Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [130]
“It’s not for me to say, sir.” Dominick resisted the urge to push his chair away from Kendall, though he was still a yard off. “If she wants you to know—”
“If? If?” Kendall stood upright and began to pace. “First young men disappear from my town, then a new father on his way home disappears along with a young man who has just returned, and now the midwife is attacked.” He reached the window, where sunshine poured in like flames from a grate, and swung back. “I am mayor of this village. I need to know the instant something occurs.”
“You were in Norfolk, sir.” Dominick gripped the arms of the chair to stop himself from standing. He needed to remain in a subservient position at present, and he was a full head taller than the mayor. “I would have told you as soon as I returned.”
“And when did you intend that to be?” Kendall shot back.
“As soon as you returned, sir.”
“Is it?” Kendall strode forward and glared down at Dominick. “I have my doubts.”
“I . . . beg your pardon . . . sir?” Dominick shook his hair out of his face and met Kendall’s gaze. “About what do you have your doubts, sir?”
“You look like a convict off of a British Navy transport,” Kendall said, as though each word was a heavy burden. “Your hair and clothes are a disgrace, and you give me that haughty proper grammar like some Oxford don, as though I am the servant and you the master. Is it training or breeding?”
“A little of both, sir.” Dominick bowed his head, his mind filled with Tabitha’s pronouncement that he couldn’t have both his past and her in his future. “Neither has done me any good. I am the servant and subject to another man’s whims, unable to see my lady safely home at night, or even make her my wife. And it’s no one’s fault but mine that I’m here.”
“I know, Dominick.” Kendall circled his desk and subsided into the chair. “I know why you’re here.”
“Sir?” Dominick started.
“I know about the letters, the duel,” Kendall continued.
Dominick relaxed. For a moment, he’d feared Kendall knew about the mission.
“I know your family wanted rid of you and put you on a ship bound for America with no money.”
So he didn’t know he’d put himself on the ship because he already had no money and his father had made England unpleasant for him.
“I’ve kept you locked up at night for your own safety,” Kendall continued. “If others learned of your background, they could make a great deal of hay out of you wandering about after hours. Wilkins flat-out accused you of being a spy. Because I know you were locked up, I know it’s not true, so that protects you. I will continue to protect you, and you will pay the consequences if you break my rules again. I have no choice in the matter. I can’t be seen as being gentle with an Englishman many don’t trust, and you can’t afford to be subject to accusations. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” Dominick thought about the calendar, the date of his last chance at early release from his bond looming ahead of him, impossible to meet, and the room seemed to grow dark despite the sunshine. He needed his freedom to spy on Wilkins.
“Now,” Kendall said, leaning forward and holding Dominick’s gaze, “where is the key that was in my desk?”
33
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As she had found necessary twice since leaving her house, Tabitha found a place to rest. Although only a few hundred yards from Mayor Kendall’s, she sank onto the low wall surrounding the cemetery and inhaled the fragrance of a nearby magnolia tree. Its sweetness calmed her with a reminder of the pleasurable aspects of life, the little gifts God had given to His people as a reminder of . . . His love?
She started to lift her left hand to rub her eyes, which felt like her attacker had walked through them with sandy boots. The shallow cut pulled, and she emitted a low moan of pain, of frustration. She needed to get the key to Dominick before something awful happened to him. Patience had wanted to go, but Tabitha needed to assure herself