Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [137]
“Not yet. That takes a court martial, even for an impressed man.”
“So if he wasn’t killed in the escape, he’d still be—” Tabitha closed her eyes. “Why would I even hope he’d be alive? He’ll never get off that man-of-war now that they’ve gotten him back.”
“Would you want him here?” Dominick posed the question, though he didn’t want the answer. “Do you love him still, my dear? Could you . . . could you build a future with him?”
“Love him still?” Tabitha wiped her eyes on a corner of her apron. “I’m not sure I ever loved him as more than a dear friend of my youth. But we were so comfortable together before he left, we could have had a comfortable future.” She ducked her head, her lashes hiding her eyes. “If I didn’t have you, if circumstances were different when he returned, I could still have a future with him. But circumstances are as they are.”
“And can change.” Dominick cupped her face in his hands and kissed her long and hard, then released her and strode to the door into the rest of the house. “I need to talk to Parks, if he’s at all well enough and his wife’s not with him.”
“She’s not. He wants to be well enough to walk in his door, the silly man. So he’s sleeping, but you can wake him if it’s important.” The intensity of her gaze suggested she knew it was.
“It is.” Dominick set his jaw. “I need to know where that frigate is anchored. That captain is the key to all of this, if he’s receiving abducted men, and it’s time he was paid a visit from Lord Dominick Cherrett.”
“Dominick, you can’t. You won’t be home by sundown.” She grasped his arm. “Wait.”
“And have them sail, if they haven’t already?” He shook his head. “I have to take the risk, for Trower’s sake, for yours, and for mine.”
“But Kendall will punish you.”
“I’ll risk it.” Dominick shuddered at the thought of pain ripping across his back. “It’s worth the risk to end this warmongering once and for all.”
“But Dominick, I’ll—” She snapped her mouth shut so hard he heard her teeth snap together. “Please, don’t do it. I—I’ll go.”
“Do you think a British naval captain will talk to me or you?”
The question was cruel, condescending. He knew it before he saw the pain twist her features. It couldn’t be helped. She’d be a fool to take the kind of risk he intended. If this captain was involved with the abductions, he was dangerous. He would do away with a village midwife. But Dominick doubted the man would risk harming the son of a peer of the realm—however disgraced that son—or the nephew of a Vice Admiral of the Red.
“If I don’t return,” he added more gently, “you’ll know where to send someone to rescue me or to go after the frigate. Try to get a message to my uncle. A boat will put in at the inlet north of here on June 21.”
“You could be halfway to Barbados by then.” Tabitha twisted her hands in her apron. “You can’t risk it.”
“I can’t avoid risking it. If I don’t, I’ll suffer four more years of servitude and have accomplished nothing. Young men will continue to disappear from these shores, and we’ll have war inside a year.”
“Then let me go with you. If Raleigh is merely injured, he’ll need medical assistance. And—and you—” She gazed at him with wide, blue-gray eyes. “Please.”
Now he was the fool for considering her request for a moment. But as he looked into her eyes, he heard himself saying, as though his voice belonged to another man, “Can you row?”
“Yes, of course. But we can take the Marianne. It’ll be faster and safer.”
“You know how to handle her?”
“Of course,” she repeated.
“But your shoulder.”
“I can handle a single-masted fishing boat.” Her pointed little chin set.
Dominick’s insides melted. Somehow he would stop her from going with him. “I’ll talk to Parks while you change your dress.” He slipped out of the kitchen and rounded the stairway to enter the parlor.
Donald Parks lay on the settee with his feet propped on a chair to accommodate for his