To Capture Her Heart

by Rebecca DeMarino

  1

  October 1, 1664

  “Did you hear me?”

  Patience Terry stood, her hands limp at her sides, and looked into her friend’s teary blue eyes. Had not she guarded her heart against this day? Against this pain that ripped through her heart like a thunderbolt? The Swallow shipwrecked off the coast of Barbados, tattered and abandoned. No survivors. Captain Jeremy Horton and his crew lost at sea, presumed dead.

  Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her lungs ached, so bereft they were of any air, she of any hope. As her legs gave way, she fell to the pillowed bench in front of Lizzie’s hat display and buried her face in the folds of her blue silk skirt. Her shoulders heaved with each silent sob. Mary Horton knelt and drew her into her arms.

  Torrents of tears soaked her friend’s shoulder, but she could not hold them back.

  “That’s good, dear. Cry. Let the tears fall.” Mary’s gentle hands patted her back to comfort, but Patience’s temples pulsed with each new thought. Would she never be able to look up and see his form framed in the doorway again? Or could he lie hurt somewhere? She’d begged him at his last visit to give up the sailing, to make a home here in Southold. One she dreamt would include her.

  “What if he’s not dead? What if he needs me?” She’d always prayed he would come to know he needed her in his life, but Lord, this was not how she envisioned it.

  “Oh no, Patience. You mustn’t think like that. The ship was pretty well battered. There was such a storm. If survivors were to make land at all, they would have landed on the shores of Barbados. Nathaniel Sylvester brought the news himself. He’s just returned from his meetings there. It is such a shock to know both of Barney’s brothers are gone. It was so difficult when Thomas died. And now Jeremy. He was more than a friend to me, he was a dear brother.” Her voice trailed as Patience’s sobs began anew.

  The door blew open as wind and rain swept in with Lizzie Fanning’s arrival, nearly lifting one of her own hat creations from her silvery curls. Mary’s older sister, and Patience’s business partner, Lizzie looked in control as she slid the burgundy wool from her head, gave it a good shake, and settled it on a hat stand. “Mary told me, Patience, on her way here. I’m so sorry.” She enveloped her friend into a hug, her own tears trickling from violet eyes.

  Patience did not try to hide the pain etched on her face with furrows tunneling straight from her wrenched heart, or the pools of tears that escaped in rivulets down her cheeks. She’d never told them in so many words of her love for Jeremy, but the two sisters had pulled her into their family long ago and matters of the heart were understood rather than spoken.

  Her sobs subsided into soft hiccups, and she drew in her breath. “What now?” was all she could manage.

  Mary reached out to smooth Patience’s locks. “Barnabas said he would talk to Reverend Youngs about a service for Jeremy. We should have a dinner.” She looked at Lizzie.

  “Yes.” She glanced from Mary to Patience. “He shall not be forgotten.”

  Patience shook her head. “We don’t know that he’s dead, though. Oh, why did I not beg him to stop sailing? To stay here? Why could he not see that this would happen one day?”

  “He was doing what he loved.” Mary did not look Patience in the eye as she uttered the sentence.

  “You don’t believe your own words, Mary. Why do people say that? It does not help. I just want him back. Happy or not, I want him here.”

  Mary wiped her eyes. “I know, I know. I’m at a loss of what to say. We all loved him. But I know for you ’tis especially difficult. He loved you. I know he did.” She pulled a fresh handkerchief from the pouch at her waist and mopped Patience’s cheeks, then dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

  “Thank you, Mary. It means so much to know he loved me. I treasure the time we spent together. But it wasn’t enough, was it? He did not love me enough to stay by my side and be my husband.” She took the embroidered cloth and delicately blew her nose. She looked at Lizzie. “I cannot work with you today. I’m sorry. I should like to spend the day alone.” She looked from one to the other. “I love you both dearly. I just need to be by myself.”

  Lizzie wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “Of course you must. But allow us to bring you a crock of soup or some tea and biscuits. You must eat.” She turned to Mary. “Could you help her upstairs?”

  “Indeed. Come, Patience.” She led her to the staircase. “Let me build you a small fire while you change into a robe. It will bring some cheer to the room.”

  Mary padded down the stairs. She sniffed. A savory scent filled the house. “That smells good. Patience is sleeping now. I shall go home to see how Barney is faring. He and Jeremy were so close. Will you be all right?”

  Lizzie stirred the simmering soup, then wiped her hands on her apron. “I have enough work here to keep me busy while she rests. I need to take stock of my supplies. When Heather Flower came last, she brought two large bags of beads.” She nodded toward the shelves Benjamin had put in for her.

  Mary stood on tiptoe and peered into one of the bags. “Beautiful. She is amazing, and she’s never forgotten to come back and visit.” She took her cape from the peg and pulled the hood up over her head. “Very well, then. I’m off. Thank you for staying with Patience.”

  “I’d be here anyway, Mary. Tell Barnabas hello for me.”

  “I shall.” She opened the door to the wind whipping outside and hurried down the lane, pulling her hood close against the slanted rain. She paused at the parsonage and cemetery on the left and once more thought of poor Jeremy before she crossed over to her house.

  In the foyer she brushed the raindrops from her cape and hung it near the hearth. It was still early and the house quiet. Barney would be in the back kitchen, having his devotions and stirring up the fire—perhaps putting the first loaves in the oven.

  She mounted the stairs and stood quietly as she watched Hannah, thirteen years old and quite the little mother, brush and braid Mercy’s hair. At four, Mary’s youngest loved the attention of her big brothers and sisters. Sarah smoothed and aired out the bedclothes, while young Mary helped Abigail change the wash water in the basins. How blessed she’d been when Abbey, Winnie’s eldest daughter, came to live with them and help deliver each of her babies. Mary taught her to read, embroider, and cook and she’d become like a daughter to her and Barney. A sister to their children.

  The year after Winnie died, James, Abbey’s husband, passed away and she and little Misha had come back to live with them. They were family, and at the Horton house there was always room for more.

  Mary came down the stairs and moved toward the back of the large house. Her sons’ lively voices carried down the hall from the kitchen. It was amazing to her that her boys, Caleb, Joshua, and Jonathan, were grown men. Well, Jonathan was almost a man. The youngest at sixteen, he was also the tallest of the Horton men save Jeremy.

  As she drew close, she heard Barney telling them the story of Mary and Jeremy working together to bring his blue slate over from England with the epitaph he’d written engraved on the slab. They’d heard the story hundreds of times, had they not? Yet each time they thrilled at the tale, and today the story was particularly poignant.

  Mary entered the kitchen and slid next to Barney at the table.

  When he finished the tale, she squeezed his hand. “I’m thinking we need to get a stone for Jeremy. It won’t be a blue slate, but do you think we could get a piece of marble? Something nice so he shall not be forgotten?”

  “Aye. I don’t know if we can come by marble easily. We might be able to find a nice slab of granite. John is preparing a Sunday sermon in his memory, and if we had a church dinner between services, then we could set the stone in the cemetery and have a prayer service afterward.”

  Caleb stood up and fetched a platter of ginger cakes, taking one and offering his mother one before setting them on the old oak table. “Are you sure Uncle Jeremy died? Is it not strange to have a funeral for someone when you don’t know w
here they are?”

  “He died a watery death, I fear. The service will be for your uncle, but even more so for those he left behind. We who loved him.” Barney ran his fingers through his thick hair. At sixty-four, his hair was mostly white, but he was no less dashing than the day Mary met him at the Webbs’ store.

  Jeremy was nine years younger. A picture of her brother-in-law played in her mind as he led her around his ship the day they left England many years ago, so young and exuberant and full of life. The last time she saw him, he hadn’t changed a whit. Not a gray hair on his head, his tanned skin emphasizing the green of his eyes, the burnished gold of his hair, the scent of the sea clinging to him.

  “He was too young to die.” She set the uneaten ginger cake on the table and leaned into Barney. Tears trickled as she looked up at him.

  “I know, my sweet. But God knows the plans He has for each of us.” His eyes sagged, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “Jeremy included. We must put our faith in that knowledge. Would you like to accompany me out to see John Corey? He might have a suitable stone. He came back from Gloucester last year with several.”

  She pulled back. “Yes, if we take the wagon and Stargazer.”

  “Of course.” He gave a nod to Joshua, who promptly departed to the barn.

  A half an hour later Mary watched Joshua lead Stargazer around to the front of the house with the wagon. She wanted the best for Jeremy. He’d done so much for her and Barney.

  Barnabas and Mary brought the Horton girls over to Lizzie’s Hat Shop, along with two barrels of apples from her orchard, before setting out to find a stone for Jeremy. Lizzie set Misha, Hannah, Sarah, and young Mary to peeling and slicing the apples, while she and Abigail let little Mercy help them mix flour and lard for little pippin tarts.

  As she baked, the rest of the apples went into the large copper pot over the fire, and Abigail had the girls take turns throughout the day stirring them with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, using a large wooden paddle. The apples simmered down to a dark golden butter. As the storm blew outside, the sweet smell of fall scented the house.

  The girls worked together to ladle the thick apple butter into crocks. Abigail helped her clean the kitchen. Patience remained in her chamber, refusing the trays of tea and soup Lizzie brought up to her.

  The stairs creaked as Lizzie climbed her way up to her room, a tray arranged with tea and warm pippin tarts. “Here now, Patience. This should be just what you need.”

  Patience looked up, her blue eyes puffy but dry. “You may leave it, Lizzie. Thank you.”

  “I’ll set it here.” She carefully lowered the tray to the table, then sat on the edge of the feather bed. “Would you feel better if you came down to the kitchen? Mary’s girls are here.”

  Her voice was strained with regret. “No, I shall stay here. Tell them Auntie Patience is not feeling well.”

  Lizzie nodded and looked back at her friend as she carefully closed the door.

  Darkness came early with the storm, and Lizzie lit candles in the kitchen below. The wind abated, but a gentle patter of rain on the shingled roof added coziness to the house while the girls waited for Mary and Barnabas to return with the wagon.

  For the tenth time that day, Lizzie wandered into the hat shop and fussed with her displays, turning a hat on a stand one way then moving it back to its original spot. She checked her inventory for the third time. Nothing had changed. She picked up one of the bag of beads Heather Flower had brought her and several of the glass vials Jeremy kept her and Doctor Smith supplied with, and took them to the kitchen. “We can sort these beads, if you girls don’t mind.”

  They chattered as they admired the different shapes and colors, and Hannah told the younger girls what she remembered of Heather Flower’s and Dirk’s wedding. What turns life takes, thought Lizzie. Her nephew, so brokenhearted when Anna Budd married Charles Tucker, then so gallant when Heather Flower married that Dutchman, Dirk Van Buren, on the very day Benjamin was to wed her. Now Benjamin was married to Anna, after poor Charles Tucker died of a heart ailment.

  “Uncle Jeremy was here when they got married,” she heard Hannah say. “He officiated because he was a ship captain.”

  Lizzie smiled. “Yes, he was. And such a good man.”

  They heard the clop of Stargazer’s hoofs, and Lizzie went to open the door to Mary and Barnabas. They came in shaking the wetness from their cloaks and went to warm themselves in the kitchen before taking the girls on the short ride home.

  Lizzie loaded several baskets with tarts and crocks of apple butter. “I’ll bring more to you on the morrow, Mary, but these you can put in the bakeshop first thing in the morning.”

  “Oh my, they look delicious!” She looked around the table at her daughters. “You have all been busy today.”

  Their faces lit up as Mary and Lizzie gushed over their abilities in the kitchen. But it caused her to recall Mary’s youthful attempts at the womanly arts of hearth and home. Lizzie had been patient as she attempted to teach her, but it was truly Barnabas who brought out the domestic side of Mary. The memory of the long ago years growing up in Mowsley rushed in and the shock of learning that Jeremy planned a voyage to the New World and intended to take Mary and Barnabas with him.

  Mary nudged her. “Not to change the subject, dear sister, but you must come out to the wagon with us to see the stone we have bought for Jeremy. ’Tis beautiful. John Corey says he can carve a proper epitaph on it. Barney is going to write it.” Her eyes became moist as she spoke, her throat suddenly constricted, and she turned into Barnabas’s arms.

  “Yes, of course.” Lizzie turned to her nieces. “Get your coats on girls, and help us carry these out to the wagon.”

  As they prepared to go outside, Patience came down the staircase and paused just before the landing. “Mary? I thought I heard you.”

  Mary rushed to her. “I didn’t want to disturb you. Are you all right?”

  Her blond hair hung loose about her shoulders and she pulled it around to the side, twisting it like rope. “Yes. I think. Did I hear you say you bought a stone for Jeremy?”

  “Yes, dear. Reverend Youngs will say a sermon for him on Sunday, and then we’ll gather in the cemetery in a few weeks when the stone is ready and have a small remembrance service.”

  Lizzie could sense the tension, like friction just before a lightning strike.

  “How can you do that? You don’t know he’s dead!” The words pounced from Patience and everyone stood silent, mouths agape.

  Mary looked injured, and Barnabas stepped up and wrapped an arm about his wife’s shoulder. “Patience, we all grieve. Prithee, do not make this more difficult. We must bring some closure to Jeremy’s life. We owe him that, do we not?”

  She lowered herself to the stair step and buried her face in her robe. Lizzie and Mary rushed to her and pulled her into their arms. “Oh, dearest. We all feel the same way you do. Truly we do.” Mary looked at her sister. “Right, Lizzie?” She pressed her cheek to Patience’s. “But the water has turned up nothing but wreckage and some of the bodies. Most of the crew is simply swallowed by the sea, and we must face that with courage.”

  Barnabas gathered the girls by the door, picking up Mercy as she began to whimper.

  Lizzie drew Patience closer. “I shall take her back to her room, Mary. You go with Barnabas and the girls. I’ll stay here tonight and come to you on the morrow. Patience just needs time. Let me take care of her.”

  Mary reluctantly left her friends as she followed Barnabas and her daughters out the door.

  Lizzie turned to Patience, and with a gentle hug they climbed the stairs. She tucked her friend under a thick quilt. The room was already dark, with no candle lit. Lizzie sank into a chair, and in a moment she drifted into fitful dreams.

  Patience lay awake, fingering the edge of her quilt. Her eyes were wide as if they were propped open by lashes stiff with dried tears, and sleep would not come. Nor did she want it to. She needed to think of a way to find Jeremy.
He could not be dead. She would know it if he were. And even if she could not be certain, she would not give up on him. No, never. She could not.

  Rebecca DeMarino is the author of A Place in His Heart, a historical romance novel inspired by her ninth great-grandparents, Barnabas and Mary Horton. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. Learn more at www.rebeccademarino.com.

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