Where is the captain?
But Jago, unless inebriated, was known to be close-lipped, and at this moment he was most decidedly sober. She cantered on, aswirl with her most recent encounter with Henri at Eliza’s. Used to confining his memory to a small corner of her mind, she could do so no longer. He was back, larger than life, and she could not shake his intriguing questions.
“Do you remember how we met?”
“Are you . . . spoken for?”
Mostly she recalled his enigmatic answers.
“Mayhap the end of a matter is more important than the beginning.”
“You simply stated the truth, Esmée. Though at the time I was unwilling to hear it.”
He had called her by name, a name he once said he found beautiful and musical. Once he’d even teased her, calling her Esmée Shaw Lennox. She’d penned those very words over and over on scraps of paper when no one was looking, scrolling the E and S and L endlessly before throwing her daydreams into the hearth’s fire.
The road before her took a winding turn along the sun-soaked coast. For all her woolgathering, she saw the beach and boat plain. A small jolly was leaving shore, filled to the brim with all sorts of boxes and kegs.
The small hopes she’d begun to cherish fled. He was leaving. Rowing away from her just as he’d sailed away years ago. Bound for Indigo Island and looking for all the world as if he wouldn’t be back for some time, perhaps spending the winter there and taking a long-deserved rest after years at sea.
She took refuge behind a bunch of stately sea oats bronzed by autumn and tried to reconcile herself to his going. His coat and cocked hat were off, his sleeves rolled up, the thick muscles of his forearms like knotted cordwood. He plied the oars with an expertise born of experience, his linen shirt rippling like a white flag in the breeze. Gannets and gulls careened overhead as if inspecting his cargo.
Did he carry chocolate?
If he’d come into the shop, she would have given him a supply for his men, as they’d done one cruise. But he’d chosen the coffeehouse instead. That, in some way, seemed a rejection, a slight, even if exceedingly small. And yet the hurt loomed large. Overcome, feeling much like the little girl who’d fallen from an apple tree and had the wind knocked out of her, she bent her head.
Lord, help mend my still-broken heart.
Not feeling fit for company, she finally reined Minta in the direction of York. Till she’d collected herself, the almshouse must wait.
CHAPTER
eighteen
Henri felt a release as he pulled away from shore and slid into the current. With the governor’s meetings behind him and an uncertain future ahead of him, he needed the sanctuary of Indigo Island to weigh his decision. A decision best made away from distractions like a belle in a blue silk gown bearing chocolate. Or anything resembling the bustle and fuss of Tidewater Virginia.
He plied the oars with all his might, the breeze buffeting him, the sun’s sliding behind a cloud allowing him to study his launching point. He’d thought it secluded. Private. Just sand and scrub. He blinked and narrowed his eyes. A beat of amusement pulsed inside him and led to an outright grin.
Amid the tall beach grass and sea oats mingled with thick stands of bayberry and wax myrtle was a froth of white ostrich feathers. Just like the ones he’d spied atop Esmée’s riding hat. Eliza’s doing, likely. Esmée wasn’t one for fripperies and seemed to have forgotten the telling feathers that now gave her away. Had she unwittingly followed him here? Passed Jago Wherry on her way to the almshouse? Whatever had transpired, there she was in her befeathered hat, spying on him.
He resisted the urge to wave or raise the spyglass for a closer look. Let her believe she remained out of sight. He turned his head sideways, his rowing rhythmic, his gaze on the infinite blue of the sea instead of the memory of her jade eyes. A man could as easily drown in those depths as the ocean.
Though something deep within urged him to take a second look, he was now safely beyond sight of her. The shoreline receded, Indigo Island at his back. His senses were soon assaulted by the smell of roasting oysters and beach bonfires and crying gulls.
Several of his crew threw up their hands or tossed their hats in the air at his return. He waved and rowed on, past the Flask and Sword where Cyprian was hanging linens out to dry, on toward the back of the island where his cottage rested on its rocky perch. He wanted peace. Solitude. The kind he’d not had in York or Williamsburg.
But he couldn’t outrow Esmée.
Thoughts of her trailed him like a leaping dolphin riding the wake of a ship. Twice they’d been thrust together without warning. He’d even accepted Eliza’s gracious invitation to attend church. Every head had turned as they’d entered, assuring him the past had not been forgotten as he’d hoped but was being resurrected. Esmée was left to traipse through the eddies of gossip ashore while he sought his island refuge.
He’d gone to Shaw’s coffeehouse briefly on a matter of business. The adjoining Dutch door leading to the chocolate shop was a nearly irresistible invitation. But considering his openness with her as they’d sat in the townhouse parlor, distance seemed the wisest path. His own conflicted feelings about her needed unraveling first. She was not the young woman he remembered. Time had turned her into someone else entirely.
Once docked, he secured the mooring lines and began unloading cargo—foodstuffs and necessaries to last till his next trip to the mainland. By the time he’d heaved the last crate to a shed, he heard footsteps. Henri put a padlock on the door and turned to greet whoever it was that intruded on his desire to be alone.
’Twas Cyprian, a steaming kettle in one hand, a linen-wrapped loaf in the other, and a large smile on his deeply tanned face. “Good day to ye, sir.”
“Aye, so it is.” Henri stomped wet sand from his boots before he went inside the cottage. “What do you bring?”
“Some victuals from Mistress Saltonstall. She said ye’d be powerfully hungry and in no mood to make yer own supper.”
Gratitude chased away any inconvenience. “She would be right.” Henri took the kettle and set it on the table. Oyster stew, from the smell of it. The chill of late October seemed to call for such.
Cyprian unwrapped a loaf of wheaten bread and gazed upon it as if it were the Mughal emperor’s jewels. Was he famished?
“Why don’t you take supper with me and tell me what has transpired since I’ve been away?” Gesturing to a chair, Henri went to a near basin and washed his hands, trying to recall where he last saw utensils.
“Aye, sir. With pleasure.” Cyprian set the bread down and took a seat, still smiling. “No butter or cheese, I’m sorry to say.”
“Ah, but there is,” Henri said over his shoulder as he went to fetch both from the stores he’d brought.
Cyprian lit a candle as the shadows deepened, casting fragile light over what proved to be a delicious supper. The lad talked between bites, allowing Henri to slow down and savor his meal. Mistress Saltonstall was an admirable cook.
“All yer officers are still on the mainland, sir . . . just us small jacks stayin’ to keep to task on the ship . . . She’s looking spry . . . but there’s been some worries what with the weather . . . Old Jacques feels a hurricane in his bones . . . That creature, Hermes, got into some rum and turned lunatic, he did.”