Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [96]
A pity his indenture wasn’t over now.
Lost in thought about this possibility—how to get Dominick Cherrett out of his indenture—Raleigh increased his stride and reached the house ahead of his father. His head felt better, less achy and muddled. The sky looked a little brighter.
“Lord, have You forgiven me after all? Now I can—”
No, he could do nothing. As much as he wanted to take matters into his own hands, he must leave the future in the hands of the Lord, or he would never be free from his mistakes.
“Lord, please show me You have forgiven me.” He stepped onto the back porch, where Momma sat mending one of his socks.
She smiled up at him. “I’m glad you came back. Tabitha said you needed to rest for several days. Is everything all right?”
“Now it is.” He blinked in the dimness beneath the overhang of the eaves. “I think I’ll rest now. Father will tell you everything that happened since I left.”
“All right then, you go rest. The girls picked some flowers for your room.”
“What sweet sisters I have.” Raleigh started into the house.
“And someone sent you a parcel,” Momma called after him. “I laid it on your bed.”
Raleigh stopped. His heart skipped a beat. “A parcel? Who?”
Momma shrugged. “It has only your name on the wrapping. You’ll have to open it up.”
“I will.” Trying not to look in too much of a hurry, Raleigh mounted the steps to his bedchamber under the roof beams and closed the door behind him.
The parcel lay on the quilt, a brown stain against the muted blues and greens of the squares. Hands trembling, he took out his penknife and slit the binding string. The brown paper fell away to reveal a Bible with a slip of paper poking out of the top margin. The thin paper rattled between his fingers as he turned the pages to the marked passage and read the message—all the more obscene for being created out of Holy Scripture—from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, the twenty-eighth verse. “He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?”
Dominick rested on his elbows and stared at the horizon. A platoon of dark clouds marched between sea and sky, stark against the crystal blue. The sun behind them blazed with heat. Wind blowing off of the sea held an edge of chill.
“Another storm’s coming,” Dominick observed.
“Not until after sundown.” Tabitha touched his shoulder. “That’s not all that far off, so talk, if you still intend to.”
“I still intend to. I just don’t know how to start.” He lay fully on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He glanced at Tabitha a yard away, sitting with her legs curled to one side and modestly covered with her skirt. He smiled. “You look like a mermaid.”
“Stop that mermaid foolishness. Someone tried to kill one of us today. It’s no time for frivolity.”
“Then why are you hiding a box of comfits in that basket of yours?” He reached one arm toward the basket.
She whipped it out of reach. “After you talk to me.”
“You may not want to share after you hear my story.”
“Which is why I’m not wasting them on you now.”
“Oh, Tabitha, I do love you.” The words slipped out as though his tongue belonged to someone else. He didn’t try to snatch them back or pretend he hadn’t once again confessed something so serious aloud. He watched her.
She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Her hat brim shielded her eyes. A slow flush creeping up her throat to her cheeks was the only indication that she might have heard him at all.
“I wouldn’t have kissed you as I did yesterday if my feelings weren’t deep,” he pressed further.
“Like kissing me, Dominick,” she finally said in a low, flat tone, “giving me pretty speeches of devotion won’t change my mind one way or the other if you ask me to do something abhorrent to my nature or my country.”
“All right, so you intend not to make a commitment until you know everything.” Dominick sat up. “And after you know . . .” He sat cross-legged, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He fixed his gaze on the sea, its endless, churning power. “Then let me get the worst of this