Heart's Safe Passage (4 page)

Phoebe sighed. “I’m not going to shout at you now either.”

“Good. George never shouts at me.” Belinda glanced around. “Do you think you can find me something to eat? I’m quite famished, even if that isn’t ladylike to say.”

“Oh, Bel.” Phoebe laughed. “Let me see if I can find anything in your boxes.”

And take her mind off the bulkheads and deck beams closing in on her.

“I want a cup of hot tea.”

“I can’t help you with that.” Phoebe tucked the small-bladed knife into her bodice. Without losing her balance on the tilting deck, she held on to the desk and then the chart table and made her way to the stack of Belinda’s cabin stores she had also insisted Docherty’s men bring aboard. Each crate appeared marked with its contents—linen and notions, tea, coffee, raisins and currants, preserves, bread.

“You didn’t expect this to last the voyage, did you?” Phoebe tugged one box away from the others. The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted to her nose. Her stomach growled, then seized up like a fist.

“I thought we could set it out and dry it when it gets stale.”

“In the humidity at sea, you’re more likely to end up with nothing but mold. But we may as well eat while it’s edible.”

“Yes, let’s.” Belinda rubbed her stomach. “I think the baby is hungry too.”

The baby, of course.

Phoebe released the crate and turned to Belinda. “When did it quicken?”

Belinda shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really know.”

“A month ago? Two?”

“I said I don’t know.” Belinda’s tone rose with impatience.

“You must let me examine you,” Phoebe insisted.

“No, no, I’m all right.” Color tinged Belinda’s fair skin. “I don’t like being examined. And I’ve told you not by you especially.”

“Then why did you ask me to come along with you?” Phoebe planted one hand on her hip as she glared at her sister-in-law. “Why did you force me to come with you?”

“Well, um . . .” Belinda bit her lower lip, then the tip of her forefinger. She paled in the lantern light. “In the event my lying-in happens while we’re aboard.”

“It’s not likely to take us four months to cross the Atlantic, if we even do, though the return—”

“Oh, Phoebe.” Belinda let out a wail. “I lied to you. I’m at least seven months along.”

Phoebe’s heart pounded so hard it threatened to bruise her ribs from the inside. She couldn’t breathe. Spots danced before her eyes. The hand on her hip curled into a fist, and the nails of her other hand dug into the table. In half a second, she just might start screeching at Belinda after all, saying things she would regret before the words left her lips, declaring truths about Belinda’s parents—how they’d spoiled her and how they’d never condemned, if not outright condoned, her deceased brother. No one else needed to, or should, know the ugly truth of the Lee family. Belinda had George, and she was harmless—mostly. And Phoebe knew how to keep her mouth shut—mostly. Life with Belinda’s brother had taught Phoebe how to use that half second to control her tongue. The consequences with him had been immediate and painful. With Belinda, they would likely result in hysterics, which was not good for the baby.

Phoebe dropped to her knees beside the box marked B
READ
and said a quick prayer for restraint before she began to pry open the lid.

“I suppose that was unkind of me.” Belinda’s high, rather breathy voice filled the stillness inside the cabin. “Not telling you, I mean.”

Phoebe said nothing, still not trusting her tongue. She concentrated on using the little knife she’d taken from the desk to push the lid up enough for her to get her fingers beneath and tug.

“I—I was afraid you’d find a way to keep me from coming and rescuing George.”

Phoebe grasped the edge of the box lid and yanked. With a screech of the thin nails, the slatted wood covering flew off. The aroma of bread already going moldy overpowered the odors of the ship and vied with Belinda’s abundant use of lavender oil that seemed to cling to everyone who came in contact with her. Phoebe’s mouth watered, but not with anticipation of eating one of the fragrant loaves. If she took one bite of the bread, it would not stay down, if it even reached her stomach.

She hadn’t felt queasy on the cutter crossing the bay. She’d sailed before, and farther, like the time she traveled to Seabourne to visit her aunt and uncle to get away from Leesburg, away from the gossip after her husband’s death. Despite her recent brush with death then—from a blow, a fall, her baby being born too early and stillborn—she felt no indisposition. On the contrary. She’d felt healthy again upon her arrival on the eastern shore. Upon the water, she’d never experienced anything like this outright nausea. If this was the effect of sailing on the open sea, then she had another reason to get off the brig immediately.

“This is barely edible now,” she told Belinda.

“I still think I can eat the whole thing,” Belinda declared.

“You don’t have any sickness?” The midwife in Phoebe took over her tongue now. “Not in the morning or afternoon? Not from the ship’s motion?”

“I haven’t been ill at all. Everyone says how one gets dreadfully sick, but I haven’t ever.”

“That’s a relief.” Phoebe began to work on the box marked P
RESERVES
. “I hope you stay that way, if you insist on remaining here. Of course, if you eat moldy bread, I can’t guarantee you will.”

“I’ll pull off the moldy bits. And of course I’m staying. Captain Docherty needs me.” Belinda held out her hand. “Do hurry. I’m so hungry I almost feel sick.”

Phoebe refrained from saying Belinda should have brought a maid instead of a midwife. Phoebe hadn’t been much different when she’d gone to stay with her aunt in Seabourne. Pampered and petted all her life by everyone except her husband, she had to learn to cook, clean, iron, even pin up her own hair. When she apprenticed with Tabitha, she had to learn more—how to do often unpleasant tasks for other women without showing revulsion. She could do all proficiently now.

But Belinda was pampered and petted by everyone, including her husband, and could do none of those tasks. She would never survive alone on a brig for weeks, even months. And if she was far enough along in her condition, she might go into labor at sea. If she wouldn’t allow Phoebe to examine her, she surely would object to one of the sailors delivering her child, if anyone knew what to do. If trouble arose . . .

No, she must get Belinda to agree to go ashore, once Phoebe figured out how to get them ashore. If Belinda refused, Phoebe would return the favor Belinda had done her and force the younger woman onto a boat or into the water itself.

The roar of wind and surf suggested the idea of going into either boat or water lacked good sense now. As though remaining on the brig of the enemy was sensible. They were likely headed straight out to sea, away from the mouth of the Chesapeake, away from the last spit of land.

Then Phoebe must find a way to turn them around.

She wrestled the lid off the box of the jars of preserves and selected one marked P
LUMS
. Her little knife wouldn’t do for slicing bread, and Belinda hadn’t thought to include utensils or cutlery in her cabin stores. Phoebe rose and glanced around in search of something with a bigger blade. Her glance landed on the rack of weapons hanging from one bulkhead. Cutlasses, rapiers, an ornate sword hung there—

Behind an iron bar with a prominent lock.

The penknife would have to do for cutting the bread and spreading the preserves, and one vague notion of how to get away would have to go. She could only gaze upon the blades rather than employ them for good use, rather like Tantalus in the myth always thirsting for water but unable to reach it.

Phoebe set the bread and preserves on the table and tore off a hunk of the former. “This will make a mess, but we do have water.”

“I want something hot too.” Belinda had turned petulant again. “Why can’t they prepare me something hot?”

“I believe they douse fires in a storm. You’ll have to wait for the sea to quiet.”

“And sleep.” Belinda yawned and picked up the bread and preserves bottle. “I don’t care if it’s messy.” She snatched up Phoebe’s knife and used it to break the wax seal over the end of the jar and scoop out some of the jellied fruit. Much of it slid onto the table. Enough landed on the bread to apparently satisfy Belinda, for she began to devour the repast.

With a bit more grace, Phoebe spread plum preserves on her own bread. Her stomach would stop hurting once she ate something, and she loved plum preserves. These had come from her in-laws’ plantation. They would taste like ambrosia.

They didn’t smell like ambrosia. Before bread and jam touched her lips, Phoebe’s nose wrinkled at the stench of rotten fruit.

“This jam has gone bad.” She started to set the bread aside. “I’ll find some—”

“It’s not bad. It’s delicious.” Belinda tore off another chunk of bread and doused it with more preserves. “If I had a spoon, I’d eat it right out of the jar.”

Phoebe’s stomach clenched. She’d eaten little since she’d been forced aboard a tiny ship’s cutter, overcrowded with men, Belinda, and her, tossed about in the Chesapeake as they evaded other vessels and pretended to be innocent fishermen. Her stomach had hurt then too, outrage, apprehension, fear tearing at her insides. Not eating made it worse. She knew that. She must eat to think.

She lifted her hunk of bread to her lips, took a bite. The sweet and tart flavor of the plum preserves burst on her tongue, burned in her throat. The bread tasted like glue smelled. She tried to swallow, gagged, raced for the stern windows to jerk back the latch, and slammed the panes aside.

“Phoebe, what are you doing?”

Phoebe gripped the sides of the window frame and leaned out as far as she dared. Sea spray slapped her face like icy palms. She gulped in cold, wet air, tried swallowing again. The bread remained stuck in her throat.

“Phoebe, shut that window at once,” Belinda cried. “You’re getting soaked, and it’s cold.”

The brig twisted itself into the trough of a wave. Phoebe’s stomach twisted in the opposite direction. She groaned. Involuntary tears spilled from her eyes, hot against her chilled cheeks.

“I can’t be seasick. I can’t.”

The stern slammed onto the water. The bread went down. Stayed. She wasn’t seasick. She inhaled the fresh air—and took in a mouthful of seawater. She coughed, choked, rather welcomed the frigid blast.

Behind her, Belinda raged. Her words made no sense, but the tone was clear. She sounded like her deceased brother when he’d been in a temper, when he’d been thwarted, and Phoebe’s shoulders tensed, her back muscles rippling in anticipation of a blow, a kick, a pinch at the least.

No, no, not Belinda. She threw tantrums like the spoiled child she too often still was, but she never inflicted pain. At least not with her fists. She preferred cutting words. Physical pain was Gideon, and he was dead, dead, dead. But if Belinda continued to rage, the captain would return.

Phoebe started to draw back inside the cabin to tell Belinda to be quiet, let her enjoy the storm in peace. But the lavender and mildew combination in the cabin sent Phoebe’s stomach roiling again, and she leaned out of the window for tangy, briny air.

But Belinda did grow quiet as though someone had shut her into a box and sat on the lid. Hands clamped on Phoebe’s waist. Belinda come to help? No, large hands held her, pulled her away from the sea, lifted her off the window seat.

“Don’t.” Her voice sounded like a mewling kitten’s cry.

“Do not what?” He sounded amused. “Do not let you tumble on your head into the sea? Do not let you catch your death soaked as you are?”

“Don’t help me.” She kept her eyes closed so she didn’t have to look at him, see contempt or mockery for her weakness. “If you won’t let me off this brig, you’d better just let me die. I’ll likely hang anyway.”

Belinda gasped from somewhere nearby. “Phoebe.”

“I thought better of the great Phoebe Carter Lee.” His burr rolled over the R’s in her maiden name, a purr to her whimper.

Had he not cradled her in his arms, she would have curled up on herself like an overcooked shrimp, hidden her face so he couldn’t see her any more than she would look upon him.

“’Tis a wee bit of the mal de mer, no more.” He set her on the bed. “Get yourself into dry things while I fetch you something to drink.”

“No, not mal de mer.” Yet inside the cabin, with the windows closed, the merest suggestion of sustenance set her off again. With her eyes still closed, she tried returning to the window. “I need air.”

“But you’re getting everything wet letting the water and rain in like that.”

“No, please, I can’t—” A sob of pure mortification broke from Phoebe’s throat.

Rafe Docherty handed her a basin and held her head.

Phoebe burned with shame, shivered with cold. Sobs of mortification choked her so she couldn’t say what she was thinking.
If one can die of humiliation, I’ll be dead in minutes.

“No, you will not die of the humiliation or the sickness.” The sonorous voice held a hint of laughter. The hand that brushed her hair away from her brow held tenderness despite rough calluses.

So she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

She curled up as tightly as she could and wrapped her arms around her knees. The door latch clicked. No bolt sounded.

“That’s revolting, Phoebe,” Belinda said. “I’m not even hungry anymore.”

“So sorry.” Phoebe began to shiver. “This cabin is so small. It’s like—”

But it wasn’t. Though low in height, the chamber wasn’t much smaller than an average bedroom. If she continued to tell herself that, she would be all right. Surely.

“Will you fetch me some dry clothes, please?” she asked.

“I don’t know where—oh, all right.”

Rustling, snapping, the creak of hinges followed. A few moments later, Belinda brought Phoebe a nightgown reeking of lavender. Her throat burned, but she was done for now. With Belinda’s aid, Phoebe exchanged wet things for dry, then snuggled into the quilts on the bunk, covers smelling of sea air and sunshine and oddly calming.

A knock sounded on the door. “May I come in, ladies?”