Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [98]
“Worse than I thought.” Her voice sounded strangled. “But you’re a younger son. You really are just plain Mr. Cherrett, aren’t you?”
“No.” He couldn’t look at her. “I’m Lord Dominick. In England, my wife will be known as Lady Dominick.”
“And even for a younger son, Lady Dominick must come from a good family, have been presented to the queen, and know how to use a fan, not how to tie off an umbilical cord.” Her tone held no emotion at all. “I’ve never even owned a fan.”
“I never fell in love with one of those ladies.” He erased the leopard rampant and reached out to her. “Believe me, Tabitha—”
“I believe you.” Her face was set, white beneath the brim of her hat. “But how long does love last when the bride you met on a misty beach, instead of a smoky drawing room, is an embarrassment to you in front of your peers?”
“You couldn’t be—”
“I couldn’t not be.” She ducked her head, hiding her expression from him. “I suspect you’ve merely been toying with me to convince me to help you end your indenture.”
“I have—”
“No, no excuses.” She held up a hand. “I’m still your friend, and I’ll hear you out.”
“I don’t deserve your friendship, but I thank you for it.” He took her hand in his, gripped her fingers as though they were his only lifeline, and stared at the water. The tide was ebbing now, yet heavy breakers told of a storm out to sea. His insides felt as though some of those breakers slammed against his ribs. “My father wanted me to be a vicar. It’s tradition in my family for the third son, if there is one, to go into the church. I objected. I have no vocation for serving God as someone under my father’s direction must serve Him.”
“How could even a marquess direct a man of the cloth?” She looked bewildered.
“In England, a landowner holds the living.” He grimaced. “Men flatter him to get placed there, if it’s a good one.”
“And you didn’t want to flatter your own father?”
“I didn’t have to. It was expected of me.” The sun felt like a burden cloaking his shoulders, and he shifted them as though he could shrug off the weight. “My father would have told me what to preach on Sundays and whom to invite to dinner or whom to visit in the parish. I watched this all my life. He uses the vicar for his personal advancement, not for the advancement of the kingdom of God. As a good son, I should have obeyed him, but I couldn’t let God be used that way.”
“I can’t even imagine thinking of God that way.” She sounded wistful.
“I felt very much as though God were a part of my life. I threw it away with everything else in my life.” His throat felt thick. “You see, the man I wounded in the duel was a vicar’s son, defending what his father did against my accusations of corruption.” Dominick laid one hand over his eyes. “He’ll always walk with a limp because of me. I’ll never forget his face . . .” He shook himself like a wet dog and tried to smile. “So when my uncle offered me a way to find redemption, I took it.”
“I thought redemption comes only through God.” Tabitha laughed without humor. “Here I am talking to you about God.”
“Talking wisely about Him. Redemption does come from Him, but I—” No, he couldn’t tell her more, not everything, from the beginning of his crimes against God’s people to the humiliating end. Shame burned through him, and he released her hand to clasp his knee. “Barbados would have been too easy for me. I’d have been the owner’s emissary and treated like someone special. I couldn’t let myself be pampered and petted and left to live in luxury, and only be out of England with little consequences other than hot weather. So I took my uncle’s second choice—a maximum of four years of bondage if I failed.”
“And redemption if you succeed at what, Dominick?” Her voice held an edge. “Selling the young men of my country to your Navy for this endless war with France?”
“Quite the opposite, my dear.” He breathed a bit easier for the moment. “I’m here to work against whoever is selling men to my country’s Navy. If I can prove who it is, my uncle will buy out my indenture. I’ll be a free man, and I can return to England with