Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [92]
Dominick tucked his arm through Tabitha’s. “Perhaps Tabitha will allow us to use her garden. She has some lovely roses.”
“I’m so pleased to hear that.” Phoebe smiled. “I was afraid maybe you just grew herbs and things.”
“I grow those too,” Tabitha said, “but I have had a weakness for candied rose petals ever since I was a little girl and my father used to buy them for me, so I make them for myself.”
Phoebe’s eyes widened in surprise.
So did Dominick’s. “I don’t think I’ve tasted candied flowers since I was a lad. May I indulge just a taste of one?”
Tabitha blushed, forgetting the snake, forgetting Raleigh’s accusations, forgetting Phoebe Lee. Dominick didn’t care about anyone or anything but her in that moment.
“We should get these crabs somewhere to be cooked before they spoil,” he said.
“Ugh, crab.” Phoebe gave a delicate shudder and twirled her parasol. “I see my uncle wants me to leave with him. See you in church on Sunday, Mr. Cherrett.” She glided toward Reverend Downing, the frills on the bottom of her skirt and edge of her parasol flirting in the breeze.
“Am I permitted to ask what she wants from you?” Dominick asked.
“You can ask, but—” Tabitha caught sight of someone preparing to throw the snake head into the sea, and broke off. “Why would someone do that to us?”
“Who?” Dominick asked. “The why, I’m afraid, is easy.”
Tabitha began to walk up the beach toward home, wanting to run and hide behind her garden and her house door, with the locks turned. “It was in my basket. But the only true enemy I think I may have is Harlan Wilkins.”
“Ruining his fine reputation in this town may be enough.” Dominick walked faster than usual, as though he too wished to run. “Or others’ reputations. Surely he’s not the first man to father a child out of wed—I’m sorry. This is no discussion to have with a lady.”
“I’m not a lady,” Tabitha pointed out. “That is, my parents taught me good grammar and manners, but I work with the less delicate aspects of life, not to mention the things I learn in private.”
“But you don’t talk about that.”
“No, but I know their secrets.” She glanced back at the dispersing crowd on the beach. “There’s a woman back there whose third son is not her husband’s. She suffered a difficult labor and thought God was punishing her for betraying her vows, so she confessed to me. Now she doesn’t speak to me for fear I’ll talk out of turn, though she’s been an admirable wife since, by all appearances. At least her other three sons look like her husband.”
“So God’s punishment worked.” Dominick looked thoughtful. “Have her other lying-ins gone well?”
“They have, but I don’t think God cares enough to punish us like that. The most generous, thoughtful, and God-fearing women I know have suffered difficulties in bearing children. Why would God punish them? Women suffer because of Eve, the Bible says, and after that, God forgot about us.”
“The Bible tells us just the opposite.” Dominick slowed. “God pays far too much attention to us and wants to be too much a part of our lives.”
“Why do you think that?” She tried to read his face, but his hair had come loose and hid his countenance from her view.
He shrugged. “He took a personal interest in my life.”
“And you’re being punished by coming here as a bondsman?”
“I can redeem myself here.” He paused when they needed to cross the dunes to her house. “Would this woman want to silence you? She was close at hand.”
“After five years? No. But what about you? It was in my basket, but you might have been gentleman enough to serve me. Does someone want you dead?”
“Besides Raleigh?” He grinned. “Don’t say it. I don’t believe he wants me dead, just . . . gotten rid of.”
“No, I think I was the target. We can’t forget the knife at my throat.”
Unbidden, her gaze shifted to the fall of his hair hiding the knife sheathed down his back.
“You still believe it could have been me?” Sorrow filled his eyes. “You know I couldn