Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 01]

by Lady in the Mist

  “I suppose I can’t put off my tale forever,” Dominick said at last.

  “No.” Tabitha returned a strawberry to the bowl, no longer hungry. “Now, are you going to tell me that you’re a spy for the British government?”

  24

  ______

  Raleigh sat on the jetty, his head in his hands. He felt so dizzy he feared he might tip forward and land face-first in the water. Both his father and his mother had encouraged him to go home and rest, as Tabitha had instructed him to do, but he knew the waves of pain rushing through him bore little relationship to the blows he’d taken on the jaw and head two days earlier.

  Tabitha, his Tabbie, had walked down the beach with the lordling servant.

  It was all his own fault. He hadn’t trusted in the Lord to bring her back to him and had tried to be rid of the competition for her attentions, her affections. Now he was injured and had angered the man who was perpetrating the disappearances, thus making learning his identity more difficult. And Tabitha now knew that Raleigh’s faith in God was a fraud. No man whose faith was sincere would wish to harm another, whatever the provocation, whatever the odd circumstances surrounding the man.

  And this wasn’t the first time he hadn’t trusted in God to get him out of a difficult situation. He’d prayed for release from the Navy, then taken matters into his own hands.

  No wonder Tabitha considered him to be untrustworthy. He was.

  “God, how can I make things right?” he murmured, watching the waves lapping at the soles of his boots. “How can I get Tabbie to forgive me and trust me again if I behave this way?”

  Gulls screamed overhead, seeming to mock him with maniacal laughter.

  Below him, the incoming tide carried Tabitha’s basket, a reminder of the danger she’d been in. Either danger to her or to Dominick Cherrett. Everyone knew a snake wasn’t likely to crawl into a covered basket, regardless of the contents, with humans so close by. Yet any person who dared trap one to sneak into the basket showed determination or courage. Too easily the serpent could have turned on its captor before being used as a weapon. If Cherrett hadn’t possessed and been so skilled with his wicked-looking knife, he could have been dead now. But the creature had been in Tabitha’s basket.

  “No one would want to harm Tabbie,” Raleigh declared aloud. “No one.”

  “What did you say?” Footfalls echoed on the jetty, and a shadow fell across the sunlit water. “Do you think that snake was meant for Tabitha?”

  “It was in her basket, but, no, no one could want to hurt her.” Raleigh swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. “No one would risk killing her.”

  “Unless her work has given her secrets someone wants to protect.” Father crouched and fished the half-submerged basket from the water. “They took a great risk.”

  “Too great a risk to harm someone so . . . necessary to the community.” Raleigh glared at the now empty basket as though it were to blame. “Now, Cherrett, he seems a likely target for that kind of hatred.”

  “Because he’s English?”

  “Because he’s above himself and an interloper. And what about him having a knife like that. Seems . . .” His eyes crossed with his effort to think of the right words to describe the inappropriateness of a bondsman in possession of a knife not much less than a pirate cutlass.

  “You should come in, son.” His father’s voice was gentle. “This much sun can’t be good for you with that injury to your head.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Another lie. He wasn’t all right. His head ached. His jaw ached. His stomach ached.

  “Giving yourself a brain fever isn’t going to bring her back.” His father sat on the edge of the jetty beside Raleigh. “She’s made her choice for now. It’s an unwise choice. He can’t marry her.”

  “But it is my fault.” Raleigh straightened and looked his father in the eyes, the same blue eyes that he saw in mirrors. “If I hadn’t accused Cherrett of being the one to hit me, she might not have chosen to feel sorry for him.”

  “You know it goes back further than that, Raleigh.” Father’s mouth set in a stern line. “You abandoned her without a word. A woman doesn’t get over that kind of hurt and humiliation easily.”

  “No, but I’ve—”

  He stopped before he said he’d changed. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to be that man the ship’s chaplain said he could be. But he proved again and again that he was untrustworthy for man—or woman—and, worst of all, not good enough for God to take care of him.

  “I think I would have had a chance if not for Dominick Cherrett.” Raleigh pounded his fist on the rough planks of the jetty. “What does she find to attract her in that man?”

  Father laughed. “Ask your sisters. I believe he holds a certain manly charm.”

  “I didn’t know I was so ill-favored,” Raleigh grumbled.

  “I can’t say, since you favor me.”

  Raleigh chuckled at that and felt a bit better. Sobering, he asked, “What can I do, sir?”

  “You know we have to leave things up to God. When we try to take matters into our own hands, it only causes trouble.”

  “Oh, yes, I know that all too well.” Raleigh scrambled to his feet. “So how do I win her back?”

  “Start courting someone else.”

  Raleigh stared at his father. “Make her jealous? Does that really work?”

  “If it doesn’t, then you didn’t have a chance to win her back in the first place.” Father grinned. “And if it does, you’ve shown she’s just trying to make you jealous, or maybe punish you, for leaving her. After all, didn’t she get friendly with this bondsman after you returned?”

  “Well, yes.” He and his father headed off the jetty and up the sand toward their house. “But who? Not many females around here would make Tabitha wonder if I’m serious about them instead of her.”

  “Mrs. Lee?”

  Raleigh snorted. “She’s a rich widow from a fine family. She’d never look at a fisherman.”

  “She was certainly looking at a bondsman.”

  “He was the hero of the moment.” Raleigh shrugged. “Tabitha was looking at him the same—” He stopped and caught his breath. “Do you think he put that snake in there so he could display his skill?”

  “And risk Tabitha’s life? I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know the snake was poisonous.” Raleigh warmed to his notion that the entire incident was a ploy by Cherrett to win Tabitha’s attention. “They don’t have many poisonous snakes in England.”

  “It’s a possibility.” Father looked thoughtful. “But he didn’t seem like he needed that kind of risk to—but never you mind all that. Whatever the reason, it’s behind us. It was likely a terrible coincidence that the snake got into the basket. If it was mere heroics that won Tabitha’s attention today, it won’t last for long. She’s a practical woman, and you’re a man of some property, as my son.”

  And he’d have more if his mission succeeded, property he’d intended to use to lure Tabitha back to him when the time was right. He’d thought the time was right when he’d learned some men on the council thought she should lose her license to practice midwifery in the district. She needed a man to support her. Cherrett couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even marry her, and he would leave when his indenture was over.

  A pity his indenture wasn’t over now.

  Lost in thought about this possibility—how to get Dominick Cherrett out of his indenture—Raleigh increased his stride and reached the house ahead of his father. His head felt better, less achy and muddled. The sky looked a little brighter.

  “Lord, have You forgiven me after all? Now I can—”

  No, he could do nothing. As much as he wanted to take matters into his own hands, he must leave the future in the hands of the Lord, or he would never be free from his mistakes.

  “Lord, please show me You have forgiven me.” He stepped onto the back porch, where Momma sat mending one of his socks.

 
She smiled up at him. “I’m glad you came back. Tabitha said you needed to rest for several days. Is everything all right?”

  “Now it is.” He blinked in the dimness beneath the overhang of the eaves. “I think I’ll rest now. Father will tell you everything that happened since I left.”

  “All right then, you go rest. The girls picked some flowers for your room.”

  “What sweet sisters I have.” Raleigh started into the house.

  “And someone sent you a parcel,” Momma called after him. “I laid it on your bed.”

  Raleigh stopped. His heart skipped a beat. “A parcel? Who?”

  Momma shrugged. “It has only your name on the wrapping. You’ll have to open it up.”

  “I will.” Trying not to look in too much of a hurry, Raleigh mounted the steps to his bedchamber under the roof beams and closed the door behind him.

  The parcel lay on the quilt, a brown stain against the muted blues and greens of the squares. Hands trembling, he took out his penknife and slit the binding string. The brown paper fell away to reveal a Bible with a slip of paper poking out of the top margin. The thin paper rattled between his fingers as he turned the pages to the marked passage and read the message—all the more obscene for being created out of Holy Scripture—from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, the twenty-eighth verse. “He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?”

  Dominick rested on his elbows and stared at the horizon. A platoon of dark clouds marched between sea and sky, stark against the crystal blue. The sun behind them blazed with heat. Wind blowing off of the sea held an edge of chill.

  “Another storm’s coming,” Dominick observed.

  “Not until after sundown.” Tabitha touched his shoulder. “That’s not all that far off, so talk, if you still intend to.”

  “I still intend to. I just don’t know how to start.” He lay fully on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He glanced at Tabitha a yard away, sitting with her legs curled to one side and modestly covered with her skirt. He smiled. “You look like a mermaid.”

  “Stop that mermaid foolishness. Someone tried to kill one of us today. It’s no time for frivolity.”

  “Then why are you hiding a box of comfits in that basket of yours?” He reached one arm toward the basket.

  She whipped it out of reach. “After you talk to me.”

  “You may not want to share after you hear my story.”

  “Which is why I’m not wasting them on you now.”

  “Oh, Tabitha, I do love you.” The words slipped out as though his tongue belonged to someone else. He didn’t try to snatch them back or pretend he hadn’t once again confessed something so serious aloud. He watched her.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Her hat brim shielded her eyes. A slow flush creeping up her throat to her cheeks was the only indication that she might have heard him at all.

  “I wouldn’t have kissed you as I did yesterday if my feelings weren’t deep,” he pressed further.

  “Like kissing me, Dominick,” she finally said in a low, flat tone, “giving me pretty speeches of devotion won’t change my mind one way or the other if you ask me to do something abhorrent to my nature or my country.”

  “All right, so you intend not to make a commitment until you know everything.” Dominick sat up. “And after you know . . .” He sat cross-legged, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He fixed his gaze on the sea, its endless, churning power. “Then let me get the worst of this over straight off. Raleigh Trower is absolutely correct. I am a spy. An English spy.”

  She gasped. Other than the sharp inhalation of breath, she neither spoke nor moved. This time not even her face betrayed her.

  Dominick opened his mouth to comment on her lack of reaction, then realized she was in what must be her midwife mode—calm and still and ready to hear anything. After Sally Belote’s confession, not much else could shock her. She might have even heard worse in the course of her occupation.

  “I’m much worse than that.” He made himself smile. “Well, that depends on one’s perspective. I am not a spy for the crown, as you might think. My king didn’t send me, nor anyone in the government. I have no military rank or anyone at Whitehall who even has a high opinion of me. But I have an uncle who is a rogue vice admiral in the Royal Navy who offered to send me to his plantation on Barbados or come here to spy out a spy.”

  At this, she arched her winged eyebrows, and the corners of her mouth twisted up in a mocking smile. “Are you sure this isn’t an adaptation of some lost Shakespeare drama, Dominick? If so, you’d best be advised that I am not impressed with tall tales.”

  “You don’t believe me?” Dominick jerked upright. “Tabitha, I’ve stretched the truth a time or two since we’ve met, but this, I promise you, is nothing less than factual. When I found myself in a spot where leaving England for a bit seemed like the better part of valor, my uncle said I could redeem myself this way.”

  “Redeem yourself from what?” She leaned toward him. “What could have been so dreadful that a man with an Oxford education would become a servant for four years to accomplish it?”

  “I . . . uh . . .” Dominick scooped up a handful of sand and watched it trickle from his fingers. Thus would go any love for him Tabitha might have had. “I wounded a man in a duel.”

  She jerked as though he’d struck her with the rapier that had sent his challenger dropping to the grass. Her face paled, and one hand fluttered in the air, as though she wanted to grasp an elusive stronghold.

  He caught her hand in his and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t pull away. “It was a fair fight. He challenged me. But dueling is illegal and the authorities got wind of it, so we both had to get away for a while.”

  “Four years is a rather long while,” she said dryly. “Four years of enforced servitude. Was that what your uncle had planned for you on Barbados too?”

  “No, I’d have been free there, but I couldn’t have made amends. Here . . . if I can find out certain information, my uncle will buy my indenture. I could be gone in weeks.”

  “Gone.” She tugged her hand free and tucked it beneath a fold of her skirt. “And you want me to help you so you’ll go away from me all that much sooner?”

  “For the good of both our countries, yes. That is—Tabitha, I want to stay, but I’ve no work here and you Americans are a bit hostile to me.”

  “And your father won’t want me showing up on his doorstep alongside his precious son.”

  “I’m not a precious son to him.” He shifted his shoulders, feeling the stiffness settle in. “Perhaps I can make him accept me back into the fold and restore my allowance if I succeed here, but unless I do what he wants, he will never care what I do.”

  “And what is it he wants you to do?” She tilted her head. In a flash, the sun shone beneath the wide brim of her hat and showed the bright sparkle of her eyes. “Let me guess. You’ll need a wife with money and position.”

  “I want a wife with character and beauty.”

  “Dominick, I can never go to England. You English wouldn’t accept me. I’m barely tolerated in regular social circles here, let alone the sort you enjoyed.”

  He jumped. “What sort do you think I enjoyed?”

  “The sort that would think Wilkins and Kendall unacceptable despite their money.”

  He couldn’t deny it without lying, so he said nothing.

  “Is your family wealthy or highborn?” she persisted.

  He sighed, picked up part of a broken crab shell, and began to draw the Cherrett family crest in the sand. “You may as well know. My father is the fifth Marquess of Bruton.”

  “Worse than I thought.” Her voice sounded strangled. “But you’re a younger son. You really are just plain Mr. Cherrett, aren’t you?”

  “No.” He couldn’t look at her. “I’m Lord Dominick. In England, my wife will be known as Lady Dominick.”

  “And even for
a younger son, Lady Dominick must come from a good family, have been presented to the queen, and know how to use a fan, not how to tie off an umbilical cord.” Her tone held no emotion at all. “I’ve never even owned a fan.”

  “I never fell in love with one of those ladies.” He erased the leopard rampant and reached out to her. “Believe me, Tabitha—”

  “I believe you.” Her face was set, white beneath the brim of her hat. “But how long does love last when the bride you met on a misty beach, instead of a smoky drawing room, is an embarrassment to you in front of your peers?”

  “You couldn’t be—”

  “I couldn’t not be.” She ducked her head, hiding her expression from him. “I suspect you’ve merely been toying with me to convince me to help you end your indenture.”

  “I have—”

  “No, no excuses.” She held up a hand. “I’m still your friend, and I’ll hear you out.”

  “I don’t deserve your friendship, but I thank you for it.” He took her hand in his, gripped her fingers as though they were his only lifeline, and stared at the water. The tide was ebbing now, yet heavy breakers told of a storm out to sea. His insides felt as though some of those breakers slammed against his ribs. “My father wanted me to be a vicar. It’s tradition in my family for the third son, if there is one, to go into the church. I objected. I have no vocation for serving God as someone under my father’s direction must serve Him.”

  “How could even a marquess direct a man of the cloth?” She looked bewildered.

  “In England, a landowner holds the living.” He grimaced. “Men flatter him to get placed there, if it’s a good one.”

  “And you didn’t want to flatter your own father?”

  “I didn’t have to. It was expected of me.” The sun felt like a burden cloaking his shoulders, and he shifted them as though he could shrug off the weight. “My father would have told me what to preach on Sundays and whom to invite to dinner or whom to visit in the parish. I watched this all my life. He uses the vicar for his personal advancement, not for the advancement of the kingdom of God. As a good son, I should have obeyed him, but I couldn’t let God be used that way.”