Lady in the Mist (22 page)

23

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Tabitha froze. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart congealed in her chest. Six feet away, Dominick crouched, his gaze fixed on the snake.

It hung from the side of the basket, swaying its triangular head. Inside the basket, its tail twitched. The cloth wrapped around the food whispered a warning of death.

Dominick raised his arm. His hand disappeared beneath his fall of hair and emerged curled around the handle of a long, glittering knife.

“You can’t.” Tabitha’s voice emerged more like a squeak. “Water moccasin bites are usually deadly—”

The snake lunged. Steel flashed. Blood spurted, and the snake’s severed head lay on the white sand beside a knife with an eight-inch blade, a mere inch from the toe of Dominick’s right boot.

“What kind of bondsman carries a knife like that?” Tabitha asked with a calm that pleased her. Then she gathered up her skirt, raced a dozen yards down the beach, and fell to her knees to be sick in a tide pool. She’d eaten little that day, but her stomach rebelled as though she’d downed a banquet. She doubled over, racked with pain and silent sobs.

“Hush.” A strong arm encircled her shoulders. Warm breath and a swath of satiny hair brushed her cheek. “It’s dead and no harm done.”

“But it was there.” She gasped for breath to control herself. “It was in my basket.”

“Probably the smell of the bait. Here. Drink.”

Cool glass touched her lips. She reached up and curled her fingers around the bottle. He didn’t let go. Together they tilted the container. The sweet tartness of lemonade washed over her tongue and down her throat, refreshing, nourishing, cleansing. She swallowed once, twice, then he took it away.

“Not too much. Water would be better, but the only stuff we have is in your basket, and I didn’t think you’d want that.”

“No.” She shuddered. “Where is it?”

“I’m afraid I dumped it all in the ocean.” His dark eyes smiled into hers. “Basket, food, and our serpentine visitor. Or what was left of him.”

“Yes, his tail.” The lemonade threatened to come up. She gulped. “You killed it so fast. How—I mean, the knife . . .” Her voice gathered strength. “What is a redemptioner doing with a knife and skill like that?”

“It’s not the usual skill and habit for a gentleman either.” He raised the bottle of lemonade to his own lips, and for the first time she realized his hand trembled. “I thought I might need such a weapon against an unsavory man, not a monster. What did you call it?”

“A water moccasin. Some call them cottonmouths.” She looked into his eyes so he could read her gravity. “I’ve seen them be aggressive toward people, and if he’d bitten one of us . . . My mother got called to treat a bite . . . The man died.” She shuddered. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Perhaps it crawled in the basket in search of food.”

Tabitha dropped her gaze to the bottle in his hand, where sunlight reached through the green glass to flash off of liquid unstable enough to sparkle like rippling waves.

He tucked the flask into a pocket of wet sand. “Or perhaps someone put it there.”

“That basket was covered. It couldn’t have gotten in on its own.”

“Now, really, Tabitha, how could someone have done that without us knowing?”

“Too easily from the boat. We were making enough noise ourselves to cover up any another person might have made, and you know it.”

“I know it.” He sighed. “I hoped you wouldn’t come to the same conclusion.”

“I have.” She knelt there in the sand and grasped both his hands. “Dominick, someone tried to kill one of us.” She strove for a light tone. “Since it was my basket, probably me.”

“Who would want to harm you?” He freed his hands and cupped her face in his palms. “Who would want to destroy such beauty and kindness?”

“Who would want to harm you?”

Light flamed in Dominick’s dark eyes. “The dozen people coming this way don’t look particularly friendly.”

Tabitha jerked away from him and turned. Indeed, what looked more like a score of people swarmed down the beach or over the dunes toward them.

Raleigh, his face pale, walked amongst them, leaning on his father’s arm. He released it and straightened. “Tabbie, are you all right? We heard a scream.”

All eyes swiveled past her to Dominick, curious, wary, hostile. She felt rather than saw him rise, and struggled to stand too, but she entangled her foot in her skirt.

“You need to modify your dress before you break your neck,” Dominick murmured as he grasped her elbows and set her firmly on her heels.

She wished she could lean back against him. She couldn’t, not with so many people in front of her appearing ready to accuse Dominick of something.

“There was a snake,” she said. “A water moccasin. He killed it.” She gestured down the beach to the lone basket remaining beside a triangular dark blot—the snake’s severed head. “It was in my basket.”

“Tabbie.” Raleigh surged toward her, head forward, rather like the snake had done. “Come home with us. Momma will make you a dinner. You”—he glared at Dominick—“can go back to your master.”

“Only if Tabitha tells me to.” Dominick’s arm tightened around her. “Otherwise, she and I have matters to discuss.”

One or two onlookers remained beside the tide pool. The rest had wandered down the beach to inspect the snake’s head. Someone exclaimed, “A clean cut.”

Tabitha shivered to think that the hand resting on her right arm, just below her shoulder, had held a knife that could sever the head of a human without much difficulty. A good man to have as one’s friend, as one’s protector.

A dangerous enemy, bondsman or not.

“Does your master know you carry a knife capable of cutting off the head of a snake?” Raleigh demanded.

“I can’t see where it’s any of your concern,” Dominick drawled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to retrieve my basket, our crabs, and my coat.”

He strode off down the beach toward the jetty and the larger crowd. Tabitha felt cold where he’d been close to her, despite the blazing afternoon sun. She wanted to watch him, ensure that no one annoyed him or caused him trouble. But she sensed he had deliberately left her alone with Raleigh, and for that she loved him more than ever.

“How did a snake get into your basket?” Raleigh asked.

“I have no idea. It was covered.” Tabitha glanced at the others nearby. “Good afternoon, Mr. Parks. How’s that new grandson of yours?”

The middle-aged gentleman beamed. “He’s right fine, Miz Tabitha. My boy’ll be proud when he comes home.”

“If he comes home,” Raleigh muttered.

Tabitha shot him a warning glare.

“We need to be honest about this with men like him around.” He jutted his chin at Dominick. “He struts about like he’s the mayor instead of a slave. Who else would be causing trouble for men in these parts?”

“Raleigh, stop it.” Tabitha cast an anxious glance at the onlookers then Dominick.

She desperately wanted to believe Dominick was not an English spy come to cause trouble in the seaboard states to foment war. No one else seemed to think ill of him at the moment. Someone had picked up the snake’s head, and others gazed at it and Dominick with admiration. As for Dominick himself, he was smiling down at Phoebe Lee. Her laughter rang up the tide line, and the ruffles on her pink parasol fluttered in the breeze.

The idea of that elegant young lady a midwife made Tabitha curl her lip.

“Think it’s more like trouble for the females in these parts he’s causing,” Mr. Parks said with a chuckle. “That’s the parson’s niece. She’s quite a flirt, even for a widow.”

“He’s just trouble all around.” Raleigh’s jaw muscles bunched. “Please, Tabbie, will you come up to the house?”

“Is your head bothering you?” She circled him to inspect the bandage. It was clean and secured in a band around his head.

Her action drew attention to Raleigh. Several people surrounded him, asking him what happened.

Tabitha slipped away with a quiet, “I’ll visit tomorrow,” and made her way down the beach to Dominick’s side.

Phoebe turned her attention to Tabitha. “Miss Eckles, so good to see you again. Have you thought any more about my question the other day?”

“No,” Tabitha said a little too crisply.

“I see.” Phoebe’s face fell.

“I mean, no, I haven’t thought about it,” Tabitha hastened to add, “not no, I won’t do it.”

Yet the idea made her feel hollow inside, as though she had already lost the only man she wanted to marry and provide with daughters—and sons.

“Do please take it into consideration.” Phoebe ducked her head. “I’m quite serious.” She tilted her face toward Dominick. “And I’m serious about you proving you can cut a rosebud off a bush at twenty paces without damaging it.”

Dominick tucked his arm through Tabitha’s. “Perhaps Tabitha will allow us to use her garden. She has some lovely roses.”

“I’m so pleased to hear that.” Phoebe smiled. “I was afraid maybe you just grew herbs and things.”

“I grow those too,” Tabitha said, “but I have had a weakness for candied rose petals ever since I was a little girl and my father used to buy them for me, so I make them for myself.”

Phoebe’s eyes widened in surprise.

So did Dominick’s. “I don’t think I’ve tasted candied flowers since I was a lad. May I indulge just a taste of one?”

Tabitha blushed, forgetting the snake, forgetting Raleigh’s accusations, forgetting Phoebe Lee. Dominick didn’t care about anyone or anything but her in that moment.

“We should get these crabs somewhere to be cooked before they spoil,” he said.

“Ugh, crab.” Phoebe gave a delicate shudder and twirled her parasol. “I see my uncle wants me to leave with him. See you in church on Sunday, Mr. Cherrett.” She glided toward Reverend Downing, the frills on the bottom of her skirt and edge of her parasol flirting in the breeze.

“Am I permitted to ask what she wants from you?” Dominick asked.

“You can ask, but—” Tabitha caught sight of someone preparing to throw the snake head into the sea, and broke off. “Why would someone do that to us?”

“Who?” Dominick asked. “The why, I’m afraid, is easy.”

Tabitha began to walk up the beach toward home, wanting to run and hide behind her garden and her house door, with the locks turned. “It was in my basket. But the only true enemy I think I may have is Harlan Wilkins.”

“Ruining his fine reputation in this town may be enough.” Dominick walked faster than usual, as though he too wished to run. “Or others’ reputations. Surely he’s not the first man to father a child out of wed—I’m sorry. This is no discussion to have with a lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” Tabitha pointed out. “That is, my parents taught me good grammar and manners, but I work with the less delicate aspects of life, not to mention the things I learn in private.”

“But you don’t talk about that.”

“No, but I know their secrets.” She glanced back at the dispersing crowd on the beach. “There’s a woman back there whose third son is not her husband’s. She suffered a difficult labor and thought God was punishing her for betraying her vows, so she confessed to me. Now she doesn’t speak to me for fear I’ll talk out of turn, though she’s been an admirable wife since, by all appearances. At least her other three sons look like her husband.”

“So God’s punishment worked.” Dominick looked thoughtful. “Have her other lying-ins gone well?”

“They have, but I don’t think God cares enough to punish us like that. The most generous, thoughtful, and God-fearing women I know have suffered difficulties in bearing children. Why would God punish them? Women suffer because of Eve, the Bible says, and after that, God forgot about us.”

“The Bible tells us just the opposite.” Dominick slowed. “God pays far too much attention to us and wants to be too much a part of our lives.”

“Why do you think that?” She tried to read his face, but his hair had come loose and hid his countenance from her view.

He shrugged. “He took a personal interest in my life.”

“And you’re being punished by coming here as a bondsman?”

“I can redeem myself here.” He paused when they needed to cross the dunes to her house. “Would this woman want to silence you? She was close at hand.”

“After five years? No. But what about you? It was in my basket, but you might have been gentleman enough to serve me. Does someone want you dead?”

“Besides Raleigh?” He grinned. “Don’t say it. I don’t believe he wants me dead, just . . . gotten rid of.”

“No, I think I was the target. We can’t forget the knife at my throat.”

Unbidden, her gaze shifted to the fall of his hair hiding the knife sheathed down his back.

“You still believe it could have been me?” Sorrow filled his eyes. “You know I couldn’t hurt you.”

Maybe not cut her skin, but he would break her heart. She couldn’t respond.

He shook his head. “We still need to have that cose.”

“Cose?” She didn’t know the word.

“Talk. Chat. After we eat, please.”

“Of course.” She felt a little hunger now. “Patience is waiting for the crabs. We can cook them and bring them back down here.” She smiled. “Since our alfresco meal was ruined, we may eat all of these ourselves.”

“We still have the strawberries.” His voice had grown rough.

Tabitha glanced at him and her mouth went dry. He was looking at her lips. “Come—come up to the house. We’ll share the strawberries with Japheth and Patience.”

“Of course.” He headed over the dune, his stride long and loping, covering the ground with an appearance of unhurried grace while moving quickly. His carriage made him appear what he was—a man of rank, privilege, education, and possibly wealth once upon a time. Such men did not carry on more than a flirtation with a woman of her background, however well educated her father. She sullied her hands in her work. She saw the deprivations of human nature. The Eckleses and Blackburns, and all her other relatives who had come from Great Britain to the new world, wouldn’t have associated with the likes of Dominick’s family except as servants. Dominick’s current status didn’t change that. If he’d been American-born, perhaps. But not an Englishman.