Heart's Safe Passage (32 page)

Her patients. Mel looked better each day, though pale and too thin. She was propped in a half-sitting position by several pillows and a bolster and managed a soft “Good morning” upon Phoebe’s arrival.

Phoebe set her tray on the table and crossed to Mel’s side. “You dear girl.” She smoothed the rich red hair beginning to sprout around the girl’s scar. “You’ve decided to join the living after all.”

“I missed my papa.” She curled weak fingers around Phoebe’s hand. “I kept dreaming he was lost, and I had to wake up to find him.”

Her father was lost, lost in his heart.

“I think he’ll be down to see you soon. He’ll be happy to see you doing so well. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Mel said.

“I’m not.” In contrast to Mel’s burgeoning health, Belinda huddled on the window seat, her face a greenish hue, her arms wrapped around her middle. She did not smile at Phoebe. She glared at her from red-rimmed eyes.

“I’ve been sick all night and you weren’t here.” Her lower lip quivered like that of a distressed child. “Didn’t get a bit of sleep.”

Phoebe turned to kneel before Belinda. “You were sleeping peacefully a few hours ago. What happened?”

“It was the pickled watermelon rinds.” Belinda groaned. “I ate all of them.”

“Did you?” Phoebe swallowed hard so as not to laugh. “You must have been hungry.”

“I wasn’t. I just wanted them. They were so—” Belinda broke off on a groan.

“Perhaps you should allow me to examine you. Come into the other cabin.”

“Can’t leave Melvina alone,” Belinda protested.

“If Papa is coming down,” Mel murmured, “I’ll be all right.”

“He’s coming soon.” Phoebe listened as though she would hear his footfalls on the deck or ladder. “Right now he’s aboard the French ship.”

Mel’s lips quivered. “I thought—why isn’t he here with me?”

“Because—” Phoebe flailed for an explanation, since the truth wouldn’t be acceptable. It wasn’t acceptable that he would leave his daughter to avoid a woman. “We’ll signal for him to come. He’s—”

“He is coming now.” Life sparkled in Mel’s eyes, turning them bright green again.

Phoebe heard it then, caught the rap of footfalls on the companionway ladder, and knew Rafe descended even before he tapped on the door and asked if he could come in.

Given permission, he pulled open the portal and stepped over the coaming. “Mel, my dear lassie, you are looking well.”

The sound of his voice, the light burr, the rich timbre, sent Phoebe’s stomach somersaulting through her middle. If she turned to leave the cabin and their eyes even accidentally met, she might faint. Already the air seemed to have been sucked from the room.

She remained where she was, facing Belinda. An error. Belinda was often childish in her behavior, but she was not stupid. She had kept her husband’s shipping interests going and organized for a year and a half by some means of intellect or human understanding. George was surely too savvy a businessman himself to have left his money in her care if he didn’t find her capable.

Her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness.” She rose with an alacrity that belied her advanced girth. “We’ll be going then.” She swept around Phoebe, who was still motionless on her knees, and sailed to the door.

“Yes, yes.” Phoebe scrambled to her feet and swung around to follow.

Rafe glanced up at her from where he crouched beside the bunk. Their gazes met, held. “We’ve a conversation to finish, aye, Mrs. Lee?”

Mouth dry, Phoebe couldn’t think what to say in response. She merely inclined her head and walked past him to where Belinda waited at the door, her face now alight with curiosity. Phoebe braced herself for Belinda to say something. Hopefully she would close the door before she began to talk.

She only closed the door to the great cabin before she turned to Phoebe and demanded in a shrieking whisper, “What is there between you two?”

“Nothing.” Which was basically the truth.

“Ha.” Belinda flounced into the other cabin and flopped onto the bunk. “I don’t believe that for a moment. The way you looked when he walked in . . .” She waved her hand before her face like a fan. “And the way you two looked at one another, why, I nearly blushed.”

Phoebe definitely blushed. The heat of her cheeks emphasized the chill permeating the cabin, and she snatched up a quilt to wrap around her shoulders. Once again she’d left her cloak in the great cabin. “Lie back so I can make sure all is well with the baby.”

“It was just the pickles. I feel well now. And maybe being in the cabin for too long. I want you to tell me about Captain Docherty. I mean, how can you care for him? The man isn’t very nice.”

Words to defend him sprang to Phoebe’s lips. Before she made the mistake of using them, Belinda continued, “But that’s not true. He’s wonderful to his daughter, and he’s been kind to me. But he acts like he doesn’t care at all that his uncle and friend died the day before yesterday.”

“He cares,” Phoebe said. Her heart twisted at the memory of Rafe bent double in his effort to master his sorrow. “He cares.”

“Maybe he does, if you say he does.” Belinda drew a blanket over herself and slid back against the bulkhead. “But he’s willing to use females to get to the man he wants to kill. That’s very wicked.”

“You’re abetting his behavior.”

“To save my husband.”

“You think that justifies helping him murder someone?”

“I’m not helping him—” Belinda caught her breath. “I suppose I am. I thought only about seeing George free.”

“And not George’s baby. Do you think he’ll thank you if his baby suffers because of what you’re doing?”

“Phoebe, stop that. George loves me.”

“Of course he does. And you’re repaying that love by risking his baby’s life on a whim, or is it a dare? Or do you want to be the heroine everyone will talk about so you can—”

Belinda reared up and slapped Phoebe’s face. “Stop that. You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m a far better wife and mother than you were. I didn’t—”

“Belinda, don’t—”

“Kill my husband and baby.”

“I didn’t either. Gideon was trying to lock me up for the night, and I hit him over the head with a candelabra so I could leave. Yes, I said leave. I was running away from him.”

“Unnatural wife.”

“And he wasn’t an unnatural husband for locking me away so he could drink and chase after loose women every night?” Phoebe knew she was shouting, but she couldn’t stop herself, the volume, the flow of words. “I had a bag packed and started out. But I didn’t hit him hard enough, and he came after me.”

“So you were an oaf and fell down the steps.”

“No, Belinda, he picked me up and threw me down the steps. He killed our baby and nearly me too. But he left me lying unconscious on the floor at the foot of the steps and rode off. If he hadn’t gotten inebriated and thrown off his horse so the sheriff came to our house, I probably would have bled to death on that floor because he sent the servants away at night. I was alone and hemorrhaging because of your brother. He’s the villain, no matter what lies your parents tell. Do you hear me?”

Belinda covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to listen to this about Gideon.”

“You will.” Phoebe bent over Belinda. “Your brother killed my baby and himself. Do you hear me?”

“I think,” a soft voice from behind Phoebe drawled, “everyone on the brig heard you.”

Phoebe’s insides collapsed into a leaden lump in the center of her belly. As limp as an empty grain sack, she sank onto the bunk and crossed her arms over her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m behaving this way.”

“Oh, I do.” Belinda’s voice held a vicious edge. “You’re in love with this rogue.”

If only a special hatchway would open up and swallow her right into the hold at that moment, it wouldn’t be too soon. Phoebe couldn’t even run. Rafe blocked the doorway, and the cabin barely allowed space for her and Belinda, let alone a place to hide. She may as well place a brave face on it. Slowly, as though she’d developed rheumatism in her shoulders, she lowered her arms and peeked up at Rafe.

He smiled. Not one of his uptilted corners of the mouth, but a full smile showing strong, white teeth. He wasn’t looking at her; his gaze slid beyond to Belinda. “Aye, I believe your wee midwife has a fondness for me. ’Tis a pity the voyage is so near an end and we’ll ne’er see one another again.”

Slapped twice in one day.

“Since I do not share her faith,” he added.

Except she’d begun to doubt the sincerity of her faith.

She could get away from the cabin if she knocked Rafe down and walked over his body. But she was a woman who didn’t believe in violence, who had lashed out at him. She’d taken an oath to treat her patients with kindness and respect, and however unofficial that vow might be—given only in front of Tabitha, Dominick, and a handful of friends—she had broken it when she shouted at Belinda.

Twice a hypocrite—pretending to be a Christian while harboring anger in her heart, and claiming she was a midwife whose patients came first when she could have upset Belinda enough to send her into confinement.

“What you do share,” Belinda responded, “is a penchant for killing off your fellow man. If she didn’t knock him off his horse, then she may as well have. She drove him to drink and then ride like a wild man, he was so unhappy with her empty head. Or did you think he didn’t tell us anything, Phoebe?”

“I do believe, Mrs. Chapman,” Rafe said, “you have told us quite enough. Mel said you were not feeling well. Why do you not rest and allow me to get Mrs. Lee her breakfast?”

As if she could eat.

“Mel’s alone, though,” Belinda protested.

“I’ve gotten out a great bell the cook used to use to call the men to dinner. She will use it if she needs anything.”

“Her breakfast,” Phoebe managed to get out.

“Aye, she needs assistance with that. She is not so good at lifting the cup to her lips, but she will learn.” His face twisted. “She will have to learn it all again like a bairn, but I ken she will. She is a braw lass.”

“She is brave.” Belinda’s voice softened as she talked about Mel. “If I have a daughter, I hope she’s as smart and brave.”

“With you for a mither,” Rafe said with a bow, “she’ll certainly be as pretty. Now go about your rest, madam.”

With Belinda spluttering over the compliment, Rafe grasped Phoebe’s hands and drew her to her feet. “Mrs. Lee?”

Remain in the tiny cabin, go to the great cabin with Mel and Belinda, or go somewhere with Rafe for breakfast? She doubted she could eat, but she chose the latter option. “Where will we go?”

“To the galley. If you can mix up plum duff, Cook said he would leave us to the fire.”

“Of course she can’t,” Belinda began.

Rafe drew Phoebe into the companionway and closed the cabin door. “I understand why she hates you now, if she thinks you killed her brother, but I do not ken why she insisted you come along.”

“She couldn’t find another midwife to go with her.” She preceded him up the ladder. Once on deck, they walked side by side between the hulks of the guns, and she added, “She thinks me cooking is even more vulgar than me delivering babies. Though I admit I don’t know how to make plum duff, whatever it is.”

“’Tis a boiled pudding.”

“Is that what that cake is called? But it had raisins in it, not plums.”

“We cannot keep plums aboard ship into November.” He gave her a half smile. “’Tis simple to make, if a wee bit common. But isn’t managing money vulgar?”

“Amongst the merchants of Virginia?” Phoebe shook her head and realized she’d never pinned up her hair. “In the cities, everything is money. In that, she has left behind her genteel plantation lady training. Except for the ability to manage accounts. We all learn to manage accounts.”

“You ken how to manage accounts?” He stepped past her to descend the ladder first.

Phoebe followed, her skirt gathered in one hand. “The mistress of a plantation has to learn a great deal about managing income and expenses. It’s not so different than in a business, just a bit more in the business—you hope. We have servants to clothe and feed, often an endless succession of guests to house, medicines to purchase or prepare, extra produce to sell or buy. The list is endless. I learned how, but now I have a manager to take care of matters since I hoped to be too busy delivering babies.”

Rafe paused on the lower deck. “You weren’t?”

“I was for a while, with the wives of some men in Middleburg and Leesburg, but then talk spread—” She glanced toward the galley. “Where’s the cook?”

“I sent him away a’ready. We will leave the door open for the sake of propriety, but I wanted to be alone with you.” He looked into her eyes, then his gaze dropped to her lips before he turned his back on her and entered the galley.

Phoebe pressed her hand to her mouth. He hadn’t kissed her, but her lips tingled as though he had. Her knees wobbled as though he had embraced her.

She’d made too many mistakes for a once sheltered lady of six and twenty, but falling head over heels for Rafe Docherty was one of the greatest ones of all. Now was an appropriate moment to run, a time when few people would blame her for cowardice. Yet she couldn’t run like that on a brig. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Unlike him, she couldn’t flee to the French prize.

She followed Rafe into the galley, where indeed the largest bowl she’d ever seen sat in the middle of a work table, half filled with flour. A jug of molasses sat beside it, braced between two fiddle boards, its sides sticky with the sugary syrup.

“I’m supposed to mix batter in that?”

“Aye, it takes a wee bit of work. But first, you have not eaten your breakfast. Sit yourself down.” He pushed one of the barrels up to the table.

Phoebe sat. The aromas of coffee and molasses filled the warm air, comforting. Homelike. Her heart ached for her own kitchen, children, a husband who would come home—

She cut the vision short. Especially after what had been said in the cabin, she didn’t need that husband showing up in her daydreams with Rafe’s face and easy, rolling gait.

“Coffee, oatmeal parritch.” He set a cup and bowl before her. “I regret we have no butter.”