Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [39]
“We were going to be married,” Trower continued, “until you British stole me off my ship simply because my mother is from Canada.”
Dominick stiffened his face to stop from reacting to this useful bit of information. Suspicious information, with Trower standing right in front of him, obviously a free man.
“Ah, the vanishing fiancé,” he murmured.
Too late, he realized his error. Trower rose on the balls of his feet, and Dominick prepared to block a blow.
“So it was you.” Trower didn’t strike, but his arm quivered hard enough for Dominick to see how hard the man strove not to. “You were with Tabitha on the beach this morning.”
Dominick realized now that his danger didn’t lie in Trower’s hamlike fists, it lay in his knowledge.
“I saw you kiss her.” Trower took a step forward.
Dominick held his ground. Nothing to do but brazen this out. “Dear me. How crude of me to kiss a lady without ensuring we didn’t have an audience. But it was quite ungentlemanly of you to watch.”
“Quite ungentlemanly to watch? You talk to me about not being a gentleman, you—you—” Trower spluttered to a halt. A white line formed around his mouth, and he took a deep breath through his nose, a nose that appeared to have been broken and reset with a bit of a list to one side. “Mr. Cherrett, you are a redemptioner. You have no business even talking to Miss Eckles, let alone . . . touching her.”
“Indeed.” Dominick gave the man a little bow of acknowledgment. “Did she send you to defend her honor?”
“She didn’t send me—that is . . .” Trower’s gaze slipped away from Dominick’s for the first time, and he flattened his palms against the legs of his breeches. “Tabitha has suffered enough in the past few years. She doesn’t need a roué like you winning her affections and leaving her behind.”
The softened tone, the sincerity in the other man’s face, nearly undid Dominick’s plans. He struggled to maintain his blasé demeanor.
“I’d say that decision is hers, Mr. Trower. Now, if that’s all you have to say, I must return to my duties.” He started to turn away.
Trower shot out a hand and grasped Dominick’s arm. “It’s not all I have to say to you.”
“Indeed.” Dominick glared at the broad, calloused fingers gripping his forearm.
He’d never thought of himself as a spindly fellow. On the contrary, he could outrow, outride, outspar the best of his friends. But beneath that brawny hand, Dominick’s arm felt like a sprat in the maw of a shark. In a fight, Dominick doubted he’d come out the winner. But he had words, and they made great weapons.
“Do tell me what you want before you ruin my coat,” Dominick said on a sigh.
“If you stay away from Tabitha,” Trower said, “I won’t tell Mayor Kendall you were out during curfew.”
“How generous of you.” Dominick lifted his eyes to the other man’s. “And if you don’t tell Kendall I was out early this morning, I won’t start asking questions about how a man born in Canada got released from the British Navy in less than two years. If,” he added with a curl of his lips meant to only feign a smile, “the good citizens of this town aren’t harboring a deserter.”
11
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Dominick had kissed her, the rogue, the blaggard, the unmitigated reprobate. Brief though it was, Tabitha still felt the pressure of his mouth against hers—warm and soft, though firm—four hours later, as Japheth, following the directions given in the summons, drew up before the Belotes’ house on the outskirts of Norfolk. Instead of the raisins and walnuts she’d eaten to sustain her through the journey, she tasted the tannic edge of strong tea Dominick must have made himself before leaving the house. Instead of the smell of the Chesapeake Bay and spring flowers, she inhaled the heady aroma of sandalwood. His hair, long and loose, had fallen around her face like a silken curtain.
She’d walked away with her head whirling as though she’d been turned upside down and spun like a child’s toy. Not until she got on the rough track of a road did she realize she should have broken her personal code, going