Heart's Safe Passage (13 page)

“Hush.” Rafe laid a finger across her lips. “You can go tomorrow. Today—” He rested a hand on her shoulder and gave her part of the truth. “There are bad men ashore I’d rather you didn’t encounter.”

“There are always bad men ashore. I always manage to avoid them.” She clutched his hand. “Please . . . Papa?”

Rafe’s heart twisted, melted just a little at her use of Papa instead of Captain Rafe. But he shook his head. “This man is different. ’Tis . . . personal.”

Mel’s eyes widened. “Did you take his ship or something?”

“Nay, lass, and enough questions. You go tell the ladies they may go ashore tomorrow.”

If he wasn’t dead. Well, if he were, they’d need to go ashore to get help from the Navy.

“Scoot.” He tapped her shoulder.

With a sigh, Mel stalked off, head down, ragged ends of her hair swinging.

“Coward,” Jordy murmured.

“Aye, that I am. ’Tis the privilege of being the captain—I do not have to deliver the bad news.”

On the main deck, the ladies drooped at Mel’s tidings. Mrs. Lee cast him a glance that should have withered him despite the distance between them. She would never accept that it was for her own good.

“I’ll be going ashore now,” Rafe announced. “Call the men to take me.”

Jordy didn’t move. The harbor seemed unnaturally silent for a busy port in the middle of the afternoon. No one shouted orders, no drums rolled. Timbers didn’t creak in the near-calm winds. The scene seemed more like pantomime than port.

Then Jordy straightened from his lounging position with a clatter of boots on the deck. “You cannot. Brock is here under a flag of truce. If you challenge him, you will find yourself locked up in irons in a trice.”

“Not if my meeting with Brock is private.”

“It won’t be. He’s no fool to have eluded you for all these years.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

“Rafe, lad—aye, I ken you’re my captain and I’m to address you with respect, but I’ve kent you since you were christened, and I’d be doing your sainted parents no favors if I did not try to talk you out of this course of action yet again.”

“Good, you’ve tried. And they’re sainted instead of living happily in Edinburgh because of that man.” Not waiting for Jordy to give in or concede, Rafe leaped to the deck and strode aft, shouting for the men to return to the cutter. It still bobbed alongside the
Davina
. Rafe grabbed the mooring line and climbed down the rope to the boat’s deck. The two-man crew followed—Watt and Derrick.

“Cast off,” Rafe called to the brig’s deck.

He expected Jordy, Mel, or one of the other men. Instead, Mrs. Lee grasped the line and leaned over the rail. “Why are you keeping us aboard?”

A sudden tumult of shouts from one of the merchantmen nearly drowned out her words. Pretending not to hear her at all, Rafe glanced toward the nearby vessel. Two men in tight coats better suited to a London drawing room than the deck of a brigantine struggled to get a longboat over the gunwale and into the water.

“Why?” Phoebe Lee shouted down to him.

He couldn’t pretend not to hear that time. “I cannot say, madam.” Rafe looked up at her and wanted to tell her—something.

If she’d been angry, pleading, petulant, he would have cut the line and sailed off to the wharf. But she looked confused, frustrated, a little sad. He understood confusion, frustration, and, above all, sadness.

“If my mission is successful, I’ll see to it you find a way home from here.”

The men had the boat in the water—capsized.

“And George Chapman?” Mrs. Lee pressed. “Will you leave him to rot in the hulk after your promise to Belinda?”

He should, if the American had betrayed him. But he kept his word.

“Unless I’m unable, I’ll see him free,” he reassured her. “I simply will not need Mrs. Chapman’s assistance.”

A woman had joined the men on deck. She wore a cloak too heavy for the climate and doubled over as though in pain.

“Indeed.” Mrs. Lee’s face tightened. “And if you are unable?”

He curled one corner of his lips upward. “I have not said this to anyone for a ver’ long time, but perhaps you can pray for me, if you’re a praying lady.”

“If I’m—” She winced as though he’d shoved an elbow into her diaphragm. “I should have been praying for you all along.” With that, she turned away from the rail and trudged back to Mrs. Chapman.

As much queasiness as he’d ever felt in twenty-foot seas ravaged Rafe’s body. He folded his arms across his middle and glanced at Derrick. “Cut the line. We can’t continue to waste—”

The cries and confusion from the merchantman rose like a fast-moving storm. The two men ran to the starboard rail, shouting and waving at Rafe. The woman followed them for two steps, then doubled over with a scream.

Phoebe charged to the rail and leaned so far over she nearly toppled into the harbor. “Go help them. Go.”

The directive proved unnecessary. The cutter was already headed for the merchantman, single sail sending the small craft skimming over the water despite the light breeze. Shouts rang across the water, words indistinct, the tone of panic clear from the gentlemen aboard the brigantine. The woman had vanished from sight.

“What’s wrong?” Belinda slipped up beside Phoebe, Mel at her heels.

“I don’t know for sure.” Phoebe kept her voice neutral, her words careful. She guessed what was wrong. She hoped she was right. Already plans formed in her head.

“Captain Rafe is going aboard.” Mel pointed to the other vessel.

Belinda caught hold of the girl’s hand. “Pointing is rude.”

“Then how are you supposed to know where I mean?”

“You may nod your head in that direction or gesture.” Belinda sounded like her mother, prim and tight-lipped.

Phoebe tried not to laugh as she kept her gaze on the other ship, the cutter, Rafe Docherty. Surely he needed her. Surely he would return to her . . .

Someone called out. Even over the intervening space of water and through other harbor noises of boatmen and ship clatter, Phoebe recognized the voice—Docherty had commanded his men to do something.

Return. The cutter turned away from the merchantman and headed back to the
Davina
. Waiting, Phoebe held her breath, praying one word.
Please, please, please.

The cutter bumped lightly against the brig’s hull. “Mrs. Lee,” Watt called to her, “Captain Rafe wants you.”

“Thank you, Lord.” Phoebe knotted her shawl to keep it from slipping off into the water and kilted up her skirt. Undignified or not, showing stocking ankles or not, she intended to descend the easy way rather than wait for a chair to be rigged to lower her to the other boat like a net full of fish.

“Can I go too?” Mel asked.

“May I,” Phoebe and Belinda chorused.

Mel sighed. “I want to go.”

“Nay, lass, you stay aboard with Mrs. Chapman,” Watt said. “’Tis no place for a girl.”

“If you wait just a minute, ma’am,” Derrick addressed Phoebe, “I’ll fetch you a chair.”

“No thank you.” Phoebe grasped the rope and, eyes closed, clambered over the rail.

“Phoebe, you can’t,” Belinda cried.

“It’s better than the chair.” Mel laid a steadying hand on Phoebe’s shoulder. “The chair twists and turns and makes a body ill.”

“I’ve had more than enough of that.” Phoebe managed a smile, pushed away from the side of the brig, and slid more than climbed to the swaying deck of the cutter.

Derrick caught her in hands the size of dinner plates and eased the last few feet of her descent. “You shouldn’t have done that, ma’am.”

“Well, I’m here now.” Phoebe took a long breath to steady herself. “Let us go. The woman is in her lying-in, I presume?”

A ruddy hue rose under Derrick’s dark skin. “Yes, ma’am. Captain Rafe said you was the best person to come help. Of course, Captain, he’s—”

“Cast off,” Watt barked from the tiller.

Derrick grumbled something and tugged on the line.

Phoebe grasped the low rail and leaned toward the merchantman as though they needed to travel a far journey and her motion made them sail faster. The distance vanished in moments, the ships close enough she could have swum through the calm waters. Before she could speculate on the woman’s condition or make any plans for her next bid for freedom, they reached the brigantine, where a chair already waited for her.

Mel was right—climbing a rope was better. Phoebe arrived on the merchantman’s deck feeling sick and shaken from the spinning on the way up.

Docherty grasped her elbows and steadied her. “Are you a’right?”

“No, but I will be.” She managed a smile.

“There’s a good lass. Mrs. Torren is needing a steady hand.” He smiled back at her. No, not smiled. He never smiled; he turned up one corner of his mouth in a softening of its usual grim line.

His fine mouth with its firm, full lips relaxed, and something inside Phoebe tightened, twisted, shivered through her. If she could get him to smile all the way . . .

She wouldn’t be in his company long enough to think of that, of how else those lips could soften—

She jerked away from him. “Mrs. Torren?”

“Aye, one of the passengers. Her husband and his uncle are alone here on the brigantine while the crew fetches supplies and gets orders from their naval escort.” Docherty reclaimed one of Phoebe’s elbows and began to walk with her toward the aft companionway. “She’s come to her time early.”

“Oh dear.” Phoebe shivered for an entirely different reason, her mind skimming to an incident with Tabitha when a patient went into her travail early. It had ended in tragedy. “How—how early?”

“She does not ken. I dare say she’s no more than sixteen.” His hand tightened on Phoebe’s arm. “I do not like to think that this could be Mel in four years.”

“Mel will have more sense.”

“A tongue as tart as a green apple, I see. But let us hope ’tis true. Here we go.” He ushered Phoebe down the steep steps and into a cramped but expensively appointed cabin complete with velvet curtains over the porthole.

A bunk filled most of the space. On the fine linen sheets lay a young woman barely older than a child, not much larger than Mel. Her pale hair spread out on the pillow like a silvery-gold cloud, and terror filled her wide brown eyes. As Phoebe stepped over the coaming, the girl clutched at her swollen belly and screamed.

Phoebe resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears. The young man perched on a sea chest next to the head of the bunk possessed no such compunctions. His handsome features twisted as though he too experienced the labor pains. Phoebe glanced at him, glanced at the girl, glanced at the cramped space, and wanted to scream herself.

She couldn’t help this woman. What ever made her think she was ready to practice midwifery on her own? The ladies of Loudoun County were right in rarely calling on her. Belinda might be better off without her.

Phoebe took a step backward and fetched up hard against Rafe Docherty’s chest. For a moment, he closed his arms around her, held her close, his lips at her ear, his breath fanning her cheek. “You are a qualified midwife, no? You’re wanting to do this all the time, no?”

She nodded.

“Then do not fail this lass now. She needs you.” He released her and slipped away.

But his warmth remained, spilling through her, easing her fear. She could do this. She must.

She looked at the young man. “Out. Get me boiling water and clean cloths.”

“How—how do I do that?” His lower lip protruded as though he were about to cry.

“Someone will show you. Now go.” She stepped out of the doorway and swept her hand toward the companionway.

The man departed like she’d kicked him in the back of his nankeen breeches.

Phoebe closed the door. “What’s your name?”

“T-Tess. Who are you?”

“I’m Phoebe. I’m a midwife.”

“Ooooh.” Some of the fear left the girl’s eyes. “You can help me?”

“Yes.”

We can always help
, Tabitha had said.
Even if it’s only by praying.

“Let me examine you. No, wait.” Phoebe opened the door. “I need soap and water now.”

Derrick brought news that the young man, the husband, had settled in the bow with a bottle of rum. “And Captain Rafe has gone ashore with the cutter.”

“And left us stranded here?” Phoebe pretended to be annoyed.

Getting away from Derrick would surely be easier than from Rafe Docherty.

“I righted the longboat.” Derrick grinned. “These landlubbers don’t know what they’re doing.”

“That’s good anyway. Can you get me boiling water?”

“The other gentleman seems competent at that. He’s the uncle.”

“Then please fetch water for me. I can do nothing until I have clean hands.”

He brought her soap and water from the elder Mr. Torren. She washed on the deck, then returned to the cabin and examined the young woman. And examined her again. Then Phoebe sat on one of the sea chests and closed her eyes to pray.

She’d never delivered twins. She only knew they tended to come early. And the young woman’s pains seemed extraordinarily fierce, or else she was uncommonly poor at managing.

After two hours, during which the spasms of labor grew closer and closer together, Phoebe began to suspect the latter. Tess Torren wept and protested and declared again and again that she couldn’t go through with the birth.