They went outside, where the back of the cottage was level enough for a small garden. Next he took her into the light, up the twisting stair to the very top. The dizzying height and view stole her breath.
All around them rested lanterns waiting to be lit and a great many candles. Unkindled, the tower seemed a hollow place, a body without a soul. Echoing and awaiting its purpose. Henri was standing near her, one protective hand on her back as if the glass was not there at all and she was in danger of falling. She felt his hand through the thick folds of her cape. Warmth flooded her.
“Look, there’s a sloop approaching.” Her words were awed. She felt she looked down upon the open sea with the view of a gull.
The Atlantic seemed merry today, a brilliant blue, the wind making a lacy ruffle around the island’s shores. She’d pray for days more fair than ill.
“Will the light withstand a hurricane?”
His reply was slow in coming. He placed a hand upon a beam. “Only the Almighty knows. But I had a Norfolk architect construct it like a ship for that very reason. The internal structure is of stalwart oak like a mast, the wood coated in oakum and pitch, much like a hull. The iron spikes you saw anchor the whole to the foundation.”
“Since you’ve overseen it, I’ll trust it in a storm.”
The accolade hung in the tower’s windless air. He looked down at her, making her feel small and awed and wonder if she was up to the task. If she’d ever wished she were a taller, stronger woman, ’twas now. His hand fell away, and he turned toward her, filling her view, his back against the glass.
“Esmée, tell me. Is this what you genuinely want?”
She looked up at him, missing the touch of his hand, wishing it at the small of her back again. Something burned in his eyes. A banked fire from of old? A familiar heat radiated between them. She felt it to her bones. He looked at her like he had before he’d kissed her that first time. Her own need sparked, making her place a hand on the front of his coat, not to push him away but to enfold the fine fabric in her fingers and draw him closer.
He leaned in, so intoxicatingly near she sighed. Her eyes closed as she awaited the brush of his lips.
“Captain Lennox, sir?” an unfamiliar voice said respectfully. “Surgeon Southack has need of ye at yer convenience.”
Her hand fell away as Henri answered in a voice that echoed down the stairwell. “A half hour, then.”
Intimacy gone, she started toward the steps, which seemed impossibly narrow and steep, more a hazard going down than up.
“Take my hand and let me go ahead of you,” Henri told her.
She reached for him again, a rush of memories filling her. Once they’d held hands so often, it felt odd when they didn’t. If his gloves had been off, she could have felt the strength of his fingers again, skin to skin, and the jagged scar along the thumb where a sword had once slashed him. She’d not asked him about the scar on his brow. Would she ever know its cause?
They took their time coming down lest she misstep and returned to the sunlit air. Jago and his oarsman were nowhere to be seen. Had they sought out the Flask and Sword to slake their thirst? The sun bespoke the afternoon, just ahead of her usual two o’clock dinner hour. The bit of wine and chocolate they’d shared still lingered on her tongue.
Henri gestured to a plot of leveled ground. “A fog cannon will be installed within a fortnight. But you won’t have to fire it. One of my crew has been assigned that task.”
They stood near the pier, the jolly bobbing in the water, the lighthouse at their backs. A comfortable silence ensued, rife with emotion.
She stifled the thornlike worry that reared its ugly head. I know you are soon to sail under a letter of marque for the colonial government. She wanted nothing to intrude on this day, this moment. This peace. Did he feel it too?
Curiosity got the better of her. “How do you come by your meals? I see no cook or housekeeper.”
“Most of the time I take a long walk west to the Flask and Sword, where the Relentless’s cook has command of Mistress Saltonstall’s kitchen.”
“So you eat with your crew.”
“Aye. And then I walk the beach home again. The sunsets are spectacular.”
She looked west toward York, a thin line of green on the horizon. “I shall look forward to the sunrises too.”
He studied her with an openness that told her they’d overcome some barrier, moved past the unease that had held them captive since his return. “I’ll collect you by pinnace Saturday next in York’s harbor. Bring anything you wish to make yourself at home here. And if you should change your mind—”
“I shan’t.”
Jago and the oarsman appeared as if materializing in thin air. “Ready to depart, Miss Shaw?”
She wasn’t at all ready, but what choice did she have? If she had her druthers, the wind and the waves would keep her here. But the water was only slightly more ruffled now than when they’d left, a reminder of the hurdles to come. Telling friends and family. Fending off gossips.
She took a last look at the light and cottage with a keen yearning as Henri handed her into the boat. Raising the hood of her cape, she cast a look at him.
He stood unsmiling, looking thoughtful, making her wonder what he was pondering.
Lord willing, he’d still be here by Saturday next. She couldn’t imagine the island without him.
CHAPTER
thirty-four
You’re what?” Eliza stared at Esmée as if she’d sprouted horns in their very parlor.
“I’m to be the new lightkeeper for Indigo Island,” Esmée repeated, marveling at the calm that accompanied the decision, only slightly bestirred by her sister’s disquiet.
“A female lightkeeper? All your novel reading is giving you fancies! I can’t imagine it!”
“’Tis no different than any female tradeswoman,” Esmée replied, taking a seat on the sofa. “We’ve female printers, bookbinders, blacksmiths. Even an apothecary.”
“But my confinement—I—you won’t be here for the baby’s birth!”
“I’m hardly a midwife or nursemaid,” Esmée said in soothing tones. “And every six weeks or so I’m to have shore leave.”
“You know your sister is not one for society.” Quinn took a seat beside his wife, stroking her hand as it rested on the sofa. “Nor is she at your beck and call.”
A tear slid down Eliza’s plump cheek. “But . . .”
“I’m rather proud.” Father stood by the crackling hearth, arms crossed. “The admiral’s daughter has achieved something I never thought or expected.”
“’Tis partly Captain Lennox’s doing,” Esmée told them, passing Eliza a handkerchief. “He has had several interested parties, all men. I wasn’t sure he’d take me seriously.”
“He considers you because he’s still in love with you,” Eliza said with conviction. “I witnessed it in my own parlor but a month ago.”
The men chuckled as Esmée shook her head. “’Tis not what it seems—”
“Oh? ’Tis what all Virginia will think!”
“Let the naysayers spew what they will,” their father put in. “My daughter and Captain Lennox are above reproach.”