Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [3]
“I’m not certain whether or not that noise you made was human.” He closed his other hand over hers. “But this lovely hand hasn’t any scales on it, which argues on the side of human. On the contrary, it’s as smooth as silk.” He rubbed the tip of a finger across her knuckles, and the skin along her arms felt as though lightning were about to strike. “What’s a human female doing out so early?”
“Going home.” Her voice emerged hoarse, sounding unused. She swallowed to clear it. “What’s an Englishman doing in Virginia?”
“President Madison hasn’t managed to rid these shores of all of us yet.”
“A pity.”
“Ah, a hostile mermaid.”
His words pricked her conscience. She was being rather rude to someone who, although in a place where he had no business being, acted kind enough to deserve a modicum of courtesy in return.
“I’m not hostile. I’m cautious and worn to a th-thread.” Her voice broke.
“You must have been swimming against the tide.” Speaking with a tenderness that drew all-too-ready tears to her eyes, despite her contrary efforts, he rose, drawing her to her feet with him. “No, not a swim. Alas, a fatigued female human. That’s a cloak, I see, not a tail. Forgive the mistaken identity, But I’d expect to see a mermaid out here before I’d think to find a . . . lady.”
“An understandable error.” She used the edge of her cloak to dab at her eyes. “I wouldn’t be out here if I weren’t a midwife.”
“Indeed?” His tone spoke of disbelief. His hand lingered on hers, that errant fingertip tracing the third finger on her left hand.
She didn’t need to see his face or have him speak the words to understand he sought a wedding ring. She snatched her hand free and tucked her ringless fingers inside the folds of her cloak. “Indeed.”
“Then it’s the last proof you’re human, since surely mermaids are hatched in the bottom of the ocean.” He curved his hand over her forearm. “Then allow me to walk you home, Madam Midwife.”
“I’m not going—” She glanced around her.
A hint of sun glowed along the line between sea and sky, turning the sand to a silvery gray and the mist to tendrils of gauze. Other than the stranger, her, and the usual flotsam thrown up by the tide, the sand lay empty. If he’d had cohorts, he’d managed to distract her long enough for them to get away. By the time she found someone in authority, he would have vanished too. She couldn’t even identify him with any certainty. He stood with his back to the light, a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette with hair tumbling from his queue.
“It’s not necessary,” she said instead. “I’m perfectly safe, especially now that daylight is nearly here.”
“I insist.” He released her arm but headed in the direction of her house. “You were going this way.”
“I was, but if someone sees me walking with a man . . .” She sighed and hastened to match her stride to his. “I depend on my reputation to make my living secure, sir.”
He continued up the beach but slowed. “Ah, I see. If someone sees you with me, they will think perhaps you had an assignation rather than a duty.”
“Only my good name allows me to move about freely at night without being accosted,” she affirmed.
“Then I’ll leave you here, before we’re in sight of the village again.” He stopped, took her hand in his, and bowed as though they were attending a formal reception. “Have a care, Madam Mermaid Midwife.”
He released her hand and retraced their footprints in the sand, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back.
Feeling as though flotsam filled her shoes, weighing them down, Tabitha trudged toward home. Images of the Englishman filled her head, tingled along her fingers, danced down her spine. She despised the way she thrilled to his flirtation, his touch. She feared his presence on her normally empty beach.
In the past year, she knew of a dozen young men along the eastern shore who had disappeared. One had returned with the information that he’d been press-ganged aboard a British war ship and escaped when the vessel came afoul of a reef in the Caribbean. His story made all Englishmen along