Heart's Safe Passage

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “I needed some kind of protection.” Mel sounded sulky. “And it worked. She saved you.”

  “As if I need a wee dog to rescue me from a wee lass.” Docherty crouched before Phoebe and nudged her chin up.

  For a moment, their faces hovered mere inches apart, close enough for her to feel his warm breath on her lips. Close enough for her to see her reflection in his gray eyes.

  “You’re looking better.” That odd tenderness had crept into his voice again, a compassion that belonged in a pastor or friend, not the captain of a privateer who had allowed her to be abducted.

  Her insides quivered like a plain of quicksand. She straightened but didn’t look away.

  “She’s still a funny color,” announced Mel, the child with the vicious dog.

  That dog now rested in her master’s arms as limp as a fluffy toy.

  “You can’t continue to be sick,” Belinda protested. “You’re here to take care of me.”

  “But you’re not ill.” For the first time, Phoebe realized that the lad bore the same burr as the captain.

  And the same red hair.

  She glanced from one to the other, noted the cheekbones, the straight noses, and the shape, if not the color, of the eyes. “A young relation?”

  “Aye, for my sins.” The glance Doherty cast Mel held pure affection.

  Phoebe managed a smile. “Which are numerous.”

  “Like the stars in the heavens, no doot.” He rose. “Mrs. Chapman, will you tend to your friend’s injuries?”

  “Me?” Belinda paled. “I’ve never done anything of the kind. Blood makes me ill.”

  “There’s no blood.” Phoebe started to hold out her foot, realized she would be displaying her ankles to a man, and tucked her toes inside the folds of her gown. “I can manage myself.” She started to rise.

  Fiona raised her head, muzzle twitching.

  “Take that menace elsewhere,” Docherty commanded Mel.

  “But—”

  “Do not argue with me. If she bites anyone else, she’ll be going ashore.”

  “Lucky dog,” Phoebe muttered.

  At that moment, with Docherty’s kindness still radiating around her, slipping out of the stern windows and swimming ashore sounded like a fine idea and the only way to make up for her horrendous behavior. Unless scrubbing decks or cooking meals for the crew would serve better.

  Or staying aboard to tend to Belinda, regardless of the fact it made her a traitor to her country.

  God, what would You have me do?

  More shame burned through her. She’d acted without praying, had taken the human way to obtain their freedom. Not the first time she’d done something so foolish. This time, the results weren’t half as bad—yet.

  Maybe she could simply slither under the table until he departed. Better yet, ask to spend the voyage in the hold unless Bel needed her so she didn’t have to look at him.

  Outrage, anguish, a hint of despair clawed at her belly. Phoebe drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  In front of her, a hand on the lad’s shoulder, Docherty spun him to the door. “Scoot.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Mel trudged from the cabin.

  Docherty turned back to Phoebe and held out his hand. “The key.”

  “It’s still in the lock.” Fatigue washed over and through Phoebe. Speaking seemed like too much of an effort. She put her head down on her knees and closed her eyes. “Just let me get wherever you want me below and let me sleep.”

  “I’ll let you sleep here.” The lock to the weapons snicked closed.

  “You forgot the dagger,” Belinda said.

  “Aye, so I did.” He returned to Phoebe’s side of the cabin, taking up the open space, filling it with his scent, with his heat.

  Phoebe tightened her arms around her knees.

  “The storm is abating.” Docherty spoke right above her. “You should rest easy now, but there’s more of the ginger water on the desk, should you be needing it.”

  Phoebe managed a muttered, “Thank you.”

  For what felt like forever, he didn’t move away, then suddenly, the cabin felt larger, colder, and the door latch clicked. The lock grated.

  “God is certainly smiling on you tonight.” Belinda joined Phoebe on the window seat. “The captain could have stopped you in a moment.”

  Phoebe nodded. Of course he could have. He’d been toying with her, letting her think she controlled the moment. Of course she hadn’t. She couldn’t have hurt him. Not once had he been in real danger from her, and he knew it. All she’d done was make a fool of herself.

  And she was completely in his control, locked in like a prisoner, sequestered with Belinda. Phoebe was at her beck and call too. Nothing forced Phoebe to do her sister-in-law’s bidding. Experience told Phoebe that giving in turned out easier than living with the consequences of refusal.

  Oh, she was going to need that ginger water. Though the waves no longer felt like the brig sailed through the peaks and valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the cabin door remained firmly in place, and her stomach began to flip and churn again.

  She rose and took the tankard from the desk. “Go to bed, Belinda. You need your rest.”

  “I am tired.” Belinda stumbled to the bunk and slipped beneath the quilt. “This isn’t big enough for both of us.”

  “You should have thought of that before you forced me to come along.” Phoebe sipped at the ginger water. The aromatic herb began its ministrations on her middle. “But never you mind. I’ll manage on the floor.”

  Except she was cold. She hadn’t been warm aboard the brig except for those moments when Rafe Docherty had wrapped her in his cloak.

  She began to search for another coverlet, a blanket, a cloak. A chest beneath the bunk proved to be locked, but the window seat lifted to reveal a second boat cloak of fine black wool. She wrapped it around herself, inhaling the sweetness of the chest’s cedar lining.

  “You shouldn’t be going through his things,” Belinda muttered into her pillow.

  Phoebe curled her upper lip. “He should think of my comfort.”

  But of course he was. He hadn’t stuffed her into the hold or even forced her below deck. He’d given up the comforts of his cabin. He hadn’t hobbled her in any way, except for that locked door, which she mustn’t think about. He’d brought her ginger water and comfrey salve.

  And she’d repaid him with a knife to his jugular.

  A vein in the neck he’d known the name of, oddly enough. Phoebe knew it. Tabitha insisted she know things like that, read and memorize important veins and muscles and bones from medical books. But an ordinary man wouldn’t know such a thing.

  Rafe Docherty was no ordinary man.

  A shiver ran through Phoebe, and she wrapped herself more tightly in the cloak. “I’m going to blow out the light now.”

  “What if we need to see in the night? I’ll fall over something in the dark.”

  “It’ll be light before you need to get up again.” Phoebe removed the second pillow from the bed and wedged herself between the window seat and another locked chest at the foot of the bunk.

  Above her, Belinda began to snore lightly like a cat. Higher up, someone paced the quarterdeck. Back and forth. Back and forth. Restless. Monotonous. The motion of a caged wolf.

  Or a sentry.

  Phoebe went to sleep with the image of a wolf guarding prison gates.

  She woke to the rhythmic slapping of waves against the hull and a field of blue—from robin’s egg to indigo—blazing through the stern windows, blue sky meeting bluer sea and not a speck of land in sight. Finding the cabin stuffier than the night before, Phoebe rose and opened the stern windows for a blast of cold, fresh air.

  “Close the window,” Belinda grumbled from the bed. “It’s cold.”

  “I need the fresh air.”

  “Revolting. How will I get my breakfast?”

  “Maybe you can bang on the door and get someone down here.”

 
“That would be so vulgar. I should wait for someone, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t care what you do.” Phoebe curled up as best she could in the narrow space on the floor. “I want to sleep some more.”

  But a knock sounded on the door, and the child called out for permission to enter.

  “Of course, my dear.” Belinda sounded awake and cheerful.

  Phoebe moaned.

  The lad entered, bringing the tannic aroma of tea and the buttery fragrance of toast.

  “Uh-oh.” A thump sounded from the region of the table. “I’ll fetch my—the captain.”

  His what? Uncle? Brother? That they were related was obvious. Regardless, Phoebe didn’t want him near her.

  “Don’t.” She sat up. “I’ll manage some tea.”

  “It helps, I can assure you.” The lad’s eyes twinkled. “Captain Rafe suffers from the sickness sometimes too. It’ll go away.”

  “If I don’t die first.”

  No sense in saying the sea didn’t bother her, the locked door did. They would think she lied to get her freedom.

  Belinda scolded.

  The lad laughed and scampered from the cabin, ragged hair swinging, long legs flashing. Long legs ending in curved calves, slight ankles, and dainty feet. Rather too elegant and petite for a boy of even eleven or twelve.

  “Lad, my eye.” Phoebe struggled to her feet.

  Belinda stared at her from where she sat at the table, no doubt waiting to be served. “What are you talking about?”

  “Our friend Mel. Do you want jam on some of this toast?”

  “Yes, and I hope they bring us more than tea and toast. I usually have sausages and eggs.”

  “This is a ship. They don’t have sausages and eggs.”

  Thank the Lord.

  “I’ll starve.” Belinda’s lower lip protruded.

  Phoebe ground her teeth to demolish the words trying to reach her lips. She would get nowhere and nothing but grief if she told Belinda she looked in no danger of starving. Indeed, even with her condition being more advanced than she’d originally told Phoebe, Belinda appeared to have gained a great deal of weight since they’d last met in April. No doubt she was getting no exercise. Phoebe would have to see to that. A daily walk made delivery easier.

  A daily walk aboard a ship? Not if they remained locked in. She would have to talk to Docherty about that—and a number of other matters. One in particular.

  “I’ll fetch out some of your stores.” Phoebe spoke a little too loudly to drown out her own thoughts. “Some raisins? Some dried meat?”

  “Yes, both.”

  Phoebe served Belinda her breakfast because she and everyone else had always served Belinda. Because serving her proved easier than listening to her complain. She seemed totally selfish, yet she risked her life, risked being tainted a traitor, to accept the word of a stranger, the enemy, in an effort to save her husband.

  She’d been that devoted to her brother too. George might be worth the danger.

  Phoebe prepared a meal for Belinda and began to organize the boxes of provisions to keep herself busy, to keep herself from thinking of Belinda’s brother, of the confinement of the cabin, of her own queasy stomach, of her current circumstances.

  She couldn’t avoid those. Through the skylight, she caught the rumble of Docherty’s voice, the lilt of his young relative’s, others’. Locks surrounded her—on chests, on the weapons rack, on the cabin door.

  The lock on the door clicked as Phoebe dug sewing materials out of a box for Belinda. Phoebe straightened and faced the portal, expecting the captain with orders as to what he intended to do with his recalcitrant prisoner.

  Instead, Mel entered bearing a copper jug from which steam emerged. “Hot water. And I’ll bring you more ginger water, Mrs. Lee. But you really ought to eat something.”

  “I know.” Phoebe dropped onto the nearest chair. She knew what she needed to ask, but the words lodged in her throat.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Chapman?” Mel asked.

  Belinda swallowed her mouthful of raisins. “Never better. But I’m used to sailing. My husband took me on his schooner up to Baltimore and down to Norfolk many times. Phoebe prefers to ride.”

  “If God wanted us on water, he’d have given us fins.” Phoebe forced herself to smile. “Thank you for serving us, Mel. Is your—is the captain leaving our care to you?”

  “Aye, mostly. He says you will do me no harm.”

  “He’s right.” Belinda cast Phoebe a hard glance.

  “Of course.” Phoebe took a deep breath. “Will you ask him if I may please speak to him? I . . . I’m . . .” She swallowed and looked around the cabin. “Alone. That is, without an audience.”

  “Aye, I’ll ask him.” Mel handed Phoebe the ginger water, then crossed the cabin to one corner. There she set the can of water on the deck, balanced between her feet, and pulled a shelf from the bulkhead. “You have a washstand now. Fold it up when you are finished with the washing up.”

  “That’s so clever.” Belinda sprang up and made her way to the corner. “Where’s the—ah, you keep the bowl tucked behind.”

  Clever indeed. Phoebe glanced around. Did other sections of the paneling conceal hidden compartments with less mundane cargo than a washstand and basin? More than likely. She would seek them out, if Belinda let her.

  For the moment, she remained motionless, uninterested, as though nothing but her ginger water lay on her mind. Which was close to the truth for the time being.

  “I will talk to Captain Rafe about you wanting to talk to him,” Mel said.

  Phoebe nodded and watched the child strut from the cabin.

  In the corner, Belinda happily splashed in the water, washing up as best anyone could with a basin, soap, and a sponge. The aroma of lavender bloomed through the cabin. Unless she found something else, Phoebe would have to use the lavender soap too, and she was already weary of Belinda’s excess with the fragrance. She didn’t have any of her own things except the handful of gowns she had packed for what she thought was a mercy trip to Williamsburg. She still huddled in Docherty’s boat cloak.

  Belinda poured more water into the basin. Phoebe roused herself enough to request she save some for her.

  “I will, but you’ll have to pour out what’s in the basin. It’ll take two hands, and I might fall.”

  “Which is one reason why you shouldn’t be on a brig this size. The risk—”

  “Never you mind the risk. I’ll be careful, and it’s worth it. Will you help me cut out some clothes for me to sew for the baby?”

  “Yes, of course.” She might as well. The hours, days, weeks stretched ahead without much hope of a change.

  At least Phoebe hoped for no excitement, as that would likely mean a gun battle with another vessel, maybe even an American.

  She shuddered and drank more ginger and awaited her turn to wash. When it came, she made quick work of it, wrinkling her nose at Belinda’s lavender soap, frowning more at the wrinkled state of her gown. Her hair proved hopeless. She gathered it into a ribbon and tied it atop her head. The effect likely made her look like a chrysanthemum, that flower she’d seen once on a journey to Philadelphia with her husband, but at least her hair was confined away from her face with little trouble. If Docherty would see her outside the cabin, she wouldn’t be embarrassed.

  Not that she should be. He was the enemy, a man who stood for everything she abhorred. But she must talk to him. She’d wronged him too.

  She finished readying herself for her first full day aboard the brig and gathered up the fabric Belinda wanted to sew. It was of the finest lawn, soft enough not to irritate a baby’s skin, and the color of fresh cream.

  “Do you have patterns?” Phoebe knelt on the now gently rolling deck and began to spread out the fabric.

  Belinda raised her head from a book she’d been reading. “Pattern? Somewhere, I think. Wasn’t it with the fabric?”

  “No.” Phoebe returned to the box.

  The door lo
ck grated. She froze, every sense alert like a dog’s pricked-up ears, to see who would enter.

  Mel again, this time with the nasty little dog in tow. The former smiled that elfin grin. The latter sat and glared at Phoebe.

  “If she bites me again,” Phoebe said, “I’ll toss her overboard.”

  “That’s what Captain Rafe says.” Mel grimaced. “But he doesn’t mean it. He loves Fiona.”

  “Which doesn’t speak highly of him,” Phoebe muttered.

  “You should be nice to him,” Belinda said. “He didn’t lock you in the hold last night.”

  “And he says I can take you up top,” Mel said. “Mrs. Chapman too, so we can clean in here.”

  “Thank you.” Phoebe’s stomach settled. It should remain that way on deck—she hoped. If she got sick in front of him again, she’d lock herself in the hold.

  She gathered up his boat cloak, realized she shouldn’t be using it without his permission, and started to put it down again.

  “You’ll want that.” Mel drew Belinda’s from the back of a chair. “It’s cold out there, even in the sun.”

  So Phoebe wrapped herself in the cloak that dragged on the deck behind her like a train, and followed Mel, Fiona, and Belinda up the companionway and onto the main deck.

  Wind like the blast from an icehouse slammed into her face. She gasped and braced herself against it, turning her face away. Belinda squealed and tried to retreat.

  “Nay, madam.” The mate called Jordy appeared down the quarterdeck ladder and took Belinda’s arm. “The captain says you’re needing exercise, and I’m to walk with you to hold you steady.”

  “Why, that’s so kind of you, sir.” Belinda batted her long eyelashes at him. “Such a handsome escort.”

  Jordy was attractive, with his silver-gilt hair tied in a queue at the back of his neck and his strong, regular features, but handsome seemed a bit overdone, and Phoebe glanced away to hide a grin. She met Mel’s eyes, and they laughed.

  “Jordy will get tongue-tied if she keeps flirting like that,” Mel whispered.

  “’Tis good for him.” Docherty appeared at the quarter rail. “You wish to speak with me, Mrs. Lee?”

  “Yes, I—” She looked down at the borrowed cloak.