Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 01]

by Lady in the Mist

  “That’s what I mean.” Raleigh leaned his head back and realized they’d been locked in the bread room, probably until the ship weighed anchor and neither of them could swim to shore or bribe a provisioning boat to take them home. “I deserted once. They caught me and gave me the option between hanging and going ashore to help sell Americans to the British. One captain in particular. Roscoe.” He pronounced the name like an epithet.

  “You were involved in . . .” Raleigh sensed Parks moving away from him. “How could you?”

  “I thought I could discover the man’s identity.” Raleigh sighed. “I couldn’t. He was too careful. And when I tried to stop you from being taken, he put me here too. Now I’ll be lucky if they only flog me half to death instead of hanging me outright for desertion.”

  “Just for trying to stop them from taking me away?” Parks sounded appalled, bewildered.

  “For deserting in the first place. I’m listed in the book as a Canadian. That makes me a British subject. And that means they’ll likely hang me for desertion.”

  “Then we have to escape.”

  “I can’t.” Raleigh held his aching head. “I can’t go back. I’ve been a traitor to my own country, to America. They’ll hang me too. Here I’ll have the chance to beg them just to flog me and somehow make up for everything I’ve done. Maybe . . .” He let his voice trail off while his thoughts raced ahead.

  If he went back to Virginia without knowing who had been the ringleader of the abductions, he would not only die the death of a traitor, a shame to his family, but he would leave Tabitha thinking the worst of him. She might never love him, but he didn’t want her to despise him, to think his faith in God was false.

  “She’ll never forgive me this time,” he said to the darkness, and Parks if he was listening. “That’s the biggest burden to bear, knowing I’ve played a role in Tabbie’s damaged relationship with God, because mine’s been so bad, so unforgivable.”

  “No relationship with God is unforgivable,” Parks said. “He forgives us if we ask for it.”

  “That’s what the chaplain aboard ship said. But I didn’t trust God to get me home and ended up betraying my country.”

  “God still loves you.”

  Somewhere above them, a bell clanged eight times. Feet pounded on the deck and men shouted and grumbled. Midnight? Dawn? Noon? They would haul him up for punishment at one of those hours.

  “Can God forgive me for making someone else fall away from her faith?” Raleigh asked.

  “You didn’t make her fall away,” Parks said. “She made that decision on her own.”

  “But my behavior won’t convince her to return to the Lord.”

  Parks said nothing for so long, Raleigh feared the man knew of no answer to this. The ship rocked. Raleigh’s head spun. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to keep talking to the older man, whose faith seemed unshaken despite his circumstances.

  “Trower,” Parks said at last, “we are accountable for our behavior, but God promises that, as long as we repent and ask for it, He will forgive us.”

  “But I feel I have to do something to make up for my mistakes.”

  “There’s nothing we can do to make up for the past.” Parks sighed. “We’d all be doomed if we had to earn our forgiveness. Believe me, my life hasn’t been a good example of a man of God. But I have freedom in my heart knowing God has forgiven me anyway.” He chuckled. “Now if only I could have freedom in my body.”

  “If only . . .” Despite the darkness, Raleigh closed his eyes.

  He knew Donald’s wife. She was sweet and pretty, and her family was generous and loving. She had the new baby. Her husband shouldn’t be where he was. None of them should be. Yet if Raleigh’s contact wasn’t stopped, he would steal more and more men until President Madison declared war. Some men prospered from war. Try as he might, Raleigh could think of no one in the Seabourne area who would profit from a war. But the frigate’s captain knew, since he was working with him.

  “I might not need to do anything to earn God’s forgiveness,” Raleigh said, “but what if I want to?”

  “Then I suggest you pray hard.” Parks took a long, unsteady breath. “We both need to pray for our release.”

  “We will.” Raleigh gripped the edge of a barrel filled with ship’s biscuit and maneuvered to his knees. “I have an idea.”

  Tabitha paused beside a birch tree and wrapped her arm around the slender trunk. Her legs felt as though they had lost their ability to hold her upright, yet she couldn’t hold on to Dominick for support. What she knew she must do led to a future where he wouldn’t be around for her to hold on to, as no one else had been.

  “God is always with me,” Marjorie Parks had said regarding living without her husband for months on end. “And he’s given me my family.”

  Tabitha’s family was gone, but she had a community. Her work might send Dominick home to England, but it would also garner her accolades in the village.

  And God already cared. She was supposed to believe that.

  “Yet where were You when I prayed for my family’s healing or for Raleigh to come back?” she cried aloud. “Even Raleigh returning is a joke. A sad, sick joke, if he’s involved.” She turned to bury her face against the tree trunk and found Dominick’s shoulder instead. She pushed against it. “No, I can’t depend on you. You’ll go too. Soon, if we’re right at all.”

  “I’m here now, dear lady.” He stroked her hair, and she realized it had tumbled down her back sometime in her rushing about. “And I’ll come back for you.” He kissed her temple. “No, I’ll take you with me.”

  “Don’t make empty promises. I don’t need them.” She placed her hands against his chest to push him away, but she clung instead. “Your conscience is bearing enough without feeling guilty over me.”

  “Then that gives me motivation to stay.” He curved his hand around her chin and tilted her face up. “I presume you were yelling at God earlier, though, not me.”

  “Yes. He’s supposed to be listening.” She blinked against the impact of his deep brown eyes on her heart. “Part of me wants to pray you’ll stay, but I’m afraid to. Whether or not I have faith in God can’t depend on whether or not—” She stopped, hearing her own words.

  Dominick smiled. “Whether or not God answers your prayers the way you want Him to?”

  She nodded.

  “If He doesn’t, it’s because He has other plans. Better plans.”

  “My family dying when I still need them is a better plan?” Tabitha pulled away.

  “We can’t always know why God arranges things as He does. That’s faith.”

  “How can you have faith and think you need to atone for your past?”

  “I . . . can’t.” Sadness clouded Dominick’s face. “I know God can forgive me. But I don’t know how. What I’ve done . . .” He looked away. “And now I’ve just told you two people you care about aren’t who you think they are.”

  “You think they’re involved.” Tabitha stiffened her spine. “We can’t convict them on a single sheet of paper you found and Raleigh disappearing. Donald Parks disappeared too. And Mayor Kendall is in Norfolk.”

  “Is he?” Dominick tilted his head as though listening. “He only said he was going there. He rode, so there’s no servant to verify the truth of it. And Raleigh? For all we know, he’s gone because he’s taken Parks to his British contact.”

  “Dominick, you can’t mean—”

  But of course he did. He made a great deal of sense. Too much sense. And she could help make sense of things too.

  “Whether or not Mayor Kendall is in Norfolk can be proven.” Tabitha smoothed down the front of her dress, seeking strawberry stains. “I can go under the guise of visiting the new mother there, and find out.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “If you’re caught, you’ll be flogged.”

  Dominick winced but shrugged. “I’ll risk it.”

  “No—” Tabitha broke off. She would ensure that he did
n’t go, but not by trying to talk him out of it. “It’s too late to leave today. We’d be benighted on the road.”

  “But you can’t travel on Sunday.”

  “It’s the best day to travel. The roads will be quiet and I can be assured Kendall won’t leave Norfolk—if he’s there.”

  “If you go, I’ll follow you.”

  “You can’t. I took your key.”

  “I’d like it back so I can look out for you.”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to be treated like a prisoner? I had more freedom as a vagabond in England than I have here.”

  “If God cares about you, He’ll see to your welfare.” She crossed her arms over her middle, daring him with her eyes.

  “Oh, He cares. I have no doubt about that. He cares about what I’ve done . . .” He turned away. “Very well, go to Norfolk. You know where to find me if you need me.”

  “I’ll walk back with you.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I want some of that jam that should be finished by now.”

  “And to ensure I go home and stay there.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Tabitha.” With a noise half like a growl and half like a laugh, he stopped, turned, and kissed her. “Just don’t lose the key.”

  “I’ll give it back to you when I return.” She took his arm again and they returned to the mayor’s house.

  “I’ll be gone for a few days,” she told Letty. “Will you watch over Mr. Cherrett here? He’s . . . got a wandering eye.”

  “Not since he met you, he don’t,” Dinah said with a giggle.

  “Does he indeed?” Letty met Tabitha’s gaze and nodded.

  She understood. Tabitha could rely on her to ensure that Dominick did nothing to jeopardize his position.

  A little mollified, Tabitha returned home to pack and ordered Japheth and Patience to be ready to leave at first light. They would spend most of the morning traveling the rough road to Norfolk, and Tabitha would call on Sally Belote as her excuse for being there.

  In the morning, Dominick knelt at his attic window and listened to a wagon rumble out of the village. Tabitha was on her way to Norfolk. If he was right and Kendall was involved, she was walking straight into danger.

  “I should be with her.” He pounded his fist against the windowsill. “Lord, why am I confined here like a prisoner? I’m of no use to anyone like this.”

  He’d never been of use to anyone. He’d taken and taken from his father’s generous, if indifferent, largess. He’d taken knowledge from his Oxford tutors, and he’d taken information from people who thought he’d befriended them. He’d used his social position, money, and brains to get whatever he wanted. He’d even taken away his father’s desire to see his youngest son become the vicar of the church at Bruton-on-Aix, the family parish. He’d taken friendship and now a selfless, loving act from Tabitha.

  He’d given nothing.

  “Lord, You gave us so much—Your wisdom, Your love, Your life. I can never do enough to be worthy of that. Even finding out the identity of this traitor isn’t enough to make up for the past.”

  Of course it wasn’t. His father had been generous only while Dominick did as he wished. When he learned of his son stepping over the line, he treated Dominick worse than his lowest servant, worse than his horses or dogs. Only perfection pleased.

  Only perfection pleased God. God wanted a cleansed heart, a repentant life.

  “And I will never get there. I’ve sinned too much.” Dominick’s chest tightened and his eyes burned. “I can’t earn forgiveness, even with this mission.”

  But the mission would help. His father might still despise him and deny him access to the family, but others would receive him. He could rejoin his friends with his head held high. His brothers would talk to him. He’d have a family again, even if it was as good as being an orphan. Most of all, he could find work as someone’s steward or man of business. In time, Father might even reconsider his edict that Dominick’s name must never be mentioned in his hearing. Eventually, the people he’d hurt might forget enough to forgive.

  And would that be enough for them to accept Tabitha?

  Thinking of her lovely, serene face, her practical and compassionate nature, and her intelligence, he didn’t know how they couldn’t want to be near her as much as he had from the minute he’d encountered the mermaid on the beach. Yet thinking of English society with its strictures and mores, its prejudices and adherence to lineage, its respect for wealth and loathing of getting one’s hands dirty in trade, he knew they would shun her at every opportunity.

  She was right. He could have his old life back in England, or he could have her.

  His old life meant a position, a place, the knowledge that he belonged with a certain type of people. He would find work, interesting work. He might even earn enough respect for a position in the foreign office. Staying with Tabitha meant staying in America, where his name meant nothing. He owned no land and lacked the ability to acquire it. He was English and despised in many circles for nothing more than that heritage. He might love her more than anyone he’d ever known—related to him or otherwise—but his love might not be enough to give her the security she wanted, the life she deserved.

  If I’d truly loved her, I’d have left her alone to renew her courtship with Trower.

  One more sin to blot his copybook.

  Yet if she’d truly loved Raleigh Trower, none of Dominick’s machinations should have won her away. She hadn’t rebuffed him. She accepted his friendship then his courtship. She’d even sought him out. If he left her, she would be alone in the world again.

  He couldn’t do that to her. At the same time, he couldn’t face a life with no purpose for himself, no vocation, no profession. Without land or money in America, being a gentleman, third son of a marquess, meant nothing. He suspected being a former bondsman made matters even worse, regardless of any service to their country he had performed. It could harm her future as much as her presence in England could harm his.

  Yet how could he leave her without anyone to love her? And what if she clung to him merely because Raleigh Trower was gone and Dominick was there?

  Only one way to find that out.

  If Raleigh Trower still lived, Dominick would find him and free him, whatever the cost.

  30

  ______

  Remembering how she’d been treated at the Belote home before, Tabitha rounded the house and knocked on the back door. It was closed, odd for a warm summer day, and she feared the servants were elsewhere, that everyone was elsewhere. The house lay in a stillness not common in the middle of the afternoon.

  Then she heard a baby’s cry, the weak mewling of a newborn. She stepped back from the house and glanced up toward the sound. Yes, an upstairs window stood open. Movement flashed in the dim interior of the chamber beyond, and the crying ceased.

  “Sally?” Tabitha called. “Sally Belote? It’s Tabitha Eckles.”

  “No,” she thought someone gasped.

  “May I come in?” Tabitha persisted.

  Silence.

  “Sally, is something wrong?”

  The baby responded with a whimper.

  Not caring if she offended the haughty Mrs. Belote, Tabitha tested the handle of the kitchen door. It yielded with a touch. With an exhalation of breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she marched into the kitchen to find it neat, the fire banked, loaves of bread rising beneath a spotless linen cloth on the worktable. For whatever reason they were gone, it appeared Cookie and her daughter Abigail would be returning soon.

  But why Sally was alone with the infant and not answering her, Tabitha must find out. She remembered her way through the house and hastened up the steps to the second floor. Sally’s room overlooked the back garden and field beyond—a pleasant view, but not as fine as the bay on the other side. Nor as cool. The air grew increasingly stifling as Tabitha traversed the hallway on the upper floor and found Sally’s door.

&n
bsp; Locked—from the outside.

  Heart jumping into her throat, Tabitha turned the key and opened the door. Of course, she could be making a mistake. If Sally had suffered from a mental break, as women sometimes did after childbirth, Tabitha could place herself in danger. On the other hand, the child was most certainly in danger, and the girl shouldn’t be alone with him.

  But she was alone. Quite alone. When Tabitha opened the door, the baby was nowhere in sight. No infant lay in his mother’s arms. No cradle stood by the cold hearth. The chamber, with its pastel colors and ruffles, belonged to a young woman about to launch into the world of husband hunting, not the chamber of a new mother.

  Except for the smell. Tabitha caught a whiff of urine, rich mother’s milk, and another odor as familiar as those of a baby, but completely unrelated.

  Her nostrils flared. She clutched her neck, where the mark of the knife barely remained.

  From her chair near the open window, Sally stared at Tabitha with huge blue eyes. Her mouth worked. No sound emerged.

  “I heard the baby,” Tabitha said. “And I smell him. Where is he?”

  “Not here.” Sally shook her head. “He died.”

  “In the last two minutes?” Tabitha closed the door, locked it, and slipped the key into her pocket. It clinked against the one to Dominick’s chamber.

  His prison.

  “I heard him crying,” she persisted.

  “It must have been a cat.” Sally didn’t move from the chair. “We have cats in the stable.”

  “Sally, I am a midwife. I have been around scores of babies. I know the difference between a baby’s cry and a cat’s.” Tabitha moved further into the room, glancing around for a hiding place, for the source of that smell.

  Tobacco? Whiskey? Some herb with which she was unfamiliar?

  Nothing came to her immediate attention, but the baby could be hidden in any number of locations—under the tall bed, inside the chest at its foot, inside the armoire. In any of those locations, he could suffocate in the heat of the chamber. And something had made him stop crying and stay quiet.

  Her skin crawled with the possibilities.