“Things are not so different in America than England as you all would like to think, not when it comes to advantageous marriages.”
“Did you make an advantageous marriage?” Her voice held an edge.
Rafe’s lips twitched up at the corners. “Nay, Davina had only a passable dowry.”
“But she was beautiful.”
“Oh, aye, that she was. Like her daughter.”
“Mel looks like you.”
“Aye, she has some of my family’s better traits, I’m glad to say. But I did not marry for land. I did not want it. I had my trade to support me and the house in Edinburgh. Davina was town-bred too, so we never hankered for the open spaces.”
“Until you went to sea.”
“Some things about a man can change.” He stroked her tumbled fall of hair. “Did you take land to your marriage?”
“Four hundred acres of prime grazing land in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Gideon wanted horses. More horses. He wanted that grazing land, and I wanted him. I always got what I wanted.” She fell silent.
Rafe tucked his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head back. “You do not need to answer me on this, Phoebe, but did your husband beat you?”
She blinked. “How did you know?”
“The way you cringe sometimes. I knew someone had. The mon’s lucky he’s already dead.”
“Rafe, you mustn’t.”
“Mustn’t what? Despise a man who will harm a female? Watt—” He cleared his throat. “You need not talk anymore if you do not wish to.”
“Or is it that you do not wish to listen anymore?”
“I will listen as long as you talk, but you’re shivering even in my cloak, and the dawn is breaking over the horizon.”
She twisted around and stared at the sky, where a line of pale pink curved between inky sea and gray-blue sky. “Let’s go to the galley. I can make coffee.”
“You can make the coffee?” Rafe didn’t bother to disguise his surprise. “I ne’er knew a lady who could boil the water, let alone cook anything useful.”
“Humph. I made myself learn after I was married. I thought if I got away—” She freed herself from his hold and headed across the deck to the ladder leading down to the galley.
Rafe followed her. In another turn of the glass, men would stir, change the watch, and the closeness of their dialogue would end. And he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed private talks in the middle of the night until Phoebe came along.
He didn’t realize how much he’d missed a woman’s company until Phoebe came along.
In the darkness below deck, they entered the galley. While Phoebe prepared the coffee, Rafe stirred the ashes in the stove until the embers banked deep beneath them flickered to life. He shoved sticks of wood into the stove, noting he needed to send a man into the hold to bring up more kindling. Heat began to radiate into the galley. He took a spill from the fire and lit one of the overhead lanterns swinging from a deck beam.
Phoebe set the pot for the coffee atop the stove. “I didn’t realize I was so cold until I felt the fire.”
“Aye, it can be that way.” The galley offered no chairs, but a number of barrels of flour and oats provided seats. He patted one to indicate Phoebe should make herself comfortable.
She perched on a barrel of fine flour used to bake the occasional plum duff as a treat for the men, and glanced toward the dark recesses of the lower deck. “Won’t we wake the men if we talk?”
“Not likely. A brig is too noisy all the time for anyone to be a light sleeper.” Seated on a barrel of oatmeal, he took her hand and turned his back on the men sleeping a dozen yards away. “Do you have aught else to say?”
She gave him a half smile. “Yes, much more, if you’re not to believe you have a common murderess aboard.”
“Weel, not so common.”
Her eyes widened for a moment, then a faint flush tinged her pale cheeks. “Are you teasing me, sir?”
“Perhaps a wee bit. I did not want you so sad. Fair breaks my heart to see a female weep.”
She peeked up at him through her lashes. “It’s good to know you have a heart.”
Rafe stared at her for a moment, and something did indeed break inside him, but not his heart—a bit of the hardness around it fell away and lodged as a lump in his throat. He swallowed against it. “You cannot think so ill of me if you can flirt with me.”
“Was I?” Her hands flew to her now bright cheeks. “I shouldn’t. I can’t. I think the coffee is ready.” She leaped to her feet.
He drew her down beside him again. “’Tis not ready, lass. You can scarce smell it, so ’tis a poor excuse for running away.”
“I don’t—” She sighed. “I suppose I do. I was running away from Gideon, my husband, when I fell down the steps and—and—” She slid to the very lip of the barrel, her hands gripping the rim on either side of her as though she intended to launch herself upward and outward.
“Go ahead, lass, run from me like you have everything else,” Rafe said softly. “But you’ll still have to live with your own heart and conscience.”
She whirled toward him so fast her hair flew out like a banner. “You talk to me about running and conscience? You? You?” Her voice, though quiet, rose a note on each you. “You’ve been running from your conscience for nine years.”
“Nay, lass, you have that incorrect. I am not running from anything. I’m running toward something.”
“Murder.”
“Justice.”
They locked gazes, held, while the coffee began to boil and hiss over onto the top of the stove, the combination of rich aroma and acrid scorching stinging to the nose. Her eyes took on the glow of stained glass with sunlight behind it, and Rafe braced himself for a poisoned dart of a word. But she bowed her head, hiding her face behind the shimmering curtain of her hair.
“The coffee’s finished.” Rafe rose to retrieve two pewter tankards from hooks and fill them with the hot liquid, black and strong in the dim light. He moved with slow deliberateness to give her time to gain her composure.
Or slip out of the galley without him watching her or barring her way.
He heard no movement behind him. Beyond the galley, a few men stirred. In moments, the cook would appear and want to know why someone, captain or not, had invaded his kitchen. Rafe and Phoebe would have no more privacy, and he still didn’t know what had truly happened with the man in Seabourne. Then again, Phoebe didn’t know the entire truth about him either.
19
Belinda wasn’t doing well. Phoebe saw that the instant she walked into the great cabin two days after the battle, proud of herself for balancing a tray of coffee and porridge she’d managed to help the cook prepare. Proud of herself for how she’d evaded talking further with Rafe without running away. And now he was the one gone, having rowed over to the French vessel shortly after she walked out on their conversation in the galley, to ensure all was well aboard the prize. She had wanted to go with him. Because of her cowardice, too much lay unsaid between them. But besides the impropriety of her joining him, she needed to tend to her patient.
Her patients. Mel looked better each day, though pale and too thin. She was propped in a half-sitting position by several pillows and a bolster and managed a soft “Good morning” upon Phoebe’s arrival.
Phoebe set her tray on the table and crossed to Mel’s side. “You dear girl.” She smoothed the rich red hair beginning to sprout around the girl’s scar. “You’ve decided to join the living after all.”
“I missed my papa.” She curled weak fingers around Phoebe’s hand. “I kept dreaming he was lost, and I had to wake up to find him.”
Her father was lost, lost in his heart.
“I think he’ll be down to see you soon. He’ll be happy to see you doing so well. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Mel said.
“I’m not.” In contrast to Mel’s burgeoning health, Belinda huddled on the window seat, her face
a greenish hue, her arms wrapped around her middle. She did not smile at Phoebe. She glared at her from red-rimmed eyes.
“I’ve been sick all night and you weren’t here.” Her lower lip quivered like that of a distressed child. “Didn’t get a bit of sleep.”
Phoebe turned to kneel before Belinda. “You were sleeping peacefully a few hours ago. What happened?”
“It was the pickled watermelon rinds.” Belinda groaned. “I ate all of them.”
“Did you?” Phoebe swallowed hard so as not to laugh. “You must have been hungry.”
“I wasn’t. I just wanted them. They were so—” Belinda broke off on a groan.
“Perhaps you should allow me to examine you. Come into the other cabin.”
“Can’t leave Melvina alone,” Belinda protested.
“If Papa is coming down,” Mel murmured, “I’ll be all right.”
“He’s coming soon.” Phoebe listened as though she would hear his footfalls on the deck or ladder. “Right now he’s aboard the French ship.”
Mel’s lips quivered. “I thought—why isn’t he here with me?”
“Because—” Phoebe flailed for an explanation, since the truth wouldn’t be acceptable. It wasn’t acceptable that he would leave his daughter to avoid a woman. “We’ll signal for him to come. He’s—”
“He is coming now.” Life sparkled in Mel’s eyes, turning them bright green again.
Phoebe heard it then, caught the rap of footfalls on the companionway ladder, and knew Rafe descended even before he tapped on the door and asked if he could come in.
Given permission, he pulled open the portal and stepped over the coaming. “Mel, my dear lassie, you are looking well.”
The sound of his voice, the light burr, the rich timbre, sent Phoebe’s stomach somersaulting through her middle. If she turned to leave the cabin and their eyes even accidentally met, she might faint. Already the air seemed to have been sucked from the room.
She remained where she was, facing Belinda. An error. Belinda was often childish in her behavior, but she was not stupid. She had kept her husband’s shipping interests going and organized for a year and a half by some means of intellect or human understanding. George was surely too savvy a businessman himself to have left his money in her care if he didn’t find her capable.
Her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness.” She rose with an alacrity that belied her advanced girth. “We’ll be going then.” She swept around Phoebe, who was still motionless on her knees, and sailed to the door.
“Yes, yes.” Phoebe scrambled to her feet and swung around to follow.
Rafe glanced up at her from where he crouched beside the bunk. Their gazes met, held. “We’ve a conversation to finish, aye, Mrs. Lee?”
Mouth dry, Phoebe couldn’t think what to say in response. She merely inclined her head and walked past him to where Belinda waited at the door, her face now alight with curiosity. Phoebe braced herself for Belinda to say something. Hopefully she would close the door before she began to talk.
She only closed the door to the great cabin before she turned to Phoebe and demanded in a shrieking whisper, “What is there between you two?”
“Nothing.” Which was basically the truth.
“Ha.” Belinda flounced into the other cabin and flopped onto the bunk. “I don’t believe that for a moment. The way you looked when he walked in . . .” She waved her hand before her face like a fan. “And the way you two looked at one another, why, I nearly blushed.”
Phoebe definitely blushed. The heat of her cheeks emphasized the chill permeating the cabin, and she snatched up a quilt to wrap around her shoulders. Once again she’d left her cloak in the great cabin. “Lie back so I can make sure all is well with the baby.”
“It was just the pickles. I feel well now. And maybe being in the cabin for too long. I want you to tell me about Captain Docherty. I mean, how can you care for him? The man isn’t very nice.”
Words to defend him sprang to Phoebe’s lips. Before she made the mistake of using them, Belinda continued, “But that’s not true. He’s wonderful to his daughter, and he’s been kind to me. But he acts like he doesn’t care at all that his uncle and friend died the day before yesterday.”
“He cares,” Phoebe said. Her heart twisted at the memory of Rafe bent double in his effort to master his sorrow. “He cares.”
“Maybe he does, if you say he does.” Belinda drew a blanket over herself and slid back against the bulkhead. “But he’s willing to use females to get to the man he wants to kill. That’s very wicked.”
“You’re abetting his behavior.”
“To save my husband.”
“You think that justifies helping him murder someone?”
“I’m not helping him—” Belinda caught her breath. “I suppose I am. I thought only about seeing George free.”
“And not George’s baby. Do you think he’ll thank you if his baby suffers because of what you’re doing?”
“Phoebe, stop that. George loves me.”
“Of course he does. And you’re repaying that love by risking his baby’s life on a whim, or is it a dare? Or do you want to be the heroine everyone will talk about so you can—”
Belinda reared up and slapped Phoebe’s face. “Stop that. You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m a far better wife and mother than you were. I didn’t—”
“Belinda, don’t—”
“Kill my husband and baby.”
“I didn’t either. Gideon was trying to lock me up for the night, and I hit him over the head with a candelabra so I could leave. Yes, I said leave. I was running away from him.”
“Unnatural wife.”
“And he wasn’t an unnatural husband for locking me away so he could drink and chase after loose women every night?” Phoebe knew she was shouting, but she couldn’t stop herself, the volume, the flow of words. “I had a bag packed and started out. But I didn’t hit him hard enough, and he came after me.”
“So you were an oaf and fell down the steps.”
“No, Belinda, he picked me up and threw me down the steps. He killed our baby and nearly me too. But he left me lying unconscious on the floor at the foot of the steps and rode off. If he hadn’t gotten inebriated and thrown off his horse so the sheriff came to our house, I probably would have bled to death on that floor because he sent the servants away at night. I was alone and hemorrhaging because of your brother. He’s the villain, no matter what lies your parents tell. Do you hear me?”
Belinda covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to listen to this about Gideon.”
“You will.” Phoebe bent over Belinda. “Your brother killed my baby and himself. Do you hear me?”
“I think,” a soft voice from behind Phoebe drawled, “everyone on the brig heard you.”
Phoebe’s insides collapsed into a leaden lump in the center of her belly. As limp as an empty grain sack, she sank onto the bunk and crossed her arms over her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m behaving this way.”
“Oh, I do.” Belinda’s voice held a vicious edge. “You’re in love with this rogue.”
If only a special hatchway would open up and swallow her right into the hold at that moment, it wouldn’t be too soon. Phoebe couldn’t even run. Rafe blocked the doorway, and the cabin barely allowed space for her and Belinda, let alone a place to hide. She may as well place a brave face on it. Slowly, as though she’d developed rheumatism in her shoulders, she lowered her arms and peeked up at Rafe.
He smiled. Not one of his uptilted corners of the mouth, but a full smile showing strong, white teeth. He wasn’t looking at her; his gaze slid beyond to Belinda. “Aye, I believe your wee midwife has a fondness for me. ’Tis a pity the voyage is so near an end and we’ll ne’er see one another again.”
Slapped twice in one day.
“Since I do not share her faith,” he added.
Except she’d begun to doubt the sincerity of her faith.
She
could get away from the cabin if she knocked Rafe down and walked over his body. But she was a woman who didn’t believe in violence, who had lashed out at him. She’d taken an oath to treat her patients with kindness and respect, and however unofficial that vow might be—given only in front of Tabitha, Dominick, and a handful of friends—she had broken it when she shouted at Belinda.
Twice a hypocrite—pretending to be a Christian while harboring anger in her heart, and claiming she was a midwife whose patients came first when she could have upset Belinda enough to send her into confinement.
“What you do share,” Belinda responded, “is a penchant for killing off your fellow man. If she didn’t knock him off his horse, then she may as well have. She drove him to drink and then ride like a wild man, he was so unhappy with her empty head. Or did you think he didn’t tell us anything, Phoebe?”
“I do believe, Mrs. Chapman,” Rafe said, “you have told us quite enough. Mel said you were not feeling well. Why do you not rest and allow me to get Mrs. Lee her breakfast?”
As if she could eat.
“Mel’s alone, though,” Belinda protested.
“I’ve gotten out a great bell the cook used to use to call the men to dinner. She will use it if she needs anything.”
“Her breakfast,” Phoebe managed to get out.
“Aye, she needs assistance with that. She is not so good at lifting the cup to her lips, but she will learn.” His face twisted. “She will have to learn it all again like a bairn, but I ken she will. She is a braw lass.”
“She is brave.” Belinda’s voice softened as she talked about Mel. “If I have a daughter, I hope she’s as smart and brave.”
“With you for a mither,” Rafe said with a bow, “she’ll certainly be as pretty. Now go about your rest, madam.”
With Belinda spluttering over the compliment, Rafe grasped Phoebe’s hands and drew her to her feet. “Mrs. Lee?”
Remain in the tiny cabin, go to the great cabin with Mel and Belinda, or go somewhere with Rafe for breakfast? She doubted she could eat, but she chose the latter option. “Where will we go?”
“To the galley. If you can mix up plum duff, Cook said he would leave us to the fire.”
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