cloudy reputation because of how she’d spent the past four years of her life. When Rafe had slipped ashore in Williamsburg to find Belinda Chapman, more than one man in the waterfront taverns mentioned the Chapman lady’s sister-in-law, who had likely driven her husband to his death, then allied herself with some interesting people on the eastern shore. One interesting person in particular. Possibly the one person in America Rafe feared.

No amount of counting drove away his desire to send Jordy McPherson sailing headfirst off the crosstrees for coming within ten yards of Phoebe Lee, let alone trussing her up like a Christmas goose and hauling her aboard his majesty’s privateer
Davina
. Counting did, however, afford him a measure of control. He managed to uncurl his hand from the stay and stride aft.

“Winch that cutter aboard, then up anchor,” he directed the men on watch. “Set course for the Atlantic. This storm is going to get worse, and we need to be out of the Chesapeake before daybreak. And keep Mel and Fiona below until I say otherwise.”

He didn’t wait to see if his orders would be obeyed. He took the companionway ladder in two steps and shoved open his cabin door.

Light from two swinging lanterns blazed into his eyes. He closed the door behind him and leaned his shoulders against it. “Are you going to offer her to Cook to cook up for tomorrow’s dinner, Jordy, or cut her bonds?”

Across the cabin, upon the comfortable bunk he intended to give up for the voyage for Mrs. Chapman’s convenience, the still bound and gagged Mrs. Lee met his glance with green eyes that blazed like sunlight through stained glass. Green eyes, hair like moonlight reflected in gold.

Rafe’s stomach seized up, and he ripped his gaze away to settle on Mrs. Chapman. “Are you a’right, madam?”

“Yes, but I want him to free Phoebe.” Mrs. Chapman huddled on the window seat beneath the stern lights. She wore a woolen cloak large enough to fit two of her, and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders, giving her the appearance of a girl of ten rather than a woman of—what? Twenty?

Rafe smiled at her. “I apologize for your companion’s rough treatment. Jordy, free Mrs. Lee, then see to navigating us out of the bay.”

“Do you think I should, Captain?” Jordy looked dubious. “She gave Watt a black eye when we took her. And she kicked me hard enough to make me lose my dinner the first time I set her free aboard the cutter so she could be more comfortable.”

Rafe gave Mrs. Lee a sidelong glance. “Shame on Watt and you for getting in the way of such a little fist and foot.”

She pounded the little fist, along with the companion to which it was attached, on the mattress.

“And bit a hole in Watt’s hand,” Jordy added.

“Let us trust she’s not rabid.”

She squealed like she might be.

“Aye, you may have at Mr. McPherson if you like.” Rafe stepped away from the door. “When I’m through with him.”

“Don’t harm anyone.” Mrs. Chapman started to cry. “I told your men Phoebe wouldn’t want me to come and would try to stop me if I gave her a chance, but I couldn’t come without her. I just couldn’t.”