Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [65]
“You don’t seem to care about that.” His blue eyes held accusation. “You called him your friend. That’s beneath you.”
“Raleigh,” Tabitha said, keeping her tone level, “I am merely a midwife, little more than a servant. However respected midwives are in most communities, here I’m not.”
“Because of him.”
“I beg your pardon?” Her spine went rigid enough to make Dominick’s seem hunchbacked.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Raleigh’s face darkened. “You know as well as I do that your association with someone like Cherrett is one reason the council talked about stopping you from practicing here.”
“If Wilkins didn’t have reasons for wanting to discredit me,” Tabitha bit out, “my chance encounter with Dominick on the beach on Sunday would not have mattered. My reputation has never been in question.”
“Your chance encounter.” Raleigh’s upper lip curled. “Seems Mr. Cherrett has a lot of chance encounters. You on Sunday and the sloop today. I expect the next chance encounter will be with American men for the British to impress.”
“Are you really accusing Dominick of being behind the abductions?”
“Can you honestly say you haven’t thought of it yourself?”
Raleigh held her gaze. Tabitha couldn’t look him in the eye and say the notion had never occurred to her. It had. It did. She called him friend in her desire to learn the truth and reinstate her good name in the community, or at least make the town beholden to her.
“I thought so.” Raleigh smiled. “You know he’s the most likely person within twenty miles.”
“Except he’s only been here for a few weeks.” It was her only difficulty in believing Dominick guilty of helping steal men from American shores. “The disappearances have been going on for nearly a year.”
“And escalated since he arrived.”
“Then we should both befriend him. Maybe that way we could ferret out the truth.”
Raleigh grimaced. “I’ll die before I befriend another Englishman.”
“Raleigh.” Tabitha stepped back from the wake of his vehemence against the English. She didn’t trust the British, but Raleigh’s response was vitriolic. “Would God want you to talk that way about another person?”
Her question emerged somewhere between a challenge and a taunt. Unkind. Unfair. Laden with her own guilt for painting all persons of one nation with the tar brush because of the actions of their government.
“No.” Raleigh bowed his head. “Forgive me. I am in the wrong in speaking that way. It’s just that the sight of him looking at you like you . . . like you’re . . . one of your candied flower petals, makes me sick.”
Tabitha laughed and uncrossed her arms. She no longer felt the chill of the breeze. She suspected that Dominick looked at every female as though she were the prettiest, sweetest, kindest lady alive. It was part of his charm. It was only one of the dozen reasons to stay away from him.
But she wouldn’t.
Her awareness of Dominick’s flirtatious nature and her own susceptibility to it would protect her. She knew her mission. In the meantime, though, she realized she needed to protect Dominick from Raleigh. The latter’s jealousy was palpable. He could cause trouble for Dominick if she didn’t persuade him otherwise.
“Raleigh.” She laid her hand on his arm and gently nudged him toward the garden gate. “Don’t cause trouble for Dominick—”
“You’re calling him Dominick.”
“Yes, and I call you Raleigh.”
“We’ve known each other all our lives.”
“And, as you keep reminding us, Dominick is only a bondsman.” Tabitha used the tone she applied to anxious fathers and children—a little too much like the coating of one of her candied flower petals. “I call Patience by her Christian name too.”
Raleigh grunted and reached for the gate latch.
Seeing movement in the garden, Tabitha stayed his hand. “Please, listen to me a moment.”
“You won’t persuade me not to do something about that bondsman.” Raleigh set his hands on his hips.
“Did you ever witness a flogging when you were impressed in the British Navy?” Tabitha countered.
Raleigh’s sudden pallor