Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [59]
He turned his attention to the navigation. Tabitha watched him for a minute and absorbed what he’d said. Courting. Yes, he was courting her and she encouraged it.
She mustn’t let herself be confused by his looks—enhanced by the two years away and hard work aboard a man-of-war—and his entreaties to her heart. She mustn’t let her attraction to another man scare her into Raleigh’s arms.
Her mouth hardened as she narrowed her eyes against the glare of the horizon. White-capped waves rolled toward them. Plumes of foam broke and swirled into the air, obscuring the view, but she thought she saw it—the sloop poised just far enough away for only its masts to show above the waterline.
“No, not possible,” she murmured.
She adjusted her hat brim to better shield her eyes. Surely she saw only mist or spray, and her anxiety over British ships in the area was making her imagine too much. She imagined a great deal while walking through the mist—knights and castles, children and a man to love her, rising from the fog—her dreams conjuring images where none existed. So why shouldn’t she summon the sight of British war vessels from foam along the horizon? It was all her father’s doing, his legacy to her, as her midwifery skills were her mother’s—the stories of romance and danger, love and adventure, clouding her reason.
She was not—she could not be—seeing a sloop riding motionless across the path they were taking. It had gone. It wouldn’t remain in the area in the middle of the day, and the cove to which they headed wasn’t large enough for even a two-masted runner like a sloop. It was nothing more than a fine place to swim, fish from shore, or tie up a smack or rowboat.
“Raleigh,” she said just loudly enough for him to hear her. “Do you see anything around the headland before the cove?”
He glanced at her, then toward the northern horizon. “A lot of foam. There must be a storm brewing out at sea somewhere, but we’ll be all right.”
“You don’t see masts?” she persisted.
“I don’t—” He muttered something, then swung toward her. “Take the wheel. Just keep us on this heading.”
Before she even grabbed the wheel from him, he sprinted forward and swung onto the jib boom.
“Be careful.” The wind snatched her words and tossed them over the larboard rail.
Raleigh balanced with the aid of a forward stay, a precarious perch on the slender strip of wood. The single sail bellied out in the rising wind and blocked him from view. But rising above the canvas, she saw the sloop’s masts looming larger, nearer.
“God, please—” She stopped herself before she prayed.
She didn’t want Raleigh snatched away from her again, not before she knew if she forgave him, if she still loved him, if the future held marriage and children with him. If she prayed, the opposite might happen. She might make God notice her, and if He had a plan for her life as Pastor Downing claimed, He might remember to implement it. Thus far, it went completely opposite to what she wanted. Or needed. And right then, she needed that sloop to vanish.
“We need to luff,” she shouted to Raleigh.
But of course they couldn’t. They needed at least another person to help man the sail to tack into the wind. With the wind behind them now, they skimmed over the water like a flying fish headed straight for a net. Without an anchor, they couldn’t even remain where they were, a mile from shore.
Tabitha’s fingers tightened on the wheel. She fixed her gaze on the compass, then the sea, then the compass again. If she adjusted their course a fraction to the northeast, they could sail past the sloop, head for the next inlet. If the sloop was anchored—
That was it!
“Raleigh!” Tabitha put every bit of her lung power into the call. “I have an idea.”
A moment later, he ducked beneath the boom and reached her side. “Let me help.” He took over the wheel.
Not until she held only the taffrail did Tabitha realize the strain she’d placed on her arms. Her hands hurt and she feared she would have blisters. She must be careful. If Mrs. Parks delivered within the next two weeks, Tabitha