Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [48]
“No, I’m not much more than a servant myself, but . . .” She bowed her head and rubbed her temples. Her hair cascaded around her face like a curtain, but not so much that he couldn’t see her switch from massaging her temples to massaging her eyes.
“Tab—Miss Eckles?” Dominick brushed her hair back, finding it every bit as soft as he’d anticipated. Above the aromas of salt water and seaweed, he caught a hint of rose petals. His toes curled inside his boots.
He swallowed. “Let me walk you home. You can claim you’re well, but you don’t look it.”
“I’m not ill,” she insisted, then lowered her hands and offered him a half smile. “I would just do well with a good night’s sleep.”
“Was your journey difficult?” He took both her hands in his and began to chafe them as though the day were cold instead of sultry.
“No, we returned last night, but I haven’t slept since Sal—” She bit her lip. “I must be tired if I was about to tell you something about my patient.”
“Then let me escort you home. Even mermaids need rest.”
“If I can sleep.”
“Were things difficult?” Remembering Wilkins and his threats, he felt his heart skip a beat. “The baby didn’t . . . die, did it?”
“No, it’s a healthy boy. But there were circumstances . . .” She drew her hands free. “I should be going. It’s time for supper.”
“I’ll still escort you.”
She didn’t object, simply headed up the beach. He fell into step beside her, watching the way her toes flexed and extended in the soft sand above the tide line, the way her skirt swirled around her ankles. He wanted to ask her if she’d forgotten her shoes but feared he would embarrass her.
“Can you tell me anything about your journey?” he asked instead of inquiring about her lack of shoes.
“I prefer the seaward side of the eastern shore to the bay side. But then I’ve grown up near the Atlantic, so maybe I’m simply used to it.” She glanced up at him. “Did you grow up near the sea?”
“The English Channel. I never saw the Atlantic until my fortunes”—he laughed—“or should I say, my misfortunes, brought me here.”
“Never saw the Atlantic.” She shook her head, sending her hair flying in a quickening wind. “Did you never leave your village?”
“Often. I went to the east and north and not the west. London, Ox—”
“Oxford. You can say it, Mr. Cherrett. I know what it is. My father was a schoolmaster educated at Princeton because William and Mary had lost its charter during the revolution. He could have taught anywhere, but ill health brought him back here to the seaside, where he met my moth-ther.”
With her hair flying about, Dominick couldn’t see for certain, but he thought a tear glistened on her cheek. He hadn’t mistaken the hitch in her voice on the word mother.
“Tabitha—Miss Eckles—dash it all, I’m not calling you Miss Eckles when you don’t slap my face for kissing you and you are trotting alongside me in bare toes with your hair down like an urchin.”
She stopped, glanced at him with red-rimmed eyes definitely glazed with tears, and emitted a throaty laugh. “All right, Mr. Cherrett—”
“Call me Dominick.”
“I can’t. You don’t have bare toes.”
“But I do have my hair down.”
They shared eye contact and a smile that felt far more intimate than that brief kiss. His innards turned the consistency of syllabub cream.
“I miss my mother too,” he said gently. “She died when I was ten.” And was spared the shame he brought onto the family.
“I was twenty-two. She was a skilled midwife and healer, but she couldn’t stop herself from contracting the patient’s fever.” Her voice broke.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am. I should have gone to that lying-in instead of her. She was so tired from working . . . and I no longer have her counsel when I need it—like now.”
“Because of what happened on your journey?” Dominick laced his fingers through hers and headed in the direction she’d been going. “You need a colleague to talk to.”
Raw pain crossed her face. “I had one, before my mother then my grandmother died. The midwife in Norfolk is too far away and not highly respected.”
“You could always take on an assistant.”
“I will