Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive (9 page)

“I don’t know why I said that.” Falconer eased down until he was seated on the floor beside the child. “I’ve never spoken such a thing in all my days.”

“I was very afraid when I was sick. Especially after the doctor said what he did. I’m not looking forward to dying, you see. Not yet.” She handed him the kitten, who mewed once, a piercing note, then licked Falconer’s thumb.

He felt the little beast tremble in his hand. He lifted the cat
up to examine it more closely in the room’s dim light. The kitten had a soft gold fur, with faint tiger stripes a half shade darker. Yet its eyes were an astonishing blue, the color of a perfectly clear dawn sky. “What a beautiful little creature.”

“Ferdinand is my best friend,” she said simply. “I don’t have many friends, you see.”

“No,” Falconer said quietly. “Nor I.”

“Mostly I don’t mind being alone. But I missed people when I was sick. I think that is why Uncle Reginald brought me the kitty.”

Falconer felt a most remarkable sense of closeness to this young girl. “My name is John,” he finally said. “And I think your cat is hungry.”

“I think so too. But I can’t go down to the kitchen. Cook will scold me for being out of bed. But I grow ever so tired of lying down. They thought I was asleep, you see. That’s why I can come in here. But only if I’m quiet.”

“Then I shall go to the kitchen for you.” He handed back the kitten and rose to his feet. “What are you feeding the little beast?”

“Milk with a bit of sweetie biscuit crumbled inside.” She examined him. “Are you sure you won’t tell me your last name? Papa says I’m only to address an adult by the last name.”

He crossed the room, deliberating at this sudden urge to trust a stranger, and a child at that. But in spite of all who relied on him, he could not. “Are you good at keeping secrets?”

“Better than almost anyone.”

He couldn’t help himself. He believed her. “Then let us make this one exception to your father’s rule.”

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Master John.” She smiled, and the entire room seemed to glow. “Ferdinand will be ever so pleased to dine with you.”

The door opened to a narrow landing and a set of winding stairs. Falconer debated whether to return and ask where
the kitchen was located. Then from above came the sound of voices.

A man protested hoarsely, “I cannot abide this imprisonment!”

Falconer heard the pastor who had brought him reply, “You must think of your child, Gareth.”

“I think of little else. Her and her poor mother. Erica must be frantic with worry by now. Our return to England is three months overdue!”

“You are alive. You have written. She of all people—”

“I have no assurance that my letters have arrived. We’ve had no word from her in months.”

Another said, “You have heard how the storm wreaked havoc with our shipping.” The voice carried the authoritative stamp of a church elder or doctor. “I really must insist upon your remaining where you are until your strength has improved.”

“And I tell you that nothing would strengthen me better or faster than a few days at sea.”

Falconer decided he had heard enough and headed away from the argument. The staircase wound down to a rear hallway that ran like a glass-sided porch behind the emporium. Falconer saw a work yard and warehouse to his left, while to his right rose an imposing brick house. He entered the family residence via the connecting door and followed the scent of baking bread into the rear kitchen.

A sturdy woman wearing an apron and with flour upon her face and arms was pulling loaves from an oven set low upon the flagstone floor. She softly sang a hymn Falconer recognized from his own church.

The woman gripped the wooden spatula with both hands and hefted the loaf. But as she turned to set her load upon the central table, she spied Falconer poised by the door. She gasped with genuine fear and dropped her ladle with a clatter.

Falconer remained caught by the echo of her singing. “The Lord’s blessings upon you and your hearth, ma’am.”

“Land sakes,” she fluttered. “But didn’t you give me half a start.”

“My abject apologies.”

She bent over and used the edges of her apron to lift the steaming bread. She continued to shoot him quick little glances as she brushed off the loaf. “Big hulking brute such as yourself, hardly the sort I’d be expecting to offer me proper greetings.”

He touched the scar on his face. “I came by this in darker days.”

“Well, you’ve got a fair way of talking, I’ll grant you that.” She eyed him as he crossed the kitchen, lifted the utensil from the floor, and swept the remaining three loaves from the oven. “Some would say that’s not proper work for a man who looks like a bandit.”

“Others might reply that God’s servant should set his hand to whatever task is placed before him.”

“Well, I never.” She arranged the loaves for airing, her eyes never leaving him for long. “What do they call you?”

“Brother John.”

“I am Mavis. But most around this house know me as Cook.”

“Your servant, ma’am.”

“And what brings you to my dusty hearth, Brother John?”

“I seek a bit of milk and sweetie biscuit.”

“Is that a fact.” The edges of her mouth tugged upward. “Is that imp out of bed again?”

“What imp might that be, ma’am?”

Mavis laughed aloud and waved a finger at him. “You’re no good at playing the innocent, not with that great ragged slice running down your face. So you might as well not try.”

“I see I am defeated.”

“Aye, that you are, sir.” The woman drew down a bowl, pulled half a biscuit from a jar, and crumbled that inside. Then she hefted a large white pitcher, removed the cheesecloth
from its mouth, and poured the cup half full. “She’s captured your heart, has she?”

Falconer did not need to ask whom she meant. “Indeed so, ma’am.”

“I’ve raised five daughters of my own and seen twice that number run through this kitchen in the fourteen years I’ve worked for the family. And never have I known such a one as Hannah.” She took a silver baby spoon from the table drawer and stirred the mixture. “Can’t imagine what it’ll be like ’round here when she returns home. Empty, my poor old heart will be. Empty and missing a little angel with eyes like the noonday sun.”

“And her smile,” Falconer murmured. “I am fortunate she is not older, for when she smiled at me I should have fallen and never managed to rise.”

The cook eyed him fondly now, her former reserve gone. “Aye, she’s captured you sure enough.”

She handed him the cup. “Mind that tiny creature doesn’t eat too much or too fast. If only it could teach the imp to eat a proper meal, I’d count myself satisfied to let her go.”

The kitten might have been both tiny and very young, but it knew enough to recognize food. The effect of Falconer returning with the bowl and spoon spurred it into action. Hannah opened the curtains so they could enjoy the kitten’s antics. As Falconer lowered himself, careful not to spill the bowl’s contents, the cat danced about him. Had it been a month older and stronger, Falconer was certain it would have climbed him like a tree.

Falconer offered Hannah the bowl. “Do you want the honors?”

“Oh no,” she replied, her beaming face brighter than the sunlight streaming through the window beside them. “I want to watch.”

The cat certainly did make for good theater. Falconer seated
himself and crossed his legs in the space between them. The cat appeared boneless as it slid around his legs and crawled about his boots and cried in a most plaintive manner. When Falconer did not act fast enough, the kitten clambered into his lap, planted two paws on his shirt, and cried mournfully up at his face.

“You little scoundrel,” he said. “What a noisy little beast you are.”

Hannah clasped both hands over her mouth and giggled.

He gripped the cat firmly with his left hand and set the bowl on the floor to his right. The cat did not like being held this far from its food and squirmed and protested magnificently. “The cook warned me not to let it eat too fast.”

“Once I let Ferdinand eat from the bowl, and he almost drowned.”

Whether the kitten was of the male persuasion, Falconer had no idea. But he liked the cat’s spirit. “You would make a grand ship’s cat.”

“Oh no,” Hannah said. “Ferdinand is to stay with me.”

“Of course he will.” Falconer filled the silver spoon with milk and biscuit and brought it to the cat. “Anyone can see the pair of you are inseparable.”

The cat was intent upon devouring the spoon as well as the food. Moreover it wished to eat with both forepaws as well as its mouth. A good deal of the milk was splashed upon Falconer’s knee. But he did not mind, for the girl’s laughter filled the room with a rare gemlike quality. He gave her surreptitious glances as he spooned milk and biscuit for the kitten. Hannah’s features were so finely drawn as to appear ethereal, too delicate to reside firmly upon this harsh realm. Dark plum-colored smudges encircled her eyes. Her skin was translucent, such that Falconer imagined he could study not merely her face but the flame of life itself.

He was filled with a sudden illogical desire to do all he possibly could to protect this child from any peril.

The girl noticed his gaze then. She did not shy away but
instead met his stare full on, as would a woman thrice her age. Her soft laughter died away. Her eyes, the color of smoke upon a winter’s sky, seemed to open until he could look straight into her very soul.

So it was that the pair of them were discovered. The door opened and a man’s voice said, “What’s this, then?”

Falconer rose swiftly to his feet, cradling the cat in his left arm. “Your pardon, sir.”

The man bore the same half moons beneath his eyes as his daughter. For father he was, there was no mistaking the resemblance. Despite the day’s growing heat, he wore a quilted robe belted about his waist. Beneath were rumpled nightclothes and slippers. He carried himself at a slight crouch, as though fighting against both his evident weakness and some internal pain. Yet even in this weakened state, he held a remarkable sense of power.

“I see you have met my Hannah,” the man observed dryly.

Falconer sensed he faced an officer of one sort or another, a leader of men. And he responded in proper fashion. “I meant no disrespect to you or your family, sir.”

“Indeed.” The man examined his daughter. “Were you not meant to be asleep?”

The child remained seated upon the floor. “Ferdinand was hungry.”

“Any excuse will do in an emergency,” he said, but he was smiling now.

Falconer hazarded to add softly, “Any port in a storm.”

The man’s focus returned to him. “You were a ship’s officer?”

The kitten did not like being ignored like this and began mewing and impatiently patting Falconer’s hand. “At one time, sir.”

“A pirate?”

It was a fair question, Falconer knew. The scar on his face was not the only aspect of his demeanor that shouted of such a life. Even so, the query stung. He would have liked to
be considered a better man. Not to mention how the child continued to observe him in wide-eyed silence. “I have been many things, sir. Most of them foul. But never a pirate.”

“My friend tells me he feels God’s hand is upon you.” He glanced down at his daughter. “And clearly my Hannah thinks highly of you. For you are the first outside the family she has let handle her new friend.”

Falconer glanced down at the squirming kitten. This news made the young child’s calm acceptance even more precious. “I find myself deeply moved by your daughter, sir.”

“As are many. But in your case the sentiment seems to be reciprocated.”

Hannah coughed once, then said, “I like him, Papa.”

“So I gather.” Weak as he was, the man’s eyes held the force of an iron grip. “The question is, can we trust him?”

“I seek only to serve my Lord, sir.”

“You will excuse me for saying that coming from a man such as yourself, the words seem astonishing.”

“Nonetheless they are true.” Falconer took a breath, wishing anew that he had been a better man. “I stand as living testimony that no matter how dark a life, no matter how far a man has strayed, Christ still can offer both salvation and hope.”