Lady in the Mist (3 page)

Father would have an apoplexy laughing if he saw his younger son responsible for anything.

“Will you be up to that, Cherrett?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll fetch your breakfast now.”

He retreated to the kitchen for the plate of bacon, eggs, and sconelike roll the Americans called a biscuit, though it wasn’t sweet. Once the meal lay before Kendall, Dominick withdrew to a place by the door to wait for orders to retrieve more coffee, butter, a handkerchief. Some mornings he never stood still. This morning he stood like a part of the wainscoting while Kendall munched and read, grumbled over the newspaper, and smiled over the Scriptures.

Dominick began to nod. His eyelids drooped. Visions of mermaids danced between shafts of sunlight and his eyelashes. Mermaids with pretty hands and caustic—

The front door knocker sounded.

Dominick’s head shot up and smacked the wall. “Ah!” He rubbed the back of his head.

The knocker pounded again, going right through his skull.

Kendall’s glance bored through his eye sockets. “Go get that, Cherrett, if you’re able.”

“Yes, sir.” Dominick tripped over his toes as he exited the dining room by its second door, the one leading into the entry hall.

He reached the front door as the knocker banged for a third time. He wondered if the brass pineapple was difficult to break. Or perhaps he should apply it to the head of the early morning caller.

He hadn’t taken the time to speculate as to what sort of person would call at that hour, but if he had, he knew from his experience of the past two weeks that it wouldn’t have been the female who stood on the porch. Old ladies called on the mayor in groups. Elderly gentlemen called on him singly and in pairs. Businessmen of all ages arrived to petition him for favors, and widows brought gifts as excuses to gain entrée into his presence so perhaps they could attract him into making one of them the next Mrs. Kendall. Not once had a young female arrived on the doorstep—until now.

Dominick had read about heart-shaped faces in sentimental literature but never before believed any female possessed such a visage. The evidence stood before him wearing a plain dress and pelisse the same blue-gray as her eyes, and an unadorned straw hat perched atop auburn tresses. No fashionable curls obscured the breadth of her cheekbones. The severity of her hairstyle emphasized the wide brow bisected by a widow’s peak that looked like a nice place to plant a kiss.

He cleared his throat as though that would clear his head. “May I help you?”

“Yes, please. I need to speak with—you.” One hand flew to her lips. Her eyes widened.

Dominick thanked God for something for the first time in many years—that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. The flip his stomach gave at the sound of her accusing tone on the “you” would not have improved upon toast and a soft-boiled egg.

He gripped the door frame with one hand and the handle with the other. “Yes, the last time I looked in a mirror, I was me. Is there a difficulty with that, madam?”

“Only if Mayor Kendall approves of his manservant prowling about the beach in the middle of the night. His English manservant.”

She pronounced his nationality as though it was a felony offense. Then again, to her, it probably was.

The skin along his back crawled, feeling the bite of the lash. “Not prowling. Merely a lark.” He gazed down at her through his lashes. “Mermaid hunting.”

A hint of pink tingeing her pale skin assured him she was not immune to his wiles.

He smiled. “Surely you won’t tattle on a lad who needed some sea air.”

She set one hand on a hip. “Considering I’m here to inform him of Englishmen wandering about at night, yes, I will.”

“Please don’t.” Abandoning flirtation, he stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “It could cause unnecessary trouble.”

“And I think it already has caused unnecessary trouble for me.” She tilted back her head and raised one hand to where a thin red scratch ran above the collar of her pelisse, marring the creamy perfection of her throat. “Tell me, Mr. Englishman, do you own a knife?”

3

______

Tabitha had never seen a man with such beautiful eyes. The rich, deep brown of coffee, they sparkled with pinpoints of gold light behind a fringe of lashes that would have made them feminine if not for his strong cheekbones and firm jaw. The powdered hair, ridiculous as it was in Seabourne, created a striking contrast to the dark eyes and sun-bronzed complexion.

As she looked into those extraordinary eyes, she found herself going soft like butter left too close to a fire. Soft in the head anyway, for asking him if he had a knife. Even if he had a motive for holding her at knifepoint and commanding her to say nothing of the night’s activities, before pushing her forward hard enough to make her fall to her knees—as the man had in her garden—he wasn’t about to admit he had a knife.

“Never you mind me asking that.” She gave him the gentle smile she bestowed on frightened young mothers. “I don’t want you to feel you need to commit the sin of lying to avoid trouble.”

He laughed. “Oh, my dear Madam Mermaid, my sins are so numerous, lying is the least of them. But thank you for the reprieve, as I wouldn’t wish to give you cause to accuse me of doing this.” He traced his forefinger along the scratch.

Tabitha’s knees turned to oatmeal porridge. Nonetheless, she made herself meet his gaze. “You recognize it for what it is, the work of a knife, and you have reason to want me to keep my mouth shut.”

“I expect a number of persons have cause to wish you to keep your mouth shut.” He smiled, with his lips, with his eyes. “You know the secrets of this town, don’t you, Madam Midwife?”

“I am often a confidante,” she answered with care. “But I’ve never been threatened before.”

“Before you ran into me.” He propped his shoulders against the polished oak of the front door and crossed his arms over his broad chest, as though preparing for a long chat. “Then I am in a pickle.”

“You’ll be in more of one if you keep denying me access to the mayor.”

“All too true.” He didn’t move. He said nothing else. In the village square beyond the fence surrounding the front garden, wheels rumbled on the bricks of the street and two men exchanged greetings. Inside the gates, birds set up a choral symphony in ode to the bright warmth of the morning.

Tabitha’s and the Englishman’s gazes clashed. Tabitha set her hands on her hips and compressed her lips. It was the look and stance she applied to husbands who thought she was too young to know what she was doing. Most of them backed down, crept meekly away to pace the floor, or left to cause trouble for someone other than her.

The Englishman laughed. “You’re rather beautiful like that.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me.”

“I’m rather impervious to that glare of yours too. But I do concede I can’t keep you standing on the front steps all day.” He straightened and half turned to the door. “I’ll show you in. He should be finished with breakfast by now. You may tell him what you like, but I doubt he’ll thank you for informing him that his perfect English butler has been a naughty lad. He’ll have to punish me for form, if nothing else. Then I wouldn’t be able to wear my livery, and he has important guests coming in a fortnight.”

Speech delivered, he opened the door and stood back with a gesture for her to precede him.

She glided over the threshold and he closed the door behind her. After the sunshine, the entryway seemed as dim, chilly, and quiet as the spring nights—or a tomb. The soles of the Englishman’s shoes resounded like bass drum beats on the marquetry floor as he strode toward a door at the far end of the hallway.

Tabitha shivered. When she left home and set out for the sheriff’s to report the assault on her person, doing so seemed like a sound idea. No one should dare threaten the midwife. Gathering information came with her work, and if men threatened her for coming across something they didn’t want her to know, she couldn’t serve the community. And the community needed her. She was the only person with medical knowledge of any kind within twenty miles.

But after meeting Mayor Kendall’s new manservant face-to-face, she couldn’t outright accuse him in the event he was innocent, as he claimed. The townspeople said Kendall was proud of having a proper butler. Tabitha had thought nothing of the talk when she met him that morning. Indentured servants tended to come from the lower ranks of society. They spoke with bad grammar and nearly incomprehensible accents. They did not affect a manner of speaking she’d heard only from educated persons. The men she’d met who talked like that tended to come from England—scholars traveling to observe the peculiar Americans or military officers. If this man was an indentured servant and an aristocrat or gentleman, he’d fallen on terrible times and didn’t need worse to befall him.

Ahead of her, the man paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Please, Miss—” His color heightened. “I forgot to ask your name.”

“Tabitha Eckles.”

“Ah, then, Miss Tabitha Eckles, please say nothing.”

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

With a sigh, he turned his back on her and knocked. “Miss Tabitha Eckles, sir.”

“Well, send the girl in. Bring her some coffee.” Mayor Kendall’s voice boomed into the entryway.

Tabitha started forward. Her feet dragged, her shoes leaden. And at the end of the hall, the Englishman held the door open for her, holding her gaze with his beautiful eyes. If she could have done so without making a fool of herself, she would have turned back and not spoken with the mayor then and there. But she was committed now, so she entered the dining room and slid onto the chair the Englishman pulled out for her. She started to speak.

Mayor Kendall waved her to silence. “Fetch a fresh cup and pot of coffee.”

“Yes, sir.” The butler trotted from the room. A door opened, sending the aromas of bacon, bread, burned toast, and coffee wafting into the dining room. Then the door closed.

“This is a pleasant surprise, Tabitha.” The mayor smiled at her. “How may I help you?”

“It’s not for me.” She took a deep breath while the Englishman was gone and she could breathe properly. “Well, I suppose it is. I went to the sheriff first, but he was gone already.”

“That concerns me.” Kendall pushed his plate and newspaper aside and gripped the edge of the table. “I hope nothing too awful has occurred to take him out so early.”

“Maybe he’s fishing?” Tabitha smiled. “He does like his boat.”

Kendall chuckled. “Yes, indeed. He missed his calling, staying on land. But what was so urgent it took you to the sheriff this early, then back here to me?”

To give herself more time to decide on her course, she began, “You may wish to know, before I mention the other matter, that Mrs. Wilkins went to the Lord early this morning. She fell down the steps, and I was called—” Her throat closed and a tear formed in the corner of one eye. “Forgive me.” She drew a handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed at her face.

“Of course, my dear.” Kendall went white around the lips. “You’re too young to have to manage this sort of thing on your own. I don’t approve of an unmarried midwife, you know, but you’re all we have, and I know you did your best.”

“I hope so.” Tabitha swallowed. “Sir, I wouldn’t think anything of this if too many of our young men weren’t disappearing from the coastal villages.” Once started, she couldn’t stop, not even when she heard the kitchen door creak open. “There were strangers about last night. English strangers.”

China rattled behind her.

In front of her, the mayor’s eyes widened. “Where?”

“The tide was out, so I walked along the beach when I . . . er . . . ran into them.”

“How many?” The words emerged like two hammer blows.

“I—I don’t know.”

She sensed the stillness of the Englishman behind her. Her hand went to the scratch on her throat.

“It was dark,” she plunged on, “and I was understandably distracted.”

“Of course.” The mayor frowned. “And it was misty.”

“Yes. And, sir—”

Kendall raised one hand. “Why are you just standing there, Cherrett? Come serve Miss Eckles some coffee.”

“Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, sir.” He sounded subdued as he approached Tabitha and set the tray on the table. “Cream, Madam M—Miss Eckles?”

“No, thank you.” She didn’t look at him as she continued to address the mayor. “Whoever it was let me go on my way, but when I reached my garden”—a shudder ran through her—“someone threatened me at knifepoint.”

“Threatened you?” Kendall half rose from his chair. “What are you saying?”

Tabitha accepted the cup the Englishman—Mr. Cherrett—shoved in front of her and wrapped her hands around the smooth china. Despite the warmth of the day, her hands felt like ice.

“He held a knife to my throat and told me to keep my mouth shut about the night,” she blurted out on a single breath.

“It was this same Englishman?” Kendall nearly shouted.

The silver serving tray struck the floor with a resonant clang. Tabitha jumped, slopping hot coffee over her fingers. She gasped.

Mr. Cherrett groaned. “I am so sorry, miss. I’ll fetch you a cold wet cloth.” The kitchen door creaked.

Tabitha stared at her reddened fingers. She’d questioned the man’s guilt when looking into his eyes. But now, with Cherrett’s noisy reaction to the mayor’s raised voice, she wondered if she’d allowed herself to succumb to a pretty face and charming manner while the threat had indeed come from the Englishman.

Raleigh Trower feasted his eyes on the whitewashed cottage before him. From the neat hedge of flowers keeping the beach away from the front garden to the green door and window frames, from the smoke curling out of the chimney into the clear blue sky to the scent of baking bread, from the roar of the ocean across the dunes to the sundry birds chorusing in the trees, nothing about the Eckles home had changed in the two and a half years since he’d last laid eyes on it or its youngest lady inhabitant.

“Tabitha.” Her name burned on his lips. Her face swam before his eyes.

Swaying, he grasped the top rail of the gate. He probably should have stayed home long enough for a good night’s sleep. But the promise of seeing Tabitha again kept him going through the hardships of the past nine and twenty months, kept him alive, when dying would have been easier. Now, on sufferance from a British captain, he was nearly free to return to his life, his fishing boat, his family, his Tabitha.

“If you’ll be my Tabitha again.”

One bit of news he’d gleaned, while Momma had stuffed him with food and his sisters fluttered around him like finches in a field of grain, was that Tabitha was still unmarried and the town’s only midwife.

“The only thing we have for a healer,” Momma had added. “Her mother died right after you disappeared, and now it’s just her.”

“Is she courting anyone?” Raleigh asked.

She should have been married. She would have been married if he hadn’t betrayed her out of selfishness, out of fear.

“The men are all scared of her.” Fanny, his younger sister, giggled. “I mean, she knows everything that happens around here. Last year, when Rachel Goodwin got herself into trouble, Tabitha made her tell her who the father was before she’d deliver the baby.”

“That’s the law.” Felicity still affected the haughty tones of a plantation mistress rather than the daughter of a mildly prosperous fisherman. “She’s required to ask that when the woman is in—”

“Girls,” Momma snapped, “this isn’t proper conversation.” She turned to Raleigh. “She knows too much about what the young men get up to, now that her mother isn’t here to protect her from some of the . . . er . . . more unpleasant parts of her work, so they’re afraid she’s heard tales.”

“They wouldn’t need to fear her if they were acting as they should.” Raleigh realized he sounded smug, hypocritical. His conscience might be clear where behavior toward females went, if he discounted jilting Tabitha. Yet he lived a lie that should keep him away from any decent female.

Now he opened the gate and strode up the flagstone path to the front steps, to the door, to the knocker in the shape of a dove. The golden metal bird gleamed in the morning sunshine, and its flesh-and-blood counterpart cooed from a pine tree at the corner of the yard, as though encouraging him to seek entrance.

He let the knocker fall once, twice, three times, then a fourth for good measure. He kept his hand on it, the other one on the door frame for support, and waited. He heard nothing from inside the house.

“Bobwhite. Bobwhite,” a bird of that name chided from a cedar around the side of the house. “Bobwhite. Bobwhite.”

Quick, light footfalls sounded on the other side of the door. Raleigh straightened, lips curved into a smile, heart racing.

The door opened. A woman twice Tabitha’s age, a full head shorter and half again as wide, stood in the opening. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t recall her name. “May I help you?” she asked.

“I’m—” He swallowed. “I’m here to see Tabitha. Miss Eckles, I mean.”

She narrowed her eyes as though she too recognized him. “Is this an emergency?”

Oh, yes, he needed to know right away if Tabitha had forgiven him. Or at the least, if she could.

“Not an emergency.” He had to be honest about some things after all. “I—I’m an old friend. Raleigh Trower.”

“Are you?” The woman’s round face tightened, her green eyes grew cold. “I can’t be sure she’ll be wanting to see you.”

Raleigh looked down his nose at the woman. “That’s for her to decide, isn’t it?”

“It is, and she isn’t here.” The woman started to close the door. “You’ll have to come back later.”

“Please.” Raleigh stuck his foot over the threshold and smiled. Suddenly the woman’s name came to him and he added, “It’s Patience, isn’t it? Patience Neff?”

“Well, fancy that.” Patience stuck her own nose in the air. “You couldn’t recall you was engaged to Miss Tabitha, but you remember my name.”

“Oh, I remembered.” Raleigh closed his eyes, recalling every detail of Tabitha’s lovely face. “I made a mistake.”

“And now you come back to pick up where you left off?” Patience set work-reddened hands on her hips. “Well, young man, she’s had her heart broke once too often and I don’t want to see it happen again.”